Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  "It sounds impressive," Barnett said.

  "Ah!" the old man said. "But when you turn it on and it plays one of its sixteen selections — Bach, Beethoven, Rossini; a bit tinny, but real impressive — the doll turns to face the keys and begins playing. And its hand motions follow the music! Never seen anything like it."

  "I've never even heard of anything like it," Barnett said. "Where was it made?"

  "France," the old man said. "In the twenties, I think. It is signed on the bottom by Jean Eugene Robert Houdin, who served as court magician to Louis XVIII."

  "Court magician?" Barnett asked. "In the eighteen twenties?"

  "Oh, yes," the old man said. "Houdin was famous for his clockwork mechanisms. My father told me about them, being something of a connoisseur, as the French put it. He once made a miniature carriage, pulled by four miniature horses. And, sir, it actually worked. But this was the first thing of the sort that I've actually seen with my own eyes."

  "What can you tell me about the man who pawned it?"

  "Well, for one thing he wasn't French. Polish or Russian, I'd say."

  "I see."

  "And he was very fond of that musical box."

  "But he pawned it."

  "That is true. But not for anything like its true value — even in pawn. He told me he did it just to keep it safe for the next few months."

  "I see," Barnett said.

  "But then he came back the day before yesterday and took it out again. Told me he'd lost the ticket, which I see was the truth. I told him I remembered him, which was so, and that I'd be sorry to lose the box."

  "Can you describe him for me?"

  The old man considered. "I'm not much on describing the way people look," he said. "I have a picture of him in my mind's eye, don't you see, but I couldn't exactly put words to it."

  "Well, was he short or tall?"

  "Not too tall, I'd say."

  "Young or old?"

  "If I had to put a finger on it, I'd say twenty-six or seven."

  "Did you happen to hear his name?"

  "Hear it!" the old man snorted. "Better than that, sir; I have it written down."

  "You do?" Barnett wasn't sure he should believe this stroke of luck.

  "Indeed! And his address, for that matter." Barnett felt weak. "You have the man's name and address written down?"

  "Naturally. You don't think I'm going to let anyone walk out of here with a pledged item and no ticket unless I get some proof of his identity, do you? I've been in this business for fifty years, and nobody has accused me of being soft in the head."

  "But I thought you said you recognized him," Barnett said.

  "And so I did. If not, I wouldn't have let him retrieve the object no matter how many papers he signed."

  "May I get a look at the paper you had him sign?"

  "Gladly. In exchange for the pledge ticket. I hate to have them outstanding, you understand."

  "A fair deal," Barnett agreed.

  The exchange was made and Barnett copied down the information. Not that he had any real hope that the name and address were genuine, but it was certainly worth checking out. The name and address were block-printed on a buff card. PYOTRE I. AZIMOF: 7 SCRUTTON COURT. A scrawling signature was below.

  "Good-bye, sir," Barnett said. "Thank you for your assistance.

  You have a fascinating shop here. I will have to come back and really wander through it someday."

  "It will be here," the old man assured him. "And, for so long as I have anything to say about it, so shall I."

  -

  Barnett pulled his Greene's Pocket Guide to London Streets & Thoroughfares from his jacket and discovered that there indeed was a Scrutton Court, and that he was no more than seven or eight blocks from it. He resolved to scout out the building himself, without waiting to check with Moriarty, and try to get a look inside if he could think of a reasonably subtle way.

  But first he would pause for a bit of lunch. While eating he would plan an approach that would be the least likely to raise suspicion. He felt it would not be wise, with Trepoff, to raise suspicion.

  The Jack Falstaff Tavern on Cable Street had a pleasant grill room, and the proprietor, on hearing Barnett's accent, brought him a plate of lamb chops and grilled tomatoes, which he described for some reason as his "American lunch." It was quite good. Then, in a burst of Anglo-American friendship, the proprietor produced a pot of coffee which had been boiled only briefly and was actually drinkable.

  Barnett sat over the coffee and tried to pick an approach. Building inspector? Gas-meter reader? "Excuse me, sir, but I believe my pigeon just flew in your window. Mind if I look?" Professor Moriarty would have seven acceptable schemes for getting inside the house, surely Barnett could come up with one. Barnett debated enlisting the professor's aid instead of proceeding on his own initiative, but then decided it would be more to his credit if he could prove himself an effective sleuth without help from the old master.

  Barnett finished his third cup of coffee and got up. He'd check the house out from the outside. Maybe something immensely clever would occur to him as he walked by. Maybe not. Maybe there was no such house; the man had probably given a false name and address anyhow. Better check it out and see where to go from there.

  Scrutton Court was a double row of two-story red brick buildings facing a narrow stone-paved street. Someone had built it early in the century as housing for the deserving almost-poor, and so it had stayed for the past sixty or seventy years. Barnett had to walk the length of the street twice before he located the building numbers, which were painted in whitewash on the curb. A row of apathetic women watched him without interest from their porches as he passed, and then went back to hanging their wash from the lines that paralleled the houses.

  Dingy white curtains covered the windows at number seven, and there was no sign of life from within. What sort of sign from what sort of life Barnett had expected to see, he had no idea. The house could be deserted, or there could be an army camped within, and the only way to tell was to get inside and look.

  Barnett approached the woman on the porch directly across the street from number seven. "Excuse me," he said.

  She looked up, her broad face expressionless. "Aye?"

  "Could you tell me if there's anyone living across the street? That building there," he pointed.

  "Couldn'a say," she said.

  "Well, have you seen anyone going in or out, in the past week, say?"

  "Couldn'a say."

  "I see," Barnett said. "Thank you so much for your help."

  He crossed the street and stood in front of number seven. Then it occurred to him. The perfect approach. And it was so obvious that he was ashamed for not having thought of it immediately. Old Mr. Starkey had told him about the musical box, and he wanted to see it with an eye toward making Pyotre Azimof an offer. He knew Pyotre wouldn't sell, but surely he couldn't resist showing the musical box off to an interested collector.

  Barnett mounted the stairs and knocked on the door. After some seconds, it was opened, and a burly man in rough nautical garb stared out at him.

  "Good afternoon," Barnett said. "Does Mr. Pyotre Azimof live here?"

  The man silently stepped aside, and Barnett walked in. "Would you tell him someone would like to see him about his musical box?" he said.

  The door slammed and Barnett was grabbed from behind. A rag with sweet-smelling fluid on it was held over his mouth and nose.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Barnett," a soft, guttural voice said from further inside. "It is a shame that your friend, Professor Moriarty, did not accompany you. But you will have to suffice."

  The room tilted and spun. Bright lights whirled around in Barnett's head, to be quickly replaced by harsh blackness. He struggled like a man submerged in quicksand, without really knowing what he was doing. Then nothing.

  NINETEEN — THE BIG BANG

  And the night shall be filled with music.

  — Longfellow

  Barnett woke up sl
owly. A syncopated pounding thrummed across his temples, and a profound nausea replaced any other sensation. For a long time nothing else mattered. And then he was very sick.

  Hands reached for him and held him up. A white basin appeared under his head, and he retched into it for what seemed several lifetimes. Then nothing more came up, and the retching changed to gasping, and the pounding of his racing heart overrode the pounding of his head. Slowly, very slowly, his heart calmed and his breathing slowed.

  His eyes began to focus.

  Guttural instructions were shouted, and more hands pulled Barnett to his feet. A bucket of cold water was brought and dumped over his head, then another, and a third.

  Barnett shook his head and opened his eyes. Slowly the room and the people in it came into focus: the thin man with the crooked nose holding the bucket and grinning; the heavy man who had let him into the house; a man in a black suit sitting in the corner, his face hidden under a black cotton mask; a man with wire-rimmed glasses who looked like a cobbler or tailor talking softly to a man with a small mustache, who looked like a radical student even to the two books under his arm. None of them appeared interested in Barnett, except for the man with the bucket and the man behind the cotton mask.

  The man behind the mask barked out a new set of instructions, and the man with the crooked nose put down the bucket and yanked Barnett over to a wooden chair. He pushed Barnett down and tied him quickly and expertly to the chair, his hands behind the back and one leg lashed to each of the chair's front legs. Barnett was too weak and sick even to protest out loud, much less resist the man who bound him.

  The man behind the mask came over to glare down at Barnett. His eyes were hard behind the two thin slits. "We meet again," he said.

  "Huh?" Barnett said weakly, still not sure what was happening. "What'sat?"

  "The last time, I struck you over the head with a brass monkey. One of that English lieutenant's treasured possessions, no doubt. 'Hear no evil,' or some such conceit."

  Barnett shook his head to clear his foggy vision and the pounding at his temples. "So you're the guy," he said thickly.

  "I do apologize for your present condition," the masked man said solicitously. "I assure you you'll be all right in a few minutes. A pad saturated in chloric ether was applied over your nose and mouth to render you unconscious as you entered the house. But instead of collapsing, you fought like a madman, which resulted in your absorbing much more of the vapor than is good for you. It's your own fault, really."

  "I fought?" Barnett remembered none of it.

  "Those bruises on your arms were not gratuitous," the masked man said. "Nobody kicked you while you were down, Mr. Barnett."

  "I don't remember," Barnett said. The fog around his brain was lifting and full awareness of his present position was creeping in to replace it. Barnett was not feeling too pleased with himself.

  "It doesn't matter," the masked man said. "No one here holds a grudge against you. We are the ultimately rational men. We do what we must, and we allow ourselves neither remorse nor pleasure at our actions."

  "That's very — sensible," Barnett said, twisting at his wrists to test the rope that bound them. There was no give, no slack, and no stretch in the rope. He relaxed.

  "I am glad you feel that way," said the man behind the mask. "Then you will understand that what we are about to do is not out of malice but merely political necessity."

  "What are you going to do?" Barnett asked. The headache was slowly lifting, but he could feel the pain in his bruised muscles now, and the soggy chill of his clothing, soaked from the buckets of water dumped over his head.

  "It will be a glorious event!" the masked man said enthusiastically. "It will make the great sluggish mass of the British people aware of anarchy. It will be a new height. It will kill you, as you Americans so aptly put it."

  "You mean that literally, I suppose," Barnett said.

  "Oh, quite," the man behind the mask assured him. "We were hoping to get Professor Moriarty himself, but I'm afraid you will have to do. You and the girl."

  "This was all a setup," Barnett said.

  "When that gentleman over there," the masked man said, indicating the man with the slight mustache, " — let us call him — no, let him remain nameless — when that gentleman over there reported to me that he had lost his cap and that a pledge ticket was in the band, I at first castigated him severely. Then I realized that with proper management the pledge ticket would lead Professor Moriarty, or Sherlock Holmes — I had really hoped for one of the two — into my trap. It has at least produced you. I suppose it is too much to hope that the professor is going to attempt a rescue. I would like the chance to show him that I learn from my misjudgments."

  "Any minute now," Barnett said.

  The man behind the mask made a sound that was supposed to represent a laugh. "No, no," he said. "You have come here on your own. That is clear." He struck a thoughtful pose. "But you do have information of interest to me. How much Moriarty knows. What his source of information is. What his intentions are. You could tell me this."

  It was Barnett's turn to laugh. "In return for what?"

  "Your freedom."

  Barnett laughed again. "How can you convince me that you will set me free once I've told you what you want to know?"

  The man behind the mask thought this over. "My word, I suppose, isn't good enough?"

  "Your word!" Barnett felt slightly hysterical. "Why, you've got all these poor fellows believing that you're on their side! You—"

  The masked man slapped Barnett across the face, and then again, and again. Slow, deliberate slaps, delivered with all the man's force. "That is enough!" he said sharply. "You will not malign these brave men with your talk. Shortly you will no longer talk at all! You two— take him to the upper room! We must complete our preparations here."

  The two men picked Barnett up, chair and all, one in front and one behind. They carried him up a flight of stairs and deposited him in a rear bedroom. Then they left, closing the door behind them.

  -

  "Hello!"

  It was a girl's voice, and it came from behind him. Barnett tried to look around, but couldn't turn his head far enough. So he hopped the chair by jerking his body and applying torque to it, until he had turned enough to see. There was a young girl tied, spread-eagled, to the bed behind him.

  "My God!" Barnett said.

  "If you don't mind my asking," the girl said, "who are you?" Her voice was quite normal, and well-modulated, but there was panic in her eyes.

  "My name is Benjamin Barnett. And you must be the Duke of Ipswich's daughter, Lady Catherine."

  "Yes," she said. "Were you looking for me? Is anybody looking for me? What are they going to do with us, do you know?"

  "Your abduction is not general knowledge," Barnett said, "but there are men — some very good men — out looking for you. What have they done to you? Why are you tied up like that?"

  "I haven't been mistreated — beyond having been brought here in the first place, I mean. They've kept me locked up in a small room. They feed me twice a day. Usually bread, cheese, and wine. Once, for two days, they had hot food brought from somewhere. I tried leaving a message under the plate, assuming the service would be returned to whatever restaurant it came from. I heard nothing about it, but the next day I was back on bread, cheese, and wine. Then, a couple of hours ago, they dragged me in here and tied me like this. I have no idea what they intend to do. Do you? I've been imagining all sorts of horrid things."

  "I'd rather not try to guess," Barnett said.

  "A man with a great black mask over his face came in and stared down at me for a long time. Then he said that I was about to go down in the history of the struggle against bourgeois imperialist oppression, and I should be grateful to him. Then he laughed and stomped out of the room. What was he talking about?"

  "I think I'm beginning to get the idea," Barnett said.

  "Why are you here?" she asked. "Did they abduct you, too?"
>
  "Sort of. Only I came and knocked on the door and practically invited them to."

  The girl twisted on the bed. "These ropes are cutting into my wrists," she said. "I don't think this is very funny. My poor father must be worried to death about me. He gets positively furious if I go anywhere alone, as though I were still quite a baby. You're an American, aren't you?"

  "Quite right," Barnett said. "Is it that obvious?"

  "I like Americans," she said. "What are they going to do to us? They're not going to let us go, are they? I mean, ever."

  "I don't know what their plans are," Barnett said, trying to sound cheerful, "but don't lose hope. We'll get out of here somehow."

  "I've been here for weeks. You just arrived. I hope you have something in mind, Mr. Barnett, to get us out of here. Because the Lord knows I've tried everything I could think of. And I wasn't even tied up. But now I'm tied up, and they put you in here. And you're tied up, and I don't even know you, and we can't even move, so how can we possibly ever get out of here?" And she turned her face away and sobbed quietly into the pillow.

  "I'm sorry," Barnett called softly. "Really, I'm sorry if I upset you. I was trying to cheer you up."

  She turned back. "How can you possibly cheer me up?" she demanded.

  Barnett considered. "I can wiggle my ears and imitate a rabbit," he said. "If my hands were untied I could do wonderful shadow pictures."

  "Shadow pictures of what?"

  "Hands."

  "Oh." She sniffed and then giggled. "Can you really do a rabbit?"

  Barnett wiggled his ears and twitched his nose and turned his head in little, rabbitty motions.

  "That's very nice," the girl said, smiling. "What do you do, Mr. Barnett, when you're not tied up?"

  "I am a journalist."

  "How did you get here?"

  "I knocked on the front door, and here I am."

  "Oh, dear," the girl said, twisting her head on the pillow. "My nose itches." She tried to twist around far enough to scratch her nose against the pillowcase, but the ropes holding her arms were too tight. After fighting her bonds futilely for a minute, she gave up and burst into tears.