The Great Game (19 page)

             
"But surely—your reputation—"

             
"Perhaps 1
find
it useful to have it believed that my resources are greater than they actually are. I admit that I do not discourage such stories, but that does not make them true."

             
The duke slumped back in his chair and stared bleakly across the table. "Ah!" he said, "I was rather hoping that they were true; that you had a vast and resourceful network of associates throughout Europe, especially in Austria."

             
"I never thought to hear myself apologizing for not being the Napoleon of crime," Moriarty said, "but I'm sorry I have to disappoint Your Grace."

             
Albermar shook his head. "I don't know—I'm not sure what to do next," he said.

             
"If your trouble, whatever it is, is situated in Austria, surely for a man of your position in the government, the Secret Service could be of some aid," Moriarty said.

             
The duke smiled wryly. "Now you have reached to the heart of the problem," he said. "Except for the India Bureau, the 'Secret Service' is largely a myth today; the creation of certain sensational writers of that class of literature that I believe is known as the 'penny dreadful.' Three centuries ago, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, agents of Her Majesty's secretary of state, Sir Francis Walsingham, were able to thwart the plans of Philip of Spain and considerably weaken the force sent against England even before the Armada set sail. But that was three centuries ago. Today foreign intelligence is mostly gathered by perusing foreign newspapers. Some of our ambassadors are quite capable, but others consider it more important to dress for dinner than to understand the workings of the government to which they are accredited."

             
"So?" Moriarty said.

             
"So, since Her Majesty's government will not pay for the professional intelligence service it requires, it relies upon amateur help."

             
Moriarty raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

             
"Truly," His Grace said. "Young men from some of our best families are spending their leisure time prowling about the major European forts disguised as butterfly hunters and drawing plans of their gun emplacements and such. Junior army and naval officers are using their leave time to take small sailboats into estuaries along the North Sea and note shipbuilding activities. Other young men of independent means are eschewing the London season in favor of living abroad under assumed identities and gathering information on hostile activities that might affect the British government or increase the chances of war."

             
"It is astonishing the way the young will seek to amuse themselves," Moriarty commented.

             
"Indeed," Albermar agreed. "They call it 'the Great Game,' this clandestine battle of wits between Britain's amateur spies and the espionage and counter-espionage services of Europe's great powers."

             
Moriarty nodded thoughtfully. "It does not seem in this stolid and tranquil world we live in that the chances of a European war are very high," he said.

             
Albermar stared across the table at Moriarty, but he was seeing a private vision. After a moment his eyes focused again on the man in front of him. "Oh," he said, "there will be a war. We may be able to put it off for a while, perhaps even for a decade or two; but there will be a war. Under the facade of tranquility there is a crumbling edifice. The European balance is too precarious, the rivalries are too intense,
the
hatreds are too strong. The French are too intransigent, the Austrian Empire is too weak, and the Kaiser is too belligerent for the status quo to last much longer. And there are forces at work that seem determined to spur all of Europe into war."

             
"And the British?"
Moriarty asked.

             
"The British are determined to remain detached from European affairs, and so they—we—will not get involved until it's too late," Albermar said. "That's why we have no effective Secret Service; why we're unofficially sending untrained boys to do the work of skilled men."

             
Moriarty took a deep breath. "What you say does not come as a complete surprise to me," he said. "But were I to concern myself with the inanities of men, I would have no time left for my serious pursuits."

             
"Which are?" the duke asked.

             
"If I were to say, 'the greater mysteries,' you would take me for a theologist or perhaps an occultist," Moriarty said. "But I am neither. I refer to the mysteries of science that have only begun to be answered. In some cases the questions themselves have only recently been formulated. How are we here? Why are we here? What causes the sun to burn, and why hasn't it long since gone out? How vast is the universe and how came it into being? These are just a few of the things that we do not know, I could continue indefinitely. But we are on the verge of knowledge. We now have some hints of where to look for some of the answers."

             
"We differ in our perception of serious pursuits," the duke said, reaching into his vest pocket and pulling out a cigar. "I concern myself with the affairs of men. I believe the universe will take care of itself, as it has so far."

             
"These men whom you concern yourself with are, as Darwin has shown, descended, or ascended if you prefer, from ape-like creatures that lived tens of thousands of years ago. Our closest relatives are the chimpanzees and gorillas. And the universe cares about our comings and goings as much as it does those of the monkeys that scamper about Gibraltar, no more and no less."

             
The duke smiled a tolerant smile. "I dare say," he said. He stared at his cigar for a moment and then thrust it back into this pocket. "Who is to say which of our views of the universe is correct? Perhaps they both are."

             
"Yes," Moriarty acknowledged. "You could well be right. It may be a slight difference in temperament that concerns you with people and me with distant stars. Unfortunately, from my point of view, I lack the sort of private resources necessary to finance my research, and so the world of men occupies much of my time. I solve other people's problems to give me the leisure to peer into the depths of space. I have developed a kite which I can use to loft scientific instruments and keep them in place for days at a time, given a steady wind."

             
"A kite?"

             
"Yes. The devices are not merely children's toys. They have been used in the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 for intelligence gathering, by lofting them above enemy positions and taking photographs of what lies below. I have developed a new kite, based on an ancient Malay
design, that
can carry heavy weights to extreme heights. I wish to loft a series of them with special cameras of my design, and take pictures of what lies above. I have been using tethered balloons, but kites are cheaper and more durable."

             
"Very interesting," the duke said.

             
"No doubt.
But I must finance my kite-flying and my other scientific interests by taking on problems of a more mundane nature. Only last month—no, excuse me, two months ago now—I cleared up a little question of inheritance for a member of the Swedish nobility, and shortly before that I was able to locate a silver mine in the American state of Colorado that had been lost for a quarter of a century, based on a crudely drawn map and the deathbed utterances of a crazed prospector. The problems were not without interest, and my fees for those undertakings will finance six months of kite flying, as well as the construction of a twenty-six-inch reflecting telescope of my own design at my private observatory on Crimpton Moor."

             
Albermar took an oversized white handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to mop the back of his neck. "I'm afraid my problem is not so easily solved," he said. "I'm not sure what I expected—hoped—you would be able to accomplish, even were you the Napoleon of crime with a vast network of your minions at your disposal."

             
"What, exactly, is your problem?" Moriarty asked. "I have been of assistance to others in the past who thought their dilemmas insoluble, perhaps I can suggest something that would be of some use. Come now, clearly you have to confide in someone."

             
The duke stared at the table in front of him for a minute. "One of these men who
is
doing the work of England in a foreign land has fallen into serious trouble," he said. "Under his assumed name of Paul Donzhof he has been arrested in Vienna and will probably—certainly—be charged with two murders and an attempted murder, along with sundry other offences. The Austrians do not as yet know who he really is. To say it would result in strained relations between our two countries if his true identity became known is an understatement. He is, undoubtedly, innocent of the charges against him, but I can't give you many of the details because, for obvious reasons, our people there can't take too great an interest in the case."

             
Moriarty folded his hands over the golden owl handle of his cane and rested his chin on his hands. "Unfortunate," he said. "Yes."

             
"Who is he supposed to have killed?"

             
"He is accused with assassinating the duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz and seriously wounding his wife, the Princess Annamarie of Falkynburg, by firing a pistol into their carriage. After which, according to the charge, he went back to his apartment building and murdered a woman who lives in the flat below his own."

             
"And you assume that, as an agent of the British government, no matter how unofficial, he is incapable of murder?"

             
"Why would he assassinate the duke? He is a secret agent, a gatherer of information, not an anarchist. He may be essentially self-appointed, but he has been reliable, perceptive, and of great value to Her Majesty's government. Why would he murder some girl in his apartment building?"

             
"Perhaps he had a personal grudge against the duke. Perhaps there was a personal relationship between him and the young lady."

             
"He did not know the duke. As to the girl, well, I don't know what his relationship was with her, but I cannot imagine him killing her. I know the boy too well."

             
"You do?"

             
His Grace Peter George Albon Summerdane, the seventh duke of Albermar, took a deep breath. "Yes.
Very well indeed.
He is my son."

             
"Ah!" Moriarty nodded.

             
"My younger son.
Charles Bredlon Summerdane." Moriarty examined a wall sconce thoughtfully for a minute. "I understand," he said.
"An interesting dilemma."

             
"You could say so," the duke agreed.

             
"This has the potential for becoming a grave embarrassment to you and to Her Majesty's government should his identity become known. And it will surely become known if you attempt to aid the lad in any way."

             
"A fair statement of the facts," Summerdane acknowledged. "And yet—he is my son, and I love him dearly. I must do something."

             
"What?"

             
Summerdane shrugged and then dropped his hands to the table. "That's the problem. Unfortunately, I have no idea."

             
"So one of the three most powerful men in the British Empire—I believe that's a fair assessment—is reduced to impotence while his son is about to be put on trial for murder in a foreign land."