Michael Kurland - Professor Moriarty Omnibus

"This may be in my line," Barnett said, turning it over and over, "but I haven't the slightest idea what it is."

"There are several possibilities," Moriarty said, "but the most probable is that it is a pawn ticket."

"I see," Barnett said. "I appreciate your compliment as to my experience in this area. However, I would appreciate any facts with which you can supply me."

"The top number," Moriarty said, "would correspond to the number of the item pawned in the pawnbroker's ledger. The bottom number is the amount loaned. The scrawl in the middle is certainly a description of the item, for those who can read it. I, unfortunately, am not among that favored few."

"What pawnshop is it from?" Barnett asked.

"That is the problem," Moriarty said. "Most licensed pawnbrokers have their name and location printed or stamped on their tickets. But there must be thousands of unlicensed brokers in the city — small tradesmen who take a few items in pledge just as a sideline and don't want to pay the yearly licensing fee. The lack of a name on the ticket would indicate a more informal shop, but the high ledger number argues otherwise. The owner would appear to be from the continent, but that is small help."

"It might be a clerk's handwriting," Barnett suggested.

"Ah! You followed that," Moriarty said. "Good, good. No, it is probably the owner, judging by the size of the pledge. Anything over ten shillings is usually only given at the owner's discretion, although there's no hard and fast rule."

"You want me to find the shop?" Barnett asked.

"Yes," Moriarty said. "See what you can discover of the pledger; he may be an acquaintance of the owner, or they may have taken down his name and address — although that's doubtful. Find out what the pledged item is. That may be especially helpful."

"Okay," Barnett said, putting the ticket carefully in his wallet. "I'll start tomorrow morning."

-

And so he did. For the next week, Barnett wandered the streets of London, from Chelsea to Greenwich, from Finsbury to Lambeth, seeking out pawnbrokers and moneylenders. He had always thought pawnbrokers to be a secretive lot, but they became quite loquacious, he found, when you talked to them about something other than borrowing money. Unfortunately, none of them could identify the ticket or suggest whence it came. They did verify that the billet was, indeed, a pawn ticket, and an old man in Chelsea even translated the unreadable script. "It's what we calls back-writing," he said. "Don't know why we do it. It's dying out now, but it used to be the custom in this here profession."

"What does it say?" Barnett asked.

"Musical box, it says," the old man told him. "Must be something extraordinary in the way of musical boxes to pull two-pounds-five as a pledge."

Barnett reported the translation to Moriarty that evening, received a grunt in reply, and continued the search the next morning. It was two days later, on Pigott Street in Limehouse, that Barnett succeeded in tracing the ticket to its originator.

Starkey & Sons, Money Lent on Pledge, looked like a small shop from the narrow storefront. But inside it went back for quite a long way. And there were two staircases, one leading upstairs and another down. The establishment was crowded with the most fanciful collection of items Barnett had ever seen. "These are all pledges?" he asked, fingering a stuffed boar's head.

"Not at all, sir," the aged proprietor said. "The goods taken in pledge are all downstairs. We can't sell them in the shop, you see, even after the year-and-a-week. They have to be offered at auction. It's the law. These are all items we've picked up over the years at auctions, or the like, ourselves. My old father sir, bless his heart, had a sense of whimsy." He pointed to a glass-fronted oak case along the wall. "That contraption of leather tubing in the corner is called a serpent, sir. It is a musical instrument used at one time in military bands and the like. It fell out of favor during the reign of George the Fourth, I believe. Next to it is a stuffed and shellacked sand shark. On the shelf below is a collection of crocheted butterflies."

"I take it your father was the original Starkey," Barnett said, "and you are the son?"

"My father," the old man told him, "was the original son. I am merely the original grandson. Feel free to look around, sir. Fascinating incunabula — and a dried lizardskin collection — upstairs. If you see anything you like…"

"Actually," Barnett said, "as fascinating as I find this store, I came in to see whether you could identify this pledge." He handed the old man the ticket.

The old man looked up at Barnett suspiciously. "Of course I can identify it," he said. "It's mine, ain't it?"

"I didn't know," Barnett said, cautiously suppressing his feeling of elation. "Are you sure it's yours?"

"I should know my own ticket, I suppose," the old man said, adding hostility to suspicion. "You have something to say about it?"

"Why isn't your name on it?" Barnett asked. "I should think that an old, established firm like yours would have printed tickets."

"My old father on his deathbed made me swear. 'Don't print the tickets,' he said. 'Dreadful waste of money,' he said. So what could I do? Anyway, we ain't had any complaints yet — present company excepted."

"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Starkey," Barnett said. "I'm not complaining. I'm delighted to find you. Could you tell me something about the pledge — a musical box, I believe — and the man that pledged it?"

"You're not claiming it yourself, then?"

"What, the musical box? No."

"Ah!" the old man said, losing his suspicious expression. "For a minute there I thought it was the old higgledy-piggledy. More than one man thinks that pawnshops are fair game for all sorts of diversion. But they don't get away with it in here, I can tell you."

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr., ah, Starkey," Barnett said. "Tell me, might I take a look at the musical box?"

"The box has been claimed," Starkey said. "Taken away."

"Oh," Barnett said unhappily.

"And as the gent didn't have the ticket, I thought that you — as you do have the ticket — were going to try to claim the item. It's an old game, but it's no less than twice a year that some clever gents will rediscover it."

"You mean you thought I was in collusion with the man who reclaimed the musical box?"

"It was not beyond the bounds of possibility," the old man affirmed, striking a large wooden match and applying the lighted tip to the bowl of his ornately carved briar.

"It's nothing like that, I assure you," Barnett told him. "I am merely trying to find out who the man is so that I can return some property to him. There was no identification with the property, save this unlabeled ticket."

The old man stared at Barnett silently for a minute. "It must have taken you some time to locate this shop," he said, speculatively.

"Days," Barnett agreed.

"It must be impressive property for you to go to all this trouble to return it, and you must be an exceptionally honest man."

"Well…" Barnett said.

"Never mind," the old man said. "None of my business. Come to think of it, that was certainly an unusual musical box."

"Really?" Barnett said.

"A square box, about eight inches on a side and two high, made of some hard, light wood. Put together with tiny ornamental brass screws and bands. On top of the box was a miniature grand piano some five or six inches wide with a small doll in a full dress-suit sitting before it, turned away from the keys. Exquisite work."

"It sounds impressive," Barnett said.

"Ah!" the old man said. "But when you turn it on and it plays one of its sixteen selections — Bach, Beethoven, Rossini; a bit tinny, but real impressive — the doll turns to face the keys and begins playing. And its hand motions follow the music! Never seen anything like it."