Free Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of The D’urbervilles by Kim Newman

and night.
    I still maintain all would have been well if only I’d shown the Adler minx what was what straight off, tossed her skirts over her head, plonked her fizzog-down on the reception room rug (a tiger whose head snarled as if he still bore a grudge from that tricky shot I made bringing him down) and administered one of my famous Specials. Had I but properly poked that Yankee popsy, she might have broken the habit which eventually set all manner of odd bods scurrying around trying to clear up her confounded messes.
    Irene Adler had the face of an angel child, the body of a full-grown trollop and a voice like a steel needle slowly sliding into your brain. Even warbling to an audience of tone-deaf Polish, she hadn’t lasted as prima donna. After her Emilia flopped so badly the artistic director of the Warsaw Opera had to blow his brains out, the company cut her adrift, leaving her on the loose in Europe to the disadvantage of several ruling houses.
    And here she was on our settee.
    ‘You are aware that the services I offer are somewhat unusual?’ the Professor said.
    She fixed Moriarty with a steely glint that cut through all the sugar.
    ‘I am a soprano from New Jersey,’ she began, pronouncing it ‘Noo Joisey’. ‘I know what a knob crook looks like. You can figure all the sums you like, Professor, but you’re as much a capo di cosa nostra as the Moustache Petes in the back room of the Burly-Cue. Which is dandy, because I have a job of burglary that needs doing urgently. Capisce?’
    The Professor nodded.
    ‘Who’s the red-faced gent who hasn’t taken his glims off my teats for the last minute and a half?’
    ‘Colonel Sebastian Moran, the heavy-game shot.’
    ‘Good with a gun, eh? Looks more like a shiv-man to me.’
    She pointed her index fingers at her cleavage, which she thrust out, then angled her fingertips up to indicate her face.
    ‘That’s better. Look me in the lamps, Colonel.’
    I harrumphed and paid attention. If she hadn’t wanted fellows to ogle, she shouldn’t have worn that dress. There’s no reasoning with women.
    ‘Here’s the thing of it,’ she said. ‘Have you heard of the Duke of Strelsau?’
    ‘Michael Elphberg, so-called “Black Michael”, third in line to the throne of Ruritania.’
    ‘That’s the fellow, Prof. Things being slow this season, I’ve been knocking around a bit with Black Mike. They call him that because of his hair, which is dark where the rest of his family’s is flame-red. He’s a gloomy, glowering type as well so it suits him on temperamental grounds too. As it happens, photographs were taken of the two of us in the actual pursuit of knocking around. Artistic studies, you might say. Six plates. Full figures. Complete exposures. It would ruin my reputation should they come to light. You see, I’m being blackmailed !’
    Her voice cracked. She raised a kerchief to her eye to quell a tear, then froze, a picture of slighted maidenhood. Moriarty shook his head. She stuffed the hankie back into her sleeve and snorted.
    ‘Worth a try just to keep my hand in. I’m a better actress than critics say, don’t you know? Obviously, I’m not being blackmailed. Like you said, there are stingers and stingees. We are stingers.’
    ‘And the stingee?’
    ‘Another bloody colonel. Colonel Sapt. Chief of the Ruritanian Secret Police. Which has been a dozy doddle for the last thirty years, since it’s one of the most peaceable, least-insurrection-blighted spots on the map. Not so much as a whiff of dissent since forty-eight. When, admittedly, the mob burned down the old White Palace. There are very scenic gardens on the site. Anyway, intrigue stirs. King Rudolf is getting on, and there’s some doubt about who gets the throne next. Rudolf the Red, the Crown Prince, is set on shoring up his case by marrying his cousin, Princess Flavia. Where do they get these names? If you put them in an opera, you’d be laughed off stage. Rudolf is fond of a tipple and a