The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (37 page)

             
Moriarty stared at the slip of paper and then dropped it on his desk. He rang for Mr. Maws. "Barnett should be returning shortly," he told his butler. "Please inform him that I would like to see him when he arrives."

             
Mr. Maws nodded and left.

             
The slip of paper held one word, block-printed, and Holmes easily read it where Moriarty had dropped it.

             
SUBMARINERS.

             
"What does that signify?" Holmes asked.

             
Moriarty looked at him. "It concerns Trepoff," he said. "What is your interest?"

             
"Trepoff must be stopped! I intend to do so.
"

             
"
I, also," Moriarty said.

             
"Then I must ask you, in turn," Holmes said, "what is your interest? Surely not pure beneficence."

             
Moriarty smiled. "Like you, Holmes, I am for hire."

             
Holmes frowned. "The Duke of Ipswich is naturally not satisfied to let matters rest now that he has his daughter back. He has commissioned me to apprehend her abductor, although I would almost certainly continue the investigation anyway. Who has employed you, and why?"

             
"I would like nothing better than to discuss it with you," Moriarty said. "But first I must know that we are working together."

             
Holmes considered this. "Surely a first for you, Professor," he said, "finding yourself on the side of the law."

             
Moriarty nodded his head ponderously. "Indeed, Holmes. And this is surely a first for you, on the side of your old mathematics professor."

             
"You are suggesting that we pool our talents?"

             
Moriarty nodded. "We haven't much time, I'm afraid. If we both arrive at the same solution, from two separate paths, fifteen minutes late, it would be the height of folly."

             
Sherlock Holmes rose and slowly walked over to the great bookcase that filled one wall of the study and stared absently at the titles. "To work with you—" he said. "You would expect nothing from the duke?"

             
"Nothing."

             
"The miscreants are to be turned over to the authorities?
"

             
"
Assuredly."

             
Holmes strode back to the desk and put out his hand. "Done!"

             
Moriarty and Holmes shook hands solemnly. "I pray that this is indicative of the future, Holmes," Moriarty said.

             
"I fear that this is unique, Professor," Holmes replied.

             
Moriarty sighed. "What a shame," he said; "what a waste." He took his pince-nez from his breast pocket and thrust them onto his nose. "Let's get on with it," he said.

-

             
For the next hour Moriarty told Holmes the Trepoff saga in its entirety, omitting no detail, however trivial, in case Holmes might be able to draw some inference from it that had escaped him. Holmes made no notes, but merely stared intently at the professor as he spoke. Twice he interrupted to ask brief questions and nodded in satisfaction at the answers.

             
During this monologue, Barnett came in, and was silently waved to a corner chair by Moriarty. He listened and was properly amazed at the exchange of confidences by the two antagonists.

             
When Moriarty had finished, Holmes, in a curiously distracted way, recited what had happened to him since the Duke of Ipswich had sent for him on the night of his daughter's disappearance. It was a tale of false clues, dead-end leads, and provocative accidents. Several of the clues had pointed directly at Professor Moriarty before disappearing in a labyrinth of complications and misdirections. "Of course, the whole occurrence was an elaborately staged misdirection," he said. "I can see it now."

             
"It is, in a way, a compliment," Moriarty said.

             
"Excuse me," Barnett said from his corner chair, "but what are you two talking about?"

             
Holmes swiveled around. "The abduction of Lady Catherine was arranged for our benefit;" he said. "Not the act itself, but the way it was done. Trepoff wanted to keep me busy chasing Moriarty, and the professor busy avoiding me. So he planted clues. And, because they accorded with what I expected to find, I did not examine them too critically. As a result, I wasted a lot of time."

             
"You sure showed up in the nick of time the other night," Barnett said.

             
Holmes smiled. "I am not altogether incompetent," he said.

             
"Those sailors Trepoff sent for were submariners," Moriarty told Barnett. "From where could he acquire a submarine?"

             
"Not from the Royal Navy," Barnett said, remembering Lieutenant Sefton's story. "They don't use them."

             
"There is one," Holmes said, "at the Thornycroft yards at Chiswick. It was dredged from the bottom of the Thames after sinking three times in three trials. Not submerging, you understand, sinking. It is not in working order."

             
"Holmes!" Moriarty said. "You never cease to amaze me. I had no idea you were interested in submersibles."

             
"I'm not in the least," Holmes said. "My brother, Mycroft, however, is a fount of such information. Among other things, he does some work for the Admiralty. Only last week—no, two weeks ago— he was after me to take on a case involving the theft of some Whitehead torpedoes."

             
"Ha!" Moriarty said, taking his pince-nez glasses off and polishing them with a small rag. "A case which you were unable to take up because of your involvement with the abduction."

             
"That's correct," Holmes said.

             
Moriarty fixed Barnett with his gaze. "If I remember correctly," he said, "you told me that one of the features of the Garrett-Harris submersible was its ability to release Whitehead torpedoes while submerged."

             
"That's right," Barnett said. "But it blew up. Do you think there's another one?"

             
Moriarty waved a hand at Holmes. "There's your misdirection," he said. "They didn't want you investigating the theft of those torpedoes."

             
"An intuitive leap," Holmes sniffed.

             
"Not at all," Moriarty said. "Barnett, your knowledge of coming events must be copious. What event is coming up in the next week or so involving the sea? Something major."

             
"The sea?"

             
"Correct. The launching of a new battleship, perhaps. I don't suppose the Tsar is coming for a state visit by ship? Something of that sort?"

             
"Nothing," Barnett said. "Of course, I might have missed something. I can go to the office and check the file.
"

             
"
Nothing nautical?" Moriarty said.

             
"Not on the scale of battleships," Barnett said. "There's the regatta tomorrow, but they're small private yachts.
"

             
"
What regatta?" Holmes demanded.

             
"The Queen's something," Barnett said. "I don't remember. Wait a minute and I'll get the evening paper. I'm sure the
St. James Gazette
is covering the story in full." He left the room and was back in less than a minute, riffling through a newspaper.

             
"Yes, here it is," he said. He creased the paper back. "The annual regatta for the Queen's Cup is to be sailed Saturday, August first—that's tomorrow—between ships of the Royal Yacht Squadron and ships of the Royal West of England Yacht Club. Her Majesty will give the cups out herself. There are actually several cups, apparently. Let's see; there will be one winner in each class, and a special cup for the club with the highest point average."

             
"Fascinating," Holmes said. "Go on," Moriarty said.

             
"I don't know what else you want," Barnett said. "The Prince of Wales is the Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and H.R.H. the Duke of Wessex is Commodore of the R.W. of E. Yacht Club. The course, something over fifty miles, is laid in the Solent. It begins at Cowes,
goes eastward to the Nab lightship and around, back past Cowes to Lymington, and then back past Cowes again to Portsmouth, finish line lying between the block house and the
Victoria and Albert,
the Queen's own yacht, from which she will be watching the affair."

             
"That's it!" Moriarty said.

             
"Could be," Holmes admitted.

             
"What?" Barnett asked, folding the paper.

             
"The Garrett-Harris submersible," Moriarty told him, "was
not
destroyed. I should have realized it weeks ago. It is a fatal error to make assumptions based upon facts not in evidence."

             
"But I saw it blow up!" Barnett said.

             
"Did you?" Moriarty asked. "What exactly did you see?"

             
"Well," Barnett thought back, trying to recapture the moment in his memory. "It was going through the water, just submerged, leaving a phosphorescent wake, the slight 'V' of foam from the periscope imposed over that. Then it sighted its prey—a sloop—and began stalking it. The submersible sank beneath the sea until it was totally invisible and moved forward to line itself up for the torpedo launch. As it launched the torpedo, it exploded. A great geyser erupted from the sea, drenching the ship I was on, and the two broken halves of the submersible appeared briefly on the surface before going to their final resting-place in the mud below. It seemed to me that I saw the body of a man in one of the sections. At any rate, neither of the operators was ever found."

             
"A wonderfully concise description. And it shows that you saw nothing."

             
"I saw the whole thing!" Barnett protested.

             
Holmes clapped his hands together. "It has always fascinated me," he said, "how people will swear to have seen something when an analysis of their own description clearly shows that they didn't and couldn't have."

             
"It's the principle of most sleight-of-hand," Moriarty said.

             
"What didn't I see?" Barnett demanded.

             
"You didn't see anything," Moriarty told him, "from the time the submersible disappeared under the sea."

             
"If you mean I didn't have the craft directly in my sight the whole time," Barnett said, "then you're right; I didn't. But the inference of the following events is certainly valid."