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

      “Ah, no. My husband’s plans are grander. He has arranged a holiday for our party, at some spa on the Black Sea or nearby. His plans are still somewhat mysterious.”

      “I love a mystery, madam. Would that it were possible for me to join you.”

      “That would indeed be pleasant — doctors. Both of you.”

      The man I thought of as Floyd had been pulling at his beard and glancing intently from Mina’s face to mine and back again. I realized belatedly that my hair had fallen aside from the center of my forehead.

      “Dr. Corday,” he began hesitantly, “I hope you will not think me impertinent — I really have some professional interest — would you think me rude if I were to inquire how you happened to come by the small scar on your forehead?”

      “Not at all, Doctor. I incurred that peculiar mark some five months past, at the hands of an acquaintance of mine.” As I spoke I realized how much my conversational English had improved since I first encountered Harker in Castle Dracula. “Guest in my house at the time; given to nightmares, unfortunately. Chap became quite violent on one occasion, and we were both of us in good luck that no more serious injuries occurred.”

      “Thank you. I — I was emboldened to ask because …” His eyes drifted again to the mirror image of my scar, that stood in bold red upon the fairest brow in all the world.

      “The scar upon my forehead is a sensitive subject with me,” said Mina boldly. “If you are curious, know that it is the result of a physician’s faulty treatment. I wish to speak no more about it.”

      “Your pardon, madam.”

      “Not at all, Doctor.” Mina’s voice was reasonably gay again.

      “Dr. Corday.” The Viennese turned to me, obviously with a change of subject in mind. “You were telling me of your consulting service in London.” Blocked in one investigation, he would pursue another. And his voice now held a hint of command: how could I refuse to answer his queries directly now, when such a change in the conversation would serve to cover a lady’s embarrassment?

      Coming toward our table were two waiters bearing food and drink through the car, one had a black eye. And behind these, as a ship of the line was wont to enter battle behind a screen of skirmishing destroyers, came my old foe the conductor. Doubtless he was just passing through the car — not even a wanted murderer would have been interrupted in mid-meal on that train — and meant to bide his time before confronting me again. But the presence of Mina inspired me, and I launched into a sudden speech that was as much for the conductor’s benefit as it was for my possibly dangerous breakfast companion.

      “You see, my friends,” I announced rather loudly, “in London I function chiefly as a consultant for Moule’s Patent Earth-Closet Company.”

      “Moule’s —?” Floyd dabbed uncertainly with a napkin at his fine brown whiskers.

      “Earth-Closet Company, of Covent Garden. Moule’s Company now make earth closets for the garden, closets for shooting boxes, closets …”

      A look of refined social horror, I saw with concealed jubilation, was now welling up in the doctor’s face. The same expression was mirrored in Mina’s countenance, and in the conductor’s lordly visage as well, where, as I saw to my relief, there was also the dawn of a certain understanding.

      “Closets for cottages, closets for anywhere. Earth closets complete are now made, fitted with pull-out apparatus; fitted with pull-up apparatus …”

      I did not see then, and do not now, why subject matter fit for the front page of a respected newspaper should be abhorrent at table; doubtless this attitude is a result of my irrepressible medieval barbarism. Giddy with success and relief, however, I pressed on, driving the foe metaphorically before me:

      “Closets made of galvanized or corrugated iron, to take to pieces for easy transport. Can be put together in only two hours. To work satisfactorily only require to be supplied with fine and dry mold. Closets built on this principle never fail, if properly supplied with dry earth; of which, for demonstration purposes, I am carrying a supply of superb quality in my trunk in the baggage car at present …”

* * *

      At Ulm the train crossed the Danube and I thought briefly of getting off and trying to make the rest of the journey by water. Breakfast had concluded in morose near-silence and I was not sure that Mina would be willing to speak to me again for some time. But my calculated boorish-ness had had the desired effect, where any amount of suave verbal fencing might well have failed; the Viennese had broken off his questions, and whenever the conductor passed me he now made sure to avert his gaze. I was a social time-bomb liable to explode again at any moment aboard his train.

      But my ticket read through to Bucharest, and to get off sooner would draw even more attention to myself. Enough was enough. No one would bother my trunk now, by day or night.

      At Vienna, my young doctor-friend with the so-thoughtful eyes got off the train. He was courteous to stop to offer me a handshake before we parted, at which time he also raked me with one more friendly but penetrating glance that showed I would not soon be forgotten.

      “Auf Wiedersehen, Dr. Corday. It has been a fruitful journey for me — a most fruitful journey in some respects …”

      I returned his handclasp warmly and with mixed emotions. I would under other circumstances have enjoyed his company and delighted in his penetrating thoughts, but at the moment I was quite glad to see his back.

      Budapest was only a short stage farther on our journey, and by the evening of October fourteenth we had passed the stops at Szegedin and Timisoara, the latter once the Hunyadis’ headquarters. Yes, I was now nearing home. Again and again I breathed the air, simply to catch now and then, through numbing coal smoke, the