Stoker's Manuscript

by Royce Prouty

  Luc mostly pushed his food around his plate with his fork before asking, “Making any progress?”

  I shrugged. “I won’t know until I find something.”

  “Look.” Luc pointed his fork in my direction. “I have to check in with the Master every couple days. Give me something to report.”

  “It’s a mess down there.”

  “That’s all you got?” he said, shaking his head. “Let me help you then. Maybe it will help us both. What are you working on?”

  I could not divulge my assignment.

  “Barkeley,” he said, continuing to point his fork in my direction, “I know what you’re working on. I just don’t know how Tesla ties into it, except the time frames overlap.”

  I thought about how to say something without saying anything. Of course Tesla had nothing to do with the novel or its creatures, but his assistant, Gheorghe, obviously knew that the famous inventor’s research papers would be archived after his death. It must have seemed a safe way to hide them without destroying them.

  “You’re right,” I told Luc. “The connection is the time frame. Tesla’s electrical company had a contract to convert Bram Stoker’s theater from gas to electrical lighting. They archived correspondence grouped roughly by decade. I’m going through every piece of paper and note during the 1890s.”

  “But why? You think some of Stoker’s documents got mixed up with Tesla’s during that time?”

  I shrugged.

  I knew this was the tricky part of answering, because I had to tell him something that could be verified, but also tell him something to keep the leash long. “No. I think some documents were taken so they would not get published in the book. And whoever did it replaced it with something that would instigate conflict within the family.”

  “Well, that certainly did happen,” Luc said.

  “Possibly with the idea to see who surfaces.”

  “Interesting conjecture, but that last part I won’t put in my report.” His look suggested he was pleased with my response. Then he asked, “So what do you think you’ll find?”

  “Whatever is hidden in there is meant to be found, so I suspect it will point to actual events and where they took place.”

  “Thank you,” Luc said, “that’s better. Some form of that I can report. Let me know if I can add anything by tomorrow night.”

  Dinner ended, and I promised Luc I would stay the entire night in my room.

  On my third day in the basement of the Tesla Museum, returning from a midday break, I opened a box in a new row and found what turned out to be the introductory correspondence sent by the inventor’s assistant, Sonia’s husband.

  21 April, 1892

  Belgrade

  Dear Mr. Tesla,

  We first met ten years ago at the power station in Strasbourg when you came under the employ of the local authority to repair the damage caused by an explosion. I am the man you entrusted to be your laborer. We again met in Paris in 1889. Since those days I have given great preponderance of thought to your Alternating Current theories and agree that this will be the practical solution to the limitations imposed by Mr. Edison’s systems.

  I am not a learned man of letters, but as you might recall, I do give complete attention to my tasks, and by my measured observance of distance degradation from the source, I estimate Mr. Edison will need to place generating stations at two-mile intervals, and not ten miles as posited by his proposals. On the basis of the latter, the local officials are proceeding with plans to install commercial power sources throughout the city at ten-mile intervals, and most certainly will have exhausted the city’s coffers before realizing their failure.

  I speak German, English, and of course my native Romanian. If I can be of service to you either here on the Continent or in the States, I will be your most faithful assistant.

  I shall present myself to you upon your lecture visit this June to Belgrade, where I hope you will allow sufficient time to discuss your alternatives with the city officials.

  Sincerely,

  Gheorghe Antonescu

  I sensed my blood pressure surge at finally connecting physical evidence to that which I had only spoken of with Sonia. I wished she were there at the moment to hold it.

  The box further yielded a half dozen such letters prior to Tesla’s hiring his assistant that year, 1892. This began the greatest acceleration toward modernism the world has ever seen, for the harnessing of electricity and its cheap production ended the slow plod out of agrarianism and into the age of convenience.

  I paused at a letter from George Westinghouse that challenged the inventor to consider electrical-powered appliances in every American home, not just the moneyed class. It dawned on me then that the world of modern invention had been waiting for electricity as much as electricity spawned modern inventions. And though I might have savored an unlimited dig through the historical documents of our greatest inventors, I had business to attend to, so I moved on.

  Several more letters from George Westinghouse to Tesla followed, one offering to purchase Tesla’s power-generating machine patents with a royalty that eventually would have funded every idea he could ever conjure. But next in the pile came Tesla’s rejection letter, which would surely rank among history’s worst business decisions. Instead, Tesla chose to undertake self-guided expansion with very limited capital, thus a shoestring staff, including one Gheorghe Antonescu, who worked for Tesla repairing Edison’s generating systems in Europe. Countless nights Tesla spent in his lab in New York City while his engineering staff babysat flimsy infant power systems. Then, later that year, George Westinghouse won the contract to provide electricity for the World’s Fair in Chicago and tasked Tesla with installing it in only eight months. Immediately the inventor sent for Antonescu, exhorting him to grab the first available boat and join him as a long-term assistant. I found Gheorghe’s response letter filed with Westinghouse’s congratulatory note.

  1 August, 1892

  London

  Dear Mr. Tesla,

  How pleased I am that you have chosen me to join you in this historic endeavor. Am departing from Southampton on the first berth I can secure.

  Recently, my work here in London has been near The Strand in the Theatre District, and in that endeavor I chanced to meet the owner and operator of the Lyceum Theatre, Sir Henry Irving. He claims to have met you at your lecture before the Royal Society of London and insists he knows sincere from acting when he sees it. I believe I have convinced him to travel to Chicago’s Fair for a firsthand demonstration, and he agreed to schedule his entire company for travel, including the actress Ellen Terry and his operations manager, Mr. Abraham Stoker.

  There are no fewer than two dozen theatres within walking distance of The Strand here, Mr. Tesla, and I am confident that as one house, such as the prestigious Lyceum, converts, the others will queue with impatience.

  My wife, Sonia, will be accompanying me, and although she does not speak the language she has begun taking lessons in anticipation of working at the event.

  Congratulations again and I look forward to seeing you soon,

  Gheorghe Antonescu

  That was how Sonia and Gheorghe came to America. He worked eight months, day and night, beside Tesla to build the AC-generating station on the fairgrounds, erect poles, string wires, and run cable inside buildings. Sonia learned the language and worked the event in her soothsaying tent. Tesla won his contracts when buyers observed firsthand that his newly invented systems were safe.

  Among the papers I found a list of London theatres, written in Gheorghe’s handwriting, with check marks beside those who signed contracts to convert from gas to electric lighting systems and purchases of electrical stage lights. First on the list was the Lyceum, and a contract executed by Sir Henry Irving rested in the box.

  Following the Chicago Fair, Gheorghe and Sonia returned to Europe and modernization work began at t
he Lyceum. In the file box were dozens of drawings and crude schematics of the electrician’s work, plus several notes exchanged with the operations manager, Bram Stoker. Mostly the notes covered supply purchase orders and work schedules, but others spoke of their outside meetings on “that other topic.”

  The next box contained the original contracts signed by Tesla to provide power stations and transformation plans for several palaces, grand residences, and government buildings across Europe. Three such castles were located in Romania, one of which I had already stayed in. The dim lights in the basement came to mind.

  I located several documents tracking Gheorghe over a four-year period around Europe and back and forth to New York City. He was Tesla’s most versatile employee across the Atlantic. Finally, in 1897, Tesla invited him back to New York to assist him by taking notes in his laboratory, to which I found this response letter:

  14 April, 1897

  London

  Dear Mr. Tesla,

  I will be honored to take the position of lab assistant with you, though I am briefly detained in London at the Lyceum with a most pressing issue, one that cannot see my departure before resolution.

  As soon as such matter is resolved, I shall at once return. My most conservative estimate would be that resolution shall occur within thirty days of this postmark.

  With Sincerest Gratitude,

  George

  I understand I was a little slow connecting dots, but when I saw George written and registered the date, I realized why I should have identified him earlier. I recalled my authentication work at the Rosenbach: Included in the documents were articles of news clipped from London papers chronicling the fires at the Lyceum and those that consumed the Constable publishing house. The person questioned and released in connection with the theater fire was an itinerant tradesman, an electrician by the name of George Anton, the Americanized version of the name Gheorghe Antonescu.

  Mere weeks separated that letter and the fire at Constable, where all of Stoker’s first editions were consumed. George was there for both events.

  I then looked closely at the handwriting on the correspondence sent from George to Tesla. Though I had immediately recognized that the penman wrote left-handed, it took until that moment to realize that the same hand that penned those letters also wrote the notes on Stoker’s manuscript. Undeniably, Sonia’s husband George served as assistant to both Tesla and Stoker.

  That raised a question in my mind—why would Sonia give me only half the truth?

  I took a moment to inventory what I knew, a mental list connecting dates with people. It all started in 1890 when Bram Stoker began composing his novel, based upon ideas gleaned from that era’s gothic plays, which had often been staged at the Lyceum Theatre. The story took a material change in 1894, when the electrician charged with installing AC power at the theater provided Stoker with numerous details of Romanian and vampire-related lore, events, and locales that Stoker could never have known on his own. Yet the assistant, Gheorghe, had clearly not intended for Stoker to include all these details in a book destined for international publication. In fact, based on the notes I’d read in the original manuscript, I gathered that the two had a falling-out when Stoker included confidential details as the book went to press. This was followed by the warehouse fire, and a total loss of the first editions—perhaps a desperate attempt by Gheorghe to prevent the dissemination of sensitive information. Second and subsequent editions of Dracula included only the content that Gheorghe had approved of.

  Yet at some point much later the secrets were bound to surface, as they had when I’d gained access to the original epilogue in Philadelphia. Still, the location clues there had led me to the wrong grave entirely, one the assistant deliberately inserted, whose discovery led to a familial war between Noble vampires.

  It was confounding, as I knew the who and when, but not yet the real where, how, or why. It was like cobbling together a puzzle, but the last few remaining pieces did not fit the available spaces. They must be in a different storage box. I was sure they were somewhere in that basement.

  Now that I was getting closer to finding what I needed, my mind turned to practicalities—specifically to conducting some petty larceny. I started by casing the perimeter of the basement, checking the state of the windows. Most of them were either painted shut or stuck in the closed position, but one in the back corner near the security camera had a mechanical lock and no contact sensor. I tested it and found the wood screws stripped out. A visual deterrent, yes, but one good yank and the latch would lift with the window.

  I recognized the security camera as one made by the same company as those installed in my warehouse. During my shopping, I learned that some cameras run at all times and the tapes get archived. Other cameras run only when the system is activated after hours, and the tapes are archived only if the system is set off. And the least expensive cameras only run once a system is activated after business hours and a disturbance triggers them and films the activity until manually turned off. The way to identify which of the three was by the small red light on top of the camera. Each camera has two small hemispherical objects on its top; one is the motion detector and the other is the camera light indicator. If the red camera light is on that means the camera’s running. This one was not on, like the one in the other corner, thus I knew it was a less expensive system that filmed only when activated.

  I made a mental note of this and returned to the boxes.

  The next box held a collection of reference books and technical papers either written or dictated by Tesla, plus professional responses from his contemporaries. An old Bible contributed mightily to the box’s excess weight.

  The box next to it was marked teatru. Theater. My pulse racing, I hauled the container to the working table. Externally, it appeared different from the other archived boxes in that it had two crossing straps to keep the lid affixed. Inside I found the contracts for several London theater houses near The Strand, including the Lyceum’s work orders, correspondence, and invoices for ancillary electrical supplies. It felt close, so close.

  I inspected every invoice, every paper scrap, and everywhere George’s handwriting appeared, as well as Stoker’s initials and signatures as he signed for goods received. I turned everything over, everything upside down, until I found a handful of letters in envelopes addressed to George Anton from Abraham Stoker. Inspecting the paper as well as the contents, I could positively place them as authentic. But as I poured over each paragraph, each word, the only subject mentioned was the theater’s renovation. As I read them in order, there was not a single reference to Stoker’s manuscript, except some references in early 1896 to “the other issue.”

  I reached for the last file folder in the box, deeply disappointed that my senses had let me down. I had felt so sure that I’d find something in this batch. Indeed, that little voice inside, which had never betrayed me before, had told me to prepare to remove documents from the museum.

  A voice from the stairwell sent an electrical shock through me: “We are closing now.” It was the attendant keeping bureaucrat hours.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll put this box back.”

  Before leaving, I grabbed two pieces of paper and a pair of rubber bands and wrapped the security camera bodies and lenses.

  Exiting, I found Luc waiting for me across the street. He asked if I was hungry.

  “Very.”

  “I found a place with good ciorba de burta,” he said.

  The dish is the Eastern Euro version of menudo, something I had only once at a Serbian social gathering, my social life reduced to scraps from my brother’s priestly invites. I agreed and we hustled to the restaurant under threatening skies.

  We sat at a window seat and Luc ordered for both of us. He kept looking outside, seemingly preoccupied. I asked if he wanted a different seat. He declined. Only when a certain young lady walked toward the restaurant’s front doo
r did I realize the source of his distraction. Quickly Luc wished me good-bye and dashed off toward the young lady at the door, the familiarity of their embrace suggesting I would be alone for the meal.

  I found myself staring across the street at the park, watching the employed hurry home to beat the rain. So close to my treasure, I thought. Wind gusts nudged the trees in the park and tossed papers, the rain burst, stopped, then restarted as if it were trying to allow the people intervals to get home.

  With my soup and hard-crusted wheat bread before me, my thoughts were redirected back to the heavy box. Why that box? Why was that box invading my head? I asked for soup seconds and sipped weak tea while the rain laid sheets upon the busy street. Distant thunder warned of darker events to follow.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The waiter’s voice startled me.

  I looked up. “Yes?”

  In a heavy accent he explained that the gentleman in the back wished to pay my tab. I declined and went to leave when the waiter said, “Mr. Bena.”

  I looked around to see if anyone was watching me before following the waiter to a booth in the back corner. It took a second before I recognized Alexandru Bena. He gestured toward the opposing seat, and I slid into the booth.

  Mr. Bena instructed the waiter to bring my serving over to the table, then turned to me and said, “Looks like you found something.”

  It took me a moment to decide to answer. “How’d you know?”

  “Your look,” he said, “is different than the last two evenings.”

  “Good to know someone is watching over me.”