The Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

Sherlock Holmes took her reassuringly by the hand. “You can leave the burden of the mystery in our hands now, Miss Tarlton. I have every confidence that we shall be able to find the man who signed John Scott’s name, if he is still in England; and when we have found him, I shall be very much mistaken if further answers do not come within our grasp.”

   “Mr. Holmes, my gratitude is—I am forever in your debt.” Then, recovering somewhat, our visitor reached again into her handbag, from which she had produced the photograph. “I have here the list, which Peter has given me, of the equipment—or as much of it as he had time to examine.”

   She handed over several folded sheets of paper, which Holmes opened and glanced at before sending Miss Tarlton back to her hotel, which a repetition of such reassurance as he could honestly give. When she had gone, he looked at the papers again, before holding them out in my direction. “Rather bizarre…perhaps somewhat in your line, Watson. What do you make of it?”

   I took the papers and studied them briefly. “An unusual line of research, certainly.” Among a hundred or so items listed were not only the usual laboratory paraphernalia that any chemical or medical scientist might have employed, but also numbers of iron fetters of various shapes and sizes, collapsible cages (some very large), along with operating tables, beds, and treatment and examination tables sufficient to have equipped the infirmary of a zoo, or perhaps a small hospital. Some of these beds and tables were provided, in the words of Peter Moore, with “steel restraints, and suited for experiments on any of the great apes, or creatures of comparable size and strength.”

   I commented: “It seems he had equipped himself well for the pursuit of the animal, whether ape or rodent. Did he ever find it?”

   “He did. The facts are in the letters.”

   “And the disease organism, Holmes, upon which all this investigative effort was to center? I do not believe Miss Tarlton told us that.”

   “She had informed me of that detail in an earlier communication. It was Pasteurella pestis, Watson. Plague.”

CHAPTER THREE

   Sally could not hear the four-wheeler approaching two streets away, but when it arrived, with a clash of iron wheelrims against the curb, she heard and jumped up from her chair. It was as if those who controlled her life and the prisoner’s had already detected her in the betrayal that she had dared to dream about for one dread, glorious moment. Then the sudden terror faded from her eyes, to be replaced by a mixture of relief and agonized sympathy for the old man. But without another word to him she gathered her things and fled the room, pausing at the door to cast back a piteous glance that seemed to beg for his forgiveness.

   Bah.

   Spent by his long, fruitless efforts at seduction, and enervated by the return of daylight, the old man endured his ceaselessly throbbing head and listened. Several rooms away, the cultured voice of the doctor, newly arrived, was probing at Sally, who gave him hasty, fearful answers. The prisoner could hear the tones though not the words of both their voices. He heard also faint morning stirrings from his two fellow prisoners in their nearby rooms. Presently Sally’s feet went rapidly downstairs. A street door opened and shut behind her; the sound of her steps on the pavement dwindled and disappeared.

   Soon afterward the doctor began on his brief morning rounds. He came to the old man’s room freshly redolent of carbolic acid, and this time wearing a surgeon’s gown, which in that year was as much of an innovation as the mask.

   “Well, sir, I perceive that you are unequivocally awake this morning, which we must count as progress, I suppose.” As he offered this dubious greeting, the doctor’s machine-like hands, today in fine rubber gloves, were palming the victim’s forehead in search of fever that was not there, palpating the gaunt abdomen, turning back an eyelid.

   Not far behind the doctor came the harsh clop of the hard woman’s boots. Her face, like his covered up to the eyes in gauze, looked round his gowned shoulder. “Any signs yet?” she inquired.

“No. But the incubation period may be as long as ten days, remember.”

   “Veil then, hardly to be expected yet.”

   The old man let his gaze drift vacantly away from the two faces, then brought it back to focus on them as if with a great effort.

   The two exchanged a few more words, then began to strip their victim, cutting away his expensive clothing ruthlessly, dropping it into a cloth bag. Only now, after he had been their captive for so long, were his pockets searched and his papers examined, by two gauzed heads posed briefly side by side.

   “If the name’s Corday,” the woman offered, “the nationality is likely French.”

   “I suppose so. He took ship at Marseilles, I see.” Not that it really mattered to them; they were satisfying a passing curiosity. Then they garbed the old man in a kind of hospital shirt or gown of tight-woven fabric, fastening the sleeves upon his arms with small cloth ties.

   Corday, he thought. Marseilles. The words meant something personal to the old man. Or at least he felt they should have done. The name of the city brought up a hazy recollection of its skyline as seen from the Vieux Port. But Corday was not the old man’s true name, of that much he was certain; nor was French his native tongue, though he could speak it fairly well.

   A stethoscope had appeared. The old man was enjoined—in awkward French, this time—to breathe more deeply. He obediently made the front of his rib cage move up and down.

   The doctor spoke in English, half amused, half puzzled. “Monsieur Corday, your respiration’s very shallow, almost undetectable. Heartbeat is strong, but—” He shook his head,