Séance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen (top ebook reader TXT) 📗

“What prevents his doing so?”

This question was answered with a frown and a gesture of impatience. “I tell you, he may be dying and need your help. You are to talk with no one, leave no writing, but come instantly with me.”

Scrutinizing more the gnarled old briar pipe with a silver band around the amber stem, I had no doubt that it was one Holmes had had with him on our journey to Amberley. It had very probably been in his pocket at the time of his disappearance.

The messenger was watching alertly, and I decided to defy his orders openly.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, seeing me take pen and paper at my desk.

“I am leaving a message–whether you approve of the act or not.”

Under his scowling supervision, I jotted down a few words for Mrs. Hudson, briefly outlining the circumstances under which I was being called away and instructing her to notify the police if she did not hear from me again within six hours. I folded and addressed the paper, and left it in a prominent position upon my desk.

Then, with great misgivings, but seeing no other course of action open to me, I went with my strange guide down to the street. At our door a four-wheeler stood waiting. The driver, his face muffled by hat and scarf, leaned down from his high seat to exchange a few words in a low voice with my escort. Obeying an impatient gesture from the latter, I opened the door of the coach and climbed in.

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,