The Holmes-Dracula File
Page 21
I shivered slightly, thinking the broken neck not at all likely to have been an accident. But for the time being I said nothing.
“Very bad,” His Lordship agreed, distractedly. “Watson, I suppose you have met the Harkers?”
I was thereupon introduced properly to the husband; the wife smiled gallantly and said: “Dr. Watson and I did meet last night, though we scarcely had a chance to speak to each other—the men were so busy with their work. I did mean to come back, Doctor.” These words she spoke very earnestly. “But I was delayed.”
“I do appreciate the thought,” I murmured. My eye at this moment chanced to fall upon the Harker children; they were a boy and a girl, and as I now saw, undoubtedly twins. When the girl looked at me I thought I saw in her face something wild and savage—a passing shade that I never should have recognized before I had met the Count. It may have been my imagination, for the strange look was gone in a moment, leaving only a child who regarded me thoughtfully.
At this point we were distracted by another arrival, that of Peter Moore and Sarah Tarlton, who held hands as they dismounted from a hansom and approached us. Word of the fire had reached them through the police, as I discovered later. I saw Miss Tarlton pale at the sickening smell of death-by-fire that hovered over the still-smoldering ruins. Holmes broke off a whispered conversation with Lestrade to greet them.
“I must report that my investigations have had an unhappy conclusion as regards the object of your search,” my friend informed her. “There is no longer any doubt that John Scott perished in the South Seas.”
His words were painful to the girl, but it was obvious that she no longer found them in the least surprising. She raised her chin. “And was his death a natural one?”
“I fear that it was not. But you have my solemn word, for whatever comfort it may provide, that those responsible have already paid the full penalty for their crime.”
A few minutes later Holmes and I were on our way back to Baker Street. It was, as I well remember, June 22, the day of Her Majesty’s Jubilee procession. Somewhere musicians had risen early to begin their final practice, and from the distance, strains of martial music drifted to our ears. Though traffic was already snarled in places, the whole metropolis was in a festive mood, for which its people had even better reason than they knew.
We had continued our progress for some distance into the increasingly busy streets before I broke a silence by remarking: “He is not dead, you know.”
“He?”
“Holmes... do not play games.”
My friend gave the ghost of a chuckle. “I do not doubt for a moment that the Count still lives. When he and I came to our agreement, it was not part of the plan that he should die.”
“Only that you should switch identities for a time. Well, the plan succeeded, though I never should have trusted him.” Then I bit my lip, recalling whom I had chosen to trust.
“Whatever else he may be, Watson, Count Dracula is a man of honor—a rarity in this day and age, and perhaps in any. We had a strong common ground in our enemies; once I had made sure of that, I knew the gamble was worthwhile. Dracula, his eyebrows and hair trimmed and darkened, and with a few other touches from my make-up box, remained in our apartment wearing my clothing, to let himself be kidnapped and taken to the enemy headquarters, where the men he yearned to destroy were most likely to come within his grasp.”
I shuddered.
“I shall lose no sleep over their fate, Watson, whatever it may have been. But I confess that I never expected you to be taken with him, and I had a bad moment or two when I learned of your abduction. The Count was willing to gamble that the means of kidnapping would do him no serious harm; it was a much longer chance that you took so unknowingly. I was much relieved when Mrs. Harker’s guarded telephone message came to me, through the police, telling me that you were at least still alive.”
“Ah. But how did you know that our chief enemy was Seward? And that when he came to our rooms it would be to kidnap you rather than to kill you outright?”
“My dear Watson, the next time you attempt to drug one of your patients with curried chicken, it would be well to choose a subject not yet out of his first childhood, or else far gone into his second.”
“Holmes, I—”
He waved me to silence. “I was not certain whether this move was your own idea, or—you have never done anything of the kind before—whether it might have been suggested by some seeming friend with an ulterior motive. I pretended to sleep late, but was nevertheless up in good time to eavesdrop on your entire conversation in our rooms with Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming. This gave me no reason to suspect the latter, but it strongly aroused my suspicions against Seward. When I came out into the sitting-room later, I took the liberty of stumbling against you in my bemused state, and emptied your pocket—I know in which one you always carry pills—of Seward’s gift. A little chemical analysis, and I was certain of my foe, though I still had not a shred of evidence against him save for the pill itself. The drug was an East Indian one, unlikely to be fatal but producing a violent temporary madness. Sir Jasper Meek confirmed my findings. You were meant to give it to me, then call in Seward for more help. He would thus be enabled to interrogate me at his leisure in his stronghold at Purfleet. Now I knew he did not intend to kill me outright. I replaced the pill with a harmless substitute, put the box back into your pocket...”
“Holmes, I must apologize.”
“It is not at all necessary. If your plan unintentionally endangered my life, so did mine accidentally place yours in peril.”
“How did you work out your plan with Dracula?”
“Well, he and I pushed his great box up onto the roof, out of sight, so he might appear to have taken it away. We disarranged the sitting-room to suggest struggle or flight. Then, while I was busy with our disguises, the Count had time to tell me where the enemy had formerly kept their headquarters. Leaving him dressed in some of my clothing, I went out through our old second exit, that served us so well, as you must recall, in the recovery of the Mazarin Stone. I was thus free to take effective action in the field, against an enemy who thought me safely out of his way.
“Once I had found the abandoned building described to me by the Count, and entered it, inspection soon convinced me that the abandonment could be no more than temporary. In particular, I had been intrigued by Dracula’s mention of rats that he heard there on his second visit. Now, men experimenting with transmission of plague by means of rats would hardly have allowed their laboratories to be so casually infested.
“I searched, and on a lower level, which the Count had not bothered to look at, I found hundreds of brown and black rats caged. Food and water had been provided for them, yet there was evidence of sickness, and I did not go too close. I hastened instead to enlist the help of Sir Jasper, and the faithful Lestrade. I am happy to report that the cages and their contents were drenched in carbolic and incinerated, shortly after being inspected for the last time by one of their owners, the late Dr. Fitzroy. Lestrade and I followed him back to Purfleet, while he thought himself secure.”
For a while we both were silent, as our cab labored forward in the morning traffic. Then stubbornly I came back to my subject.
“I admit, Holmes, that I may owe the Count my life. But I think he would as cheerfully have killed me, had I stood in his way. Holmes, the man is still at large, and he—he is a vampire.”
“Ha! You saw enough, did you, to convince yourself of that? Perhaps someday I shall ask to hear all the details.” Holmes folded his arms and sat back, softly whistling something from a French opera. His manner was, it seemed to me, very strangely altered from that of recent days; he could now speak lightly, almost frivolously, of this being whose mere existence had seemed likely to drive him mad.
I began another protest, which he interrupted. “So, Watson, you are now convinced. Would you like to try to convince Lestrade? Besides, with what real wrongdoing can we charge the Count? In conscience, Watson. I
do not speak strictly of the law.”
I could not immediately find an answer that adequately expressed my deep forebodings, and in a moment Holmes went on. “It has long been my practice, as you know, to bend the law for special cases. If I could do so for Von Herder, how much more for the man who has, more than anyone else, saved London? In fact, I should like to reassure the Count that, insofar as the matter rests with me, he and his kind will be subjected to no probing and no publicity.”
“To reassure him? But how are we to communicate with this man at all?”
“Your gallantry does you credit, Watson. I myself heard enough from Madam Harker, and saw enough, to convince me that you cannot be ignorant of her status vis-a-vis the Count. But to use that road would show a certain lack of artistry on our part, and perhaps a certain indelicacy as well. We must be subtle, Watson... I think some statement to the effect that vampires are unheard of in English criminal practice, worked into one of your little tales—the tale in this case made up out of whole cloth—would serve the purpose admirably. What would you say to something like The Sussex Vampire as a title?”
“I would say that any story involving Sherlock Holmes, the art of ratiocination, and vampires, cannot fail to appear more than a little preposterous.”
“Oh, I quite agree, Watson, I quite agree. But then, my dear Watson, so does life.”
THE END
About The Author
Fred Saberhagen is widely published in many areas of speculative fiction. He is best known for his Berserker, Swords, and Dracula series. Less known is his foray into mythology with Books of the Gods. Fred also wrote a number of non-series fantasy and science fiction novels and a great number of short stories. For more information on Fred visit his website www.fredsaberhagen.com.
The print edition of Holmes-Dracula File was re-released in July, 2010, by Tor Books and is available from Amazon and other booksellers.
Fred partnered Holmes and Dracula in another novel, Séance For A Vampire, released by Titan Books as part of the series: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Séance is available from Titan in both print and e-format.
Fred’s Dracula series consists of ten novels and two short stories.
The Dracula Tape
The Holmes Dracula File
An Old Friend of the Family
Thorn
Dominion
A Matter of Taste (direct sequel to An Old Friend of the Family)
A Question of Time
Seance for a Vampire
A Sharpness on the Neck
A Coldness in the Blood
Short Stoires: Box Number 50 (Can be found in Dracula in London) and
From the Tree of Time (Can be found in Gaslight Arcanum)