The Holmes-Dracula File

by Fred Saberhagen

  “Mr. Holmes, my first visit to England took place but six years ago. The relationship you propose—well, doubtless it exists, since you are so certain of it. But it cannot be very close.”

  “The date of your first visit to England is quite irrelevant.” Holmes paused again, then spoke distinctly. “My parents traveled on the Continent, in the year preceding my birth. To my certain knowledge, my mother was long unfaithful to my father; and it is equally certain that one of her paramours was of your race.”

  “My race, sir, is the human race.”

  “I think you know what I mean, Count.” Holmes considered for a moment. “I have—or had; I do not know if he is still alive—a twin brother, vampire from his beginnings. You will pardon me for saying I felt an inexpressible relief on finding your trunk and thus demonstrating to my own satisfaction that you, the killer of the woman on the docks, could not be him. Since my childhood I have loathed and despised all that he stood for. All the things of the vampire world, that haunted my own early years like some—some nightmare made real. All that you are and stand for, indeed.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Indeed.” And with that the vanishingly faint humor of these unplanned repetitions occurred, I think, to both of us. Not that either of us went so far as to smile, but the air had been cleared, and now something seemed to lighten in it.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” I asked.

  “Please do. But keep your hands in sight.”

  I did, perching on my trunk. “I think that I begin to understand,” I said. As a general rule, the vampire race (I still dislike that term, but there does not seem to be a better) gains members only by adoption, through initiation, rather like a hard-core political party or a religious order. A few of us, as in my own rare case, become what we are by making, as breathing human beings, a transcendent refusal to die, a truly heroic act of will. And there is one other road to the world of the nosferatu, which I had better digress for a moment to explain. It had been known to happen that a normally breathing woman becomes pregnant (in the traditional breathing way) while concurrently carrying on an affair with a male vampire. To such a woman, twins may be born, either fraternal or apparently identical. One of the twins in these cases is firmly committed to breathing. The other will draw air to cry with when he—or she—is spanked, but is in essence nosferatu from the womb.

  But how, I hear a reader asking, how can hereditary characteristics such as facial appearance be passed on through love-making in the vampire style? I answer that, scientists are lately of the opinion that the whole hereditary blueprint is contained in each and every living cell of the body; that living body cells are contained in the blood; and that for a vampire’s lover to drink from a vampire’s veins is as traditional a part of their intercourse as is the reverse.

  “Yes, Mr. Holmes, I see,” I said to him. “And the year of your parents’ travel on the Continent was—?”

  “It was during the summer of 1853.”

  I cast my memory back, or tried to. After more than four centuries of life, sometimes only the very earliest and very latest events are easy to disentangle. “That was only a few months before the outbreak of the Crimean War, was it not? Of course. In my homeland, also, that was a troublous time. And where precisely did your parents travel?”

  “I should prefer that you first tell me where you were that summer.”

  I took thought. Was he likely to accept my unsupported word? It would have been possible, perhaps, for a breathing man of genius and determination to have established something of my biography through historical research, provided he knew where to look; and so I might be caught out in a lie. (Had I known Holmes then, I would of course have replaced that “might” in my thoughts with something considerably stronger.) In any case, the situation seemed to demand a response on a higher level than routine falsehood. True, I had begun by lying to this man, in implying that I bore him no ill-will for trapping me and shooting me, but now that denial was becoming true. In fact I had already grown intensely interested in the relationship between us, and wanted to learn the truth of it, however dangerous the truth might be. If I was not the vampire lover of Holmes’ mother, then surely someone closely related to me was—how else could the uncanny resemblance between us be explained?

  I drew in breath for speech, and told the truth. “I went no farther west than Budapest that year. And I do not remember meeting a Mrs. Holmes at all.”

  A strange constellation of emotions struggled in his face for dominance. “You would remember?” The words were half a plea and half a fierce command.

  She would have been a remarkable woman, I felt sure. “I am quite positive I would.”

  Now at last I could detect a hint of relaxation in Holmes’ posture. “That year,” he said, “my mother went no farther east than Switzerland.” His hand holding the gun had actually begun to tremble, not with tension but with its release.

  I allowed myself another smile. “Then, my dear sir, much as I would like to be able to urge some close family connection upon you now, it would appear I cannot do so.” Actually, I was not at all eager to have Holmes think me a near relative. Most murders, as we know, are committed within the circle of friends and especially of family, and the man holding the gun was obviously not pleased by the thought that he and I were bound by ties of blood.

  “As to our remarkable resemblance,” I went on, “I can only surmise that it is the result of some distant relationship—how shall I put it?—breeding true?” And even in that moment, by the Beard of Allah even as I spoke, it came to me! My brother Radu, the one they called the Handsome in his breathing days—he had in fact spent a summer in Switzerland about the middle of the 19th century!

  I tried to think...yes, that had been in 1853. But l saw no reason to announce my recollection just at present. It meant I was Holmes’ uncle, or half-uncle. Perhaps no language has a precise word for the relationship.

  If his eyes had probed sharply at me before, they now pressed like twin stakes fine-pointed for bilateral impalement. “Some distant relationship, you think.”

  “I regret I cannot lay claim to more than that. If I remember correctly, a branch of the Draculas were drawn into the Wars of the Roses, and I am not the first of my line to set foot in England.”

  “Drawn in?”

  “Yes. They would have come from France, I believe, in 1460, with one of the Yorkist lords—perhaps Warwick. I was myself still breathing, then. Whether any historical record still survives, I do not know. It is, as I say, a disappointment that we are not more closely tied.”

  “A disappointment?” He laughed, and I knew that he believed me now—because, above all else, he wanted to believe. “You will pardon my expression of relief, Count, on learning that you are not only not my twin, but cannot possibly be the man responsible for his existence.”

  I nodded, looking gravely sympathetic.

  Holmes pressed on, pouring out words that he had probably spoken to no other living being, and would probably never speak again. “I have not seen my twin since we were children. I intend never again to speak his name, and it would not pain me to learn that he is dead—certainly and finally dead. It is because of him that my father went early to his grave—because of him and because of my mother, who went to her grave even sooner—went to it, but not to stay. There followed years of hell, ending only when my father and my older brother, with their own hands... do you understand me? Hell ended for us only when her death had become final and absolute. Well, I hate her no longer.” Holmes spoke these last words as if surprised by them himself.

  He paused, he shook his head, and I saw that in a moment he had forced from his mind the horrors—as he saw them—of his early life. It is, although I did not say so to him, a family trait that one is able to control one’s own thoughts so ruthlessly and so well.

  “But all of this,” Holmes went on urgently, “even this, is at the moment of very little importance. Count Dracula, your life and mine are small things compared
to what is now at stake.”

  I looked at him closely. But no, he was still in too solemn a mood to perpetrate a pun consciously. “I do not understand,” I said. “I refer to the fate of London itself. In a moment I shall explain.” His weapon’s aim was perfectly steady again. “If, Count Dracula—if, I say—I were to permit you to walk from this room a free man, what would your next move be?”

  “I have some business in London still unfinished. When that is done I shall be peaceably on my way.”

  “And the nature of this business?”

  “Personal.” I smiled yet again, liking the way this man—my nephew, or whatever he might be—met my eye. The more we talked, the more I knew him as a true Dracula. “But then, I suppose it is public, too. Your great city will be a better place when it is done.”

  “Jem Matthews was of course a part of the same business. As was the lady on the dock.”

  “Two parts now concluded. But there are at least two more to be finished before honor will allow me to return to private life and cease to trouble your police. And now, my dear Mr. Holmes, I think that I must bid you adieu.”

  “Ah?”

  “Your friend Watson has gone for the redoubtable Lestrade, or Gregson, who are strangers to me, but whose profession I can readily enough guess. A van-load of police are surely on their way here by now. I will allow another minute or two in which to finish this very interesting talk; but then I mean to take my trunk, which you have so kindly found for me, and go on my way. Are you prepared to try to shoot me as I do?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Though my vigil at the head of the stair seemed endless, actually no more than a few minutes could have passed before there came a rush of metal-rimmed wheels against the curb below, and the sound of several pairs of feet alighting on the pavement. I went down as quickly and quietly as possible, and met a police constable and two burly men in civilian clothing, just ready to ring. Getting out of the carriage behind these men was Jack Seward, who gripped my arm.

  “Where is he?” Seward demanded.

  “Upstairs. Thank God you have come so soon.”

  ”Fortunately I was already in the city, and happened to communicate by telephone with the asylum, where they had just received your message.” Seward folded his spectacles and slipped them into a pocket, readying himself for action. “From the tone of your message, Watson, there is not a moment to lose. Lead the way, quickly!”

  We had no more than set foot upon the stairs when a shot rang out. I ran on up, and without ceremony flung open the sitting-room door, which had not been locked. Holmes sat slumped in a chair in the middle of the room, one hand holding his revolver hanging almost limply at his side, the other hand raised to his face. He was quite alone. There was some disorder evident, in the way of rugs and furniture being disarranged, and even in that first glance I noted that the great trunk was gone. Beyond the motionless figure in the chair, the door to Holmes’ bedroom stood open, and through the doorway I glimpsed a window raised, with curtains blowing in the morning breeze.

  As we burst in, Holmes raised his eyes, to scowl at the rush of men.

  “Where is the prisoner?” I exclaimed.

  “Escaped,” he answered shortly. Before he could say more, one of the burly civilian attendants had him by each arm, and the revolver had been wrenched roughly from his hand. Seward, springing past me, took only an instant to force up the sleeve of Holmes’ dressing-gown, and to plunge the needle of a hypodermic into his arm. My friend, who had begun to struggle, in another moment sank back limp and helpless.

  My anger blazed up. “You have no justification for such treatment!” I protested, and moved forward to clutch Seward by the arm. To my utter amazement, I immediately felt my own arms pinioned from behind. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it was the uniformed man who had grabbed me. I opened my mouth for another protest, and tried to pull free; but the two men who had been holding Holmes now released his inert form and came to lay their hands on me as well. Their leader still brandished his hypodermic, and as one of his confederates pushed up the sleeve of my right arm, he pressed it home. The last thing I saw before lapsing into unconsciousness was a smile of evil triumph disfiguring Jack Seward’s handsome face. .

  My return to awareness was a slow and painful process, marred again and again by irresistible relapses into drugged sleep, a sleep shot through with strange dreams or visions. At one point it seemed to me that I was manacled helplessly to a peculiar cart or bed. Again, the comely face of a young woman in a high-collared gown, a complete stranger to me, was hovering near; and I thought she exchanged words with some unseen personage just outside my range of vision. As she gazed at me the young woman seemed concerned about my plight, though she was evidently unwilling or unable to take any helpful action.

  When at last I fully recovered my senses, there was no woman to be seen. To my dismay, however, the metal cart and the shackles holding me to it proved to be only too horribly real. I was held down on my back, unable to do much more than turn my head, in a small room that was more like a cell than a bedchamber. It was sparsely furnished, and the paint on the walls was old and worn. Through shutters and bars, a sectioned shaft of wan, orange-yellow sunlight entered the sole window almost horizontally, suggesting that the day was nearly spent. The effects of the drug had evidently lasted many hours.

  On turning my head I was shocked to discover a still figure similarly bound to another cart, not five feet from my own. I leave it to the reader to imagine my sensations on recognizing in the dim light the face of Sherlock Holmes, pale and motionless as death.

  I whispered his name repeatedly, each time louder than the last, but he made not the least response; and I had about decided to see what I could accomplish in the way of obtaining help by using my lungs at their loudest, when a key rattled sharply in the lock of the stout door that formed the only entrance to the room. It opened, and Seward came in, a small lighted lamp in hand.

  “What does this mean?” I demanded of him, in quiet rage.

  He seemed not to hear, but closed the door behind him, then put on his spectacles and came forward, holding up his lamp. He bent over the inert form on the cart beside mine, and looked for a long moment before he straightened up.

  “Incredible!” Seward muttered then, as if speaking only to himself. “An amazing likeness to the Count—yes, now I see.”

  “You know Count Dracula?” I asked—rather stupidly, I am afraid. It may have been that the last traces of the injected drug were still affecting my brain.

  He turned to me with a short, unpleasant laugh. “Oh yes, Watson—Dracula and I are old acquaintances, though I had thought him six years dead. What can you tell me of how he came to be involved in this?”

  I could not have given the villain a helpful answer had I wanted to; but rather than even give the appearance of cooperation, I simply pressed my lips together.

  He shook his head, as if at an obstinate patient. “You are mistaken, if you imagine you will be able to withold information from me. There are some things I mean to learn, from Holmes or from you; and the sooner I learn them, the less painful your remaining hours will be.” He looked at me, shrugged, and drew from a pocket of his coat a small case of surgical instruments, such as any doctor might carry about with him. When the case snapped open in his hand, the gleaming knives and scissors, all familiar tools of my own trade, appeared to me in a light in which I had never before seen them.

  Seward’s hand was hovering over the open case, as if doubtful which bright implement to choose, when there came a sudden bold rattle at the door. From just outside, a woman’s voice, young and carefree, called out: “Jack? I say, are you in there?”

  Muttering something under his breath, Seward snapped shut the case again and replaced it in his pocket. Going to the door, he unbolted it and opened it very slightly. “Mina,” he remonstrated calmly, “I am afraid that there are patients here.”

  Through the partially open door I could catch just a glimpse of a y
oung woman’s face in the brighter hallway outside. It was the very face that I had seen, and taken for part of a dream, while I was still half-conscious.

  Now she replied lightly: “Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry, Jack. You look somewhat harried; is there anything that Jonathan or I can do?”

  “No, nothing, thanks. I have my attendants on call.”

  “I met one just now.” She lowered her voice. “A rather brutal-looking fellow, who scowled at me when I came down this way from upstairs.”

  “I shall speak to him. However, I am afraid I am not as free of professional matters as I had hoped to be.”

  “But two patients in one room? Isn’t that odd?” Now she was trying boldly to peer in past his shoulder.

  “Help!” I croaked, loud as I could through my parched throat, thinking that I should never get a better chance. “Send for the police!”

  Seward, not in the least perturbed, went on without even looking back in my direction. “Unusual, yes. But don’t worry your pretty head, my dear. What the French call folie a deux, meaning two patients with a shared delusion. Just for the present I don’t want to separate them.”

  “Police!” I repeated hoarsely. “Tell them Sherlock Holmes is held a prisoner here!”

  The young lady giggled, as I continued my cries and groans for help.

  Continued Seward: “As you perceive, things may get just a bit noisy here before we are finished. Don’t let it bother you; and you might just say a word to Jonathan when you go up, so he won’t be perturbed if there are a few yells. As soon as I am able I’ll join you—for dinner, I hope.”