The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus Read Online Free Page A

the World would never pay cable rates for background or filler material.
     
                  Barnett asked Lieutenant Sefton to stop for a moment at a small square with a cracked, dry water fountain in the middle. "I want to get the feel of this," he said, going over to inspect the inscription, which told, in a language he could not read, about a battle that had long since been forgotten.
     
                  "All very scenic, no doubt," Lieutenant Sefton said, leaning on his stick.
     
                  The mellifluous chanting of the Mu'adhdhin sounded from the towering minarets all over Stamboul, calling the Faithful to afternoon prayer, and within a few seconds the streets were virtually empty as the locals went inside to perform the prescribed ritual.
     
                  Then, over the chanting, came the sound of many running feet. A tall European turned the corner a block away and headed toward the square at a dead run, coattails flying. A second later a gang of Arabs boiled around the corner behind him, waving a variety of weapons, intent on catching up.
     
                  "I say," Lieutenant Sefton said, "an Englishman seems to be in trouble. We'd better come to his aid."
     
                  Barnett put his notebook away and took off his jacket. "He might be French," he said.
     
                  "Nonsense, man—look at the cut of those trousers!"
     
                  Folding his jacket carefully, Barnett put it on the rim of the fountain. Long experience at barroom brawling had taught him that bruises heal, but ripped jackets must be replaced.
     
                  Lieutenant Sefton twisted the handle of his stick and slid out an eighteen-inch blade. "The Marquis of Queensberry wouldn't approve," he said, "but those chaps aren't gentlemen."
     
                  "I don't suppose you have another of those pigstickers concealed about your person, do you?" Barnett asked, eyeing the approaching mob and the assortment of curved knives they were waving. "If it's to be that sort of a party ..." He picked up his jacket again and wrapped it around his arm. The custom governing barroom disputes on the Bowery limited the engagement to fisticuffs and an occasional chair or bottle, but—other places, other habits.
     
                  "Here," Sefton said, tossing him the body of the stick. "It's rolled steel under the veneer. Feel free to bash away with it."
     
                  "Thanks," Barnett said, hefting the thin steel tube. The tall stranger had almost reached them, and the mob was close behind. Holding the truncated stick like a baseball bat, Barnett advanced to the attack.
     

TWO — MORIARTY
     
    He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker.
    — Sherlock Holmes
     
                  He was conspicuously tall, and thin to the point of emaciation. He carried himself with the habitual stoop of one who must traverse doorways constructed for a lesser race, and this stoop, taken with his high, domed forehead and penetrating gaze, gave him the look of some great predatory bird. His mind was quick and incisive, and his actions were ruled by logic. His passions—were his alone, and few of his associates were privy to them.
     
                  He ran down the Street of the Two Towers, closely pursued by six silent men in dirty brown burnooses. One of them had been following him since he left his hotel, and the six together had attacked him as he left the shop of a dealer in ancient brass instruments a few blocks away. He was deciding among the four most logical means of escape when two men in European dress, waving menacing weapons, raced to his aid. At first he thought they might be trying to cut him off, but they were clearly aiming for his pursuers and not for him. This altered the situation.
     
                  In an instant, he had stopped running