A hunched over figure shambled inwards her through the mist and she quickly prepared to make a desperate pitch. She loosened her shawl and opened up her blouse, pushing up her breasts. She had to remember to smile with her mouth closed. so as not to reveal her missing teeth.
''Ello. Ducks,' she said, striking a saucy pose. ' 'Ow's about a bit o'- '
Two hairy hands shot out and grabbed her by her shoulders with incredible strength. She felt claws sinking deep into her flesh. She heard an animal growl and saw a face more horrible than anything that she had ever seen in her worst nightmares. She had time for one, brief, piercing scream.
Steiger poured himself a shot of straight Scotch whiskey and tossed it down, then refilled the glass. There had been two more killings. First the actress, Angeline Crewe. drained of almost all her blood, and then a Whitechapel streetwalker named Glynnis Gordon, 'Goodtime Gordy' to her friends, found in an alley with her throat torn out. They had been unable to keep that one out of the papers. Her body had been discovered by two of her neighbors and they had spoken to reporters. One paper had run the story under the headline, 'Return of the Ripper?' Another proclaimed. 'Whitechapel Murder in the Style of Springheel Jack!' And there were no leads. Nobody had seen a thing.
It was maddening. The file search of recent depositors at the Bank of England and recent real estate leaseholds had produced a large number of correlations which Rizzo and Ransome were busy checking out, but it was taking too much time. Brant and Craven were now on full-time surveillance duty, watching H. G. Wells, but he was going on about his normal routine and nothing unusual had happened. For all they knew, nothing would. It could be simple coincidence that Wells had foreseen so many future developments, coincidence that he had written about a scientist named Moreau who was engaged in biological experimentation, coincidence that he had written about time travel. And there had been nothing unusual in Conan Doyle's behavior. either. He kept consulting with Inspector Grayson, but otherwise, he did not seem to he involved in any temporally anomalous events. Only Neilson had come up with any signilicant information as a result of his cover position at the crime lab. What he had come up with wasn't much, but it was cause for worry.
'I think we've got at least two of them.' Neilson was saying. 'The Crewe murder was different from the other two. She fits the classic profile of a vampire's victim in fiction. Whatever happened to her, she apparently went along with it willingly, or at least willingly in the sense that she wasn't assaulted with the same physical force as the other victims. There may have been some other form of duress, perhaps psychological, maybe even biochemical, because she apparently never complained about what happened to her.'
'What do we know about her?' Steiger said.
'From what Grayson told Conan Doyle in my presence.' Neilson said, 'all I know is that she had recently arrived in London from Richmond Hill. Her family is very well off. They weren't very pleased about her wanting to become an actress. She was seeing a young man named Tony Hesketh, who has apparently disappeared. Hesketh may have been bisexual. Ile was close to some of the young men in Oscar Wilde's circle and he was last seen at the Lyceum Theatre in the company of a dark, foreign looking man dressed in elegant evening clothes and an opera cape, described as a Mediterranean type, a gentleman, elegant and striking looking, with a title.'
'Sounds like Count Dracula.' said Finn Delaney. Steiger gave him a sharp look. 'You don't think…'
'I was only kidding.' said Delaney. An anxious expression crossed his face. 'I think.'
'Let me see those lists,' said Andre. She grabbed the lists of recent bank depositors and real estate leasehold transactions and started scanning them.
'Oh, come on,' said Steiger. 'Drakov would never be that obvious.'
'I don't know,' said Delaney. 'It could be just the sort of thing that would amuse him, throwing down the gauntlet that way. Jesus, a genetically engineered vampire. And if such a creature's genetic makeup was also contagious-'
'It would be, knowing Drakov,' Steiger said.
'How about that for temporal terrorism?' said Delaney. 'Unleashing a plague of vampires and werewolves on Victorian London. And the timing is positively macabre. Just one year before Brain Stoker started work on Dracula. One year before The Time Machine was published.'
'And it was always believed that Stoker based his character on the historical Dracula from the 15th century,' said Andre, still scanning the lists. 'Drakov might just have decided to make the character truly historical. And the similarity of their names, that would only be one more thing that would make the idea appeal to him.'
'Anything?' said Steiger, watching her scan the lists. She shook her head.
'You know, we may be overlooking something, sir.' said Neilson. 'What about rentals?'
'Jesus, rentals!• Steiger said. 'How the hell would we ever track down rentals? There's just no way!'
'Possibly not, sir,' Neilson said, 'but on the other hand, would Drakov really go in for a bed-and-breakfast sort of deal? I mean, it doesn't seem very likely that he'd rent ordinary moms like your average London boarder. He'd want something bigger, probably, more private. An unused estate, maybe, or a warehouse-'
'A warehouse!' said Delaney. 'And all the killings so far occurred within the same general area, the East End of London, within easy access of the docks on the Thames.'
'Neilson, you seem to be the only one who's doing any thinking around here.' Steiger said. 'Start checking the warehouse district on the docks during your off-duty hours from the crime lab. I'll try to get you some help. There can't be that many warehouses standing empty, so you can automatically eliminate the ones in active use. Maybe we're finally getting somewhere. Christ, it's like looking for a goddamn needle in a haystack. Somehow, we've got to get a break on this.'
'What about the newspaper reports?' said Andre.
'Not much we can do about them now,' said Steiger. 'I'd rather have them writing about a new series of Ripper murders than vampires and werewolves loose in London.'
'There's one more thing, sir,' Neilson said. 'The man who's missing, Tony Hesketh. It may not be a bad idea to stake out his apartments. If he returns, he may no longer be the same if you know what I mean. He's been missing for about three weeks. I don't know how long it would take for the viral genome to bring about a mutation, but if he's not dead, he may provide us with our first real lead.'
'Good idea,' said Steiger. 'I'll pull Rizzo off the estate search and assign him to watch Hesketh's rooms. Have we got an address on him?'
'Not yet, sir,' Neilson said, 'but I might be able to sneak a look at Grayson's files and get it.'
'All right, do it. But be careful. Don't get caught. We can't afford to have you sacked from your job at the lab. It's been our only source of information so
Simon Hawke
The Dracula Caper far.'
'I'll be careful, sir. 'Okay. get going.' Steiger checked his watch. 'Who's watching Conan Doyle now? Craven?'
'Yes. I had her relieve me for about an hour so I could make the briefing.' Andre said.
'All right, get back there. She'll have to relieve Brant at Wells' house in several hours and I want her to be fresh.' 'How are you holding up?' said Delaney.
'I'm not getting much sleep, if that's what you mean,' said Steiger. 'But then holding down the fort has never been my style. I'll be glad when something breaks and we can stop stretching ourselves so thin. But until then, it's got to he a waiting game.' He tossed back another drink. 'I only hope we won't have to wait too long.'
The small, slightly built man with the prematurely grey hair and beard stood in the entrance to the offices of the Pall Mall Gazette, holding a folded copy of the paper in his hand and glancing around nervously.
'Excuse me,' he said, stopping a young man walking past him 'are you on the staff here at the newspaper?'
'Well, after a fashion. I suppose, — said the young man. 'How may I help you, sir?'
'My name is Moreau. Dr. Phillipe Moreau. The gentleman who wrote this story, about the killing in Whitechapel_• 'The murder of the prostitute, you mean?'
'Yes. I was wondering if I could speak with him.'
'Well. I am afraid he is not in the office at the moment. Dr. Moreau, and I have no idea when he will return. I was just leaving myself. I am not actually on staff here: I write occasional articles, but perhaps I can assist you?'
'Oh, I see. Well, I don't know. Mr. — '
