Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  "Certainly not, by no means. It would not be to my interest to employ a man for a job he finds offensive."

  "Well, with that understanding I guess I can keep my mouth shut about your doings. And I confess that with this preamble you've got me mighty curious as to just what these doings might be."

  Professor Moriarty slipped a pair of pince-nez glasses onto his nose and peered through them at Barnett. "You swear to keep your silence?" he asked.

  "Cross my heart, Professor," Barnett said, with a wide smile.

  "There is less humor in this than you think," Moriarty said, "for I shall hold you to that oath. So think on it seriously and give me a serious answer."

  Barnett raised his hand. "You have my word, Professor Moriarty, that I shall never speak of your affairs to anyone. I swear this on the memory of my mother, which I hold sacred. And if that's not good enough for you, I can't offer anything better."

  "That completely satisfies me. As you become privy to my affairs, you will see why I require such an affirmation from all my associates. And you will also see how seriously I regard it." He took a pocket-watch from his waistcoat pocket and snapped it open. "We shall regard your employment as commencing now," he said. "It is five past two in the afternoon of Tuesday, May fifth, 1885."

  "Is it?" Barnett asked. "I had quite lost track of the days."

  "On the hour of two P.M. on May fourth, 1887—which will be, I believe, a Wednesday — you are quits with me. Until then you are in my employ at an annual salary of — let me see — how much were your New York City employers paying you?"

  "Ten dollars a week," Barnett said. "They discourage anyone from thinking of his employment on an annual basis."

  "I shall make it five pounds a week," Moriarty said, "if that is satisfactory."

  "Satisfactory?" Barnett laughed. "Why, that's well over twice as much. I'll say it's satisfactory!"

  "And then, of course, there's your room," Moriarty said. "Since it is at my request that you'll be living in this house, I can't very well charge you rent. So you may consider your room and such meals as you eat here as complimentary. And incidentally, I think you'll find Mrs. Randall a more than adequate cook."

  "Then you want me to keep that room?"

  "Is it satisfactory?" Moriarty inquired. "If so, I would have you keep it."

  "Exactly what is my position to be in your organization?" Barnett asked. "And exactly what sort of organization do you have?"

  "I solve problems," Moriarty told him. "I am a consultant, taking on my clients' problems for a fee. Some of them are purely cerebral, and I solve those by sitting in my study, or working in my laboratory, or taking a long walk through London; I find walking very stimulating to the mental processes. But other problems require deductive or inductive reasoning from facts, from evidence; and that evidence must be assembled. And each glittering fact must be tested, like a gold sovereign, to see if it rings true."

  "I see," Barnett said.

  Moriarty smiled, "By which you mean you do not see. But you soon will, you soon will." He removed his pince-nez glasses, cleaned them with a piece of flannel from his desk, and then replaced them firmly on his nose. "Your hours are to be those required to accomplish your assignment, when you have one," he continued. "In recompense, when you have no assignment you are free to do as you like whatever the time of day. We have not allowed the concept of 'office hours' to infiltrate our little domain."

  "That's agreeable," Barnett said. "I much prefer that scheme, as a matter of fact. Do you have anything for me now?"

  "Anything for you…" Moriarty rubbed his chin with his left hand. "I think you'd better use the first few days to get acquainted with my household and my organization. If you need anything, ask Mrs. H, the housekeeper, or Mr. Maws, the butler. I shall arrange to have someone show you around the rest of the organization and introduce you to those whom you should know or who should know you."

  "Very good, Professor. And I haven't as yet had a chance to thank you for rescuing me from that Turkish jail. I have no doubt that you saved my life."

  "I think we shall both benefit from your, ah, timely release," Moriarty said. He offered Barnett his hand, which was firmly taken. "Welcome to my employ, Mr. Barnett," he said.

  "I trust you don't have to go quite so far afield for all your employees, Professor."

  "If you mean Constantinople," Moriarty said, "that is unique. If you mean prison, you would be surprised at the number of people working for me in one capacity or another who were found in prison. There is one characteristic you do not share with the others. You were innocent."

  With that, Moriarty dismissed Barnett and returned to his scientific note-taking.

  -

  Barnett returned to the ground floor and hunted up Mrs. H, who was in a small room off the pantry. "You're in my office, Mr. Barnett," she told him as he looked curiously around the room. "What may I do for you?"

  "I was wondering if it was too late to get some lunch," he asked her. "I spent the morning wrapped up in a rug."

  "Go into the dining room, Mr. Barnett," she said. "I shall see that you are served."

  "Thank you, Mrs. H," he told her. "I appreciate it."

  "Humpf," she said.

  Barnett retreated to the dining room, where he was shortly served a large omelette with jam, by a somber-looking maid-of-all-work who curtsied before scurrying out of the room. He found the omelette excellent, and as he sat eating in comfort for the first time in over a month, he fell to musing over his recent past and his probable future.

  As much as it might smack of involuntary servitude, working for Professor Moriarty for the next two years promised to be quite interesting. Barnett still didn't have any clear idea of what Moriarty did, or what he would be expected to do for Moriarty, but he had formed the notion that it wasn't quite proper and might be quite exciting. And Barnett, who had just passed his twenty-eighth birthday, was of the opinion that a bit of impropriety and a dash of adventure were the salt and leavening that made the load of life worth eating. Barnett was one of those souls who often felt oppressed by the straitlaced notions of the times he had been born into, and although he would not — at least he was firmly convinced he would not — condone outright immorality, there was something about the touch of impropriety that appealed to him.

  When Barnett had finished his omelette and was beginning to wonder what to do next, the hall door opened and a small, almost tiny man wearing a natty fawn-colored suit and yellow spats and carrying a spotless brown bowler tucked under his left arm glided into the room. "Afternoon, afternoon," he said. "Permit me to introduce myself. The name is Tolliver; 'Mummer' Tolliver, they calls me, or just 'the Mummer.' "

  "I'm Benjamin Barnett," Barnett said.

  " 'Course you are," Tolliver said. "And welcome to our little ménage, I says. The professor, he asked me to show you around, seeing as how you're to be a fellow resident."

  "Oh," Barnett said. "You live here, then?"

  " 'Course I do. Up in the attic. I've got my little room up there. Closer to the sky, you know." He pulled out one of the chairs and reversed it, then jumped up on it, straddling the seat and leaning his chin on the top bar of the straight back. "First off, I should tell you who else shares this impressive abode with us. There's the professor himself, of course; and Mr. Maws, the butler; and Mrs. H, the housekeeper; and Mrs. Randall, the cook; and Old Potts."

  "Old Potts?"

  "Right. He has a room in the basement, he has. Spends his days blowing glass and suchlike for the professor's scientifical experiments."

  "He's really into this science stuff, then?" Barnett asked.

  " 'Course he is. He's a genius, the professor is. A scien-bleeding-tifical genius. He's always writing things and figuring things, you know. And he studies little things that you can only see under a microscope, and great tremendous things like the distance from here to the Moon or the Sun. A couple of years ago, when we was out at his cottage on Crimpton Moor, he had a couple of us measure off
five miles professional-like with instruments so he could set up some sort of apparatus and determine the proper distance of the Moon and Mars and some stars what he thought might be closer than the others.

  "And then sometimes he gets to talking about his work and the way them other professors don't understand him and laugh at his theories 'cause they're too blind to see what's right under their very noses, and he's going to get the last laugh when someone else smart enough to understand his theories comes along, even if it takes a hundred years. And then he gets into the technical stuff, all about waving lights, even though there isn't any e-ther, and nobody alive has any idea of what he's talking about, but it for certain does make you feel important just to listen to him."

  "But he doesn't do that all the time," Barnett said. "I mean, this other business takes up most of his time, and the science is just a hobby. Is that right?"

  "I'd say it was the other way 'round," the Mummer said. " 'Course he does spend most of his time on these here activities what make the money and employ the services of the likes of you and me. But this is the hobby. The science stuff and his experiments is really his life. He's told me many a time that if he's ever to be remembered for his time on this earth, it will be for his scientifical theories."

  "What about the rest of the household?"

  "I'll bite," the Mummer said. "What about it?"

  "Mrs. H, the housekeeper, for example. What's her real name?"

  "You'd best ask her that."

  "I have."

  "You're a braver man than me, then. I never have."

  "What about Mr. Maws?" Barnett said. "Why is he called 'Mr.'? I've always understood that butlers were called simply by their last name."

  "That is correct, so they are. "Except, 'course, below stairs, so to speak. The other servants in a household always call the butler 'Mr.'—at least, to his face."

  "But everyone seems to call Mr. Maws 'Mr. Maws.' "

  " 'Course they do," the Mummer said. "He was called Mr. Maws by all when he were in the fancy, back around fifteen years ago."

  "The fancy?"

  "Prizefighting, Mr. Barnett. Gentleman Jimmy Maws went twenty-three rounds to a decision for the bare-knuckle heavyweight championship of England. Unofficial, of course, since it were illegal at the time. That was back in 1872, I believe. Mr. Maws won the championship and six months' penal servitude for engaging in an illegal prizefight contest."

  "I'm impressed," Barnett said.

  The Mummer jumped from his chair. "Come," he said. "Let me show you about the house."

  EIGHT — SHERLOCK HOLMES

  He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.

  — John H. Watson, M.D.

  The next afternoon at about half past two Mr. Maws showed Sherlock Holmes, a private inquiry agent who lived in Baker Street, into Moriarty's study. Moriarty stood by his desk, his shoulders stooped, his hands behind his back, and glared out at Holmes, his gray eyes piercingly clear under his thick black eyebrows. "I won't say it's a pleasure to see you," Moriarty said, "because that would spoil your day. I will say that I expected you, but not quite so soon. What do you want?"

  Holmes dropped into the black leather armchair and crossed his legs. "I don't like to let too many weeks go by without looking in on my old mentor and professor," he said, tapping the sole of his shoe with the spiked ferrule of his stick. "I grow curious as to what sort of deviltry you're up to now, and rather than spend the next few weeks hanging about at your window in a variety of puerile disguises, I thought I'd come in and inquire."

  "Counting on my elephantine conceit, you assume that I'll be unable to resist telling you," Moriarty said. "This time, I fancy, I shall resist. But you do your disguises an injustice. They are consummate works of art. When I see you mincing down the street as an unemployed curate or hobbling along as an old bookseller, it's all I can do to stop myself from clapping you on the back and congratulating you on your performance."

  "Those disguises are not meant to fool you, Professor. They would fool nine-tenths of humanity, they would pass the scrutiny of any of Scotland Yard's current crop of inspectors, they would befuddle my colleague, Dr. Watson; but they are not meant to fool you. I would have to take much greater care and more profound subtlety to fool you."

  "I have no doubt that you could if you put your mind to it," Moriarty said. "I have no doubts about your ability; indeed, I admire it. It's your damned single-minded persistence I object to. I am no Jean Valjean to have you dogging my footsteps for the remainder of my life."

  "Come, Professor Moriarty," Holmes said, smiling a satisfied smile, "a man who chooses to live outside the social, moral, and legal confines of our society must not be surprised when that society chooses to keep a close eye on him. You are that man. And I am that eye."

  "A touching bit of metaphor," Moriarty said. "I followed you to Odessa."

  Moriarty shook his head. "That's good, Holmes," he said, "that's very good. I should have guessed. How did you manage from Stamboul?"

  "I saw you board the Russian frigate," Holmes said. "I was actually on the dock near you at the time. I hired a steam launch when you boarded the frigate, and I beat you to Odessa by four hours."

  "You're good, Holmes, I'll give you that," Moriarty said, staring his unblinking stare. "But why do you hound me? Go apprehend a bank robber. Use your talents to lay your hands on a forger, arrest a poisoner, clap the cuffs on a resurrectionist; perform some useful deeds with this avocation of yours, but leave me be!"

  "Avocation?" Holmes stood up. "My dear Moriarty, I would be vastly surprised if you were not guilty yourself of each of the crimes you have enumerated. I have often said in private that you are the most dangerous man in London, if not in Europe. If I were to utter such a statement in public you could collect damages for slander; that's how clever you are. But scheming with the Russians against your own country — Professor Moriarty, even for you this is too much!"

  "Stop dogging my footsteps, Holmes," Moriarty said, cold fury evident in his voice. "Both my morals and my methods are beyond you. You make me your life's work, while to me you are but a minor annoyance."

  "I am quite your equal in this game we are playing, Professor," Holmes said calmly. "I am merely more constrained by the rules than you are." He thumped his cane on the floor. "And I only have to make you my life's work until you are safely and securely behind bars, after which I'll be free to concentrate on the lesser criminals, the pilot fish that always swim in the wake of a shark."

  "There can be no truce between us?"

  "Never!" Holmes replied.

  Moriarty nodded and took a deep breath. Slowly the fury disappeared from his eyes. "So be it. I shall endeavor to keep out of your clutches. But I warn you, Holmes, you are playing in a deeper game than you know. Do not open any unexpected packages, do not walk under parapets, avoid mysterious meetings with strangers, never take the first cab in the rank."

  "Am I to understand that you are threatening me, Professor?"

  "Not at all," Moriarty said. "Merely alerting you. It is circumstances that are threatening you if you are going to get involved in my affairs at this time. There have been three attempts to kill me in the past ten days; twice by bombing and once by dropping a chimney on me as I passed a building being demolished. It makes life quite interesting, I find."

  "The same people who sent you a bomb before you left for Odessa?"

  "Presumably," Moriarty said. "What do you know about that?"

  "I was across the street when the bundle came hurtling out your front window — that very window, I believe — and exploded."

  "Ah, yes," Moriarty said, "I had forgotten."

  "Who are these people who are taking such interest in doing a service for humanity?" Holmes asked.

  "I cannot tell you any more about them," Moriarty said. "But if you follow me too closely, they are liable to take an interest in you."

  "I'll be careful."

  "Please," Moriarty said. "I'd h
ate anything to happen to you before you had achieved your life's ambition. Good day, Mr. Holmes." Moriarty rang for the butler.

  "Don't bother," Holmes said, "I'll find my own way out."

  "No bother, Mr. Holmes. Drop in again soon for another little chat."

  "You have my word," Holmes said.

  NINE — LONDON

  Hell is a city much like London.

  — Shelley

  Mummer Tolliver devoted the next few days to showing Barnett around Professor James Moriarty's London and introducing him to the people he would be dealing with in Moriarty's service. Although very few people were in his constant employ, the professor had associates all over the city. There were those in every social class, in every profession, and in almost every institution, guild, club, and business who were ready to do Moriarty a service or repay a favor.

  In a cellar below a warehouse in Godolphin Street, almost in the shadow of the great tower of the Houses of Parliament, Barnett met Twist, London's most deformed beggar and the head of the Mendicants' Guild — an organization with rules as strict and as strictly enforced as those of the British Medical Association or the Queen's Dragoon Guards. It was Twist and his corps of wretches who enabled Moriarty to make good his boast that he had eyes on every street corner in London.

  Twist looked Barnett up and down with his one good eye — the right one had a great patch over it — and then shook his head doubtfully at the Mummer. " 'E's fly?" he demanded.

  "He's fly," the Mummer insisted. "The professor sprung him from quod in Araby. He's to be the professor's principal. 'Course he's fly. Who says he ain't?"

  Twist took the patch from his right eye and stared up at Barnett with it, as though seeking confirmation for what his left eye had shown him. The right eye had a milky-white disc covering most of the cornea, and Barnett found it very disconcerting to have it staring at him. He was having trouble following the conversation, but he didn't want to ask for an explanation for fear it would make Twist think him a complete outsider.

  Twist replaced the patch, stared thoughtfully for a minute at Barnett's shoes, and then nodded. "If the professor says you're fly," he told Barnett, "that's jonnick with me. 'As the Mummer 'ere given you the office?"