The Great Game (5 page)

             
Davoud shrugged. "Frankly, I was interested to discover what you planned to do. You have so far managed to scrape an acquaintance with several of the 'names,' but with little result that I can see. You spoke to Graf von Pinow at the opera bar—"

             
"A performance of
Nabucco,"
Paul remembered. "With the libretto translated into German. Verdi's music should not be sung in German. It turns the most romantic of melodies into the barking of large dogs."

             
"And Colonel Kretl, you sat across from him at baccarat—
"

             
"
Oh, yes.
At the Club Montmartre.
Why the Viennese think that vice must have a French name is beyond me. German vice is perfectly acceptable. It's more orderly and well-behaved."

             
"So with each of these gentlemen you have a meeting, two meetings, casual—nothing of any value discussed, I believe. And then, that's it. Nothing! So of what use to you is any of this?"

             
Paul considered for a moment, and then he drank some tea and considered some more. "Is it of great interest to you," he asked Davoud, "what happens to your clients?"

             
"Pah!" Davoud grimaced. "These people, these aristocrats, these men gentled by noble birth; they would just as soon walk over you as walk around you. At least the ones that I deal with are of that sort, although I am aware that there are others—yourself, for example, if I am right about your upbringing. These young highly born gentlemen can hardly hide their dislike of me, even when they're trying to borrow money. They smile and nod and it's, 'Good evening, Herr Davoud, how good of you to come by.' And then I leave and it's, 'That fat old Jew will have his pound of flesh. His kind loves nothing but money!'
As though it were I who was pledging ancient family heirlooms to pay gambling debts!"

             
"You're not fat," Paul said.

             
"Strangely
enough,
neither am I a Hebrew," Davoud told him. "They all assume that because I'm a moneylender, I must be Jewish."

             
"And you're not?"

             
"Look at me. Am I wearing a skull cap?"

             
"Sometimes you wear a little knitted cap."

             
"It keeps my head warm. It covers a spot where my hair, for some unaccountable reason, seems to be getting thin. But I do not wear it all the time. A Jew, I believe, must keep his head covered all the time."

             
"That is so," Paul agreed.

             
"Actually my family comes from eastern Persia," Davoud told Paul. "I am a Persian by heritage and a Zoroastrian by religion." He refilled Paul's tea cup and then his own. "Not that I am a particularly religious man. I do not, if it comes to that, care what they call me, but their arrogance and hypocrisy does not endear them to me."

             
" 'I
count religion but a childish toy,' " Paul quoted, " 'And hold there is no sin but ignorance.' "

             
Davoud thought it over for a second. "Yes," he agreed. "That's very good."

             
"Christopher Marlowe said it first," Paul said.
"An English playwright."

             
Davoud nodded. "I know of him," he said.

             
"You wish to know what use I'm making of the names you pass on to
me?
" Paul asked. "I arrange to make the acquaintance of some of them. In return for supplying them with sums of money, I attempt to induce them to supply me with what I am most interested in—information."

             
"Ah!" Davoud said.
"Information.
I see."

             
"Do you disapprove?"

             
He thought it over. "Not necessarily. How do you go about doing this? One can't just walk up to a stranger and say, 'I understand you need money. Tell me a secret.' "

             
"Not quite so, ah, bold," Paul said. "I might approach my subject at the
opera,
or at the racetrack and talk to him briefly about this and that. And then I will get up and say, 'My patron understands that you are in need. Please don't be insulted, but he asked me to give you this.' And then I will hand him an envelope and walk away."

             
"And in the envelope?"

             
"A sum of money, the amount depending on who the person is and what his needs are.
It is a delicate decision; too small a sum might insult the subject, too great a sum might frighten him."

             
"Your patron?"

             
Paul smiled. "I am too modest to take the credit for myself. Besides, having an invisible patron adds an air of mystery."

             
"Aren't you afraid that your, um, subject will throw the money in your face or, perhaps, call the police?"

             
"That's why I rapidly walk away. I don't want to be standing there smirking at them when they open the envelope. I don't want to have to answer any questions, and I don't want the subject to have to make an instant decision. Let him have time to think it over, to feel the weight of the money in his wallet."

             
Davoud slowly and methodically cracked the knuckles of his right hand with his left, while staring into his cup of tea. "Perhaps we should not discuss this any further," he concluded.

             
"Perhaps not," Paul agreed.

             
"There are some things better left unsaid.
"

             
"
That is so."

             
Davoud shifted his gaze to Paul's face. "If you require any assistance in the future, you have but to ask," he said. "But try not to be too specific."

Our revels now are
ended ...

—William Shakespeare

             
A
blanket of fog had settled over London on Monday the ninth of March and seemed reluctant to leave. By Wednesday morning it had spread its tendrils into every cranny of the great city. It thickened through the course of the dank, chill day until now, in early evening, objects faded into invisibility at any greater distance than an outstretched arm. Pedestrians felt their way along the streets, finding familiar fence railings and building doorways to guide them. Carriage drivers depended on their horses' senses to take them along familiar routes. And the horses, being cautious beasts, would not venture into the unfamiliar. The lamp lighters had to climb two steps up the lamp poles and peer at the lights through the faceted glass to assure
themselves
that the gas mantles had lit and were burning.

             
A short, thin, angular man made his way slowly, cautiously, almost delicately along the east side of Russell Square. Despite the hour—it was barely 5:00
P.M.
—the man wore a black tailcoat over an overly starched white shirt with a stiff collar surrounded by a black bow tie, and he clutched a top hat in his left hand as he walked. His dress suit, although not yet threadbare, showed signs of wear, and gave an impression of necessity rather than of elegance; as though the garb were a professional requisite. His appearance was not dignified enough to be a butler or a waiter, but he might perhaps have been a teacher at a boy's school where such dress was still common. Not in England, of course; there was something definitely un-English about the man. Perhaps it was the lines of uncertainty and repression that shaped his face and posture; perhaps the vaguely incorrect style of the garment: the lapels a trifle too narrow, the bow tie a trifle too wide, the hat a trifle too short and its brim a trifle too thick.

             
Halfway down the street the thin man reached the front steps of 64 Russell Square and, after peering closely at the brass address plate, ascended the steps and pulled at the bell pull. After a few moments the door swung open and a tall, solid man filled the doorway. Although he was attired in the impeccable garb of the proper English butler, there was, in the bulk of the man's muscles and the twist of his nose, a suggestion that he had perhaps once had a different profession. After looking his visitor carefully up and down for a moment, he said, "Sir? Can I help you?" in a deep, rasping voice that made the words as much a challenge as a question.

             
The thin man nodded and pursed his thin lips. "Good day," he said, essaying a smile; but it was a weak sort of smile, as though he were out of practice. "I believe that this would be the residence of Herr Professor James Moriarty. Am I in that assumption correct?"

             
"You are," the butler agreed.

             
"Good, good," the thin man said, nodding some more. "I have come a long way to speak with the Herr Professor. He is, I trust, in?" He reached into his waistcoat pocket and extended a calling card to the butler.

             
"One moment, sir," the butler said, taking the card between two white-gloved fingers. "I shall enquire."

             
The thin man raised an explanatory finger. "Tell the professor that it is in regard to one of his agents in Vienna. The young man is in danger.
Great danger."

             
"Yes, sir.
One moment, sir."
The butler closed the door gently but firmly in the thin man's face. It would have been more polite to invite the caller in, to have him wait in a sitting room. But there were those who might wish to see Professor Moriarty who would not be permitted past the front door without a constant escort, and others who would not, under any conditions, be permitted past the front door.

             
Professor James Moriarty, Ph.D., F.R.A.S., sat at the large oak desk in his ground floor office, the two front windows closed and curtains drawn to keep out the fog. A coal fire burning in the small fireplace across the room kept away the damp and chill of the day. The professor's attention was focused on the winter issue of
Die Zeitschrift f
ü
r Fortgeschrittene Theoretische Astrophysik.
As the clock on the wall softly chimed four times, Mr. Maws, the onetime bare-knuckle heavyweight champion of Kent now serving as the professor's butler and gatekeeper, entered and stood silently by the desk, waiting for the professor to look up. It was a few moments before Moriarty inserted a paper slip at the page and closed the journal. He removed his pince-nez glasses and turned his gaze to the bust of Galileo on the cabinet to his right. "Those German theorists," he said. "They're infatuated with causation and yet they pay so little attention to materiality. One would think they would have some interest in what
is
before hounding off on a hunt for where it came from."

             
"Yes, Professor," Mr. Maws responded.
"Someone to see you."
He held out the thin man's calling card.

             
Taking the card by the edge, Moriarty replaced his pince-nez glasses and peered down at it as though it were an interesting, but as yet unclassified, insect. It read:

-

KARL FRIEDRICH MARIE STASSENKOPP, LITT. D.

-

             
Moriarty rubbed the card between his fingers. "Foreign card stock," he said.
"Probably French or Hungarian."