Michael Kurland - Professor Moriarty Omnibus

"I see," Moriarty said. "Thank you, doctor."

Papoli bowed and backed out of the room.

Moriarty crossed to the bedroom and gazed at the rumpled bedclothes. "Picture it, Barnett," he said. "The dead earl staring up at the ceiling, his face unnaturally red and bearing a horrified expression, his arms raised against an unseen foe. And the strange puncture marks on the body, don't leave those out of your picture." He turned to me. "What does that image convey to you?"

"Something frightful must have happened in this room," I said, "but what the nature of that happening was, I have no idea."

Moriarty shook his head. "Nothing frightful happened in this room," he said. "Understanding that will give you the key to the mystery." He took one last look around the room and then went out into the hall. For the next half hour he walked up and down the hallway on that floor and the ones above and below, peering and measuring. Finally he returned to where I awaited him on the second floor landing. "Come," he said.

"Where?"

"Back to Russell Square."

We left the club and flagged down a hansom. Moriarty was taciturn and seemed distracted on the ride home. When we entered the house, Moriarty put a small blue lantern in the window, the sign to any passing members of the Mendicants' Guild that they were wanted. Moriarty has a long-standing relationship with the Mendicants' Guild and Twist, their leader. They are his eyes all over London, and he supplies them with technical advice of a sort they cannot get from more usual sources. About half an hour later a leering hunchback with a grotesquely flattened nose knocked on the door. "My moniker's Handsome Bob," he told Moriarty when he was brought into the office, "Twist sent me."

"Here's your job," Moriarty told the beggar. "The Paradol Club is at the intersection of Montague and Charles. It has three entrances. Most people use the main entrance on Montague Street. I want a watch kept on the club, and I want the men to give me the best description they can of anyone who enters the club through either of the other two entrances. But without drawing any attention to themselves. Send someone to report to me every half-hour, but keep the place covered at all times."

"Yessir, Professor Moriarty," Handsome Bob said, touching his hand to his cap. "Four of the boys should be enough. We'll get right on it."

Moriarty reached into the apothecary jar on the mantle and took out a handful of coins. "Have them return here by cab if there's anything interesting to report," he said, handing the coins to him. "This is for current expenses. I'll settle with you at the usual rates after."

"Yessir, Professor Moriarty," Handsome Bob repeated, and he turned and sidled out the door.

Moriarty turned to me. "Now we wait," he said. "What are we waiting for?"

"For the villain to engage in his employment," Moriarty said. He leaned back and settled down to read the latest copy of the quarterly Journal of the British Geological Society. I left the room and took a long walk, stopping for sustenance at a local pub, which I find soothes my mind.

-

I returned at about six in the evening, and stretched out on the sitting room couch to take a nap. It was just after eleven when Moriarty shook me by the shoulder. Standing behind him was an emaciated-looking man on crutches, a crippled beggar I remembered seeing at Twist's headquarters in a Godolphin Street warehouse. "Quick, Barnett," Moriarty cried, "our drama has taken a critical turn. Get your revolver while I hail a cab!" He grabbed his hat, stick, and overcoat and was out the door in an instant.

I ran upstairs to my bedroom and pulled my revolver from its drawer, made sure it was loaded, and then grabbed my overcoat and ran downstairs. Moriarty had stopped two cabs, and was just finishing scribbling a note on the back of an envelope. He handed the note to the beggar. "Give this to Inspector Lestrade, and no one else," he said. "He will be waiting for you."

Moriarty put the cripple in the first cab and looked up at the driver. "Take this man to Scotland Yard, and wait for him," he said. "And hurry!"

We climbed into the second cab together and set off at a good pace for the Paradol Club. Moriarty leaned forward impatiently in his seat. "This is devilish," he said. "I never anticipated this."

"What, Moriarty, for God's sake?"

"Two people of interest have entered the back door of the club in the past hour," he said. "One was a young girl of no particular status who was taken in by two burly men and looked frightened to the watcher. The other was the duke of Claremore."

"Moriarty!" I said. "But he's—"

"Yes," Moriarty agreed. "And we must put an end to this quickly, quietly, and with great care. If it were ever to become known that a royal duke was involved—"

"Put an end to what?" I asked. "Just what is going on in the Paradol Club?"

Moriarty turned to looked at me. "The Greeks called it hubris," he said.

We arrived at the club and jumped from the cab. "Wait around the corner!" Moriarty yelled at the driver as we raced up the front steps. The door was closed but the porter, a thick-set man with the look of a retired sergeant of marines, answered our knock after a few seconds, pulling his jacket on as he opened the door. Moriarty grabbed him by the collar. "Listen, man," he said. "Several detectives from Scotland Yard will arrive here any minute. Stay out front and wait for them. When they arrive, direct them to Dr. Papoli's consulting room on the second floor. Tell them that I said to be very quiet and not to disturb any of the other guests."

"And who are you?" the porter asked.

"Professor James Moriarty." And Moriarty left the porter in the doorway and raced up the stairs, with me close behind.

The second floor corridor was dark, and we moved along it by feel, running our hands along the wall as we went. "Here," Moriarty said. "This should be the doctor's door." He put his ear to the door, and then tried the handle. "Damn — it's locked."

A match flared, and the light steadied, and I saw that Moriarty had lighted a plumber's candle that he took from his pocket. "Hold this for me, will you?" he asked.

Moriarty handed me the candle and took a small, curved implement from his pocket. He inserted it into the lock and, after a few seconds fiddling, the door opened. We entered a large room which was dark and deserted. I held up the candle, and we could see a desk and couch, and a row of cabinets along one wall.

"There should be a staircase in here somewhere," Moriarty said, running his hand along the molding on the far wall.

"A staircase?" I asked.

"Yes. I measured the space when we were here earlier, and an area just below this room has been closed off, with no access from that floor. Also water has recently been laid on in this corner of the building and a drain put in. You can see the pipes hugging the wall from outside. Logic says that — aha!"

There was a soft click and a section of the wall swung open on silent hinges, revealing a narrow stairs going down. A brilliant shaft of light from below illuminated the staircase.

Moriarty, his revolver drawn, crept down the staircase, and I was but a step behind him. The sight that greeted my eyes as the room below came into view was one that will stay with me forever. It was as though I was witness to a scene from one of Le Grand Guignol's dramas of horror, but the chamber below me was not a stage setting, and the people were not actors.

The room was an unrelieved white, from the painted walls to the tile floor, and a pair of calcium lights mounted on the ceiling eliminated all shadow and cast an unnatural brightness over the scene. Two metal tables of the sort used in operating theatres stood several feet apart in the middle of the room. Surrounding them was a madman's latticework of tubing, piping, and glassware, emanating from a machine that squatted between the two tables, the purpose of which I could not even begin to guess.