Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  "Did he?"

  "As it happens, he did. Unfortunately, by the evidence of the sexton, who, come to think of it, did look a little like a beetle, they were always purchased from a florist right down the street. A little outdoor stand."

  "Pity," Moriarty said. "And no card with the sexton?"

  "No," Barnett said. "But" — he waved his hand at the olive envelope—"he did leave something else!"

  Moriarty reached for the envelope and tore it open. "Well," he said, sliding the contents onto the one clear spot on the desk. "What's this?" He picked up the two small objects that had been in the envelope and examined them closely, comparing one with the other. "Identical medallions, except for such differences as one would expect from wear and handling, and for a tiny hole drilled at the top of one. Presumably for the link of a gold chain, as the medallions themselves would seem to be gold."

  "That's it, Professor," Barnett said, smiling. "I think those are what you've been looking for."

  "What Holmes had been looking for," Moriarty said. "I have no doubt. Exactly where did you find them?"

  "At the gravesite, buried in the dirt."

  "Ah. And what prompted you to look in the dirt?"

  "The sexton. He told me that Chardino used to sit by the grave for long periods of time, talking to his daughter. And he thought that Chardino occasionally left things there besides the flowers. 'Trinkets,' he called them. So I looked, and I found two."

  "You did indeed. Curious things, these." Moriarty hefted the two medallions in his hand. "They tell the whole story — and a horrible story it is."

  "What do you mean?"

  "This sigil has an interesting history," Moriarty said. "Oh, not these particular baubles, of course; but the design, the pattern, the notion behind it. It explains all to one who understands such things."

  "And you do?"

  "Indeed," Moriarty said. "As you know, I have always been interested in the obscure, the bizarre, the esoteric — the darker recesses of the human mind. I have seen you, on occasion, perusing my collection of books on these subjects."

  "What has this to do with that?" Barnett asked.

  "I will explain," Moriarty said. "Let us examine these medallions. On the obverse: a satanic figure, legs wide, arms akimbo, staring out at the observer. Around the figure, evenly spaced, the letters DCLXVI On the reverse" — Moriarty flipped over the medallion—"a floral design twined about the tracery letters H C. Do you agree?"

  Barnett, who had picked up the other medallion, examined it closely and nodded. "That's what it looks like to me," he said.

  "Let us take it from front to back," said Moriarty, holding his medallion up to the light of the desk lamp and examining it through a small lens. "The pleasant-looking figure glaring out at you is a chap named Azazel, leader of the Sleepless Ones."

  "The Sleepless Ones?"

  "That's right. The symbolism is very interesting. The story is in Genesis, in an abbreviated form." Moriarty stretched his hand behind him for an old black leather-bound Bible, and opened it. "Here it is: Genesis Six: 'And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

  " 'And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

  " 'There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

  " 'And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that the whole imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.' "

  Moriarty closed the book. "Right after that God asks Noah to build himself an ark."

  "I'm sorry, Professor, but I don't follow any of that," Barnett said. "I never really paid much attention in Sunday school."

  "Let me expand on it for you," Moriarty said. "And I assure you, that they did not teach you this in Sunday school. The old myths sometimes tell us a surprising amount about the human unconscious. The 'sons of God' were angels; specifically in this tale a group of angels known as the Sleepless Ones, whose particular job it was to watch over men."

  "Headed by this fellow," Barnett said, tapping the medallion. "Azazel."

  "Correct. Now, these Sleepless Ones observed the 'daughters of men,' and they liked what they saw. They lusted after these beautiful human women, and so eventually they came down and married them."

  "Naturally."

  "Angels, I would imagine, can be very persuasive. But since they were angels, their children were not human children, but the Nephilim, or giants. And these giants were unruly children. Wait a second." Moriarty went over to a bookcase and ran his fingers along the spines of the books. "Here's the one. The whole story is in the Book of Enoch. A different, and longer, version of the story from that in Genesis. 'And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' "

  Moriarty ran his finger down the page. "Here's more; now we get to the giants: 'And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind, and they began to sin against birds and beasts and reptiles and fish, and to devour one another's flesh and to drink the blood.' " Moriarty closed the book. "This, according to one legend, was the origin of evil on the earth."

  Barnett thought this over. "That's interesting," he said, "even fascinating, but what relevance does an ancient legend have on what is happening today?"

  "Think of it this way, Barnett. What sort of people would chose to use Azazel, the progenitor of evil, as their symbol? What do they say about themselves? They are either fools, or knaves, or—they are evil!"

  "Evil." Barnett stared down at the medallion he held. "It is a term that doesn't seem to have direct relevance anymore, not to this day and age; but you make it seem to come alive."

  "They make it come alive, not I. Any man who does not believe in the existence of evil — pure, deliberate, virgin evil — or who believes it to be a thing of the past is not truly aware of the world in which he lives. But the evil, my friend, is within us. We need no Azazel to bring it to life."

  "What of these letters around the rim of the medallion?" Barnett asked.

  "There is, indeed, the other half of the story," Moriarty said. "Think of the letters as Roman numbers: DCLXVI. Six hundred and sixty-six."

  Barnett looked blank. "So?"

  "The answer to that is, once again, in the Bible — this time in the Book of Revelation." Moriarty flipped through the last few pages of his Bible. "Here it is — Chapter Thirteen:

  " 'And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.'

  "And then, at the end of the chapter, after describing how evil the beast is: 'Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast — for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.' "

  "What does it mean?" Barnett asked.

  "Nobody is sure," Moriarty said. "The Book of Revelation is by far the most obscure book of the Bible. The most usual belief is that it somehow represents the anti-Christ through some cabalistic numbering code."

  Barnett leaned back and stared at his medallion, considering the sort of people who would favor this particular symbolism on their watch fobs. He found that he was weary from his day's exertions but still eager to go on. "What's on the back?" he asked.

  Moriarty flipped over the medallion he was holding. "The flowers traced around the letters are Veratrum, commonly called hellebore. In ancient times it was believe
d to cure madness, and the soothsayer and physician Melampus is supposed to have used it to cure the mad daughters of Praetus, King of Argos."

  "You seem to know an awful lot about these medallions, Professor," Barnett said. "I am aware that you have a most impressive store of esoteric knowledge. Many's the time you've told me that there is no bit of information that is not worth knowing. But this approaches prescience. Have you ever seen one of these trinkets before?"

  "You suspect me of clairvoyance?" Moriarty asked. "No, I've never seen one exactly like these, but I've been expecting to run across something similar at any time over the past fifteen years. It seemed to me inevitable that someday I'd be staring at a sigil very much like this."

  "It's new to me," Barnett commented. "I assume it has some specific meaning to you. What does it signify?"

  "The letters HC on the reverse tell all," Moriarty said. "It is an example of the extreme conceit of those we're dealing with that they left the initials."

  "HC?"

  "Hellfire Club," Moriarty said. "A new incarnation of a three-hundred-year-old disgrace."

  "The Hellfire Club?" Barnett looked thoughtful. "It rings a faint bell," he said. "Sometime in the past I have come across the name before, but for the life of me I can't recollect specifically where or when."

  "There's usually a line or two in the history books," Moriarty said. "An amusing sidelight to the time of the Restoration. When Charles the Second returned to England, ten years after his father lost his head, and wondered why he'd been away so long. As a reaction to ten long years of rule by the stuffy old Puritans, a bunch of the young sprigs of the nobility went around raising hell. After all, they hadn't been allowed to so much as dance while the dour old Cromwells made the rules. So they called themselves the Hellfire Club. They drank, and they gambled, and they wenched, and they rode all over other people's fields, and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves."

  "Boys will be boys," Barnett murmured.

  Moriarty nodded. "And it seems that some boys will be boys at forty if they haven't been allowed to at twenty. But at forty, some of them have developed very advanced ideas of raising hell.

  "Gradually the Hellfire Club became something other than it had been at the beginning. I imagine it happened as the 'boys' who just wanted a chance to run around a bit and sow an occasional wild oat had their fill of the missed excitement of youth and dropped out of the club to take up more serious pursuits. Those who remained were, let us say, more seriously dedicated to the single-minded pursuit of pleasure. And the pleasures they pursued gradually became more and more selfish, illegal, and sadistic. They went in for abduction, rape, torture, and murder."

  "A lovely-sounding lot. Whatever happened to them?" Barnett asked.

  "They were suppressed at the direct order of King Charles himself, who was never one to confuse freedom with license. They were suppressed again by a royal commission appointed by King William. It is believed that at this time they saw the wisdom of becoming a thoroughly secret society."

  "That's it, then?" Barnett asked, when Moriarty paused.

  "The club surfaced again briefly about sixty-five years ago, during the reign of George the Fourth. It was not identified by name at that time. A house in Cheswickshire burned to the ground, purely by accident as far as was known. In the burned rubble of the house, which was believed to be unoccupied, were found an exemplary collection of apparatus designed to restrain and torture human beings, along with the burned bodies of three young women. Subsequent investigation turned up the fact that several men, described as looking like gentlemen, were seen running away from the building at the time of the fire. One of the items rescued from the fire was an amulet with a strange design on it — a design much like that which you now hold in your hand."

  "So that's what you meant when you said you've been expecting this?" Barnett asked.

  "Indeed," Moriarty answered. "Ever since I learned of the events concerning the house in Cheswickshire, and realized the connection with the supposedly extinct Hellfire Club, I have expected someday to come across this medallion. There are some malignancies that do not die of their own accord, but have to be excised time and time again. I'm convinced that this is one such."

  Barnett stared at the gold sigil he held, flipping it from back to front and peering closely at it as though he expected to read some great secret from its depths. What a catalog of horrors was represented by this small device. The devil on the front — Azazel, according to Moriarty — seemed to Barnett to be smirking at him in the gaslight. "It would seem," Barnett said, "that Chardino has been doing an efficient job of excising all by himself."

  Moriarty nodded. "He has been going through the membership of the Hellfire Club like a scythe through wheat," he said. "In a way, it will seem a pity to stop him; in fact, I'm not altogether sure that there isn't a better solution."

  "What would that be?" Barnett asked.

  "I don't know yet," Moriarty admitted. "It is true that on humanist grounds our friend the magician should be discouraged from indiscriminate killing; but is his killing really that indiscriminate? And is it not equally true that the gentlemen-members of the club in question should be discouraged from — whatever it is they are doing?"

  "You think that the Hellfire Club is responsible for the death of Chardino's daughter?" Barnett asked. "Don't you?" Moriarty replied.

  "How do you suppose he knows who the members are and where to find them?"

  Moriarty shook his head. "It is pointless to suppose," he said. "We must discover!"

  Barnett nodded. "And just how are we going to do that?" he asked. "It doesn't seem to me that we're really much further forward.

  We know who the killer is, and who he's killing, and we can surmise why; but we don't know where he is, or where his victims can be found before they become his victims. I suppose we could always put an advertisement in the paper for members of the Hellfire Club to come forward and be saved, or put a twenty-four-hour watch on the churchyard, in hopes that Chardino will visit his daughter again before he kills too many more of these charming people."

  "It's not really as bad as all that," Moriarty said. "I believe I can locate the Hellfire Club."

  "You can?"

  "Yes. I think so. The club's location is almost certainly transient, but I believe I have the key to their travels."

  "The key—that's what you said about Cecily's location. My God! You don't mean you think they have her?"

  "I'm sorry, I thought you had already guessed that," Moriarty said. "It is the only logical answer. Of course, I didn't know until you walked in that these people we are after are the newest incarnation of the Hellfire Club."

  Barnett took a deep breath. "I didn't want to think about it," he said. "I mean, I knew somebody had to have her, as it's clear that she was abducted. If anything else had happened the authorities would have found her — or her body — by now. But I didn't want to think about by whom — or why — she was taken away. What do you suppose is happening to her?"

  "It is just as pointless to suppose that as to suppose anything else," Moriarty said. "We will find her and take her away from her abductors. With any luck, we'll do it before the day is out. Now, since morning approaches rapidly, I am going to get some sleep."

  "How do you know where Cecily is?" Barnett asked.

  "I don't — not yet. But I shall. Join me in here after breakfast, say at nine-thirty."

  "What about eight-thirty?" Barnett suggested.

  "The most useful thing we could do with that extra hour," Moriarty told him, "is sleep. And I, for one, intend to do so."

  Barnett had to be content with that, but he did not sleep well. Along about morning he finally did fall into a deep sleep, and then he had to drag himself out of bed a few hours later when Mrs. H pounded on his door and told him that breakfast was ready.

  Moriarty was not at breakfast. Barnett could feel the tension rising in him while he ate, the tension he had become so familiar with in the past few days. Compoun
ded of all the emotions that cramp the muscles and hit at the pit of the stomach: frustration, guilt, rage, fear, anxiety, and an increasing sense of helplessness. The feeling had by now become a permanent knot of pain, twisting away deep inside of him. Thoughts that he was not allowing himself to think were expressing themselves as sharp knives digging into his belly. He did not eat well.

  As he was finishing, Moriarty entered the room. To Barnett's surprise, he could see that the professor had already been out of the house, and was evidently just returning. "A quick cup of coffee," Moriarty said. "We have work to do!"

  Barnett rose. "What sort of work?"

  "Sit down," Moriarty insisted. "I need my coffee." He dropped into his chair. "I have broken the code," he said. "I was just out checking my results and now I am sure."

  "What code?" Barnett asked, fearful that Moriarty had gone off on some entirely new tack and had lost interest in the Hellfire Club and the missing Cecily. The professor's interest in any subject outside of mathematics and astronomy was all too likely to prove evanescent.

  "Think back," Moriarty said. "Do you remember that among the effects of the late Lord Walbine there was a scrap of newsprint?"

  "Vaguely," Barnett said.

  "It was from the agony column of the Morning Chronicle," Moriarty reminded him, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the large silver urn in front of him. "On one side it said, 'Thank you St. Simon for remembering the knights.' On the other: 'Fourteen point four by six point thirteen, colon, three-four-seven.' "

  "Something like that," Barnett agreed.

  "I assure you, it was that, exactly," Moriarty said. "Now, on reading the report on the death of Quincy Hope — whose mysterious profession, by the way, turns out to have been quack doctor—"

  "Quack?"

  "Indeed. He cured people of any disease by placing bar magnets on various parts of their anatomy and taping them in place. At any rate, on reading the report of his death I noted that one of the items found in his room at the time of his death — some sort of anteroom or waiting room, I believe — was a morning newspaper. I procured a copy of that paper from our basement file and perused the agony column. I found no mention of St. Simon, or any of the knights, but I did find this: 'Nine point eleven by five point two, colon, red light.' "