The Holmes-Dracula File

for not giving your problem the attention it undoubtedly deserves. Now if you and this young lady, Miss…'

'Sarah Tarlton. She and John were engaged to be married.'

'Ah, yes. Now if you and I were to go and call at Miss Tarlton's hotel, do you suppose that she would be willing to come along to the Yard with us and tell her story again? I'll give my solemn word that this time she'll be listened to.'

'I'm sure Sarah will agree, if it will help to find him.'

Carrying off his oilcloth bag of evidence in one hand, while the other rested in most friendly fashion on the arm of Peter Moore, Lestrade very soon bade me good-bye. I stood for a moment at the window, and watched the two men get into a four-wheeler.

It was to be a busy evening at Baker Street. Scarcely had I finished my solitary dinner, when two visitors were announced. Once again Sarah Tarlton and Peter Moore entered our sitting room, this time together. Both were badly upset, and Miss Tarlton in particular was almost speechless with indignant rage. It did not take me long to learn the cause.

'Oh, Dr. Watson, that dreadful little man! We had been talking to him in his office for five minutes before I got the drift of his questions… oh, it makes my blood boil to think of it! He suspects. John of… oh, I can't talk about it!'

Moore, himself pale but much less distraught than the young lady, alternately held her hand and patted her arm, with a concern perhaps something more than merely friendly. 'It was just as Sarah says, Dr. Watson. The inspector wouldn't come right out and say so, but I'm sure this sudden interest of the police in finding John is only because they suspect him of being—involved—in this horrible murder. As I understand it, they think some violent patient of his must have escaped… it's really completely stupid. Where's Mr. Holmes? Is he ever coming back?'

Suddenly Miss Tarlton's anger was temporarily exhausted, and she trembled on the verge of tears. 'If only they would simply look for John—I keep picturing them shooting him down like a dog, on sight…'

Glad to be able at last to say something genuinely helpful, I hastened to reassure her that the Metropolitan Police were not generally in the habit of carrying firearms (though I knew that Lestrade for one was seldom without his pocket pistol), let alone discharging them promiscuously at suspects. When I had repeated my assurances several times Miss Tarlton seemed at last willing to believe them, but her general anxiety for her fiance was scarcely abated.

She dabbed at her eyes. 'Dr. Watson, we are abusing your kindness, taking up your time…'

'Not at all. Not a bit.'

'Did Mr. Holmes seem hopeful when he went out? Have you no idea at all when he'll be back?'

'Hopeful? That would be difficult to say,' I replied. 'I do not even know whether the fresh trail he mentions in his telegram is connected with Dr. Scott's case or some other. As to when he will return, I speak from long experience when I say it may not be till morning, or even later.'

Peter Moore pressed the girl's hand again. 'Come along now, Sarah. I'll see you back to the hotel.'

'I will not be soothed and quieted!' she burst out. 'Not while they are hunting John, who may be out there somewhere, needing me! He could be ill or dying—God, how can I simply rest?'

'Sarah, you must save your strength. If later—'

'Never mind later, they are hunting him now. Peter, I am going to go back to Scotland Yard and wait. If John is brought in I'll be there. After coming all the way across the Atlantic, I am not going to be sent off like a child to bed. You may go to your hotel and rest if you are tired.'

There followed some five minutes' dispute between the two, which I found rather embarrassing. Moore's angry pleas and arguments had no more effect upon the lady's determination than did the milder protests which I, at intervals, dared to interject. At last I judged it would be wiser to comply with her ideas as far as I reasonably could, and shortly all three of us were in a cab and headed for Scotland Yard. It seemed to me that her return visit there would be less difficult for all concerned if I were present to act as intermediary; I was well known in those precincts after so many years as Holmes' associate. His parting instructions were, of course, also fresh in my mind.

Our old acquaintance Tobias Gregson was, as I soon found out, the detective in charge of tracing all connections between the Scott case and the Grafenstein killing, while his old rival Lestrade continued to direct the overall search for the murderer.

Gregson, tall, stooped, and fair, quite courteously led the two young Americans to a comfortably furnished anteroom where, as he said, they were welcome to wait, and where any fresh news of John Scott would be brought to them at once. Then the detective beckoned me away, asking for a word in private. As soon as we were alone, I detected something like triumph in his pale face.

'Well, Dr. Watson, I suppose Mr. Holmes is close on the heels of some suspect in the killing?'

'I am sure he is very busy.'

'But not on the brink of a solution?'

'Not to my knowledge.'

'Then, Doctor, I'd just like you to hear this.'

So saying, Gregson led me along a narrow corridor. Stopping before a plain door, my guide motioned me to silence, and then opened a small spyhole in the door, indicating with a gesture that I should look in. The room revealed was large enough to hold on one of its walls a vast map of London, and a couple of policemen seated with their backs toward me. In another chair, facing the spyhole, sat an emaciated old man, wrapped from his shoulders down in a prison blanket which he kept clutched about him.

'And is that your mad killer, Gregson?' I asked, closing the judas window and turning away.

'Him?' The detective laughed softly. 'Not by a long way. No, he's charged only with stealing a blanket—not the one he has wrapped about him now, but one he pinched through an open window in Whitechapel. Nor has he the least idea that a murder's under investigation. But I think you and Mr. Holmes are both going to be mighty interested in what he has to say.'

Gregson opened the door and we both went in. The old man, who by his speech and manners gave the impression of belonging to the lower classes, looked up briefly startled, and then went on with what he had been saying:

'I tells you gentlemen, I took that bit o' cloth only in the name o' common decency, and meanin' to bring it back in the morning when the shops and stalls opened, and I could buy some proper clothes.'

Bit by bit, under the prodding questions of the policemen, the man's story came out, interspersed with his objections at being made to repeat it to them once again. The essence of his account was that he had reached into someone's window for the blanket only because he had been compelled, during the night, to sell almost all the clothing he had been wearing to a stranger. The mysterious man who had forced him into the transaction under threat of bodily harm had then paid him for his rags with gold.

'Oh, come off it, now!' Gregson's voice was suddenly thick with convincing doubt. He picked up an envelope from a desk in the center of the room, and slid a gold coin out of it into his hand. 'You stole this sovereign just as you stole the blanket. Now didn't you?'

'I never! Nossir! Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but I sold my clothes for that. Sold 'em fair, I did, and I was just a- borryin' the blanket to see me over until—'

'Yes, yes. Let's hear just once again how you came to sell your clothes. Who bought 'em?'

The man unburdened himself of a hopelessly weary sigh. 'You've 'eard all that.'

'The good doctor here hasn't,' Gregson prodded, meanwhile casting a faintly triumphant glance in my direction. 'Now, once more, if you please.'

'Well, sir.' The old man sighed again, this time resignedly. 'It were this 'ere madman, like.'

'Who?'

'Lor' bless you, sir, I didn't know 'im. And I wish I may never see the like of 'im again. Stark nekkid 'e was— talk of decency! Grip like a vise 'e 'ad, I swear. And 'is eyes—I don't like't' think on 'em, and that's a fact.'

The old man was now warming somewhat to the repetition of the tale, which after all earned him the respectful attention from an assemblage of persons who may perhaps have seemed to him important. 'The madman? I'll tell you. Myke a noise, says 'e, and the next noise 'eard in this 'ere street'll be the crunch o' yer bones a-breakin'. 'Ere, tyke this coin, 'e says, a-'oldin' up that wery sovereign, an' toss me over yer rags. An' I tossed 'em