Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

“So I perceived, Professor Moriarty,” I said, setting the tea aside, somewhat gratefully. It was not to my taste, but I had drunk enough, I thought, to avoid insult. It was not wise to insult the Professor, or to otherwise cross him. For as I was, in my own sphere, so too was he, in his. And even cunning Nuth knew better than to test the patience of the Napoleon of Crime, in his own apartments, no less. “They were … quite swift. Poor Tommy barely had time to scream.”

“Such things often are. I have heard of the gnoles, though never have our paths crossed, for I do not much venture out of the city and, when I do, it is often to the continent, rather than the countryside.” The Professor twitched his head. “I do know something of their methods, of course, and the fear that they incite in others, though they rarely leave their little dark house, in their dark woods.” He looked at me. “You say you recorded certain details in your notebook? May I see it?” He held out one pale, thin-fingered hand, and I drew my notebook from the pocket of my waistcoat.

I was not surprised that he knew of it, or of my habit of recording my impressions, though writing was a task for which I had little patience. The Professor was a keen one, and sharp as an adder’s fang. He took the notebook and flicked through it one-handed, his long thumb stabbing each page in turn. At certain points, he paused and his head oscillated slightly, as if in consideration of some point or other.

Eventually, he tossed the notebook back to me. “A problem, yes,” he said, drawing out the sibilants in a peculiar manner. “But not an insurmountable one, I think.” He met my gaze. “Your name is known to me, Mr Nuth. You are well spoken of, in certain circles. You do not advertise, for like my own, your skills are consummate.”

I nodded, accepting the compliment. Moriarty smiled. “I seem to recall some outrage in Surrey, of late. The pilfering of Lord Castlenorman’s shirt studs …”

I said nothing, for there was little to say that would not be viewed as boasting. And I am not, as a rule, inclined to the boastful. I am Nuth, and Nuth is me and all men know Nuth. Even the gnoles know Nuth, and I daresay that thought has kept me up at night.

“Tell me again,” the Professor said. He leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped together before him. “Spare no detail, however inconsequential.”

And so, I told him again of Tommy Tonker and how the youth’s mother had brought him to me, in order to apprentice him so that he might learn a worthy trade. Moriarty nodded at this, for to him, the trade of thievery was an old and honoured one, with a storied history. After all, do we thieves not trace our lineage to Slith, and before him, Prometheus? The history of thievery is as storied as that of any noble house in Ruritania or Cephelais, and Nuth is said by some to be its grand culmination; though not me, for I am not, as I have said, inclined to the boastful. Tommy was a likely lad and he learned quickly how to cross bare boards without making a sound and how to go silently up creaky stairs. The business prospered greatly while Tommy was apprenticed to me and, after the affair of Lord Castlenorman’s shirt studs, I judged it was time to try something more … extravagant.

To burgle the house of the gnoles had long been a going concern of mine. And not just mine, for the rumour of the great emeralds that the gnoles were reported to possess had drawn thieves of all stripes and reputations to that dreadful wood. Of course, none save Nuth had ever returned from the attempt.

The Professor smiled thinly as I spoke of young Tommy’s hesitation as we entered that dreadful wood, and took the crooked, unmapped path to that narrow, lofty house where the gnoles and their fabulous, possibly fabricated, treasure waited. It was not a pleasant journey. One did not trespass twice in the dells of the gnoles, if one was caught, and there were many grisly memorials to those who had fallen afoul of them, nailed to the unwholesome trees. At those words, Moriarty snickered, as if at some private jest.

He leaned forward as I drew to the climax of my tale, his eyes bright with interest as I described how Tommy had climbed up to the old green casement window. And then how, as I watched from the corner of that dreadful house, young Tommy Tonker came to his predestined end. The gnoles had watched his approach through the knotholes of the trees that loomed close about the house, and they had taken him, even as he reached the window. Finished, I sat back. The Professor licked his lips. “How many?” he asked.

“How many what?” I replied, though I knew well what he meant.

The Professor held up a finger, as if in warning. I sighed. “Tommy makes four,” I murmured. Four times I had tested the defences of the gnoles and four times I had come away emptyhanded and lighter by an accomplice. Thus, rather than waste a fifth likely lad, I had come to the Professor in search of a solution. For he was considered, among certain parties, to be a man who could provide solutions to even the thorniest problems.

He gave a peculiar titter and shook his head. “I am in awe at your audacity, Mr Nuth. To sacrifice one, or even two young men on the altar of chance takes a chilly soul. But four? Ha! My respect for you grows in leaps and bounds.” He leaned forward, his hands clapped to his knees, and chuckled wetly. When he had calmed himself, he looked at me expectantly.

“Half,” I said, without hesitation.

He laughed, and my spine tingled. No, it was not wise to insult the Professor in his lair. Better still to steal the jewelled eyes of the spider god, or lean close and hear the words of the sphinx than risk the wrath of Moriarty, who was both sphinx and spider in equal measure, and more terrible than both, when roused.

“Two-thirds,” I amended, spreading my hands. “I must have something, or else what for my reputation? Were I to receive less than a third of the potential proceeds from the proposed endeavour, Nuth needs must step aside, and allow some other to take his place at the top of the pyramid of thievery – shall I allow the foreigner Rocambole or the dissolute Raffles to wear the crown that is rightfully mine, then?”

Moriarty gestured sharply. “Your pride does you credit, Mr Nuth. It is a vice allowable only in great men, I think. A third, then, for you, and two-thirds for the grand old firm.” He held out his pale hand. I took it, and tried to hide my wince at the sudden, albeit brief, crushing grip that enclosed my fingers. In my trade, fingers were everything. Moriarty knew that, and his grip was equal parts agreement and warning to me to play straight with him. Moriarty taught lessons with even the most innocuous gestures.

“When do we begin?” I asked, as I surreptitiously rubbed my hand.

“Why, my dear Mr Nuth … we have already begun,” Moriarty said, as he sank back into his chair like a cobra back into its basket. He closed his eyes and tapped his prominent brow with two fingers. “The problem, such as it is, is threefold. To wit, how to approach undetected, how to enter safely and how to depart unmolested. You have accomplished the first, and the third—”

“Not without cost,” I interjected.

One round eye cracked open, and I fell silent. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, and the eye closed again. “Cost is subjective,” he murmured. “A pound for one man is but a pence for another. No, it is to the second prong of the matter that we must attend. That particular house is guarded more ferociously than any bank, and more cunningly than any museum. Subtlety will avail little, I fear. Thus, we must turn to the brute arts. The gnoles … what do we know of them, Nuth? What is their shape, their mien, their physiognomy? How many limbs, and their allotment?”