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

in his hands, and twice his tool slipped from the narrow keyhole. His face was a mask of great restraint. At last, seeming to master his nerves by a supreme effort of will, he succeeded in working the mechanism.

   The faint click of the lock was followed by a long moment in which he did not move at all. Then he stood up and with a violent motion flung back the lid. What precisely he had expected or feared to see within, I did not know, but I saw his shoulders slump with the sudden release of tension. And as I peered over his shoulder I saw to my own amazement that the great leather chest was half-filled with what appeared to be nothing but blackish dirt.

   “It is as I hoped, Watson,” Holmes breathed, and the great relief in his voice was as evident as it was mysterious to me. “Our killer is not a native of England, for he has brought his nest with him.”

   Opening the large carpetbag he had brought with him in the cab, my friend, to my astonishment, pulled from it a large stake of some hard wood, two feet long and about two inches thick, with one end sharpened to an almost needle-like point, and charred as if it had been hardened in a fire. With the point of this stake he began to probe down into the earth within the trunk, on the first few attempts hitting nothing resistant before reaching the bottom. On the next try, however, he gave a little grunt of satisfaction, laid aside the stake, rolled up one sleeve, and plunged his sinewy arm into the soil.

   He pulled out a snug bundle that, when brushed off and unrolled on the warehouse floor, proved to be a large waterproof, in which had been wrapped two or three complete suits of men’s clothing, a collapsible top-hat, soap and towels, a pair of boots, a clothes-brush, and a heavy purse. From this last, when Holmes had opened it, there poured out a substantial amount of bank-notes and coin, the latter predominantly gold.

   Each of these items Holmes picked up and studied, briefly but with a feverish eagerness. “There is light in the darkness, Watson,” he cried almost joyously. “The danger is far from past, but so far all the signs are hopeful.”

   Leaving Marlowe and his men to shake their heads in wonder, I, following Holmes’ terse orders, saw the trunk and its contents conveyed to Baker Street, and there lodged in a corner of our sitting room. Holmes himself meanwhile hurried away on the errand he had already mentioned, an unexplained visit to our former foe, Von Herder.

   By lunch time he was back in Baker Street, where to my complete surprise his first act was to hand me half a dozen cartridges. “These should fit your old service revolver nicely, Watson.” I thought that when I weighed the casings in my hand they felt surprisingly light, and the bullets where they protruded from the brass were a strange, dull brown.

   Seeing my puzzlement, Holmes nodded. “Yes, Watson, they are wood. They would not do, I fear, for long shots on the pistol range, but they are just what we want to defend ourselves during the task at hand. Kindly load your revolver with them immediately.” His manner was now keen and eager as of old, without a trace of that inward agony that had lately given me such concern. I might have been relieved at this change, were it not that he gave no indication of changing his conviction that it was a vampire we were hunting.

   On the contrary, Holmes soon summoned Mrs. Hudson, and gave her orders in the strictest terms. “A visitor will sooner or later call, in regard to this most impressive trunk. You are to admit no one—no man, woman, or child, no one at all, regardless of what reasons they may urge—who comes upon such an errand after nightfall. Who applies at night must be told to come back in the morning.”

   “Very good, sir.”

   When the landlady had gone, Holmes showed me the advertisement describing the trunk that he had placed in all the papers, and with that we settled down to wait. A day passed, and then another, none without some secret inquiry from the highest levels of government, regarding the threat of plague. Holmes curtly put off all official questions, and spent his time largely smoking, fiddling, or staring out the window.

   For my part, I scarcely knew which way to turn. Had it not been for my friend’s success in finding the trunkful of earth exactly as he had predicted it would be found, I should probably have decided to confide in Mycroft, and, with his approval, confront the highest authorities with our opinion that Holmes was no longer competent, by reason of an unbalanced mind.

   Yet—there sat the trunk, inexplicably half-filled with soil. Had not Sherlock Holmes, even partially unbalanced, intellectual powers far beyond those of any other detective, powers that must be utilized if England were to be saved?

   “He must come, Watson, he must come,” Holmes muttered to me, over and over, in intervals of impatient pacing. It was night, some days after the trunk had been first advertised. “Though it now seems certain that he must have at least one other earth somewhere in London. Or is it possible that he is dead? We have heard nothing of him for some—”

   The bell downstairs rang faintly, and Holmes stopped in mid-stride, finger to his lips. I, just risen from my chair to tend the fire, stayed where I was, listening with might and main. Very faintly I could hear Mrs. Hudson’s voice below, and then felt the slight change in the draught that resulted from the closing of the downstairs door. Nothing else, until her familiar tread sounded gently on the stair, and she came in to give us her report. “It was a