Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula

by Steve Seitz

  Godalming paused, clearly shaken by the memory. I rose to fetch brandy, but Holmes stopped me with a glare.

  “Mr. Holmes, Mina Harker has shared what she knows of your adventures in Transylvania. How can you be so sceptical?”

  “I take it Mr. Harker has not discussed my visit with him that very morning?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him,” Godalming replied.

  “Pray continue with your fascinating narrative.”

  “I stood as a statue, unable to tear my gaze from this creature who once owned my heart and soul. When she saw us, she hissed like a rattlesnake ready to strike. When she saw me, she flung the child to the ground, as if it were a worn-out rag doll. Recognizing me, she smiled with an evil promise of delights to come, if only I would partake. She opened her arms, beckoning me, and though her evil was a palpable thing, I wanted to fold myself onto her breast and never let her go again.”

  Holmes nodded, and I could see him struggling with the cloudy memories of his own attack by the harpies at Castle Dracula. So much was clicking into place.

  “Quincey tells me that I groaned as she came closer to me.

  “‘Come to me, Arthur,’ said the thing in Lucy’s body in the sweetest, most alluring voice. ‘Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!’

  “By now I was in thrall, I confess it. I opened my arms to her, and would have been her slave had not the Professor leaped between us, and waved his little crucifix in her face. She hissed again, and dashed past us to the tomb, where she halted. In frustration, she turned on us, hissed again, and fixed us with a hateful glare.

  “‘Answer me, my friend,’ said Van Helsing to me. ‘Am I to proceed with my work?’

  “By now I was near collapse, my mind awhirl with horror at what I had almost done. I dropped to my knees and shed tears into my hands.

  “‘Do as you will, friend; do as you will,’ I mumbled. ‘There can be no horror like this ever any more!’

  “Quincey and Seward grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet as Van Helsing set to work. He removed some of the putty as Lucy looked on, like a snake at the ready.

  “The Professor stepped back, and we all saw it: the woman who carried a child all the way across the graveyard as if it were a toy, the woman who stood before me as real as yourselves, passed through the crack in the tomb door!

  “As I stared in disbelief, the Professor replaced the putty. Coming over to me, he said, ‘My friend Arthur, you have had sore trial; but after, when you will look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in bitter waters, my child. By this time tomorrow, please God, you will have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. ‘Til then, I shall not ask you to forgive me.’“

  I did not know what to think; surely Godalming didn’t think we would believe such a story. It’s obvious she had a key herself. There are many questions here, but they will go forever unanswered now.

  “But that isn’t all, is it, Lord Godalming?” prompted Holmes, who now lit a cigarette.

  “We went back the following afternoon, and on that day I performed the most horrible, and most compassionate, act of my life. Even though I knew the thing she had become, she was still beautiful to me. At first I trembled when we opened the coffin, but as I gazed down on the wanton expression that fouled her beauty my heart hardened.

  “‘Is this really Lucy’s body, or only a demon in her shape?’ I asked Van Helsing.

  “‘It is her body, and yet not it,’ he replied. ‘But wait a while, and you shall see her as she was, and is.’

  “Then Van Helsing prepared for what was to come. He brought his lantern, of course, a soldering iron and solder, a massive hammer, and a huge wooden stake, about three feet long and sharpened to a fine point.

  “My stomach twisted itself at the thought of what he was about to do, and the rational part of my mind screamed at me for believing this was the proper thing. But I could not deny what I had seen. Van Helsing could see this and he said to me:

  “‘My friend, if you had kissed her, you would in time, when you had died, have become a vampire yourself. Blessed will be the hand that strikes the blow which sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night: ‘It was my hand that sent her to the stars; the hand she herself would have chosen?”‘

  “What could I do under their gaze? The act would be abhorrent in the extreme, but this evil had to end. I was filled with love for Van Helsing, who had sacrificed so much to bring us the truth.

  “‘My true friend,’ I said quietly, ‘from the bottom of my broken heart, I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!’

  “I placed the point of the stake over her heart as Van Helsing began to read the Prayer of the Dead. I trembled for a moment and tried not to look at the face of she whose purity and goodness of heart had been corrupted forever. Even now, I prayed she would open her eyes and tell me this had all been a horrible nightmare. Seward and Quincey began to read, and I summoned all the steel in my soul to bring the hammer down with a single, swift, solid stroke.

  “I won’t forget that scream to the day I die. It tore through my soul like a bitter, icy wind. But having struck that first blow, I dared not stop. Down came the hammer, again and again, until the tip penetrated the coffin’s floor.

  “Lucy’s sharp white teeth champed together in agony, rending her lips and spreading blood everywhere. She screamed and writhed, her limbs jerking with fierce energy. In a savage frenzy, I kept pounding, and did not stop until her death spasms ceased.

  “The hammer fell from my exhausted fingers onto the floor, and I fell back, caught by Quincey and Seward. They eased me onto the floor so I could catch my breath. The others spent a moment in silence looking down on her; at last I joined them.

  “What I saw gladdened my heart, and I knew I had done the right thing. For the voluptuous evil that defined her features before had departed. The Lucy that I loved and buried once before lay now in peaceful serenity. I had freed her from the depths of hell.

  “I could take no more. I left the others to their gruesome work and never looked back.”

  We sat in silence to give the poor, tear-eyed man a chance to collect himself; there was no doubt in my mind that he believed it all, but Holmes’ expression was dour.

  “Lestrade, this is a confession!” he snapped.

  “If you’ll excuse us, my lord,” the inspector said. Godalming waited in the foyer. “The man may not be in his right mind, Holmes, but he is well placed. There simply is no way to prove that Miss Westenra was alive when he mutilated her body. He’ll have three witnesses who will swear she was not, and dozens of people saw her in a casket at her funeral.”

  “It would not be the first time someone was accidentally buried alive.”

  “There is a signed death certificate,” Lestrade continued. “When I went to the North London Hospital and showed Miss Westenra’s likeness to the victim there, he didn’t remember her. No one has seen her since she died. There is no way to independently verify or disprove his lordship’s story. It flies in the face of all logic and all the facts. We just can’t prove murder, Holmes. I am satisfied we won’t be seeing any more bloofer ladies, and the matter stops there. I can’t base an arrest on evidence like this. I’d be laughed out of court.”

  “Not for the first time, either,” Holmes grumbled.

  Stepping in, I said, “The body I saw had only been dead for a few days, not several weeks. That must mean something.”

  “Did you examine it closely?” asked Lestrade. “Was there enough light? In any event, you two had no right to be there.”

  “Watson, I don’t suppose there is any way to investigate the transfusi
ons?”

  “No, Holmes, not with a cadaver in that condition. We’ll never know the true cause of death.”

  Holmes sighed with frustration. “Very well, Lestrade. If you won’t take this further, I suppose there is no way I can make you.”

  Godalming returned to the sitting room.

  “I prefer not to use my position, Mr. Holmes,” Godalming he said, “but I will if it becomes necessary.”

  “Your heart is at peace?” Holmes asked him. “You are certain you have done the Christian thing?”

  My heart filled with loathing for Godalming. How can decapitating the woman one loves be the Christian thing? He admitted Lucy screamed and bled, and Lestrade is letting it go due to his position in society. I doubt the good inspector would hesitate to haul me in if I made such statements. There are times I damn the nobility.

  “There is no doubt at all. I am easy in my mind,” Godalming said resolutely.

  “Then, I suppose, so must we be,” Holmes said, defeated. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  I offered Holmes a cigar after they left.

  “What now?”

  Holmes handed me a telegram. “Godalming has already pulled some strings. This came from Mycroft last night.”

  “My dear Sherlock,” the telegram read, “Drop bloofer lady. Nothing to be gained. Home Office furious. I will conduct any further inquiries if necessary. M.”

  “That poor girl was no more a vampire than you are,” Holmes said. “Thanks to my bungling, it’s too late. Perhaps I should pack it in and take up beekeeping.”

  “Nonsense, Holmes,” I replied. “Peter Hawkins’ murderer can still be brought to justice.”

  “He was,” Holmes replied. “He was found hanging in his cell this morning. Craven, indeed. Ah, well! There are still experiments to be made. Chemicals, at least, are usually predictable.”

  3Watson does not explain why Holmes did this despite having grown vampire teeth himself. I speculate that Holmes wanted to read Harker’s reaction and test his sanity. I also believe that Holmes needed to concoct a rational explanation to mollify the many who would simply refuse to believe in vampires. -SS

  Part Three: The Great Hiatus

  Chapter Ten: The Napoleon of Crime

  [Editor’s note: Sherlockian scholars have been vexed by the Great Hiatus for more than 100 years. Watson’s daily journal sheds new light on the events that led to it, not the least what really happened after the struggle with Professor Moriarty. For reasons that will become obvious, Watson obscured and altered much in “The Final Problem.”]

  Dr. Watson’s Journal

  April 27, 1891

  The game’s afoot, Holmes likes to say, but this time it is we who are the quarry.

  I know I ought to be more worried about the state of things than I am, but the truth is I would much rather face Professor Moriarty and his minions than I would my wife right now. Mary seemed to have come back to herself after Holmes and I rescued her from Count Dracula, and for several months we were a normal husband and wife again; we had even resumed our attempts to begin a family.

  But during this time her memory concerning the vile Count had fallen into a deep, black hole. She remembered very little of him after that final evening, though small reminders lingered for months; she found it hard to attend church, could not catch a proper night’s rest until we finally took the garlic cloves down from our bedroom windows, and stayed either indoors or in the shadows on bright autumn days. But when we took a brief Continental holiday in November, all seemed well.

  About two weeks ago, Mary started remembering little bits and pieces of that night, usually in her dreams - hours spent in the woods of Winchester, delirious and cold, clad only in a gossamer nightgown; nasty bursts of nightmare about being menaced by wolves; Dracula’s long, sharp teeth grazing the veins on her neck. But what has come back most vividly is the memory of Sherlock Holmes pointing a shotgun directly at her as Count Dracula used her limp body as a human shield..

  That she was delirious from loss of blood, exposure to the elements, and nearly in shock does not seem to matter. If she had a clear and complete memory of that night, I’m sure she would feel the same way I did - gratitude and relief that we made it through the episode with a minimum of harm. Mary now believes that Holmes wanted her dead in order to clear the way for my returning to Baker Street. She is unmoved by the fact that it was Holmes, not she, who was savaged by one of Dracula’s wolves. (That I took a wolf bite myself on her behalf seems to matter little.) She refuses to accept that Holmes is an exceptional marksman and would not have harmed her had he pulled the trigger; and I do not believe he would have done if it meant Mary would come to harm.

  Which brings us full circle to the strongest delusion Mary sustained while under Dracula’s spell - that I prefer Holmes’ society to hers. This just isn’t true; if staying at Baker Street had meant that much to me, would I have married her in the first place? I am the first to admit that when Holmes is on the scent and his swift, precise mind is in flight, I am filled with wonder and admiration. Indeed, who is not?

  But it takes a strong and peculiar constitution to live the life of Sherlock Holmes. He does not need the succor of a feminine caress, nor does he seek the comfort and warmth of family life. As the last of my line, I want these things. I want to share my adventures with a son, pass my knowledge and experiences on to the next generation, so all that I am, and the modest part I have played in the world’s grand drama, does not vanish in the dust when I am gone. (I am under no illusion that my writings will linger beyond the usual year or so it takes a book to complete its print run.) The challenge of a puzzle and the strains of a violin may be enough for Holmes, but it could never sustain me for long.

  Last week we had one row too many, and Mary, as she always does, retreated to the wilds of the Pentangeli, the Cecil Forrester estate in Winchester. I was alone. I had lit a cigar, poured a whiskey, and was about to settle in for an evening’s reading when the curtain rustled. Startled, I leapt to my feet and balled my fists, only to drop them when the nervous figure of Sherlock Holmes stepped into my parlor.

  “Holmes! How did you get in here?”

  “You really ought to have better locks on your windows,” said my jumpy friend. “After you hear what I have to say, you shall surely need them.”

  I noticed right away that his hand was bleeding, and, over his protests, I fetched my medical kit. The wounds were not serious, just some lacerations to the knuckles, but they went rather deep. Once the hand was bandaged, I offered Holmes a chair and poured a glass. Holmes positioned the chair so that he could keep an eye on the window.

  “Of course you recall our sojourn in Castle Dracula,” he said.

  “With horror,” said I, “but Mina Harker assures me that the count is dead. What could this have to do with him?”

  Holmes made a dismissive gesture. He was dressed in a workman’s dark clothing, and his features were obscured by a black cloth cap, which he removed and twisted in his hands as he spoke. If at all possible, he looked paler and thinner than usual. His hair, never thick to begin with, stuck up in thin little tufts from long hours under his cap. Though the curtains were drawn, his eyes kept darting to the window, as if it might implode at any moment. Becoming wary myself, I locked the parlor door and turned the lamp down.

  “A wise precaution, Watson. You will soon find me a very dangerous guest.”

  “Tell me.” I found a notebook and took copious notes, with which I shall flesh out this account at some future date. What I put down here is a rough recollection, as my notes are back in London.

  “You may remember that first night in the castle, when I discovered the plot hatched by Count Dracula and Professor Moriarty to take over Barings Brothers in the wake of the Argentine loan crisis.”

  I nodded.

  “On our return
, I contacted Mycroft right away and shared my suspicions. Fortunately, there were plenty of men in the financial world who felt as nervous about Argentine loans as did we, and so Mycroft was able to pull some strings from his headquarters at the Diogenes Club to undercut Moriarty’s move, so that when Barings fell, the Bank of England stepped in to catch them.”

  “Imagine the uproar if the public were to find out,” I said. “I trust your brother is keeping the affair properly bottled up?”

  Holmes nodded and continued, “Moriarty lost millions, and his fortune was in jeopardy from Inland Revenue. It seemed that, at last, I was about to bring him to ground.

  “It is no shame on my part to say I underestimated the good professor. He had prepared for such a disaster, and so when the blow fell, his name was not so much as whispered.”

  “But he held you responsible.”

  “Properly so. I have spent the months since setting the stage for the final curtain. But the man is the Napoleon of crime, and for my every attack on one flank he dodges me on another. I know his every move and he knows mine. But the genius of the thing is that he places enough walls between himself and his misdeeds so that I can never directly connect him to anything I know he has done. Until now.

  “You see, Watson, the greatest hindrance in the life of a criminal is insecurity. He is always looking over his shoulder; he is never quite safe. And even Professor Moriarty, genius and master of mathematics though he may be, cannot think of everything. So one of his thieves drops a telling detail during questioning by Lestrade. A footprint is found where it should not be. Two different kinds of cigarette ash turn up at what should have been a one-man burglary. And so, over time, the painting is limned in clearer and clearer detail, and, as the pursuit continues, Moriarty finds that he must be ever more careful.

  “But I must confess an element of enjoyment at our intellectual thrust and parry. That he is capable of engineering a murder over a hundred miles away is appalling; but that he is able to do it inspires a reluctant sense of awe. This is where I must confess my own flaws; my horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill.