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

facing the street. Moriarty calmly sat facing them across the postage-stamp-sized table. "My usual preference is also the seat with the, ah, view," Moriarty told them, smiling grimly. "But with you two stalwart gentlemen guarding my rear, I feel confident that there will be no surprises. Is it to be shekerli or sade, gentlemen?"
     
                  "What's that?" Barnett asked.
     
                  "Sweet or bitter," Sefton explained. "The coffee."
     
                  "Oh," Barnett said. "Sweet. Very sweet."
     
                  The waiter was a short, wide man, sporting a great handlebar mustache and swathed in a white apron. He approached his European customers and performed an impressive dumb show to indicate that whatever language they spoke, he didn't. Moriarty spoke to him in Turkish, interrupting him in mid-gesture, and his face lit up. A minute later he was back at the table, making the coffee in the customary small brass pot over a charcoal burner.
     
                  "Your knowledge of the language is excellent," Lieutenant Sefton complimented Moriarty. "I have lived here for some time, and I don't speak it nearly so well. Have you been in Constantinople long?"
     
                  "On the contrary," said Moriarty. "I have been here for but three days. I leave tomorrow."
     
                  Lieutenant Sefton leaned forward. "And you haven't been here before?"
     
                  "Never."
     
                  "Then where did you learn Turkish?"
     
                  "I have developed a system for learning languages," Moriarty said. "I now speak nine. I confess that Turkish was something of a challenge for the system; I never expected to have to use it. When I learned that I had to go to Odessa on business, I couldn't resist arranging to spend a few days here in Constantinople, both to see the city and to practice my Turkish."
     
                  "Then you are a professor of languages?" Barnett asked.
     
                  Moriarty shook his head. "Using my system, the learning of languages is no great task for one of superior intellect," he said. "My degree is in mathematics. When I was younger I held the Chair of Mathematics at a small provincial university, but I am no longer so employed."
     
                  "You don't know who attacked you?" Lieutenant Sefton asked, getting back to the matter at hand. "We should probably report the ruffians to the authorities."
     
                  "I have no idea," Professor Moriarty said. "I came out of a shop and two of them attempted to propel me into an alley, where the others waited. I broke away. Aside from the fact that they were amateur assassins, and definitely not Arabs, I know nothing whatever about them."
     
                  "Why do you say they were not Arabs?" Lieutenant Sefton asked. "They looked like Arabs to me."
     
                  "Such was their intent, but there were a few small details they missed," Moriarty said. "One of them called to the others, and he did not speak Arabic. And the characteristic butternut color of their skin—was greasepaint."
     
                  "Greasepaint?"
     
                  "Yes." He pulled out his pocket handkerchief and displayed a dark brown stain across one corner. "The gentleman you left hors de combat was wearing this. I suspected it, so I ran the handkerchief across his chin."
     
                  Lieutenant Sefton took the handkerchief and examined the stain. "Curiouser and curiouser," he said. "So it was more than just an attempted robbery. It did seem to be quite a pack to be hounding one retired professor of mathematics."
     
                  "Yes," Moriarty said dryly. "I thought so myself."
     
                  "Tell me, Professor," Barnett said. "I don't want to seem to pry into