Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of The D’urbervilles (16 page)

An elderly Frenchman from the front row got up and took a closer look at the bell, squinting through pince-nez.

‘This is a “hot beam” device,’ said Stent, voice cracking. ‘A weapon of Mars!’

He aimed it at the now-bewildered crowd, as if willing it to burst them into flame. Of course, we weren’t smeared with the slow-acting chemical concoction which provided the fire when the pretend guns were used in Flamsteed House.

‘This is a squid,’ announced the Frenchman. ‘Someone has cruelly dyed it red. An uncommon specimen, but not unknown.’

Some laughter was forthcoming. A paper dart, folded from a program, zoomed from the back of the room and sliced past Stent’s head.

‘This is the Marsian King,’ Stent told the onion eater. ‘Roi Marty. You, sir, are an unqualified dolt. You know nothing of alien worlds.’

‘Eh bien,
perhaps,’ the Frenchman admitted. ‘But I,
monsieur,
am Professor Pierre Arronax, greatest living authority on denizens of the deep. In debate about the courses of the stars, I would allow you are far more expert than I. However, in matters of marine biology, you are a child of five and I am an encyclopaedia on legs. This, I repeat, is a squid. An unhealthy squid.’

‘I say, Stent, is that the sick squid you owe me?’ brayed one wit.

‘Here here,’ shouted a vocal clique of Arronax supporters. ‘A squid, a squid!’

Stent’s world was collapsing. He knew not what to say. His mouth opened and closed, but no words issued forth. I saw he was desperate for an infusion of Dr Tirmoary’s – damn fine stuff, let me tell you, though even I would caution against excessive use. The Astronomer Royal pressed his fists to his temples as if to shut out the catcalls and retreat into his own ‘sunnar system’. There, many-limbed things crawled across the sands of Mars, intent on climbing into three-legged suits of armour, hurling themselves at the Earth to subjugate humanity for food and amusement.

Moriarty’s facial tendons were tight as leather drum skin dried in the sun, making his face a skull-mask rictus of glee. His eyes lit up like Chinese lanterns. I’d wager every muscle in the old ascetic’s stringy body was tight with sordid pleasure. He got like that when he had his way. Other fellahs might pop a bottle of fizz or nip down to Mrs H.’s for a turn with a trollop, but the Professor just went into these brain-spasms of evil ecstasy.

Huxley left the hall in disgust, followed by a dignified procession. Some of his colleagues, perhaps pettier, stayed to jeer. The draper’s clerk poked his head in, and asked if he’d missed anything.

‘Wait, don’t leave,’ Stent said, vainly. He viciously pressed a stud on his copper tube. No one caught fire. ‘There’s danger in disbelief. The Marsians are coming! You fools, you must listen. If you don’t support me, you’re next! They’re here! The Marsians are among us!’

At that moment, Moriarty gave a signal.

Our people stood up in their seats – one or two were stationed ‘backstage’ – and lobbed struggling missiles at Stent. Out of water, the squid didn’t last long – but they fought hard, as Polly and I can bear witness, getting tentacles around something convenient and squeezing madly while internal pressure blew them up like balloons. It was a sight to see, but most of the paying customers were gone.

A volley of squid fell upon Stent. He yelled and slipped, knocking over the lectern. Tentacles wound around his legs, his waist, one hand. A squid fixed to his lower face like a mask, beak thrust into his mouth in a ghastly kiss, shutting off his screams. Plastered with
vampyroteuthis,
he threw a full-on fit, back arching, limbs twitching. Eventually, attendants came and pried burst, dead creatures off him.

Arronax tried to lodge a protest at this mistreatment of rare specimens, but slipped into French to do it and was properly ignored. There are idiot Englishwomen (of both sexes) who would be generally happier to see children whipped, starved, laughed at, shot and mounted in the Moran den than brook any abuse of their ‘furry or feathered friends’ – but it was a rare crank, like Pop-eyed Pierre, who gave two hoots for anything with tentacles and a beak.

With all our wriggling shots fired, the Professor gave the nod – and our picked men melted into the crowds, well paid and frankly little the wiser for tonight’s business. When Moriarty handed over coin and told you to bowl a squid at an astronomer, your wisest course was to ask ‘over-arm or roundarm?’ and get on with play.

As a strait-waistcoat was strapped around him, Stent begged for an infusion of Dr T.’s. He had the shakes, the sweats and the abdabs at the same time. All his strings were cut.

It so happened that the director of Purfleet Asylum – a far less pleasing official residence than Flamsteed – was in the audience, and well positioned to take the babbling madman off Lady Caroline’s hands. I think she had papers already drawn up, assuming control of all Sir Nevil’s estates and monies. Being the second daughter of an Earl doesn’t come with much ready cash, but getting hold of the Stent fortune would do her for a while. I made a note to look her up.

The Astronomer Royal was carried from Burlington House, strapped to a stretcher.

We lingered in the imposing hallway, lined with portraits of past presidents. The attendants paused for a moment. Moriarty leaned over his now-broken nemesis.

Stent’s eyes rolled upwards. His cheeks were striped red and dotted with horribly familiar sucker marks. He tried to focus on the face looming over him, the thin-lipped leering countenance of the author of
The Dynamics of an Asteroid.

‘I have, I think, made my point,’ said Professor Moriarty. ‘And you, Stent, have finally learned your lesson.’

As I entered our reception room, a slicing noise alerted me. A stick slashed at my head. I arrested its arc with a quick grab. As part of an unending ‘testing process’, Moriarty often tried to catch associates off guard. Some, not having my jungle-honed instincts, got broken heads.

I let the cane go and the Prof handed it to me.

Some lackwit had called while we weren’t in. Mrs Halifax had turfed him out, but he’d left his stick behind. That foul October, London was full of fools tapping through vile, yellow fog. Angry blighters collided at every corner and laid about each other like Italian duellists. Pickpockets left watches, but snatched canes.

‘Moran, what can you
deduce
about the owner of this item?’

Moriarty had picked up a craze for
deductions.
Don’t know where he got it from. Don’t bloody care. When I met him, he was set against guessing games. Still, when he was in a mood for ratiocination, it was best to humour him.

‘Apart from that he’s a forgetful sod, you mean?’

The Prof leered at my pleasantry.

I paced, swinging the stick, deliberately just missing scientific implements, pots of inestimable value and souvenirs of crimes past. Moriarty hissed as prized fetishes were in peril. Served him right for the blasted ‘testing process’. I seldom miss a shot, but confess I’ve sometimes missed
just missing. A
stuffed dodo under glass wobbled. Moriarty’s eyes glowed like wreckers’ lights. I stopped larking.

The stick was a specimen of the ‘Calcutta Clobberer’ or ‘Chicago Good-Night’. A decent heft, solid lead handle and longer than usual. It had seen hard use. Stains dried to black; I knew my night-work – fresh, they’d been red.

I spouted my
deductions.

‘I should say this belongs to a chap who makes a habit of dashing the brains out of puppies, breaking the shins of beggars and throwing his weight around. A right bastard, I’ll be bound. Oh, and taller than the average. Does that cover it?’

Moriarty’s head craned from side to side. ‘As it happens, our prospective client’s legitimacy is in dispute.’

Hah! A client.

That wasn’t much of a deduction. Visitors to our Conduit Street HQ either wanted a consultation or were dragged squealing into Mrs Halifax’s basement with a flour sack over their heads. In basement cases, I’d often use my favourite cane – a flexible, steel-cored ‘house prefect’s coach-whip’, relic of cherished boyhood days. Many conversations flow better if punctuated with thwacks.

‘Anyone we know?’ I asked.

Moriarty flicked a calling card at me, putting spin on it. As I bent down to pick it up, he showed teeth in a mirthless gurn.

JASPER STOKE, TRANTRIDGE, WESSEX.

In a long life spent at gaming tables, in brothels, up mountains and in the bush, I’ve gained valuable insights into human nature. Anyone called ‘Jasper’ is an arrogant, untrustworthy scoundrel. Anyone called ‘Cedric’ is liable to be worse. And anyone called ‘Piers’ should be shot on sight. Don’t say you’ve never learned anything from my memoirs, for these are True Facts.

In the criminous line, arrogant, untrustworthy scoundrels might be valued customers. The Prof’s reputation for ingenious mercilessness convinces Jaspers and Cedrics to modify their habits in one particular. Your slick wastrel thinks nought of running up sky-high tabs on the never-never with tradesmen. However, the most unreliable gadabout – even a
Piers –
understands that a bill from Professor Moriarty must be settled to the farthing the instant it falls due. Otherwise, the flour sack and the Eton whip are but the beginning of a hard education.

‘Wessex,’ I spat. ‘Been through it on a train a time or two. Sheep-shagger country. Nothing worth shooting except wild ponies and potty parsons. Can’t say I’ve heard of Jasper Stoke. Is Trantridge a village or a house?’

‘Both. An estate of six thousand acres, it incorporates an ancient forest called The Chase. Trantridge Hall has been in the Stoke family since 1855. Properly, the tribe are the Stoke
-d’Urbervilles.
When the usurer Simon Stoke bought the property, he conjoined his humble name with that of a distinguished family thought extinct.’

‘This Jasper is Old Simon’s son?’

‘Nephew. Simon’s son and heir was killed over twenty years ago.’

‘Oh ho! Did slippery Jasper ease his way to the fortune with grease on the back stairs or ground glass in the brandy butter?’

‘Alexander Stoke-d’Urberville was murdered by his mistress, Theresa Clare. A stupid girl who, to complicate matters, claimed descent from the d’Urbervilles. She was hanged at Wintoncester. I despise amateurs, Moran. Murder is a calling. Few have the gift.’
^[1]

I wasn’t surprised Moriarty could spout the facts. He committed volumes of the
Newgate Calendar
to memory, and had the lives of Jonathan Wild or Charley Peace off by heart. Reverting to the monotone drone which hampered his original career as a university lecturer, he would bore the Conduit Street Comanche with lectures about ill-prepared, foolish fellows – or, as here, fillies – who ventured unwisely into the field of crime. These digressions were
Bedtime Stories for Bad Boys:
instead of ‘Say your prayers and wash your hands or else nanny will give you a smack and your best tin soldier will be given to the poor children,’ it was ‘Scout your lay beforehand and eliminate your witnesses or else Sergeant Bigboots will truncheon your bonce and Jack Ketch will give you the Drop.’

‘The slut muddied the waters of succession by birthing at least one bastard,’ he continued. ‘Her issue by Alexander might have inherited.’

‘Don’t hold with cousins breeding. The whelps always have withered arms or come out as giant frogs.’

‘By most accounts, the child did not survive infancy.’

I looked again at the card. ‘So Jasper don’t want his family tree pruned?’

‘All we know is that he has lived the greater part of his life in the Americas, North and South. He intends to take possession of his family seat and assume the life of a country gentleman.’

‘You deduced this from his bloody walking stick?’

‘No, I read this in the bloody
Times.’

A three-month-old newspaper lay on the table. In quiet moments, Moriarty would clip unusual words and proper names out of headlines – they came in handy for anonymous letters of instruction, persuasion or revelation. The section on ‘lately arrived’ visitors debarking from ships included a notice: ‘having lived the greater part of his life in the Americas, North and South, Mr Jasper Stoke now intends to take possession of his family seat and assume the life of a country gentleman’. I assumed that meant bouncing milkmaids, sheltering from sheets of rain in his leaky mansion, and pickling himself in poisonous Wessex ‘scrumpy’.

Moriarty stood at the bay window.

‘What d’you suppose Stoke wants with us?’ I asked.

‘I’ve no idea, Moran. But we shall find out soon enough. A man wearing an American hat is on the point of grasping our bell-pull.’

In Mrs Halifax’s parlour, a bell jangled as someone yanked the chain in a frenzy. Usually, this signified the imminence of one of several regulars who paid to be secreted in a boudoir wardrobe with peepholes. For them, frenzied yanking was a way of life. I
deduced
this caller, coarsened by the Americas, was unfamiliar with civilised trappings like doorbells, roofs and trouser buttons.