The Holmes-Dracula File

Chapter Four

Following Miss Sarah Tarlton's first visit to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes spent the remainder of the day in concluding his work upon one or two routine matters that he had been investigating at the request of the police. On the following morning he went out alone, quite early, and was gone for several hours.

"I have just set in motion several inquiries concerning the mysterious Dr. John Scott," he said upon returning. "If you are free after lunch, Watson, I hope you will accompany me to the warehouse where he was supposedly identified. Your medical knowledge may well prove useful in any discussion of the equipment that was removed."

I of course agreed, and before two o'clock we were in a cab, on our way to the London Docks at Shadwell. The warehouse was one of a number of long, low, shed-like buildings set close by the waterfront. After passing the desks of several clerks, we were admitted to the office of the superintendent.

Superintendent Marlowe was a man of sixty or thereabouts, powerfully built and energetic in appearance. It was his habit to rise, at the least pretext, from behind his desk, as if the confinement of the small space there were too much for his nature to bear.

He pressed our hands in greeting, as if we had come at his own invitation. "Very pleased to meet you, Dr. Watson. Mr. Holmes, this is a real honor. I suppose it's this business of the medical materials that you've come about? Yes, as I thought. Well, you may be sure we don't release goods to people who have no right to take them."

"I am reassured to hear it, Superintendent," Holmes responded. "How did you come to guess the nature of our business?"

"Well, sir, when young Miss Tarlton was here, with the gentleman who was helping her, she spoke of an investigation. With which, says I, I shall be only too glad to comply, provided that it be conducted legally and in good form. And for which I am now ready, having the papers in question right here." Unlocking a drawer in his desk, the superintendent brought out a sheaf of documents. "Take my word for it, gentlemen, these are all in good order."

"May I?" My companion eagerly reached out a long arm. In his other hand, Holmes held two of the letters written by John Scott to his fiancee, and now he brought all together to the window, the better to compare handwriting. When in a few moments he turned back to face us, his appearance was somewhat crestfallen. "Mr. Marlowe, I advise you to keep these papers in a secure place. With regard to your claim to have accurately identified John Scott, they will be of enormous importance should this matter ever come to the courts."

"Ha! The courts, is it? Indeed, I'll keep 'em safe." And Marlowe hastily accepted the papers back.

"Another question or two, if you would, Superintendent, before we go."

"Of course."

"Did any of the men who came for the equipment—I am assuming there were several, even if some were only carters—did any of them say anything about the purpose for which the items were wanted, or where they were being taken?"

"Yes, Dr. Scott had carters with him, and a pair of wagons." Marlowe, who had just sat down again behind his desk, got up, to stand as if lost in thought. "Wait a bit. I did ask if the things were going to be wanted in London; if so, it might have been easiest and best for him to let 'em stop right here for a time. But 'No,' says he, 'I mean to put them on a goods train for Portsmouth. The ship I want next is sailing from there.' And so I thought no more about it."

"Indeed." Holmes looked at the superintendent keenly. "Those were his exact words?"

"Yes, I'll testify to that. I pride myself that I've a fine memory for where things are kept, and whose they are, and also for who says what."

"I am glad to hear it. Did you by any chance mention to Dr. Scott that his friend Peter Moore had been here only a day earlier?"

"Why, yes sir, of course I did; but the doctor just gave me a quick look, as much as to say it was none of my particular business. The way he looked just made me think that there was perhaps some rivalry or trouble between the two of them."

"I see. But did Mr. Peter Moore give you the same impression?"

"Why, no sir. I had the idea from him that the other was his particular friend, and they should be very glad to see each other again." Our visit was soon finished. When Holmes and I were once more outside the warehouse, I asked: "Then the papers showed conclusively that the man who signed and paid for the equipment was indeed John Scott?"

"Let us walk a little, Watson, before we try to hail a cab. How bracing the atmosphere of the docks can sometimes be—the sense of the great world impinging upon us with all its mysteries and complications. No, I am afraid that the signatures show that the man who wrote them was an imposter—though he must have put in a good deal of time and effort in practicing from a true copy. I have no doubt that any first-rate handwriting expert will be able to convince a jury of the forgery. But let the superintendent and his staff believe that those documents justify them, and you may depend upon it that the signatures will be secure until we need them. Also, a real American would have said 'freight train' and not 'goods train'—unless he were consciously practicing to speak like an Englishman. It is an additional point, though hardly in itself conclusive.

"Meanwhile, Watson, the question to which we must address ourselves is—why?"

"You mean, why should a man have posed as Dr. Scott to steal the things? Their value must be considerable."

"Considerable, but hardly vast. Remember that the impostor paid, without a murmur, several hundred pounds to get them. Now, there are surely only a few places where a thief could hope to sell such specialized equipment. Honest researchers would hesitate to buy it from him. So why on earth should a clever rogue, or a gang of them, go to such trouble and expense for loot which one might think would do them little good?"

"It does seem odd, put in that way."

"There is another question, Watson, by no means unrelated—how were they able to obtain or forge good identification papers for Dr. Scott?… but halloa! Is that not the figure of our old friend Lestrade I see?"

We happened to be crossing a short street which ended right at dockside, thirty or forty yards away. Standing on a pier near the street's end was a short, wiry man in a gray coat. Two uniformed policemen stood talking with this individual, or rather listening to him. He waved his arms, and made emphatic nodding motions with his head to give force to his words, which at our distance were inaudible.

By silent agreement, Holmes and I at once turned in that direction, and presently we had stepped onto the pier. There was a tension visible in Lestrade, as we drew near him, that I had seldom seen before. His sallow face was pinched and worried when he dismissed the constables and turned toward us, but his expression changed wonderfully as soon as he caught sight of Sherlock Holmes.

"Mr. Holmes… Dr. Watson… I'm blessed if there's anyone in the world I'd rather set eyes on at this moment. In fact, Mr. Holmes, I sent a man to Baker Street an hour ago to try to fetch you."

Holmes nodded. "No doubt there is a murder at hand which presents some features of uncommon interest? Where is the body?"

Lestrade lowered his voice. "It's not thirty yards behind me, lying right on this pier. And this is the worst one I've seen since the days of Jack the Ripper. Thank heaven there's a clue or two…" Lestrade paused, frowning at Holmes. "Here now! I hadn't said a word about its being murder."

"Tut! When I see one of the leading detectives of Scotland Yard so obviously worried, I know that he is baffled, if only temporarily, by some mystery of the first importance. And the Thames is surely the great traditional repository for the central piece of evidence in crimes of blood." And Sherlock Holmes briskly rubbed his hands, as if he stood before a fire and the day were chill. Far back in his gray eyes, a spark of something keen and lively had been born.

The three of us were now out of earshot of all possible eavesdroppers. Even the two uniformed men had moved away, evidently going on Lestrade's orders to keep the pier and the street nearby clear of curious onlookers; some idlers had in fact gathered a short distance up the street and were gazing in our direction. But despite our isolation, Lestrade turned his head to right and left before he spoke, and his voice now was lower still.

"Murder's almost too mild a word for it, gentlemen. The throat was torn right away, as if by—well, claws or teeth. Not like the Ripper's handiwork, really. More as if a real beast might have done it."

"Then perhaps," I suggested, "it might have been in fact an animal?"

"A big, savage dog, for instance, Dr. Watson? Maybe. Wait'll you see. More likely a tiger, if you can find one running loose in London. But then an animal would not have thrown her body into the river afterwards, hey? Or rifled her purse. And then there's the gun."

Holmes, almost twinkling, put out a hand. "Slowly, Lestrade. Will you show us the body? And, while we are on our way, you might tell us how it came to be discovered."

"Right." Lestrade drew a deep breath. "This way then, gentlemen." He began to lead us out along the pier, most of which was occupied by stacks of what appeared to be abandoned crates, so that we were soon hidden from any casual observers on the shore. "Mind your step here; these planks are almost rotted through in places. The body was seen floating in the water a little before noon today, by two dock-laborers about to sit down in what they thought would be a quiet spot, to eat their lunch. These men are both of good character, as far as we have been able to make out, and there is nothing to connect them with the crime."

I now could see another police helmet ahead, above another pile of crates. Lestrade, who was beginning to look haggard again, continued: "And this's no woman of the streets, gentlemen. Another difference to prove the Ripper's not back on the job after a nine-year rest. Not that it'll matter to the papers. I'm mortally certain they're going to scream Jack's struck again."

By this time we had rounded the last barrier, and had come in full sight of the uniformed officer who impassively stood guard, and of that which he guarded. A still form lay on the planks, covered with a gray blanket of a type I recognized as being commonly used by the medical examiner's office.

Lestrade bent and drew the blanket back. The woman lay on her back, fully clothed, her sodden garments being disarranged only in the region of the throat. There, as the inspector had said, the flesh was lacerated with extreme savagery, as if the victim had indeed fallen before the fangs or talons of some monstrous beast. Her arms were outflung, her exposed face and hands as pallid as marble. Her hair, still stringy as if from complete immersion, was dark, streaked with gray, and I should have put her age as somewhere between forty and fifty.

Holmes, his keen eyes avidly grasping every detail, bent low over the body like a hound taking the scent. "The boots, Lestrade, appear to be of German make."

"I shouldn't be surprised, Mr. Holmes. She's a German subject, and her name's Wilhelmina Grafenstein—or that was the name and identity she used lodging at the Great Eastern Hotel. Some stationery in her purse—I'll show you in a minute—put us onto that, and we've already had one of the room clerks over to identify her. No word of any next of kin as yet. I've been holding back on having the body removed, hoping you might be available for consultation."

Holmes hardly appeared to be listening. "I take it this is the exact spot where she was first laid down, directly on being brought out of the water? To be sure. And where, precisely, was the body floating when the two workmen first saw it?"

Leaning out a little over the water, Lestrade pointed straight down past our feet, indicating the pier's support of close-set wooden pilings.

Holmes glanced upstream and back again. "Exactly where one might expect a body to lodge, if it had been thrown in carelessly from the next pier."

The inspector drew himself up a little. "That was my own thought, Mr. Holmes. I've been over there and looked about, of course, and found an interesting clue or two."

Beyond some twenty or thirty yards of dirty water, another uniformed man was partially visible as he stood on the next pier beside a shabby boatshed. This policeman greeted us with a small salute, when we had reached him by a roundabout walk along the cluttered dockside. Besides the small boathouse on this pier, there stood some cargo-handling machinery in dilapidated condition, and again some weathered crates and bales.

Where Lestrade had placed his sentry, about halfway out along the pier, three things having no connection with the business of shipping and storage lay on the worn boards. These objects were two or three yards apart from each other, and around each a circle had been drawn in yellow chalk, no doubt by Lestrade's own hand.

The supposed clue nearest the water's edge was a crumpled piece of wet, gray cloth. One extended sleeve showed that this was a garment of some kind, but I could tell nothing more from looking at its shapeless heap. The second object was a woman's handbag, open, looking new and undoubtedly expensive. And the third, a trifle farther than the others from the pier's edge, was a small pistol.

"These things are all exactly as I found them, Mr. Holmes. Except for looking into the handbag, as I've explained, I haven't touched a thing. I don't know as this shirt or whatever it is has any connection with the crime at all, but still…"

Holmes' only answer was a distracted grunt. He was already in action. At first ignoring the items in the chalked circles, he devoted himself to a methodical inspection of the whole area. At times he bent until his eye was almost in contact with the planks; again, he stood at his full height to examine carefully the rusted metal of the fixed machinery, and the peeling sides of the boathouse.

Here he suddenly gave a small, sharp cry of triumph, pulled out a pocketknife, and with controlled energy dug into the faded wood at a point a little above eye level. In a minute or two he had extracted a small object, which he held out on his palm for our inspection. It was a bullet, much flattened by the resistance of the stout wooden beam by which its flight had been arrested.

Before Lestrade or I could offer much in the way of comment upon this discovery, Holmes was off again. For several minutes he squatted beside the boathouse, frowning at some peculiar scratches that I now perceived upon the deck planks there. These suggested to me that the wood had been raked with sharp metal tines, like those of a pitchfork, or perhaps by the claws of some large, strong animal. Holmes measured them carefully with his pocket tape, but said nothing about them at the time.

Only when he had completed this general survey did Holmes turn to what Lestrade had termed the clues. Of these, the weapon was the first my friend picked up.

Lestrade said quickly: "Of the Derringer type, as you'll note, Mr. Holmes. A two-shot model, and it smells as if at least one's been fired."

"That is so." Holmes had opened the breech, closed it again, and was now scrutinizing the pistol keenly through a small lens he had whipped out of his pocket. "And I observe on it many small scratches, almost randomly distributed; this gun has been carried loose in a handbag or purse, rather than a holster or a man's pocket, for some considerable period of time." Handing the gun over to Lestrade, Holmes moved to pick up the purse.

"I did look into that pretty thoroughly, Mr. Holmes," said the official detective in a somewhat defensive tone. "There's precious little in it that's going to be of any help to us, beyond what I've already found. You'll note that there's no money left to speak of."

Holmes pulled from the purse some sheets of the writing-paper that Lestrade had mentioned earlier. All were blank save for the Great Eastern letterhead. Crouching, Holmes set these down on the damp planking, then pulled out the rest of the purse's contents. On the paper he placed a small bunch of keys, of which I could see that some were for common locks and some for Chubb's. After the keys there came some stamps, a few pence and a shilling, and a small handkerchief.

That was all.

Tossing Lestrade the empty purse, Holmes muttered something impatiently, and moved on to pick up and smooth out the crumpled garment. It proved to be a peculiar-looking sort of shirt or gown, which was very damp, and left a wet mark where it had lain upon the lighter dampness of the wood. Holmes with his long fingers held it up by the shoulders, as if intending to measure it against his own spare frame. We all three of us gazed at the garment—my two companions looking rather blankly at it, if I may say so—for some time. "I have seen a similar shirt," I ventured to remark, at length, "used in an institution for the criminally insane. Its design allows changing the dress of very violent patients, without undoing the strong restraints that have been placed upon their limbs. Observe how the sleeves are divided lengthwise, and their sections held together with small cloth ties. This allows the shirt to be put on and taken off while the patient's wrists remain fettered."

"Precisely," said Holmes in a dry voice. It was his customary way of acknowledging the receipt of some useful bit of information. He turned the shirt round in his hands and sniffed at it.

"Well, gentlemen, we seem to have the identity of our killer all but settled now." Lestrade took off his hat, ran a hand through his dark hair, and settled the hat on firmly once again. "It's a real maniac we're after—the nature of the wound alone shows that. This shirt shows that he's just escaped from somewhere, and once we learn where, we'll have a name and a description, and we'll also be in a fair way to know where he's likely to turn up next. Run to a pattern, these lunatics do, as you're no doubt aware, Doctor."

Summoning the constable who had been standing guard, Lestrade issued urgent orders; the man turned and trotted off along the pier toward the shore. The inspector turned back to us. "They'll have the message at the Yard in a few minutes, and inquiries will be going out by wire at once. Well, Mr. Holmes, it begins to look after all as if there was no need to trouble you with this case… hallo, what is it now?"

Holmes was staring fixedly at the garment which he still held in his hands. I, at his side, saw with some uneasiness that a tinge of pallor had come into his face, and there raced through my mind an apprehension lest his nervous symptoms of the previous March be recurring. Following his gaze, I discovered its object at the same time as Lestrade, who had now moved closer.

"Ah," commented the inspector, in a voice devoid of understanding. "Holes. One in the front and one in back."

"Indubitably." Holmes was nettled by this slow-wittedness, and the color returned fully to his cheeks. "They are holes. And what do you make of them?"

"Well. I don't know as I'm prepared to say."

"Oh, out with it, man. They're bullet-holes, of course, or I'm prepared to change my career to basket-weaving. Watson, which side of this garment would ordinarily be worn in front? As I thought. It is the front-side bullet-hole, then, that is so well marked with powder burns, showing that the shot was fired at extreme close range. While the hole in back is marked with—nothing. Nothing, mark you, neither burns nor blood."

Holmes' voice had fallen off, as if he now spoke only to himself. Falling into a moment of reverie, he stared off across the river as if the hazed wharves there on the south bank might possess some secret information. Then with a shake of his head he roused himself. "Upon my word, Watson, business is looking up. A month of routine, and then two intriguing puzzles in as many days."

Turning back to Lestrade, Holmes asked: "There is, I suppose, no bullet wound upon the woman's body?"

"The medical examiner and I both looked, sir. There is none."

"Then let her poor clay be removed." Holmes gestured toward the other pier. "Take her up tenderly, as I believe the poet has it." But he was actually smiling as he spoke. At the moment the woman's tragedy meant less to him than the intellectual challenge it represented.

Once more he held the garment up. "I think you must agree, Watson, that if this was on the body of a man when these holes were made, the bullet must have passed through or very near his vital organs."

"Yes, certainly." Holmes was now examining the small holes closely with his lens. "The condition of these edges indicates that the bullet passed through the garment after it was wetted. It is still far from dry; let us say that it was wetted no more than about twelve hours ago—probably by immersion, for last night there was no heavy rain. All these facts are consistent with the hypothesis that the holes were made about the same time that the woman was killed, and the one shot fired from her pistol, the bullet lodging in the shed wall."

"Well, it may be. But I don't see, Mr. Holmes, how all this theorizing now is likely to help us catch a maniac."

Holmes let his hand holding the garment fall to his side. His voice was distant. "Lestrade, let me call your attention also to the singular matter of the blood."

Lestrade and I both gazed around. "I see no blood," the Scotland Yard man complained.

"That, of course, is the singular matter. There is not much left of the German lady's throat except one gaping wound, which must have bled her life away in moments. But on the boards of this pier there are visible only four small drops of blood—"

"I saw none at all," Lestrade protested.

"—four small drops. And none at all upon her clothing, where some stain would seem inevitable, even after immersion in the river."

I ventured: "Is it possible that that terrible wound might have been inflicted while the woman was in the water?"

"Bravo, Watson! But then, why four drops, instead of none at all? And the absence of the woman's blood is not the only puzzle. One would think that the man who wore this shirt must have bled copiously himself if he were alive when shot. Even if he were already dead, the bullet's passage should have left some traces, at least, of flesh and blood upon the fabric. Nor do I see here threads from an undergarment, that might have completely absorbed a small amount of such debris."

"Well, I cannot fathom it," Lestrade admitted. "But the woman is certainly dead, and I do not believe that these details are likely to prove of much importance."

"Holmes," I suggested, "is it possible that this odd garment was draped on some clothier's dummy or manikin when it was fired at? Or simply held up empty, and the bullet-hole made, with the intention of leaving a totally false clue for the police?"

My friend shook his head. "It will not do. Would the killer, having put himself to such trouble, then throw into the river the main evidence of his crime, a corpse that might easily have drifted out to sea without ever being discovered? And for whose benefit was the false clue made? For the police? It is only chance that they noticed the rag at all. Was it done to lead me astray? But it is only by chance, again, that I was called in on the investigation. No, Watson. Besides, the indications are that a real man has recently worn this shirt."

"Indications?" I asked. "Well, the bloodstains, for example."

"Here, now!" Lestrade was beginning to bristle. "You've just now told us that the bullet drew no blood."

My friend spread out the shirt again in his long fingers—which, I saw unhappily, had just acquired a slight tremor. "That is so. But I shall be very much surprised if these traces here upon the right sleeve, just at the elbow, do not prove to be dried blood. The spots are quite small but they are several in number, as if more than one sample of blood had been drawn from the wearer. Yes, Lestrade, a man has worn this garment recently. But apart from the obvious facts that he is tall, lean, robust though no longer young, and is or was an unwilling patient, there is as yet little that I can say about him." He crumpled the shirt together in his hands, but continued to stare at it.

Lestrade opened his mouth, closed it again, then spoke at last. "I won't argue any of those points with you, Mr. Holmes." Still, he appeared to be not at all convinced.

Holmes raised his head and smiled, like one recalled from an unpleasant train of thought. "Surely 'obvious' is not too strong a word. Assuming this garment to have fit its wearer at all, its length indicates that his height must be at least roughly equal to my own. This is borne out by the length of the sleeves, which were worn fully extended, not rolled or turned back; although the cloth ties at the back of the shirt have been ripped loose, those upon the sleeves are still fastened, down to the last strings at the wrists." He paused. "Also, the bullet's passage was a rising one from front to back, which of course suggests a gun in the hand of a short person firing at a tall one. That would be perfectly consistent with the high lodging-place of the bullet in the shed wall."

I was mystified. "Holmes, I thought you had just proven that this garment could not have been on a man when the bullet passed through it."

My friend did not answer. Still gazing at the offending shirt, he shook it as if a drop of truth might be squeezed out of it like water.

Since Holmes' slighting remarks about the discovery of clues being a matter of chance with the police, Lestrade had been scowling. Now he shook his head. "It seems to me that the evidence here—the hard, solid evidence, that is—is pretty plain and straightforward. As to the height of the man who wore this shirt, I fancy we'll know that soon enough when we find out where he's escaped from. Oh, I'll grant you he's likely tall, but as to the rest of your guesses, sir, I have my doubts."

"Guesses?" Holmes' temper flared for a moment, so sharply that both Lestrade and I were taken somewhat by surprise. But only a moment, and then my friend was calm again. I could see it was not really Lestrade's attitude which had upset him; that was only an additional irritation coming on top of something that had struck him far more deeply.

Holmes went on: "That the wearer is, or was, lean is perhaps a riskier deduction than his height. But the close tying of the sleeves assures us that at least his arms are far from being grossly fat. And something of his age can be deduced from this short gray hair, evidently from a hirsute arm, caught in one of the small knots.

"He is, or was, a patient of some kind, as evidenced by the fact that his blood was sampled. As for his being robust and unwilling, surely the usual elderly inmate of an asylum or hospital would be clothed in something more ordinary. Anyone wearing this special garment may be presumed to be under strong restraint. Nor, perhaps, is the common variety of ill old man likely to be drenched in carbolic acid, and then to have a bullet fired through his nightshirt as he enjoys his customary midnight stroll along the docks."

"Well, of course—all that is rather plain and straightforward, as I say."

"Quite so." Holmes smiled, and for the moment seemed completely himself. "Nevertheless, I believe I shall just keep this garment—that is, if the official police have no objection?"

"Keep it, and welcome." The Scotland Yard man, too, had regained his good humor. "When we've heard just which madman has jumped a fence, and have got our hands on him, maybe there'll be a good explanation for that strange bullet hole—if anyone's still interested."

"Perhaps." Holmes rolled up the shirt and stuffed it into his coat pocket. "Come along then, Watson—I feel the need to give my violin a bit of exercise. Meanwhile, Lestrade, if you were to ask my advice as to your own best course of action, beyond inquiring for escaped madmen—"

"I do indeed, Mr. Holmes. You've steered me right before this."

"—it is to have the bottom of the river dragged, in the area near these two piers."

The other seemed a trifle disappointed. "And just what, Mr. Holmes, are we to go a-looking in the river for?"

Holmes spoke thoughtfully. "I should look, Lestrade, if I were you, for any—grotesque—oddity."

"Oddity?" Lestrade plainly did not understand; no more did I, I must confess.

"You may find none. But when there are several, as I find here, experience suggests that one more is not unlikely."