The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (9 page)

             
"Yes," Moriarty said. "So?"

             
"A war between the two countries, with both sides fully committed, would be a horrible thing. The world's greatest land power against the world's greatest sea power. It would go on for years. Millions of people would die. It could turn into a global conflict, pulling the other nations of the world irresistibly into its vortex."

             
"Yes."

             
"It is possible that one man, in England now, could cause this tragedy. He is a madman. You must stop him. He calls himself Trepoff."

             
"Trepoff!" Moriarty said. "I have seen the name.
"

             
"
Indeed?" Zyverbine said.

             
"Yes. I received a communication from someone wishing to speak to me concerning one 'Trepoff,' who said he would call in the evening. It seemed to assume some prior knowledge of the matter that I did not have. Shortly after the note, I received a bomb. The man never called."

             
"So!" Zyverbine said, clasping his hands together. "Was the note signed? If so, with what name?"

             
"The letter 'V' was affixed to the bottom."

             
"Vassily!" Zyverbine exclaimed, nodding his head almost imperceptibly up and down. "Vassily!"

             
"Vassily?" Moriarty asked.

             
"Yes. We did not know that he had tried to seek your aid, although it was from him that we first got your name. He was our best agent in England. He is dead."

             
"Dead."

             
"Some weeks after warning us of Trepoff's presence in England, and of his intentions, Vassily Vladimirovitch Gabin, known in London as Ned Bunting, the street artist, died of drinking poisoned soup."

             
"I'm sorry," Moriarty said.

             
"His widow received the Imperial Order of Merit, Second Class, and a pension of thirty roubles a month," Zyverbine said. "Very thoughtful," Moriarty said.

             
"I understand Vassily was a very good street artist. They paint directly on the pavement, do they not? Street artists?"

             
"They draw on the pavement," Moriarty told him, "with colored chalks. A very transitory art form."

             
Zyverbine sighed. "Transitory," he said. "Impermanent. The epitaph of a spy."

             
"Tell me about this Trepoff," Moriarty said. "The man has evidently already tried to kill me once, and was undoubtedly responsible for Bunting's death as well. I'd better at least know what he looks like."

             
"I wish I could help you," Zyverbine said. "There is no man who knows what Trepoff looks like. He has at times disguised himself as an old man, a youth, and even a woman, and gone undetected each time."

             
"I see," Moriarty said. "Can you tell me anything about him? How is he going to bring about a war between Russia and Great Britain?"

             
"I don't know," Zyverbine said.

             
"I somehow suspected that you were going to say that," Moriarty said.

             
"It is, perhaps, not as stupid as it sounds," Zyverbine said. "Permit me to explain."

             
"I encourage you to explain," Moriarty told him.

             
"Yes," Zyverbine said. "Tell me, Professor, how much do you know of Russian history?"

             
"What any educated Englishman would be expected to know," Moriarty said, "which is to say, practically nothing."

             
"The history of my country over the past thirty years," Zyverbine said soberly, "has been written in blood. When Tsar Alexander II ascended the throne in 1855 and liberalized the policies of his father, Nicholas, he was rewarded by increasingly frequent assassination attempts. He dissolved the hated Special Corps of Gendarmerie, and in 1866 the nihilist Karakozoff shot at him in St. Petersburg. He reduced the power of the Secret Third Section, and in 1867 the Polish anarchist Berezowski attempted to assassinate him in Paris. He later abolished the Third Section, and the nihilist
Solovioff
attempted to murder him on April 14, 1879.

             
"The Okhrana attempted to infiltrate these nihilist groups and to protect the life of the Tsar, but although we had fair success, it was too late. On March 13, 1881, as he was passing a cheese factory on Malaya Sadova Street, on the way to visit his former mistress, the Princess Catherine, a white handkerchief was waved by the nihilist Sophya Perovskaya and two bombs went off by his sledge."

             
"I remember reading of the assassination," Moriarty said, "although not in such detail. The bombs did the job, then?"

             
"The first bomb killed two of the Tsar's Cossack guards. Alexander dismounted to go to their aid, and the second bomb killed him."

             
"That was four years ago," Moriarty said.

             
Zyverbine stood up. "Four years ago, Alexander III became Tsar of all Russians," he said, crossing himself, "and we of the Okhrana took a blood vow to protect him and his family against anarchists, nihilists, and revolutionaries. We intend to keep that vow."

             
"Very commendable, I'm sure," Moriarty said. "Trepoff is, then, a nihilist?"

             
"On the contrary, Professor Moriarty," Zyverbine said. "Trepoff is the leader of the
Belye Krystall
—the White Crystal, a group of right-wing fanatics within the External Agency of the Okhrana."

             
"You mean that this Trepoff, who murdered your best agent in England—and who, incidentally, tried to kill me—is himself an agent of the Okhrana?"

             
"Unfortunately," Zyverbine said, sitting back down and staring across the great desk, "that is exactly what I mean." He held his hands out, palms up. "You must understand, the Okhrana is unlike any organization you are familiar with. For one thing, the Okhrana consists of tens of thousands of people—a population larger than that of many small countries. Most of them work for the Internal Agency."

             
"Russians spying on other Russians."

             
"That is right," Zyverbine said. "Indeed, even the External Agency is mostly comprised of Russians spying on other Russians. Over the past twenty years many thousands of Russians have left their homeland. Among them were many anarchist intellectuals fleeing the Okhrana and taking their plots with them. Many of them— indeed most of them—have settled in London. There are a few in Paris and one small group in Berlin and some old men in Vienna; but most of the younger, more active anarchists are gathered in the East End of London."

             
"I know of them," Moriarty said. "In fact, it would be hard not to. They are said to create all sorts of problems for the police. They have established their own private clubs, which are the gathering places for Eastern European revolutionaries, nihilists, socialists, and other political activist types that the police believe to be troublemakers."

             
"Indeed," Zyverbine said. "Tell me, in your country, what is the prevailing opinion of these émigrés?"

             
"I would say it is mixed," Moriarty replied, thoughtfully. "Most Englishmen would approve of their ideals, as they conceive them to be: freedom, social justice—high moral goals. And yet they go around shooting grand dukes and bombing trains, and that sort of thing is frowned upon. There is also a strong belief among both the police and the criminal classes that the anarchists support both themselves and their movement by robbing banks, also frowned upon."

             
Zyverbine nodded and looked satisfied. "Just so," he said, "just so!"

             
"This pleases you?" Moriarty asked.

             
"Of course," Zyverbine told him. "We work very hard to create this image. Not, you understand, that it isn't true. We just emphasize here, expose there"—he touched the air with his forefinger at different imaginary points—"and show these people up for what they are."

             
Zyverbine paused before he went on. "Trepoff, of course, is more difficult to deal with, and the damage he could do to our relations with your great nation is grave indeed. Which is why we have called for you. Will you take the job, and what are your terms?"

             
"I don't believe," Moriarty said, "that you have, as yet, defined the job."

             
"You are correct, of course," Zyverbine said. "We have been talking around it. Well—to the point: we have discovered that Trepoff is determined to so discredit the Russian
émigré
community in London that your country will be forced to deport them all. He plans to commit some act that is so heinous, so atrocious, that your English citizens will rise up and force your government into taking such action."

             
"Why?" Moriarty asked.

             
"The anarchist heads in London wag the tails in Moscow and St. Petersburg," Zyverbine said. "When the next attempt is made on the life of Alexander III, it will almost certainly come on orders and plans from London."

             
"If they are ejected from London," Moriarty said, "they will merely settle elsewhere."

             
"Our goal is to keep them in motion," Zyverbine said. "This makes it harder for them to plan or to raise money, and easier for us to infiltrate their organizations."

             
"I see," Moriarty said.

             
"But what Trepoff and the Belye Krystall are planning
..."
Zyverbine shook his head. "A major outrage is not wise. It is too dangerous, too full of pitfalls. Who can tell what will happen if the plan backfires?"

             
"If he is caught," Moriarty said, "or if the Okhrana itself is otherwise implicated
..."

             
"At the least, a terrible revulsion of feeling in Great Britain against Russia," Zyverbine said. "At the most—war!"

             
Zyverbine sat motionless for almost a minute, his head resting in the palm of his hand. Moriarty made no effort to prompt him. At last Zyverbine spoke. "Who is to say what this madman Trepoff is planning? The destruction of a British battleship, the murder of a member of the Royal Family, blowing up Parliament, mass murder in the streets of London
...
All are equally possible. And if he is apprehended and traced to the Okhrana—"

             
"I understand," Moriarty said.

             
"You must also understand that the Tsar, my master, is a great friend of Great Britain and your Queen."

             
"Three wars in the past sixty years," Moriarty reminded Zyverbine.

             
"His father." Zyverbine shrugged. "Besides, they were mere differences of opinion. But they have created a climate where England distrusts Russia. One little mistake—"

             
"The mistaken blowing up of one battleship," Moriarty suggested.