Her blue eyes opened wide. My reaction was evidently not at all what she had antic.i.p.ated. "How strange!"
"My belief? Well, as I have grown older, I have learned that there are many strange things in the world. Are there any more details that you can give regarding this pale man?"
The lady shuddered. "As I say, in the next moment, we were all in the water, and I never saw this-apparition-phantasm-again. But Doctor, it haunts my dreams. And there I can see it clearly-that hideous, somehow dead-looking face. He has red hair, dark with wetting, all matted over his forehead. And he is glaring-no, not glaring, smiling, which is worse-at my sister and me with nightmarish malevolence. And in my dreams I see his body clearly too, those white arms, those white hands, arms and hands all very muscular, gripping the gunwales near the bow. He must have been immensely strong... if he was real." And once more my fair visitor shuddered.
A moment later she demanded: "But then who was he, Dr. Watson-if he was really there? What is the explanation?"
"That will have to wait. I cannot provide it."
In the meantime, there still had been no indication that my effort to communicate with Dracula would be successful. I hoped I somehow could get Miss Altamont out of the way before he did arrive.When I had soothed the young lady as best I could, and while I was endeavoring to persuade her to rest, I closed and put away the old book, set aside a partially burned candle, and picked up the broken pieces of a small mirror which were now littering Holmes"s chemical workbench.
"Have an accident?" my visitor asked abstractedly, observing my activities. She had arisen from her chair and was following me about the sitting room, unthinkingly, like a small child trailing a parent. "I"ve studied chemistry in school," she added, with the irrelevance of a mind wandering in weariness.
I muttered some evasive comment. Truly I was concerned about the young lady"s welfare, for she looked little better than Armstrong, as if she might faint at any moment.
After persuading her to sit down again, I rang for Mrs. Hudson, who soon looked in. As I had hoped, she offered Miss Altamont the hospitality of her own rooms. She also sent Billy, the young page, with a blanket and pillow for Armstrong, and for me some later editions of the newspapers, which were still making much of the story of Holmes"s disappearance. By this time other news had forced the story from the headlines, and now the supposed supernatural aspects of the matter were receiving somewhat less play.
With Martin Armstrong snoring comfortably on the sofa, in a manner indicating he would be there for hours to come, Rebecca, obviously losing the struggle to keep her own eyes open, was soon persuaded to take advantage of Mrs. Hudson"s kind offer of hospitality, and avail herself of a few hours" rest in our landlady"s rooms.
I had awakened from my own sleep at seven in the evening, and by now the long summer twilight was well advanced.
My energies had been somewhat restored by a few hours of uneasy slumber, and now by a second meal provided by Mrs. Hudson. Having already done all that I could do in the way of calling for specialized help, I resolved to return as soon as practical to Amberley, there to aid the search for Holmes in whatever way was possible. I thought it would be possible to catch a late train before midnight.
Once back in Amberley, I intended, despite Ambrose Altamont"s warning, to arrange to see Sarah Kirkaldy, privately if at all possible, and question her. I had gathered before my return to London that she was not to be held at the local police station, but kept more or less under house arrest in her room at the Altamonts".
Remembering that there was a telephone at Norberton House, I naturally thought of calling there before I boarded a train again, to discover whether there might be any fresh news of Holmes, or other developments in the case.
The voice of Ambrose Altamont, when I heard it on the other end of the line, sounded coolly sympathetic regarding the mysterious fate of Sherlock Holmes. But our former client was still intent on, if not obsessed by, the return of his daughter from the dead (as he saw the matter) through psychic materialization."I see now, Dr. Watson, that there are truly greater powers in heaven and earth than I had ever dreamed of."
"Indeed?" I inquired sharply. "You have been given some fresh evidence of this?"
There was a crackling pause along the lines. "Of course-my daughter"s appearance at the siance. You were there and witnessed her return. What did you think I meant?"
"Sorry," I murmured. "Perhaps I did not hear you clearly. You were saying?"
"Of course I pray that we will all see Mr. Holmes again, in this world. But I fear we ought not be surprised if we do not." Altamont"s manner remained distinctly cool, and when I mentioned that I contemplated a quick return to Amberley, he only grunted, issuing no invitation for me to return as a houseguest.
In turn I a.s.sured him-rather stiffly I suppose-that his younger daughter was safe, and presently in good hands. I thought I detected a kind of start on his part when he heard this, suggesting that he had not known, or had entirely forgotten, that Rebecca had gone to London.
Scarcely had I replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle, when Billy appeared, to announce a mysterious caller who was urgently and (I gathered) even abusively demanding to see Dr. Watson, alone. The young page reported indignantly that the man had declined with an oath when asked whether he would send up a card or any written note.
For some reason the name of the unknown Count Kulakov sprang immediately to mind, but my first glance at my latest visitor laid that theory to rest. The caller was a poorly dressed, rough-looking man, who at first displayed a smiling, nodding manner that appeared incongruously obsequious. Something about his clothing reminded me of Holmes"s description of the mysterious man who had watched us through the window at Simpson"s.
My uncouth visitor started visibly on catching sight of the rec.u.mbent figure of Martin Armstrong on the sofa. "Who"s that?" he demanded. The man spoke in a thick foreign accent, which I took to betray some origin in Eastern Europe.
"That"s none of your affair. If you have some business with me, you had better state it."
He glared at the page. "When we are alone."
I signaled to Billy. When the boy had left us, the man, smiling and nodding again, said: "Your friend Mr. Holmes need your help. Even now he in great danger."
A moment later, evidently seeing my suspicions plain upon my face, my mysterious caller took out of his pocket and handed to me a worn briar pipe that I immediately recognized as belonging to Holmes.
While I thoughtfully turned this piece of evidence over in my hands, the messenger insisted that if I really wanted to help Holmes, I must come with him at once, without a moment"s delay. "It is your friend himself who tells you this."
"He did not write a note for you to bring to me?"
"Why you want notes and writing?" My nameless visitor shook his head decisively.
"He cannot write."
"What prevents his doing so?"
This question was answered with a frown and a gesture of impatience. "I tell you, he may be dying and need your help. You are to talk with no one, leave no writing, but come instantly with me."
Scrutinizing once more the gnarled old briar pipe with a silver band around the amber stem, I had no doubt that it was one Holmes had had with him on our journey to Amberley. It had very probably been in his pocket at the time of his disappearance.
The messenger was watching alertly, and I decided to defy his orders openly.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, seeing me take pen and paper at my desk.
"I am leaving a message-whether you approve of the act or not."
Under his scowling supervision, I jotted down a few words for Mrs. Hudson, briefly outlining the circ.u.mstances under which I was being called away and instructing her to notify the police if she did not hear from me again within six hours. I folded and addressed the paper, and left it in a prominent position upon my desk.
Then, with great misgivings, but seeing no other course of action open to me, I went with my strange guide down to the street. At our door a four-wheeler stood waiting. The driver, his face m.u.f.fled by hat and scarf, leaned down from his high seat to exchange a few words in a low voice with my escort. Obeying an impatient gesture from the latter, I opened the door of the coach and climbed in.
On putting my head inside, I was surprised to find one seat already occupied, by a second man who seemed in every way a fit companion for the first, being dressed in the same rough style, and looking as desperate and dangerous. The first man now climbed in after me and closed the door.
The cab started with a lurch, on the instant the door was slammed, and I heard the repeated crack of the driver"s whip, showing that we were to maintain a rapid pace.
Immediately I began to question my escorts, who both sat facing me. One held his right hand in a pocket, and the other held his hand under his coat, suggesting that weapons might soon appear. The windows of the coach were covered with some opaque fabric, so that I could see nothing of our route.
"Where are we going?" I demanded, in as firm a voice as I could manage. "Where is Sherlock Holmes?""You be with him soon enough," said the man who had been waiting in the carriage, now speaking for the first time. He grinned, displaying white teeth in a face dark with grime and stubble.
I simply nodded, and inwardly made ready for the desperate personal struggle that now seemed unavoidable. I thought my chances would be better if I could delay it until I had dismounted from the coach.
A minute or two before the end of our ride, which, to judge by the time elapsed, had covered about two miles altogether, the sounds of surrounding traffic began to grow more remote, as if we were leaving well-traveled thoroughfares behind us. At the same time, we began jolting and b.u.mping over some surface notably rougher than even the worst of the ordinary London streets.
After a brief interval of this lurching progress, the carriage stopped abruptly.
Immediately one of the men riding with me opened a door and jumped out. A moment later, I was bidden to dismount, and stepped forth to stand in heavy shadows upon the uneven footing offered by an expanse of broken pavement. Inadvertently I put one foot into a deep puddle.
The buildings nearby loomed dark and silent, and their jagged outlines against the lighter sky a.s.sured me that I was standing amid ruins. What little I could see of my immediate surroundings strongly suggested that we were in some impoverished part of London, among structures which had been condemned or were actually in the process of being demolished. Dark, half-ruined walls reared their uneven outlines on every side, and the alley, or mews in which the coach had stopped was half-blocked by piles of rubble, among which I heard the scurrying of rats. Whatever these desperate men had in mind, no pa.s.sersby were likely to interfere with it.
The second man had come out of the coach close on my heels, and the two exchanged a look before turning to confront me.
I determined to put as bold a face on the matter as possible. "I demand to know what you have done with-"
But my guides-rather my kidnappers, as I now fully realized, with the clarity of something like despair-had finished pretending to answer questions.
"Imperialist pig! Your hour has come!"
"Die, monarchist! Capitalist swine!" With that the speaker, who was now standing some four or five paces off, drew a pistol. Meanwhile his comrade, actually within arm"s length of me, fetched a short bludgeon from inside his coat.
But before either form of attack might hit home, or I could attempt to strike a blow in my own defense, interruption came from an unexpected quarter. The coachman, who had remained silent and unmoving in his high seat, suddenly lashed out with his long whip. The weapon writhed and struck like some great serpent from atop the carriage, wrapping itself solidly around the gunman"s wrist. The latter cried out in astonishment, and his weapon discharged harmlessly, sending a bullet into one of the half-ruined walls by which we were surrounded. In the next moment a harder pull on the whip had yanked him off his feet with terrific force.
At that instant I could see no more, because the man with the bludgeon raised it, rapping out an oath at the same time, and I managed to grapple with him only just in time to save myself from being brutally clubbed. Whether I or my opponent would have prevailed will never be known, for in the next moment a darting black shape had come to my defense, swirling down from the coachman"s high seat to pounce like some winged predator upon my attacker.
A moment after that, my immediate antagonist had been wrenched out of my grasp. His body now hung in the air, dangling incredibly like that of a snared bird, held prisoner in the iron, one-handed grip which had been fastened on the back of his neck by the tall, lean coachman. The latter was now standing almost within arm"s length of me, and his hat had fallen off, revealing a shock of black hair. Some yards behind him, the bully who had drawn a pistol lay sprawled facedown, as if dead, upon the broken pavement, his useless weapon at his side.
Almost before I had begun to struggle on my own behalf, the fight was over, and for the moment I was safe.
I think my last doubts regarding the coachman"s ident.i.ty had been dissipated even before he used his free hand to loosen the scarf which had until now effectively concealed the lower part of his pale, clean-shaven, and somehow shockingly youthful face.
I was gasping from the brief exertion, and needed a moment or two in which to regain my breath. "Prince Dracula! I had begun to fear that my summons failed to reach you."
"Most diplomatically phrased, Doctor." Dracula"s well-remembered voice was deep, his English precise and elegant, though still marked with the accents of Eastern Europe. Simultaneously he let his prisoner down until the man"s feet just touched the ground. "I really came as quickly as I could. Unhappily, when your summons reached me I was not in the close vicinity of London-though fortunately I was at least in England."
"That is fortunate indeed for me."
"My apologies, Doctor, for any inconvenience my tardiness may have caused you.
But I was unavoidably detained-ha, would you?"
This last was addressed to his prisoner, who, with some breath restored, had summoned up fight enough to attempt to kick the prince. Dracula, pinching the fellow"s neck in a way that rendered him unconscious, allowed him to slide down, to sprawl at full length on the broken pavement. Then my rescuer went on unconcernedly to explain that he had reached Baker Street at about the same time as these messengers, and from the moment of his arrival had been suspicious of such a thuggish-looking trio of callers-their number had then included their own driver on the coach.
"Naturally," my rescuer concluded, "I felt it necessary to make sure that I understood the situation before I interfered."
"No apology is necessary," I murmured. By this time my respiration and pulse were beginning to return to their normal rates. "My thanks for your help."
"The determination was a matter of some delicacy." The prince went on to explain how, employing several of the powers naturally available to his race between the hours of sunset and dawn, he had invisibly followed and then secretly boarded the four- wheeler as it pulled away with my kidnappers and myself inside.
Crouching undetected behind the driver, making use of his preternaturally keen hearing to eavesdrop on such conversation as took place inside the vehicle, Dracula had soon convinced himself that his suspicions were fully justified.
"Then it was necessary first, to interview their driver as quietly as possible, and next to induce him to tell me where he had been told to drive the coach. I allowed him to make a quick and silent departure from the vehicle, while he permitted me to retain his whip, hat, and scarf.
"The fellow could scarcely wait to be off-it may have been something I said, or the way I looked at him. At any rate, I satisfied myself that he was only a hireling. Not worth a great deal of our attention. This man, on the other hand, may be worth talking to." The prince smiled, looking down with what appeared to be affection at the thug who lay at his feet.
"Where are we, then?" I looked about, but the night-filled ruins in our immediate vicinity shut us closely in, and the only sounds of traffic came from blocks away.
"Somewhere in the City, a little northwest of St. Paul"s. The original driver told me that this was our general destination."
I realized that we could not be far from normal streets and traffic; and events proved that we were in fact no great distance from the site where the demolition of Newgate Prison, to make way for the new Criminal Court, was already under way.
Before we made our way back into the traveled streets, a decision had to be made about our prisoner, or prisoners.
The man whose pistol had been pulled from his grasp had now revived again, but only briefly. I went to attend him and saw that he had sustained a deadly fall upon the broken pavement, suffering a broken spine as well as other severe injuries. Before dying he found breath enough to rail at me again as an enemy of the people.
And briefly he accused Prince Dracula-hearing me address him as "Prince"-of being a servant of the Okhrana and a lackey of the Tsar.
"I have no notion of what the fellow was talking about," I a.s.sured Dracula.
He began to explain to me that Okhrana was the name of the Russian secret police.
"I am aware of that, Prince." I had now retrieved my hat and was dusting it off. "What I do not understand is what possible connection there can exist between politics in eastern Europe, and spiritualist sittings in central England."
He shrugged. "You do not know how you have managed to acquire such exotic enemies?"
Quickly I outlined my reasons for summoning help, and the situation in which Holmes had disappeared.
... but let me not bother to record the good doctor"s somewhat awkward answer.
He was at a certain psychological disadvantage at the time: feeling grateful, as well he might, and honor-bound to express his grat.i.tude-but, in general, firmly disapproving of my way of life. Once more, let me take up the narrative.
As Watson in his workmanlike prose has already informed us, the two of us, standing victorious among the ruins, faced the question of what we ought to do with our sole surviving foe.
In my expert judgment, then and now, a successful interrogation would certainly have been possible. But, now having heard Watson"s story, at least in outline, I feared that nothing our prisoner could say would lead us immediately to our chief enemy.
However, wishing to leave no stone unturned, I tried. Dragging the wretched survivor to his feet again, I demanded of him: "Where is Sherlock Holmes?"
There was no answer at first-then only an obscene, ranting defiance-until I did something that produced a real, if still unhelpful, response: "I don"t know! Aaagh!
Don"t know!"
Here I thought it wise to a.s.sure Watson-he was already starting to look a little green around the gills, and I think was on the verge of protesting my methods-that his immediate presence was not required. I, Dracula, were I left alone with this would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, expected no serious difficulty in inducing in him a most talkative mood. Within a few minutes he might be expected to pa.s.s on to us every sc.r.a.p of information in his possession regarding the ident.i.ty of his immediate employer.
But, more important, I feared it might be wasted effort; already I was convinced that all this man could tell us was not going to be enough.
Watson murmured uncomfortably that he was not sure that he understood.
With pressure-relatively painless-upon certain nerves, I rendered my captive unconscious and let him slide once more to the ground. Dusting my hands fastidiously, I took time out to explain: "He will remain so for many hours, unless I rouse him... but you see our problem, Doctor, do you not? Even if this fellow should be stimulated to a high pitch, one might even say a frenzy, of enthusiasm to be helpful to our cause, I am morally certain that he really does not have the information we consider vital. To obtain that, it will be necessary to find and interview one more link in the chain at least. This process might well occupy us for a day, or for several days, before we could come to grips with the one who ultimately dispatched these men to kill you. And meanwhile, Cousin Sherlock..."
"Our main concern must be for him. I quite see the difficulty, yes." Watson was wiping sweat from his forehead. He turned his head this way and that, obviously wishing he could be somewhere else. I remember thinking that he looked somewhat older than he had at the time of our previous encounter in 1897.
At last he came up with what he considered an appropriate response, satisfying the demands of honor as well as the exigencies of the immediate tactical situation. "In the circ.u.mstances I have no compunction about simply leaving these fellows here. In their present condition they can do little harm. And fortunately they have provided us with transportation. I think, Prince Dracula, that if you will come with me, we have ample time to catch the early train to Amberley."
10.