The Holmes-Dracula File Fred Saberhagen (feel good fiction books txt) 📖

   In my continual scanning of the crowd for any man closely resembling the photograph I had seen of John Scott, I noticed for the second time the tall, ragged rat-carrier. Having evidently completed the labors for which he had been hired, he chose to take no further active part in the proceedings, but sat perched upon a high stool at some little distance from the pit, brooding over the scene and observing with what seemed equal contempt the squealing, growling, panting, bloodied animals and the scarcely less frenzied humans. His wild, graying hair shaded much of his face save for the aquiline nose, and his right hand, propping his head in an attitude of thought, hid much of his mouth and jaw. His countenance was thus suggested to my eyes rather than seen, but I remember that the impression created in my mind by this glimpse was of a visage and a character ravaged and evil, which yet still retained ineradicable evidence of once-great nobility.

   Before my attention could become fully focused upon this man, it was drawn away by Peter Moore’s touching my arm. We had both declined to join in the rush for seats on the worn benches, and were standing, with others, not far from the head of the stair. This position had the distinct advantage that from it we could look down into the parlor, which was now almost deserted. Near the bottom of the stair young Murray was now standing, looking up, and his eyebrows were excitedly attempting to convey some message to me.

In a moment I understood. Walking toward the foot of the stair from the direction of the bar came Barley and his two confidants; the one who earlier had been visible to me only as trouser-legs and boots was now revealed as a thin young man with a heavy blond mustache.

   My eyes of course were fixed at once upon this latter individual, and sought out the tell-tale bulge on the right side of his top hat where a doctor’s stethoscope is customarily carried: I rejoiced that during my years of association with Sherlock Holmes I had not failed utterly to develop my powers of observation.

   Peter Moore at the same time was leaning close to whisper to me: “That is not John, though there’s a strong resemblance.” A few seconds, and the three men had ascended the stairs, keeping up a good-humored, low-voiced conversation among themselves meanwhile. Together they passed almost within arm’s length of where we stood. The eyes of the villainous-looking one brushed mine; even in this crowd where ruffians were more the rule than the exception, he stood out unpleasantly. His gnarled, wizened frame spoke of advancing age, an impression deepened rather than relieved by his crudely dark-dyed hair. His wrinkled face had an unhealthy, dissipated aspect; but still the firm energy with which he trod the stairs showed him to be not yet decrepit.

   The bogus “Scott” almost brushed our sleeves in passing, and I saw him glance at Peter Moore without a trace of recognition. I was just turning over in my mind the rather useless thought that now we wanted Superintendent Marlowe or one of his warehouse clerks to identify the imposter for us, and pondering what we should do without such help, when a disturbance broke out downstairs near the front door. Voices were raised, at first not very loudly but still with an extraordinary tension in them that demanded notice. Murray was signaling again from down below, but in this instance I did not grasp at once the import of his rapid, urgent signs.

   Peter Moore was reacting no more rapidly than I, and before either of us had fully grasped the nature of the disturbance, every scoundrel in the throng about us was fully aware of it, and all of them were struggling to reach an exit and escape. The fact was that the uproar in the parlor below had been caused by the entry of a large force of the police.

   As I have already remarked, rat-killing was not at that time illegal. Yet it was not unknown for the promoters of these entertainments to add to the bill such contests as badger-baiting, which were already under the prohibition of the law. In such a case those betting on the sport as well as those conducting it would be liable to be charged. Though I had seen no badgers or other animals besides the dogs and luckless rats on Barley’s premises, some of the men present must have feared there were, and that they stood in danger of involvement with the wrong end of the law.

   Another substantial number must, indeed, have belonged to that class who flee when no man pursueth. The thought that appeared uppermost in nearly every mind was that of escape. A chair was thrown, breaking a window out—but even as I turned at the noise, the head and shoulders of a helmeted policeman appeared framed in the jagged opening. The first-floor exits as well as those on the ground floor had evidently been blocked by Scotland Yard.

   Emerging from the melee at the head of the stairs I spied the tall figure of Tobias Gregson. It was only a glimpse I had of Gregson, for my eyes were needed elsewhere. The bogus “Scott,” if the man we had spotted was indeed the impostor, was still in my view, and I had no intention of allowing him to escape before he could be questioned.

   Peter Moore shared my thought, and side by side we flung ourselves into the pursuit. Though we both put forth our best efforts, however, such was the press of bodies all struggling at cross-purposes that we could make no headway.

   We were still near enough to the stair, so that when a woman’s scream sounded from that direction and I turned, I could see that it was Sarah Tarlton. She had evidently been foolish or impatient enough to enter the building after