The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(24)
Chapter 05
THE TOBACCONIST’S SHOP
“32 Percy Street,” Holmes called to the cabbie. “Off Tottenham Court Road, and time is of the essence!”
“You say that time is of the essence?” Count Dracula said with that odd, foreign formality of his.
“Lives are at stake,” Holmes said flatly. “Possibly Mina’s.”
I held open the door, but Count Dracula, instead of climbing into the cab, paused before the horse in front, a tired-looking roan mare. Here he paused to stroke the mare’s neck and whisper some words to her in his native tongue.
“’Ere now,” the cabbie said from the driver’s box.
Dracula ignored him, but kept on whispering in the horse’s ear. A remarkable change came over the roan, who transformed from the dull creature she had been to a spirited marvel, quivering all over with barely suppressed excitement. The Count leapt with startling agility into the carriage and bodily lifted the driver out of the seat as if that robust man were nothing more than a small parcel. The driver picked himself up off the road and began to protest, but Dracula’s wrathful countenance and Holmes’s hastily produced sovereigns turned away any objections he might have had.
“You might have purchased a horse and hansom for half of what you’ve just thrown him,” I said to Holmes.
“I fear we already have,” Holmes said.
“We are ready,” Dracula said. Holmes and I entered the cab as the Count watched us from the box above with his inscrutable dark gaze, a considerably unsettling situation.
“South,” Holmes said as we sat down. Even before the word was finished, the Count clicked his tongue and the horse leapt like a creature on fire. I gripped Holmes’s arm to keep him from tumbling out and it was all Holmes could do to get the door shut behind us before we were rattling down the cobbled street.
Dracula held the reins, but did not seem to be using them. Or else, he used such a light pressure as to be undetectable to my eye. But never did any horse on road or track run with the speed and unerring step as did our roan. Even more bizarrely, the other carriages and even people had an uncanny tendency to manoeuvre out of our way, so we flew through the streets like a veritable bullet.
Holmes had the window on his side open, so he could lean out and call out directions. With his unparalleled knowledge of London, Dracula’s uncanny driving, and the roan’s ceaseless efforts, we had reached and passed Regent’s Park before I’d even realized it. Dracula led the horse briskly around obstacles with seemingly no regard for the safety of anyone, including ourselves. A sudden torrential downpour struck us with unbelievable and terrible force, drenching Dracula and our horse at once, though neither took the slightest notice. Holmes and I were little better off, as enough slanted rain came through the open window that we might as well have been outdoors ourselves.
A curious thing occurred to me as we went: while the night around us was clearly quite cool, I was shocked to realize that the chill did not touch my skin in any sense. I should have been shivering and covered in gooseflesh under my wet clothes, as Holmes was, but those days were gone to me. Perversely, though I never once remember being grateful for the opportunity to shiver in the cold and wet before now, I found I missed the sensation once it was gone.
“Where are we going, Holmes?” I called out over the rain and noise.
“I visited several dens of the kind you described,” Holmes said, “and believe I even found the man, the vampire, with the blond mutton chops that you reported as supervising your convalescence. There, I learned some very interesting facts.”
“You spoke to him?”
“I didn’t have to, Watson. Even had I not noticed the chalky dirt on his shoes, I should never have missed, even on my dullest day, the shovel he left carelessly leaning against the wall. It, too, had the same kind of earth on the blade. There is little by way of chalky dirt in the surrounding area, so a cellar was the logical answer, only the establishment didn’t have one. I might have had a long search for the correct cellar if the man had not smoked many cigarettes in rapid succession.”
“How on earth could that have possibly helped?” Even if I hadn’t been in a carriage running at full tilt and had more time to ponder, I couldn’t imagine how the two facts could be linked.
“It was the nature of the cigarette, Watson,” Holmes said. Then, holding his hat on with one hand, he leaned partway out the window, shouting out his next direction to the Count, who turned the carriage with a suddenness that threatened to tip the entire vehicle over onto its side as well as plunging us heedless into a narrow street thoroughly choked with traffic. Another carriage suddenly appeared in our path, but the horses shied out of the way while our brave mare plunged through the sudden break in traffic with headlong abandon.
“It was another of our Indian cigarettes, Watson,” Holmes said, falling back into his seat, but otherwise continuing his explanation as if we weren’t about to cause and participate in a violent traffic accident, perhaps several. “I have mentioned their rarity, but another consideration is that they do not come cheaply. When I see a man, vampire or otherwise, with threadbare clothes and patchwork shoes, drinking the cheapest whiskey he can get but smoking expensive imported cigarettes, I begin to wonder if he might not have some connection to the same dealer we had reason to seek out the last time such an uncommon cigarette crossed our case. Sure enough, I returned to Govern’s shop and found traces of the same earth on the doorstep, though none outside. I surmise that there is work in the cellar, but to what purpose?”