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

I had a good two-handed grip on the scimitar. I judged the distance to the door.

The hostess took pity on the monster. She plucked the pearl in her delicate fingers and dropped it into the Creeper’s cupped palm. He peered at it, content for the moment — but also perplexed. He didn’t know what to do now. Then he saw Queen Tera. She stood up, magnificent. Her fluence struck the brute man like a bucketful of ice water. The Creeper’s eyes glowed too, with fresh adoration. Could Margaret cancan? With her long legs and that costume, high kicks would be worth seeing.

Like a queen, Miss Trelawny extended her hand. She snapped her fingers.

Shyly, the Creeper gave away his precious and stood back in worship. Would the transference take? I’d not be surprised if from now on, the giant’s heart beat to follow Queen Tera. If so, I was about to land myself in his bad books.

Margaret Trelawny again made a fist around the Borgia Pearl.

I ran towards her and scythed my blade down on her wrist, neatly lopping off her hand. She shrieked and blood gouted into the Creeper’s face. I snatched up the hand — still shockingly warm — before its grip could relax, and bolted for the stairs.

The giant was temporarily blinded. Miss Trelawny was temporarily distracted. The Grand Master was permanently dead.

I ran through the hallway, naked but for a bandage loincloth, streaking past dazed houris — the gilt had mostly rubbed off — and a sticky law lord. I nearly tripped over a spine-snapped corpse.

Why didn’t people just get out of the Creeper’s way when they had the chance? Miss Trelawny’s cringing staff would have to clear up more mess than usual. Mr Pears’ soap is recommended for getting blood out of your Egyptian altar hangings, by the way.

Still clutching my gruesome prize, I bounded out of Trelawny House. My cab was still waiting. The Creeper hadn’t done away with Chop on his way in.

‘Conduit Street,’ I ordered. ‘Chop-chop, Chop!’

I laughed. Chop-chop, Chop! I’d only needed one chop. In my lap, Margaret Trelawny’s hand opened like a flower. I took the pearl and the ring, and tossed the thing into the gutter for the dogs to fight over. If Queen Tera had all the powers she claimed, her hand might take to crawling after me like a lopsided, strangling spider. I could do without that.

It had been an interesting, eventful day.

XIV

I had a teeth-gnasher of a rage on. Often in the course of our association, I felt an overwhelming urge to box Professor Moriarty’s ears. Or worse. He had taken me into the Firm because — not to put too fine a point on it — I had proven myself more than willing to gamble my skin on any number of occasions, just to feel the iron rise in my blood and cock a snook at death. So, by his lights, I had volunteered to be put repeatedly in harm’s way and shouldn’t complain about it.

However, that little trick with the Borgia Pearl — slipped into my supposedly undetectable secret pocket — was typical high-handedness. Admittedly, things had sorted themselves out in our favour. Equally admittedly, if the Prof had troubled to inform me of the stratagem, I’d have refused to go along with it. All for risk, disinclined to suicide: that’s me.

Deep down, despite his genius, I couldn’t help but think Moriarty threw the pieces up in the air and hoped for the best, then claimed it had come out exactly to plan. It’d have been the same to him if the Creeper had crushed my spine or Maniac Marge had mummified me or the Grand Master had done whatever it is Grand Masters do to those who annoy them. He wasn’t notably upset by the fate of Runty Reg, and the lookout had been with the Firm longer than I.

Still, with a balloon of brandy and a fresh set of clothes, I calmed down and could even feel a pride of achievement. Every item on the shopping list was scored through:

1. The Green Eye of the Yellow God

2. The Black Pearl of the Borgias

3. The Falcon of the Knights of St John

4. The Jewels of the Madonna of Naples

5. The Jewel of Seven Stars

6. The Eye of Balor

Any one of these keepsakes would have been a premier haul, but six within forty-eight hours was a miracle.

The Professor stood in front of the glittering sideboard, hands out as if feeling the warmth of a fire. His head oscillated. Then, he clapped his hands.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No detectable supernatural power. These objects effect no change in temperature or barometric pressure. Miracles or malign mischances do not occur in their vicinity. They are simply trouvées men have arbitrarily decided to value.’

‘I don’t know, Moriarty,’ I said. ‘I’ve been feeling rum all day. I don’t say it’s the curses, but your Crown jewels have something. If enough people pray to the things, maybe they pick up juju the way a blanket gets wet if you empty a bucket of water on it?’

The Professor’s lip curled.

‘Whatever you or I think, plenty have invested so much belief in these prizes they’d kill or die to get ’em back,’ I said. ‘If that’s not supernatural, I don’t know what is.’

‘Foolishness, and a distraction,’ he said.

I conceded, with a shrug, he might be right. The wallahs who were after these pretties grew stupider as they neared their objects of desire. Even the Creeper, who was already an imbecile. At a glimpse of the sparklers, they lost habits of self-preservation. A fanatic flame burned in the lot of ’em. You could see it in their eyes.

‘One thing puzzles me yet,’ I admitted.

Moriarty raised a hawkish eyebrow, inviting the question.

‘What has this collection got to do with saving Mad Carew’s worthless hide? The heathen priests are still after him. After us, too, since we’ve got their Green Eye. Now, we’ve also to worry about the Creeper, the Templars, the Fenians, the Camorra and the Ancient Egyptian mob. We’re more cursed now than when we started and Carew’s no better off.’

Using a secret spyglass — which meant not presenting a tempting silhouette in the front window — Moriarty had kept up with the comings and goings in Conduit Street. Mostly comings.

We were besieged.

The gelato stand was open, well after the usual hours and in contravention of street trading laws. Don Rafaele Corbucci was at his post, though he’d dropped the tutsi-frutsi call. A gang of scene-shifters gathered around, including dark-eyed Malilella of the stiletto. They all stared up at the building, licking non-poisonous ice cream cornets.

The Pillars of Hercules had fallen ominously silent, but stout Sons of Erin loitered outside, whittling on cudgels. Among them, I distinguished a tall, better-dressed goon with a bright-green bowler hat and a temperance ribbon. Tyrone Mountmain, with a pocketful of dynamite. Aunt Sophonisiba was there too. No one quaffed from the flask she offered round, disproving the old saw that an Irishman will drink anything if it’s free.

The armoured monks held their corner. Bereft of a Grand Master, they still had vows to uphold. Moriarty said a new Grand Master would be elected within hours. The Knights of St John openly held swords and crossbows. We’d already had a bolt through the window.

A dark carriage was parked across the street. In it, a veiled woman with an alabaster hand sat alongside a grim giant. Margaret Trelawny and the Creeper remained, at least for the moment, an unlikely item. How had she got the hand so quickly? A few of her cult-followers stood about, fancy dress under their coats. Slaves, I suppose.

As for our original persecutors, the priests of the little yellow god… some of the rubbish heaps stood up on brown legs. A troupe of Nepalese street jugglers put on a poor show. Did they feel crowded by the presence of so many other groups of our enemies?