Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #2. Darrell Schweitzer

      At that moment the Hansom came to a halt. We three debarked. The cab hurried off. I ran ahead of the two humans, into the gloom. The hideous smell of the river and of river rats was ahead of me.

      Holmes and Watson hurried to keep pace with me, their great, clumsy feet thundering on the pavement. Dr. Watson gasped between breaths.

      “This theory, Holmes, seems perfectly insane—”

      “Watson, at such times it pays to be a little mad!”

      “And you, the rationalist!”

      Holmes made no reply to Watson’s taunt, for we had come to our destination, a deserted wharf amid tumbledown warehouses. The fog was so thick it seemed a solid thing. Even I shivered.

      Holmes struck a match for light. He held the paper from inside the locket up so Watson could read it.

      “It is a shipping document,” said Watson. “In receipt of five boxes of earth . . . what would anybody want with those, Holmes?”

      “Observe the crest, Watson.”

      “An odd one. With a bat—”

      “It is the arms of a certain voivode of Transylvania, a Count Dracula, about whom many terrible things are whispered. Now all the pieces of the puzzle come together. This Dracula, in the employ of the Hanoverians, under the direction of Moriarty—”

      “I don’t understand, Holmes.”

      Impatiently, Holmes got out the locket and showed Watson the reverse.

      “It’s the same crest, Holmes, to be sure, but—”

      I let out a screech of challenge, and at this point Holmes had no time to deal with Watson’s thick-headedness. A low, flat barge drifted out of the fog toward the wharf, heavily laden with long, rectangular boxes.

      “Quick, Watson! Under no circumstances must that vessel be allowed to touch land!”

      * * * *

      The two of them ran to the end of the wharf, and with a long leap all three of us landed squarely in the middle of the approaching barge. Watson’s thick head proved to be of some service at this point, I must admit, because even as we landed one of those disreputable foreigners arose from behind one of the boxes and clubbed Watson with a stout cudgel, which would have broken his skull had it not been so thick, but instead sent him tumbling back against his assailant, who was thus set off balance.

      Sherlock Holmes, strikingly agile for a human, had all the advantage he needed. He dealt with the single live crewman on the barge, leaving him unconscious at his feet.

      But even he could not quite grasp the true danger. I was the one who first appreciated the significance of the horrible carrion smell which wafted from the boxes, now all the more intense as the lids of those boxes creaked and rose up, opened from within.

      In the struggle, Holmes dropped the gold locket. It gleamed even in the poor light.

      The thing, which streaked out of one of the boxes far more swiftly than the other occupant could emerge, went straight for the locket, swatted it to one side, then to the other, then turned to confront me.

      “Mine!” I communicated, in the secret language of cats, which no human may ever understand.

      When I call it a cat, I use the term loosely, for though it had the form of a huge, black-furred tom, it was a dead thing with burning red eyes and glistening fangs. We struggled even as Holmes and his opponents did, both seeking to regain the shiny locket-and-chain, while we rolled right to the edge of the barge’s deck, mere inches above the noxious water.

      That was when the inspiration came to me, though I paid a terrible price.

      I let go of what was mine. Instantly my enemy grabbed hold of the chain with both forepaws and became entangled, and it took but a single swipe for me to knock him over the side into the water. The carrion-thing let out a hideous yowl, then exploded into steam upon contact with the water and was gone.

      As was my pretty treasure.

      * * * *

      The rest is less interesting. Holmes, seeing a variety of carrion humans emerging from the wooden boxes, heaved first the barge’s anchor, then the semi-conscious Watson and the inert crewman over the side and leapt into the water himself. He stood up, awash to his shoulders. I might have been in a difficult situation had he not allowed me to ride atop his head all the way to shore, while he dragged Watson and the nautical thug.

      Once on land, we watched the hideous spectacle of the carrion things stumbling about, seemingly unable to figure any way out of their present predicament.

      “The vampires are rendered helpless by the running water of the good Thames,” Holmes explained. “So enfeebled, they cannot even raise the anchor. Daylight will force them back into their boxes, where they are easily destroyed.”

      “What I don’t understand,” said Watson, the following morning, back in Baker Street, “is how the locket got there in the first place.”

      While they spoke, I lapped a well-deserved saucer of milk, despite Watson’s disapproval.

      “I think Count Dracula—who was not among the vampires destroyed, and has yet escaped us—was betrayed by his cat.”

      Holmes got out the locket and dangled it by its chain.

      Watson stuttered. Even I looked up in amazement.

      Holmes laughed. “When the sun rose and the tide went out, I hired one of the Irregulars to splash around in the shallow water until he found it.”

      The thought of a “street arab” immersing himself in the nasty element to recover my prize made me think that even boys have their uses.

      “Dracula’s feline,” said Holmes, “must have passed from ship to shore many times, perhaps carried by a human agent, to serve as a scout. On one of those missions, it stole the crucial locket, hen, losing interest, abandoned it. The object is a perfect cat-toy, don’t you think?”

      He dangled the beautiful thing on its chain. I watched, fascinated. But I continued with my milk. It was mine, after all, and I could play with it later.