Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of The D’urbervilles (41 page)

Sadly, I had no sock of blasting powder about me.

‘You disagree, Colonel Moran?’ Colonel Moriarty said. ‘Does the
Kallinikos
offend your sensibilities?’

Like the Professor, the Colonel could read my face. It’s not such a trick. When I’m angry, I frown like thunder. When I’m enjoying myself, I grin like an ape. Only when I’ve got a better hand than the other fellow does the curtain come down and I present an aspect of stone. I was frowning, now.

‘It does take the sport out of it,’ I suggested mildly.

Three Moriarty brothers craned their necks to glare electrically at me.

‘Sport!’ spat the Stationmaster. ‘Have you missed the last fifty years of history?’

‘No, chummy, I’ve been in the thick of it, where the medals are won and the bodies are buried. I’ve had the fun, while you’ve been clipping platform tickets.’

‘In a generation, you’ll be obsolete,’ Colonel Moriarty told me. ‘The first time the
Kallinikos
sees off a cavalry charge, your type of soldier will be one with the dinosaurs. It may be less sporting, less fun, but we shall
win.’

‘You may be right, Colonel,’ I told him. ‘But you’ll have the deuce of a battle first. Not with the enemy, with your own lot. You’re still in the British army and they’ll never stand for...’

‘I’m not
in
the British army,’ he said, with a Moriartian gleam in his eyes. ‘I
am
the British army. Just now, in command of a single train, I outgun all the medal-laden idiots who rode into the Valley of Death but didn’t learn from it.

‘You think the Empire’s war machine is still run by public school bullies who went into their father’s regiment and had a commission warm and waiting? I admit there are all too many of that breed. You can find them guzzling brandy in deadly dull clubs or sweltering in Turkish baths, swapping yarns about the wily Pathan and Johnny Zulu. They’re for show, Moran. For parades and guarding Buckingham Palace and skirmishing with brown bandits.

‘When we go against, say, Kaiser Wilhelm – and, make no mistake, we will – the
Kallinikos,
designed by scientists and operated by engineers, will carry the day. We’ll keep you on, of course. Your kind of soldier. We might call you a land captain and put you on top of the train like a figurehead. We’ll give you medals when you get your head shot off. But soldiers in overalls, not scarlet uniforms, will carry the fight.’

Colonel Moriarty looked at me and saw the sort of men who sneered at his precious Department of Supplies and would never let him sit at the top table no matter how many battles his choo-choo juggernaut won. He couldn’t even make or operate the
Kallinikos –
just fill in the forms to get it on the rails.

I took my revolver from my coat pocket and pointed it at the Colonel’s head. That shut him up.

‘Moran,’ cautioned the Professor, mildly.

In that moment, I couldn’t tell whether Moriarty would be grateful or furious if I killed his brother out of hand.

‘I could have you burned where you stand, before you manage to fire,’ Colonel Moriarty said.

I had noticed the nozzles of the flame-cannons swivelling to point at me.

Turning, I fired... and took off one of Oberstein’s kneecaps. He was felled and the palm-sized compression pistol – disguised as a big pocket watch – rolled from his grip. He had been creeping into a position where he could have shoved the thing in the small of the Colonel’s back and blasted his spine.

‘Can I have another medal for that, chief clerk?’ I asked. ‘I seem to have saved your life.’

Sophy Kratides’ face was burning. She’d been behind Oberstein and had not seen him reaching under his cassock.

At my shot, Lucas and Sabin had thrown themselves on the ground. Ilse von Hoffmannsthal, however, stood straight.

Oberstein swore in German.

Lucas and Sabin began to roll along the platform and –
in a flash! –
I perceived something not one of the brothers Moriarty had yet realised.

I can’t sniff dropped cigar ashes and tell you the inside-leg measurement of the smoker. But I’ve come through numerous battles with skin relatively intact because I don’t suffer from a maths teacher’s need to dwell on my workings-out. I just
know
things, without really troubling with how or why I know them. It’s a whiff in the air, sometimes; or a broken twig on the trail which is just too neatly snapped to be natural. Now, it was two men who – we had been told – acted for different masters moving in unison.

Stationmaster Moriarty thought he had summoned rival bidders, but his bogus psychic investigators were a spy ring. The card game which had tipped me off that Oberstein and Ilse were in cahoots was a double-bluff to convince me Sabin and Lucas
weren’t
in it with them.

Sophy Kratides whipped out throwing-knives, and might have skewered both the rolling men but for von Hoffmannsthal, who stepped in front of her and launched a kick which would have done credit to a cancan dancer – it turned out her skirts were loose trousers tailored to seem like conventional feminine attire, until the wearer made a move like this – and planted a boot-heel into the Greek woman’s sternum. I heard the thump of impact and Sophy staggered back.

Ilse then pulled a comb from her hair, which turned out to be a long, thin dagger. Sophy recovered her balance and thrust both of her knives toward the other woman’s eyes, only for the blades to be struck aside – with sparks – by a sweep of Ilse’s dagger.

Then, it was on... an expert knife-fight between fit fillies who whirled like dervishes and slashed at each other with well-matched precision and clinical malice. Their loose hair tossed as they hissed insults at each other in several languages. Both took minor cuts and sustained rents in their clothes, but avoided the other’s would-be killing thrusts.

Entertaining, I admit, but a distraction. I rapped on the worm’s metal hide with my revolver.

One of the plates of the
Kallinikos
slid aside, making an aperture in the carapace. An engineer – our old friend Berkins, in tailored overall and a peakless cap like a convict’s – was puzzled by the sudden commotion.

‘You can’t do that
yurr,’
he said.

Lucas and Sabin had rolled away from the train, and stood up. They got busy with the big wheel which worked the points. Lucas struggled with the control. Sabin – whose walking stick was a disguised shotgun – kept us from interfering.

It wasn’t them I was bothered with, anyway. Though I saw what they were up to.

The Professor spotted him first.

‘Moran,’ he shouted. ‘Up there.’

On top of the train crouched a thin, spidery figure. He wore a black body-stocking and a tight-fitting hood with slit-holes for eyes. He must have been lying on the roof of the waiting room.

It was the double-fake Carnacki. Chief of the spy ring, it appeared.

I took a shot, which went true. It spanged against my target’s chest, and he was pushed backward but not knocked down. He was armoured, just like the worm. The gaunt, lithe fellow made sure I hadn’t another shot at him, stepping off the other side of the train and dropping behind it.

‘All aboard,’ I shouted, and barged past Berkins.

‘You’re not cleared for the
Kallinikos,’
complained Colonel Moriarty. ‘You could be shot for treason!’

It wouldn’t be the first time they’d tried.

The Professor held his brother back. Which showed a faith in me I’d come to expect. At least the Professor understood what I was doing. Neither of us could have said why, though. Oh, we wanted to slap down the false-face fellow who thought he could pull off a coup under our noses, but it’s not as if we felt an obligation to preserve Her Majesty’s secrets for the Department of Bloody Supplies. I’ve lived long enough with my impulse to hare off into dicey situations where death and danger lurk to know I could no more moderate this tendency than a tiger could decide to be polka-dotted for a change.

Moriarty, however, was usually more calculating.

The spy master would get into the worm somehow, and I’d face him in its belly.

The interior of the
Kallinikos
was cramped, certainly not designed for comfort. Also, stifling and malodorous. Canvas straps hung everywhere. I couldn’t stand up straight without bumping my head on the ceiling. Gauges, batteries, dynamos and dials took up too much space. Charts and graphs were pinned to a draughtsman’s table. Electric light bulbs hung from a thick central wire, pulsing with inconsistent current.

I pushed Berkins off the train, with some pleasure. He fell on his fat arse.

There was a shot. Sabin, firing at the ground as Lucas finally wrenched the wheel. With the points thrown, the
Kallinikos
could roll onto the main line – off the branch it had been using in the trial manoeuvres. If the spy master took command, he could burn the whole county to cover his escape and plunder the machine’s secrets at his leisure.

All three Moriarty brothers crammed into the aperture like Siamese triplets, jostling to board the war train. The Professor established seniority with sharp elbows, and was inside the
Kallinikos
ahead of the Colonel and the Stationmaster. None of them needed to be on the worm, but no James could have borne it if another were on board and they were left behind. Brothers, eh?

In the present pickle, I’d have found Sophy the Knives more useful than the Moriarty boys, but she was still apache dancing with Ilse. There was a reason the Professor employed me to handle the rough stuff – it wasn’t that he couldn’t take care of himself when there was blood on the floor, but he saw the wisdom of delegating to experts. In battle, that meant me. Still, I could have done without worrying over an arithmetic tutor, a desk soldier and the family idiot.

‘Keep out of my bloody way,’ I told the brothers, ‘and I’ll find our bloody imposter.’

They showed identical, stricken faces. None cared to be told what to do. All chewed over any sleight with eventual retribution in mind. Scratch any of ’em, and there was Moriarty marrow underneath.

‘Carnacki the Ghost Finder,’ I shouted, ‘is there anybody there? Do I sense a presence in the aether?’

Our spy master had got into the
Kallinikos,
I’d no doubt. One of the plates hung loose, showing a sliver of the outside through the hide of the worm. The hole didn’t seem big enough for a grown man to squeeze through, but this customer had more than proved his slipperiness today.

I saw a shadow and fired. Something exploded. A cloud of sulphurous flame puffed, burning brighter than natural fire. A couple of canvas straps were incinerated. A wave of intense heat rolled at me. I nipped behind a bulkhead. If Greek Fire got on flesh, it would sizzle through to the bone. The puff burned out quickly, but left a residue of acrid fumes. They might be lethal, too. This contraption was as dangerous to the operators as the enemy.

‘This is a delicate system,’ the Colonel said. ‘It’s not advisable to use firearms in here.’

Heaven forbid anyone should shoot a gun in a war machine!

The Colonel’s face and hands were soot-blackened. The Moriarty brothers were a music hall act. I supposed I could join in too. I’d lost my eyebrows to the flame.

Flares of light popped in my vision, even if I rubbed fists into my closed eyes.

Someone screamed further down the worm – inside one of its heads.

There was a lurch. The machine began to move.

A whistle shrilled.

I found out what the canvas straps were for. The brothers Moriarty clung to the appendages, but still swung like human punching bags. I saw why the charts were pinned down and the equipment bolted to frames fixed to the interior walls.

‘Who is this man?’ the Colonel demanded. ‘The one who isn’t Carnacki.’

We all looked at Stationmaster Moriarty. He had issued the invitations.

‘He’s supposed to be Paul Finglemore, alias Colonel Clay, alias many others,’ Young James admitted. ‘The man who never wears the same face twice...’

The Professor pooh-poohed that. ‘But he’s not Finglemore, is he? This is an unknown, a shadow man, a ringer. He learned of your auction of secrets, James. Your net for spies, if you will. He saw a way to exploit it. A man who acts for himself.’

The Professor should know about that.

‘He’s a damned anarchist,’ the Colonel declared.

At present, I didn’t care who our shadow man was or what cause – if any – he espoused. I just thought it past time to stop him. He’d blacked all our faces. I was thirsty for a little evening up of the scores.

The
Kallinikos
picked up speed.

‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘who else is on board?’

‘That’s not information I can share with anyone outside the Department of Supplies,’ he replied.

‘Don’t be an ass, James,’ said his brothers.

‘Colonel,’ Colonel Moriarty said, ‘you’re to swear on your honour not to reveal anything you might learn of this machine...’

It was all I could manage not to laugh in his face. I held my hand up as if pledging a solemn oath – which I’m breaking by writing all this down. Dearie me, I’ll be sent to bed without supper.

‘...there’s Lampros, supervising the Greek Fire tests... Major Upshall... we call him the pilot, you might think he’s an engine driver... Berkins – no, wait, you threw him out... two assistant technicians from the Royal Engineers, don’t know their names... a recording clerk, Philip Gould... and Ram Singh, my immediate junior in Supplies.’

‘They’re all almost certainly dead.’

‘That’d be a nuisance.’

The Colonel had the traditional Moriarty reverence for the lives of his fellow men. Not that I’m any different.

‘Except Lampros,’ said the Colonel. ‘He’ll need Lampros.’

‘Your alchemist hasn’t given you his formula, then?’ I asked. ‘He mixes up his own batches of Liquid Inferno, and your stinks profs can’t work out the recipe?’

The Colonel nodded. ‘Bright boy. Preserve a secret since 672
AD
and it’s hard to let go. Once you’ve shared, you’re not special any more. Not essential to the program. And if you’re not essential, you’re surplus.