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

small piece of leather sewn to his sleeve. Then he tested the blade on the back of his hand, nodded approval, and approached Barnett. "Move not your face," he warned.
     
                  Barnett held his face motionless while the monk artfully applied the razor. The other monk crouched on the floor and unstoppered his second phial. "Hold still your feet," he said.
     
                  "What are you doing?" Barnett demanded, trying to peer down his nose without moving his face.
     
                  "Applying oil of vitriol to the link connecting your foot to this chain," the monk told him. "It will take a few minutes. Hold still!"
     
                  Barnett kept completely still, from face to feet, and let the two monks work on him. When the one had finished shaving him he took a rag and spread grease over Barnett's face. "Darken your skin," he said. "Remove prison whiteness."
     
                  Two minutes later, Barnett, in brown robes, his face deeply concealed by the cowl, his feet in worn monk's sandals thoughtfully provided by his escorts, walked out of his cell. For another ten minutes, the group continued through the prison, chanting and praying and shriving. Then, the circle completed, they arrived back at the East Gate and paid the head tax to the Captain of the Guard, carefully counting out each gold medjidié into the palm of his hand.
     
                  "In Simon's name we bless you," the speaking-monk said.
     
                  "Come back soon," the guard captain replied, transferring the gold to a leather purse.
     
                  "Next Shrove Friday," the monk said. "You have my word."
     

SEVEN — 64 RUSSELL SQUARE
     
    To trust is good; not to trust is better.
    — Verdi
     
                  Barnett arrived at 64 Russell Square rolled inside a 600-year-old Kharvan rug. He was unrolled in the butler's pantry by the two men who had brought him, working under the direction of a tall woman in a severe black dress. "Very good," she told the men as Barnett unfolded from the rug. "Now take it into the front parlor. Mr. Maws will tell you what to do with it."
     
                  Barnett stood up and did a couple of knee-bends to get the blood circulating in his legs again. "Hello," he said.
     
                  The woman extended a slender hand. "I am Mrs. H," she said. "Professor Moriarty's housekeeper. You are Mr. Benjamin Barnett."
     
                  "That's right," Barnett said, taking the hand.
     
                  "You'll be wanting a bath. Come with me." She led him up two flights of stairs. "This will be your room," she said, opening a door in the hall to the left of the landing. "The bath is across the way. Fresh linens on the bed and towels on the washstand. There's hot water. I'll have a bath drawn for you while you get out of those garments. Leave them outside the door and I'll see that they're disposed of."
     
                  Barnett looked down at the filthy laborer's garb the monks had supplied him with before he left Constantinople. It had not gained anything in cleanliness in the weeks he had been crossing Europe. "But Mrs. H," he said, "I have nothing else to wear."
     
                  "Your clothing," she told him, "is in that wardrobe and in this chest of drawers."
     
                  Barnett pulled open the top drawer of the chest. Inside were a row of starched white shirts. A brief inspection convinced him that they were his own, from his Paris flat. "How did these get here?" he demanded.
     
                  "Express," she said. "I'll see to your bath." And with a satisfied nod, she turned and left.
     
                  Barnett closed the door and happily stripped off the rags he was wearing. His red velvet dressing-gown was on a hook in the wardrobe, and he gratefully enveloped