of some middle-sized disaster. The great majority of these beds were empty.
The disaster of which we were the victims was of course the world—such was my dark thought as I looked upon the beds, and smelled the misery, and heard from the troubled sleepers in the next room almost continual groans, interspersed with strange prayers, oaths, and all the muttered illogic of bad dreams.
With my new companion I proceeded slowly along the row of bleak containers, of which we had our almost complete choice. The instinct that had drawn me to enter this place still held, and I still trusted in it, though as yet I could not see that it had helped me in the least. The sailor by now had begun to talk of the possibility of finding work along the docks, where no man was asked for his background or his papers. As I half-listened to him, my attention was captured by a curious fact: the odd receptacles before me were covered, one and all, with oilcloth, tightly sewn on. I squatted down beside one empty box to feel of the material, so very like that of my erstwhile prison rack.
The sailor had come to a stand beside the next coffin in the long row. Now he cackled, having put a perhaps natural misinterpretation upon my behavior. 'Not quite yer silk or satin, is it, Matey?' He had promptly sized me up as one used to richer surroundings than these.
I stroked the fabric. 'I was just wondering why they used this stuff?'
'Why?' He bent a little, to peer at me the better. 'Why? 'Cause erlcloth won't offer a snug place't' no bugs. Wot did yer think?'
'In any case, I tolerate no such creatures about my person,' I replied, absentmindedly fastidious. No doubt my voice contained more lordliness than appeared warranted by my situation.
'We-ell! I craves yer pardon most 'umbly, I'm sure, Yer Grace. Or might it be Yer Worship, or jist wot?' He felt strong, with my soup to fortify his belly.
But I was paying him very little attention. Holding in one hand the thin blanket I had been issued upon leaving the canteen, I stepped into that strange bed as I might have moved from a sinking ship into a lifeboat that I did not expect would float. If I could not find here the repose that I had so far been denied, I knew that I must die with the first rays of dawn.
My neighbor meanwhile was stripping himself completely in preparation to retire. This seemed to be the common practice here, judging by the clothes piled up where other men were sleeping, doubtless on the old theory that a bare skin is less attractive to vermin than one snugly wrapped. I had limited my own undressing to the removal of my cheap cloth cap; and now I noted in passing that the long hair swinging before my eyes had, since my heavy feeding, acquired a strong mixture of youthful brown amid its gray.
There was no point in further hesitation, and quickly I lay down, and quickly knew my doom. No sooner had I willed to rest, than came again the quivering spasms along the muscles of my arms, my back, my legs. To turn in my bed, to stretch, to twist, to exert the full power of my will, availed me nothing. I could not be still. No matter what I did inside the oilcloth coffin, I should never be allowed to rest.
Why, then, had my deepest instincts led me to this strange bed? I sat upright and glared at it.
The sailor, now snugly blanket-wrapped in his own box, appeared almost luxuriously comfortable. ' 'Is Mightiness maybe finds the shape of 'is bed not to 'is fancy? Har, har! Doss down in yer coffin like a brave 'un, Milord!'
I turned my gaze upon him, suddenly and with what must have been an unexpected force, for he fell abruptly silent and shrank away, squinting narrowly at me with his one eye. Yet I was hardly aware of the fellow himself. It was the full unconscious meaning of his words that had struck me—aye, struck me!—with almost the impact of a second oaken cudgel, so that for several long seconds I could hardly, move. Lord… yes! And coffin… yes!
But it was
With a single shock, the shards of my broken memory fell almost completely into place. I cast the poor thin blanket down and slowly stood erect, rising there amid the lost men, the gloom, the mumbled, hopeless prayers and curses, the fetor of illness and defeat.
Aye, 'Your Grace' I once had been, indeed! And even higher honors than a dukedom had been mine. In my own land I had ruled as Prince, four hundred years and more before this fool who gibed at me was born! The sailor crouched far down, then made as if to scramble from his box upon the side away from me. There must have been low growling in my throat, as I stepped from that false coffin. My long-nailed fingers must have worked, as if the man named Matthews and the still-nameless doctor were before me.
Where was my trunkful of good Transylvanian earth? It must long since have been unloaded from the ship, whose gangplank I had descended to the London dock… great heaven, how many unresting days ago? I had voyaged to England again, of course, because of…
'Mina!' I groaned aloud, casting the name of my beloved violently into that foul air. It was with relief sharp enough to be a shock that I realized in the next moment that my dear Mina must be quite safe, long miles away in Exeter. Her absence left me unencumbered for the war to come.
Oh, it was going to be a war, indeed! I knew not how many were against me, opponents clever, mysterious, and powerful. But the odds would not be all upon my enemies' side, although I fought alone. They were but breathing men, and I was vampire, immune to metal, knife or bullet; with the strength of twenty always in my sinews; capable during the hours of night of changing my form to that of an animal, or of a mist impalpable, and changing back again to man.
And no one in the world of 1897 had more experience of war than I—
As we rode from the docks back to our lodgings, Holmes maintained an irritable near-silence. Twice he began remarks upon extraneous subjects, but in each instance let his sentence die incomplete, and in such indifferent fashion that no reply seemed called for. This was so at variance with his customary manner of speech, and with his usual ability to divert his thoughts at will from professional matters, that it confirmed my impression of his having been profoundly disturbed by the riverfront murder.
'Holmes,' I offered, with the idea of diverting him, 'have you given any consideration to watching Her Majesty's Jubilee procession? There are people asking outrageous prices for the mere privilege of sitting an hour or two in a window of a room along the route. With half a dozen strangers as company, I suppose.'
'Bah, I have no time,' Holmes muttered. His tone was scarcely civil, and he continued to stare from the window of the cab as if hidden among the passers-by there were some arch-enemy who had just managed to escape him.
As we alighted from the cab in Baker Street, a ragged urchin darted toward Holmes from a nearby doorway, where he had evidently been in wait.
'Got yer message, sir,' this small and rather unsavory person reported, giving his hatless forelock a touch that bore some resemblance to a military salute. 'I been to the Northumberland, and neither the boots nor the maids remembers any particular gentleman wot would answer the description, sir.'
'Well done, Murray.' Holmes dropped coins into the grimy hand that shot out to accept them. 'And what news of the dogs and rats?'
'Market in stray dogs is quite steady, sir. In rats—to tell the truth, I ain't been able to find out. None of me chums with connections along that line has been where I could discover 'em. I'll be going right off to 'ave another look.'
Holmes dismissed the lad with a nod. When we had ascended to our rooms, I ventured to inquire whether the state of the market in dogs or rats might have any bearing upon any of his cases with which I was acquainted.
Stuffing his pipe with dark shag, Holmes only grunted in reply, and passed over to me without comment a visitor's card that had been left while we were out. The name it bore was that of Peter Moore, the American manufacturer of medical and scientific goods. The back bore a short written message:
Will call again in an hour or so. Am very anxious that everything possible be done to find John Scott.
