health, and happiness.—A. Spadaro, Merchant, Alexandria, Egypt.'
THE SEXAGENARY OF PHONOGRAPHY…
(This proved to be not as interesting an article as my first glance at the headline led me to hope.)
THE COAL MINERS' STRIKE IN AMERICA
PEARS' SOAP…
WAGES IN THE COTTON INDUSTRY—The replies from cotton manufacturers in Blackburn, Burnley, and Preston as to a proposed reduction in weavers' wages of 10 per cent., &c., were returnable yesterday, but the committee will not consider them finally or seriously until next Friday…
HUNYADI JANOS the BEST and SAFEST NATURAL APERIENT… free from defects incidental to many other Hungarian Bitter Waters…
(That friend and ally of my breathing days, Janos Hunyadi, voivode of Transylvania and later ruler of all Hungary, would have found these waters bitter to his taste indeed.)
COMPETITION for WORD to ADVERTISE a GINGER ALE— 'G.S.C.' begs to notify competitors that it has not been possible to settle this matter yet, and requests any who may have an opportunity of disposing of their word in another direction to do so. The result will be advertised as soon as a decision is come to.
CHESS
THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSS IN BERLIN
The 4th round in the chess tournament was begun this morning. M. Tschigorin played against Mr. Blackburne, but, losing his queen through oversight, gave up after 25 moves…
MERRY WEATHER'S latest Domestic Novelty is their PATENT PORTABLE ELECTRIC FIRE ENGINE for Corridors of Mansions and Institutions having Electric Light, by the utilization of the Electric Current to actuate the fire pump.
SALVATION ARMY… there are baths, hot and cold, at all our shelters, and they are largely used… all are not admitted who apply… W. BRAMWELL BOOTH
(I blessed my good fortune that I had somehow qualified in my hour of need, and reminded myself to send a large, anonymous donation when I again possessed the means.)
BICYCLE POLO at CRYSTAL PALACE This new game is played without mallets…
Steamers from Panama are now given clean bills of health, and are no longer subject to quarantine in Equatorian and Peruvian ports…
NATIONAL TRUSS SOCIETY for the RELIEF of the RUPTURED POOR…
… at WORSHIP-STREET, a sturdy little boy, very ragged and barefooted, was charged by a school attendance officer with wandering and with not being under proper guardianship… there seems to be a large floating population increasing constantly…
… the Dreyfus affair is assuming larger proportions…
IT IS A FACT!
THAT MUCH MEAT EATING produces muscular rheumatism, gout, severe pains in the limbs and joints, cold extremities, clamminess, weak circulation, Migraine (headache) AND oftentimes corpulence. People say 'the blood is the life', but such a statement is nonsense…
(Indeed?)
THE PLAGUE IN INDIA—A minimum quarantine of six days is being enforced against all 2nd and 3rd class arrivals by rail at Bombay from plague-infected areas… four more Europeans attacked by plague were admitted to hospital at Poona yesterday…
THE GREAT HORSELESS CARRIAGE CO., LTD…
(I had heard fragments of information concerning such machines, but had yet to see one.)
BARNUM & BAILEY—Greatest show on Earth—Opening in Great Olympia…
THE DIAMOND JUBILEE LACE SHIRT…
FOUND—A very large traveler's trunk, locked, of fine heavy leather, and Continental manufacture. The owner may have same by identifying the name attached…
I read that last item through twice, then stood up, folding my paper. It seemed that perhaps the bitch- goddess was going to smile on me again; and high time, too, I thought.
That night as soon as dusk had fallen I was at the given address in Westminster, having meanwhile spent some of my last coins purchasing a better hat, one which even Monsieur Corday of Paris and Vienna need not feel ashamed of wearing.
The sturdy, middle-aged woman who answered the door was polite enough, but very firm in her refusal to let me enter. She remained unimpressed by what I considered my most ingratiating smile. I would have to return in the morning, she said, when the party who had found the trunk—no, she did not know where or how it had been found—would probably be in.
Two hours after a gloomy sunrise, I was back. The same stolid woman ushered me upstairs to a somewhat exotic sitting-room, in one corner of which sat a great trunk, unmistakably mine—it was fashioned of thick brown leather, and massive as a coffin, though not so distinctively shaped.
A glance told me that the name-tag had been removed, but the lid was still tightly closed, and the great box appeared to be undamaged. Scarcely had the landlady departed, leaving me in a chair to await my benefactor, when I was on my feet again and bending over my property. I had just ascertained that the trunk was still locked, when I heard soft stirrings of human life somewhere behind me, as of several people entering an adjacent room. These sounds I ignored, until a door at my back began to open quietly.
I turned, smiling to greet my benefactor, only to behold three men, two of them holding pistols aimed in my direction whilst the third gripped some kind of cudgel. In a moment, an exceptionally lovely young woman had come through the door behind them, and stood there gazing at me as at an enemy.
The thin, intense man who was poised a little in advance of all the others said: 'These weapons, sir, are for our own protection only.'
'Indeed?' I responded. 'Even with odds of three to one? What makes you think I mean you harm—and why are you all so timid on this fine June morning?' The clouds of dawn had blown away, and somewhere in a garden birds were twittering.
'We were more timid, still, in last night's darkness,' he answered, and in his voice there was a meaning that I with great foolishness left unread. With casual contempt I turned my back on them, and bent once more to the examination of my trunk
And I froze in that position, when he added in an incisive tone: 'Let us play games no longer. I shall be greatly pleased to hear from your own lips, Count Dracula, the truth of how Frau Grafenstein came to her end.
We carried Sally Craddock straight to hospital from where she had been struck down. For several hours she lingered, Holmes and I both remaining at her bedside, and then she died without regaining consciousness. Meanwhile the driver of the dray-wagon was apprehended, but as he had been himself very severely injured in the capsizing of his vehicle, he was in no condition to be seriously questioned. Holmes recognized him at once as a minor criminal and bully.
'Of course they knew she was in the station, Watson—somehow they knew. This choice specimen was assigned to wait outside, and was quick enough to seize his chance when it came. I feel responsible for giving him that chance. I did not foresee that Sally Craddock would see the vampire's face in mine, or would react as she did
