Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  "The test commences," announced the Turkish officer.

  A spray of foam churned up from the rear of the Garrett-Harris as the four-bladed screw turned over, and the ship moved forward cleanly through the sea.

  Barnett took out his notebook and a pencil and stared pensively at the retreating craft. The ironclad cigar cut through the water with nary a ripple on either side to mark her passage, he wrote. Slowly she sank beneath the waves until but one slim tube connected her with the surface, and then that, too, disappeared. Now only the slight phosphorescence of her wake marked her passage beneath the surface of the Bosporus.

  "You will excuse me," Lieutenant Sefton murmured in Barnett's ear. "I have some business to transact."

  "Of course," Barnett said, hardly noticing as Sefton moved away. His attention was held by the spectacle before him. There, a couple of hundred yards away, a sloop sailing confidently up the deep channel was being stalked by a craft riding under the calm surface of the Bosporus.

  The Turkish officer rang a small bell to get their attention, "You are about to witness a major happening in naval warfare," he announced solemnly. "When, during the American Civil War, the Confederate States' submersible Hunley sank the Union Housatonic it used a torpedo affixed to a long lance. But the Garrett-Harris boat has solved the problem of launching mobile projectiles from under the water. It is equipped with a device to enable it to fire one of the new design sixteen-inch Whitehead torpedoes without coming to the surface. The torpedo will then unfailingly propel itself to the target. Please observe!"

  Barnett took up his pencil: Now the slim vision tube returns to the surface, almost invisible in the slight swell. The Garrett-Harris moves into position to line up on its unsuspecting target. There is a pause while the target sloop sails into the perfect spot for the launching of the Whitehead torpedo, which carries a dummy warhead but in wartime would be filled with eighty pounds of high explosive. Now, with the sloop perfectly lined up — with twenty-five members of the international press and diplomatic corps watching from along the rail of the royal yacht Osmanieh, and Abd-ul Hamid II, Sultan of the Osmanli Empire, himself watching from the bridge—

  A giant plume of water shot up from the hidden submersible. As the sound of a tremendous explosion reached the yacht, the little undersea boat threw itself out of the water bow first and then fell back, breaking in half as it hit. For a second the two halves floated separately, and Barnett thought he saw someone inside the forward half scrambling to get out; then a wave closed over the halves and they disappeared from view.

  The underwater shockwave hit the yacht, which bobbed and tossed violently for a few seconds, knocking several people down. Water from the explosion plume fell back, soaking those on deck and adding to the general confusion. Barnett saw some activity at the rear of the yacht, where sailors were trying to heave a line to someone who had been washed overboard by the wave. Finally the man grabbed it, and they hauled him back up.

  Nothing was to be seen of the Garrett-Harris submersible or its two operators.

  -

  A motor launch took the assembled foreigners back to the quay on the Stamboul side of the Golden Horn. They were assured by an expressionless captain of marine that a statement would be issued later by the proper authority.

  Barnett and Lieutenant Sefton walked back to their hotel. "What do you suppose happened?" Barnett asked.

  "It blew up," Sefton said.

  "That much is clear," Barnett agreed, trying not to look annoyed, "but how?"

  "It could be faulty venting of the gasses from the electrical accumulators," Sefton said, "but personally I doubt it."

  "What, then?"

  "A deliberate act of subversion by foreign agents."

  Barnett took out his notebook. "I was hoping you'd say that. Pray, continue."

  "I'm sorry, but I can't possibly be quoted on this," Lieutenant Sefton said. "You'll have to get some Turkish authority to say it. But that shouldn't be too difficult." Sefton seemed nervous and distracted. "Excuse me, old chap," he said as they reached the Hotel Ibrahim. "I must dash off now. See you at dinner, what?"

  "Very good," said Barnett, himself a little distracted by the need for sending an immediate cable to the World outlining what had happened. He settled himself at one of the small desks in the writing room to compose a message. The idea was to be as brief as possible. A long cablegram would follow, night rate, detailing the story, but this would serve to put the editors on guard for it and give them time to decide how much space it deserved. They could get the engraver working on the illustration. Perhaps they could even get a two-line "newsbreak" squib on the front page of an earlier edition. Barnett poised his pencil over the paper.

  Garrettharris Submersible destroyed by explosion during Trial Espionage suspected more follows

  BARNETT

  That was too long. He tried again:

  Submersible spy exploded testing more

  BARNETT

  There. That was the sort of economy of expression — and of the paper's money — of which the World cable editor approved. It was even briefer than he could do with the Royce Telegraphers' Code. He got a cable blank from the front desk and wrote it up, then called for a page boy to deliver it to the cable office. Then he wandered into the hotel bar to have a small glass of sherry before dinner. He would work on the story after dinner, probably long into the night, and get it into the cable office before the rate change at eight the next morning.

  -

  Lieutenant Sefton returned in time to join Barnett for dinner, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere. Barnett was getting to know him well enough to read his expression now, and he thought that Sefton looked both worried and pleased — as a reporter would when he has an exclusive on a big story and is waiting for it to come off.

  "Do you want to tell me about it?" Barnett asked finally, over the pudding.

  "About what?"

  Barnett described his interpretation of the lieutenant's expression to him. Sefton thought it over. Then he said, "Yes, I think I do want to tell you about it. I wish to enlist your aid."

  Barnett pulled in his chair and looked expectant.

  "Can you be discreet?" Sefton asked.

  "Half a newsman's job is not telling what he knows," Barnett said. "Otherwise his news sources will dry up."

  "Will you swear to keep this a secret until I tell you otherwise and only reveal as much as I say you can?"

  Barnett thought it over. "Unless I get it from another source," he said.

  "Fair enough," Sefton agreed. With an elaborately casual gesture, he glanced around the room. Then he leaned back on his elbows and stared intently at Barnett. He smiled. It was the first time Barnett had ever seen him smile. "I am a spy," he said.

  Barnett was conscious that Sefton was watching his reaction, so he did his best not to react. "How interesting," he said. "Why are you telling me?"

  "As I said, to enlist your aid."

  "I thought you people never asked outsiders to assist."

  "There are no hard and fast rules. Perhaps some day there may be a rulebook for espionage, but not yet. I worship at the altar of expediency, and right now I desperately need your help. So I ask."

  "I don't know the litany," Barnett said.

  "What? Oh, I see. Unfortunate image, that."

  "You didn't have anything to do with the submersible blowing up this afternoon?"

  "No. On my honor. I would have done my best to prevent it, had I known. The Turks are our allies for the moment. We don't do things like that for practice, you know."

  "What sort of help do you need — and why should you ask me?"

  "A man is to deliver some information to me later tonight. I do not altogether trust him. I would like you along to, as you might say, watch my back. As to why I asked you — well, we're in the same sort of business, really. We collect information. You merely disseminate it more broadly than I do. And, in this case, there should be a good story in it for you."

  "One
I can use?"

  "Oh, yes. But I shall ask you to suppress some small points, such as my involvement."

  "You fascinate me," Barnett said. "I assume it involves the Garrett-Harris."

  "Correct."

  "Excuse me for harping on this, but why can't you get help from one of your own people?"

  "There is no one else within a thousand miles."

  "Your embassy?"

  "They know nothing of this. They would disapprove. The Foreign Office, under Mr. Gladstone, does not approve of gentlemen reading other people's mail."

  "Who do you work for?"

  "The Naval Intelligence Service."

  "Sounds impressive."

  "It's quite small and understaffed."

  "Nobody," Barnett said, "has ever accused me of being a gentleman. I'm your man."

  "Good." Sefton nodded his satisfaction. "I must go now. There is some other business I have to transact this evening. Can you meet me in my room at twelve o'clock?"

  "Midnight it is," Barnett said cheerfully.

  He spent the three hours until midnight writing the first draft of his story. There was no point in doing the rewrite until after the midnight meeting — when he might have a new end to the story.

  -

  It was five minutes to twelve by Barnett's pocket Ingersol when he closed his writing portfolio. He splashed some water on his face, put a fresh collar on, and slipped into his jacket. After a moment's consideration he picked up his stick and tucked it under his arm. It had no blade concealed in the shaft, but it was stout ash and would serve to turn a knife.

  He walked down the hall to Lieutenant Sefton's room and tapped softly on the door. There was a brief scuffling sound from inside the room, and then silence. Barnett tapped again. The door swung open at his touch this time. The room was dark except for a reading lamp by the bed. In the yellow glow of the lamp Barnett saw Lieutenant Sefton lying supine across the coverlet. His head was off the side of the bed and blood from an open wound at the temple was spurting onto the polished wood floor.

  For a moment Barnett was frozen with shock as the scene registered on his brain. Then the meaning of the still-flowing blood came through: Sefton must still be alive! Barnett pushed the door open wide and looked around. The window in the far wall was open and the blinds were swinging gently back and forth. The assailant must have made good his escape by this path, and it must have been within the past minutes, perhaps even as Barnett knocked. But it was more important now to save Sefton's life than to pursue his assailant.

  Barnett rushed over to the bed and pulled Lieutenant Sefton's head gently back onto the sheet. He ripped off one of the pillowcases to make a bandage.

  There was a faint scraping noise behind him. He turned…

  FOUR — ODESSA

  Politics is a way

  of

  life.

  — Plutarch

  The room was large. Sunlight from the two floor-length casement windows fell into a tessellated parallelogram across the marble floor, intersecting the great oak desk in the room's center, but leaving the corners in perpetual dusk. The desk and two chairs were the only furniture in the room. The polished top of the desk was bare except for an ornate baroque inkstand and a plain, leather-framed blotter. Fifteen feet off the floor, a narrow balcony ran around three of the walls. The ceiling was lost in gloom.

  Moriarty sat in an absurdly short chair in front of the desk and waited. Two burly men in identical brown suits had escorted him into the room, seated him in the squat, low-backed chair, then turned on their heels and marched out, their footsteps echoing across the marble. He was left alone.

  There came occasional faint scraping sounds from above, as though someone on the balcony were observing him, but he displayed no interest in the sounds and did not look up. Shortly they ceased.

  When the sunlight had moved from the inkwell to the edge of the blotter a man entered through a small door in the far wall. The door was instantly closed behind him. "Sdravsoitye, Gospodine Moriarty, " he said, taking his place behind the great desk. "Kak vye pojyevoitye?" He was a slender man who looked quite young, but his face was lined with his years and what he had seen and what he had done. He wore a thin mustache which looked alien to his face, as though he had put it on for the occasion.

  "Nye panyemi Po-Russkie?" the man said. "You do not speak Russian? I am sorry. My name is Zyverbine. I am in charge of the Foreign Branch of the Okhrannoye Otdelenie, the Imperial Department of State Protection. You come to us highly recommended. Would you tell me something about yourself?"

  "No," Moriarty said.

  There was a long pause. "No?" Zyverbine repeated.

  "You already know everything you need to know about me."

  Zyverbine suppressed a smile. He touched a concealed stud on the desk and the top drawer slid open. He removed a folder from the drawer. "Moriarty," he said, reading from the folder, "James Clovis. Born in 1842 in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, of Thomas Moriarty, headmaster of the Bradford School, and his wife, née Anne DeFauve, a woman of French extraction. Has an older brother, James Francis, a booking agent for the Great Central Railway, and a younger brother, James Louis, a major in the Royal Gloucestershire Foote, a regiment which has the traditional privilege of remaining covered when in the Queen's presence.

  "James Moriarty — James Clovis Moriarty, that is — enrolled at the University of Aberdeen at the age of fourteen, living with an uncle in that city."

  "Named?" Moriarty interrupted.

  Zyverbine flipped the page and looked up, his pale blue eyes now expressionless. "Paul DeFauve," he said. "Your mother's brother. Teaches music and tunes pianos. Now living in Bath."

  Moriarty laughed, which seemed to displease Zyverbine. "That is not accurate?" he demanded.

  "Quite accurate," Moriarty admitted. "You have impressed me with your ability to cull the public record and make files. Now, could we get on with this?"

  Zyverbine closed the file and replaced it in the drawer. "I am not altogether sure that you are the man for this job," he said.

  Moriarty shrugged. "That is your affair. You paid my passage to come out here and listen. I came out here. I am prepared to listen. I am neither impressed with nor intimidated by your stage setting, but neither am I offended by it. I suppose it serves some purpose in dealing with the children that usually face you across this desk."

  "Stage setting?" Zyverbine put his hands on the desk, the slender white fingers pressed into the polished wood. "What are you talking of?"

  "This room," Moriarty said, waving his hand about. "The artful gloom. The vast empty space. Leaving me here alone. The noises overhead. The sawed-off legs of this chair to make me lower than you. It is all stage setting. Reading me the file to intimidate me with your wealth of sterile facts. I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed. If you have a job for me, tell me what it is, and let's get on with it."

  Zyverbine moved his foot, and the door in the far wall popped open. "Bring another chair," he directed the brown-suited man who appeared in the doorway. "You're right," he told Moriarty. "We of the Okhrana spend much of our time trying to intimidate everyone we deal with, including one another. It is all ridiculousness, is it not?"

  Moriarty sat himself in the new chair, which was of normal height. He fixed his gaze on Zyverbine and remained silent until they were once again alone in the room. Then he said, "What do you want me to do?"

  "Bear with me for another moment," Zyverbine replied, lacing his fingers together under his chin. "I have a few questions for you. We have, as you say, paid your way here for this interview. Surely we have the right to ask a few questions."

  A scraping sound came from the balcony. Moriarty did not look up. "Proceed," he said.

  Zyverbine nodded. "What do you know of explosives?" he asked.

  Moriarty considered. "Of the chemistry," he said, "I know what is known. Of the history, I know very little. Of the utilization, I have a complete knowledge in some specialized areas."

  "Such a
s?"

  "I can blow open a safe without harming its contents," Moriarty said. "But I could not, without further research, destroy a building or a bridge. I am more familiar with the use of nitroglycerine than nitrocellulose or picric acid."

  "What do you know of submersible boats?"

  "I presume you mean warships, rather than diving bells or similar apparatus?"

  "That is correct."

  "The Turks are testing one."

  "Yes."

  "It is of American design."

  "Yes."

  "I know little further."

  "Are you familiar with the scientific principles of operation?"

  "Certainly."

  "Ah!"

  "Zyverbine!" a harsh voice called from the balcony above Moriarty. "Sprosy yevo ob anarkhistakh!"

  "What do you know of politics?" Zyverbine asked, without looking up or acknowledging the voice.

  "As little as possible," Moriarty said. "The subject does not interest me."

  "Do you not feel that any one form of government is superior to another?"

  "I have never seen it demonstrated to be so," Moriarty said.

  "Do you believe that sovereigns rule by the will of God or the sufferance of the people?" Zyverbine asked.

  Moriarty thought about this for a moment. "We are of different religions," he said finally.

  "I am not asking about the fine points of dogma," Zyverbine replied. "Whether you are Orthodox, Roman, or a Protester is of no importance for the subject of this conversation."

  "I am an atheist," Moriarty said.

  This remark was greeted by an extended silence from Zyverbine and the unseen one above.

  "Ateyst!" the unseen one said finally, "Bezbozhnik!" Zyverbine looked up. He and the unseen one had a brief, intense conversation. Then there was the sound of a door slamming on the balcony.

  Zyverbine transferred his gaze to Moriarty. "That is not in my file," he said.

  "That is not my concern."

  "A man is about to enter this room," Zyverbine said, leaning forward. "Stand up when he comes in. Bow when I introduce you." Moriarty shrugged. "As you say."