"There would be no point at all," the Master Incarnate declared savagely. "It isn't, and it wouldn't change things for you if it were. Take him!"
Five of the burly servitors leaped for Holmes, who lifted his walking stick and whirled it about him, fairly making it sing as he beat them off. In an instant two of them were down, and the remaining three were circling respectfully out of range of the lean detective and his three feet of ash.
Barnett gathered himself to rush to Holmes's aid, but he felt Moriarty's restraining hand on his shoulder. "To the other door!" Moriarty whispered urgently. "That door over there. I shall bring Holmes. Prepare to open it for us as we arrive, and close it firmly and promptly once we are through. Go now!"
Barnett sidled over to the door Moriarty had indicated and put his hand on the knob. Assuring himself that it opened easily, he nodded his readiness to the professor.
With a broad gesture, Professor Moriarty whipped his mask off and blew two sharp blasts on a police whistle. Everyone in the room froze in position for a second, forming a bizarre tableau that would remain forever etched on Barnett's memory.
"Over here, Mr. Holmes," Moriarty called. "I must ask the rest of you to remain where you are. You are all under arrest! Constables, take charge of these men!"
Without waiting to find out where these constables were, or where they might have come from, the masked Hellfires in the room made a dash, as one, for the far door. Count d'Hiver screamed at them to stop, yelling that Moriarty was a fraud, that it wasn't so; but they did not pause to listen. In a few seconds there was a plug of human bodies squeezing ever harder into the entrance door. Two men had already lost their footing, and were down under the pack, with little hope of getting up. As Barnett watched, another man was lifted bodily from the doorway by several others and hurried over many heads to the ground at the rear.
Holmes broke free and leaped across to where Moriarty stood, imposingly, belligerently firm, next to a couch. "This way," Moriarty said, and the two of them stalked across the room to the door Barnett was guarding for them. In a second they were through it, and Moriarty threw the two heavy bolts on the far side.
"This should hold them for a few minutes," the professor said. "Time enough for us to do what we have to, if we get to it."
"Glad to see you, Moriarty," Holmes gasped, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. "Never thought I'd hear myself saying that. You do show up in the oddest places, though."
"I didn't expect to find you here, either, Holmes," Moriarty commented. "And what on earth have you been doing in the cellar?"
"But I wasn't in the cellar, old man," Holmes replied. "I have no idea what that was about."
"Curious," the professor said, "very curious. But come now, there's work to be done. We can compare notes some other time."
"You realize there's almost certainly no way out of this unusual establishment from this side of this door?" Holmes asked. "We have managed to place ourselves one step deeper into the web. As soon as Count d'Hiver and his cohorts are over their momentary confusion, admirably contrived though it was, they will surely assault this door with a convincing show of strength."
"True," Moriarty admitted. "But what we have come here for is certainly up these stairs. I would not leave before accomplishing my goal, and I'm quite sure that Mr. Barnett would not allow it were I to attempt to do so."
Holmes glanced at the still-masked Barnett. "So that's who you are," he said. "Should have known. Glad you're here. And now, just what is it that we are after? Ah! Of course! Miss Perrine; I should have guessed."
They made their way cautiously up the narrow staircase, Moriarty in the lead, and found themselves about a third of the way along a hallway that ran down the middle of the upper floor. There were rooms off each side, and each of the rooms had been fitted with a heavy, solid door, with a strong bolt affixed to the outside.
Moriarty threw open the door to the nearest room, and found it empty; but there were a pair of posts fastened to the floor in the center of the room, with leather thongs running through eyebolts in the posts. Barnett did not like to contemplate what such an apparatus might be used for.
In the next room they tried there was a girl, clad only in a white shift, who shrank away from them in horror as they opened the door. The shift was in tatters, and they could see the strips across her back and thighs where she had been beaten. It was not Cecily Perrine.
"It's all right, miss," Sherlock Holmes said, advancing into the room. "We've come to get you out of here. It's all right, really it is. We won't hurt you." He continued talking to the girl and walking slowly toward her, as she, eyes wide, speechless with fear, retreated into the farthest corner of the room.
"See here, Holmes, there's no time for this," Moriarty said. He turned to the girl. "Any minute now there's going to be an awful row. Those people who have done this to you are going to try to stop us from freeing you and the others. You'd best come with us now, and help with the other girls as we release them. We'll see if we can find a room where you can bolt the door from the inside. When it's all over, I shall see that you and any other ladies up here are removed from this place and taken care of. Properly. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," the girl said, but her voice was heavy with doubt and fear.
Moriarty reached around inside his jacket, behind his back, and, after fumbling for a second, pulled out a long, flat leather truncheon. "Come here, girl," he said. "Take this. If anyone approaches you while we are otherwise occupied, hit them in the face with it. Aim for the nose. That will discourage them."
The girl came forward hesitantly and took the proffered instrument. "I shall," she said, slapping it tentatively against the palm of her hand. She winced, finding the device surprisingly painful. "I shall," she repeated, staring directly into Moriarty's eyes. Her voice gained strength. "I shall! Oh, indeed, I shall."
"Very good," Moriarty said. "Now, stay close behind us."
They returned to the hallway. "I doubt if we have much time," Moriarty said. "Each of you take a room. Dispose of any resident masked men in it as you see fit—as rapidly as you can. I suggest we open all these doors immediately, and release any more captive young ladies."
"I—think—so," Holmes said, staring back at the strange, dreadful equipment in the room they had just left. "How horrible. It is difficult to believe that these men are Englishmen."
"I occasionally find it difficult to believe that our Parliamentary representatives are Englishmen," Moriarty remarked dryly. "Let us proceed; I think I hear pounding from below. If either of you happen to notice a window facing the front of the house—which would be that side, there—kindly heave some article of furniture through it."
Holmes looked speculatively at Moriarty. "Some of your minions downstairs?" he asked. "Well, I shall be glad to see them. I fancy all the windows are boarded up; there seems to be a false wall across that side of all the rooms."
In the third room that Barnett entered he found himself staring at a scene that he would never forget. The floor was bare and covered with sawdust, and at its center was a six-foot oaken X which dominated the room. Cecily Perrine, clad only in a long white shift, had just been unchained from an eyelet bolted to the wall and, her hands bound with thick cord, was being dragged across the floor by a short, thickset, hooded man.
The man giggled inanely as he pulled Cecily toward the oaken torture device. He brandished a short, many-stranded whip which he flicked occasionally into the empty air as though to get in practice for the delights that would follow.
"My God!" Barnett screamed.
Cecily turned and stared impassively at this second hooded man who now stood in the doorway.
The man with the whip pushed Cecily aside and whirled around. "What are you doing in here?" he demanded petulantly. "Get out! Get out! This is my room. Mine! She is mine! Get out! You know better than this!" He bounced up and down with excitement and anger, and waved his whip at Barnett. "Leave!"
Barnett snatched at
the whip, pulling it out of the man's grasp. "You bastard!" he yelled, scarcely aware of what he was saying. "You slime! What are you doing with this woman?"
"She's mine," the thickset man insisted in a shrill voice. "I paid for her, didn't I? Now you just get out of here, or I'll report you to the Master Incarnate. Get your own female!"
Barnett could feel the blood rising to his face, and the mantle of reason lifted itself from the primitive emotions beneath. Like a distant observer, cool and detached, he watched himself lift the short whip and bring its weighted handle down again and again on the head of the thickset man. The man fell to the floor, and Barnett stopped—not through compassion, but because the target of his rage was now out of reach.
Slowly the haze cleared from before his eyes and he looked at Cecily. Then he quickly looked away. He did not want to see her like this, he did not want ever to think of her like this, bound and helpless, and subject to the whims of evil men.
He crossed to where she lay and quickly, tenderly, untied her hands. "Cecily," he said, "what have they done to you?" To his surprise, he found that he was crying.
"Benjamin?" she whispered. "Is it you?"
He took his mask off—he had forgotten it was still on—and held her to him for a long moment. There was a robe in the corner which he used to cover her. "Can you walk?" he asked. "We must hurry."
"Yes," she said. "Get me away from here."
There were a total of seven women in the various rooms of this upper floor, and, at that moment, five men. Moriarty immobilized the men by tying their thumbs together behind their backs with short pieces of wire, which he produced from one of his innumerable pockets. By this time they could hear a steady pounding noise coming up from the door below.
"There is no other way out," Holmes said. "I have tried all the doors. Presumably we could find our way to the roof, but what then? It's a long way to the ground."
"I suggest we remove the false wall from one of the rooms facing the front of the house," Moriarty said. "If I can get to a window, I can get assistance."
"What good could your men do us now?" Holmes demanded. "They're down there and we're up here."
"A group of determined men assaulting the front door." Moriarty pointed out, "would at least provide a much-needed diversion. It would most probably complete the job of panicking the rank and file."
"Perhaps I can be of some assistance," a deep, well-modulated voice said from behind them.
They all turned. A tall man in elegant evening dress bowed to them politely before removing the mask that covered his face. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said, with just the slightest hint of a Middle European accent coloring his flawless English. "My name is Adolphus Chardino."
"Ah!" Moriarty said.
"Who are you?" Holmes demanded, shielding the seven young ladies behind him.
"That is of no moment at the present," Chardino said.
What is meaningful is that I can assist you in your efforts to leave." He removed a large pocket watch from his vest and glanced at it. "And I would earnestly suggest that you hurry; it would be wise to be gone within the next fourteen minutes."
"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 n
ever 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."
The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus Page 61
