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

hours’ sleep and some breakfast, for within minutes of Lestrade’s arrival the two of us were in a cab and once more on our way to the East End, while the inspector at Holmes’ orders had begun his search for information regarding missing clerks.

   “You are certain, then,” I asked Holmes as we rode, “that Jem Matthews’ killing is connected somehow with the blackmail scheme?”

“   If it was in fact done by the same man, the one we have been searching for. And there seems little doubt of that.”

   “This mad fellow appears to be at the center of it all.”

   “He is at the center, certainly, or very near it. But I think he is not mad. Watson, we were interrupted last night just as I was trying to reconstruct the events taking place on the pier and culminating in the Grafenstein woman’s death.”

   “I am prepared to listen.”

   “But you do not yet, I think, see the importance of these events in the whole tangled skein of crime confronting us. In this I include not only the violent deeds of this peculiar killer, but the blackmail threat, and even the disappearance of John Scott.”

   “I am also prepared to learn.”

   “Excellent. Let us then begin with Frau Gratenstein standing or walking on the dock at approximately midnight, her pistol in her purse and, I fear, no very good intentions in her heart.”

   I interrupted: “How do you know she was not brought to that deserted spot against her will?”

   “By some assailant who allowed her to retain her pistol? Whom, nevertheless, she did not attempt to resist until that lonely place was reached? It is conceivable, I suppose—but let us try another hypothesis first.”

   “Yes, I see. Go on, Holmes.”

   “As I remarked to Lestrade, the river is very often used to dispose of bodies. We saw last night evidence that it has been so used, for a month or longer, by those who are now threatening to loose the plague upon us. Surely it needs no very great leap of the imagination to suppose that Frau Grafenstein, given her background in chemical science and its abuses, was in league with them. That her presence on the dock was connected with the disposal of yet another experimental victim. But this time—something went wrong.”

    Holmes’ eyes turned piercingly upon me as he went on. “At some hour near midnight, her short-barreled but powerful pistol was fired; at or about the same time, matching bullet-holes were made in the shirt, and a bullet of a caliber to fit the pistol lodged in the boat-house wall. Also, the lady had her throat torn out.

   “Again concurrently, or nearly so, the oilcloth bag containing the manacles was left in the water near the spot. Does it suggest anything to you, Watson, that when that sealed bag was recovered it contained no body? And no shirt, whereas we found a wet shirt on the pier?”

   I replied: “The intended victim was not dead after all, and managed to escape.”

   “Very good! I do not mean to imply that your answer is the wrong one, when I repeat that the bag when found was still fastened shut, not cut or torn in any way. I wish only to point out what a very remarkable escape that must have been.”

   Another thought, somewhat distracting, had just occurred to me. “Holmes, if what you say is true, this man is most probably infected with the plague. If it should go into the pneumonic form, he will represent a deadly peril to the whole city, with every breath he takes.”

   My friend was silent for a moment, and I thought he looked at me strangely. “I cannot say it is impossible, Watson. But I think that particular danger is not one which need greatly concern us.”

   “I am sure I do not see why, if this man is infected.”

   Holmes peered ahead, impatient at some snarl of traffic that was momentarily delaying us. “Do you recall, Watson, those scratches on the planking of the dock? I examined them very carefully.”

   “I do.”

   “The radius of their arcs was equal to the length of long human arms—of arms as long as mine—or of the arms of the man who wore that shirt.”

   There came an unfamiliar creeping sensation along my scalp. There seemed to loom, just beyond the limits of my understanding and imagination, some horror that threatened—to unnerve even Sherlock Holmes, and which he was endeavoring to point out to me—to point out slowly and indirectly, as if he were reluctant to speak of it at all. For the first time in my life, perhaps, I truly understood how a vague danger may sometimes be more terrible than one definitely known. “Holmes,” I cried, “I do not see what you are getting at.”

   His eyes again were fixed on mine relentlessly. “Those scratches were made by the killer, Watson. By the same man, tall, lean, inhumanly strong, who so closely resembles me-and who has now killed again. My one hope, Watson, my one hope is...”

   “Yes?”

   “That he is killing with justification. In self-defense or with some other purpose that he considers honorable.”

   I thought aloud: “He stole money from the woman’s purse.”

   “He took her money, yes. But he might have seen that as an honorable act—to the victor belong the spoils of war. I have hopes, because he next scrupulously bought the clothing that he needed.”

   “A peculiar concept of honor, I should say. For a man of this day and age, at any rate.”

   As if to himself, Holmes murmured: “Ah, if I could only be sure that he is not.”

   “I fail to understand.”

   He shook his head. “I spoke of my one hope. If he is behaving honorably, that means he is actually our ally, an ally we sorely need against our terrible enemies— and he may gain for us the time we need.”

   “His feats are certainly incredible.”

   “No