The Holmes-Dracula File

Chapter Seventeen

As soon as I had recovered from the shock of being thus addressed by my true name, I turned to study more carefully the four people who confronted me. Only as I did so did I recognize, at the right hand of their leader and half a step behind him, the strongly-built man who had so mysteriously and opportunely come to my aid at Barley's. He had impressed me then as brave; now his brow was furrowed, though not, I thought, with any fear of me. He kept darting glances at the dominant figure of his chief, and bit his mustache as if in worry.

The third man was quite young, and almost tremulous—I dismissed him, and my gaze moved on, to rest on the young woman. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to write that all idea of danger was at once swept from my mind. Let me say instead that her presence placed before me so strongly all of life's joyous possibilities, that its cares and even its perils appeared much diminished in importance.

"Your look mocks me, sir," she said, with hardly any tremor in her voice, while her eyes boldly met mine.

My admiration was increased. "Nay, I never mock beauty, and still less courage," I replied. And now at last I locked my gaze against their leader's. He reminded me of someone—I could not at first think who. "Fair warning," I added. "Do not fire those guns at me."

"As I have said," he answered, "they are for our own protection only. And now, Count, the truth, if you please, about Frau Grafenstein."

"Are you a policeman? Even so, I will not countenance your meddling in my affairs."

"I know that you killed that woman, and that you drank her blood." It was a prosecutor's voice.

"I was extremely thirsty," I responded, and saw the youngest and least steady of the men turn half away, shaking his head and muttering something to himself about the mother of his God.

My violent demise, when it comes, will doubtless be attributable to my own overweening pride. With fine contempt I turned my back upon them all, and reached out again toward my trunk, thinking to pick it up and carry it away at once. The sound of the pistol behind me was quite loud within the four confining walls. Across my left forearm, extended to grip a handle of my box, a white-hot iron was laid, or rather smashed with numbing force. For a moment I believed that my arm had been utterly mangled, and I am afraid that I stared like a dunce at the sudden drip and flow of my own red blood along my wrist and fingers.

But the arm, though punctured, was still essentially intact. Once more I turned, and looked into the unflinching eyes behind the smoking pistol-barrel. "My congratulations," I offered, "on thinking of wooden bullets. I had begun to believe all Englishmen were fools." Now that my eyes were opened, I could see that what I had taken for a crude club in the hands of the youngest man was in fact a finely-pointed wooden stake.

My chief opponent—indeed, the only one of the four worthy of the name—bowed slightly, without relaxing either his aim or his alertness for an instant. "My apologies, Count," he murmured, "but I considered it necessary to demonstrate at once the effectiveness of our weapons and the firmness of our purpose, lest you should force us to put them immediately to the ultimate test. I should be disappointed if I have no chance to talk with you before anything of that sort occurs. Do you require medical aid?"

I only smiled. The girl sharply drew in her breath. The young man shrank back half a step, then, as if ashamed of this reaction, moved forward until he stood an inch or two closer to me than before.

But still it was only to the leader that I spoke. "Of course I will talk with you. For this contretemps in which I find myself I have only myself to blame, Mr.—?"

"Allow me to remedy the lack of formal introductions all round. Count Dracula, Dr. Watson, Mr. Peter Moore of New York—Miss Sarah Tarlton, also an American. And my name is Sherlock Holmes."

Holmes' name was of course at that time widely known, in Europe and indeed across the world, and he spoke it with the air of a man quietly and confidently playing a trump card. Alas for the isolation of my Translyvanian backwater, which I had so rarely left! The utter blankness with which I received the name of Holmes must have struck his proud nature with something of the force of deliberate insult.

At the moment I only knew, without realizing why, that he had suddenly gone a little pale. "Watson," he grated, "Moore—Miss Tarlton. You will please leave me alone with this man, at once."

Watson was considerably agitated. "Holmes," he whispered, "Holmes, let me fetch Lestrade."

"Very well," Holmes agreed, somewhat (as I thought) to Watson's surprise. "Only leave us, immediately!"

Young Moore stumbled as he backed toward the exit, his horrified and fascinated eyes never leaving my face. Sarah Tarlton turned her back on me and walked out with alacrity, as if guided by some instinct to seek the more wholesome world beyond the door. Watson made a methodical retreat. His last perturbed glance as he went out was toward his leader.

Perhaps they were all too well accustomed to taking Holmes' orders to question this one, or even try to understand its purpose. But I—I understood. When the next shot was fired, there were to be no witnesses.