The Holmes-Dracula File

Chapter Twenty

Though my vigil at the head of the stair seemed endless, actually no more than a few minutes could have passed before there came a rush of metal-rimmed wheels against the curb below, and the sound of several pairs of feet alighting on the pavement. I went down as quickly and quietly as possible, and met a police constable and two burly men in civilian clothing, just ready to ring. Getting out of the carriage behind these men was Jack Seward, who gripped my arm.

"Where is he?" Seward demanded.

"Upstairs. Thank God you have come so soon."

"Fortunately I was already in the city, and happened to communicate by telephone with the asylum, where they had just received your message." Seward folded his spectacles and slipped them into a pocket, readying himself for action. "From the tone of your message, Watson, there is not a moment to lose. Lead the way, quickly!"

We had no more than set foot upon the stairs when a shot rang out. I ran on up, and without ceremony flung open the sitting-room door, which had not been locked. Holmes sat slumped in a chair in the middle of the room, one hand holding his revolver hanging almost limply at his side, the other hand raised to his face. He was quite alone. There was some disorder evident, in the way of rugs and furniture being disarranged, and even in that first glance I noted that the great trunk was gone. Beyond the motionless figure in the chair, the door to Holmes' bedroom stood open, and through the doorway I glimpsed a window raised, with curtains blowing in the morning breeze.

As we burst in, Holmes raised his eyes, to scowl at the rush of men.

"Where is the prisoner?" I exclaimed.

"Escaped," he answered shortly. Before he could say more, one of the burly civilian attendants had him by each arm, and the revolver had been wrenched roughly from his hand. Seward, springing past me, took only an instant to force up the sleeve of Holmes' dressing-gown, and to plunge the needle of a hypodermic into his arm. My friend, who had begun to struggle, in another moment sank back limp and helpless.

My anger blazed up. "You have no justification for such treatment!" I protested, and moved forward to clutch Seward by the arm. To my utter amazement, I immediately felt my own arms pinioned from behind. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it was the uniformed man who had grabbed me. I opened my mouth for another protest, and tried to pull free; but the two men who had been holding Holmes now released his inert form and came to lay their hands on me as well. Their leader still brandished his hypodermic, and as one of his confederates pushed up the sleeve of my right arm, he pressed it home. The last thing I saw before lapsing into unconsciousness was a smile of evil triumph disfiguring Jack Seward's handsome face.

My return to awareness was a slow and painful process, marred again and again by irresistible relapses into drugged sleep, a sleep shot through with strange dreams or visions. At one point it seemed to me that I was manacled helplessly to a peculiar cart or bed. Again, the comely face of a young woman in a high-collared gown, a complete stranger to me, was hovering near; and I thought she exchanged words with some unseen personage just outside my range of vision. As she gazed at me the young woman seemed concerned about my plight, though she was evidently unwilling or unable to take any helpful action.

When at last I fully recovered my senses, there was no woman to be seen. To my dismay, however, the metal cart and the shackles holding me to it proved to be only too horribly real. I was held down on my back, unable to do much more than turn my head, in a small room that was more like a cell than a bedchamber. It was sparsely furnished, and the paint on the walls was old and worn. Through shutters and bars, a sectioned shaft of wan, orange-yellow sunlight entered the sole window almost horizontally, suggesting that the day was nearly spent. The effects of the drug had evidently lasted many hours.

On turning my head I was shocked to discover a still figure similarly bound to another cart, not five feet from my own. I leave it to the reader to imagine my sensations on recognizing in the dim light the face of Sherlock Holmes, pale and motionless as death.

I whispered his name repeatedly, each time louder than the last, but he made not the least response; and I had about decided to see what I could accomplish in the way of obtaining help by using my lungs at their loudest, when a key rattled sharply in the lock of the stout door that formed the only entrance to the room. It opened, and Seward came in, a small lighted lamp in hand.

"What does this mean?" I demanded of him, in quiet rage.

He seemed not to hear, but closed the door behind him, then put on his spectacles and came forward, holding up his lamp. He bent over the inert form on the cart beside mine, and looked for a long moment before he straightened up.

"Incredible!" Seward muttered then, as if speaking only to himself. "An amazing likeness to the Count—yes, now I see."

"You know Count Dracula?" I asked—rather stupidly, I am afraid. It may have been that the last traces of the injected drug were still affecting my brain.

He turned to me with a short, unpleasant laugh. "Oh yes, Watson—Dracula and I are old acquaintances, though I had thought him six years dead. What can you tell me of how he came to be involved in this?"

I could not have given the villain a helpful answer had I wanted to; but rather than even give the appearance of cooperation, I simply pressed my lips together.

He shook his head, as if at an obstinate patient. "You are mistaken, if you imagine you will be able to withold information from me. There are some things I mean to learn, from Holmes or from you; and the sooner I learn them, the less painful your remaining hours will be." He looked at me, shrugged, and drew from a pocket of his coat a small case of surgical instruments, such as any doctor might carry about with him. When the case snapped open in his hand, the gleaming knives and scissors, all familiar tools of my own trade, appeared to me in a light in which I had never before seen them.

Seward's hand was hovering over the open case, as if doubtful which bright implement to choose, when there came a sudden bold rattle at the door. From just outside, a woman's voice, young and carefree, called out: "Jack? I say, are you in there?"

Muttering something under his breath, Seward snapped shut the case again and replaced it in his pocket. Going to the door, he unbolted it and opened it very slightly. "Mina," he remonstrated calmly, "I am afraid that there are patients here."

Through the partially open door I could catch just a glimpse of a young woman's face in the brighter hallway outside. It was the very face that I had seen, and taken for part of a dream, while I was still half-conscious.

Now she replied lightly: "Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry, Jack. You look somewhat harried; is there anything that Jonathan or I can do?"

"No, nothing, thanks. I have my attendants on call."

"I met one just now." She lowered her voice. "A rather brutal-looking fellow, who scowled at me when I came down this way from upstairs."

"I shall speak to him. However, I am afraid I am not as free of professional matters as I had hoped to be."

"But two patients in one room? Isn't that odd?" Now she was trying boldly to peer in past his shoulder.

"Help!" I croaked, loud as I could through my parched throat, thinking that I should never get a better chance. "Send for the police!"

Seward, not in the least perturbed, went on without even looking back in my direction. "Unusual, yes. But don't worry your pretty head, my dear. What the French call folie a deux, meaning two patients with a shared delusion. Just for the present I don't want to separate them."

"Police!" I repeated hoarsely. "Tell them Sherlock Holmes is held a prisoner here!"

The young lady giggled, as I continued my cries and groans for help.

Continued Seward: "As you perceive, things may get just a bit noisy here before we are finished. Don't let it bother you; and you might just say a word to Jonathan when you go up, so he won't be perturbed if there are a few yells. As soon as I am able I'll join you—for dinner, I hope."

"I'll mention it to him." To my despair I heard her voice begin to fade as she turned away. "But you know Jonathan—nothing perturbs him, or at least nothing has for the past six years." She started to leave, then turned back. "By the way, I suppose you have no objection to my using your telephone? I wanted to call Arthur and tell him Jonathan and I and the children will be with you tomorrow for the procession. I hope His Lordship has enough seats available."

"I'm sure he has—but by all means, call him if you like. And—Mina? Before you go. The—the other night I spoke too quickly. But it was the strength of my feelings that led me—"

The young woman's voice grew steely. "I told you, Jack, that if you spoke that way to me again, you should regret it. There is one man whom I love, above all others. And you are not him." In the next moment she was gone.

Seward, with the bitter smile of his parting from the lady still on his face, turned back to me, leaving the door ajar. It was a moment before he spoke. "Would you like to try calling for the police again, Watson? As you see, it will avail you absolutely nothing."

In a moment, a hulking attendant had appeared silently at the door; I recognized him as the "constable" who had assisted at our abduction, though he had since changed out of his uniform. At Seward's order our two carts, Holmes' first and mine following, were wheeled out of the room and across the adjoining corridor. The brief look afforded by this passage convinced me that the building was, or had been, an asylum or hospital of some sort; and the deadly silence of the place indicated we were somewhere outside of London.

On the other side of the corridor we were wheeled into a somewhat larger chamber, Seward closing and locking the door when we were all in. As we entered, a strange smell assailed my nostrils. At first I thought of open drains, but there was in this stench a peculiar muskiness that quickly brought to mind the idea of an unclean zoo.

When Seward brought his lamp into the room I saw the animal responsible, and at first could not believe my eyes. Crouched in a metal cage against the farther wall was a creature bigger than a large hound, yet unmistakably a rodent. Its feral eyes gleamed redly at me in the lamplight, and its snout twitched, before it turned away to pace its cage, on feet repulsively naked-looking below the matted fur covering its legs.

Averting my gaze from this disgusting sight, I saw with mixed sensations that Holmes' eyelids were now open. His eyes looked flat and lifeless, and they wandered aimlessly, showing the continuing effects of the drug Seward had injected, rather than any understanding of our predicament. Seward set down his lamp upon a table, and now, also seeing that Holmes was awake, came over to offer a light bow. "Mr. Holmes. I am very glad to meet you—I was about to say, even under these unhappy circumstances. But then, from my point of view, it would be easy enough to imagine our meeting under circumstances infinitely worse."

Holmes' eyes moved dreamily to focus on the face which hovered over him. His lips formed a word, scarcely audible: "Who—?"

Seward smiled again. "You may call me Jack. Why not? We are about to establish a very intimate relationship—unless you, Dr. Watson, are ready now to begin to talk to me? No? Too bad."

Our captor walked over to the cage, and there turned back to face us. "Would it surprise you gentlemen to learn that a large part of this animal's diet is human flesh? Poor Scott, when he caught the beast, was having a difficult time providing its accustomed fare… not a lot of plague victims around just then. As usual, those of us who scrupled less accomplished more—as soon as we had taken over his camp, Scott himself went along the path that you may take. He went rather quickly, however, whereas you will not… and all for the lack of a few words."

He paused, looking from one of us to the other. "Well, Mr. Holmes? Come, no need to look so dazed, I know you are awake now. Have you nothing to tell us yet about your work and Scotland Yard's? For example, where have you been looking for my infected rats? Ah, it is too bad you do not answer, for it means that I must begin to feed Dr. Watson here to the Rat. Campbell, come here and remove the doctor's shoes. Feet first will be best; that way good old Watson will remain able to join in our conversation. We shall have all night to discuss my questions; my departure for France will not take place until dawn."

Another of the burly attendants had now come into the room, and with the one already present started to take off my boots. Looking down past my own feet, I could see the slavering animal pacing in its cage. Holmes' voice, in the form of an unrecognizable croak, now issued at last from his parched lips. "Why not… to the fleas?"

Seward frowned; evidently this particular reaction was not one he had anticipated. "But my dear sir, surely you realize that the time for experiments with fleas is past?… I see, you pretend ignorance so I shall think it a waste of time to question you. No, Holmes, that is a rather pathetic effort, and it won't do; I have too much respect for your powers. You must realize that by now I have obtained my thousand rats and they are ready, filled with plague from this my walking reservoir." He tapped on the bars of the cage, and the creature within bared its yellow teeth and strained against the barrier on my side. Its eyes were fixed on my bound and helpless figure, as if it were used to this procedure, and knew what to expect next.

Seward went on: "Before we depart for France we shall launch my thousand rats into the London sewers, where in a day or two they will begin to sicken and die. In a week a million rats will be infected, and in a week after that, possibly a million men, women, and children. A pity you and the damned bloodsucker did not allow us a chance, here in London, to arrange a foolproof system for collecting our ransom—but in the next city the authorities will be not at all stiff-necked about paying; not with the example of the world's greatest metropolis fresh before them. You'll be in no position to interfere, next time, and if Dracula continues to take an interest I'll find a way to deal with him—perhaps he would not refuse a partnership."

He was interrupted by a rattle at the door, which in the next moment was unlocked from outside. It swung open to admit the man Holmes had already identified as Dr. David Fitzroy. Fitzroy's mustache had been shaved off, and a pair of sideburns were under cultivation since I had seen him at Barley's, but still I had no difficulty in recognizing him again.

Exchanging terse greetings with Seward, he crossed the room to draw a blind over the window—the last faint rays of the sun were just disappearing there, and my heart sank at the thought that I should probably never see it again. Coming back, Fitzroy cast a single, impersonal glance at me, then paused to look down at my companion. "So," he murmured, "this is what the greatest detective in London looks like. But you know, I have the feeling that I've seen him before."

Seward at once changed the subject. "You have the extra serum with you? Just in case any of us should need a dose?"

"Yes—there are only six of us left now, I believe? I saw Day and Morley upstairs, and here are Campbell and the Pincher."

"That's right."

"Then there's plenty." And Fitzroy indicated a small black bag he had brought in with him and set down on the table. The two muscular attendants, who had been following this portion of the conversation with special interest, now nodded with satisfaction. They had completed the task of removing my boots, and were standing one on each side of my cart, ready to push it up to the cage when their masters should command them.

I thought Seward was on the point of giving that command, but Fitzroy held him for a moment with a gesture. "We're all ready for departure, then. The other cage for the Rat is aboard the launch, and the launch is fueled and ready. We'll just stop at the old place to release the rats into the sewers, and then be on our way for France. But what about—?" And he motioned toward the upstairs.

"My guests? What about them?" Seward asked coolly.

"Well, the other day you mentioned the possibility of one more person coming with us, and I saw you talking to the woman then, and I thought…"

Seward turned away. "No, I care nothing about her. Let her stay and enjoy the plague with the rest of London."

Just at this point, I was startled by a low moaning or keening sound, proceeding from the still figure lying at my side. When I looked toward Holmes, his dazed expression had not altered, though his eyes were now fixed on Seward. The strange wail issued from my companion in a way that made my hair start to rise on end—then it cut off abruptly, and he muttered a few words that I could not make out.

Seward and Fitzroy both hurried to his cart, where they bent over him on either side, straining to hear better. But hardly had they done so, when Seward abruptly straightened again. Following the direction of his suddenly staring eyes, I saw with blank incomprehension that Holmes' right arm had somehow come free of its shackle—the steel ring was still closed, and fixed to the cart, but it no longer held his wrist.

Frowning, Seward reached to take hold of the escaped limb. But that thin, white hand rose steadily on its lean arm. It brushed aside Seward's grasping fists as though they were those of an infant, and took him neatly by the throat.

Simultaneously Fitzroy straightened up, as if he realized that something had gone wrong but was not yet clear on what. Before he could do anything purposeful, the left hand of the figure on the cot slid easily of its restraint, and struck at him with a cobra's speed. I saw its fingers clench round the unfortunate Fitzroy's neck. His eyes started from their sockets, as bone and muscle together were crumpled like twists of paper in that grip. An instant later, and his lifeless body had been flung aside, like some huge, weightless doll.

So quickly was the incredible deed accomplished that it was over before the attendants had been sufficiently aroused from their inattention to throw themselves into the struggle. Meanwhile I, on my own cart, strove with might and main—but uselessly—to free myself.

The cart beside mine slid and rolled, then went over with a crash upon its side. All four of his limbs now freed as if by magic, the man who had been on it stood erect. He was red-eyed and terrible of visage as he fought, and to my dying day I shall hear the droning shriek of rage that issued from his lips.

Though his two new opponents bulked huge on either side, they could not stand against him—this, despite the fact that his right hand constantly maintained its grip on Seward's neck and collar. First one and then the other of the burly henchmen was shaken like a rat in the grip of a terrier, then hurled aside. The body of the first struck the door of the room with an impact that made the solid oak tremble, then slid down into a lifeless heap. The second man, an instant later, was thrown against the cage with such force that the iron structure tilted on its base. From my own helpless position, I saw with horror how the animal inside rushed in mad excitement against its bars. It reached out its muzzle far enough to sink fangs into the shoulder of the last man to fall. He was still living, for now his scream went up and up.

The Count—for by now I realized that despite dark hair, shaven eyebrows, and certain other facial alterations, it must be he—now stood alone, silent but expressing in his demonic grimace the triumph that he evidently felt. His chief and final victim was still in his grasp—still in his grasp and living, for his grip on Seward's throat had not yet exerted deadly power.

Jack Seward hung in that lean and terrible hand as helpless as a kitten. He kicked and writhed in desperation, and his arms beat uselessly against the arm of steel that held him. The pressure of the Count's thumb on Seward's jaw had twisted his head round until his neck must have been on the point of snapping, and his face grew purple with congested blood. In this state Seward fastened his wretched gaze on me. As if he no longer realized that I was bound and helpless, he choked out an appeal:

"Watson… help… he's not human…" Perhaps Seward had a moment to read my bitter answer in my face, before Dracula's resistless one-handed grip spun him away and dragged him toward the cage. A last desperate kick of the victim's foot happened to strike my cart, and turned it so I could no longer see what was going on. I heard a rattle, as of one of the cage's small doors being opened—as it would have opened for me had Seward's own plan been carried out. Then I would have stopped my ears had I been able to, so terrible were the screams that began.

These awful outcries soon subsided, though not entirely. The room seemed to be spinning around me, and there was a roaring in my ears. And now it seemed to me that I once more heard the woman's voice, this time entreating: "Vlad—Vlad, stop it, please. I do not care what he has done—"

"For you, my dear," came a low reply, and with that the last horrible cry cut off abruptly. "There are still two more upstairs?"

"Yes. Only menials. And what of him?" asked the woman, her voice sounding shaken. "Will you not loose him from that cart?"

"Hush, my darling! He will hear you. He must not know that you and I are lovers."

"Dr. Watson is a gentleman who minds his own affairs, I am sure. You must free him."

"Very well, but later. First I must see about the two upstairs." The two voices faded completely as the door squeaked once more.

I was left alone in that room of death, where all was silence, save for one hideous sound somewhere behind me—the frantic snuffling of the caged Rat. But no, there was another still alive. I heard a faint human groan. It was repeated.

By dint of great straining I extended the shoeless toes of one foot far enough to reach the wall, and managed to push hard enough to turn my cart. At once I saw that Seward himself must be dead; his horribly mangled body lay half in and half out of the cage, blocking the small door which had been opened for feeding purposes. The angle that his head made with his trunk showed that his neck must have been completely broken at the last.

A shape stirred on the floor just outside the cage, and I saw that one of the brutal attendants was not yet dead. With many groans, struggling against what must have been massive internal injuries, the man called Campbell dragged himself to his feet. It was an effort that could not be sustained. Even as an uproar—a muffled cry, a shot, the sound of running feet—broke out somewhere overhead, Campbell staggered again, lurched against the table where the oil lamp stood, and carried both over in his last collapse. Flames sprang up to lick at the fallen table, at the wall, and at the cage itself.

Under the stimulus of fire, the caged beast, whether by instinct or crude intelligence, pulled entirely into the cage the body it had already begun to devour. Through the small doorway thus left unobstructed, it strove desperately to force itself to freedom.

I shouted until I thought my voice must fail, yet heard no answer. The uproar continued upstairs, with more shots, and trampling feet, and confused cries. When at last I thought I heard an answering yell in response to one of mine, I took heart and continued my efforts to be heard.

Meanwhile, to my horror, the Rat was succeeding in forcing its body through the aperture, which had at first seemed much too small. Squeezing its body inch by inch past the constricting metal, it bared its teeth at me—my cart lay now between it and the door. With a last effort, it burst free, and crouched to spring upon me.

A revolver shot rang out, near at hand, and the brute fell dead into the spreading flames. "Watson!" cried a familiar voice. "Thank God!" A face loomed over me, coughing in the smoke, and altered by false bushy eyebrows, but still beyond all doubt the face of Sherlock Holmes.

Though volunteers from the nearest houses soon came to fight the fire, it had gained too great a start to be controlled before it had destroyed the entire building. The gray light of dawn found me wrapped in a blanket donated by some kindly neighbor, and seated on a stump in the half-wooded grounds of the old asylum while I contemplated the smoldering wreckage.

With the exception of some trifling burns, I was uninjured. So were Holmes and Lestrade, who had searched the building for me at considerable danger to themselves, after besting Seward's two remaining henchmen in a deadly struggle on the floor above. My friends had then carried me out of the building, cart and all, to a spot far enough removed from the blaze for Holmes to take the time to pick the locks that shackled me.

Nor had any of the Harker family, Seward's guests, been hurt. All of them were dressed as if they had been hastily aroused, and were the picture of innocence and shock—Mrs. Harker, the young woman I had already seen and heard; her husband Jonathan, a rather pudgy man of about forty, prematurely white-haired; and their two small children with a young governess. Mrs. Harker, so she said, had chanced to be awake, and had smelled smoke, thus giving her entire family a chance to get safely to the open air. In the presence of the folk from neighboring villas and houses, she said not a word—nor did Holmes or Lestrade—of shots or fighting or indeed anything out of the ordinary beyond the fire itself.

The blaze was blamed for the extermination of most of the staff of the institution, of which only an innocent cook and stableboy appeared to have survived—and for the death of Dr. Fitzroy, who, it seemed, had been visiting in connection with some animal experiments. In these, it appeared, I also had been taking part, and I was the sole survivor of those who had done so. Lestrade, who of course had at least some idea of the true state of affairs, hastened to assure other police arriving on the scene that I would give a statement in due time, but was in no condition to be questioned just at present. Right after the police came Lord Godalming, in his own carriage, to exchange shocked words with his old friends the Harkers, and then with Holmes and Lestrade.

Then he came, shaking his head, to where I sat upon my stump. "Dr. Watson," he muttered, "very fortunate that you could get out alive. They tell me there were five dead in all, including poor Jack."

"Six," corrected Lestrade. "We found one chap just over there at the edge of the trees. He was running for help, I should guess, and in his panic evidently fell and broke his neck… a bad business, very bad."

I shivered slightly, thinking the broken neck not at all likely to have been an accident. But for the time being I said nothing.

"Very bad," His Lordship agreed, distractedly. "Watson, I suppose you have met the Harkers?"

I was thereupon introduced properly to the husband; the wife smiled gallantly and said: "Dr. Watson and I did meet last night, though we scarcely had a chance to speak to each other—the men were so busy with their work. I did mean to come back, Doctor." These words she spoke very earnestly. "But I was delayed."

"I do appreciate the thought," I murmured. My eye at this moment chanced to fall upon the Harker children; they were a boy and a girl, and as I now saw, undoubtedly twins. When the girl looked at me I thought I saw in her face something wild and savage—a passing shade that I never should have recognized before I had met the Count. It may have been my imagination, for the strange look was gone in a moment, leaving only a child who regarded me thoughtfully.

At this point we were distracted by another arrival, that of Peter Moore and Sarah Tarlton, who held hands as they dismounted from a hansom and approached us. Word of the fire had reached them through the police, as I discovered later. I saw Miss Tarlton pale at the sickening smell of death-by-fire that hovered over the still-smoldering ruins. Holmes broke off a whispered conversation with Lestrade to greet them.

"I must report that my investigations have had an unhappy conclusion as regards the object of your search," my friend informed her. "There is no longer any doubt that John Scott perished in the South Seas."

His words were painful to the girl, but it was obvious that she no longer found them in the least surprising. She raised her chin. "And was his death a natural one?"

"I fear that it was not. But you have my solemn word, for whatever comfort it may provide, that those responsible have already paid the full penalty for their crime."

A few minutes later Holmes and I were on our way back to Baker Street. It was, as I well remember, June 22, the day of Her Majesty's Jubilee procession. Somewhere musicians had risen early to begin their final practice, and from the distance, strains of martial music drifted to our ears. Though traffic was already snarled in places, the whole metropolis was in a festive mood, for which its people had even better reason than they knew.

We had continued our progress for some distance into the increasingly busy streets before I broke a silence by remarking:

"He is not dead, you know."

"He?"

"Holmes… do not play games." My friend gave the ghost of a chuckle. "I do not doubt for a moment that the Count still lives. When he and I came to our agreement, it was not part of the plan that he should die."

"Only that you should switch identities for a time. Well, the plan succeeded, though I never should have trusted him." Then I bit my lip, recalling whom I had chosen to trust.

"Whatever else he may be, Watson, Count Dracula is a man of honor—a rarity in this day and age, and perhaps in any. We had a strong common ground in our enemies; once I had made sure of that, I knew the gamble was worthwhile. Dracula, his eyebrows and hair trimmed and darkened, and with a few other touches from my make-up box, remained in our apartment wearing my clothing, to let himself be kidnapped and taken to the enemy headquarters, where the men he yearned to destroy were most likely to come within his grasp." I shuddered. "I shall lose no sleep over their fate, Watson, whatever it may have been. But I confess that I never expected you to be taken with him, and I had a bad moment or two when I learned of your abduction. The Count was willing to gamble that the means of kidnapping would do him no serious harm; it was a much longer chance that you took so unknowingly. I was much relieved when Mrs. Harker's guarded telephone message came to me, through the police, telling me that you were at least still alive."

"Ah. But how did you know that our chief enemy was Seward? And that when he came to our rooms it would be to kidnap you rather than to kill you outright?"

"My dear Watson, the next time you attempt to drug one of your patients with curried chicken, it would be well to choose a subject not yet out of his first childhood, or else far gone into his second."

"Holmes, I—"

He waved me to silence. "I was not certain whether this move was your own idea, or—you have never done anything of the kind before—whether it might have been suggested by some seeming friend with an ulterior motive. I pretended to sleep late, but was nevertheless up in good time to eavesdrop on your entire conversation in our rooms with Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming. This gave me no reason to suspect the latter, but it strongly aroused my suspicions against Seward. When I came out into the sitting-room later, I took the liberty of stumbling against you in my bemused state, and emptied your pocket—I know in which one you always carry pills—of Seward's gift. A little chemical analysis, and I was certain of my foe, though I still had not a shred of evidence against him save for the pill itself. The drug was an East Indian one, unlikely to be fatal but producing a violent temporary madness. Sir Jasper Meek confirmed my findings. You were meant to give it to me, then call in Seward for more help. He would thus be enabled to interrogate me at his leisure in his stronghold at Purfleet. Now I knew he did not intend to kill me outright. I replaced the pill with a harmless substitute, put the box back into your pocket…"

"Holmes, I must apologize."

"It is not at all necessary. If your plan unintentionally endangered my life, so did mine accidentally place yours in peril."

"How did you work out your plan with Dracula?"

"Well, he and I pushed his great box up onto the roof, out of sight, so he might appear to have taken it away. We disarranged the sitting-room to suggest struggle or flight. Then, while I was busy with our disguises, the Count had time to tell me where the enemy had formerly kept their headquarters. Leaving him dressed in some of my clothing, I went out through our old second exit, that served us so well, as you must recall, in the recovery of the Mazarin Stone. I was thus free to take effective action in the field, against an enemy who thought me safely out of his way.

"Once I had found the abandoned building described to me by the Count, and entered it, inspection soon convinced me that the abandonment could be no more than temporary. In particular, I had been intrigued by Dracula's mention of rats that he heard there on his second visit. Now, men experimenting with transmission of plague by means of rats would hardly have allowed their laboratories to be so casually infested.

"I searched, and on a lower level, which the Count had not bothered to look at, I found hundreds of brown and black rats caged. Food and water had been provided for them, yet there was evidence of sickness, and I did not go too close. I hastened instead to enlist the help of Sir Jasper, and the faithful Lestrade. I am happy to report that the cages and their contents were drenched in carbolic and incinerated, shortly after being inspected for the last time by one of their owners, the late Dr. Fitzroy. Lestrade and I followed him back to Purfleet, while he thought himself secure."

For a while we both were silent, as our cab labored forward in the morning traffic. Then stubbornly I came back to my subject.

"I admit, Holmes, that I may owe the Count my life. But I think he would as cheerfully have killed me, had I stood in his way. Holmes, the man is still at large, and he—he is a vampire."

"Ha! You saw enough, did you, to convince yourself of that? Perhaps someday I shall ask to hear all the details." Holmes folded his arms and sat back, softly whistling something from a French opera. His manner was, it seemed to me, very strangely altered from that of recent days; he could now speak lightly, almost frivolously, of this being whose mere existence had seemed likely to drive him mad.

I began another protest, which he interrupted. "So, Watson, you are now convinced. Would you like to try to convince Lestrade? Besides, with what real wrongdoing can we charge the Count? In conscience, Watson. I do not speak strictly of the law."

I could not immediately find an answer that adequately expressed my deep forebodings, and in a moment Holmes went on. "It has long been my practice, as you know, to bend the law for special cases. If I could do so for Von Herder, how much more for the man who has, more than anyone else, saved London? In fact, I should like to reassure the Count that, insofar as the matter rests with me, he and his kind will be subjected to no probing and no publicity."

"To reassure him? But how are we to communicate with this man at all?"

"Your gallantry does you credit, Watson. I myself heard enough from Madam Harker, and saw enough, to convince me that you cannot be ignorant of her status vis-e-vis the Count. But to use that road would show a certain lack of artistry on our part, and perhaps a certain indelicacy as well. We must be subtle, Watson… I think some statement to the effect that vampires are unheard of in English criminal practice, worked into one of your little tales—the tale in this case made up out of whole cloth—would serve the purpose admirably. What would you say to something like The Sussex Vampire as a title?"

"I would say that any story involving Sherlock Holmes, the art of ratiocination, and vampires, cannot fail to appear more than a little preposterous."

"Oh, I quite agree, Watson, I quite agree. But then, my dear Watson, so does life."