The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus by Michael Kurland

around three of the walls. The ceiling was lost in gloom.
     
                  Moriarty sat in an absurdly short chair in front of the desk and waited. Two burly men in identical brown suits had escorted him into the room, seated him in the squat, low-backed chair, then turned on their heels and marched out, their footsteps echoing across the marble. He was left alone.
     
                  There came occasional faint scraping sounds from above, as though someone on the balcony were observing him, but he displayed no interest in the sounds and did not look up. Shortly they ceased.
     
                  When the sunlight had moved from the inkwell to the edge of the blotter a man entered through a small door in the far wall. The door was instantly closed behind him. "Sdravsoitye, Gospodine Moriarty, " he said, taking his place behind the great desk. "Kak vye pojyevoitye? " He was a slender man who looked quite young, but his face was lined with his years and what he had seen and what he had done. He wore a thin mustache which looked alien to his face, as though he had put it on for the occasion.
     
                  "Nye panyemi Po-Russkie?" the man said. "You do not speak Russian? I am sorry. My name is Zyverbine. I am in charge of the Foreign Branch of the Okhrannoye Otdelenie, the Imperial Department of State Protection. You come to us highly recommended. Would you tell me something about yourself? "
     
                  " No," Moriarty said.
     
                  There was a long pause. "No?" Zyverbine repeated.
     
                  "You already know everything you need to know about me."
     
                  Zyverbine suppressed a smile. He touched a concealed stud on the desk and the top drawer slid open. He removed a folder from the drawer. "Moriarty," he said, reading from the folder, "James Clovis. Born in 1842 in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, of Thomas Moriarty, headmaster of the Bradford School, and his wife, née Anne DeFauve, a woman of French extraction. Has an older brother, James Francis, a booking agent for the Great Central Railway, and a younger brother, James Louis, a major in the Royal Gloucestershire Foote, a regiment which has the traditional privilege of remaining covered when in the Queen's presence.
     
                  "James Moriarty—James Clovis Moriarty, that is—enrolled at the University of Aberdeen at the age of fourteen, living with an uncle in that city."
     
                  "Named?" Moriarty interrupted.
     
                  Zyverbine flipped the page and looked up, his pale blue eyes now expressionless. "Paul DeFauve," he said. "Your mother's brother. Teaches music and tunes pianos. Now living in Bath."
     
                  Moriarty laughed, which seemed to displease Zyverbine. "That is not accurate?" he demanded.
     
                  "Quite accurate," Moriarty admitted. "You have impressed me with your ability to cull the public record and make files. Now, could we get on with this?"
     
                  Zyverbine closed the file and replaced it in the drawer. "I am not altogether sure that you are the man for this job," he said.
     
                  Moriarty shrugged. "That is your affair. You paid my passage to come out here and listen. I came out here. I am prepared to listen. I am neither impressed with nor intimidated by your stage setting, but neither am I offended by it. I suppose it serves some purpose in dealing with the children that usually face you across this desk."
     
                  "Stage setting?" Zyverbine put his hands on the desk, the slender white fingers pressed into the polished wood. "What are you talking of?"
     
                  "This room," Moriarty said, waving his hand about. "The artful gloom. The vast empty space. Leaving me here alone. The noises overhead. The sawed-off