half a step behind him, the strongly-built man who had so mysteriously and opportunely come to my aid at Barley's. He had impressed me then as brave; now his brow was furrowed, though not, I thought, with any fear of me. He kept darting glances at the dominant figure of his chief, and bit his mustache as if in worry.
The third man was quite young, and almost tremulous—I dismissed him, and my gaze moved on, to rest on the young woman. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to write that all idea of danger was at once swept from my mind. Let me say instead that her presence placed before me so strongly all of life's joyous possibilities, that its cares and even its perils appeared much diminished in importance.
'Your look mocks me, sir,' she said, with hardly any tremor in her voice, while her eyes boldly met mine.
My admiration was increased. 'Nay, I never mock beauty, and still less courage,' I replied. And now at last I locked my gaze against their leader's. He reminded me of someone—I could not at first think who. 'Fair warning,' I added. 'Do not fire those guns at me.'
'As I have said,' he answered, 'they are for our own protection only. And now, Count, the truth, if you please, about Frau Grafenstein.'
'Are you a policeman? Even so, I will not countenance your meddling in my affairs.'
'I know that you killed that woman, and that you drank her blood.' It was a prosecutor's voice.
'I was extremely thirsty,' I responded, and saw the youngest and least steady of the men turn half away, shaking his head and muttering something to himself about the mother of his God.
My violent demise, when it comes, will doubtless be attributable to my own overweening pride. With fine contempt I turned my back upon them all, and reached out again toward my trunk, thinking to pick it up and carry it away at once. The sound of the pistol behind me was quite loud within the four confining walls. Across my left forearm, extended to grip a handle of my box, a white-hot iron was laid, or rather smashed with numbing force. For a moment I believed that my arm had been utterly mangled, and I am afraid that I stared like a dunce at the sudden drip and flow of my own red blood along my wrist and fingers.
But the arm, though punctured, was still essentially intact. Once more I turned, and looked into the unflinching eyes behind the smoking pistol-barrel. 'My congratulations,' I offered, 'on thinking of wooden bullets. I had begun to believe all Englishmen were fools.' Now that my eyes were opened, I could see that what I had taken for a crude club in the hands of the youngest man was in fact a finely-pointed wooden stake.
My chief opponent—indeed, the only one of the four worthy of the name—bowed slightly, without relaxing either his aim or his alertness for an instant. 'My apologies, Count,' he murmured, 'but I considered it necessary to demonstrate at once the effectiveness of our weapons and the firmness of our purpose, lest you should force us to put them immediately to the ultimate test. I should be disappointed if I have no chance to talk with you before anything of that sort occurs. Do you require medical aid?'
I only smiled. The girl sharply drew in her breath. The young man shrank back half a step, then, as if ashamed of this reaction, moved forward until he stood an inch or two closer to me than before.
But still it was only to the leader that I spoke. 'Of course I will talk with you. For this contretemps in which I find myself I have only myself to blame, Mr.—?'
'Allow me to remedy the lack of formal introductions all round. Count Dracula, Dr. Watson, Mr. Peter Moore of New York—Miss Sarah Tarlton, also an American. And my name is Sherlock Holmes.'
Holmes' name was of course at that time widely known, in Europe and indeed across the world, and he spoke it with the air of a man quietly and confidently playing a trump card. Alas for the isolation of my Translyvanian backwater, which I had so rarely left! The utter blankness with which I received the name of Holmes must have struck his proud nature with something of the force of deliberate insult.
At the moment I only knew, without realizing why, that he had suddenly gone a little pale. 'Watson,' he grated, 'Moore—Miss Tarlton. You will please leave me alone with this man, at once.'
Watson was considerably agitated. 'Holmes,' he whispered, 'Holmes, let me fetch Lestrade.'
'Very well,' Holmes agreed, somewhat (as I thought) to Watson's surprise. 'Only leave us, immediately!'
Young Moore stumbled as he backed toward the exit, his horrified and fascinated eyes never leaving my face. Sarah Tarlton turned her back on me and walked out with alacrity, as if guided by some instinct to seek the more wholesome world beyond the door. Watson made a methodical retreat. His last perturbed glance as he went out was toward his leader.
Perhaps they were all too well accustomed to taking Holmes' orders to question this one, or even try to understand its purpose. But I—I understood. When the next shot was fired, there were to be no witnesses.
As my friend and I drove east through the city again, in response to the telegram from Superintendent Marlowe, I asked: 'Even if we are right to assume that the man did recently arrive in London by ship, how are we to distinguish his baggage from that of a thousand others?'
Holmes smiled. 'I have not told you yet of my interview with the informer, Jones. The peculiar man Jones met in the hostel actually asked him where unclaimed luggage from the East India docks would be taken. Jones could not provide the information, but fortunately we have the means of finding it out.'
'Jones told Lestrade of this also?'
'He did.'
'But the police have made no effort to follow up this clue?'
'Lestrade only shakes his head, and shares your doubts about the possibility of distinguishing the baggage that is wanted. But—if my hopes are justified—it will be distinguishable because it is unique. What does a vampire need, Watson? What does he need even more than the blood he drains to slake his fearful appetite?'
With my heart sinking, as it did each time evidence of Holmes' unfortunate mental state was forced upon me, I muttered and mumbled something to the effect that I did not know.
'His earth, Watson! Some nest of the snug soil of his homeland, for in nothing else can he find rest. If we do not find a large trunk or box containing earth, then my hopes are not justified, and our quarry is a vampire native of England, merely returning from abroad with commonplace luggage of dirty laundry and spare shoes. Oh, they are human, you know, in many ways. Damnably like us, except…' Holmes' voice trailed off. His hands were both tightly clenched on the grip of a large carpetbag he had brought along from Baker Street, and he looked as grim as I had ever seen him. 'But, if we do find a trunk filled with earth, in that moment a great cloud will lift from my mind.'
'Then your wish to find it,' I put in impulsively, 'cannot be stronger than my own.'
'Good old Watson! You are speaking sincerely in that much, at least. No, never mind about the rest. In time you will be convinced—I pray that the time is not too late.'
Soon we were rolling to a stop at our destination, a Thames-side warehouse much like the one in which we had first met Superintendent Marlowe, and not far distant from it. Inside the building, we found him with two workmen, amid a huge pile of baggage of every description.
Marlowe, electric lamp in hand, was standing before a huge, brown leather trunk. 'We have followed your instructions to the letter, Mr. Holmes,' he announced by way of greeting. 'This is the only thing of its size brought in as unclaimed this past month from the East India docks. It is locked, you see, and we have done nothing in the way of trying to open it.'
'Excellent!' Holmes turned over the tag appended to the chest, which had only a light film of dust upon its surface. The tag was marked with the name M. Corday, and showed that the trunk had been shipped within the month from Marseilles to London.
'It's large enough to hold a body, as you said,' the superintendent offered, while the eyes of the workmen widened as they listened. 'You think, sir, that's what's in it?'
'Our task will be much simpler if it is. Kindly move it over here to the center of the open floor.'
As if nerving himself for an ordeal, Holmes now drew from his pocket a small metal pick, and with this he attacked the lock. I saw a fine tremor in his hands, and twice his tool slipped from the narrow keyhole. His face was a mask of great restraint. At last, seeming to master his nerves by a supreme effort of will, he succeeded in working the mechanism.
