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

Moriarty, however, was usually more calculating.

The spy master would get into the worm somehow, and I’d face him in its belly.

The interior of the Kallinikos was cramped, certainly not designed for comfort. Also, stifling and malodorous. Canvas straps hung everywhere. I couldn’t stand up straight without bumping my head on the ceiling. Gauges, batteries, dynamos and dials took up too much space. Charts and graphs were pinned to a draughtsman’s table. Electric light bulbs hung from a thick central wire, pulsing with inconsistent current.

I pushed Berkins off the train, with some pleasure. He fell on his fat arse.

There was a shot. Sabin, firing at the ground as Lucas finally wrenched the wheel. With the points thrown, the Kallinikos could roll onto the main line — off the branch it had been using in the trial manoeuvres. If the spy master took command, he could burn the whole county to cover his escape and plunder the machine’s secrets at his leisure.

All three Moriarty brothers crammed into the aperture like Siamese triplets, jostling to board the war train. The Professor established seniority with sharp elbows, and was inside the Kallinikos ahead of the Colonel and the Stationmaster. None of them needed to be on the worm, but no James could have borne it if another were on board and they were left behind. Brothers, eh?

In the present pickle, I’d have found Sophy the Knives more useful than the Moriarty boys, but she was still apache dancing with Ilse. There was a reason the Professor employed me to handle the rough stuff — it wasn’t that he couldn’t take care of himself when there was blood on the floor, but he saw the wisdom of delegating to experts. In battle, that meant me. Still, I could have done without worrying over an arithmetic tutor, a desk soldier and the family idiot.

‘Keep out of my bloody way,’ I told the brothers, ‘and I’ll find our bloody imposter.’

They showed identical, stricken faces. None cared to be told what to do. All chewed over any sleight with eventual retribution in mind. Scratch any of ’em, and there was Moriarty marrow underneath.

‘Carnacki the Ghost Finder,’ I shouted, ‘is there anybody there? Do I sense a presence in the aether?’

Our spy master had got into the Kallinikos, I’d no doubt. One of the plates hung loose, showing a sliver of the outside through the hide of the worm. The hole didn’t seem big enough for a grown man to squeeze through, but this customer had more than proved his slipperiness today.

I saw a shadow and fired. Something exploded. A cloud of sulphurous flame puffed, burning brighter than natural fire. A couple of canvas straps were incinerated. A wave of intense heat rolled at me. I nipped behind a bulkhead. If Greek Fire got on flesh, it would sizzle through to the bone. The puff burned out quickly, but left a residue of acrid fumes. They might be lethal, too. This contraption was as dangerous to the operators as the enemy.

‘This is a delicate system,’ the Colonel said. ‘It’s not advisable to use firearms in here.’

Heaven forbid anyone should shoot a gun in a war machine!

The Colonel’s face and hands were soot-blackened. The Moriarty brothers were a music hall act. I supposed I could join in too. I’d lost my eyebrows to the flame.

Flares of light popped in my vision, even if I rubbed fists into my closed eyes.

Someone screamed further down the worm — inside one of its heads.

There was a lurch. The machine began to move.

VII

A whistle shrilled.

I found out what the canvas straps were for. The brothers Moriarty clung to the appendages, but still swung like human punching bags. I saw why the charts were pinned down and the equipment bolted to frames fixed to the interior walls.

‘Who is this man?’ the Colonel demanded. ‘The one who isn’t Carnacki.’

We all looked at Stationmaster Moriarty. He had issued the invitations.

‘He’s supposed to be Paul Finglemore, alias Colonel Clay, alias many others,’ Young James admitted. ‘The man who never wears the same face twice…’

The Professor pooh-poohed that. ‘But he’s not Finglemore, is he? This is an unknown, a shadow man, a ringer. He learned of your auction of secrets, James. Your net for spies, if you will. He saw a way to exploit it. A man who acts for himself.’

The Professor should know about that.

‘He’s a damned anarchist,’ the Colonel declared.

At present, I didn’t care who our shadow man was or what cause — if any — he espoused. I just thought it past time to stop him. He’d blacked all our faces. I was thirsty for a little evening up of the scores.

The Kallinikos picked up speed.

‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘who else is on board?’

‘That’s not information I can share with anyone outside the Department of Supplies,’ he replied.

‘Don’t be an ass, James,’ said his brothers.

‘Colonel,’ Colonel Moriarty said, ‘you’re to swear on your honour not to reveal anything you might learn of this machine…’

It was all I could manage not to laugh in his face. I held my hand up as if pledging a solemn oath — which I’m breaking by writing all this down. Dearie me, I’ll be sent to bed without supper.

‘…there’s Lampros, supervising the Greek Fire tests… Major Upshall… we call him the pilot, you might think he’s an engine driver… Berkins — no, wait, you threw him out… two assistant technicians from the Royal Engineers, don’t know their names… a recording clerk, Philip Gould… and Ram Singh, my immediate junior in Supplies.’

‘They’re all almost certainly dead.’

‘That’d be a nuisance.’

The Colonel had the traditional Moriarty reverence for the lives of his fellow men. Not that I’m any different.

‘Except Lampros,’ said the Colonel. ‘He’ll need Lampros.’

‘Your alchemist hasn’t given you his formula, then?’ I asked. ‘He mixes up his own batches of Liquid Inferno, and your stinks profs can’t work out the recipe?’

The Colonel nodded. ‘Bright boy. Preserve a secret since 672 AD and it’s hard to let go. Once you’ve shared, you’re not special any more. Not essential to the program. And if you’re not essential, you’re surplus.

‘We need that formula and we need Lampros,’ the Colonel continued. ‘More than the Kallinikos, it’s what this project is about. The train is a moving platform for the fire weapon. A replaceable prototype.’

‘I’ll remember you said that,’ I said.

The next compartment contained sighting and firing mechanisms for the fire nozzles. I found three dead men, trussed and hanging from the canvas straps. Not a mark on them, but faces twisted enough to indicate their last moments had been unpleasant. These were the two sappers whose names the Colonel hadn’t bothered to learn and the recording clerk, Gould. All wore overalls and rimless caps. Gould had a green eye shade and an inky right hand. Whatever he’d been keeping records in — a logbook or ledger — was missing.

I peered through a periscope-like apparatus, and saw Cornish fields whiz by. Some sort of green-tinted, see-in-the-dark lenses were involved. Fiddling with the thing in the hope of sighting a road sign or landmark, I twisted the wrong knob.

A bright, burning stream arced across the countryside and scattered like twenty gallons of flaming puke. We sped on, so I don’t know if I awoke some rustic by burning the thatch over his head or harmlessly set fire to a pile of rail-side gravel.

Beyond the firing compartment was the currently leading engine. Our shadow man must be at the controls. I had my revolver up, determined to put bullets into soft living flesh rather than dangerous combustibles.