Michael Kurland - Professor Moriarty Omnibus

Twist, a misshapen little man with a patch over his right eye, grinned up at Moriarty. "There's many as do worse," he said.

Barnett examined the others as they entered, and found that he had no trouble telling them apart. Upper McHennory he remembered: a tall, serious-looking man, dressed like a superior artisan, which he was. Snoozer had the appearance of a soft-goods drummer from Manchester, who had somehow misplaced his sample bag. The Twopenny Yob, a tall, pale man with almost no chin, had a sort of insubstantial, vague, aristocratic look, as though he had wandered into the room by mistake, and was hoping his valet would appear and tell him where he was supposed to be. Colonel Moran was the image of the hale, bluff colonial officer in mufti. With his wide shoulders and solidly planted feet, he had a look of carefully controlled power. His bushy mustache could not disguise the hint of sadistic cruelty that showed in the twisted corners of his thin-lipped mouth. Percy the Painter was a small, fleshy man with altogether too many gold rings on his chubby fingers and an air of determined petulance.

The six distributed themselves about the study, each according to his preference. Barnett noted that they all kept instinctively clear of the front windows. Moriarty rose to greet them. "Good day, gentlemen," he said. "This is my colleague, Benjamin Barnett. To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

"It's on the way of being a consultation, Professor," Upper McHennory said.

"We is here to ask you to help us, Professor," the Snoozer said.

"To put it concisely," said Colonel Sebastian Moran, shouldering his malacca walking stick and giving an automatic twist to the corners of his precise mustache, "we are a delegation, sent here by our comrades-in-crime, to solicit your aid."

"You never were one to mince words, Colonel," Percy the Painter said approvingly. " 'Comrades-in-crime.' Yes; within the confines of this lovely room — I particularly admire that Berkman oil to the left of the door — I admit to the justice of that description. Lovely."

"Beg pardon," the Twopenny Yob said, "but I believe we are creating sound without facilitating the exchange of information." He turned to Moriarty. "Professor, we have come to see you on behalf of the Amateur Mendicant Society. We are a specially formed committee of that society empowered to represent the entire membership in our discussions with you."

Moriarty sat back down in his chair and leaned forward, peering with his intense gaze at each of his visitors. "The Amateur Mendicant Society," he said finally. "I don't believe I am acquainted with it."

"It's a brand-new organization, Professor," Upper McHennory said. "A group of us from the different corners of the snide decided we had to get together and discuss subjects of mutual benefit—"

"Such as what it is what we is going to be telling you about." Twist interrupted.

"There are things happening in London," said the Twopenny Yob, "that are against the common interests of us artisans of the underworld. So we decided to get together and discuss these things. But you can see the problems an attempt on the part of our collective brethren to assemble would cause. The authorities would not encourage such a gathering. Particularly at the present time, they would frown upon it. They would do their best to discourage it."

"The present time?" Moriarty asked.

"You bloody well said it there, Professor," Twist said. "The present times is different from other times, 'cause of some bloody bastard what is going about knocking off the toffery."

"Ah! The murders," Moriarty said.

"Indeed," the Twopenny Yob agreed. "And so we formed a club. It was Percy the Painter's notion—"

Percy shrugged modestly. "It comes of employing a competent solicitor," he said. "Expensive, but well worth it in times of need. My solicitor pointed out that gentlemen's clubs were quite legal, quite common in London, could have anyone they wished as members, and could exclude nonmembers from attendance if they wished. So we formed a club. The Amateur Mendicant Society. We rented the ground floor and vault of a furniture warehouse, and fixed it up quite nicely."

"Vault?"

"For private discussions," Snoozer explained.

"Ah!" Moriarty said. Barnett, who had come to know his moods quite well over two years, could tell that he was doing his best not to look amused. Since the average person couldn't tell when the professor was amused, his attempt at concealment worked quite well. "So now there is a club — no doubt with billiard tables and a reading room — for gentlemen purse snatchers, pickpockets, panderers—"

"Sir!" Colonel Moran said sharply, his face flushing. "We may indulge in occasional activities which are technically on the wrong side of the laws of this effete country, but we are none of us lacking in respect for the ladies. There are no panderers welcome in our group!"

"Accept my apologies, Colonel," Moriarty said. "I was carried away by the lure of alliteration. So, at any rate, you have discovered that it is possible to make a den of thieves respectable by giving it the facade of a gentlemen's club."

"Well," Upper McHennory said, smiling, "it has worked so far."

"Can we get back to the purpose of this visit?" Colonel Moran said, impatiently slapping his walking stick against the side of his shoe.

"Very well," the Twopenny Yob said. "Professor Moriarty, in the name of the collective membership of the Amateur Mendicant Society, we request your assistance. We must see to it that this vile murderer who has been haunting the West End is apprehended."

"I see," Moriarty said. "And why this interest? A sense of civic duty, perhaps?"

"Pah!" Twist exclaimed, scrunching forward in his chair. "The rozzers 'as been 'arassing us sumfing awful. Knocking my boys off the street corners, chasing blind and lame beggars up the street. I tells you, it ain't good."

"I believe you," Moriarty said. "Seeing a lame beggar outrun a bobby must stretch your customers' credulity."

"You wouldn't think it humorous," Percy the Painter commented, "if it was your men being harassed and arrested by the police anytime they enter a swank neighborhood. And keeping them out of swank neighborhoods is not sensible. Stealing from the poor goes against ancient English tradition; it's in bad taste and it's unremunerative."

Moriarty raised an eyebrow. "What about the great and growing body of the middle class?" he asked. "Surely you can still steal from shopkeepers, factory owners, salesmen, innkeepers, bank clerks, and assorted merchants, tradesmen, and professionals?"

"You doesn't grasp the magnanimousness of the situation," Twist said. "Strangely, when the rich are struck at, it is the middling classes what feel most threatened."

"It's the truth," the Twopenny Yob said. "Now, with this madman going around and murdering the aristocracy, you could clearly see where it would make my profession difficult. The swells are just naturally going to be more cautious as to who they let into their mansions. Even during the wildest soirees, they are not going to suffer the chance of having their throats cut merely for the privilege of having their pockets picked."

Very nicely put, Barnett thought, and made a note to use it in a future article.

"But the odd thing about it," the Yob continued, "is the reaction of your bourgeois shopkeeper. He feels personally threatened, and writes letters to the Times about it. The public uproar causes the police to cancel all leaves and bring in auxiliary men, and get a visible patrol on every street. Calms down the masses, don't y'see."

"And, just for the raw fun of it, " 'cause they ain't got nothing else to do," Snoozer added, "the rozzers arrest everybody in sight for 'suspicious loitering.' Now I tell you, Professor, it's a sad day when a chap can't do a bit of suspicious loitering without getting thrown in quod for his troubles!"