The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (16 page)

             
Barnett went over and, with Twist's permission, examined the book, turning a few pages and peering at the ancient leather binding and the lists of signatures and strange hieroglyphics. He noticed a squiggle with a straight line over it and two X's at each end, and "the Connersty Barker, his mark," written after. Each signature had a strange brown blob at the end, which Barnett decided was the thumbseal Twist had mentioned. "Absolutely fascinating," Barnett said. "You have a piece of history here."

             
"Ain't it the truth!" Twist said, pleased at the observation. "And they's nobody what gets to see it without I say so." He produced an inkstone and poured a few drops on it from a bottle under the table. "Gin," he explained, pulling a goose feather from a cubbyhole. With a couple of quick swipes of his pocketknife he created a passable point, which he rubbed into the gin-moistened ink. "What moniker?" he asked.

             
"How's that?" Barnett said.

             
"What moniker?" Twist repeated. "You can't use your own, you see."

             
"Oh!" Barnett said, as the light dawned. "Moniker! Nickname!"

             
"Right enough," Twist agreed.

             
"I've never used one," Barnett said.

             
"Why'nt you jolly him one?" the Mummer suggested.

             
Twist considered. "Got it," he said. "We'll moniker 'im after 'is quod. You go in the Maund Book as 'Araby,' if that's jonnick with you."

             
"Sounds fine," Barnett said, wondering what all this was leading up to.

             
Twist carefully and painstakingly wrote the date at the start of the line, twisting his head around so that his left eye could watch what his right hand was doing. Then he handed the quill to Barnett. "Write your moniker or make your mark," he instructed.

             
Barnett wrote "Araby" neatly after the date and then, staring at it and feeling it looked naked by itself, added "Ben" after it. "Araby Ben," he said. "How's that?"

             
"Good," Twist said, taking back his quill. He took Barnett's right thumb with his left hand and, with a sudden gesture, jabbed a long brass pin into the ball of the thumb.

             
"Hey!" Barnett yelped, jerking his hand back.

             
"Squeezed out a couple of drops of blood," Twist said, sticking the pin back into the lining of the filthy waistcoat he was wearing. "Then press your thumb after your moniker."

             
Barnett dutifully squeezed his thumb until two drops of his blood pooled on top. "You should be careful with that needle," he said. "You could give someone blood poisoning."

             
"I've pledged 'alf an 'undred men with this selfsame needle," Twist said, "and ain't none of 'em dead yet, barring a couple who've swung."

             
Barnett made his thumbprint in the book, and Twist closed it. "Yer a member now," he said.

             
"Give him the office," the Mummer said.

             
Twist struck a pose. "You see what I'm doing?" he asked Barnett.

             
"No," Barnett said, seeing nothing unusual in Twist's appearance beyond what was dictated by his deformity.

             
"Right enough," Twist said. "But any o' your fellow members of the guild would see right off that you was passing them the office." He held up his left hand. "Left 'and," he said, "with the thumb protruding, as it were, from between the first and second fingers. Not a natural pose, but not queer enough to be noted."

             
"I see," Barnett said.

             
"If you 'ave a message what you want delivered, but you're under the eye of some busy, or somefing of the kind, just give the office when you pass a street beggar. If 'e returns it, give 'em the message or drop it somewhere in 'is sight."

             
"Twist here will have it within the hour," the Mummer said with as much pride as if he'd invented the system himself. "And the professor in another."

             
Barnett nodded. Although he couldn't imagine what possible use such an elaborate signaling and message-carrying system could be to Moriarty, he was impressed. "You certainly have evolved an efficient system," he said.

             
" 'Course it is," the Mummer said. "E-bloody-ficient."

             
"Don't forget your moniker, now," Twist said. "That's the name I knows you as. Good meeting you, Araby Ben. Good luck to you."

-

             
The tour of London continued. Mummer Tolliver introduced Barnett to a motley assortment of characters that would have kept the feature editor of the
New York World
ecstatic for a year if Barnett had sent him character sketches.

             
"MacReady's the name," announced the red-faced man in the shop in Belgravia. "Eddie MacReady at your service, whatever that service may be. Service for two or service for two hundred, it's all the same to me." The sign over his door said: "Edward MacReady— Superior Catering Service," and below it in smaller print was the legend: "Fine meals for fine people; catered, served, cleared by liveried waiters. 2 to 200 on a day's notice."

             
"Any friend of the professor's is a friend of mine," Eddie declared, pumping Barnett's hand. "And some strange friends he's got, too. But I'm no one to talk; not after what he did for me. He set me up in this business, I don't mind telling you. He had faith in me when nobody else did."

             
Here MacReady paused for Barnett's response. "He's a remarkable man," Barnett said, feeling on safe ground with that statement.

             
"That he is," MacReady agreed solemnly.

             
" 'Course he is," Mummer Tolliver said, looking around pugnaciously for someone to disagree. "Who says he ain't?"

             
And they moved on to Old Brompton Road, where Barnett was introduced to Isaac Benlevi, artificer and toolmaker. The old gentleman in a floor-length leather apron was just putting the finishing touches on an escapement mechanism designed for the equatorial mounting of Moriarty's telescope, a twelve-inch reflector housed at his private observatory on Crimpton Moor.

             
Barnett examined the beautifully tooled device with pleasure; he had always had a fondness for machines and contrivances. But the Mummer waved it off with disgust. "Haven't you got nothing what could interest a chap in my line, Mr. Benlevi?" he asked with a broad wink "You've always got such loverly toys, ain't you got nothing today?"

             
"Ah, Mr. Tolliver, my little friend," Benlevi said, patting him on the shoulder. "The problems of your trade have always intrigued me. I am constantly thinking of simple contrivances to make your life easier. As a matter of fact, there is something I'd like you to look at. It isn't perfect yet. I'd like your opinion. It's in the back, I'll bring it out."

             
"What trade is that?" Barnett asked the Mummer, as Benlevi disappeared into the back room.

             
The Mummer brushed the dust off his yellow spats and flicked a piece of lint from his fawn-colored suit. "Not ashamed to say it," he told Barnett, "though there's some as would beat around the bush. I was in the swell. Out of it now, course. Still keep my hand in, though, and I won't say that I don't."

             
"A swell?" Barnett asked.

             
"In
the swell," the Mummer said. "I was a sneak thief with the swell mob, blokes what dressed and acted like swells so's we could mingle amongst them at the race-course and the opera and suchlike places."

             
"You gave it up when you went to work for the professor, did you?"

             
"Let us say I became a specialist," the Mummer said. "Now, Mr. Benlevi, what have you got to show?"

             
"Here's my latest toy for your trade, Mummer," Isaac Benlevi said, holding up a shiny black leather Gladstone bag. "Take a look."

             
The Mummer took the bag and examined it from every angle. "It's a Gladstone, right enough. From the outside anyway."

             
"Open it," Benlevi said. "Go on!"

             
The Mummer pushed the catch and the bag popped open. It was divided into two sections and lined with thick black velveteen. The Mummer peered inside and then poked his hand in and felt around. "Empty," he said. "What's the wheeze?"

             
"A very old wheeze, indeed, Mummer," Benlevi said. "All done up in new cloth. Watch!" He rummaged the shelf behind him for a minute and finally produced a small precision chronometer and put it on the counter. Then he snapped the Gladstone bag closed and set it down over the chronometer. When he lifted the bag again, the instrument was gone. "Neat and clean and all in a flash," he said.

             
The Mummer grabbed the bag out of his hand and opened it. He looked inside, then he stuck in his hand and repeated his earlier motions, prodding the sides, top, and bottom of the velveteen lining. Then he turned the Gladstone bag upside down and shook it. "Mr. Benlevi, you're a bloody genius, that's what you are," he declared solemnly, putting the bag down. "I have witnessed a miracle."

             
"A miracle of craftsmanship," Benlevi agreed. He lifted the bag and touched a concealed spring in the handle. Immediately the bottom flopped open and the chronometer dropped to the counter. "It must be reset for each grab," he said. "It will take anything up to six inches square and two or three inches high. Perfect for jewelry trays. A clockwork mechanism grabs the item and holds it securely in a hidden chamber beneath the cloth."

             
"What's your price?" the Mummer asked.

             
Benlevi shook his head. "It is not yet perfected," he said. "When I can swear to its proper operation, I'll sell it—but not before. I'll let you know."

-

             
The Mummer shook his head sadly as they left Benlevi's shop. "I hunger sometimes for the old days, Mr. Barnett," he said. "Humorous times we had in the old days.
"

             
"
Stealing wallets?"

             
"Right enough. And skins and dummies and sneezers and props—"

             
"Sneezers? Props?"

             
"Sorry," the Mummer said. "Sneezers is snuffboxes—some very rare snuffboxes the gentry walk around with. And props is what's pinned or fastened to the outer garment, such as pins and brooches and suchlike. Skins and dummies is handbags and pocketbooks."

             
"I see," Barnett said.

             
They walked to the corner, where the Mummer hailed a passing hansom cab. "One last stop, Guv," he said, giving the cabby an address in the East End.

             
"I may be mistaken, since I'm not too familiar with London,"

             
Barnett said as the hansom moved out to enter the stream of traffic, "but we seem to have gone back and forth across London today in a great zigzag. Aren't we going back now in the direction we came from only a couple of hours ago?"