Sherlock Holmes--A Betrayal in Blood

by Mark A. Latham

  “Pike?” I asked.

  Holmes smiled as he tore it open, and sat in his favourite armchair by the fireplace to read it—an armchair that was somewhat tatty since the German intruders had paid a visit. I ate my breakfast distractedly, eagerly awaiting the news.

  “Watson, I am afraid this matter requires my urgent attention. I must go to see Pike this very afternoon.”

  “If we must, Holmes,” I sighed, not relishing a meeting with the languid fop.

  “No, Watson, I must go alone, for we cannot diverge too far from the plan if we are to bring our case to a swift conclusion. You shall go to see Seward—you are the better candidate for the trip anyway, given your credentials. I’m sure I would only put Seward on the defensive. All you need do is delve into the tragic case of Seward’s notorious patient, Renfield. If that isn’t enough to provoke agitation, throw in some insinuations about medical malpractice on the part of Van Helsing—that should do the trick.”

  “We want him to become angry?”

  “Absolutely. He is no good to us if he’s thinking straight. If you are able to pry into the affairs of the asylum further, pray do so—I am certain Seward keeps a good many records, and perhaps the rest of the staff recall the fate of Renfield.”

  “I am not averse to the idea, Holmes, but I believed this visit to Seward to be of singular importance. I would rather you were there to ensure the plan is executed smoothly.”

  “I trust you implicitly in this matter, Watson. Now, finish your breakfast and make a start. I shall meet you for a spot of luncheon at Jack Straw’s Castle—shall we say one o’clock? I had better change if I’m to meet Pike—you know how he cannot abide slovenliness. I shall see you this afternoon.”

  * * *

  I was thankful that the previous day’s particular had not lingered overmuch, although the air still smelled smoky and stale, like a card room the morning after a lengthy session of whist. Upon our last visit to Purfleet Asylum, Holmes and I had entered the grounds by stealth. This time, I gained admittance at the gate, and strolled along a broad drive that wove through manicured grounds towards the large redbrick hospital. A few inmates pottered around the lawns, taking exercise, with white-coated orderlies close at hand. Caretakers, doctors and civilian visitors seemed free to mingle amongst the feeble-minded patients, affirming what Holmes and I had already discerned—that this establishment in no way catered for lunatics of a truly dangerous bent. Lunatics such as Renfield.

  R. M. Renfield represented a conundrum in the Dracula Papers. A madman of great unpredictability and physical strength, he was supposedly under the psychical influence of the Count, although his past history with Dracula was not detailed in the papers. Categorised by Seward as a zoophagous lunatic, he had spent much of his time under Seward’s care collecting flies, which he then fed to spiders, and then to sparrows, which he in turn ate. His great mania was the belief that all life was equal, and that by consuming life in ever-increasing quantity he would somehow gain power like his “master”, Count Dracula. Dr Seward had made a morbid study of the man, encouraging his fixations to the point of irreconcilable lunacy, which had surely contributed to Renfield’s death. A death that had occurred away from all witnesses, in a cell occupied only by Renfield and Van Helsing. The professor’s sworn testimony was that Dracula had materialised in the cell and killed Renfield, but there was no other witness to support this account. To my mind, for the death of Renfield and the quackery that had surely sent Lucy Westenra to an early grave, Dr Jack Seward had much to answer for.

  Arranging an audience with Seward was easier than I had anticipated. Once a duty nurse had established my credentials were in order, I was asked no difficult questions about my business at Purfleet. It seemed that the entire staff was used to impromptu visitors, from benefactors to professional men curious about the latest advances in alienism. The doctor himself was on his morning rounds, and in his absence I was extended every professional courtesy, being given a cup of tea and shown presently to Seward’s office, where I was asked to wait.

  The tremendous opportunity of sitting unaccompanied in Seward’s office was not lost upon me, and I at once set about examining everything I could, employing the methods that Holmes had for so long tried to impress upon me.

  The office was not over-large, and even in the morning an electric lamp was on, as only a small, barred window in the south wall provided natural light. I would have expected Seward, as the administrator of a private establishment, to choose a more comfortable office for himself.

  Dominating the room was a large desk, scattered with many papers and books. I tried each of the six drawers in turn, finding only two unlocked. In one was a stack of papers too dauntingly large to sift through in the uncertain amount of time I had. In the other was a folio of hospital stationery, ink, pens and a blotter. More interesting to my eye was a small bottle tucked towards the back of the drawer, containing chloral hydrate. It was perfectly plausible that Seward kept it for use on his patients, but there were no other drugs about the office, as far as I could tell. I recalled that he had admitted in the Dracula Papers to using the drug.

  I closed the case and the drawer, and looked around quickly. There was a large file-chest against the wall, and a side table next to it upon which sat Seward’s prized phonograph. It occurred to me that the chest might contain Seward’s wax cylinders, and so I opened a few of the drawers, and found my assumption confirmed. Each drawer contained rows of neatly arranged cylinders, each marked only with a small label, upon which was a date written in the nigh-illegible scrawl of a doctor—a good reason why he favoured dictation over a handwritten journal, perhaps. The cylinders were arranged only roughly in date order, as though they had been taken out and played multiple times. I cursed the fact that our copy of the Dracula Papers had been stolen, for I had not had the chance to memorise many of the key dates. However, there were two periods that I had committed to memory: 17 September—the night Lucy Westenra’s mother died in such dramatic fashion—and 2 October, when the lunatic Renfield had been killed.

  I searched as quickly as I could, trying not to disturb the cylinders such that Seward might tell they had been tampered with. To my frustration, it appeared that the entries for the dates I required were missing. I wondered if Mina Harker had ever returned them to Seward after transcribing their contents, or if they had been destroyed so that the only remaining evidence was Van Helsing’s narrative. This begged the question of why so many cylinders for the year 1893 remained. Did they merely contain records of his patients, unrelated to the Dracula Papers? Or were they additional diary entries that Seward had deliberately withheld?

  Spurred on by that thought, I continued searching even as I heard footfalls in the corridor outside, drawing steadily closer. I turned each cylinder towards me quickly and methodically, scanning each date and then turning it back as I’d found it. I heard a voice, and was sure my name was being spoken some short distance away. The footsteps resumed.

  At last, I saw with small triumph the date “21 September ’93”. This was close enough—indeed, it was the date of Lucy Westenra’s funeral, if my memory did not deceive me.

  Shoes squeaked on the floor directly outside the office, and I acted purely on instinct. In a trice, I had taken the cylinder, and pushed the others back to close the gap. I shut the drawer as quietly as I could, slipped the cylinder into my bag, and bent over the phonograph machine as if in study of it, when a man entered the room and cleared his throat.

  “A beauty, isn’t she? Dr Watson? I am Dr Seward.”

  I straightened, and turned to shake the man’s hand, conjuring my most congenial smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance; I have heard so much about you.”

  “All of it good, I hope?”

  “Thank you for making the time to see me,” I said, side-stepping any insincere platitudes. “You must be a very busy man, with such a large establishment to run.”

  “Yes, but part of the task of overseeing a successful private hos
pital is entertaining visitors. We thrive on donations from patrons as well as payments from families of the sick. And, of course, the odd referral from respected physicians never goes amiss.”

  “It is interesting that you brought up the subject, Dr Seward. Was it a referral that brought the infamous zoophage, Renfield, into your care?”

  “No, as a matter of fact it was chance alone. I imagine any number of hospitals could have admitted him, but it was strange happenstance that brought him to my door.”

  “Might I ask who it was that paid for his care? Family? An employer?”

  “I cannot discuss the private affairs of patients with just anybody, Dr Watson—even those of deceased patients. And you should know better than to ask.” He affected a scolding tone in an awkward jest. “Now, Doctor, I am sure you are not here to pick my brains about finances, and you have certainly not come to make a donation, though I hope I may persuade you of the value of our little enterprise all the same.”

  “It is true, I am here primarily on business of another kind; although, as a man of medicine, I am always ready to expand my knowledge of other disciplines.”

  “Excellent! An open-minded man is always welcome at Purfleet, I assure you. However, I must urge you to speak plainly about your other business here. I have heard, of course, that the famous Sherlock Holmes and the indomitable Watson have taken an interest in the Dracula Papers, but I would hear your side of the story first.”

  Seward said this with a grin and a conspiratorial wink, which I could not truly understand. If he had heard I was investigating him, then why would he appear so at ease? Holmes had said that Seward might well be innocent of all but the adulation of his old teacher. I, on the other hand, harboured a deep suspicion of the man, both for his delusional medical procedures that doubtless saw Lucy Westenra into an early grave, and for the cruel and unusual way in which he nurtured the mania of his patient, Renfield.

  “I would say that I have no ‘story’, Dr Seward. My friend Sherlock Holmes is investigating the precise circumstances around the death of Miss Lucy Westenra and—”

  “Why?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “A court of law has already ruled that no wrongdoing occurred, which means that the legal system has admitted the existence of vampires. So why would Sherlock Holmes concern himself with any of the details of the case? Unless, of course, he has taken a turn for the mad and you really do wish to admit him. Wouldn’t that be delicious? Imagine the study that could be made of such a brain.”

  Seward was quick of wit, certainly, though somewhat haunted about the eyes. His interruption had thrown me slightly from my rehearsed lie. I could not very well confess that Holmes had been set on this path by a brother in government.

  “Information has been passed to Mr Holmes that raises questions of reasonable doubt over the veracity of the Dracula Papers,” I said at last.

  “Raised by whom?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “I admire your integrity, Doctor. However, I stand by every word of the Dracula Papers, and would swear to its factuality on oath. There is an end to it.” He folded his arms, and gave me a satisfied grin.

  “Every word?” I asked. Seward’s smile faded a little. His eyes shadowed.

  “Yes.” He sounded uncertain.

  “It is just that—and please excuse my directness—there are some details within the papers that I had assumed to be honest mistakes, certainly on the parts of yourself and Professor Van Helsing.”

  “Professor Van Helsing does not make mistakes,” Seward snapped, jerking forwards angrily, and then quickly resuming a more relaxed posture. He leaned back against the door, and smiled again, only this time there was a twitch to his lips. The light in the room was poor, but I believed there was a jaundiced cast to Seward’s features and a puffiness around the eyes, that spoke to his reliance on chloral hydrate.

  “Then the mistake must have been yours, Doctor, unless you can explain to me otherwise.” I held his gaze firmly. Although I had been instructed to antagonise the man, I also had to extract some facts from him—it was a fine balancing act, and I was uncertain if I had the guile to succeed.

  “I shall endeavour to assist if I can,” Seward said.

  “Miss Westenra’s physical state—the symptoms described in the papers sound remarkably like anaemia, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet she was not treated for the condition?”

  “Lucy’s many symptoms were enough to convince Professor Van Helsing of the real cause of her illness. He alone amongst us had seen such things before.”

  “Symptoms such as…?”

  “Rapidly fluctuating levels of energy, occasional delirium and… and the marks upon her throat.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. All but the marks were plainly caused by conditions well known to science, though apparently not to Seward. The marks… after hearing Holmes describe the deliberate pricking of small children by the “bloofer lady”, I imagined someone close to Lucy had made those puncture-marks. All of this went unspoken. Instead I prompted, “But you did analyse her blood?”

  “And found it healthy. This is on record.”

  “But no such test exists that could rule out anaemia, Dr Seward. If she was drained of even a small amount of her blood, it would have been paler, and you would have surely seen a marked drop in blood pressure. By a similar token, if anaemia was to blame, a qualitative analysis would have overlooked—”

  “Dr Watson, I was trained by Van Helsing himself. Perhaps his methods of diagnosing exotic blood disorders have not reached these shores yet.”

  “There is nothing exotic about anaemia.”

  “And there was nothing anaemic about Lucy!” Seward’s eyes blazed. Seeming to realise that he had become angry, he thrust his hands into his pockets. “Besides, the Count was possessed of so many uncanny abilities, the professor has often postulated that he could control the very blood in his victim’s body, like the moon pulling the tides. His influence would have made my tests quite inconclusive.”

  He sounded sincere enough, but his words could easily have been spoken by one of his patients.

  “Which is why you initially thought Lucy’s symptoms were mental, rather than physical?” I asked.

  “I had much reason to suspect a mental cause for Lucy’s problems at first, Dr Watson. She was suffering from terrible nightmares—what some might call ‘night terrors’—and sometimes this led her to bouts of sleepwalking. This habit returned in Whitby, where once she walked out in the night along East Cliff, and was found by Mina in a terrible state.”

  Something about his tone set my mind working, and I interrupted his flow. “You sound familiar with Whitby, Dr Seward,” I said. “I myself was there only recently, but for the first time. Did you visit often?”

  He paused, his large eyes scanning my features. “Not often, although I did pay a visit to Lucy and Mina at the start of the summer.”

  All at once I recalled reading a similar allusion in the Dracula Papers, but had put it down to an error in the telling. So, Seward had met Mina Harker before Lucy’s death—I was not certain whether this fact was significant.

  “Was it a casual visit, or were you already worried about Lucy’s health?” I asked, trying my best to maintain a friendly tone. “If you must know, Dr Watson, I received a telegram from Miss Murray—now Mrs Harker—expressing concern for Lucy’s state of well-being. Of course, I travelled there as soon as I could.”

  “What about her own physician?”

  “It was natural that she should call upon me. Lucy and I were… close… once upon a time. That’s all.”

  “Well, if the Dracula Papers have taught us nothing else, it is that Lucy Westenra was an extraordinary young woman. I mean, she must have been, to have so many good men prepared to lay down their lives for her.”

  “She was the best of women, Dr Watson. The Dracula Papers give only the vaguest insight into Lucy’s qualities. She was fickle in love, c
ertainly, but she was not the empty-headed girl that some might think.”

  Seward sounded melancholic in the extreme. The Dracula Papers certainly had made Lucy Westenra sound somewhat woolly-headed, but Holmes and I had already seen evidence to the contrary in her correspondence with Miss Reed—correspondence that Seward presumably knew nothing about.

  “I say this only reluctantly, given your obvious strength of feeling,” I ventured, “but something has troubled me deeply since I read the Dracula Papers, and it has nothing to do with vampires.”

  Seward said nothing, only looked at me earnestly with his dark eyes. I found what I had to say unpalatable, but remembered Holmes’s instructions, and so determined to be resolute.

  “The blood transfusions given to Miss Westenra… the basis for their medical efficacy is thin indeed. It might be said, by those experienced in such matters, that such transfusions could only have served to expedite the patient’s passing.”

  At those words, all colour drained from Seward’s face. His expression became so grave, and his pallor so ghastly, that I felt wretched for my indelicacy.

  “I would never have harmed Lucy. Never. My love for that fine girl forbade such a thing. The Hippocratic Oath forbade it.”

  “The Hippocratic Oath requires that one provides a regimen for healing the sick, based on one’s ability and judgement. It does not preclude… errors.” My stomach turned somersaults as I continued goading the man, but I did my best to set my features and steady my hands. I was determined to get the measure of him.

  “Errors of judgement, or of ability?” This question was delivered almost with a snarl. Seward walked past me, and sat in his chair so that the desk was positioned between us. Either he felt vulnerable to my questioning and sought sanctuary in the familiar, or he looked deliberately for a way of projecting some form of authority over my challenge. What better way for a mind-doctor to do that than to take up the position of consultant, forcing me to assume that of the patient.