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

‘James,’ the Colonel said to the Stationmaster, ‘I gave you this position to perform one duty, and one duty only. To revive and disseminate the legend of the Fal Vale Worm. To keep prying eyes away from the Kallinikos… ’

Just to show I paid some attention at Eton… the war train was named for Kallinikos of Heliopolis, inventor of ‘Greek fire’, as used by the Byzantine Empire against the infidel circa 672 AD. The secret of the weapon, a forerunner of arsonists’ accelerants, was supposedly lost. It seemed it had been rediscovered.

‘Not only have you failed in this, James. You have contrived to gather all the prying eyes in one party.’

‘Yes, James,’ responded Stationmaster Moriarty. ‘On my own initiative. You can round them up. Buy them off. Shoot them. Whatever you do, they won’t be spying on your trials and reporting back to their masters. Isn’t that more useful than leaving them at large?’

‘Not cricket, eh what,’ Lucas said. ‘You’ve got to have some standards!’

‘No, Mr Lucas, you do not,’ Young James responded. ‘Do you not understood your own profession? As a spy, you must have no standards at all!’

M. Sabin — Herbert de la Meux, Victor-Duc de Souspennier — tried to step back into the shadows. My new girlfriend was there behind him, two interesting little knives slipped out of her bracelets. She made symbolic slices in his jacket. He didn’t try to escape again.

We were all going to have to play audience to this family discussion.

‘James,’ the Stationmaster appealed to the Professor, ‘tell James about human nature.’

The Colonel blew his nose. ‘I see you are in this too, James,’ he said. ‘Despite express instructions.’

‘Your cover is outmoded, James,’ the Professor told the Colonel, his voice dripping with scorn. ‘Putting the spook story about to scare off the curious might have done for Dr Syn. In those days, a dab of phosphor on an old sack-mask could turn a smuggler into a marsh phantom frightening enough for ignorant folk to shiver under their bedclothes on nights when the ghosts rode. But this is a world of telephone and telegraph. Entire societies of busybodies chase ghosts with anemometers and Kodaks.

‘Reviving the worm legend is not a sensible tactic for keeping people away from military secrets. Rather, it is an invitation to every crank in the land to crawl over your proving ground. Frankly, it’s a wonder this party consists only of spies. It won’t be long before someone hires the real Thomas Carnacki to poke about with his electric pentacle and plum-bob. If a circulation-chasing newspaper puts a bounty on the worm, you’ll have to deal with Moran’s game-hunting fraternity too.’

The Colonel was on the ropes, his brothers ganged against him.

All three heads oscillated as they stared at each other, like a convocation of cobra. It was hard to look away from, but harder to look at.

The Kallinikos was on the move, coming back this way. I glimpsed the Greek invertebrate’s operators through slits in its hide. Like the Cornish worm, the war train had a head at both ends. Two engines. It could move at equal speed in either direction, so long as there were rails to run on.

Metal snail tracks were creeping all over the world. The machine was not made for my sort of war: putting down natives, chasing hill-bandits, looting dusky potentates’ treasure stores. It was built to roll over Europe, pissing fire on uhlans, cathedrals and shopkeepers. The contraption stank of bloody cleverness. The representatives of foreign powers took mental notes. Which wouldn’t do anyone’s empire any good without the plans. It’s always the plans spies are after.

The worm slid into the station.

I didn’t swallow Stationmaster Moriarty’s latest version of events, in which he’d selflessly rounded up the most dangerous spies in Britain. I judged young James had the cold, calculating self-interest of his eldest brother. No atom of patriotism stirred in his breast. He might have planned a double-cross — technically, a triple-cross — but, if not for the early arrival of Colonel Moriarty and Miss Kratides, he’d at least have tried to get paid for the secrets of the worm before turning his catch over to the mercies of the Department of Supplies.

Lucas considered the Kallinikos wistfully. I could imagine the riches the Emperor of Japan would bestow on the man who brought him such a dragon.

I just felt a kind of congealed disgust.

It was like the first time I saw a Maxim gun in action. Oh, for a minute or two, the rat-tat-tat is exciting, and it’s quite amusing to see wave upon wave of spear-chucking, astounded natives jigging like broken marionettes as red chunks of their bodies fly off in all directions. Then, a battle which would once have raged for three days — and seen seven Victoria crosses bestowed (five posthumously) on the brave, foolish lads who defended some flyblown ridge just because a Union Jack fluttered above it — is over and done with inside two minutes. As the operator fusses about his overheated precious gadget, wiping grease off his spectacles and calling for tea and biscuits, it all seems terribly empty.

Anyone who can direct a hosepipe can turn the crank of a wonder-gun and murder more heathens in a single burst than a sharpshooter with clear eye, steady nerve and taste for the kill — which is to say, Basher Moran or the nearest offer — can pot in an entire campaign. I knew how handloom weavers must have felt when factory owners installed the spinning jenny. One thing about Mr Hiram Maxim’s gun, though: a sock full of blasting powder and pebbles, shoved down a fat barrel and packed tight with a swagger-stick, makes for an amusing incident the next time the clerk in charge gives the machinegun a test-fire to impress the staff officers.

Professor Moriarty, who had science instead of a soul, was interested in the Kallinikos. He quizzed Colonel Moriarty, who — I saw — was not beyond wanting to impress his older brother.

‘You have George Lampros, then?’

‘This is a Lampros — Partington design,’ the Colonel admitted.

Now, it was the Professor’s turn to lecture. ‘The formula for “Greek Fire” has been preserved since the Byzantine Empire by a family of alchemists and engineers. George Lampros is the last of them. Moran, you will recall I drew your attention to his obituary in The Times and listed the seven significant factors that suggested his death had been faked to cover a new, secret employment…’

I did not recall. Quite often, I didn’t pay attention when the Professor was off on one of his tears. I’d probably been waiting for him to hand over the paper so I could see how much I’d lost at the races the day before.

‘Lampros is a Greek patriot,’ continued the Professor. ‘Why has he shared his secret with Britain?’

The Colonel made a pfui gesture. His face was dark red in the light of the still-burning fields. He responded, ‘As a Greek patriot, Lampros envisions a coming war between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, in which our island fortress will be the last redoubt. He is politically naïve, of course. We have a contingency plan for modern crusades against the infidel Turk, but it is but one among many potential conflicts for which we must prepare. The Kallinikos is a prototype, the first launch of a land fleet which will take the rails against any threat to the interests of our Empire. One day, soon, half the world will be in flames thanks to the Lampros formula… I intend to make sure Great Britain is in the other half.’

Sadly, I had no sock of blasting powder about me.