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

The Professor stood to one side, watching his brother.

One other thing: Young James Moriarty hadn’t asked who I might be.

During the journey, I’d ferreted out that everyone else present had received a personal invitation. Though his note to the Professor referred to ‘you and your party’, the Stationmaster could scarcely have expected his brother — a maths master, so far as anyone knew — to show up at Fal Vale with a war-scarred, semi-notorious reprobate in tow. Most folk would be astonished that Professor Moriarty was even on a nodding acquaintance with the ferocious Basher Moran. So, I reckoned Young James already knew who I was. Unlike Colonel Moriarty, he had an idea what business the Prof was really in. Our Stationmaster hid his dark lantern under a bushel in the Cornish wilds, but some stratagem boiled in his Moriarty brain.

‘Now, about this worm…’ Young James began. ‘What am I bid for its secrets?’

V

I had not expected to attend an auction in the waiting room of an obscure railway station. Apparently, the ‘secrets of the worm’ were on the block. I couldn’t say whether Stationmaster Moriarty intended his brother to join the bidding or had invited the Professor to observe and be impressed.

None of the other Special passengers immediately stuck up paws, scratched noses or waved sheaves of banknotes. The game had changed quickly, and our pack of psychic investigators were still playing the last hand.

Young James looked pleased with himself.

‘The legend of the Fal Vale Worm is well known,’ he said. Stepping aside, he pointed to an indifferent, faded picture hung over the fireplace. It showed a creature slithering white coils among green Cornish hills. Hairless and earless, it had a catlike snarl and human eyes. A knight in armour raised a lance against plumes of flame pouring from the beast’s nostrils. Rude peasants sensibly scattered away from the titanic combat. The creature had no legs, but from the peculiar way the unknown artist had depicted the running peasants I judged legs weren’t his strong suit, so he might have been tempted to leave them out.

‘The story is old as clay,’ the Stationmaster continued. ‘An undying beast, native to the depths of the ancient mine-workings, the worm emerges by night to exhale infernal flame. Every village hereabouts has an inn called The White Dragon where folktale collectors buy drinks for yokels who trot out their family legends. Always, someone claims their grandfather or great-uncle saw or met or fought the worm, and it’s always some other man’s grandfather who got burned or eaten. You have variations on this theme all over the country, in remote regions where a Beast of the Bog or a Wyvern of the Wold might hide away from the local hunt or the catchers from London Zoo.’

He produced another framed picture to spice up the narrative, a photograph of a canvas and papier-mâché worm with twelve human legs protruding from its body posing against a stone wall. It had a snarling, frilly eyebrowed, fanged head at either end.

Young James continued, ‘Every year at the Padstow May Day Festival, a team of six Fal Vale men represent the worm. They skirmish in the street with rivals from other villages who dress up as ’obby ’osses.’

Evidently, lecturing was a Moriarty family trait. I wished Young James would hurry up and get to it.

‘Uncommonly for its breed, the Fal Vale Worm has been active lately, and left evidence of its night work. You will have seen notices in the press of the fires which have troubled this area in the last few months; fires which will not be put out by buckets of water. Copses and haystacks turned to white ash. Fields brown and smoking after heavy rain. A farm at Compton Dando burned to the ground. A scarecrow caught fire two nights ago, and the black skeleton of a crucified man was found where the scarecrow had stood.’

The Professor nodded. If he had known about this incendiary outbreak, he hadn’t shared the information.

‘There is natural explanation,’ Sabin insisted.

‘You never know, though,’ Lucas said. ‘Not with a worm.’

‘I doubt a spirit would cause such harm,’ Doone said.

I was not immediately inclined to conclude that the Fal Vale Worm was the genuine article. My first suspect would be some sweaty, burn-marked little fellow with a box of lucifers, a jug of paraffin and a heart which skips whenever anything catches light.

We had a couple of firebugs on our lists; gents who go by names like Benny Blazes, Tim the Torch or Firebrand Sam. Even if there’s a solid bit of profit, from insurance or otherwise, to be had, it makes sense to use someone who knows — and loves — fire to perform arson duties. They’ll do it for nothing but jollies, for a start. The flame which burns when doused with water is a firebug tell. It’s not magic, just a mix of chemicals: they all have favourite recipes and jealously guard their secret ingredients.

‘The worm has been seen,’ the Stationmaster said, ‘zooming along the rail bed outside, disappearing into the tunnel faster than any train. I can produce sworn testimony. But sworn testimony will not, I believe, impress anyone in this room. I shall accept no bids until you’ve the evidence of your own senses.’

He smiled, readily. Not an expression I associated with his brothers. From his waistcoat pocket, he produced a railwayman’s watch.

‘If we forsake the comfort of this room for a few moments, we may bear witness to an, ah, occult phenomenon.’

‘…Which runs on a timetable, James?’

‘Yes, James. Punctually.’

‘Many spirits are affected by cycles of the moon,’ Doone put in.

I had the uneasy feeling I was the only one in the room completely in the dark. It was plain we were no longer hunting ghosts.

‘I say,’ Lucas said. ‘Where’s our Carnacki toddled off to?’

Madame Valladon swore in German.

The imposter had slipped out of the room when everyone else was paying attention to the Stationmaster. He had left his pipe propped by a stopped clock, so his smell lingered.

‘This is not to be tolerated,’ Sabin declared.

‘Raw-ther,’ Lucas agreed.

‘Mayhap Mr Carnacki was an astral projection all along?’ ventured Doone.

‘An astral projection who left the door open?’ I said.

The Stationmaster seemed to be thrown off his game by this distraction, but swiftly tried to re-establish order. He held up his watch and tapped it.

‘I insist that agreed rules of conduct remain in force,’ said the Frenchman.

Young James put his railwayman’s whistle to his lips and blew a shrill toot.

‘I suggest we follow my brother’s direction, for the moment,’ the Professor said. ‘We shall see what is to be seen, then draw conclusions. Is that acceptable?’

Sabin nodded. The others fell in line.

Moriarty looked to his brother, like a headmaster who has shown a junior staff member how to quiet the boys. Our host, I fancied, was irritated. Of the three Jameses Moriarty, he was the least commanding… It seemed a comedown that a family which could produce a Professor Moriarty and a Colonel Moriarty should run to a mere Stationmaster. Now, I wondered whether Young James had not been promoted above his natural abilities.

The Professor lead us out onto the platform. His brother followed.

A thick mist had risen, turning the rail beds into rivers of white. I smelled something like sulphur… which I associate with firearms rather than hellfire. I could taste danger in the air. Fal Vale Junction felt like a fort just before the attack. While the others formed their observing party, I sauntered towards the pile of luggage and slipped a rifle out of my gun case. I carried it unostentatiously, barrel-down like a crutch. I felt much happier with a loaded gun at hand.