Sherlock Holmes--A Betrayal in Blood

by Mark A. Latham

  Holmes stepped forwards imperiously. “Someone fetch a constable at once!” he commanded. “My colleague here is a doctor, and he shall attend to this man.”

  As if to illustrate the point, Holmes went to retrieve my bag, sweeping up the wax cylinder as he did so and placed it back in the bag. As he handed it to me, Holmes muttered: “It appears this bag is full of evidence, Watson. Guard it with your life. Of secondary note is this wretch—it would be well if you could save him, if only so that we may question him.”

  I nodded and set to work, as Holmes stood again to placate the crowd. Minutes later, the trilling of police-whistles cut through the rumblings of discontent from the assembled onlookers, and two red-faced policemen pushed their way towards us. Holmes directed them to secure a Black Maria for the wounded man, call a hansom for ourselves, and send word to Inspector Bradstreet to expect us at B Division headquarters presently.

  By the time more policemen arrived, I was certain that the German could not be saved, and he had not confided in us any last words. His breaths came in stertorous rasps, his face was a deathly pallor. Holmes was careful not to allow this grave assessment to reach the ears of the crowd until enough officers arrived to keep them at bay, for some of them still held us with a great deal of suspicion.

  I was more than thankful when we received word that the Maria had arrived—I had exhausted almost every medical procedure imaginable to make it appear that I was saving the lost cause before me. Two constables came down the path carrying a stretcher, and I helped load the patient onto it. Holmes and I in turn were escorted back to the road where a cab awaited us.

  * * *

  I stood gravely over the dead-room slab as the police surgeon carried out his examination of the body.

  “What do you make of it, Holmes?” Inspector Bradstreet asked.

  “It is curious,” Holmes said. “The man is dressed well, in a suit with German tailoring, wearing German spectacles, and has false papers about his person. His revolver is German and I imagine that, when your surgeon has extracted the bullet, it will not be traced to any maker here in England. I have a witness who has once before seen these men, and heard them declare some association with the German embassy. I would, therefore, conclude that they are indeed spies.”

  “Yet you sound uncertain?”

  “Spies, Inspector, are by their nature inconspicuous fellows. These men are not. They are large and distinctive in feature. Twins, no less, who have been seen together more than once. This man bears tattoos upon his body that would suggest some time spent in the navy—see here the obligatory anchor motifs, and the names of several Frauleins, probably waiting in various ports. Their shaving regimen is lax, their shoes caked in mud from not one but several days traipsing about. Something does not sit well with me here.”

  “Ex-navy, you say. Hired guns, then? Assassins, Mr Holmes.”

  “That had also crossed my mind, Inspector. However, I don’t believe they actually wanted to kill me.”

  “But he fired…”

  “Yes. However, I rather suspect I forced his hand by drawing a gun of my own and refusing to come quietly. From his prostrate position, he may have been firing a warning shot, which only struck home when his brother hove into his sights. I feel perhaps I am responsible for an unnecessary death, and one that will only serve to make this man’s brother ill-disposed toward me should we meet again. I fear it was a misstep—I wonder now if we should just have gone along with them and heard what they had to say. However, at the time there was no way to know if they simply planned to do away with us.”

  “About that, Mr Holmes. Waving a revolver about in broad daylight… it makes it very hard to defend you.”

  “Yet I am sure you will do your best, Inspector. Now, to your office?”

  * * *

  I took a sip of the police station tea, which was weak, and a poor substitute for a small ale at Jack Straw’s.

  “What happens now, Mr Holmes?” Bradstreet asked.

  “We go on, Inspector. Watson has had a most successful morning, perhaps better than I could have hoped for. I myself was not idle before I was forced to go to his assistance.”

  “Yes, Holmes,” I said, “how did you know to be there? It’s almost like you were using me as bait.”

  “Come now, old boy, I wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  “You jolly well would,” I grumbled.

  “We were both followed from the moment we set out this morning, Watson. I lost my man early, of course, but I had no way of warning you. Instead, once my business was concluded I set about watching the roads for you. When the wagon overturned on Spaniards Road, it was most fortunate for my purposes, for it meant there was only one way by which you would come to meet me. Of course, if you were delayed unduly, I would have assumed the worst and come looking for you at the asylum; as it was, I had no reason to suspect the Germans would do anything more than watch our movements.” Holmes turned to Bradstreet and changed the subject, perhaps hoping I wouldn’t question just how much he had left to chance with regards to my safety. “Inspector, is there a phonograph in the station?”

  “Yes, Mr Holmes. The police surgeon uses it from time to time.”

  “Excellent. Have it brought up, there’s a good fellow. Watson came by a wax cylinder from Dr Seward’s collection, and I wonder just what it contains.”

  Bradstreet sent a constable down for the phonograph at once, and in the meantime Holmes lit a cigarette and asked me many questions regarding my interview with Seward, and the subsequent conversation with Hennessey. As was his way, he interrupted often, in order to clarify some detail or other, and he seemed to devour the information with great interest.

  “I am intrigued in particular about Seward’s continued feelings for Miss Westenra,” Holmes said.

  “He carries a torch for the late Miss Westenra,” I said, “even after all this time. I believe this melancholy accounts for much of his erratic behaviour.”

  “Seward appears to me a fellow of weak mind, which would make him of great use to Van Helsing. When Seward was led into the crypt by Van Helsing, for instance, he saw what he wanted to see, because his feelings for Lucy were so strong. From all else you have told us, I would say Seward is a trifle unbalanced, perhaps as a result of his great loss. Overall, Watson, what did you make of Dr Seward?”

  “It would appear,” I began, “that Seward was once a perfectly fine doctor; well-regarded, idealistic and diligent. I would suppose that there were some notable gaps in his medical knowledge, which given his specialism in illnesses of the mind is hardly surprising, and this would account for him abrogating his responsibilities while in the presence of Van Helsing. However, it is with some confidence that I can say that Seward is not simply a man out of his depth. I found him to be a man of low ethical fibre, and prone to sycophantic outbursts where Van Helsing is concerned. Furthermore, his lack of compassion for his patients was, frankly, disturbing. Add to that his complicity in Dr Hennessey’s blackmail, and I think we have a man who is not so much in the thrall of Van Helsing, as a willing accomplice.”

  “Very good, Watson. If what you discovered about Renfield is true, then we need to widen our net.”

  “Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?” Bradstreet interjected. Holmes and I had spoken at length about Renfield on the way to the station, and we had rather kept the inspector in the dark.

  “Which part, Inspector?” Holmes asked. “The bit about Renfield having been a solicitor sent to Transylvania, or the part where Van Helsing murdered him?”

  Bradstreet’s face was a picture, and he barely managed to compose himself when the door opened and two constables entered with the phonograph. It was older and larger than the machine owned by Seward, and took both men to carry it. When they had gone, Bradstreet sat down behind his desk and puffed out his cheeks.

  “You’d better start from the beginning,” he said at last.

  I apprised Bradstreet of all I had been told by Hennessey with regard
s to Renfield, presenting to him the journal as evidence.

  “The implication is clear,” said Holmes. “Either Jonathan Harker was extremely unfortunate to have encountered almost the same maddening experience as Mr R. M. Renfield, or the entire account was a fabrication, based on Renfield’s diaries and letters to Hawkins.”

  “You think Mr Harker also complicit in a crime?” Bradstreet said.

  “It is not only Watson’s findings that led to this conclusion, but my own investigation this morning, during which I uncovered similar incriminating facts. I shall come to that in good time. Taken together, Harker’s part in this sorry affair becomes all the clearer. At first I had thought him one of Van Helsing’s useful idiots, manipulated by a cunning wife whilst in a state of ill health,” Holmes explained. “While Harker does indeed seem frail of mind, it is likely not through brain fever contracted in Transylvania, but through guilt and worry. It was a grave error on my part not to realise this sooner, for if I had known I might have been able to glean more in Exeter when I had the chance.

  “Harker’s employer, Mr Hawkins, was undoubtedly murdered by the Harkers for the purposes of inheritance fraud—a remarkably transparent fraud, at that—but now it is clear there was another reason, too. If Hawkins had lived to see the Dracula Papers published, he would have recognised Harker’s diaries as being the experiences of his former clerk, Renfield. He was likely the only man alive to know the extent of Renfield’s delusions and, being a kind man who felt responsible for his employee’s circumstances, paid for his treatment at Purfleet Asylum. What Mr Hawkins did not know was that Renfield would meet a rather ignominious end there.”

  “The murder you spoke of?”

  “Indeed. I think Watson has pieced this together well enough. Watson, would you explain to the inspector how Van Helsing managed to do away with poor Mr Renfield?”

  “If memory serves,” I began, “the events as described in the Dracula Papers run thusly. Van Helsing first asked to examine Renfield on the evening of 1 October, and found the man inexplicably raving, with no clue as to what might be afflicting his mental faculty. It is certain that Van Helsing learned of Renfield’s obsession with Count Dracula, and of the Count’s connection to the house, Carfax, after this encounter.”

  “Assuming he did not already know of it from his conversations with Jonathan Harker,” Holmes interjected. “Exactly when Van Helsing began to concoct the finer points of his elaborate character assassination of Dracula has not yet been ascertained—given the arrangement of the Dracula Papers, and the fact that they have been clearly doctored more than once, we may never know.”

  “Quite. Seward’s account in the papers tells us he saw the patient sleeping—his chest ‘rising and falling’ at least—shortly before midnight, and placed a man on watch at Renfield’s cell. The next morning, 2 October, Seward found that the man on watch had fallen asleep at his post, and therefore could not be relied upon to report on Renfield’s state. Indeed, before dragging this confession from the orderly, Seward said he found the man’s manner to be ‘suspicious’.”

  “Suggesting that there was more to his lapse of diligence than mere dozing, and that even Seward was in the dark about what had transpired in Renfield’s cell,” Holmes said.

  “I was coming to that. There was no mention of whether or not Seward checked on Renfield again that day. In fact, he was much distracted first by Harker and Holmwood, then by Van Helsing, who apparently struck out from the asylum to visit the British Museum, where he hoped to find books that might help him conquer the curse of vampirism.”

  “Books that he could have consulted at any time up to that point,” Holmes interrupted again, “and yet instead chose to return to Amsterdam on more than once occasion for the purposes of similar research.”

  “Holmes…”

  “I am sorry, Watson. The floor is yours.”

  I cleared my throat. “So we know that Van Helsing stayed in guest quarters at Purfleet Asylum overnight, and then made a show of leaving. For the rest of the day, Seward noted that Renfield was strangely quiet—what he meant, of course, was that he had received no reports to the contrary, for he did not personally visit the patient.

  “Late on the evening of 2 October, an attendant burst into Seward’s room and told him that Renfield had met with an accident. The man had cried out in his cell, and when the staff had entered, they found Renfield lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood. Seward rushed to check on the man, and quickly ascertained that his face had been beaten against the floor of the cell, his back, an arm and a leg all broken. Seward’s first response was to move Renfield to a bed, which undoubtedly caused great pain and would have hindered any chance of recovery for the broken back.

  “Professor Van Helsing was called for at once, and arrived at the cell within minutes. Van Helsing, for the benefit of the watching attendants, loudly confirmed Seward’s assessment that Renfield’s state was due to a ‘terrible accident’—that the man had beaten his own head against the floor in a fit of crazed temper, inducing a violent fit that had led to the breaking of his bones.

  “Van Helsing went to fetch a medical bag, and decided immediately to operate on the man with the apparatus he had conveniently brought along, even though he’d had no time to fully examine the patient. The attendants were dismissed, and instead Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris were sent for to assist in the surgery—I would suggest that an honest and upstanding man like Morris was required in order to witness what followed, and more to the good that he had no knowledge of surgical procedures. Harker was asleep upstairs, yet no one sent for him.

  Within minutes of looking at the patient, Van Helsing decided that the best course of action was to administer an emergency trephination, by which a depressed bone could be removed from Renfield’s skull, and any blood clot cleared. This method has been known to have an instantaneous effect, providing relief from pain and allowing the patient some lucidity—this is precisely what happened here, and Renfield was able to answer questions put to him by Van Helsing. However, it would have been impossible for any physician, regardless of skill, to gauge accurately where the hole should be bored after such a cursory examination. If the trephine was administered to the wrong location, that moment of lucidity—or, in Renfield’s case, insane insight—could only have foreshadowed death. Remember that I was an army doctor, and studied the work of George Macleod, who determined that ‘preventative trephining’ on the battlefield was an archaic practice that could do more harm than good. Macleod was writing more than thirty years ago, and yet we are to accept that Van Helsing’s knowledge is so up-to-date that he teaches medicine to this day.”

  That drew a smile from Holmes, which I took as approval. Bradstreet looked very grave.

  “In my opinion,” I concluded, “this entire passage of events was engineered by Van Helsing. Most likely, the professor paid the attendants to turn a blind eye to Renfield for the entire day, and then to beat him viciously. Van Helsing himself was ready to answer the call, and made sure that Renfield would never recover from his injuries by performing slipshod surgery.”

  “But you said that Van Helsing questioned Renfield, in front of an honest witness,” Bradstreet said. “Why would he do that, Doctor? And what did Renfield say?”

  “I am sure Holmes has an opinion as to why,” I said. “As for what was said—”

  “Renfield told Van Helsing of a terrible dream he’d had,” Holmes said. “A dream in which his ‘master’ had entered his cell, in the form of mist, and attacked him without mercy. He also told the assembled ‘Crew of Light’ that Mina Harker was his master’s next target, at which point everyone rushed upstairs and forced their way into Mina’s room, just in time to find her stupefied and covered in blood, with the Count bent over her. The dark figure escaped in a puff of smoke, and all in attendance were finally convinced of the evil that they faced.”

  “You do not sound convinced, Mr Holmes,” Bradstreet said.

  “Because it is the mo
st obvious case of misdirection I have ever heard of! Consider the evidence contained within the Dracula Papers themselves, Inspector. Abraham Van Helsing is noted for his skill at hypnotism. It would have been a small matter for him to hypnotise someone like Renfield—a highly vulnerable and suggestible individual, already prone to fantastical delusions. Using drugs and hypnotic suggestion, Van Helsing implanted the entire false memory of this ‘waking dream’, and then ensured it would become violently embedded in the man’s consciousness by having the attendants viciously beat him. After the slipshod surgical procedure was conducted, Van Helsing questioned Renfield, doubtless using some kind of verbal trigger to ensure the man relayed the concocted story verbatim. The story included some nonsense about Mina Harker being in mortal peril, and we are to accept that at that very moment—completely by coincidence—the Count was upstairs, drinking Mina’s blood.

  “Everyone in attendance rushed upstairs, leaving poor Mr Renfield alone to die from his injuries. Right on cue, they saw the Count attacking Mina Harker, but were unable to stop him escaping. Now, all of the actors in our little story were accounted for, bar one. A man who, up until now, we have believed to be innocent of any real crime, and too addled by brain fever to be part of Van Helsing’s deception.”

  “Jonathan Harker,” Bradstreet muttered.

  “Harker can’t have been playing the part of the Count, Holmes,” I interjected. “In the account given, he was present in the room, swept aside by Dracula and reduced to a stupor while his wife was bitten.”

  “There are three distinct possibilities, Watson, all of them equally likely,” Holmes replied. “Firstly, let us say that the entire episode is a fabrication. Of the witnesses, since Quincey Morris is dead, and Lord Godalming is indisposed, Van Helsing has been free to make up whatever story he likes. However, I still do not believe Lord Godalming to be fully complicit in these crimes. There remains a risk, therefore, that his conscience could get the better of him, and he could denounce the truth of these events if he ever recovers his wits. Let us then consider the second possibility—that Van Helsing recruited a man to play the part of Dracula, and the whole scene was staged for the benefit of Morris and Holmwood. We know Van Helsing has associates of strong physicality, whom he could call upon if needed—one of them lies in the morgue below us.