"Why?" asked Holmes suspiciously.
"Well, you see, in fourteen minutes it will be midnight," Chardino told him earnestly. "And tomorrow — is another day."
"How do we get out?" Moriarty demanded.
"Follow me," Chardino said. He led them down the hallway to a small door.
They paused. "That," Holmes said, pointing to the door, "is a closet. I believe this man is in need of the services of an alienist."
"When these houses were built," Chardino said, opening the closet door, "some eighty years ago, the builders of the day separated the ceiling of one level from the floor of the next with a dead-air space to minimize the transmission of sound from one story to the next — a practice the architects of today would do well to emulate. In this building the space is two feet deep."
"How do you know about that?" Holmes asked.
"It is my profession to know such things," Chardino said. "It is such knowledge that enables me to perform miracles." He knelt down and searched with his fingers in a corner of the closet. "There is an access panel," he said. "Here!" He pulled up and the floor of the closet lifted out.
"How do you like that!" Barnett exclaimed.
"What sort of miracles?" asked Holmes.
"The usual sort," Chardino said. "Appearing, disappearing, escaping; what you might expect from a stage magician."
"Oh," Holmes said.
The sounds from the stairs increased. Now a chopping, cracking sound was added.
"They have found an ax," Moriarty said. "If we are going to leave, we should do so expeditiously."
"If one of you gentlemen would care to lead the way," Chardino said, "I would suggest that the ladies follow, and then the other two gentlemen. You will have to go single file."
"To where?" Barnett asked.
"There is no light," Chardino said. "I have placed a cord. Keep it to your left hand. It terminates at an access port leading to another closet on the floor below."
"Won't they see us coming out of the closet?" Barnett asked.
"It is in a seldom-used room," Chardino said. "And I shall do my best to distract them. Trust me. The art of misdirection is one I understand well. Now, hurry!"
Holmes looked doubtful, but he took the lead. It was a tight fit, but he managed to squeeze his lanky body into the small hole. "Here is the cord," came his voice from the black depths. "I shall proceed." A moment later he had disappeared into the narrow, pitch-black world under the floor.
Three of the rescued girls dropped into the space without comment, and crawled out of sight after Holmes; but the fourth balked.
"I can't!" she cried. "I just can't!"
"It's the only way out," Barnett said. "Come on, now, buck up."
"I have always been afraid of dark places," she said, backing away from the hole and shaking her head, her eyes wild. "Go without me if you must. I simply cannot crawl down there."
Chardino took her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. "You must go," he said clearly and simply. "You can do it; this one time you can. You will think of nothing. You will clear your mind of all thought. You will close your eyes and picture a bright meadow, as you crawl on your hands and knees, following the cord. There will be no other thoughts in your mind while you do this, and you will hear only the sound of my voice. I will be telling you that you can do it — you can do it. It is not hard, for you. Not this once. Not with my voice to guide you through the bright meadow which would be there if your eyes were opened. But they will stay closed. Do you hear me, girl?"
"Yes," she said, staring back into his eyes. "Yes, I hear you."
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"Then go! Remember, I am with you. You will hear my voice, as now, comforting you. For the sake of my daughter, go!"
The girl turned and lowered herself into the hole. In a second she was gone from sight.
Cecily Perrine was next. She dropped easily into the hole and crawled away.
The other two girls followed. As Barnett was about to go after them, he heard a splintering crash. "That's from the stairs; they must have chopped through!" he exclaimed.
"Go!" Moriarty commanded. "I wish to have a brief word with Professor Chardino, but I will follow right behind."
Barnett turned and lowered himself into the hole. He found the cord, a thin, very rough twine, and followed it into the dark. Ahead of him he could hear the sliding, thumping sound of the girl who had preceded him. Behind him, nothing.
It was not easy going; he found himself crossing over joists every few feet and ducking under beams the alternate feet. Once he got into the pattern of crawling, however, he found he could move steadily. But where was Moriarty? He should have been close behind him.
There was a sudden rattle from overhead, a stamping of feet, a banging of doors. If Moriarty wasn't on his way now, he would never make it. If the hatch in the closet wasn't closed, they would probably none of them make it. The Count d'Hiver would, assuredly, allow none of them to live.
There, ahead of him, was a glimmer of light from below. It rapidly grew clearer as he crawled, and then he found himself staring down into the illumination of one candle in an otherwise empty closet. He lowered himself down, carefully avoiding the candle. The door was open, and the others awaited him in the room beyond.
It seemed like an hour, although it could not have been more than a minute, before Moriarty's feet appeared at the trap, and the professor dropped into the closet. "Everyone made it safely?" he asked, looking around. "According to our friend, the front door is around to the left. We have no time to spare. Don't stop for anything! The masked men will have gone upstairs in response to d'Hiver's yells. They will be occupied for a time seeking us. We should have little interference down here. Stay close together."
"What of Chardino?" Barnett asked.
"He is keeping our opposition busy by flitting from room to room and drawing them deeper into the house," Moriarty told him. "Come!" He led the way from the little room and down a short corridor to the left, which terminated at a closed door. They met no one. Holmes, taking the lead, opened the door cautiously, peered through, and then closed it.
"As you thought, it is the entrance hall," Holmes whispered. "Front door to the right, gambling rooms to the left. There are six of them, that I could see, standing by the door and doing their best to look vicious. D'Hiver must have alerted them."
"Six?" Moriarty thought for a second. "No matter; we shall have to rush them." He grabbed a chair. "Keep the ladies back here. Put your masks on — it might gain us a second."
Barnett took a deep breath and prepared to follow Moriarty. He was, he decided, becoming a fatalist.
"Now!" Moriarty whispered, and the three of them plunged through the door, Holmes in the center, Barnett hugging the wall on the left, and Moriarty — his chair held chest-high — on the right. The six by the door froze for a moment, staring at the oncoming trio. Perhaps it was the chair that puzzled them. But then, with an assortment of oaths that would have been out of place in any respectable men's club, they rushed to the defense. In a second Barnett found himself assaulted by several men larger than himself.
The area was too small for any effective punching, kicking, or gouging on either side, and there was no room for the use of sticks or canes. Barnett was finding it all he could do to remain where he was, while Holmes, with a flurry of brilliant boxing, was holding three men off and actually making a little progress.
Moriarty, parrying one gigantic doorguard off with his chair, made a dash for the small cloakroom door to the right of the hall. Once inside, he heaved his chair through the small window facing the street, and then ran back to the hall in time to pull a guard off Barnett.
About twenty seconds after the chair went through the window, they heard battering sounds from outside the front door. A minute later Colonel Moran burst through, brass knuckles on each fist, at the head of a flying squad of Moriarty's minions. Colonel Moran scattered the resistance before hi
m like a child scattering marbles, and in seconds the way was clear.
"Good!" Moriarty called. "Now out, quickly, all of you!"
"Let us clean the place out," Colonel Moran insisted.
"Trust me, Colonel," Moriarty told him. "It shall be done. But you get the boys out of here and away — now!"
The habits of a military lifetime were too ingrained to permit argument. Moran barely resisted saluting. "Yes, sir," he said, and gathered his troop before him on his way back out the door.
"Let us get the ladies, Barnett," Moriarty called. "Quickly now!" He went to the door behind which they waited and shooed them into the hall like a mother hen.
Barnett paused at the cloakroom door and grabbed an armful of capes and overcoats, wrapping one around the shoulders of each girl as she passed out into the rain. Moriarty, after seeing them start safely out, darted back to the door of the large gambling room. "Quick!" he called to the house girls who were lounging about awaiting the return of the masked men. "Out into the street! No time to explain! The police are coming! Move — move!"
The urgency in his voice must have communicated itself to the women, because they boiled out of the room and joined him in a mad dash through the outer door.
Barnett stopped on the pavement about one hundred feet from the house to gather the young ladies in his charge. "Around the corner," he told them. "There's a carriage. We won't all fit—"
"I have a four-wheeler on the next block," Holmes volunteered. "It's a rotten shame, isn't it?"
"What?" Barnett asked.
"Whistling for a policeman would accomplish nothing. One or two bobbies could not prevent that assemblage from dispersing all over London. We'll be lucky to apprehend more than a couple of them. There's no way I can get a raiding party here from Scotland Yard in time to do any good at all."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Moriarty said, coming up behind them. He had his watch out, and was staring at the face.
"Why?" Holmes demanded.
"There is no time," Moriarty said, closing the watch and putting it away. "Get down!" he ordered. "All of us. Now! I just hope we're far enough away." He dropped flat to the pavement, and the others followed. Barnett did his best to shield Cecily from whatever was to happen.
The Mummer came running over. "What's happening, Professor?" he demanded, staring down at the group.
Moriarty's hand came up, grabbed Tolliver by the lapel, and pulled him down to the pavement. A second later the earth lifted and heaved, and a sound that was beyond sound filled the air. It seemed to go on and on, and then, abruptly, it stopped. For a few seconds longer there was a new sound, coming from all about them — the splattering, smacking noises of large objects hitting other large objects, or hitting the ground. And then that too died out.
Barnett lifted his head. Where the house had been there were now several fires. But — and this his mind did not grasp for a moment — there was no longer a house.
"Midnight," Moriarty said. "The start of a new day, and the end of the old. Let us go home."
TWENTY-EIGHT — THE GIFT
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game
of
catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels
of
their boots.
— Samuel Foote
Barnett spent the better part of a day composing the letter. It was as short as possible, considering all he had to put into it. He rewrote it fourteen times, and each time was convinced that he sounded just as much like a stuff-shirted prig as the last time. Whenever he tried to lighten the tone, it sounded frivolous to him; and he would not sound frivolous.
Marry me, Cecily, the letter said. And then it went on to tell why. It spoke of love and understanding and mutual aid and trust. It touched on a woman's right to have a career, and how he understood, and was willing to honor that. (Prig!) It skirted the issue of complete independence for women by pointing out that although he most assuredly believed in it himself, that would change neither the laws nor the customs of Great Britain.
It was six pages long in his small script.
In the late afternoon he went over to Cecily Perrine's house. It was a week since the clubhouse had exploded, and Cecily had been confined to her bed for that time, tended by her father. The first three days of bed rest were for her health and recuperation. The last four were more for her father. The old man seemed to feel that her ordeal was somehow his fault, so Cecily stayed in for a few extra days to allow him to fuss over her.
Barnett came over every day, clutching some small idiotic present to his chest as he entered her room. This day he brought a potted plant, which he placed on the window ledge. Then he chatted politely with Cecily for two hours — afterward, he could not remember what they had talked about. As he got up to leave, he handed her the envelope.
"Read this at your leisure," he told her, "after I leave. It tells you how I feel. Somehow I'm afraid that if I try to do it in person, we will get sidetracked and have an argument, which is the last thing I want. Answer me when you are ready."
Then he shook her hand and left. The words that he had intended to add remained stillborn on his lips. He had practiced them, but he could not say them. He had planned to say that he, with this letter, was once more proposing marriage to her, and that if she turned him down this time he would have to stop coming by. Seeing her would become too painful.
That was what he had intended to tell her. But at the last moment he had lost his courage. Supposing she said no — she would probably say no — she had said no once before. Would he actually have the courage to walk away and no longer see the woman he loved? It was probably the wisest thing, but it sounded so final. Perhaps if he stayed around, someday he would ask her a third time, and that time she would say yes.
He shook his head as he walked away from the house. Never would he have believed that he could behave this way. Love, he thought, is an unstable, unkind, thoroughly demoralizing emotion.
-
Back at Russell Square, Moriarty was entertaining a guest. Barnett recognized the visitor as the Indian gentleman who had called himself Singh. "This house," the guest was saying as Barnett entered the study, "the explosion demolished it completely?"
"Utterly," Moriarty said. "My calculations indicate that there must have been at least two hundred pounds of gunpowder packed into the cellar. There was one fireplace standing complete from cellar to chimneypot, like an angry brick finger pointing at the sky, but all else was gone. Bits and pieces of the Hellfire Club were found a quarter mile away."
"How many bodies? The newspaper accounts varied."
"Twenty-six that they could be sure of."
Singh nodded. "Professor. Chardino believed in a vengeful God. A fascinating case, indeed."
Barnett looked curiously at the slender, dapper Indian gentleman, who turned and extended his hand to him as Moriarty introduced them. "Mr. Singh," Moriarty explained, "has come to arrange for the transportation of the treasure. It is being returned to those from whom it was stolen — spiritually, if not actually."
"Ah, Mr. Barnett," Singh said, taking his hand and shaking it briskly, "it is a pleasure to meet you. Allow me to commend you on how well you perform under stress."
"Thank you," Barnett said. "I am grateful for any compliment, but to what occasion are you referring?"
"The incident of the loading of the treasure train," Singh explained. "Your little bit of misdirection was masterfully done!"
"Well, thank you again," Barnett said, smiling. "Were you there?"
"Ah, yes," Singh said. "You would not recognize me, of course, clad, as I was, in a dhoti and busily loading tr
easure chests. I was but scenery — a donkey laborer."
Barnett pointed a finger at him. "You—"
"Indeed," the Indian agreed. "Such is life."
Mr. Maws appeared at the study door. "Mr. Sherlock Holmes is here, and would speak with you," he informed the professor.
"Ah, yes, Holmes. He is expected," Moriarty said. "Send him in."
Holmes stalked through the door and up to Moriarty's desk without acknowledging the presence of anyone else in the room. "I have you now, Professor Moriarty!" he exclaimed. "Professor of thieves!"
Moriarty smiled. "Mr. Holmes," he said. "Allow me to introduce—"
"Your friends?" Holmes chuckled. "I shall shortly introduce you to a judge — and a good British jury. You have gone too far!"
"Of what do we speak?" Moriarty inquired mildly. "Have you a purpose behind this tirade, or is it merely something you've eaten that disagrees with you?"
"That statuette," Holmes said. "That bauble. A bronze statuette of the goddess Uma, one of Shiva's consorts. Worth thousands, according to Lord East. It is one of two identical pieces, over a thousand years old." Holmes consulted a scrap of paper he carried. "One belonged to Lord East, and the other to the Maharaja of Rajasthan." He looked up and glared at Moriarty. "And just how did one of these priceless pieces come into your hands?" He smiled and folded his arms across his chest.
"Allow me to introduce you," Moriarty said, indicating Singh, "to the Maharaja of Rajasthan. Your Highness, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. A bit impolite, but a good solid investigator. When his reach does not exceed his grasp."
The Indian extended his hand. "My pleasure, Mr. Holmes," he said. "I have, of course, heard of you."
Holmes glared at the Maharaja, and then back at Moriarty. He sighed, and a look of resignation crossed his face. "You have, I'm sure, some means of identifying yourself?" he asked the Maharaja.
"But of course," the Maharaja agreed, pulling out a passport. "If there is any doubt, I am known to Lord Pindhurst, her majesty's Minister of Imperial Affairs, as well as to her majesty, Queen Victoria. Indeed, I had lunch with her today."
Professor Moriarty Omnibus Page 57
