"My experience is that winds tend to be gusty near the ground, but that at twenty or thirty feet up they are usually fairly steady," Moriarty told him.
"I say," Watson said. "How are you going to get the contraption in the air in the first place?"
"A good question," Moriarty said. "I had thought of pulling it with a steam engine, but the tracks are on the wrong side. Besides, the noise will wake people whom we would prefer to stay asleep."
"Yes?"
"So we'll use a horse. Or rather a man on horseback. We'll tie rags around the horse's hooves to muffle the sound."
"Can a horse do it?"
"Oh, yes; the weight is negligible."
"And then? When we have a man on the roof, then what?"
"Then he drops a length of fishing line to the ground over around on this side, where with any luck no one is watching, and a waiting man attaches a heavy rope that has been knotted every few feet to make it easier to climb, which he pulls up and fastens to— whatever. Then your volunteers climb up to the roof and enter the castle from above, which will be an entirely unexpected, and thus unguarded, direction."
"Will they know what to do?" Ariste asked.
"I shall instruct them beforehand, and accompany them," Moriarty said.
"Ah!" Ariste smiled. "And I shall join you."
"And I," Holmes added. "You and Madame Verlaine rescued my cousin—very quickly and adroitly, let me say. I shall contribute what I can to this effort."
"And I," Watson said. "After all, you might have need of a doctor."
"Gentlemen," Moriarty said, "I thank you all."
"Who is going to ride the kite?"
"The mummer has volunteered. He is even now working out the harness to tie man and craft together. He is, I believe, the only one light enough."
"I'm light enough," Princess Diane said.
Everyone turned to look at her, and she colored under their collective gaze. "I mean, if Mr. Tolliver is unable to go—sprains his ankle or something—I could do it. I'm quite athletic and I'm not afraid of heights. Not overly afraid, anyway."
Prince Ariste leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek. "My love," he said. He turned to the others. "If my wife wishes to fly, and it becomes necessary, she will do an excellent job of it."
"Then you'd allow her to do this?" Watson asked.
"I won't encourage her," Ariste said, "but I wouldn't dare try to stop her."
"Thank you, my dear," Diane said.
Holmes leaned back in his chair. "Someday sky-carriages will be devised that will carry people through the air great distances in comfort and safety. Held up by balloons and propelled by small, powerful steam engines, they will bring the nations of the world closer together. Several inventors are working on such devices now, in France and Germany and the United States of America, and they show great promise."
Moriarty rose. "I'd better go back to the car where the volunteers sleep and awaken them. They will have an hour to prepare for the assault."
"I'll come with you," Prince Ariste said.
"Very good," Moriarty said. "I want each man armed with a sock full of sand. It makes a silent and effective club which can render a man unconscious with one blow but should not inflict permanent damage. Two of the sturdiest men should carry axes. Also, in case I'm mistaken and we do have to fight our way out, I want as many of the men to be armed with pistols as can be trusted not to use them unless instructed."
"They are all well trained," Ariste told him. "They will all obey orders."
"Good," Moriarty said.
-
It was three thirty in the morning when a sleepless guard in Schloss Uhm might have heard the uncanny sound of a horse with muffled hooves trotting through the pitch-black night along the clearing on the west side of the castle. If any of them did, they did not respond.
"He's up!" Watson said enthusiastically, running along behind the horse and feeling the cord rising under his hand.
"Yes, he is." Moriarty took hold of the horse's bridle as the rider reined it to a stop. "Now we tie the line to the spool of rope and start letting it out slowly."
One of the men came up with the spool. While it was being spliced, Moriarty ran over to where Mummer Tolliver was hovering about twenty feet off the ground. The kite could just be made out as a great black triangle against the star field. "How are you doing, Mummer?" he called softly upward, forming his hands into a megaphone.
"Piece of cake!" the mummer called back down from where he was strapped to the giant kite. "Who says it ain't?"
"I'll have you on the roof in no time," Moriarty called. "Make sure the roof is under you before you drop off the kite. Can you see?"
The mummer had been wearing a hood for the hour before his flight to give his eyes the best chance to adjust to the dark. "Well enough," he called down.
"Take care of yourself."
"Don't worry about me!" the mummer called in a hoarse whisper. "Worry about them!" He waved, but the kite started pitching at the motion, so he quickly grabbed the hand-bar and stopped shifting his weight.
The four burly troopers delegated to handle the rope began paying it out, and the mummer rose slowly into the breeze. Moriarty went back and led them to the spot where he had computed the angle of the line, about 30 degrees from the horizontal in this wind, would put the kite right over Schloss Uhm's nearest parapet. "About four hundred feet of line—a hundred and thirty five meters, let's call it—should do it," he told them. "Are you keeping track?"
"Yes, sir," the sergeant in charge assured him. "We're letting it out one hand-span at a time, as best we can." He illustrated this by spreading his arms wide. "That's just the merest bit over a meter. Sometimes it gets away from us for a bit, but I'm making allowances for that."
"Splendid. Watch for the mummer's signal." Mummer had been provided with a small dark lantern: one with a shutter so that no light would come through until he opened it. When he was in position over the roof, he would flash the lantern open briefly and the men on the rope would tie it in place.
Meanwhile an eight-man team had put up a scaling ladder against the outer wall and was gathered around it, waiting for their signal to go over. They would then gather at the spot by the inner wall where the mummer was to drop the line.
The kite was out of sight of the ground almost immediately as it climbed skyward, pulling steadily against the rope. Moriarty used a bit of string with a lead fishing weight on the end and a card on which he had marked off the degrees in a semicircle to check the angle of the rope. Then he closed his eyes and worked the problem in his head. "A few steps back," he told the men. "About six feet— two meters—if you please."
At the end of the line, suspended from the diamond-shaped canvas body of the kite, Mummer Tolliver stared down into the darkness below him and practiced breathing slowly and steadily to slow the pounding of his heart. The mummer was not afraid of heights; not afraid of the machine he was clinging to by three leather straps; certainly not afraid of the possible coming battle with the forces of darkness. He, although he would not have admit-ted it under torture, was afraid of failing the professor. Moriarty was the one man in all the world who the mummer respected, because the professor was the only man who had ever demanded of the mummer all the quick intelligence and the collection of unexpected abilities he was capable of giving. And the mummer was proud of the fact that he had never failed the professor. Until— he believed—now. Moriarty had sent Tolliver to accompany Benjamin and Cecily Barnett on their European vacation so that he could watch over them and protect them from harm, even though they weren't aware of it, and no particular harm had been expected.
And now look. They were locked up in this Graf von Whosis's hulking stone castle, and Moriarty had to drop whatever important work he was doing just to come and get them out. All because the mummer hadn't paid proper attention to his job. And the professor—bless him—had never even mentioned it or cast a dirty glance in Tolliver's direction. But nonetheless he knew he h
ad let the professor down, and he was determined to make up for it if he had to fight his way to the Barnetts' room all by his little self, and get them out.
He was over the parapet now, and could see down to the roof some ten feet below, although he couldn't make out any details. He undipped the dark lantern from his belt and wiggled a blip of light to those at the other end of the line. They responded with a couple of jerks that indicated that they were tying the line off to something. Mummer prepared himself, loosing the straps that held him to the kite and dangling now from the bar by his hands. The kite gave a quiet dip, and the mummer let go of the bar, dropping to the roof and falling forward. He didn't go into a full circus roll, since he couldn't see what he might be rolling into, but fell onto his padded knees and forearms. The shock was greater than he had expected, and the mummer lay there for a moment, not sure whether he had been injured or not. The kite, freed of his weight, leapt away into the sky.
Tolliver decided that he had nothing worse than a bruised shoulder, but he stayed where he was for a few moments longer and listened. If there was, by any chance, a lookout on the roof, he would surely come running to find out what the noise had been. But there was no sound of footsteps—indeed, there was no sound of anything at all. Mummer got up, brushed himself off, and took a quick look around the roof, trying to figure out what the dark, lumpy shapes surrounding him were. There was a stovepipe; he had just missed landing on it by a couple of feet, which would have made a horrible racket and might have cut him badly. No use worrying about that: he might just as well have missed the roof entirely or fallen down an air shaft, if the castle had such a thing, in which case he'd be dead. And he wasn't, just a bruised shoulder. Time to get on with his job.
The mummer looked up and found Ursa Major, the constellation of the Great Bear, just where Professor Moriarty had shown him it would be, and he followed the pointer stars with his gaze and found the North Star. So there was North, and the edge of the roof he wanted must, then, be over there. He went cautiously to the edge and peered over the parapet. The prince's men should have made it over the outer wall by now, and be there below him. But if they were he couldn't tell, it was too dark. He blinked his lantern briefly and waited—and waited. Nothing. Was he at the wrong edge? No, wait a second, there it was! A quick blink in return right below him.
Tolliver unwrapped the fishing line from around his waist and dropped one end into the blackness below. When he felt two quick tugs, he pulled it back up and took the heavy rope that came up with it. Making a big loop at the end, he fastened it to a heavy iron railing that ran around the inside of the parapet.
The first man was up the rope about six minutes later, and they came up at one or two minute intervals after that until there were a dozen men on the roof.
"Good job, Tolliver!" It was the professor.
"Course it was," the mummer whispered back. "Who says it wasn't?"
"Now let's find the Barnett's room, and get them up here and get out of here."
"Do we have any idea of where the door to the roof is?" the prince asked in a low voice. "I can't see a thing."
"We can use a dark lantern to look around," the professor said. "Just keep it low so it can't be seen from below."
Holmes called, "Here's the door, over here!"
The group gathered around the door and several lights came on as they examined it. A solid wooden door set securely into a stone wall, it seemed to be locked and there was no handle evident from the outside.
"We have two axemen," the prince said. "They should be through the door in a few minutes."
"Wait a second," Moriarty said, moving his lantern slowly around the door frame and peering at the stone. "Aha! Perhaps—" He reached out and pulled at a length of string that seemed to be coming from a small hole in the rock wall.
There was a click, and the door opened about three inches, just enough for someone to get his fingers around the edge and pull it open the rest of the way.
"I have made a study of old doors," Moriarty said.
"Opening them without a key, you mean," Holmes commented.
"Perhaps so. At any rate, I have noticed that many ancient doors, even at guarded strongholds, open like old farmhouse doors: with an inner latch pulled by a string from the outside. When the owner wants to lock the door, he merely pulls in the string."
"And, luckily, sometimes they forget," Watson said.
"Or more likely, not expecting visitors from above, they don't bother," Moriarty said. "Shall we go in?"
"Leave two good men on the roof," Ariste instructed his sergeant. "The rest of you, come along!"
The small room they entered held a capped water faucet, a coiled canvas fire hose, a large wooden box that investigation showed held a military telescope and tripod, and a stairs leading down. "The room we want is two floors down," Moriarty whispered, "and," he pointed, "in that end of the building."
The stairs only went down one flight, terminating in a sort of guard room that was at the moment, thankfully, without guards. They went on, two of Prince Ariste's husky bodyguards taking the lead with Moriarty behind and Holmes at the end of the force marking each turning with a bit of chalk so they could find their way back out without getting lost. The light from one shielded candle now provided their only illumination, as it would draw less attention than a lensed lantern should anyone happen to see it as it passed by.
"Do you suppose we're in the living quarters?" Watson whispered to Moriarty, looking at the row of doors they were passing as they skulked down the corridor.
"If so it's probably the servants'," Moriarty replied. "This is the top floor, where servants go to sleep when they have completed their daily tasks."
A tight little staircase showed up around the next corner, too narrow for two people to pass each other without complex gymnastics. Cautiously, the troop headed downstairs.
"This should be the floor," Moriarty said when they'd gone down and around, twisting twice, to the next landing. "Now the room the Barnetts are in should be that way." He pointed toward the wall across the corridor.
"This corridor seems to go the wrong way," the prince said. "But it's too dark to see the end. Or, for that matter, the other end."
"Perhaps we should send a man down each way while we wait here, and see if either of them turns in the right direction," Holmes suggested.
"Perhaps," Moriarty agreed.
There was a sudden sharp cracking sound from off to the left. The candle bearer blew out the candle, as he had been told to if he heard any unexplained sounds. They stood silent in the dark, listening.
"It may have been the wind," someone suggested softly. "No," Moriarty whispered. "Quiet!"
The mummer pulled at Moriarty's jacket. "I'll find out," he whispered in the professor's ear when Moriarty bent over. Then he was gone, silently moving down the corridor.
A rustling and thumping noise came from the left, how far away was impossible to tell. Then voices, men's voices and perhaps a woman, distant and muffled, as through thick walls.
"Well?" the prince demanded. "Do we avoid them or attack them?"
"Wait for the mummer," Moriarty told him softly.
A minute later the mummer was back. "It's them," he whispered to the professor. "They're moving the Barnetts to a dungeon in the cellar where they can't be got at. They're doing it in the middle of the night so the spy, whoever he is, won't know about it. That's all I heard."
"Good man," Moriarty said. "How many are there?"
"At least three, maybe more. They was screwing hand shackles onto the Barnetts when I retreated."
"Let's get them!" the prince said, excitement showing in his voice.
One of the prince's bodyguards turned and bowed slightly. "Your Highness will please stay behind us if there's an altercation," he said.
Ariste patted the hulking giant on the back. "Thank you, Ernst, but if there's to be a fight, I'll be in the thick of it."
"Let's go," Moriarty said, "but quietly. No lights! Leave
three men here to guard our retreat."
Moriarty in the lead, the group went as rapidly as they could toward the source of the sounds, feeling their way along the wall. After turning a corner and reaching the end of a new corridor, they saw the flicker of light coming from a turn ahead of them. Moriarty, visible now as a shadow in the flickering light, raised his hand and the group stopped.
"All at once." Moriarty whispered. "Use your sandbags. As little noise as possible. Ready?"
They all nodded, which couldn't be seen in the dark, but Moriarty assumed their assent. Of course they were ready.
"Let us go!"
They rounded the corner at a run. Moriarty in front, flanked by the prince's two bodyguards. The others were bunched up behind, as close as the narrow corridor would allow. Ahead of them, at the end of the corridor, perhaps twenty feet away, five of the count's henchmen were trying to bundle Barnett and Cecily into a stairwell leading down into the depths of the castle.
The Great Game Page 28
