The Holmes-Dracula File d-2 Page 12

  I had just got myself into motion, calculating to overtake him immediately outside, when there came to my ears a cry of feminine despair, choked and muted but still recognizable as issuing from the throat of Sal. A vital second or two passed before my eyes found her amid the tumult of the crowd below; when I spied her at last she was almost at the front door, unwillingly on her way out in the grip of a sturdy policeman.

  For a long moment I was irresolute, which is perhaps the worst possible error when action is required. On the one hand, the strictest demands of honor bound me to Sal's defense. On the other, she was in no grievous peril from the police, whilst across the room my chief known enemy was escaping, a man who would have had Sal killed in an instant had he ever discovered her efforts to set me free.

  I turned back to pursue the nimble doctor, but my momentary hesitation had given him a good start, and he was already scrambling along beams high above the dazzle of the hanging lamps, headed straight for a trapdoor in the roof.

  Leaping up, I seized a beam myself. Only then did I become aware that policemen, for whatever reason, were converging on me from all directions. Two strong and sweaty arms of the law had me by the leg before I saw them coming, their owner bawling something to the effect that I should now give up peaceably. Whilst I was trying—at first not vigorously enough—to shake him loose, my eyes met those of another man, in civilian clothes, who was rushing toward me, knocking other folk aside. He was of middle size, well built, with something of a bull neck, and a sandy mustache beginning to go gray.

  His eyes, expressing shock that demonstrated, as I thought, some recognition, were locked on mine. He cried out, excitedly but in a voice too low for me to understand, a syllable that I took to be a name. Then he sprang forward and astonished me by collaring and dragging back a second policeman, who was about to fasten on me before I had got quite free of the first. My next kick sent that tenacious officer (from whom the bull-terriers of the pit might have learned something, had they paused to watch) flying above the crowd. This, thanks to my unknown benefactor, ended my direct encounter with the police; however, brief as it was, it had still delayed me long enough for my quarry to get out of the building and out of my sight, slamming the trapdoor shut behind him.

  Climbing, I hurled myself at the closed exit, considering direct violence faster than the change of form that would have let me slide out like smoke through the thinnest crevice. But again, a second or two was lost before the bar that my enemy had set in place outside gave way.

  Bursting out into the open night at last, I saw that the police, however thoroughly they might have covered the building's first two floors, had been remiss in their planning for the rooftops—or else their men simply had not had time to get into position here before Sal sang out her alarm below. The figure of a lone constable, arms outspread as if to pose for a statue of the guardian law, stood upon a flat neighboring roof some four or five feet distant from Barley's sloping slates. Some thirty feet from the trapdoor, he blocked the single avenue of escape practicable for breathing men. Some ten feet closer to me, his back to me and facing the officer, the blond young doctor crouched, in the act of drawing a revolver from an inner pocket.

  At this crucial moment I was once more distracted by an outcry in Sally's voice. This time it was a loud scream, and in such a tone of lost despair that it compelled my immediate allegiance. Behind me as I turned the pistol spoke, the wounded officer cried out, my enemy escaped; but Sal had been tortured for me, and had received my solemn pledge of help, and to my mind my duty was as clear as ever it could be.

  Melting at once to bat-shape, I fluttered from the roof down to the police van inside which the last vibrations of that lost scream were dying out. As I recall, there were three vans drawn up in the street, and one, in all propriety, had been reserved for lady prisoners. Alighting on the driver's elevated seat, I resumed human form and at once snatched the reins out of his startled hands. Before he could react he had been pushed off to the ground.

  My mental shout was already ringing inside the horses' brains, and they started as if a lion sprang behind them. For several blocks I drove a zigzag course at breakneck pace, scattering traffic from the streets of Soho. Within the lurching van, fresh screams broke out in a wide range of voices; the ladies' coach must have been commandeered from some more prosaic police business and pressed directly into service without a stop to discharge cargo. Over the women's panic I had no control, but I soothed that of the horses, as soon as I was sure we were not being closely pursued, and by degrees reduced their speed, till I could draw them to a halt in a dark mews.

  Dropping down behind the van, I tore the padlocks from its door and stood back just in time to escape trampling by a rush of women. From amid this screeching stream, which dissolved into the night in all directions as soon as it emerged, I plucked out Sal. Then, holding one hand clamped over her mouth, I pulled her away with me at a fast trot.

  We ran one block and turned a corner, walked quickly for another block and turned again, then walked some more. Sally was quiet now, save for her rapid breathing, and willing to go on with me arm-in-arm. When we had reached an utterly lifeless spot against the outer wall of what I suppose was a factory—by all appearances it might have been a prison—I stopped, and listened. Half a mile or so away, what sounded almost like a small riot was in progress. But still there came no sounds of the chase, and where we were, the night was quiet.

  Sal appeared uninjured. "What were they doing to you, girl? Why such a scream?"

  "It-it were bein' shut up in that little place. It does me that way sometimes, an' I come all over queer, like I can't breathe."

  I sighed, thinking of my lost quarry, lost for no better reason than to relieve this wench from an attack of claustrophobia. But sighs and regrets will gain one neither blood nor honor. I asked: "For what were you arrested, though?"

  Sal's breathing, a lonely, frightened sound, had now slowed enough to let her talk easily. "I-I sang out when I saw the peelers at the door. Don't know no other reason." There was no recognition in her voice as she scowled toward me through the dark. " 'Ow'd you manage't' get me clean away like that?"

  "Do you not know me, Sally?" I asked, turning my head so that the ghost of light from a far-distant lamp fell on my face.

  "I…" She began, and halted. Remember that she had never seen me on my feet before, or in these ragged garments. Remember especially that a full feeding, such as I had enjoyed upon the previous night, will for a time restore to me something of the look of youth. And remember, too, she must have been as certain as were my would-be murderers, that the old man she once had tried to help was dead.

  Although my face was no longer a mask of exhausted senility, there was of course a strong resemblance to my debilitated self; so with my voice, though it was now considerably stronger. The truth stood before Sal, struggling to be known; but it was too large and disturbing a truth to be acknowledged at first glance.

  "Know you?" she answered me at last. "Can't say as I do." Her voice was high and tense, her last words almost a question.

  "As you will, my dear. Why were you at Barley's tonight? Standing sentry for your employers, perhaps?"

  "That ain't your business, now, is it?"

  "Your welfare has become my business, girl. Was Matthews there as well? I did not see him."

  After a long pause, in which a series of emotions crossed Sal's marred, shadowed face, she shook her head. "Don't know no one by that name."

  "Ah, Sal, trust me." I took her patiently by both hands. Though I had lost the doctor, I had Sal now, and so I was in no great hurry. Eventually, through her, the ones I wanted would become accessible. "Did not that old man promise you that there would be no involvement of the police?"

  The nervous start in her hands felt to mine like an electric shock. "The old man? Wot old man?"

  Gently I patted her right hand into place on my left arm, and off we started walking, a gentleman and his lady. Well, no, it could scarcely have
appeared that way. More like, had there been anyone to watch, two of the ragged poor aping the behavior of their betters.

  "Now, my dear," I went on, when we had walked half a mile or so, and the tension in the hand upon my arm had started to relax. "Now, you cannot really have forgotten that old man. He'd lost his name, remember? You spoke to him so kindly. And you did more. You very bravely, once, tried to help him—really help. That was shortly before they—took him off."

  Her fingers would have pulled free, but could not move. Then slowly, slowly, they were once more persuaded to relax. Her voice, as she murmured "I never 'eard of… no old man," faded almost to stunned silence.

  I smiled fondly, stroking her captive fingers on my arm, almost as I had soothed the rat. "I'm sure the old fellow never forgot your great kindness. And he did most solemnly promise, no police."

  "Sir, don't go a-scarin' a poor girl with talk like that." Had Sal now recognized me, at least on some hidden level of her mind? Her numb voice was sunk so low I had to concentrate to hear it. "If-if yer really wants't' help me, just-just get out o' this and let me go—"

  "My dear, I might get out o' this, as you put it, at any time. But I fear that you cannot, without help, disentangle yourself from the nets of wickedness. Will you not accept my help?"

  "Ah, God…" We were passing now under a streetlamp, but Sal forgot to try to hide her birthmark as she looked at me with eyes of terror. (How could she fail to know me, now?) "It'd be as much as me life is worth… sir, there's some folk it's death to trifle with."

  "So I have heard." I let show in my face the anguish that I sometimes feel, when I am forced to contemplate the evil ways of men. "I sympathize with your fear." Now for a time I only held her hand in silence as we walked, and let her choose the way. "I'll see you safely home," I said.

  At the next streetlamp, Sal looked at me very closely once again, this time remembering to use her hair to hide her cheek. She made a small, choked sound, but in this sound there was only a small component of fear, and bolder and bolder grew her eyes probing mine.

  Once more the fang-roots in my upper jaw were aching. When we had walked farther still, and I could read unforced consent in Sal's brown eyes, I turned our path into a darker, narrower way, and stopped and pulled her close…

  It is now common knowledge that the briefest, pleasantest love-making with a vampire will change a breathing human to a fang-sharp monster in a trice. Common knowledge that is of course absurdly wrong. Would you accept the follies of the films and so-called comic books as gospel truth on any other subject? No. To render any man or woman nosferatu requires a prolonged exchange of blood; and so when I released Sal a few blissful minutes later, her throat was marked but her species—as yet—was quite unaltered.

  "Now I shall truly see you home," I said. And like a girl who walks and dreams at the same time, Sal put her hand upon my arm and led me promenading down the shabby street.

  A drizzle had begun, dissolving the day's dust into slime on the paving stones, before we reached, at the low end of an even meaner street, the hovel she called home. Hers was a cellar room, in a building old even for London, that must have stood sunny in a bird-song field before the city rose like a dirty tide around it.

  Sal was reaching with her latchkey for the door at the dark bottom of some stairs, when I put out an arresting hand. In the room beyond the door, a set of lungs—a man's, I thought—was breathing. He might be husband, lover, father—all quite all right with me—but then again he might be something else. When Sal turned up a questioning face to mine, wondering why I held her back, I whispered very softly in her ear: "As soon as you have crossed the threshold, bid me come in."

  She looked a question at me still, but unlocked and pushed back the door.

  It was deep dark within; though not to my eyes, of course. But Sal started at the scrape of clothing on rough blankets, as the man who had been sprawled upon the room's one cot rose up. One of his great hands swept up from a nearby table a portable electric torch and flashed it in our faces.

  "Gorblimey, Sal!" growled out a rough, familiar voice, thick with astonishment. "These ain't no days for bringin' home a trick…"

  Matthews' voice died as his eyes, widening, fastened upon my face.

  Sal ran in to him at once, beginning to babble some apology or explanation, and completely forgetting or ignoring my last words to her. They had not been idle chatter. I, vampire, am unable to enter even the meanest dwelling unless once invited directly to do so.

  Her pleading to Matthews did her no more good this time than last. His left hand set down the torch and with easy power seized her hair. He bent her neck, holding her immobile, whilst in his right hand a wicked clasp knife came to be, so smoothly that eyes less experienced than mine might have seen only the flower of the motion, not the growth.

  Still wide-eyed, incredulous, he grinned at me but spoke to her. "Now, Sal—yer mean yer don't know who this be?"

  "Jem, no! It ain't who you think—the man you think it be is dead."

  "Dead! Ar!" It was almost a laugh. "Not 'im! My eyes are workin' fine!"

  By now I felt almost as bewildered as the girl. Matthews had never seen me on my feet before, nor with a comparatively youthful face. Beyond doubt he thought he recognized me, but—it dawned upon me rapidly—not as the wretched oldster on the cart. He must know, he must be convinced in his bones as well as in his mind, that that victim was still at the bottom of the Thames. Then who did he think I was?

  He held the knife now at Sal's throat, and the wonder in his eyes was blending into triumph. His harsh voice rasped at me: "Now let's see just where yer revolver's hid. Tyke off yer coat real slow, and drop it on the floor. Else this gal's done for where she stands—Mr. Great Detective."

  Chapter Twelve

  "Why, Watson, do you maintain that it was your fault that the man eluded capture?" Sherlock Holmes, in dressing-gown and slippers, put the question to me as he stood before the fire in our sitting room. It was nearly midnight, an hour after the climax of the affair at Barley's. A chill rain had begun to tap upon our windows, and Holmes' hands were spread toward the blaze while he turned his penetrating eyes in my direction. The wrinkles and black hair-dye of his disguise were gone, and he seemed in general none the worse for his desperate struggle to escape Gregson, Moore, and myself. Yet I did not much care for his pale, finely drawn appearance.

  "Why should it have been your fault?" Holmes repeated. "I understand that the suspected killer had already made good his escape before you chose me as your quarry. And even if you had not stopped me, I would not have caught him—I must admit that I was in pursuit of other game myself."

  I took a chair beside the fire, and tasted the brandy he had just poured for me. "Holmes, I saw no point in confessing to the police that it was I who collared one of their men, and thus deliberately gave the murderer his chance to get free. But I must confess it now."

  Holmes sat down across from me. "You collared a policeman?" His voice sounded too tired to express the full surprise that he must naturally have felt. "My dear old fellow—why?"

  "It is very simple. Because I did not know the man escaping was the maniac whom the police had launched the raid to capture. I was convinced that the man escaping was yourself."

  Holmes leaned back in his chair, and there was a long pause before he spoke. "He looked like me, then. Very much like me." The words were quiet, with a fatalistic lack of emotion in them.

  Peering anxiously at my friend's haggard features, I went on: "With the first good look I got at the fellow's face, I recognized—there is no other way to put it—I recognized it as yours. The same aquiline nose, the same strong chin and piercing eyes. Yes, even the same figure, tall and lean and very active."

  "The very same. I see," Holmes echoed in that doomed voice.

  "Oh, there were some differences, I admit." I frowned at my friend's uncharacteristically passive acceptance of this news. "I think he was an older man than you. His hair was longer and gray
er, and his eyebrows bushy. His color was less healthy." Although, even as I was speaking, I thought that there was no longer much difference of complexion.

  "You heard him speak?"

  "No."

  "Go on."

  "There is little more to tell. I am well acquainted, of course, with your skill at disguise, and it struck me as perfectly natural that you should have altered your appearance before visiting a place like Barley's, where some enemy might otherwise recognize you."

  Holmes' eyes glittered. "Did it not then seem strange that you could recognize me at once?"

  "Perhaps," I went on, somewhat wounded by this petulance, "you do not believe the resemblance was as strong as I have painted it?"*

  "My dear fellow," he muttered, "excess imagination is not your great fault. Yes, Watson, I believe you. I only wish that I did not… but go on."

  I did not know what else to say, and with a gesture tried to convey as much. Then we were both silent for a time. A coal falling in the grate made what seemed a loud, intrusive noise. Holmes' gaze had turned in that direction, introspectively, and the look of his face now made me fear a return of his illness of the early spring. "Yes, I believe you," he repeated at length. "And it is no blame to you that the fellow got away. If we are to assign blame for that, we must charge the Fates, or Fortune… but what good ever comes of that? You were quite right, too, not to speak of the incident to Lestrade or the others."

  "You did not see this man at Barley's yourself, Holmes?"

  "I?" He roused himself, as if surprised to find me still in the room. "No, not to my knowledge, save for a fleeting glimpse of his ragged back. I had never thought that Fate would send the waterfront killer there… but the identification seems well-founded. I am told that Jones—as Lestrade's latest pet informer calls himself—is completely positive that the man whose presence at Barley's he reported is the same who was with him at the hostel, and there broke down the doors.