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

both a sunshade and some little foothold on respectability. I then spent the remainder of the morning gradually upgrading my entire wardrobe, here purchasing untattered trousers, there a better second-hand coat, in a third place some shoes without holes. By noon I was still far from the epitome of fashion, but at least felt confident of being able to enter a newspaper office or a library without being summarily thrown out.

   The first library I tried offered a medical reference book, listing a Dr. David Fitzroy... indeed, listing more than one. But, even if I knew which one I wanted, what good would his address be to me? This melancholy realization dawned on me as I stood tapping a taloned forefinger on the page. After what had happened at Barley’s, the police must certainly be looking for my foe, and he would not be sitting at home to wait for them, nor for me either. He must be in hiding. But how was I to find out where?

   Alas, sane and methodical procedures for doing anything are not really my forte. By mid-afternoon, the only really constructive idea that had come to me was to buy and read the newspapers, in hopes of catching some word, direct or indirect, of my enemies and their machinations. That day’s papers did not reward me, nor did those of the next day, but I persisted.

   Thus it came to pass that, about a week after the affair at Barley’s, a lanky, slightly seedy but still respectable Continental gentleman might have been observed, hat shading his eyes against the warm late afternoon sun, seated on a park bench and somewhat pensively perusing the latest edition of the Times. The items successively attracting his interest ran approximately as follows:

PRECAUTION—Avoid impure water from wells and cisterns, the fertile sources of zymotic diseases. The safest and best drinking water for table, bedroom, and tea-making is the “ALPHA BRAND”...

ALGERNON GISSING’S NEW NOVEL

THE SCHOLAR OF BYGATE

(Algernon who? you ask. Well, such is literary fame.)

CAN any LADY RECOMMEND for the end of September, London and country, a really first-class PLAIN COOK? Abstainer, active, and early riser. Age 29 to 35 (not over). Four in family, eight servants. Quiet, very neat appearance. Also at same time a good, strong, clean kitchenmaid, good at vegetables. Age 18-20.

(I could sympathize, having long yearned for a staff of really first-class servants in Castle Dracula. But one cannot have everything.)

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE... (I looked under this heading, but found nothing on rat-killing.)

... a minister from Stuttgart, Herr Traub, spoke in the name of the Evangelical workmen’s syndicates of Wurtemburg and supported the legal eight hours’ day. He denied the assertion that workmen would spend the extra spare time in beer drinking.

... the foreman of a contractor for the Post Office was fined 5 pounds for working horses in an unfit state...

(From an address by Dr. William Osier)... when one considers the remarkable opportunities for study which India has presented... such a field for observation in cholera, leprosy, dysentery, the plague, typhoid fever, malaria... the work of Dr. Hankin and of Professor Haffkine, and the not unmixed evil of the brisk epidemic of plague in Bombay, may rouse the officials to a consciousness of their shortcomings...

(I had not seen a “brisk” epidemic of plague for more than two centuries, and had no wish to see another, though I myself am almost certainly immune.)

TELEGRAPHING WITHOUT WIRES—A large quantity of instruments, weighing in all about two tons, have arrived at Dover in connexion with some experiments in telegraphing without wires which are to be made there.

EGYPTIAN-HALL

England’s home of mystery

Startling mysteries by Mr. David Devant

(I thought to myself that if I had time for amusement, I should prefer something more soothing.)

ANGLING—This week the general angling season will open...

TURKEY AND GREECE—The Armistice

The question of the establishment of a pneumatic post in London has been more than once under consideration …

THE FAMINE IN INDIA

 Starving subjects of Her Majesty’s Indian Empire …

THE DIAMOND JUBILEE. The state carriage in which the Queen will drive out June 22 will be the same as was used at the Jubilee in 1887...

THE PLATTNER STORY, by H.G. Wells. A book just published ...

(And my attention jumped back to the preceding item. June 22? That was the date mentioned by Fitzroy in my hearing as some kind of deadline. A coincidence? I pondered, but got nowhere.)

PLAN showing the berths of the MEN-OF-WAR and the track for yachts at the Jubilee naval review on June 26...

MAP showing the route of the royal procession on June 22...

(The twenty-second of June draws near, said Fitzroy’s cultured voice, played back in memory. But what could the connection be?)

A GENTLEMAN is willing to LET his TWO WINDOWS for DIAMOND JUBILEE. Accommodation for about 14; use of third room for lunch. Every convenience. Double view of procession, as it passes windows and circles over London bridge. Apply C. Meredith, 78 King William street, City.

(A column was filled with similar advertisements.)

THE KLONDIKE GOLD REEFS EXPLORATION COMPANY, LIMITED APPLICATION FOR SHARES ...

COCKLE’S PILLS ...

THE ADVANCE ON THE NILE...

NESTLE’S MILK ...

National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children ...

CHEAP RETURN TICKETS TO THE EAST

—India, Ceylon, China, Australia, Tasmania—

AT WORSHIP-STREET,   POLICE-CONSTABLE FRANKLIN, 4436, appeared to answer a summons charging him with violently assaulting Mary Smith and causing her actual bodily harm. The complainant, a tall, powerfully-built Irishwoman, said that... she was in Mansfield-street, Kingsland-road, going home, and met the policeman, who “shoved” against her, asked her what luck she had had that night, and made overtures to her. When she rejected them...he kicked her...hit her in the left eye and, burst the ball...

HUMPHREYS’ PORTABLE IRON CHURCHES, Chapels, Mission, Club, Reading and School Rooms, Cottages...

BABY HAGAR, 29, a respectably-dressed young woman, said to be an actress, was charged with attempted suicide. Evidence was given by Inspector