The Great Game by Michael Kurland Page A

egg.
     
                  "Well?" Barnett demanded.
     
                  "I don't quite see the reason for your irate response," Cecily told him calmly.
     
                  "Mr. Holmes began his 'investigations' by accusing Professor Moriarty of arranging the theft of the coronet," Barnett told her, punctuating his words by tapping his ring finger on the table. "He hung around outside the professor's house in a puerile disguise, dressed as some sort of common loafer, and accosted everyone who approached the door. The professor was finally forced to find the coronet himself to get Holmes to go away—a fact which I'm sure Dr. Watson's version of the events will not include."
     
                  Cecily reached over and cupped her husband's hand in hers to stop the table-tapping. "Could it not be that your fondness for Professor Moriarty and your, let us say, cool feelings toward Mr. Holmes have caused you to overstate the case just a bit?" she asked.
     
                  Barnett's frown slowly dissolved into a smile at the touch of her hand. "Well," he said, "perhaps just a bit."
     
                  Benjamin and Cecily had met while Benjamin was working for Professor James Moriarty, who was perhaps best described as a scientist who dabbled in crime, and was admittedly one of the most brilliant men in Britain. Barnett had founded the American News Service as an information gathering agency for the professor, and Cecily had answered an advertisement for the position of office manager.
     
                  A little over four years ago Barnett had quit the professor's service to marry the woman he had come to love, taking Moriarty's blessings and the American News Service with him.
     
                  Barnett chuckled at his memories. "The professor used to describe himself as the world's first consulting criminal," he told Cecily. "Moriarty planned ingenious crimes, for a fee. He said it was to support his scientific research, but I fancy he enjoyed the challenge. It was his way of tweaking the nose of a society that he found stupid, intolerant, stodgy, and dull. Looking back on my time as his associate, I certainly cannot condone his actions, but they kept life interesting."
     
                  "Mr. Holmes has called Professor Moriarty the 'Napoleon of crime,' " Cecily said.
     
                  "I myself have heard Holmes say that," Barnett admitted. "My belief is that, for all of Holmes's genius in solving crimes, he could never catch the professor. And this so upset and unnerved him that he blamed Moriarty for every crime that happened within a hundred miles of London. But he was known to call upon Moriarty himself when he was out of his depth in a problem."
     
                  Barnett finished his breakfast silently, deep in memories of the years he had spent with Professor Moriarty. Cecily, a truly wise woman, did not disturb him, but read her magazine and ate her buttered egg. Curiously the article she was reading, an illustrated study of Abdul Hamid, the sultan of Turkey, brought back memories of the time she had first met Benjamin. It was shortly after Moriarty had helped him escape from a Turkish prison, where he was being held for a murder he did not commit. She had thought him awfully proper and straitlaced then, for a newspaperman, and had been mildly shocked as, gradually, she came to realize that Barnett was Professor Moriarty's trusted right hand, and that the stern, fatherly professor was probably the most brilliant criminal mind of the nineteenth century.
     
                  Cecily closed the magazine and allowed the young waitress who hovered about their table to pour her a cup of coffee. She watched as Frau Schimmer escorted a couple into the breakfast room, brushing aside their apologies for being so late, and seated them at a table directly across from the Barnetts. Judging