She was not sure how, or why, she had arrived where she was. She remembered leaving the Hope mansion and walking toward her carriage. She had passed an alley where the Count d'Hiver was engaged in earnest conversation with some tall man. She remembered wondering who the man was, and where he had sprung from at such an hour. Then, on an idle whim, she had turned to hurry back to the mansion; she had thought of an unimportant question she wanted to put to Mr. Holmes. It would wait, but after all, she was there now. Rapid footsteps had sounded behind her, and a large, powerful man had grabbed her from behind. She had instinctively started to cry out, but her assailant had instantly clamped one great hand over her mouth, cutting her scream to no more than a loud gasp. He had then carried her a short distance, where some other person draped a sweet-smelling rag across her face. It must have been dosed with chloroform or some similar substance, for the next thing Cecily knew she was in this chamber.
It must have been Count d'Hiver and the man he was talking to who had done this thing to her; so she decided once again, as she had a dozen times before. But it made no sense. Why would the count, the representative of the Privy Seal and thus of the Queen, abduct Cecily Perrine? Why would he abduct anyone, for that matter? What did he want with her? Why had no one come to her cell— except the man in black — since she had been there?
The man in black! Four times since she had awakened from her drugged sleep to find herself in this featureless stone cell, the man in black had entered. He had given no warning; suddenly she had heard the bolts being thrown back and the door had opened. The cell had been bathed in a bright light — how bright she could not tell, since in her darkness a candle would have seemed the sun — and a man dressed all in tight-fitting black garments, even to a black hood and black mask, had stepped in.
She had, at first, tried speaking to him, reasoning with him, pleading with him, screaming at him; but to no avail. Four times he had put down bowls of rancid-smelling gruel and cups of water. Three times he had turned and left, wordlessly, gesturelessly. The fourth time he had reached out a hand and touched her on the arm; briefly, probingly, experimentally. And this had been the most horrible thing of all. He had not touched her as a man touches a woman, not even the gloating, possessive touch of a captor for his captive. This was immeasurably worse. There had not been even the humanity of lust in that touch. He had touched her as a farmer might probe a prize pig, to test the firmness of its skin, to feel its muscles, and how well fatted it was.
She could not tell how long she had been held a prisoner. She had been fed four times, but at what intervals? She had eaten but little of the gruel, and was still not hungry; but this was no indication. She felt wretched and afraid and alone, and such feelings would keep her from hunger for weeks, not merely days.
Cecily shrank back into the corner: there was that sound now, the snick-snick-snick of three bolts being thrown. The narrow wooden door was pulled open, and light flooded into the tiny cell. The tall man in black had once again come to visit. This time he brought no gruel. This time he took her by the arm and propelled her, as though she were a rag doll, out into the narrow stone corridor beyond the door. She resisted an impulse to cry out, feeling obscurely that it would give him satisfaction, and maintained a passive silence as he pushed her ahead of him down the corridor. He did not appear to notice her silence, any more than he had heeded her crying and pleading on his previous visits.
Cecily tried to prepare herself for whatever might happen. Her mind was in a turmoil, and she realized that she had no idea what to prepare herself for. This was so far outside her experience as to be a succession of unbelievable happenings, one long nightmare from which she was unable to wake.
The light, which had seemed so blinding from within the black cell, proved to come from a row of gas-mantle fixtures set high in the corridor wall. From the way that the pipe ran along the outside of the wall, right below the ceiling, it was evident that the stone corridor and its row of cells had been constructed long before the coming of gaslight. She was captive in the ancient cellar of some great house, the house of a man important enough to plan on keeping captives in his own basement, back in the days when influential noblemen might expect to have a few captives of their own. And now the present owner of the house was using his inherited cellar for purposes that nineteenth-century authorities would frown on, if only they knew. That was a fact to be filed away. Probably useless, but a fact nonetheless. Collecting and sorting facts kept her mind busy and active, and that in itself was helpful.
The man in black paused at the end of the corridor to unlock a thick wooden door, and then to lock it behind him. Just habit? Or were there other prisoners in that hellish black dungeon?
After three more locked doors and a twisting iron staircase, they came at last to a room, a well-appointed study, the floor deeply carpeted and the walls lined with bookcases filled with leather-bound books. For all its fine appointments, there was something strange about the room, and it took Cecily a minute to figure out what it was: there were no windows.
Behind an ancient, ornately carved oak table in the middle of the room, perched on a chair that would have served as a throne in many lesser kingdoms, was a small man clad in a black velvet lounging suit, his face concealed behind a great harlequin mask. Cecily thought it looked suspiciously like the Count d'Hiver — the size and build were about right — but she couldn't be sure.
The man in black brought Cecily to the front of the table, facing the harlequin, and released her. The harlequin stared intently at her, his blue eyes peering through the mask's eye slits, and said nothing.
Cecily felt a mixture of strong emotions all trying to surface at once; fear, astonishment, hatred, and rage boiled inside of her, causing her heart to thump loudly in her chest, her face to flush, her hands to feel alternately hot and cold. She wanted to cry, to scream, to beg, to hit out with all of her might at the man in black, to throw herself across the desk and throttle the smug harlequin. And so she did nothing. She felt that the harlequin was waiting for her to speak, perhaps to beg, to entreat, to demand; and so, mustering all the self-control she had available in her weary, frightened body, she remained mute.
"Welcome!" the harlequin said at last, in a deep voice. (Artificially deep? The voice of d'Hiver, lowered for effect or disguise? She couldn't be sure.) "Do you know why you are here?"
"What?" The single syllable was drawn out of Cecily involuntarily, so shocked was she by the question. "Listen, you," she said, putting her hands flat on the table in front of her and leaning aggressively forward toward the masked man. "I've been kidnapped, drugged, locked up in a black, dank cell, fed some kind of repulsive gruel, ministered to by this ape behind me, and you want to know if I know why I'm here! I'm here against my will, obviously at your behest, and you shall suffer for this. You can't expect to get away with a thing like this in the middle of London in 1887, as though you were some sort of feudal lord. My friends are looking for me, and you will live to regret this. Don't think they won't find me!"
The man in black grabbed her by the hair and lifted her straight up and back away from the table, actually raising her off the floor with one hand. The suddenness of the act, the shock and surprise, and the almost unbearable pain made her scream and brought tears to her eyes. She grabbed for his hand just as he released her hair, causing her to fall heavily to the floor. "Stand!" he commanded— the first word he had spoken in her presence.
Cecily struggled to her feet, tears stinging her eyes. "You bastards!" she screamed across the desk. "If Benjamin were here—"
"You are here as an acolyte, a supplicant, a slave," the harlequin said, precisely as though nothing had just happened, as though she had remained respectfully silent. "There was some discussion at first about what you might know, or not know; but it was realized that it does not matter. What will grow in you, what will become of paramount importance, is your own knowledge of your condition. And that will change from day to day, from moment to moment."
&nb
sp; She gaped at him. "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "Do you know what you're doing — what you've done? You must be insane!"
"I am the Master Incarnate," the harlequin continued, ignoring her outburst. "In the course of time, you will come to know other masters. You are to be removed from here, and taken to the place of your service. You will learn what it means to be a slave."
"Listen!" Cecily yelled, anger at this man, so smug behind his silly mask, outweighing her fear. "You—"
The harlequin turned to the man in black. "Is it time, Plantagenet?" he asked.
The man in black nodded.
The harlequin smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "Take her!" he commanded.
"Now, look—" Cecily said.
The man called Plantagenet wrapped his right arm around her body, pinning her arms to her side. She tried to fight, but was unable to move in his iron grip. His left hand came up to her face, and there was a sweet-smelling rag in it.
"No!" she cried…
TWENTY-ONE — INSIDE OUT
In the still air the music lies unheard;
In the rough marble beauty lies unseen;
To wake the music and the beauty needs
The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen.
— Horatius Bonar
After an uneventful journey through some of England's most beautiful countryside, Lord East's treasure train arrived in London shortly after four o'clock, Saturday afternoon, and came to rest at a specially designated siding in Hampton Court. It remained there, sealed and surrounded with its military escort, until two o'clock next afternoon, Sunday, when her imperial majesty's personal representative, the stern and splendidly choleric Duke of Denver, eighty years old and ramrod-stiff in the saddle, trotted officially over to accept delivery of the Lord East Collection, as an indefinite loan, in her majesty's name.
The seals on each of the special goods wagons were now broken, and the great doors rolled aside, one at a time. The contents of the first three wagons — statuary, pillars, walls, friezes, and great stone urns — had passed the trip in fine condition. The fourth wagon, holding the five great treasure chests, appeared to be as it was when it was sealed. With a flourish, Lord East himself opened the first chest—
—which was empty.
In a haste approaching frenzy, the lids of the other four chests were pried off, revealing the impossible: each chest contained nothing but air, and dust, and one small seed pearl which was found wedged in a crack on the bottom of the third chest.
All the color drained out of Lord East's face, and, were it not for the instant aid of his two faithful Indian companions, he would have fainted dead away on the wagon floor. "It's impossible!" he screamed to the Duke of Denver, as his aides helped him over the side of the wagon and down to the ground. "I tell you, the thing's manifestly impossible! They cant be gone!"
The Duke of Denver wheeled in his saddle and turned to his escort, the Captain Commander of the Household Guard. "Get me Sherlock Holmes!" he ordered.
-
Benjamin Barnett did not return to the Russell Square house until late Sunday night, having spent every moment since he arrived back in London on Saturday afternoon doing his best to find out what had happened to Cecily Perrine. As far as he could discover, she had left the Hope mansion slightly after two o'clock the morning of Thursday, the thirty-first of March, and then disappeared off the face of the earth. He could seem to get no further.
When he entered the house, Professor Moriarty was in his study, reading a late-edition Evening Standard. "Ah!" Moriarty said, waving him into the room. "The wanderer returns. You look exhausted. Have you eaten? Take a glass of sherry."
"No, thank you," Barnett said, dropping onto the leather couch and pulling off his shoes. "I haven't sat down in, it must be, twenty-four hours. I confess, I don't have much energy left."
"Not surprising," Moriarty said. "You have been quite busy, although it has been the purposeless busy-ness of a headless chicken. You scurry here, you scurry there, you accomplish nothing."
"You've been having me followed!" Barnett accused.
"Nonsense!" Moriarty responded. "But most of the places you've been, most of the people you've spoken to, are being covered by my agents, who are just about ubiquitous at the moment. I told you I'd have five hundred people on the street. In addition to the minions usually in my employ in such cases, every member of Twist's Beggar's Guild is now keeping his eyes open for Miss Cecily Perrine. I have offered a hundred pounds reward for any word. More would be counterproductive."
"That's very nice of you," Barnett said. "But what good will it do? How would they know her if they see her?"
"Mr. Doyle, the sketch artist, was kind enough to do a portrait from memory, which I have had reproduced on a small letterpress."
Moriarty lifted a piece of paper from his desk and, with a flip of his wrist, skimmed it across the room to Barnett. "A good likeness, I think."
Barnett stared at the picture on the four-by-five-inch card. "Amazingly good," he agreed, trying to ignore the lump that rose in his throat. "They should certainly recognize her if they see her, with the aid of this. But supposing they don't?"
"Always possible," Moriarty said. "I have taken certain other steps which might lead to Miss Perrine. I don't want to raise false hopes—"
"What are they?" Barnett demanded. "Please tell me what you're doing."
Moriarty shook his head. "They may lead to nothing," he said. "But then, if so I will think of something else. Perhaps some slender shred of information, some slight indication, will come in; that's all I need, a slender thread. I have been known to accomplish wonders with a slender thread."
Barnett stared morosely at Moriarty, and then shook his head. "I know you're trying to cheer me up," he said. "And don't think I'm not grateful. I am. I've never known you to go to such trouble before over someone else's problem; and I know you probably consider it weak of me to be so emotional about it—"
"Not to have emotions is to be less than human, Mr. Barnett," Moriarty said. "The trick we British learn is not to display them. Perhaps I have learned that trick better than most. But you are not British. And your emotions are entirely understandable. You should not, however, allow them to cloud your reason, which will be of much greater use in actually recovering Miss Perrine."
"She may already be dead," Barnett said, speaking aloud for the first time what had been preying on his mind for the past day and a half.
"I doubt it," Moriarty said. "If whoever abducted her wished her dead, he would have merely killed her. It is, after all, so much less trouble."
"Perhaps—" Barnett paused. "A fate worse than death…"
"Don't torture yourself, Mr. Barnett," Moriarty said. "Besides, despite the Romantic writers, there is no fate worse than death. Any pain, indignation, or horror that Miss Perrine may experience at the hands of her abductors will fade away with time — and love. Death, Mr. Barnett, will not fade away."
Barnett sat up. "I suppose you're right, Professor," he said. "It's doing nothing — at least, nothing useful — that's driving me crazy. If there were only something I could do!"
"Get a good night's sleep," Moriarty said. "Get your mind off this thing, at least as much as possible. I promise you that tomorrow you will start useful activity."
Barnett stood up and stretched. "Your word's good with me, Professor," he said. "I guess it has to be. I'll do my best. Tonight I sleep. Tomorrow I follow your instructions. If the blisters on my feet allow me to walk at all."
"Have Mrs. H give you a basin in which to soak your feet," Moriarty said. "She has some sort of concoction that works wonders on abused feet."
"I'll do that," Barnett said. He pointed to the Evening Standard that Moriarty was holding. "I read about the great mystery," he added. "Two tons of precious jewelry disappears from a locked goods wagon. The mystery sensation of the age. I was part of it, Professor, and I confess that I have no idea of how you managed it."
"Let us h
ope that the authorities remain as puzzled as you are," Moriarty said. He reached to the side of his desk and picked up a small bronze statuette that Barnett had never noticed before. "May the luck of Uma stay with us."
"Uma?" Barnett asked.
"A Hindu goddess," Moriarty told him. "Consort of Shiva. A fascinating, complex religion, that."
"That's not part of the, ah, loot, is it?" Barnett asked, looking alarmed.
"Never mind," Moriarty said. "It's not important. Go to bed."
"Tell me how you did it," Barnett said. "Did what?"
"The robbery. Tell me how you removed two tons of jewelry from a locked wagon while it was surrounded by armed guards." Moriarty considered. "Briefly," he said. Barnett nodded.
"Like most things that seem impossible," Moriarty said, "it was actually quite simple. I'm afraid that telling you will ruin the effect."
"Please, Professor," Barnett said. "After all, I was part of it."
"True," Moriarty admitted. "And a very important part, although you knew not what you did."
"What did I do?"
"The problem was," Moriarty said, "to get someone into that sealed wagon."
Barnett nodded. "That was indeed the problem," he agreed. "And you did it," Moriarty said. "I did?"
"With a brilliant bit of misdirection. You see, I already had an agent in place: one of the Indian porters was my man. He arranged to be among the crew who carried the third treasure chest into the wagon."
"And then?"
"And then, while you drew the momentary attention of everyone with your clever little wager, he merely stayed behind in the wagon while the others left."
"But that's impossible," Barnett said. "Lord East inspected the wagon after it was loaded, and there was no place for anyone to hide. The walls were even covered with fabric."
"Indeed," Moriarty said. "And an interesting quality of any such solid-color material is that from more than two feet or so distant, you cannot tell how far away you are from any piece of identical fabric without an external referent."
Professor Moriarty Omnibus Page 48
