The Future Door (9 page)

“Now, now, my dear, you mustn't overexert yourself. The gentleman who was here before you tried to do the same, but then found that he had used so much of his energy trying to break free that he had none left to fight his adversary.”

The old man gestured with long, delicate fingers to a discarded cap lying near a rocky wall. “Poor Mr. Drummond. He came to a very messy end.”

Miss Atrax wondered at the professor's use of the word
adversary
. She didn't know what diabolical plan the Moriartys had in store for her, but if she had been afraid before, she was doubly so now.

“Now then, we should get to business.” The professor smacked his lips and rubbed his hands together. He nodded at Nigel, who approached Miss Atrax and removed the cloth that covered her mouth.

“I . . . I'm sorry, sir. I don't know how the boy and his uncle survived the crash. Nobody should have survived such an explosion. I shot over two hundred rounds into the carriage and used a bomb to finish them off. It's impossible!” the woman said, her voice rising in panic.

Professor Moriarty clucked his tongue. “Ah, but you see, my dear woman, the fact is that they
did
survive, which was
improbable
, but not, as you say,
impossible
.”

Miss Atrax bit her lip. She watched as Nigel Moriarty approached a metal box that was wired into the cavern wall. He whistled softly as he opened the box and revealed a switch inside.

“I'm an old-fashioned gentleman, Miss Atrax. The kind of person who doesn't enter into a bargain lightly. When I hired your Black Widow Society, I expected each of your talented ladies to perform their duties as specified in our agreement,” Professor Moriarty said. “You didn't eliminate Mr. Snodgrass and his nephew; therefore, you must pay the price of your failure. Now I can only hope that your counterparts can succeed where you failed.”

Nigel Moriarty threw the switch. With a loud groan, the floor beneath the place where Miss Atrax dangled began to vibrate. She watched as two heavy metal doors slid slowly apart, revealing a deep pit beneath her. What she saw below her turned her insides to jelly, and if it hadn't been for the fact that she was hanging upside down, she would have run away screaming.

It was an elegant thing, in the way other deadly things, such as scorpions or black widow spiders, are elegant. It was as if, in their design, nature sent warning signs that said, “I'm beautiful, but stay away! Beware! Don't touch!”

The horrible thing moved on several heavy, mechanical legs. Its sleek, curved body was painted glossy black with curling red pinstripes that ran artfully up its torso, ending at a transparent dome. Inside the dome was something like an electronic brain, all flashing lights and strange, clicking machinery. It had claws, powerful claws, that were made to crack bones and squeeze the life out of its intended victim. They snapped ominously at the dangling woman as the cable she was tied to lowered her down, down, down to its waiting grip.

Miss Atrax knew beyond a shadow of doubt that she was no match for the thing. And as the cable finally eased her down to the floor of the pit, she did something that she hadn't done since she was very young.

She let out a long, terrified scream. And as it turned out, it was the last sound she ever made.

13
TEA FOR THREE

I
t had taken over two hours for Griffin and his uncle to locate Toby at the docks. Apparently, there had been a mistake with the shipping clerk, and the poor hound had accidentally been shuffled off to some fishing boat along with two tons of especially foul-smelling fish.

But what made the situation more exhausting was Uncle Rupert's constant babbling about Miss Pepper. He kept saying things like, “Yes, my boy, that Miss Pepper is a deucedly fine woman,” or “Charming sort of person, Miss Pepper,” or “One can see that Miss Pepper is a remarkable lady. She's obviously the possessor of a fine mind. I do believe that in Miss Pepper, we finally have a neighbor worth having!” and “We should ask Mrs. Hudson about the possibility of gathering the tenants of Baker Street for dinner, especially Miss Pepper. It would be the neighborly thing to do.”

“Miss Pepper . . . Miss Pepper . . . Miss Pepper.”

The two had barely met and his uncle was completely smitten! Rupert was acting so incredibly different from the sourpuss his nephew had come to know that the boy was at a total loss for what to say in response to his ceaseless chatter.

When they finally found Toby, the dog was so relieved to see his familiar masters that he nearly broke the bars of his cage in his eagerness to get out. The best nose in London had not fared well surrounded by stinking fish, and the poor pooch howled piteously as Rupert fumbled with his key ring in an effort to get to the one that opened the padlock. When the door finally swung open, Griffin was knocked completely off his feet and was smothered with more wet doggy kisses than he could successfully fend off.

After rescuing Toby, it took Griffin and Rupert quite some time to flag down a cab, for it was nearly nine o'clock by the time they'd gotten the dog back. And as fate would have it, that cab turned out to be much slower and less reliable than the one that had gotten them to Baker Street earlier that day.

Griffin was starving, and the ride was long. But Rupert was even more agitated than Griffin was, often yelling at the cabbie to hurry and pounding on the ceiling of the cab to make his point. Evidently, for Rupert, the thought of returning and finding that Miss Pepper had given up waiting for their return was too much for him to bear.

They finally arrived back at Baker Street at a quarter past ten, and Griffin felt certain that the wonderful tea that Miss Pepper had arranged earlier would be gone. As he and his uncle sadly marched up the stairs to the darkened apartment, he was reminded by an unpleasant rumbling in his stomach that he hadn't eaten in several hours.

And those scones had looked delicious
, he thought miserably.

As the door to the apartment swung open, Watts made his usual greeting, the brass man's electric eyes glowing in the darkness and his mechanical voice stating its usual, “Welcome home.” After his uncle lit the gas lamps, Griffin was surprised to find a note from Charlotte attached to a basket left on the kitchen table.

Waited as long as I could but assumed that you ran into some trouble. I added a jar of pickles and some cold beef to go with the scones. I'm terribly sorry that I am unable to join you. Perhaps we could have tea another time in the near future?

—C.P.

At first Rupert was crestfallen. But then he whistled in appreciation when he pulled a jar of his favorite Branston pickles from Miss Pepper's basket. Griffin's mouth watered with renewed vigor at the promise of the delicious-looking meal. After all the delicacies were unpacked, Griffin noticed that the teapot that Charlotte Pepper had brought with her earlier wasn't among the basket of goodies.

Oh well
, he thought.
The tea is sure to be cold, anyway. We can have Watts brew us some more
.

He turned to his uncle and said, “It was certainly nice of
Miss Pepper
to leave this for us, wasn't it?” Then, unable to resist the urge to tease his uncle more, he added, “That
Miss Pepper
is a deucedly fine woman, don't you think?”

At first Rupert smiled back at him with such warmth that Griffin hardly recognized him. But then, realizing that his nephew was teasing him, Rupert suddenly went redfaced and snorted with offended dignity.

“You really like her, don't you?” Griffin asked, his eyes twinkling.

“Nonsense,” Rupert replied gruffly. Then, after preparing two plates of scones and roast beef, he added, “I'm just being neighborly, that's all. She's a nice woman and very . . . generous.”

But Griffin had to stifle a laugh, knowing that his uncle was trying to hide his obvious feelings. And although Griffin felt happy that Rupert had met someone who had struck him with such immediate feelings of affection, there was a tiny part of him that was bothered by the encounter. There was something about Miss Pepper that was familiar and that he didn't like. Something troubling that he couldn't put his finger on . . .

And it wasn't until much later that night, after all the dishes had been cleared away and all the sweets and savories eaten, long after he and his uncle had retired to bed, that he realized that what troubled him wasn't something he “couldn't put a finger on.” It was something that Miss Charlotte Pepper had put her finger
in
.

14
A BUMP IN THE NIGHT

H
er ring!
Griffin's eyes snapped open. It had just occurred to him why he'd felt uneasy with Miss Pepper. As he was falling asleep, the image of Charlotte Pepper's gloved hand unpacking the tea popped into his mind. He remembered seeing a large lump beneath the glove on the third finger of her left hand, the same exact place he'd seen such a ring-shaped lump before. It was strange that she'd said she wasn't married, and yet she wore a ring like a married woman would have.

And not only that, but the woman in the carriage had had a ring just like it.

He could recall in vivid detail the shooter's left hand as it held the trigger of the Gatling gun. And as he compared the images of her hand and Miss Pepper's in his photographic memory, the sizes and shapes of the ring-shaped lumps were identical.

Suddenly, a loud bump from downstairs startled him. He stared around wildly in his darkened room.

What was that?

It couldn't be his uncle. Rupert was notorious for getting to bed on time, often quoting the American inventor Benjamin Franklin's favorite line, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

And besides that, something Griffin sensed told him an intruder was in the house. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly how he knew it, but there was a definite
wrongness
about the sound, and it sent chills up his spine. Griffin's hand automatically reached to his bedside table, where, since his last near-fatal adventure, he'd always kept his Stinger. But as his fingers brushed the empty surface of the table, he was reminded again of his lost luggage and the bag that had contained his unique weapon.

“Drat,” he murmured. His thoughts flicked to the wall of futuristic weapons downstairs, and he desperately wished that he'd thought to bring one of them, any of them, upstairs when he went to bed.

Griffin heard another rustling sound downstairs and then the sound of the front door closing. With his heart thumping wildly, he pulled aside his bedclothes and retrieved his dressing gown. Then, gripping his walking stick, he crept out of his room as quietly as he could, trying very hard to avoid stepping on any creaky floorboards.

Because of his keen observation skills, Griffin knew which spots on his bedroom floor made the most noise. As he tiptoed slowly toward his door, navigating in the near-pitch-black darkness, he pictured the room vividly in his mind.

Five steps to the right, now a big step over the floorboards bedside the wardrobe, shuffle to the left, then another big step forward . . .

Navigating around the creaky spots, he made his way soundlessly to the stairway and cautiously descended the stairs. He held his breath, aware of no sound but his pulse thumping in his ears.

As Griffin reached the bottom stair, he carefully slid the sword from inside his cane. It was the first time he'd unsheathed it with the intention to defend himself, and as much as he hated the thing, it seemed his only choice for protection.

With one hand using the cane scabbard for support and the other gripping the three feet of razor-sharp steel, Griffin rounded the corner and walked toward the living room. He felt cold and couldn't tell if it was because the temperature in the house had changed, or he was afraid.

He squinted in the darkness, trying to discern any unusual shapes or movements that would alert him to the intruder's presence. Then, just as he walked into the living room, a voice sounded from behind him.

Griffin was so startled that he wheeled around and swung the sword at the source of the voice. There was a tremendous
CLANG!
and a shower of sparks as the weapon glanced off something hard and metallic. Then two figures leapt from the shadows and rushed past him. He swung his sword wildly at the smaller of the two shadows and heard a sharp cry. But the wound wasn't enough to stop the intruders as they leapt out of the window and fled the scene.

Moriarty's henchmen!
he thought, imagining the woman who had shot at him in Boston. He rushed to the window but was too late to catch sight of the thieves. All he could hear was a clatter of retreating footsteps on the cobblestone streets.

When he turned back to face the room, he saw the bluish glow of Watts's incandescent eyes staring back at him in the darkness, and Griffin thought that if there was any way a machine could look at him reproachfully, this would be it.

“Would Master Griffin require anything?” Watts's flat, mechanical voice said. Griffin noticed that Watts's metal derby had a large dent in it, apparently made when Griffin had wildly swung his sword.

Feeling embarrassed, Griffin dropped his sword arm to his side. “Sorry, Watts,” Griffin said. “I didn't know it was you.”