The Great Game (20 page)

             
Summerdane rose. "I don't know why I am burdening you with this," he said. "As it seems you cannot help me, I should probably say no more."

             
Professor Moriarty watched silently as Summerdane donned his frock coat and pulled on his gloves. Then, seeming to come to a decision, he made an abrupt gesture toward the chair the duke had occupied. "Please, Your Grace, be seated," he said. "I will endeavor to solve your problem, provided we can come to an understanding of just what your problem actually is, and I am allowed a free hand. If you will supply the few things I will need it will save time, and I will leave immediately for Vienna."

             
Summerdane stared down at Moriarty for a moment and then dropped back into his chair. "You speak German?" he asked.

             
"I speak many languages, but I am particularly fluent in German. I was at the University of Heidelberg for four years."

             
"You matriculated there?"

             
"I taught mathematics there."

             
The duke took a deep breath. "What will you need?" he asked. "And what are your terms?"

I know you: solitary griefs,

Desolate passions, aching hours.

— Lionel Pigot Johnson

             
Periodically through history waves of madness sweep across what we like to refer to as the civilized world. In the year 1213, thirty thousand little children, chanting "O Lord Jesus, restore thy cross to us!" marched to death or enslavement in a juvenile crusade. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries tens of thousands of poor innocents were tortured and burned alive as witches across Europe and the Americas. In the latter half of the seventeenth century a passion for murder by slow poison spread from country to country, mostly among upper-class women, and thousands of unwanted husbands, fathers, and assorted relatives are known to have died at the hands of those they most trusted. The number of unguessed-at murders was probably many times higher. Each of these madnesses ran its course in time and disappeared as an organized activity.

             
"There are many other examples," Barnett said. "There was the tulip mania in Holland, when a single tulip bulb of a particularly desirable shape or color might be sold for enough to buy a house—and quite a nice house, too."

             
"Nobody was killed in that one," Cecily said.

             
It was late afternoon, four days after the explosion. They sat in the smaller drawing room of the Villa Endorra, Barnett and Cecily and the Prince and Princess of Rumelia, who were leaving the next morning for more aristocratic and better-guarded accommodations on the
Cote d'Azur.
With a perhaps inescapable curiosity they were discussing the recently defunct bomber and his place in the epidemic of assassinations that had been plaguing Europe for the past few years.

             
"You think, perhaps, that it's merely that we live in such a time of madness that Diane and I, not to speak of our more exalted relations, must go about in fear of our lives?" The prince shook his head sadly. "After a thousand years, all of Europe—poof!—decides it has enough of royalty?
No, my friend.
If the people do not like their rulers they rise up against them—as happened in 1789 and again in 1848—they do not skulk in doorways and stab them with ice picks, or leap out of crowds and throw infernal devices into their carriages."

             
"The nihilists do," Cecily observed.

             
"Ah, yes," Ariste agreed.
"Those Russian emigres with their strange political beliefs.
My imperial cousin Nicholas has created quite a problem for himself with his vacillating between concessions and repressions. The people are emboldened by his concessions and then maddened by his repressions." Ariste shrugged. "But for those of us west of the Carpathians, the solution assuredly lies elsewhere."

             
"Those historical manias that you were speaking of, Benjamin," Diane asked, "is it that they just sprang into being from nothingness? I find that difficult to imagine."

             
Barnett leaned back as comfortably as his securely bandaged left leg and torso would allow, and spent a minute in thought, trying to remember his European history. He had graduated from New York City's Columbia University with a degree in history, a fact which he had seldom admitted to his colleagues at the
New York World
in his days as a reporter. American newsmen prided themselves on a combination of ready wit and invincible ignorance.

             
"The times were right for them, of course," Benjamin said.
"Whatever that may mean.
As I remember, the Children's Crusade was instigated by two phony monks who went about preaching that some verse of the New Testament or other showed that Chris-tian children would take back the holy lands from the Saracen invader."

             
"Fancy that!" Princess Diane said.
"Religious hysterics, no doubt?"

             
"My recollection is that they planned to take the children east and sell them into slavery."

             
"The witch hunts were similarly inspired by greed every bit as much as by religious zeal," Prince Ariste said. "There were professional 'witch smellers' who went from town to town rooting out the supposed disciples of the Devil for a fee. They did very well at it, too. One of my ancestors had the pleasure of arresting and trying one of those rogues when he went too far.
Accused the local bishop of dancing naked at a witches' Sabbath."

             
"Silly man," Cecily commented.
"Must have lost his head."

             
"Indeed," Ariste agreed.
"At the neck."

             
Diane, who was perched on a light green chaise longue, pulled her knees up, smoothed her skirt, and wrapped her arms around her limbs. "Tell us about the poisoners," she asked Barnett.

             
"They were encouraged by a secret clique of mysterious women who traveled about in the guise, usually, of fortune-tellers," Barnett told her. "The, ah, subjects would go to have their fortunes told and discuss their most intimate problems over cups of tea. If the problems involved a relative, particularly one whose passing would enrich the subject, a delicate and subtle solution might be offered. The poisons the women supplied became known as 'inheritance powders.' "

             
"You see," Ariste said. "In each of these cases there actually was a unifying factor: someone stood to gain."

             
"I guess that's so," Barnett admitted. "But if there is one in the current madness, it eludes me. And I think that there has to be a predisposition for such madness before the germ can take hold."

             
"You think, perhaps, it happens by infusion, like some strange epidemic?" Ariste asked. "Perhaps the idea of assassination is 'in the air.' Perhaps the people could be vaccinated against it as they are for the pox."

             
"Well, whyever these horrible people are doing it," Cecily said, taking Diane's hand, "please be careful."

             
"I promise, my dear," Princess Diane said with a wistful smile.

             
"Although our safety is rather in the hands of others, I do what I can to assure that those hands are competent."

             
"We leave tomorrow for Monaco to visit our royal cousin Prince Albert," Ariste said. "In ten days we shall be back at Weisserschloss, our royal residence at Spass. It has over two hundred very drafty rooms, several of which we would insist upon putting at your disposal would you care to join us for a week or two."

             
"We go from here to Austria," Barnett said.
"And from there back to Paris, and then to London.
I think Spass is in a fairly direct line from Innsbruck to Paris, isn't it?"

             
"Direct enough for us, my love," Cecily said, laughing. "If the American News Service can do without you for an extra week, I'm sure Mr. Hogbine can do without me. Besides, think how jealous he will be. He received an invitation to one of the queen's afternoon teas once, about ten years ago, and he hasn't ceased speaking of it since."

             
"Good!" Prince Ariste said. "Then it's settled.
A week of bridge evenings.
How delightful!"

             
"Perhaps they won't wish to play bridge every evening," Princess Diane suggested.

             
Ariste looked hurt. "Not want to play—"

             
"Of course we will," Cecily said. "Diane, how could you be so cruel?"

             
"It's a wife's job," she replied, patting her husband fondly on the arm. "Well, as long as you understand what we have planned for you in the way of entertainment, we shall look forward to seeing you in three weeks."

             
"One second," Ariste said, reaching behind him. "I have a gift of a rather utilitarian nature for Benjamin." He brought forth a slender walking stick of a dark wood, with a silver handle in the shape of a duck's head, and passed it to Barnett. "Dr. Silbermann says that your wound will probably continue to trouble you for another few weeks, so I thought you might find this useful. It is not thick, but I assure you that it will bear your weight. The handle is in the shape of the Juchtenberg drake, our family's device, and the full arms are emblazoned on the back. I trust you will not find that an impediment to its use."

             
Barnett took the stick and hefted it in his hand. It was the prince's own walking stick, he realized. "I thank you, Ariste," he said. "Using it will give me both support and pleasure."

             
"It is capable of offering another sort of support also," Prince Ariste said, "one which I trust you will never need." He reached over and pushed the drake's head, right beneath the embossed Juchtenberg coat of arms. There was a soft click, and the shaft of the stick separated from the handle and slid down, revealing the razor-sharp rapier blade within.

             
"Well!" Barnett said.
"A handy-dandy little device, indeed."
He felt at the blade gingerly with his thumb, and examined the mechanism. "The walking stick is so small in diameter that one would hardly suspect that a blade could be concealed within."

             
"There are artisans at Spass to equal the finest in Berlin or London," Prince Ariste said.
"Particularly von Yucht for small arms and Shostak for fowling-pieces.
This cane is a von Yucht."

             
"Also glassware, my dear," Princess Diane told Cecily. "And linens.
For those of us who already have quite enough fowling-pieces."

             
Prince Ariste shook his head sadly. "She doesn't mind eating the bird once it's on the table," he said, "but she has no interest at all in how it came to be there."

             
"That is so," Diane agreed, nodding. "To the butcher should be left the butchering, say I."

             
Frau Schimmer appeared in the doorway and knocked on the door frame before entering. She carried a silver tray on which rested a squat, dusty bottle and five wide-mouth stemmed glasses with lacy silver trim on bowl and stem.
"Gnadig Furst und gnadige Furstin,
" she said, "Signor and Signora Barnett; I wish you to share with me a final schnapps before you leave my establishment." She wiped the dust off the bottle and carefully and gently pried out the cork. "There are but six of these bottles left in the cellar. When they are gone—" she shrugged. "But how can they be used
better
than by toasting good friends?" She poured an inch of the dark amber liquid in each glass.