On putting my head inside, I was surprised to find one seat already occupied, by a second man who seemed in every way a fit companion for the first, being dressed in the same rough style, and looking as desperate and dangerous. The first man now climbed in after me, and closed the door.
The cab started with a lurch, on the instant the door was slammed, and I heard the repeated crack of the driver’s whip, showing that we were to maintain a rapid pace.
Immediately I began to question my escorts, who both sat facing me. One held his right hand in a pocket, and the other held his hand under his coat, suggesting that weapons might soon appear. The windows of the coach were covered with some opaque fabric, so that I could see nothing of our route.
“Where are we going?” I demanded, in as firm a voice as I could manage. “Where is Sherlock Holmes?”
“You be with him soon enough,” said the man who had been waiting in the carriage, now speaking for the first time. He grinned, displaying white teeth in a face dark with grime and stubble.
I simply nodded, and inwardly made ready for the desperate personal struggle that now seemed unavoidable. I thought my chances would be better if I could delay it until I had dismounted from the coach.
A minute or two before the end of our ride, which, to judge by the time elapsed, had covered about two miles altogether, the sounds of surrounding traffic began to grow more remote, as if we were leaving well-traveled thoroughfares behind us. At the same time we began jolting and bumping over some surface notably rougher than even the worst of the ordinary London streets.
After a brief interval of this lurching progress, the carriage stopped abruptly. Immediately one of the men riding with me opened a door and jumped out. A moment later, I was bidden to dismount, and stepped forth to stand in heavy shadows upon the uneven footing offered by an expanse of broken pavement. Inadvertently I put one foot into a deep puddle.
The buildings nearby loomed all dark and silent, and their jagged outlines against the lighter sky assured me that I was standing amid ruins. What little I could see of my immediate surroundings strongly suggested that we were in some impoverished part of London, among structures which had been condemned or were actually in the process of being demolished. Dark, half-ruined walls reared their uneven outlines on every side, and the alley, or mews in which the coach had stopped was half-blocked by piles of rubble, among which I heard the scurrying of rats. Whatever these desperate men had in mind, no passersby were likely to interfere with it.
The second man had come out of the coach close on my heels, and the two exchanged a look before turning to confront me.
I determined to put as bold a face on the matter as possible. “I demand to know what you have done with–”
But my guides–rather my kidnappers, as I now fully realized, with the clarity of something like despair–had finished pretending to answer questions.
“Imperialist pig! Your hour has come!”
“Die, monarchist! Capitalist swine!” With that the speaker, who was now standing some four or five paces off, drew a pistol. Meanwhile his comrade, actually within arm’s length of me, fetched a short bludgeon from inside his coat.
But before either form of attack might hit home, or I could attempt to strike a blow in my own defense, interruption came from an unexpected quarter. The coachman, who had remained silent and unmoving in his high seat, suddenly lashed out with his long whip. The weapon writhed and struck like some great serpent from atop the carriage, wrapping itself solidly around the gunman’s wrist. The latter cried out in astonishment, and his weapon discharged harmlessly, sending a bullet into one of the half-ruined walls by which we were surrounded. In the next moment a harder pull on the whip had yanked him off his feet with terrific force.
At that instant I could see no more, because the man with the bludgeon raised it, rapping out an oath at the same time, and I managed to grapple with him only just in time to save myself from being brutally clubbed. Whether I or my opponent would have prevailed will never be known, for in the next moment a darting black shape had come to my defense, swirling down from the coachman’s high seat to pounce like some winged predator upon my attacker.
A moment after that, my immediate antagonist had been wrenched out of my grasp. His body now hung in the air, dangling incredibly like that of a snared bird, held prisoner in the iron, one-handed grip which had been fastened on the back of his neck by the tall, lean coachman. The latter was now standing almost within arm’s length of me, and his hat had fallen off, revealing a shock of black hair. Some yards behind him, the bully who had drawn a pistol lay sprawled facedown, as if dead, upon the broken pavement, his useless weapon at his side.
Almost before I had begun to struggle on my own behalf, the fight was over, and for the moment I was safe.
I think my last doubts regarding the coachman’s identity had been dissipated even before he used his free hand to loosen the scarf which had until now effectively concealed the lower part of his pale, cleanshaven, and somehow shockingly youthful face.
I was gasping from the brief exertion, and needed a moment or two in which to regain my breath. “Prince Dracula! I had begun to fear that my summons failed to reach you.”
“Most diplomatically phrased, Doctor.” Dracula’s well-remembered voice was deep, his English precise and elegant, though still marked with the accents of Eastern Europe. Simultaneously he let his prisoner down until the man’s feet just touched the ground. “I really came as quickly as I could. Unhappily, when your summons reached me I was not in the close vicinity of London–though fortunately I was at least in England.”
“That is fortunate indeed for me.”
“My apologies, Doctor, for any inconvenience my tardiness may have caused you. but I was unavoidably detained–ha, would you?”
This last was addressed to his prisoner, who, with some breath restored, had summoned up fight enough to attempt to kick the prince. Dracula, pinching the fellow’s neck in a way that rendered him unconscious, allowed him to slide down, to sprawl at full length on the broken pavement. Then my rescuer went on unconcernedly to explain that he had reached baker Street at about the same time as these messengers, and from the moment of his arrival had been suspicious of such a thuggish-looking trio of callers–their number had then included their own driver on the coach.
“Naturally,” my rescuer concluded, “I felt it necessary to make sure that I understood the situation before I interfered.”
“No apology is necessary,” I murmured. by this time my respiration and pulse were beginning to return to their normal rates. “My thanks for your help.”
“The determination was a matter of some delicacy.” The prince went on to explain how, employing several of the powers naturally available to his race between the hours of sunset and dawn, he had invisibly followed and then secretly boarded the four-wheeler as it pulled away with my kidnappers and myself inside.
Crouching undetected behind the driver, making use of his preternaturally keen hearing to eavesdrop on such conversation as took place inside the vehicle, Dracula had soon convinced himself that his suspicions were fully justified.
“Then it was necessary first, to interview their driver, as quietly as possible, and next to induce him to tell me where he had been told to drive the coach. I allowed him to make a quick and silent departure from the vehicle, while he permitted me to retain his whip, hat, and scarf.