The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (34 page)

             
"You do?" Barnett wasn't sure he should believe this stroke of luck.

             
"Indeed!
And
his address, for that matter." Barnett felt weak. "You have the man's name and address written down?"

             
"Naturally. You don't think I'm going to let anyone walk out of here with a pledged item and no ticket unless I get some proof of his identity, do you? I've been in this business for fifty years, and nobody has accused me of being soft in the head."

             
"But I thought you said you recognized him," Barnett said.

             
"And so I did. If not, I wouldn't have let him retrieve the object no matter how many papers he signed."

             
"May I get a look at the paper you had him sign?"

             
"Gladly. In exchange for the pledge ticket. I hate to have them outstanding, you understand."

             
"A fair deal," Barnett agreed.

             
The exchange was made and Barnett copied down the information. Not that he had any real hope that the name and address were genuine, but it was certainly worth checking out. The name and address were block-printed on a buff card.
PYOTRE I. AZIMOF:
7
SCRUTTON COURT.
A scrawling signature was below.

             
"Good-bye, sir," Barnett said. "Thank you for your assistance.

             
You have a fascinating shop here. I will have to come back and really wander through it someday."

             
"It will be here," the old man assured him. "And, for so long as I have anything to say about it, so shall I."

-

             
Barnett pulled his
Greene's Pocket Guide to London Streets & Thoroughfares
from his jacket and discovered that there indeed was a Scrutton Court, and that he was no more than seven or eight blocks from it. He resolved to scout out the building himself, without waiting to check with Moriarty, and try to get a look inside if he could think of a reasonably subtle way.

             
But first he would pause for a bit of lunch. While eating he would plan an approach that would be the least likely to raise suspicion. He felt it would not be wise, with Trepoff, to raise suspicion.

             
The Jack Falstaff Tavern on Cable Street had a pleasant grill room, and the proprietor, on hearing Barnett's accent, brought him a plate of lamb chops and grilled tomatoes, which he described for some reason as his "American lunch." It was quite good. Then, in a burst of Anglo-American friendship, the proprietor produced a pot of coffee which had been boiled only briefly and was actually drinkable.

             
Barnett sat over the coffee and tried to pick an approach. Building inspector? Gas-meter reader? "Excuse me, sir, but I believe my pigeon just flew in your window. Mind if I look?" Professor Moriarty would have seven acceptable schemes for getting inside the house, surely Barnett could come up with one. Barnett debated enlisting the professor's aid instead of proceeding on his own initiative, but then decided it would be more to his credit if he could prove himself an effective sleuth without help from the old master.

             
Barnett finished his third cup of coffee and got up. He'd check the house out from the outside. Maybe something immensely clever would occur to him as he walked by. Maybe not. Maybe there was no such house; the man had probably given a false name and address anyhow. Better check it out and see where to go from there.

             
Scrutton Court was a double row of two-story red brick buildings facing a narrow stone-paved street. Someone had built it early in the century as housing for the deserving almost-poor, and so it had stayed for the past sixty or seventy years. Barnett had to walk the length of the street twice before he located the building numbers, which were painted in whitewash on the curb. A row of apathetic women watched him without interest from their porches as he passed, and then went back to hanging their wash from the lines that paralleled the houses.

             
Dingy white curtains covered the windows at number seven, and there was no sign of life from within. What sort of sign from what sort of life Barnett had expected to see, he had no idea. The house could be deserted, or there could be an army camped within, and the only way to tell was to get inside and look.

             
Barnett approached the woman on the porch directly across the street from number seven. "Excuse me," he said.

             
She looked up, her broad face expressionless. "Aye?"

             
"Could you tell me if there's anyone living across the street? That building there," he pointed.

             
"Couldn'a say," she said.

             
"Well, have you seen anyone going in or out, in the past week, say?"

             
"Couldn'a say."

             
"I see," Barnett said. "Thank you so much for your help."

             
He crossed the street and stood in front of number seven. Then it occurred to him. The perfect approach. And it was so obvious that he was ashamed for not having thought of it immediately. Old Mr. Starkey had told him about the musical box, and he wanted to see it with an eye toward making Pyotre Azimof an offer. He knew Pyotre wouldn't sell, but surely he couldn't resist showing the musical box off to an interested collector.

             
Barnett mounted the stairs and knocked on the door. After some seconds, it was opened, and a burly man in rough nautical garb stared out at him.

             
"Good afternoon," Barnett said. "Does Mr. Pyotre Azimof live here?"

             
The man silently stepped aside, and Barnett walked in. "Would you tell him someone would like to see him about his musical box?" he said.

             
The door slammed and Barnett was grabbed from behind. A rag with sweet-smelling fluid on it was held over his mouth and nose.

             
"Good afternoon, Mr. Barnett," a soft, guttural voice said from further inside. "It is a shame that your friend, Professor Moriarty, did not accompany you. But you will have to suffice."

             
The room tilted and spun. Bright lights whirled around in Barnett's head, to be quickly replaced by harsh blackness. He struggled like a man submerged in quicksand, without really knowing what he was doing. Then nothing.

And the night shall be filled with music.

—
L
ongfellow

             
Barnett woke up slowly. A syncopated pounding thrummed across his temples, and a profound nausea replaced any other sensation. For a long time nothing else mattered. And then he was very sick.

             
Hands reached for him and held him up. A white basin appeared under his head, and he retched into it for what seemed several lifetimes. Then nothing more came up, and the retching changed to gasping, and the pounding of his racing heart overrode the pounding of his head. Slowly, very slowly, his heart calmed and his breathing slowed.

             
His eyes began to focus.

             
Guttural instructions were shouted, and more hands pulled Barnett to his feet. A bucket of cold water was brought and dumped over his head, then another, and a third.

             
Barnett shook his head and opened his eyes. Slowly the room and the people in it came into focus: the thin man with the crooked nose holding the bucket and grinning; the heavy man who had let him into the house; a man in a black suit sitting in the corner, his face hidden under a black cotton mask; a man with wire-rimmed glasses who looked like a cobbler or tailor talking softly to a man with a small mustache, who looked like a radical student even to the two books under his arm. None of them appeared interested in Barnett, except for the man with the bucket and the man behind the cotton mask.

             
The man behind the mask barked out a new set of instructions, and the man with the crooked nose put down the bucket and yanked Barnett over to a wooden chair. He pushed Barnett down and tied
him quickly and expertly to the chair, his hands behind the back and one leg lashed to each of the chair's front legs. Barnett was too weak and sick even to protest out loud, much less resist the man who bound him.

             
The man behind the mask came over to glare down at Barnett. His eyes were hard behind the two thin slits. "We meet again," he said.

             
"Huh?" Barnett said weakly, still not sure what was happening. "What'sat?"

             
"The last time, I struck you over the head with a brass monkey. One of that English lieutenant's treasured possessions, no doubt. 'Hear no evil,' or some such conceit."

             
Barnett shook his head to clear his foggy vision and the pounding at his temples. "So
you're
the guy," he said thickly.

             
"I do apologize for your present condition," the masked man said solicitously. "I assure you you'll be all right in a few minutes. A pad saturated in chloric ether was applied over your
nose and mouth to render you unconscious as you entered the house. But instead of collapsing, you fought like a madman, which resulted in your absorbing much more of the vapor than is good for you. It's your own fault, really."

             
"I fought?" Barnett remembered none of it.

             
"Those bruises on your arms were not gratuitous," the masked man said. "Nobody kicked you while you were down, Mr. Barnett."

             
"I don't remember," Barnett said. The fog around his brain was lifting and full awareness of his present position was creeping in to replace it. Barnett was not feeling too pleased with himself.

             
"It doesn't matter," the masked man said. "No one here holds a grudge against you. We are the ultimately rational men. We do what we must, and we allow ourselves neither remorse nor pleasure at our actions."

             
"That's very—sensible," Barnett said, twisting at his wrists to test the rope that bound them. There was no give, no slack, and no stretch in the rope. He relaxed.

             
"I am glad you feel that way," said the man behind the mask. "Then you will understand that what we are about to do is not out of malice but merely political necessity."

             
"What are you going to do?" Barnett asked. The headache was slowly lifting, but he could feel the pain in his bruised muscles now, and the soggy chill of his clothing, soaked from the buckets of water dumped over his head.

             
"It will be a glorious event!" the masked man said enthusiastically. "It will make the great sluggish mass of the British people aware of anarchy. It will be a new height. It will kill you, as you Americans so aptly put it."

             
"You mean that literally, I suppose," Barnett said.

             
"Oh, quite," the man behind the mask assured him. "We were hoping to get Professor Moriarty himself, but I'm afraid you will have to do. You and the girl."

             
"This was all a setup," Barnett said.

             
"When that gentleman over there," the masked man said, indicating the man with the slight mustache, "—let us call him—no, let him remain nameless—when that gentleman over there reported to me that he had lost his cap and that a pledge ticket was in the band, I at first castigated him severely. Then I realized that with proper management the pledge ticket would lead Professor Moriarty, or Sherlock Holmes—I had really hoped for one of the two—into my trap. It has at least produced you. I suppose it is too much to hope that the professor is going to attempt a rescue. I would like the chance to show him that I learn from my misjudgments."