Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula

by Steve Seitz

  “Use silver bullets,” Janos huffed, and we approached the massive wooden door to the great hall, which would not budge, push though we might. There was no knocker, no bell, no way to signal anyone who might have opened it. The ancient lock resisted Holmes’ best efforts to open it. We must have wasted half an hour. Our exertions caused the gipsies much amusement. At last one of them took pity on us and gestured broadly from the stable, where the horses were being cleaned and fed. Inside was an unlocked door to the main building.

  With a laugh, Holmes led the way inside. The door led to a storage room, where we found plenty of animal feed and similar supplies. Another door in the storage room led to a narrow hallway, which we followed to empty and dusty servants’ quarters, and then to the kitchen. To our surprise, the pantry contained great smoked hams, bread, dried fruits, cheese, and other victuals that seemed to me, in my now famished state, like ambrosia.

  “Well, let the gipsies have their horsemeat ragout,” said Holmes, placing one of the hams on the counter. “It may not be English, but at least it is food I recognize.”

  “Aren’t we going to tell them?”

  “Of course, but they’ll refuse. The count employs them; they won’t wish to offend.” He left to fetch wine, finding Tokay of acceptable vintage.

  As Holmes predicted, the gipsies declined Count Dracula’s food. After we supped, we expanded our explorations to the rest of the wing. We decided to start with the great hall, which was growing darker by the minute. The remains of giant logs lay in the fireplace, and they made me realize how cold the room was. We spent the next hour putting a fire together and lighting candles.

  When we were done, eerie shadows danced everywhere in the vast, ancient granite room. On one wall was an enormous and intricate tapestry, depicting the history of the region; we saw Turks and Wallachs in battle, their swords dripping with bright, crimson arterial blood, the flickering shadows giving an illusion of movement to the gory tableau. One particularly gruesome scene depicted dozens of Turks writhing in the castle courtyard, all impaled on massive stakes, as the lords sat dining and watching them die. The image has lingered with me, particularly since it appears the courtyard where the gipsies have pitched their camp is indeed the site of the charnelhouse depicted on that tapestry.

  Turning away, I examined the portraits that hung on one wall by the wide granite staircase, which led to darkened medieval hallways. Clearly, these men were all of the same lineage; strong men with aquiline noses, bushy dark hair when young, and receding hairlines when old. All had thick, shaggy eyebrows; most wore beards or mustaches, and none looked pleased to be sitting for their portraits.

  I cast a look at my friend, who was just leaving the great hall to explore the other rooms. Holmes’ own narrow, hawklike visage and widow’s peak would not have been out of place in this family.

  The Dracula wealth was in evidence everywhere. Dinner would be served on elaborate plates of gold, and the furniture, though centuries old, was exquisitely crafted, and I realized that much of it must have come as prizes of war from Turkey, perhaps even as far back as the Crusades. The portraits, landscapes and battle scenes amounted to a priceless art collection.

  “No mirrors,” Holmes said, returning from the hallway.

  “Perhaps the Count is a vampire after all, Holmes. The lack of a reflection would give him away.”

  “My good fellow, there are no mirrors precisely because the Count does cast a reflection. How else to maintain the illusion?”

  I nodded. All I wanted was to find Harker and head home.

  “Well, there is no doubt now that Harker made it this far,” he said, catching my gaze. “I’ve found Dracula’s library. It’s a bibliophile’s dream, Watson. I only wish I could take a month to explore it. And the documents! Some of the Dracula papers are three hundred years old, and yet the handwriting on them is identical. What an odd family trait!”

  “Or perhaps Dracula is deliberately imitating it to maintain the illusion of immortality,” I said.

  “Very good, Watson. Be that as it may, Dracula has been busy learning all things English. He’s been studying the language, literature and history, but he doesn’t seem too interested in current events. There are no English newspapers, and only a handful of magazines sent to him this year. The library also serves as his office, and in it I found Harker’s address-book, some documents he brought with him, and return tickets.”

  “So Harker may still be here.”

  “We may hope, but the dates on those tickets passed weeks ago. The fact that they have not been used is most disturbing. We must conduct a search of the area.”

  As Holmes surmised, Harker’s chamber was not far from the main hall. We found several octagonal chambers, each with a large bed, dressers, and sitting furniture, all as elaborate and old as that in the main hall. These, no doubt, were intended for the castle’s tenants. Yet only Harker’s was prepared for occupancy. The other rooms were old, dusty, and long disused.

  “I think it’s safe to say we should be searching for a burial site,” Holmes said as we explored Harker’s room. “His luggage, shaving-kit, clothing, stationery, are all here.”

  “There’s a little blood on his razor,” I noted.

  “A few flecks, easily accounted for by a bad shave,” Holmes replied. “You’ll notice that Harker’s shaving-glass is missing, too.”

  I tried the window. Locked.

  “Holmes, isn’t it possible that he simply made his way to the stable and stole a horse?”

  Holmes shook his head.

  “Had he done so, he certainly would have contacted Miss Murray. Have you tried the doors, Watson? Except for a stair to the floor above this one, anything leading to other parts of the castle is locked. I’m going upstairs now.”

  “Holmes,” I asked, “where does Count Dracula sleep?”

  “Certainly not on this floor,” replied Holmes. “Come along.”

  The floor above was much like that adjacent to the great hall, but there were fewer suites on it. I thought they might be servants’ quarters; some rooms had more than one bed, and they were smaller. Servants’ quarters, but no sign of any servant.

  This struck me as odd. Even if the Count lived alone, surely he would need at least a temporary maidservant to cook and clean while he was entertaining a guest. I’ve never heard of nobility making up a bed.

  A cold rush of air from a window prompted me to summon Holmes.

  “An open window! That is interesting,” he said. Then his eyes widened, and he searched his pockets for his magnifying glass and measuring tape. Getting onto his knees, Holmes shuffled around the chamber performing the strange-looking ritual of measurement, grumbling and muttering the apparently random observations that cause so many to question his sanity. Yet no one can deny the results he achieves with it.

  Several moments passed as he examined the window and its casement.

  “Before I poke my head out, Watson, take a look at these marks in the dust. See those round depressions? A man’s knee. The ovoid ones? Bootprints. The bootprints of a man tall enough to reach the casement with his knee, and desperate enough to believe this to be the way to freedom.”

  “Harker?”

  “Who else?”

  Holmes flung the window open wide, and I looked out on the dark Transylvanian valleys under the waning daylight and gathering clouds. A strong wind blew toward us and before long, it would be raining.

  Leaning out, I saw a steep castle wall. The window opened to the south, and this part of the castle was built on a sheer rock face, down to the distant tree line below. As clouds darkened the sky, I saw bats flitting about, and heard the cries of wolves in the wind.

  The terrain below the tree line was a thick, black forest, its dark mass broken by the rivers and tributaries that irrigate this land. Too far away for any but the most forlorn,
the only sight of hope: the road to Bukovina, which looked like a piece of twine meandering through the hills.

  “I don’t like that wind, Holmes. Are you certain you wish to-”

  He silenced me with a gesture. Now, glass in hand, Holmes leaned out.

  “Hello! What’s this?” he cried, and almost leaned too far. I pulled him back.

  “This may be the route after all!” he cried. “Hold onto me! Take my legs!”

  As Holmes dangled from the window, I had fearful visions of raindrops blinding me, of my grip slipping, of Holmes vanishing with a scream into the trees, and my having to explain to his brother and to the world what it had lost in this remarkable man.

  “Got it! Pull me up!”

  My muscles were beginning to strain. I wanted to scold him for his carelessness, but was pleased that he trusted me so implicitly; as, indeed, would I trust him should I wish to do something so foolish.

  But his face beamed with pleasure, and between his fingers was a single swatch of brown cloth.

  “What does it mean, Holmes?”

  “Harker, Watson! But he didn’t plunge into the trees!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are handholds in the castle wall. Harker noticed them and used them to escape. Take a look at this cloth. Pure English-woven cotton, just like the trousers hanging in Harker’s closet. Everyone here wears linen. No one else could have left this.”

  “Are you telling me he climbed a thousand feet down the castle wall, wandered down a steep mountain with no trail or guide, then made his way to the next town over?”

  “No,” said Holmes, “I am telling you that he climbed down one floor to the other open window and made his way out of the castle by safer means. Perhaps your theory about a stolen horse is correct, Watson. We are now beyond where the locked doors allow us to go from the main hall. Therefore, I think it probable that the window below us leads to the Count’s chamber, or someplace near. Why else block it off? Provided Harker didn’t fall, this is his likeliest escape route. Right now, take another look. Straight down.”

  I did. Sure enough, about fifteen feet below, was another window, also open.

  “There’s more,” said Holmes. “Take a look at the stones beneath the windows. How far down can you see?”

  “All the way.”

  “I’m talking about the holes in the wall.”

  Even with the roiling storm clouds moving in, I spotted them. Small holes were chipped out of the stone and appeared about every three feet beneath the windows.

  “Hand- and toeholds at about the distance of a man’s reach. I have to wonder what purpose they serve.”

  “Perhaps Count Dracula is a mountaineer.”

  “There would be pitons or some other way to use a rope, unless the Count is an extremely confident man. I expect the answer to this lies in the chamber below.”

  The storm came on us more rapidly than I expected, and a frosty gust blew into the window, which I closed.

  “Not that way,” I said. “Let’s try to find some keys.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Holmes said. “Harker is almost certainly dead. We have enough to make our sad report to Miss Murray. Let’s go back to the library and see what we can learn there.”

  At first, we didn’t learn much beyond the Count’s travel plans. Holmes handed me a letter from Peter Hawkins, dated late in April:

  “‘I much regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come,’“ it began.

  “Miss Murray said nothing to us about an attack of gout,” Holmes said. “She told us that Jonathan had been given an important assignment as a sign of confidence. Of course, it is possible Harker wanted to impress his fiancée and concealed the truth to improve his image in her eyes.”

  We also found correspondence to and from various shipping firms, and orders to for a Russian ship called the Demeter to set sail from the Roumanian city of Varna. That ship left for England on 8 July.

  “Harker had no doubt outlived his usefulness by then,” said Holmes. “Ah, this should interest you. If we ever meet the count, we’ll have something to discuss.”

  Holmes handed me a copy of Lippincott’s Magazine, which contained my account of the Sign of Four. The sight of the magazine twisted the knife in my heart; I was so absorbed in our adventure that, for the moment, I had put Mary out of my mind.

  “You’ll forgive me if I correct the more florid descriptions of how things happened,” said Holmes.

  “‘Florid’ also describes the state of your bank account since that story appeared,” I snapped.

  Holmes perceived that he had struck a nerve. “Touché,” he replied softly. “Well, there are some financial documents in there that may prove interesting, and I’m not yet finished looking through the correspondence. You looked fatigued, dear fellow. Get some rest.”

  Holmes returned to the library for further researches, and I happily left him to it. Having found a Lippincott’s I hadn’t read, I settled into one of the fine carved wooden chairs by the fireplace, and I soon dozed, my bones weary, my heart agitated, but taking a cold pleasure that we had at least made progress.

  Some hours later, I felt something like a small animal nuzzling my shoulder. Cracking open an eye, I saw for all the world what looked to be a white rat at my collar. Startled, I leapt to my feet and slapped the creature down, only to see an equally startled Sherlock Holmes jump back, laughing.

  “I’m sorry, Watson,” he said, still laughing and offering me some of Dracula’s brandy. “I thought you’d prefer to sleep in a proper bed, but first you should know that I’ve made a significant discovery.”

  “You found Harker stuffed into a bookcase,” I said, somewhat embarrassed.

  “Not quite. I’ve discovered instead a rather ingenious plot between the good professor and the mysterious count. I shall have to send a wire to Mycroft as soon as we reach civilization.”

  “What? Why?”

  It took Holmes close to fifteen minutes to outline it for me, having a lot to do with international finance. I condense what I can remember from my somewhat misty memory:

  “If you’ve got any money in overseas investments, Watson, pull it out now. Moriarty and Dracula are doing nothing less than engineering an international financial crisis. British banks have been loaning vast amounts of money to the Argentine government, which loans are guaranteed by said government. But the provinces and municipalities are borrowing heavily as well, and all there is to guarantee these loans is the word of the governments. The Argentine government, I have learned from conversations with my brother, is corrupt from top to bottom. There is no way these loans can be paid back; in fact, Moriarty has been bribing government officials to make sure of it. When the loans come due and there is no money, the banks will need help.”

  “Moriarty’s?”

  “Dracula’s. We’re sitting on a mountain of gold here, Watson, and over the past year or so, the count has been using Peter Hawkins as his agent to transfer his monies to accounts all over England - so much money that Dracula could be a bank unto himself. All it would take is for one of the larger loans to fail, a bank goes down with it, and in comes Dracula as the lender of last resort, giving him and Moriarty their very own bank in which to hide and legitimize any questionably acquired funds.”

  “Do they have a particular bank in mind?”

  “They do indeed - Baring Brothers. It’s carrying the heaviest Argentine loans, and is the most vulnerable. Moriarty needs Dracula in England to immediately effectuate the necessary transfer of funds to rescue Barings when it collapses.”

  “What can your brother do about it?”

  “Make sure that a legitimate bank steps in before Moriarty can make his move. I must say I admire the
ir nerve, but we can’t let them get away with it.”1

  “I should check with my broker,” I replied. “You don’t suppose Dracula was really smuggling gold out in those earthen boxes, do you?”

  “Unlikely,” said Holmes, yawning. “Hawkins has distributed Dracula’s money into dozens of different investment accounts, trusts and annuities in different venues all over England, so there’s no need to have the gold physically present. I have to wonder how much Harker knew of this.”

  By now it was quite late and Holmes looked positively cadaverish, so I administered immediate bed rest for us both. We had a busy day on the morrow.

  Chapter Four: Murderous Attack upon Sherlock Holmes

  Letter, Dr. Watson to Mary Watson

  August 12, 1890

  (Never sent)

  Castle Dracula

  Dear Mary,

  If you receive this, it has been found on my body. I am dead. Please make arrangements not only for myself, but for the best friend to us both, Sherlock Holmes.

  You must find Inspector Tobias Gregson in Scotland Yard and give him this letter. There may be mayhem afoot in London, particularly in the financial district.

  You must also contact Miss Mina Murray, whose address appears at the end of this letter, and whose entreaties to Holmes sent us on this adventure. We have not found her fiancé, but I am willing to presume him dead - or worse.

  As I write this, Holmes is deep in fever, and I fear may be dying. He has lost a great deal of blood, and we are alone, trapped in a mountain aerie in a foreign land. He is covered with wounds that don’t seem to heal. He needs to be in hospital, but all he has is myself, my Gladstone bag, and the tools of medieval medicine. I am doing the best I can, but the sun is setting, and I fear the worst is to come.

  We are sure of this: Jonathan Harker was a prisoner in Castle Dracula, and contrived to escape by climbing down the castle wall to a window that, in turn, led to egress from the castle.

  I am all but certain Harker is dead. If not, then he has been driven mad and may have become an inhuman monster. In no circumstance will we have happy news for Miss Murray.