The Great Game (35 page)

             
"Isn't that very dangerous?" Princess Diane asked.

             
"Yes," Moriarty replied, "it is."

             
"What do these scoundrels want with you?" Prince Ariste asked.

             
"They seem to have the notion that I am the mastermind of a vast criminal conspiracy that has connections and branches all over Europe. At the same time they alternate that with the curious notion that I am the head of the British Secret Service, with espionage agents in every chancery ready to steal the plans of whatever-you-fancy and thwart the machinations of whoever these people are."

             
"How can they think that?" Princess Diane asked. "Are you either of those things?"

             
"I assure you, Your
Highness, that
I am not. And, at any rate, I could scarcely be both, even if I were one or the other."

             
"Then how could they get that idea?" Ariste asked.

             
"I can tell you that," Madeleine interjected. "Sherlock Holmes."

             
"The consulting detective?"
Prince Ariste frowned. "I have heard of him. What about him?"

             
Moriarty was silent, perhaps gathering his thoughts. "Well," Madeleine said, stepping into the breach, "Mr. Holmes seems to have concluded some time ago that the professor is some sort of master criminal, and he tells this to anyone who will listen to him, and then swears them to secrecy so he can't be sued for slander."

             
"Is this so?" Ariste asked Moriarty.

             
The professor nodded. "Lady Madeleine exaggerates slightly, but only slightly, I'm afraid."

             
"And thus badly distorted stories of the doings of Professor Moriarty have become—what can I say?—legend, perhaps, throughout Britain and have slowly spread across Europe," Madeleine continued.

             
Princess Diane smiled at Madeleine. "You are a strong advocate for your friend," she said.

             
"He has been more than good to me," Madeleine told her. "He has shown me, and forced me to believe, that I could be—more than I was."

             
Princess Diane nodded slowly. "I see," she said.

             
"And these stories told about you have no truth to them?" Prince Ariste asked Moriarty.

             
The professor paused, considering what to say. "I cannot say that I have always obeyed the laws or scrupulously followed the mores of my little island," he said, "but I have no gang, and I most assuredly do not head the British Secret Service.
Or, for that matter, any other secret service."

             
"Then how do you account for Mr. Holmes's accusations?"

             
"It is an obsession with him," Moriarty said. "Holmes cannot stand being wrong or, for that matter, being puzzled for long. When he is faced with a crime he cannot solve, he turns to his amanuensis Dr. Watson and exclaims, 'Aha! This is the work of that evil genius, Professor Moriarty. And occasionally he comes over to my house and accuses me of this or that. I believe he has developed what your Dr. Freud calls an 'idée fixe.'
" Moriarty
sighed. "I had the misfortune, you see, to know him as a youth."

             
"The poor man!"
Princess Diane said.

             
"Indeed," Moriarty agreed.

             
"I believe I can understand the conflating of master criminal with master spy in the minds of those who believe the, ah, myth," Prince Ariste said. "After all, a spy is generally regarded as the lowest sort of criminal, a man who would betray his country."

             
"And yet spies who are working for their own country, living in a foreign land, speaking a language not their own, are as brave as any soldiers on the battlefield. If they are caught they face an ignominious death," Moriarty remarked. "Curiously, they receive little credit, even from their own side. Napoleon's master spy, Karl Schulmeister, devised the capture of an entire Austrian army. And yet Napoleon refused to allow Schulmeister any military honors. The only thing a spy deserves is pay,' Napoleon reputedly told him, 'not honor.' "

             
"And is it honor this young man, Paul, was seeking?" Prince Ariste asked.
"If so, he sought it in a strange place."

             
Moriarty shook his head. "The young man calling himself Paul Donzhof requires neither money nor honor," he said. "He is one of a number of men who are trying to keep Britain informed of European and Asian affairs despite the British government's apparent lack of interest. They call their enterprise 'the Great Game,' and finance their own travels."

             
" 'The
Great Game,' " Prince Ariste said. "The English make a game out of everything. They are very sporting."

             
"The English upper classes believe that the talented amateur is better than the professional," Moriarty said.
"Morally, if not physically.
But then they have no need to make a living."

             
"You sound like a socialist," Princess Diane said, looking at him curiously.

             
Madeleine laughed. "My friend here is disdainful of almost everybody," she said. "He believes that the human race is full of fools and scoundrels."

             
Moriarty waved a dismissive hand through the air. "Let me say rather that I have noticed that my fellow men are mostly fools, with a smattering of scoundrels, and I feel free to comment on it."

             
"Well!" Princess Diane said. "I hope you exclude us from that listing."

             
"Oh, I do," Moriarty assured her. "From what I have heard of you from the mummer, I have respect for both your intelligence and your intentions."

             
"And would you tell is if you didn't?" Prince Ariste asked.

             
"Actually, he would," Madeleine assured him. "The professor has managed to directly insult a duchess, a marquis, and at least one member of the British royal family, to my knowledge."

             
Moriarty grimaced. "Have we not something to discuss of more immediate importance than my character?" he asked.

             
"That is so. Tell me, how do you propose we go about freeing the Barnetts?" Prince Ariste asked.

             
"That shouldn't prove too difficult, if you can supply a few trustworthy men," Moriarty said. "But I'm afraid that's only part of the job."

             
"There is more? What else?"

             
"We have a riddle to solve." Moriarty said. Then he shook his head. "That is, I do. I should not, and I will not, ask you to do anything beyond helping me rescue our mutual friends."

             
Princess Diane leaned forward, her eyes bright. "Tell us," she said. "What is the riddle?"

             
Moriarty screwed his monocle into his eyes and looked at her sternly. "I should not have brought it up," he said. "My problem is frustrating and dangerous, and I should not involve you."

             
"Is it related to the Barnetts' abduction?"

             
"Almost certainly, but not directly."

             
"Ah!" the prince said. "Then please tell us the riddle, and let us judge how deeply we should involve ourselves in your problem."

             
"Very good, Your Highness; as you say," Moriarty said. "The riddle is composed of these items." He closed his eyes and recited:

             
"One, twenty-four and twenty-five April;

             
"
two
, that Wednesday;

             
"
three
, unknown;

             
"
four
, England, France, Germany, and Russia;

             
"
five
, unknown;

             
"
six
, third and fourth out of six;

             
"
seven
, yes."

             
Prince Ariste got up and went to the far wall, where there was a large blackboard. "Recite that again, would you?" he asked. Moriarty did, and the prince wrote the list down on the board. Then he stood back and stared at it. "A riddle indeed," he said. "What does it mean?
Wait—that's the wrong question.
Where does it come from and how does it relate to our current problem, is what I meant to say."

             
"One night at the opera Paul Donzhof was handed a slip of paper by mistake by a minor official of the Foreign Ministry. He told Lady Madeleine about it when she went to see him in prison, posing as his sister. We went to retrieve it from his apartment. It was where he had left it, cleverly concealed by being folded into an envelope and filled with postage stamps. That—" Moriarty pointed to the list on the blackboard, "is how it read."

             
"Why do you think it's important?" Prince Ariste asked.

             
"Donzhof paid five hundred kronen for the paper. That is, he handed the man five hundred kronen in an attempt to enlist him as a source of information. The man must have
expected someone he didn't know to hand him money in exchange for the paper, so he handed Paul the paper. He complained to Paul that he had expected a thousand kronen."

             
"So it was worth a thousand kronen to someone," Prince Ariste said. "There are all sorts of reasons that might be so."

             
"I went to find the man from whom Paul had received it to ask him what it meant and whom he was expecting. His name was Hermann Loge. He was in the planning department of the Foreign Ministry. I was too late, he was dead. He had been murdered in his bedroom the week before. His throat had been slit while he slept. Nothing was stolen. He and his wife slept apart, and she claimed she had heard nothing. The two maids slept in the basement. The police are operating on the theory that either his wife or one of his two mistresses must have done it, and as of when I found this out they were still trying to discover which so they knew who to arrest."

             
"You think he was killed for his mistake?" Princess Diane asked.

             
"I do. And I believe that Paul was implicated in two murders because he received that piece of paper. Killing him might have drawn attention to it if he had passed it on, but making him
appear
to be a murderer and assassin would discredit him."

             
The prince stared at the blackboard. "Hard to believe there's anything evil, or even particularly meaningful, in these seven items
. 'Twenty-four and twenty-five April.'
That's Friday and Saturday a week from now, if it speaks of this year.
'Third and fourth out of six.'
" The
prince shrugged. "I give that one up."

             
"Some major outrage is being planned for sometime in the near future," Moriarty said. "That much Paul Donzhof was able to find out from his own sources. I believe this list relates to that. Could it be planned for next Saturday or Sunday? Then how could a minor official in the Foreign Ministry know the dates? Will it happen simultaneously in England, France, Germany, and Russia? If so why are we learning about it in Vienna? And just what would constitute a major outrage to this group of people who think nothing of bombing, shooting, and stabbing random government officials?"