Michael Kurland: Professor Moriarty Omnibus

"Then you are not with Her Majesty's Government in any way?" Lieutenant Sefton asked.

The idea seemed to amuse Professor Moriarty greatly. "You have my word," he assured Sefton.

"Say!" Barnett said. "I meant to ask: how did you know I'm a journalist, and from New York?"

"And Paris," Lieutenant Sefton added.

Moriarty touched his finger to his ear. "If you could hear yourself," he said, "you wouldn't have to ask the second part of that question. As to the first: the notebook in your inner pocket, the sharpened pencils in your breast pocket, the writing callus on your right forefinger — all point in a certain direction. And to verify my deduction, I had only to look at the signet on your ring. The New York Press Club sigil is not unfamiliar to me."

"I see," Barnett said, fingering the ring Moriarty had mentioned and nodding his head slowly. "And Paris? How did you know I had come from Paris?"

"Your shoes, sir," Moriarty said. "Unmistakable."

"Is that all?" Lieutenant Sefton asked. "How simple!"

Moriarty laughed — a dry, humorless sound. "For a moment you thought I'd done something clever, is that it?" He leaned forward and fixed Sefton with his gray eyes.

"Well, yes, I—"

"My little feats of deductive and inductive reasoning are only clever until they are explained. I must learn, like magicians, never to divulge my methods. Conjurers never explain their illusions. Neither do the other sort."

"What other sort?" Lieutenant Sefton asked.

"Mentalists, mystics, mediums: all practitioners of the occult. The gentlemen who blow bugles from inside cabinets and start stopped pocket watches. The ladies who hold long conversations with your poor deceased Aunt Tillie and Lord Nelson. And the only thing Lord Nelson can find to say is, 'it's very beautiful up here and we're all very happy.' And death seems to have given a certain cockney lilt to his speech that it never had in life."

"You seem quite conversant with the subject, sir," Barnett said.

"Conjuring has been a fascination of mine," Moriarty told him. "And I have made a special study of human gullibility. The number of patent idiocies that otherwise intelligent people believe, or profess to believe, never cease to amaze me."

"For example?" Barnett said, finding himself intrigued with this ex-professor of mathematics.

"The examples are endless. People have fought wars in the ridiculous belief that one religion is somehow superior to another or that one man is inherently better than another."

"That is a bit strong, sir," Barnett said.

"Do you profess to believe, sir," Sefton asked, "that all men are exactly equal?"

"Certainly not. I, for example, am superior. But this superiority is due to clearly establishable intellectual capacity, not to the lightness of my skin, the blondness of my hair, or the blind chance of my being born in England rather than in Abyssinia." This statement was delivered with such bland assurance that it was clearly neither conceit nor arrogance from Professor Moriarty's point of view, but a simple assertion of fact.

The waiter brought over a small plate of candies. "Try one," Lieutenant Sefton said, shoving it over to Barnett. "Rahat loukoum. Call them 'Turkish delights' in England. Go with the coffee."

"I've heard of them," Barnett said, sampling one of the small squares. It was a sweet gel of assorted fruits, which did indeed go well with the thick Turkish coffee.

Professor Moriarty took a small leather case from his pocket. "Allow me to give you gentlemen my card," he said. "I expect you both to look me up at your earliest opportunity."

Barnett took the proffered pasteboard and looked at it:

JAMES C. MORIARTY, Ph.D.

64 RUSSELL SQUARECONSULTING

"Consulting?" he asked.

Moriarty stared at him with a curious intensity. Barnett had the odd feeling that the professor could see through his skin to the soul beneath. And, further, that he wasn't being judged but merely examined and classified by this strange, intense man. "Consulting," Moriarty affirmed.

Lieutenant Sefton examined the card at arm's length. "I say," he said. "At what do you consult? Who consults you?"

"I answer questions," Professor Moriarty explained patiently. "I solve problems. Very occasionally I perform services. My rates vary with the difficulty of the task."

"Is there much demand for such a service?" Barnett asked.

"I am never at a loss for commissions and my rates are quite high. Of course, I am paid only for success."

"You mean you guarantee success?" Lieutenant Sefton asked, incredulously.

"No man can guarantee success at any task. What I do is minimize the chance of failure."

"It sounds fascinating," Barnett said. "I shall surely look you up after this assignment, when I next visit London. I might do an article about you and your business for my newspaper, the New York World, if you don't mind."

"I mind!" Moriarty said sharply. "Further, I absolutely forbid it. I have neither the need nor the desire for notoriety."

"Well," Barnett said, standing up and putting his cup down. "I'm sorry."

Moriarty waved Barnett back into his seat. "No need to take offense," he said, signaling the waiter for another pot of coffee. "I am aware that many people like to read about themselves. I do not happen to be one of those people. If I am ever to be known to the world, it must be for my scientific endeavors. If I am remembered at all by history, it will be for the research I am doing rather than for the occupation, however novel, which supports this research."

"What sort of scientific work are you engaged in?" Barnett asked, sitting back down.

"I am doing theoretical studies in the realm of astronomical physics," Professor Moriarty said. "There are certain anomalies in the behavior of light — but I don't want to bore you."

"Not at all, not at all," Lieutenant Sefton said politely. "You really must go into it in detail sometime; I'm sure it will be fascinating."

"How nice of you to say so," Moriarty murmured.

They had one last cup of coffee together before separating. Barnett and Lieutenant Sefton offered to walk the professor back to his hotel, but he refused. "I do not anticipate any further trouble," he said.

"I hope you're right," Lieutenant Sefton said. They shook hands, and the professor strode off.

"Queer cove, that," Sefton commented thoughtfully as he and Barnett started back to the Hotel Ibrahim. "Do you suppose he's anywhere near as intelligent as he thinks he is?"

Barnett thought about it for a minute. "I reckon he is, Lieutenant," he said. "You know, I just reckon he is."

THREE— DEATH

He who commands the sea commands everything.

— Themistocles

It was cold, damp, foggy, and uncomfortable — altogether as one would expect on a small caique in the Bosporus just after dawn in mid-March. "They can't find the yacht," Lieutenant Sefton announced after the boss caiquejee yelled to him in Turkish.

"What?" Barnett asked in disbelief.

"They can't—"

"I know. I heard."

"Then why did you say 'what?' " Sefton asked irritably. "Why can't they find the yacht?"

"Because it isn't in sight." Lieutenant Sefton waved his hand at the fog. "There doesn't seem to be too much of anything in sight."

The boss caiquejee, a small, swarthy man with immense biceps and a mustache that seemed to curl around his ears, started an earnest, profound discussion with Lieutenant Sefton that involved much pounding on the oarlock and gesticulating. The assistant caiquejee shipped his oar, and he and Barnett stared silently at each other while the discussion went on. After a few minutes of this, Barnett found that he was getting increasingly nervous. "What's happening?" he asked Sefton at the first pause in the discussion.