The Great Game Read online

  The Great Game

  Moriarty 03

  ( 2001 ) *

  Michael Kurland

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE — PLAYING THE GAME

  CHAPTER TWO — DOORWAY TO DEATH

  CHAPTER THREE — THE FAT MAN

  CHAPTER FOUR — THE FREEDOM LEAGUE

  CHAPTER FIVE — LAKE COMO

  CHAPTER SIX — CHARLES BREDLON SUMMERDANE

  CHAPTER SEVEN — CHANCE

  CHAPTER EIGHT — DEATH IN VIENNA

  CHAPTER NINE — INCOGNITO

  CHAPTER TEN — MORIARTY

  CHAPTER ELEVEN — INNOCENCE BY ASSOCIATION

  CHAPTER TWELVE — STONE WALLS

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN — THE CLAIRVOYANT

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN — SLIGHT OF MIND

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN — THE CONSULTING DETECTIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN — A PERSON OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN — WEISSERSCHLOSS

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN — YOUR AMERICAN COUSIN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN — A CASTLE IN UHMSTEIN

  CHAPTER TWENTY — BILLET REAPING

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE — GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO — MADAME MADELEINE VERLAINE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE — RESCUE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR — THE BLOODY HANDPRINT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE — ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND RUSSIA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX — THE TRAIN

  CHAPTER T W ENTY-SEVEN — OF CABBAGES AND KINGS

  Book information

  PROLOGUE

  ... there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of earth!

  — Rudyard Kipling

  WEDNESDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 1891

  Mrs. Hudson, the landlady at 221B Baker Street, knocked on the sitting room door of her illustrious tenant. "Mr. Holmes," she called. "There's a gentleman to see you."

  There was a scurrying sound from inside, and Sherlock Holmes opened the door a crack and peered through. "What sort of gentleman?"

  "Here's the gentleman's card." Mrs. Hudson slid the pasteboard through the crack. Holmes reached for it with his long fingers, pulled it inside, and immediately closed the door.

  Mrs. Hudson waited patiently outside the door. She heard Holmes cry, "Professor Moriarty!" through the door, and then again louder, "Professor Moriarty!" in a querulous voice, and then, "How amusing," and then silence. After a moment he called, "Mrs. Hudson?"

  "Yes, Mr. Holmes?"

  "Are you still there, Mrs. Hudson?"

  "Yes, Mr. Holmes."

  "Good, good. Show the gentleman up."

  Professor James Moriarty was a tall, angular man with a face like a hawk and deep-set, dark eyes that missed little of what passed before them. When Mrs. Hudson told him to go on up, he removed his black frock coat, placed it and his top hat on the coat stand by the door, and stalked up the stairs. The door to Holmes's sitting room was ajar. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment and then pushed it open. The room inside appeared to be empty. "I'm here, Holmes," he said without attempting to enter.

  Moriarty's calling card, crumpled into a ball, was thrown over the door into the hall, and then Holmes appeared from behind the door clad in a red silk dressing gown, a half-smoked cigarette in his left hand and an iron poker in his right. "None of your tricks now, Professor," he jeered. "I'm ready for you!"

  Moriarty pursed his lips. "Is this why you sent for me, Holmes?" he asked. "For more of your puerile accusations and infantile behavior? Really! I was in the midst of replying to a letter from an American physicist named Michelson when your telegram arrived, and I put aside the correspondence to rush over here. Michelson has devised a novel way to measure the speed of light waves through the ether, but the ether doesn't seem to want to oblige. He requests my advice—you accuse me of tricks. Clearly I should have stayed at home and finished the letter."

  "Of what possible use to anyone can it be to know the speed of light waves through the ether?" Holmes asked.

  "The pursuit of knowledge requires no justification," Moriarty said.

  "On the contrary," Holmes told him, pulling the door fully open. "The collection of useless facts is destructive of orderly and methodical thinking." He put the cigarette between his lips and inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly so that the smoke wreathed his face. "I could not understand criminal behavior so well if I did not collect, sort, and analyze the minutia of past crimes and observe new crimes as they occur. If I allowed myself the luxury of studying, say, the flight of butterflies, or the spectra of light emanating from the sun, I might be invited to lecture at the Royal Academy, but I should be hard put to solve even the simplest crimes."

  "Indeed?" Moriarty said. "It is my experience that the more one attempts to cram into one's mind, the more it will hold, and the more information one commands, the better the results of one's attempt at deductive reasoning."

  Holmes raised one hand in the air as though stopping a cab. "What telegram?" he demanded. Moriarty's hand went to his jacket pocket, and Holmes raised the poker. "Careful, Professor!"

  The professor pulled a folded telegram from his pocket and held it out in front of him. Holmes put his cigarette precariously on the edge of a bureau and grabbed for it. Moriarty examined Holmes's face critically. "You haven't shaved in a week, and your pupils are the size of shillings," he said. "You've been indulging in cocaine again, I fancy, judging by the wild gleam in your eyes and the upraised poker. Really, Holmes ..."

  Holmes retreated back into the study and lowered the poker. "I sent you no telegram!" he interrupted. "I would asseverate that you sent it to yourself, I wouldn't put it past you, except that I can see no gain for you in such an action. Someone is diddling us both. Surely the wording of the message, 'Come at once, stop. 221B Baker Street, stop.' should have alerted you to its spurious nature. Why, if for some unimaginable reason, I would send for you, would I not sign my name?"

  Moriarty came into the sitting room and glanced around. "I thought perhaps you were saving the four pence. Perhaps the consulting detective business has fallen on hard times."

  Holmes chuckled. "My last client was—let us say a member of one of the noblest families in the kingdom—and my fee was considerable. I am about to leave for—a certain country in Europe—to undertake a commission for the government. Have no fears for my financial resources. I take only those cases that interest me these days, and my recompense is generally excellent, save when I remit my fee altogether."

  "Glad to hear that, Holmes," Moriarty said, crossing to a bookcase against the far wall and peering at the titles. "Perhaps if you are sufficiently occupied you will leave me alone. It would be a welcome novelty not to find you dogging my footsteps every time I pursue some innocent errand; not to hear your shrill accusations every time a sufficiently notorious crime is committed anywhere in England."

  "Oh, in the world, Professor, in the world!" Holmes almost danced over to a high-back chair and dropped into it. "I have too high a regard for your iniquitous abilities to imagine that your activities are confined to this little island."

  "Bah!" said Professor Moriarty.

  A heavy, solid footfall on the stairs presaged the arrival of Holmes's friend and companion, Dr. Watson, who bustled into the room and threw off his coat, draping it over the arm of a chair. "Afternoon, Holmes," he said. "Sorry I'm late. Afternoon, Professor Moriarty. I see you're here already."

  Holmes rose from his chair and pointed a slightly quavering finger at Watson. "You expected him?"

  "Professor Moriarty?" Watson nodded and took a seat at the small table that served them for eating meals when it wasn't covered with Holmes's n
ewspaper clippings waiting to be filed. "I sent him a telegram."

  "You did what?" Controlling himself with a great effort, Holmes sat back down on the edge of his chair.

  Moriarty laughed briefly. "There you have it," he said. "The unexplainable explained."

  "Watson, sometimes you—" Holmes paused and took a deep breath. "Watson, old friend, I pride myself on my intellect, but I haven't a clue—not the slightest clue—what could have induced you to send a telegram to"—Holmes waved in Moriarty's general direction rather than saying his name—"and what you thought to gain from it."

  "I thought to shock you out of your lethargy and drug-taking, if you must know, Holmes. I thought that perhaps the sight of Professor Moriarty in the flesh might have some effect." Watson turned to Moriarty. "He hasn't left this room for three weeks."

  "Seventeen days, Watson," Holmes corrected him. "It was seventeen days ago that I came in after chasing the Hampstead Heath Strangler for two days and nights until he finally drowned himself in the Thames."

  "I see," Moriarty told Watson. "And you thought that the very sight of me would send Holmes fleeing down the stairs?"

  "No, no, nothing like that," Watson said.

  Holmes studied them both for a moment, and then fell back in his chair and chuckled. "Oh, I fancy it was quite like that, Watson. Quite like that."

  Watson looked embarrassed. "Well, old man," he said, "perhaps there was some element—I mean, you were going on about the professor and how he was plotting against you. And when you began looking behind the couch and up the chimney to see if he was concealed there—well, old man, I thought I'd better do something. Cocaine is an insidious drug, at the level you're taking it."

  "So it is, Watson," Holmes agreed. "I came to the same conclusion. And so I've stopped taking it."

  Watson sat on the couch and stared dubiously at his friend. "You have?"

  "Indeed. About two hours ago. Now I intend to sleep for as long as nature allows me, and then indulge in a soak, and then prepare for our trip. I shall not touch the needle again until after our forthcoming adventure is over, if then. You have my word."

  "Truly, Holmes?"

  Holmes shook his head. "I told you, old friend, that I resort to drugs only to relieve the considerable ennui of existence. When I observe that the practice seems to be clouding my judgment, particularly in regard to my old nemesis Professor Moriarty—when I find myself peering under the bureau to see if he is lurking there—then it would seem to be time to stop."

  "Wisdom indeed, if a long time coming," Moriarty commented. "You realize now that I am not the villain you have made me out to be?"

  "Not at all, Professor," Holmes averred, "I merely realized that you would never fit under the bureau."

  Moriarty raised an eyebrow. "You keep accusing me of committing the most heinous crimes, and you seem positively disappointed when you discover you are mistaken, Holmes. I freely admit—in the confines of this room—that some of my activities are not what this straitlaced society would consider proper, even that I have broken the laws of this country on occasion. But I am not the monstrous master criminal you make me out to be."

  "If so," Holmes said, shaking a finger in Moriarty's general direction, "it is not for lack of trying."

  "Bah!" Moriarty turned to Dr. Watson. "It is not merely the cocaine," he said, "his brain is addled. Take care of him, Doctor." He nodded to both of them and strode out of the room and down the stairs.

  Holmes shook his head. "A telegram to Professor Moriarty. What an idea. Watson, sometimes you amaze me." He stood up. "I shall sleep now, Watson."

  "Good idea, Holmes."

  CHAPTER ONE — PLAYING THE GAME

  Ah Vienna, city of Dreams!

  There's no place like Vienna!

  — Robert Musil,

  The Man Without Qualities

  It was Tuesday the third of March, in the year 1891, the fifty-fourth year in the reign of Victoria Saxe-Coburg, queen of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland and empress of India, and the forty-third year in the reign of Franz Josef Habsburg-Lorraine, king of the dual monarchy of Austria and Hungary and emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that the incidents here recorded might properly be said to have begun. Although, as any reasoning person knows, beginnings are rooted deeply in the past, as endings resound into the future.

  The Habsburg rulers traced their ancestry back to the ninth-century Count Werner of Habichtsburg, and their dynasty back to 1273, when Rudolf Habsburg was chosen emperor of Germany. Their dynastic fortunes put the Habsburgs on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, which for a time covered much of Europe, including Spain and northern Italy. It had been reduced in size for the past century, and no longer claimed to be either holy or Roman; but now, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it still embraced Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Rumelia, Herzegovina, Carniola, Galacia, Silesia, Bukowina, Croatia, and bits and pieces of Poland and Rumania. But its size was no longer an indication of either strength or stability, and heirs to ancient dynasties do not necessarily make wise or competent rulers.

  With the start of this closing decade of the nineteenth century an almost palpable feeling of imminent great change was in the air. The coming century promised continuing invention and exploration, and a renewed sense of novelty and innovation. These last years of the old century were already being called the fin de siècle— the end of the century—as though they were a time apart. There were those, as there are at the end of every century, who thought that it marked the coming end of the world: that a great cataclysm would wipe out the human race and all its works, or that the Christ was destined to reappear and walk among us and save the elect, and leave the rest of us to our predestined horrible fate. The years 1898 and 1903 were two favorite predictions for this event, as well as the change-of-century year itself; although there was considerable disagreement as to whether this would occur in 1900 or 1901.

  For many people, particularly in the great cosmopolitan centers of Vienna, Paris, and London, the fin de siècle marked not the end of time, but the beginning of everything new. A new and creative spirit was already at work. New thoughts and ideas in fashion, in the arts, and in politics occupied those young enough to look forward to spending their lives in a new century and horrified those firmly entrenched in the age that Victoria had made her own.

  Political change was as a tempest upon the land, and a score of political philosophies, some old and reborn, and some new and still only partly formed, fought for dominance in the minds of the intellectuals and the students and the hearts of the petite bourgeoisie and the poor. Some were materialistic, some authoritarian, some socialistic, some pacifistic—and some were nihilistic and violent.

  -

  In another time and place he was Charles Dupresque Murray Bredlon Summerdane, the younger son of the Duke of Albermar, with an income in his own right of some thirty thousand pounds a year. For the first decade of his adult life he had drifted, going where the tides and his appetites and interests took him. After Eton he had attended Oxford, the University of Göttingen, and the University of Bologna, and had studied what he felt like studying, coming away with a smattering of knowledge about this and that, and a talent for languages. Then for a while he had returned to his residence in Belgrave Square, taken up his membership in White's, Pitt's, the Diogenes, and other clubs where the men who rule Britain sip their whiskies-and-sodas and complain of the state of the world. He had done, as the rich and titled have felt privileged to do from time immemorial, very little. He had spent money on his own pleasures, but not nearly as much as he could have; his pleasures being restricted to collecting rare books on history and biography, singing and acting (incognito) in the chorus of several of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, and occasional discreet trips to Paris for reasons of his own. For the last decade he had been on every list, in those places where they make up such lists, as one of the most eligible bachelors in London.

  But for now, and for
good and sufficient reason, he had put that life aside. He had grown a wide mustache and a small spade beard, and moved into two rooms on the top floor above a draper's shop at No. 62 Reichsratstrasse. They knew him there as Paul Donzhof, a struggling writer of pieces for the Neue Freie Presse and other intellectual journals, and a composer of avant-garde orchestral tone poems. "Paul" had occupied these lodgings in Vienna's bohemian Rathaus Quarter for almost a year. Since he arrived he had made many friends among the students and intellectuals, as well as a strange assortment of bohemian poets and playwrights, for he was known to be generous with the allowance of three hundred kronen his father, a Bavarian manufacturer of beer steins, sent him every month.

  For the past six months "Paul" had been on intimate terms with a young lady named Giselle Schiff; just how intimate is their concern only. She lived conveniently near, in the apartment one floor below his own. A tall, lissome blonde of twenty-two, Giselle was an artist's model, and she was saving her kronen so that before the artists traded her in for a younger model she could open a store selling toys for small children. Even now when she was not modeling she made dolls with lovely porcelain faces, designing and sewing the filmy clothing for her miniature princesses herself. Paul suspected that "Giselle" was her own creation much as "Paul" was his; an artist's model who produced a French name did more posing than your common garden variety Ursula or Brunhilde. It apparently wasn't necessary to actually speak French, or even have a French accent; Giselle spoke a slightly sibilant, if charmingly lilting, Viennese German, into which she would occasionally toss a delightfully mispronounced French word, particularly when she was discussing either of her two passions: art and food.