Margaret and de Marnac exchanged anxious looks. I managed to sit up, arms free under the bandages, and wasn’t instantly slapped down.
“What is that?” said the Grand Master.
A huge shape blocked the cellar door. A huge shape topped with a porkpie hat. A knocked-over lamp underlit a jowly, pig-eyed face which seemed to have melted. Big fists opened and closed.
De Marnac drew a sword.
The Hoxton Creeper tottered into the room, eyes fixed on Margaret, but not for the reason most blokes stared at her. In her open palm glistened the black pearl.
“Who are you?” demanded de Marnac.
The Creeper whistled the ‘Barcarolle’ from Tales of Hoffman. He had a tune in his head, too. As he advanced he loomed bigger. His shadow grew.
“Here,” said Miss Trelawny, “Grand Master, you’d better have this.”
She popped the pearl into the back of his tunic and it disappeared. He reached awkwardly for the back of his neck, but couldn’t trap it. He wriggled, as if a bug were burrowing under his armor.
The Creeper wheeled about and stared at the Knight of St. John. He raised his arms.
Margaret’s blackamoor prize-fighter, blood streaming from his broken face, came into the room and laid hold of the Creeper’s shoulder, only to be shrugged off and thrown against the wall.
All the while, I was unpicking my bandages. I rose from the coffin. Bereft of jewels, I was of no interest to anyone.
De Marnac slashed at the Creeper, who blocked with his arm. The blade bit into the giant’s knotted sinew like an axe in wood, then wouldn’t come free. The Creeper got a hold of the Grand Master and twisted him round. The crack of his spine snapping was louder than the squeak of scream he managed before the angry lamps went out in his eyes.
Something small, like a marble, rolled from his armor onto the floor.
Miss Trelawny looked at the dropped pearl. It fascinated her as she fascinated me — a nigh-irresistible urge to seize. The Creeper, too, sighted the object he was fixated on.
I saw where this was going. And rooted around for the scimitar, which I found lying on the altar. I doubted it’d be any more use against the Creeper than the sword he was prising out of his arm.
The Creeper bent down and tried to take the Borgia pearl.
It had not occurred to me, but fingers thick as bananas were a handicap when it came to picking up something the size of a boiled sweet. The Creeper scrabbled, rolling the pearl this way and that, unable to get a grasp.
I had a good two-handed grip on the scimitar. I judged the distance to the door.
The hostess took pity on the monster. She plucked the pearl in her delicate fingers and dropped it into the Creeper’s cupped palm. He peered at it, content for the moment — but also perplexed. He didn’t know what to do now. Then he saw Queen Tera. She stood up, magnificent. Her fluence struck the brute man like a bucketful of ice-water. The Creeper’s eyes glowed too, with fresh adoration. Could Margaret can-can? With her long legs and that outfit, high kicks would be worth seeing.
Like a queen, Miss Trelawny extended her hand. She snapped her fingers.
Shyly, the Creeper gave away his precious. And stood back, in worship. Would the transference take? I’d not be surprised if from now on, the giant’s heart beat to follow Queen Tera. If so, I was about to land myself in his bad books.
Margaret Trelawny again made a fist around the Borgia pearl.
I ran towards her and scythed my blade down on her wrist, neatly lopping off her hand. She shrieked and blood gouted into the Creeper’s face. I snatched up the hand — still shockingly warm — before its grip could relax, and bolted for the door.
The giant was temporarily blinded. Miss Trelawny was temporarily distracted. The Grand Master was permanently dead.
I ran through the hallway, naked but for a bandage loincloth, streaking past dazed houris — the gilt had mostly rubbed off — and a sticky Law Lord. I nearly tripped over a spine-snapped corpse or two. Why didn’t people just get out of the Creeper’s way when they had the chance? Miss Trelawny’s cringing staff would have to clear up more mess than usual. Mr. Pears’ soap is recommended for getting blood out of your Egyptian altar hangings, by the way. Still clutching my gruesome prize, I bounded out of Trelawny House. My cab was still waiting. The Creeper hadn’t done away with Craigin on his way in.
“Conduit Street,” I ordered. “Chop chop!”
I laughed. Chop chop! I’d only needed one chop. In my lap, Margaret Trelawny’s hand opened like a flower. I took the pearl and the ring, and tossed the thing into the gutter for the dogs to fight over. If Queen Tera had all the powers she claimed, her hand might take to crawling after me like a lopsided, strangling spider. I could do without that.
It had been an interesting, eventful day.
XIII
I had a teeth-gnasher of a rage on. Often in the course of our association, I felt an overwhelming urge to box Professor Moriarty’s ears. Or worse. He had taken me into the Firm because — not to put too fine a point on it — I had proven myself more than willing to gamble my skin on any number of occasions, just to feel the iron rise in my blood and cock a snook at Death. So, by his lights, I had volunteered to be put repeatedly in harm’s way, and shouldn’t even complain about it.
However, that little trick with the Borgia pearl — slipped into my supposedly undetectable secret pocket — was typical of his high-handedness. Admittedly, things had sorted themselves out in our favour. Equally admittedly, if the Prof had troubled to inform me of this stratagem, I’d have refused to go along with it. All for risk, disinclined to suicide: that’s me.
Deep down, despite what I knew of his genius, I couldn’t help but think Moriarty threw the pieces up in the air and hoped for the best, then claimed it had come out exactly to plan. It’d have been the same to him if the Creeper had crushed my spine or Maniac Marge had mummified me or the Grand Master had done whatever it is Grand Masters do to those who annoy them. He wasn’t notably upset by the fate of Runty Reg, and the look-out had been with the Firm longer than I.
Still, with a balloon of brandy and a fresh set of clothes, I calmed down and could even feel a pride of achievement. Every item on the shopping list was scored through.
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
Any one of these keepsakes would have been a premier haul, but six within forty-eight hours was a miracle.
The Professor stood in front of the glittering sideboard, hands out as if feeling the warmth of a fire. His head oscillated. Then, he clapped his hands.
“Nothing,” he said. “No detectable supernatural power. These objects effect no change in temperature or barometric pressure. Miracles or malign mischances do not occur in their vicinity. They are simply trouvées men have arbitrarily decided to value.”
“I don’t know, Moriarty,” I said. “I’ve been feeling rum all day. I don’t say it’s the curses, but your crown jewels have something. If enough people pray to the things, maybe they pick up juju the way a blanket gets wet if you empty a bucket of water on it?”
The Professor’s lip curled.
“Whatever you or I think, plenty have invested so much belief in those prizes they’d kill or die to get them back,” I said. “If that’s not supernatural, I don’t know what is.”