The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen (best black authors TXT) 📗

      The voices of Quincey and Arthur were pitched too low for ordinary ears in my position to have picked them up, but I had little difficulty.

      “In Texas we call a who-er a who-er,” Quincey was whispering with some vehemence. “You sure that li’l red-haired piece is one, whyn’t we up and put the question to her? Ask her if she’s got a girl friend aboard, too. Things’d be more comfortable that way.”

      “It isn’t always done that directly and bluntly, old fellow, as you never seem to learn. This is not Africa, after all, nor the South Seas.”

      “That’s what you said in London, too. And matters there worked out pretty well, the way I handled it. Right?”

      “The woman there was absolutely terrified, dear chap, after you claimed to see a bat, and fired your Colt out the window for target practice …”

      “My practice is at present rather limited,” my new friend was saying, closer to my ears. He seemed in a way attracted to me, as one unusual person is sometimes drawn to another even when neither knows the exact quality of the other’s strangeness. “I have devoted so much energy lately to these researches on the effects of cocaine, and on the energies of the mental process as they may affect the physical health.”

      This last caught my attention with a jolt. “Most interesting, Doctor,” I said with feeling. I had surmised his title by now if I was still ignorant of his name.

      My companion had fallen silent, pondering something, letting his cigar go gray.

      “Shouldn’ta had that las’ brandy if this’s to be my night to howl, but t’ hell with it. Now I’m gonna mount that red-haired catamount or know th’ reason why … Art, you are sure she’s a who-er?”

      “Quite, quite. One can learn from listening to the servants, you know, even as they learn from us. One must conduct negotiations through them, I’ll wager, for the favors of this auburn-haired charmer and any companion she may have aboard …”

      “And did you say you had a practice now in London, Dr. Corday?”

      “Ah, not precisely, Doctor, no. Rather I am a consultant there on various physiological and medical matters … for several firms …”

      My processes of invention, never very strong, were flagging rapidly. I did, however, by speaking slowly and with thoughtful pauses, manage to stall my interlocutor until Quincey and Arthur had got up again and left the car, evidently to begin negotiations. I thought Arthur trailed rather reluctantly behind his friend; Lucy had been in her grave for only three weeks, and dead for only two. Perhaps I was naive, but it came as something of a surprise to me to learn that ladies of the evening regularly rode the wagons-lits in luxury across the Continent. But why not? Money and boredom both abounded on the Orient Express, and I believe there is something intrinsically exciting in the quick motion of a train.

      When my new friend and I did leave the smoking car I arranged matters so that he preceded me through the train, opening doors as we came to them; thus I was given an invitation into each sleeping car that I had not yet visited. At this early hour of the night the ladies’ car was of course still passable by gentlemen. Inside it, only glass panels and a frame of wood separated the compartments from the more or less public aisle; but damask curtains covered most of the glass, and I still did not know in which compartment Mina was going to lodge.

      “Ah, it is an extravagance, this train,” my unwitting benefactor murmured after we had passed on into a gentleman’s car and were pausing before the door of a cabin that was evidently his own. “For myself, that is. But I wanted to be alone, and in peace for a time, to think … there is so little time for thought.”

      “I have noticed that in my own affairs,” I rejoined sympathetically. “Well, I trust I have not unduly distracted you from your thoughts, Doctor. Your research sounds immensely interesting and I look forward to hearing more of it in the near future.”

      “You are going to Vienna?” he asked.

      “A much greater distance. Business will eventually take me as far as the Black Sea.”

      “Well, we shall certainly have time to talk tomorrow … at breakfast, perhaps?”

      “Why not?” I would always be able to plead some minor indisposition while at table; and if it became necessary I could even swallow some bland food, to be regurgitated later.

      “As for interrupting my research, distracting me, Dr. Corday, do not give it another thought. No, you have given me …” He broke off with a little laugh. “Food for thought,” seemed to be the unstated conclusion of his sentence. “Do you know, when first I saw you on the platform there tonight, I fancied you had …” But at that point he had to break off again, with a little smile followed at once by a very serious look of introspection. What he thought he had seen out there was too ridiculous for casual, social discussion.

      I answered his smile. “I look forward to hearing of it in the morning.” And I bade him goodnight and went on to my own room.

      Once in, I locked my door and of course went out again through the closed windows. Hat folded into my pocket against the blast, I worked my way aft again toward the women’s quarters. Intelligent, practical Mina had contrived to open her window curtains enough for a cinder-scorched wayfarer hanging from the train roof to see inside, where she and Jonathan now sat primly tête-à-tête.

      Primly is perhaps not the right word, for as he sat there he was whetting his huge, murderous new knife, the weapon with which he hoped to send me to eternal punishment. It was a type of knife called Kukri, as I recall, favored in those days and earlier by the Gurkhas of Nepal, and acquired by Quincey or Arthur in their