Kim Newman - Professor Moriarty The Hound of the D'Urbervilles

‘True, true…’

‘…and if anyone has a chance of cracking the egg’s secrets, it is you.’

‘No doubt.’

I fancied I caught a slight smirk from Polly. I told her she could be about her business. She left.

‘It must have been fate that brought you to Cave’s emporium. Cave is dead, by the way. The police report says “spontaneous combustion”, if you can credit it. There has been a rash of such phenomena. Almost an epidemic. Colonel Moran and I had a brush with the heat weapons, two nights back. We were separated afterwards. His nerve snapped. Terrible thing when a brave man’s nerve goes. He’s faced tigers and native rebels and charging elephants, but that flash from the copper tube boiled away all his heart. You saw Moran yesterday, I believe — before they caught up to him.’

‘I saw no one yesterday.’

‘In the Strand, outside Simpson’s. Moran would have seemed, ah, irrational. Lord knows, we all act like cuckoos. With what we have in our heads. It’s only to be expected. A big man, Moran. Red-complected…’

I remembered. The madman who was taken away by the hump-backed policeman.

‘Moran brought me into the League. He’s a big-game hunter and adventurer. He found the first of the eggs, in a temple in India. It was the eye of an idol worshipped by an obscene cult. When the light fell into the temple on certain days of the year, the portal opened and the cultists saw their “gods”. You know what they really saw, Stent. The men of Mars. Those tentacles, those eyes, those mouth parts! Another crystal was looted from the collection of the Emperor of China, carved into a goblet. I would not drink from that goblet for all the tea in its rightful owner’s dominions, would you? A third was found fresh, among the hot fragments of a new-fallen meteorite in the California desert. All these came to the League, and all have been taken — taken back, one might say.’

Og kept glancing at the crystal. I worried that he would snatch it from the telescope and flee the house.

‘This one was sent here, to England. I don’t know how Cave came by it. Dishonestly, I suppose.’

‘It is mine,’ I reminded him. ‘Paid for and bought.’

He wasn’t listening to me. ‘Stent, have they seen you? The portal opens both ways. That we can see them is incidental, an accident, a flaw in the great plan. From the other side, from Mars, they spy us. Spy on us. It’s what the eggs are for. They are taking our measure, making a study. Drawing plans. At first, the meteorites just brought the eggs. It’s only recently that they have come. Just a few, but enough — for their purpose. Across millions of miles of empty space! What explorers they must be, what conquerors! They ready their armada, Stent, their fleet…’

I concede that Og was alarming me. A great deal of what he said struck me as fanciful drivel. Conquerors, indeed — what nonsense, as if creatures without hands or clothing could hope to stand up to the military might of Great Britain! But I worried there were eggs in other hands. Dangerous hands — other scientists eager to ‘scoop’ the Great Stent. If half of what Og said is true, someone else might publish first.

I cannot let that happen.

The doorbell rang. Mrs H. came into the study, and presented a carte de visite.

Colonel Sebastian Moran, Conduit Street.

‘Your comrade in the League has extricated himself from the police,’ I told Og.

The fellow looked further stricken, which was not what I expected. I got little sense from him. I feared this would also be true of Moran — yesterday, he had been singing from the same hymn book.

‘Don’t let him in,’ said Og, grabbing my lapel. ‘In the name of all that’s…’

‘There’s a policeman with the caller, sir,’ said Mrs H. ‘Constable Purbright.’

I could not have been more relieved. With all the ranting, raving and lapel grabbing, a policeman might be just what the doctor ordered. Clap these madmen in irons, and leave me to conclude my Marsian studies.

‘Show them in,’ I said.

‘Very good, Sir Nevil. Don’t you be straining yourself. Remember you’re not a well man.’

Og threw himself into an armchair, in a pose of stark terror. Under his sunburn, he even went pale.

‘Hullo… Sir… Nevil… Hullo… Ogilvy…’

It was the madman from the Strand, but much changed. His demeanour was more sober, respectable. His voice was uninflected, somehow metallic. And, since yesterday, he had grown a humpback. A long, red scarf wound around his neck, ends trailing down his back.

‘Good… morning… gentlemen,’ said the police constable beside Moran.

They could have been brothers, with the same shifting deformity, the same strange manner of speech.

‘Keep them away from me,’ shrieked Og ‘They’re… them !’

‘Don’t… make… a… fuss… old… chap.’ Moran and Purbright spoke in unison, like a music hall turn. Their voices scraped the nerves. I was overcome by a powerful wish that all my visitors would leave. I could do with a medicinal tot and some peace.

The constable walked, stiff-legged, across the room, to the telescope. He laid a hand on the crystal egg.

‘That’s delicate scientific equipment,’ I warned Purbright.

‘Evidence… sir,’ he said, twisting the egg free.

‘I must protest…’

‘Obey… the… law…’ Colonel Moran said.

Moran was in my way. Beyond him, I saw the constable slipping the crystal egg into his tunic.

‘I paid five pounds for that!’

‘Stolen… goods…’ Moran said.

I tried to strong-arm him out of the way, but he was immovable. My hand fell on his hump, and his long scarf unwound, showing where his jacket seam was split by the swelling. An angry, inhuman eye looked out from the hole! Sinewy, venous scarlet ropes wound around Moran’s exposed neck. A beak-like barb was fixed to his throat, under the ear, blood dribbling from the conjunction.

A cowardly knee met my groin and I doubled over.

When I righted myself, Moran had rearranged his scarf. I knew what I had seen.

Og leaped up from the chair and flew at Moran.

From a pocket, Moran pulled a curious object — a tube with a burnished copper disc at one end. A beam of light seemed to project from this — and fell on Og, whose jacket started smoking. With a scream, Og fled from the room, down the hall, and out of the house. His clothes were on fire.

Moran turned to me. Purbright had also produced one of the heat-casting devices. Both were aimed in my direction.

I was in danger. But if the egg left the house, I would have no proof, no basis for my findings!

Og’s screams still echoed.

‘We… must… be… going…’ Moran said.

‘Not with my crystal egg.’

The copper discs were glinting at me. But I was resolute. No somnambulists, puppeteered by angry-eyed inhuman humps, would stand between me and recognition for my achievements.

‘I am Sir Nevil Airey Stent, the Astronomer Royal,’ I reminded them. ‘I will thank you to return my property. On this world, sirs, I am not to be sneezed at.’

‘Sneezed… at?’ they both said.

At that inopportune moment, my cold struck again — and I had a sneezing fit.

This had the most peculiar effect on my threatening guests. They turned tail, in something like panic, and ran. Purbright dropped the egg which — mercifully — did not shatter. As they ran, they slumped over, arms dangling uselessly, heads lolling — as if they were piloted by their tentacular humps, who could no longer concentrate on even the semblance of normal conduct.

My sheer physical presence, and the dignity of my office, had overwhelmed these creatures.