The Empress of India (17 page)

Tiger hunters in India don’t try to chase the tiger; it is far faster and more agile than the hunter. Instead they stake out a young lamb or kid and conceal themselves nearby. The bleating of the lamb, as Colonel Moran had said, excites the tiger, and lures him into the trap.

The tiger in question crossed the sidewalk and, flattening himself against the side of the building, peered down the alleyway. He saw Moriarty walking slowly toward the iron-bound door at the far end. Moriarty seemed intent on what was in front of him, and unaware of what might be behind him. The tiger allowed the rolled-up newspaper he was carrying to fall away from the lead pipe it concealed, and started silently down the alleyway after the lamb.

When the tiger was about ten yards into the alleyway, the lamb suddenly stopped and turned. Moriarty smiled and advanced toward his pursuer. “You had best put down that piece of pipe and sit on the ground with your hands over your head,” he said in German. “You can’t escape.”

“Escape?” the man looked surprised, but then he laughed. “It is not I who have to be concerned about escape,
mein herr
.” But he stopped and held the pipe in front of him as though he were preparing to lead a marching band. “I have a job to do,” he said. “It will hurt less if you do not resist.”

Moriarty sighed. “For your own good, give up all thought of hurting me, or of getting away. Your exit is blocked.”

“
My
exit?” The man shook his head as though he could not believe what he was hearing.

“You ain’t going nowhere, buddy,” drawled Colonel Moran in German from somewhere behind. The man spun around and saw Moran standing at the entrance to the alleyway, leaning against the building, looking dapper and dangerous.

“Your German is very colloquial,” the professor called out to Moran.

“I learned it at a very colloquial spot,” the colonel replied.

The man between suddenly leaped toward Moriarty, who was no more than five feet away by now, and, with a savage yell, kicked swiftly and heavily at Moriarty’s groin. Moriarty easily sidestepped the blow. The man followed through in one continuous move, transferring his momentum from legs to arms, swinging the lead pipe viciously at Moriarty’s head. Had the blow connected, it would assuredly have killed him. Moriarty moved aside just enough so that the blow whistled harmlessly past his ear, then he caught the man’s arm and twisted it as it came down by turning his own body, causing his attacker to drop the pipe, and poked the man in the stomach with the head of his stick.

The man doubled over, the breath knocked out of him, but a second later he had grabbed the lead pipe on the ground and straightened up, closing with Moriarty and grappling, trying to get in a solid blow with the pipe. Moriarty dropped his stick and the two swayed back and forth, each trying to get mastery of the pipe. Moran raced forward but, just before he reached them, the man was thrust to the ground, facedown, and in a second Moriarty had his knee in the man’s back and was twisting his left hand behind him.

“That was a neat move,” Moran commended. “Just what was it you did there? I thought I saw it, but I didn’t exactly grasp what happened.”

The man on the ground squirmed and yelped. “You pig of a dog! Get off me! I think you’ve broken my arm!”

“It’s a move in baritsu,” Moriarty told Moran. “One of the more obscure Oriental martial arts. Very useful. It takes years of practice, but the effort is well repaid.” Then he leaned down to the man on the ground. “It isn’t broken yet,” he told him, “but it will be if you keep squirming. And calling me names isn’t going to help your case in the hereafter.”

“I shall yell for an officer of the police if you do not release me.”

“Yell away,” Moran said grimly.

“What is it that you gentlemen want?” the man cried. “Why have you assaulted me? What do you mean, ‘the hereafter’?”

“Assaulted you?” Moriarty smiled an unfriendly smile. “Now, that’s an interesting way to look at it.”

“I was just walking down the street when you gentlemen jumped me,” the man insisted.

“Yes?” Moriarty asked. “And just what business had you down this alleyway? And why were you carrying a lead pipe? And why did you attack me with it?”

“A man’s got to defend himself,” the man insisted.

“Enough of this,” Moran growled. “I’ll just kill him, and we’ll be out of here.” A large knife suddenly appeared in his hand.

The man looked up at the knife and his eyes got very large. “No, no,” he yelped. “I am not ready for the hereafter. I meant you no harm—argh!” The last as Moriarty twisted ever so slightly more on the arm he was holding. “I mean, it was just a job. No need to take it personal. I failed—I’ll admit that. I underestimated you, and I lost. Let’s call it quits, fair and square, and I’ll just be off.”

“What’s your name?” asked Moriarty.

“Why—ah!—they call me Plum. Ask anyone. That’s my name, Plum.”

“Well, Plum, why were you trying to kill me?” Moriarty asked. “Who sent you?”

“Trying to kill you?” Plum laughed weakly. His face, pressed against the pavement, was turning white from the pain inflicted by
Moriarty’s scientifically applied baritsu hold. “I think you are dislocating my shoulder. Perhaps you could let up a little, just a bit, no more. No,
mein herr,
I was not trying to kill you. I see the confusion now, and an honest mistake it was indeed. You thought—But no, I had no intention of trying to kill you. Indeed not!”

“What then?” Moriarty demanded.

“I was just to break a few bones, that’s all. A few small, unimportant bones. Just to keep you here for some time.”

“Keep me here?”

“That’s what I was told. That’s all I know.”

“Who hired you?”

“Hired me?”

Moriarty applied more pressure to the arm.

“Argh!
Gott,
but that hurts. When this is over, and we are friends again, perhaps you will teach me that move.”

“Perhaps,” said Moriarty. “Who hired you?”

“I got the job from the Crow. He gives out all the work assignments.”

“Work assignments, is it?” Colonel Moran said savagely. “And a fine sort of work it is.”

“He’s the head of your gang?” Moriarty asked.

“It’s not so much of a gang, as an informal association,” Plum said. “The Crow is more like the secretary, if you see what I mean. He works out the assignments and tries to keep everything fair between us. If you’ll let go of my
gottverdammt
arm and let me up, I’ll be pleased to discuss the system with you.”

“And just why did the Crow want two passing Englishmen beaten up?” demanded Moran.

“Not two Englishmen,” said Plum. “Just him.” He pointed his chin at Moriarty. “The Crow described him and told me where to find him. He said there was someone with him, but you were incidental. I could beat you if I had to, but I wouldn’t get paid anything extra for it.”

“I’ve been slighted,” said Moran. “I should find this Crow and ask
him what’s wrong with me that I’m not to be beaten up along with you, Professor.”

“And who is paying the Crow for this job?” asked Moriarty.

Up until now Plum had looked phlegmatic and resigned, for all that he was facedown on the sidewalk with his arm being twisted. Being beaten up was, after all, part of the game. Suddenly he looked frightened and tried to pull away, and he screamed at the sudden unbearable pain as his arm was twisted well beyond where nature had intended it to go.

“You brought that on yourself,” Moriarty told him. “You’re not permanently injured yet, but don’t do that again. Now, who is paying to have my bones broken?”

“I don’t know,” Plum whined. “He didn’t tell me. Honest.”

“You’re lying,” Moriarty said dispassionately.

Moran bent down and brought his knife to within inches of the man’s face. “Left eye or right eye?” he asked pleasantly.

“Mein Gott!”
cried Plum. “You wouldn’t.” He shuddered and looked up at the leer on Moran’s face. “You would, yes, you would. I can tell you. The Crow was bragging about it, his first assignment from the world-famous English master criminal.”

“What English master criminal?”

“Professor Moriarty is his name. An English gentleman employed the Crow on behalf of his chief, the famous English Herr Professor Moriarty to break your bones so that you could not leave Vienna for some weeks. You will not tell on me, will you?”

Colonel Moran leaned back on his heels, folded his clasp knife, and broke out laughing.

“Tell me about this English gentleman who spoke for the master criminal Moriarty,” Moriarty said.

“I know nothing about him,” Plum insisted. “He dealt only with the Crow. I swear!”

Moriarty released his hold on Plum and pulled him to his feet. “I believe you,” he said. “A touch; a distinct touch. You may go now.”

Plum moved his right arm gingerly, and seemed surprised to see that it still worked properly. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, I will go now.” He trotted down the alleyway to the street, never pausing to look back, and disappeared around the corner.

“Well, Professor,” Moran said, shaking his head. “You’ve set a new record for the master criminal’s devious behavior. You’ve sent someone out to break your own bones.” He burst out laughing again. “Isn’t that too much?”

“I’m flattered that my name has acquired such currency throughout Europe that someone would use it to establish his bona fides as a master criminal,” Moriarty said sourly. “I must find out whom to thank for the honor.”

There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things and a time for small things.
—Miguel de Cervantes

A
n old, long-disused wharf squatted over the muddy water where Covington Street met the Thames, its rotting planks and slimy pilings concealed from view by the sagging wooden fence that kept drunks and children from falling through the unsafe relic into the river below. The barge tied up to the wharf had not been new during the Napoleonic Wars, and was slowly sinking in place, its small deckhouse tilting at a crazy angle on the afterdeck, the whole rotting away from age and neglect.

Or so it was meant to look to a casual observer.

It was early evening on this Saturday, the first day of March, 1890. The sun had disappeared behind the shops and warehouses and a light snow was falling, which further obscured the arrival at the wharf of four of what the commissioner of the metropolitan police described as “London’s most undesirable residents.” They were all known by name
to the chief inspector of the detective division, who would happily have given a week’s pay to put any one of them away for a stretch in Dartmoor Prison. Angelic Tim McAdams and Cooley the Pup arrived moments apart, and disappeared into the depths of the barge. The Artful Codger came perhaps five minutes later, looked carefully around to be sure he was unobserved, and then, settling his leather cap more firmly on his head, proceeded cautiously down into the blackness of the hold.

After another minute the bottom half of the door in the small deck-house opened, and Dr. Pin Dok Low scurried forth like a fox emerging cautiously from its burrow. He paused to savor the smells coming off the river, drinking them in like the steam off a cup of the blackest souchong tea, then hurried to join his compatriots below the deck.

Behind the door to the hold was a double curtain of black muslin, keeping in the light from the two oil lamps that swung from the ceiling.

Cooley the Pup looked up as the curtain was pushed aside, his hand to the back of his neck, where a slender leaf-bladed throwing knife was concealed. As Pin Dok Low emerged through the doorway, he dropped his hand back into his lap. “Well, Pin, about time you got here,” he whined. “We thought you’d be here waiting for us, seeing as how it was you asked us to this here meeting.”

“Oh, I was, I was,” Pin said smoothly, going around to sit at the head of the table, the spot instinctively reserved for him by the others. “I awaited you at a vantage point from which I could assure myself—and you—that you were not being followed.”

“I can look after meself, without no help from you nor anybody else,” growled Angelic Tim McAdams.

“Self-reliance is a wonderful thing,” Pin agreed. “Very useful, I believe, in prison.”

“Here, now; what has prison got to do with it?” demanded the Pup.

“Nothing, I sincerely hope,” Pin said smoothly. “But it pays to remain alert. ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,’ would be a good adage to engrave above the portal of every criminal enterprise.”

“Is that so?” said the Artful Codger, leaning back in his chair until it was teetering on its back legs. “Then who’s watching the store at present?”

Pin took a pair of black-framed glasses from the pocket of his tunic, polished them on the hem of the garment, and settled them onto his nose. “One of my associates is in the deckhouse, keeping the area under surveillance,” he told the Codger. “If he sees anything that should concern us, a bell will direct our attention to the fact.” He pointed to a spot on the ceiling, where a small bell had been fastened. “We will have sufficient time to consider the possibilities and act as seems best.”