• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Yes-s-s,” he hissed. “Paper hats-s-s.”

From the Diary of Sir Nevil Airey Stent.

September 2: Notices are in!

My lecture — an unparalleled triumph! The Dynamics of an Asteroid — in the dust-bin! Moriarty’s hash — settled for good! I may draw a thick black line through the most prominent name on the List.

Now — on to other things.

Remodelling of Flamsteed House continues. All say it’s not grand enough for my position. Workmen have been in all week, installing electric lamps in every room. In my position, we must have all the modern, scientific devices. Lady Caroline fears electricity will leak from the wiring and strike dead the servants with indoor lightning. I have explained to her why this is impossible, but my dear featherhead continues to worry and has ordered the staff to wear rubber-soled shoes. They squeak about the place like angry mice.

Similarly, the Observatory must expand, keep apace, draw ahead.

At 94 inches, our newly-commissioned optical reflecting telescope shall be the biggest in the world! The ‘scopes at Birr Castle and the Lick Observatory will seem like tadpoles! I almost feel sorry for them. Almost. That’s two more off the List!

Kedgeree for breakfast, light lunch of squab and quail eggs, Dover sole and chipped potatoes for supper. Congress with Lady C. — twice! Must eat more fish.

Reviewing my life and achievements on this, my forty-fifth birthday, I concede myself well-satisfied.

All must admire me.

Looking to the planets and stars, I feel I am surveying my domain. My Queen has her Empire, but she has gifted me the skies for conquest.

Mars is winking at me, redly.

September 6: A curious happening.

Business took me to the lens-grinders’ in Seven Dials. Old Parsons’ work has been indifferent lately, and I made a personal visit to administer a metaphorical boot to the seat of his britches.

After the booting was done, I left Parsons’ shop and happened to notice the premises next door. Above a dingy window was a sign — ‘C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities’. The goods on offer ran to dead birds, elephant tusks, shark-maws, fossils and the like. I’d thought this site occupied by a bakery, but must be misremembering. Cave’s premises had plainly stood for years, gradually decaying and accumulating layers of dust and dirt.

My attention was drawn to the window by a red flash, which I perceived out of the corner of my eye. A stray shaft of light had reflected off an odd object — a mass of crystal worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. It might do for a paper-weight if I were in need of such a thing, which I was not.

Then, I heard voices raised inside the emporium. One was known to me — that upstart Moriartian Ogilvy. Alone among the fraternity of astronomers, he has written in defence of The Dynamics of an Asteroid. His name was on the List.

I stepped back into the doorway of Parsons’, but kept my ears open. Og. was haggling with an old man — presumably, C. Cave himself — over the crystal lump, for which the proprietor was asking a sum beyond his purse. An opportunity.

Casually, I wandered into the shop.

Cave, a bent little fellow with egg in his stringy beard and a tea-cozy on his head, had the odd mannerism of wobbling his head from side to side like certain snakes. I thought for a moment that I knew him from somewhere, but must have been mistaken. He smelled worse than many of his antiquities. I say, that’s rather good — must save the line for my next refutation.

Og. was going through his pockets, scraping together coins to up his offer.

Upon seeing me, Og. said “Stent, how fortunate that it’s you,” with undue familiarity as if we were the closest of friends. “Could you extend me a small loan?”

“Five pounds,” insisted Cave. “Not a penny less.”

Og. sweated like an opium-addict without funds for his next pipe. Most extraordinary thing. I hadn’t thought he had the imagination to be so desperate.

“Of course, my dear fellow,” I said. His face lifted, and his palm came out. “But first I must conclude my