The Empress of India (32 page)

“I think I’d best leave you here and go on for’ard,” the mummer said, “and contribute my mite to the success of our little venture.”

“What are you going to be doing?” Colonel Moran asked.

“Throwing statues overboard,” the mummer told him.

“What? Whatever for?”

“Ask ’im,” said the mummer, pointing a thumb at Moriarty.

Moran turned to look at him, but the professor shook his head. “Later,” he said. “No time now.” And, as if to emphasize his words, another single gunshot sounded from somewhere below them.

How pleasant it is, at the end of the day,
No follies to have to repent;
But reflect on the past, and be able to say,
That my time has been properly spent.
—Jane Taylor

P
in and his henchmen rounded the corner of the passageway and came on deck just in time to see Moriarty and Moran pass under the dim oil lamp hanging over the ladder to the lower promenade deck.

“No one else around,” whispered Cooley. “What do you suppose they’re up to?”

“Meeting up with their pals, no doubt,” said the Codger, “and seeing about removing the gold.”

“We will creep after them,” Pin whispered, “and see what they do.”

“Creep it is,” the Artful Codger whispered back hoarsely.

_______

Moriarty pressed a stud on the head of his cane when they reached the bottom of the ladder, twisted the gold ring connecting it to the body, and pulled out the eighteen-inch-long slender steel blade thus concealed. The body of the cane, freed from its stiffening sword, was a flexible yew staff with a lead weight at the bottom, a dangerous if not mortal weapon in its own right. “Take your choice,” he told Colonel Moran, “saber or cosh.”

“As you reminded me recently,” Moran told him. “I have a certain fondness for bashing people about the head. Cosh it is.”

Moriarty handed him the length of yew. “A gentle tap will render your foe unconscious,” he told Moran. “A heavy swing to the head will kill.”

“Clever,” commented Moran, swishing the end of the stick around speculatively.

Two men and a woman came around a corner of the deck and stopped when they saw Moriarty and Moran. “You’re Professor Moriarty,” said the tall, slender man. The other man, Moriarty noted, was one of the ship’s crew, and he was hefting a fire axe.

“I am,” Moriarty acknowledged. He peered into the dark. “And I believe you and this young lady accompanied us on our visit to Elephanta, correct?”

“That’s right. Peter Collins at your service. And this is Margaret St. Yves.” The two of them stepped forward.

“The general’s daughter?” asked Moran.

“That’s right,” she acknowledged.

“I admire your father,” Moran told her. “Fine officer. Pukka sahib.”

“Thank you,” said Margaret. “I’ve always found him rather admirable myself.”

A distant shot echoed faintly past them, and then another.

“No time for reminiscence now,” Colonel Moran said, holding the length of cane under his arm like a swagger stick and glaring at some unseen object in the distance. “Battle, murder, and sudden death—that’s
what’s on the menu. The next hour should separate the dogs from the puppies!”

Peter and Margaret turned to look at him in wonder, but he didn’t notice.

“Unfortunately, the colonel’s right,” Moriarty said. “Although he doesn’t phrase it in the way I—or anyone else in the known world—would. And we’d best get to it. How did you people get out of the ballroom?”

Peter explained about the hole they had chopped through the wall on the port side of the deck and the stream of people who were even now escaping from it.

Moriarty nodded. “That will add to the confusion, which is all to the good.”

A green flare streamed up into the sky from somewhere on the upper deck and burst high in the air.

“That’s not a good thing,” Peter said, watching the green ball of fire slowly descend into the sea.

“There must be a ship following us,” Moriarty said. “It’s probably trying to find us even now.”

“That’s what I thought,” Peter said. “My idea is to make our way to the bridge and try to get the ship going again.”

Moriarty shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said. “Come with us.”

“Why won’t it work?” Peter asked, “They’ve got to be spread pretty thin. They can’t have many men up there.” He exhibited his small pistol. “And I should be able to take out a couple of them, for starters.”

“They almost certainly control the engine room also,” Moriarty said. “Your signaling to resume speed from the bridge will only alert them to their new problem.”

“Well, sir,” Margaret said, “do you have a better idea?”

“I believe so,” Moriarty told them. “The guardroom for the Lancers is on a lower level by the gold vault, and it holds the rifles and bayonets
for the whole force. I believe that the occasional gunfire we hear is a sign that it is being assaulted but has not yet fallen. If the villains had the guns, I believe we’d either hear a lot more gunfire or a lot less, depending. We should attempt to rescue it before our opponents, whoever they are, get the weapons.”

“Phansigar,” said Margaret.

Moriarty turned to her. “Excuse me?”

“Our unseen enemy,” Margaret said. “We believe they’re Phansigar.”

“Damn!” said Colonel Moran. “Excuse my language, miss. Thuggees—I should have guessed!”

“Thuggees,” Moriarty mused. “Phansigar. I’ve read about them, of course, but I thought they disappeared forty years ago.”

“Nothing that evil—and that successful—ever disappears,” said Moran.

“I’m afraid he’s right,” Peter said. “We heard they were possibly active again, and here they are.”

“We?” asked Moran.

“I’m with the DSI,” Peter told him.

“The Department, eh? Good chaps. I knew some of your people in Afghanistan. Eric Leakirk. Young chap. Dark hair. Blank stare. Smarter than he looked. Had a good seat on a camel.”

Peter shook his head. “Don’t think I know him,” he said.

“Save that for later,” Moriarty interrupted. “Are you with us or not?”

“We should try to get something to fight with,” said Peter. “I have a two-shot derringer pistol, but nothing else.”

“I have this,” said the seaman, hefting his axe. He pointed toward the lifeboat tied down at the edge of the deck. “And each of them lifeboats has a flare gun with eight or ten shells in a watertight compartment abaft.”

“Good thought,” said Moriarty. “What’s your name, seaman?”

“A. B. Hickscroft, sir.”

“Well, able-bodied Seaman Hickscroft, I’m Professor Moriarty, this is Colonel Moran, and we’re pleased to have you with us. You, too, Collins, and Miss St. Yves.”

Those spoken to murmured “Thank you,” and “Right on.” None of them seemed to object or think it odd that Moriarty had assumed de facto command of their little party.

“It’s time to get on with it,” Colonel Moran growled. “Are you ready?”

“Just let me near them, sir,” Seaman Hickscroft rumbled.

“That’s the spirit!” Moriarty said. “Mr. Collins, do you want to retrieve the flare gun from that lifeboat?”

“I do indeed,” Peter said, and suited action to word, opening a corner of the canvas covering the lifeboat and slipping into the boat like a well-greased ferret. A few seconds later he emerged. “I wondered why the rope was undone in this corner,” he said. “Look what—or should I say who—I found.” He ducked into the boat again, and reappeared with the head of Lady Priscilla. He pulled and heaved, and the rest of her appeared. She had been manhandled, tied up, and gagged, and was now bruised, angry, and very irritable, which they discovered as soon as Peter pulled the gag off.

“Thank God you found me,” she said, spitting the remains of the gag from her mouth while Peter was busy releasing her from the rope that was wound around her like spider webbing around a fly. “I’ve never been treated like that before in my life. In my life! Trussed up like a sack of God-knows-what and tossed into a lifeboat. And by native stewards! I have no idea what they think they were doing, but when my father hears about this—prison is too good for them—they should be flogged!”

Peter helped her out of the lifeboat, and then dove back inside to emerge less than a minute later with a flare gun in one hand and a tin box of extra flares in the other. “It’s not lethal, I think,” he said, dropping back down to the deck, “but it should slow them down.”

“Lady Priscilla, how did this happen to you?” Margaret asked, going over and putting her own scarf around her cabin mate’s quivering shoulders.

“I was doing that trick, you know, with Mr. Mamarum, and when I arrived outside the ballroom door—”

“How did you do that?” Margaret asked.

“Does it matter?” she asked. “I’m not supposed to tell.”

“Actually, it might matter,” Moriarty said.

“Well . . .” Lady Priscilla said. “I suppose. . . . Do you remember

when Mamarum and his boy brought that rack full of swords out? Well, he put it between the basket and the audience and I scrambled out the top of the basket while you couldn’t see me.”

“Come on!” Margaret said. “That rack wasn’t solid. I could see right between the swords.”

“You
thought
you could,” Lady Priscilla told her. “But when they set it down, they released a rolled-up strip of canvas fastened to the rear that was painted to look like the back of the set. And I crawled behind it and put on a black robe and cinched it so it would look like a dress, if you didn’t look too closely. When that crowd of people came up to examine the swords, I joined the crowd. When they left the stage, I left the stage with them, and I kept going until I was outside the doors.”

“Gor!” said Seaman Hickscroft. “Who would’a thought?”

“And,” Lady Priscilla continued, getting down to the part that was the source of her aggrievement, “no sooner did I step outside the door than these two stewards grabbed me, stuffed a wad of cotton in my mouth, and tied me up. Then they returned to what they had been doing, which was securing the doors to the ballroom with strips of wood and screws and wedges and whatnots, leaving me tied up in a corner. When they finished with the doors, they jabbered at each other for a minute, then one of them tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of flour and took me over to the lifeboat and threw me in.”

“How fortunate!” said Professor Moriarty.

“Excuse me?” Lady Priscilla backed away from him, bobbing her head like an irate pigeon.

“My lady, had it not been for the fortunate circumstance of your early departure from the room,” Moriarty said, smiling at her as though she’d purposely done something clever, “and your friend the officer’s distress at your disappearance, then we should all still be in the ballroom watching amateur clog dancing, and by the time we emerged—or found out we couldn’t emerge—it would have been too late.”

“Too late for what?” Lady Priscilla asked.

Margaret explained to her as quickly as possible what had been happening.

“Well, I’ll be—” Lady Priscilla said.

Another green flare went up from the bridge of the ship.

“That other ship must be having trouble finding us,” Moriarty commented. “We’d better get on with this before it does. We have at most thirty of them to deal with now, and if we manage to release the Lancers and their weapons we’ll have a good shot at it. But there’s no way to tell how many are aboard the ship.” He turned to Margaret. “I don’t know where to tell you and Lady Priscilla to stay until this is all over,” he said. “Perhaps you should return to your stateroom.”

“I think I’ll go around to the other side—the port side?—of the deck and see if I can find Lieutenant Welles,” Lady Priscilla said. “He’s very good in situations, if he has someone to tell him what to do.”

“Very well, my lady,” Moriarty agreed.

“As for me,” Margaret said, “were I to return to my stateroom I should go crazy wondering what was happening. And have palpitations at every sound. I’m not sure what palpitations are, but I’m sure I would have them.”

“You can’t talk her out of coming with us,” Peter told Moriarty, “and we’d best not waste time trying.” He held out his little two-shot pistol to Margaret. “Do you know how to use this?” he asked.

“Am I my father’s daughter?” asked Margaret. “I’ve been firing sidearms since I was six years old. I’m also a dead shot with a forty-pound bow, and I can handle an épée reasonably well.”

“A sure recipe for domestic bliss,” Peter said, handing her the pistol. “Watch out for this one. It’s a single-action with a light hammer pull and a hair trigger.”

“This way,” Moriarty said, leading them along the deck to the next stairs down.

The Artful Codger, who had been stretched out along one side of the ladder between the decks, his head lower than his feet, to hear what Moriarty and his minions were planning, pulled himself up and twisted his head from side to side to relieve a neck cramp that had overtaken him while he was unable to move. “They’re going down to the guardroom to try to free the guards and get their weapons,” he reported to Pin. “It sounds like they’re getting ready to fight the Thuggees, so maybe they’re not on their side after all.”