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

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