The Serpent and the Spider
Charles Augustus Milverton glanced at the calling card his secretary had just given him. He'd been out making a call on a particularly reluctant client and had only just returned. His customarily smiling face drooped into a frown of slight confusion and trepidation. He had not expected this caller for another week.
"He is in my study?" Milverton asked his secretary.
"He is, sir," the secretary confirmed as he helped his master off with his coat.
"How long has he been here?"
"Only ten minutes, sir."
Milverton continued to frown at the card as he made his way down the hall. This was highly unusual. The majority of his clients chose to have an intermediary conduct their affairs so as to distance themselves from him. Nearly all of them chose a neutral location somewhere in the city rather than venturing out to his home.
Opening the door to his study he was confronted with a middle-aged, well dressed, scholarly man standing by the large bay window through which the afternoon sun shone to illuminate the expensively decorated room. The man turned to face him as he closed the door.
"You must forgive me, sir," said Milverton, his smile creasing his face once more. "I was making a call on a client of mine. May I offer you a glass of whiskey?"
"No thank you." The man's prominent brow furrowed slightly as he took in Milverton's appearance. "I had imagined you would be slightly older, sir. All else is as I expected."
"Indeed?" Milverton said pleasantly, crossing the room to his red leather chair behind the desk. "Please, do sit down. No need to be uncomfortable. Such business as we have should be conducted as civilly as possible. Are you sure you wouldn't care for some whiskey? Port perhaps?"
"Thank you, no," the man said as he took the proffered chair. "Our interview shouldn't take long."
Milverton's smile trembled at that and his quick, darting eyes took in a small leather satchel similar to what a medical man might carry sitting to the side of his guest's chair.
"Is that the payment I asked for?" Milverton inquired with a nod of his head.
"We'll come to that in a moment, Mr. Milverton." The man narrowed his eyes on his host for a moment before going on. "Three months ago you inconvenienced me slightly by letting out a rumor regarding certain events that occurred while I was an undergraduate at Cambridge."
"The rumor was just that. A rumor. You can easily set it aside and continue on with your career," Milverton said in a smooth tone meant to placate his guest.
"A month after that I learned there was talk of a minor scandal that took place while I was a boy at Eton."
"A childhood indiscretion, my dear sir," Milverton brushed it away as nothing.
"And three weeks ago it came to my attention there was a new rumor relating to a death and a dismissal of a professor at Oxford and supposedly I was in some way connected."
"In some way everyone at that school at that time was connected." Milverton smiled pleasantly. "Thus far there is nothing that could ruin you, Professor. It is all just talk. And such talk is likely to blow over."
"Is it?" The guest's eyes narrowed and he stood. "I am inconvenienced, sir, just when I have plans coming to fruition. And you tell me it will all just blow over?"
"You really should not let it upset you so," Milverton coaxed. "Simply pay me what I ask and you shall hear no more rumors. You will not be taxed further. Your plans may go forward."
The professor turned cool eyes on his host with the flicker of a smile on his lips. "Do you know who I am, Mr. Milverton?"
"Assuredly I do." Milverton's own smile faltered only briefly. Something was abnormal about this man. The way he paced the floor. The way his head seemed to oscillate back and forth as if he could not settle on any one thing to look at. For all that, though, he seemed perfectly calm and had not made any of the usual protests or appeals. Milverton's eyes widened as the professor's hand slipped inside his jacket.
"I am armed, sir!" he barked retrieving a small revolver from his desk drawer. "I have been at this game longer than you might suspect. I am no fool."
"I am not armed, sir," the professor said withdrawing his hand and the watch he had fished from his waistcoat pocket. "I simply wished to know if your mantel clock was accurate. I observe, also, your rather fine marble bust of Hermes. An ironic choice on your part, given the sorts of missives you are accustomed to bearing."
Milverton's smile disappeared and he was about to speak when suddenly there was a sound of shattering glass followed immediately by the bust's disintegration into a cloud of shards and lumps. As the debris rattled to the floor he turned wide, fearful eyes on the man he had presumed was his victim.
"You may have a revolver, sir, but I have something infinitely better."
"You wouldn't dare," Milverton stammered.
"Sit yourself down, dear sir," the professor said crossing the room and picking up the black bag as he approached the desk, holding it out to the blackmailer. "I have your payment here."
Glancing at the shattered pane of his bay window Milverton reluctantly set his revolver aside and took the straps of the bag. It was heavier than he had anticipated and it dipped to rebound from the desktop with a slight thud. Glancing up at the dark-clad man eyeing him from the farther side of the desk, Milverton undid the buckles and let the bag fall open. For just an instant he was frozen in place, unable to move or even so much as breathe as he gazed upon the eyes and the terrible, bloody wound. With a violent jerk he flung himself back into his chair causing it to swivel and spill him onto the floor. He scrambled away from the loathsome thing in the bag and from the man who had surely put it there.
"Mr. Milverton," said the professor, consulting his watch. "You have twenty-seven seconds to begin opening your safe or what happened to Hermes and the late owner of the contents of that bag will happen to you."
Milverton stared at the man. How had he misjudged him by so much? A respected man of letters? A scholar? A recognized mathematical genius?
"Twenty seconds," the man said coldly.
Milverton scrambled across the polished floor, not bothering to rise. He shoved his fingers into his pocket questing for the key to his safe, tearing the cloth of his jacket as he did. He dropped the key and shot a frightened glance over his shoulder, expecting perhaps that he had just signed his death warrant. The professor stood placidly watching him.
It took Milverton a moment to open the safe door and retrieve the envelope containing what the professor had come for. He offered it to him, still kneeling as though he would supplicate himself before the man. The professor took the envelope, inspected the contents then slipped it into an inner pocket of his jacket.
"You may keep what's in the bag," the professor said as he turned for the door. "I do strongly suggest you forget my name. Forget anything you may have read in these notes. Forget my existence. If you do not, Mr. Milverton, I assure you that Professor James Moriarty will be the last living soul you will ever see."
When the door closed behind his departing guest Charles Augustus Milverton rose shakily to his feet and poured a very large glass of fine Scotch whiskey. He sat on a lush settee as far from his desk as he could manage and drank off nearly half the bottle while composing himself. And in due course he forgot as much as he ever was able to of the man he had no wish to see ever again.