The Holmes-Dracula File, Fred Saberhagen [pride and prejudice read .TXT] 📗

’im.” Rough-voice gave his professional opinion flatly. Deferring to these specialists, the physician had already walked away, hurrying back to his own mysterious and demanding job.

   The woman lifted the pillow, revealing the old man’s face, his color ghastly (it had not been good to begin with), his mouth ajar and eyelids likewise. It was a corpse-like face that looked as if it might be stiffening already. He had seen death by suffocation often enough to be able to mime it without difficulty. What had he not seen, indeed? Well, much. An animal like that still snuffling in the room beyond, to name one thing.

   The steel fetters continued to hold his arms and legs, but were now somehow disconnected from his cart.

   “These irons ’ll myke just a good bit o’ weight if we leaves ’em on.”

   The woman answered: “Yes, that’s all right, we have more. And leave his gown on him. We should have to dispose of that in any case.”

   The old man’s whole body and its fetters were slid into what felt like an oilcloth bag, of a size and shape to hold a body handily. Then he was lifted free of the bed and draped over Matthews’ broad shoulder. In this way he was carried out of the room of his imprisonment and through another room, then down a long flight of stairs, the bearer grunting out a pithy comment or two about the unexpected weight. Frau Grafenstein marched briskly on ahead, to open doors.

   At last they came to outdoor air, enriched with horse-smells, starched with coal-smoke, larded with the stale cosmopolitan essence of the Thames. The smells of night and of damp earth served as effective stimuli for memory, or should have done.

   Obviously they intended to sink him in the river, and that would be that, no? Well, no, he thought, for he had already survived smothering. Actually he was far from helpless. The thing he had to do…he should be able to…

   Energized by the approach of midnight, the battered brain within the aged skull fought to repair its broken weapons. To remember the things that must and could be done would be much easier if he were able to recall just who and what he was…

   He was borne on the strong man’s shoulder down a ladder, with river-smell strong and sounds of water lapping near, and then he was cast roughly into the bottom of what must have been a rather large rowboat. It swayed only a little with the weight of the three people boarding, rubbing its sides against pilings to the starboard and port. The need for the lady’s aid was soon apparent: two pairs of hands, one working at the bow and one at the stern, were required to work the heavy craft out of what must have been a place of snug concealment beneath a dock, a berth into which it was kept wedged by the river’s current.

   As soon as the craft was drifting free, Frau G. sat down in the stern and rested, one booted foot comfortably propped upon the old man’s unmoving hip, whilst Matthews broke out a pair of oars.

   A dozen or so strokes, and the man began complaining yet again. He was having an unexpectedly tough time transporting this particular cargo over running water. Ah, folk would grumble less if they knew more. He might have had a far more difficult evening than he did.

   “Ach, man,” Frau Grafenstein admonished briskly, “put your back into it.” The old man in his bag could almost picture her shaking a stern finger. “Neither uff your passengers iss very big or heavy. And you ought to be used to this particular trip by now.”

   “That old un’s heavier than you might think, Missus,” Matthews grunted, pulling hard as bidden. “Somethin’ queer about him. In general, I means. Weren’t there?” Grunt again. “Bit o’ rough current tonight, it feels like.”

   “One uff these nights you may be rowing this way, with your young cousin, done up zo.” She treated the old man to a familiar joggle from her boot.

   “Nar. With all respeck, Missus, I ’spect Sal will be a good ’un now. You made a bit of an impression on ’er tonight.”

   “I trust that you are right.” The woman sighed; it was a delicate and almost feminine sound. Then in a little while she said: “This should be far enough. Those new electric lights across the river will be too close for comfort if we go on.”

   “Ar.”

   The oars stopped and were shipped inboard. Again two strong hands grappled the old man’s oilcloth bag. They put him straight over the gunwale, wrappings, and weighty bonds and all, without delay or ceremony, almost without a splash.

   Cold water tried to fasten teeth into his skin, but he was callous to its bite. His breathless lips were pressed fastidiously tight against the dirty tide. The muted shock of immersion served as a needed tonic for his brain. His powers armed themselves, were ghosts no longer, although still lacking intellectual control. He felt his iron manacles drop off, and with them the shrouding bag. But it was not the metal that melted or the cloth that tore. Some other object lost its solidity, rose like a spectral bubble through the water, and then slowly regained its substance and its shape. Now the old man stood dripping on the pier, still clad in his hospital victim’s gown. His burgeoning powers were ringed around him now, a bodyguard invisible and awesome, though in disordered ranks. Still missing was their captain, the last great power: his true name.

   The boat had rowed up to the far end of the pier, where it was letting off the woman now. Looking between piles of shipping crates, the old man could see her quite easily, despite the forty yards or so of smoggy night between.

   “Stuff and nonsense.” Her voice was plain, not loud but brisk. “Uff course