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.
Chapter Sixteen
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 to the sight."
"How could you have foreseen anything of the kind? In her brief statement to the police she described the—the killer—as being friendly and helpful to her. 'Gentlemanly' was another word she used, was it not?" Lestrade had brought a copy of her first and only declaration to the hospital for us to see.
Holmes shook his head. "I should have suspected, though, that he might have inspired in her a fear and loathing that ran very deep.* It is the other side of the coin of the damnable attractiveness that these creatures possess for women. Those punctures on her throat were not made by horses' hooves or a wagon's wheels." To this I suppose I must have stammered some reply. Shortly thereafter I returned to Baker Street, while Holmes hurled himself with feverish energy into activities of which I was able to observe only a small part. He was in and out of our lodgings repeatedly for the rest of the day. On each return he asked if there were any messages, and replied to my own questions brusquely if at all.
* The whole question of Sally Craddock's true motive in fleeing the police station, if it is to be raised at all, deserves more space than is here available. I will only remark that it is a large assumption to make, that Watson invariably records Holmes' statements accurately. —D.
It was evening before he came in and stayed long enough to make it worthwhile taking off his hat. He threw himself into a chair, sought solace in strong tobacco, and altogether gave an impression of deep, struggling thought combined with near-exhaustion. I prevailed upon him to take a little food, and shortly thereafter, to my great relief, he retired, very early, for the night.
That night I found myself unable to sleep much. Up early the following morning, I peeped in cautiously on Holmes and saw with satisfaction that he still slumbered.
I had just finished my breakfast when two gentlemen were announced, and it was with some surprise that I greeted Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward. I had not seen them and had scarcely thought of them since the affair at Barley's. Looking now at their faces, which were both somewhat grimly set, I asked: "May I take it, gentlemen, that this visit is not purely social?"