Séance for a Vampire

by Fred Saberhagen

  "If you will tell us everything you know," I advised him, "your meaning may be easier to grasp."

  "Of course." Martin Armstrong drew a full breath and seemed to pull himself together. "Gentlemen—Becky—I now confess that at the time—just as I turned in the moment of the boat's capsizing—I thought I did catch just a glimpse of something very strange.

  "As we began to go over, I twisted my head around, looking over my right shoulder... and I retain the distinct impression of a pale hand, or at least of human fingers, grasping the gunwale on that side. Then a few moments later, when I was under water, I felt the sense of some stranger's body near me there. But I hope you will understand, so brief and fragmentary were these impressions, so unsupported by either logic or common sense, that ever since, I have discounted them as the result of nerves, or actual hallucinations."

  Holmes demanded: "And you have never mentioned to anyone—to Miss Altamont here, for example—what you thought you saw?"

  Armstrong shook his head violently. "How could I? Rebecca would have believed me mad."

  "Perhaps not," the lady herself said, shaking her head.

  The young man went on to explain that the sense of some mysterious presence had not appeared to him to offer any genuine explanation of the upset. At the moment of crisis, of course, he had given little thought to causes, but expected it would be relatively easy to make sure that both girls were safe.

  We urged him to tell the whole story again, this time as truthfully as possible, and he agreed. When he had come up, gasping, to the surface after his initial plunge, Armstrong had immediately seen Becky struggling to stay afloat; he swam to her and guided her to shore, which was the work of less than a minute.

  "Then Becky and I looked at each other. And both of us said the same thing at the same moment: 'Where's Louisa?'

  "There was the rowboat, now floating almost placidly, drifting upside down. There were the two oars. I seem to recall seeing a floating banjo and a picnic basket. But no sign at all of Louisa. I wondered, was she on the other side of the boat, or had she come up underneath it?"

  In a strained voice, Martin went on to tell us that he had stripped off his light summer coat, which was already sodden, and then his shoes, and in light summer trousers and shirt-sleeves, plunged back into the stream. Quickly, he made sure that no one was trapped under the boat. He came out from under it and dived again, thinking that surely, surely, his fiancee's head must appear above the water at any moment...

  "I did find her hat—did I mention that before, gentlemen? Yes, her hat, in the water... but that was all."

  Time dragged on, the horrible minutes following the capsizing of the boat lengthening into a full hour, and extending themselves endlessly after that...

  Rebecca, of course, had summoned aid as quickly as possible. But dusk, which was gathering at the time the boat tipped, had deepened almost totally into night before there were answering shouts and lights coming through the trees.

  "We searched on, of course, through the night. Men and boys from the neighboring houses and farms, as well as from Norberton House, looking along the shore and in the water. Gradually, we all lost hope. No one found... found her... until broad daylight. By then, the girl, whoever she was, had been dead for hours. Her... her body lay on the bank, nearly a mile downstream." Briefly overcome by emotion, the young man had to pause. "Oh, God! Oh, God, when I thought that was Louisa—"

  In the morning, as we already knew, there had been the limp, white, unbreathing body to be taken up, carried home and mourned over. Drowning was the obvious cause of death. As we had earlier learned, there had been no visible injuries—certainly no more than a few scratches, including the two small marks upon the white, still throat.

  Within a day or so, an inquest had been held upon "the poor girl, in the full belief that she was Louisa," and her body had been duly interred.

  When Armstrong had concluded his story, Rebecca Altamont took his hand and did her best to comfort him; and I remember that at the time, it crossed my mind that when grief and terror had been surmounted, there might be the chance of a more tender attachment growing between them.

  Presently the young American, recovering himself a little, proposed a plan in which several of we men would return in the same rowboat to the scene of the catastrophe, and one or more might strip and jump into the water to try the experiment of tipping the craft over, just to see how difficult it was, even where the river was shallow enough to allow more or less solid footing on the muddy bottom.

  "If it proves really impossible to capsize the boat that way," he concluded, "then perhaps I was hallucinating after all."

  No one answered that directly. I could see Dracula smile faintly, no doubt at the thought of himself going for a bathe in the bright morning daylight. In a moment, the prince murmured that he would decline to take part in such an exercise. "Running water and I are not always on the best of terms," he added. "Not to mention my tendency to sunburn." I could see that this refusal and comment both rather puzzled the young American.

  Holmes commended Armstrong's plan of reenactment as worthy, possibly useful. "But unfortunately there is no time for it now; there are other matters which much more urgently require our attention."

  Armstrong blinked at him. "Of course. And I still insist that the first of them is finding Louisa, wherever she may be, and thereby putting an end to this nightmare."

  At this juncture Holmes suddenly brought the name of Count Kulakov into the conversation. Both of the young people could immediately confirm that there was, or had been, a foreigner of that name living in the neighborhood and attending a few social events, though neither Armstrong nor Miss Altamont had ever met the man, or even seen him.

  But Rebecca then went on to recall hearing Louisa say that she had met him, and did not like him.

  "I remember she told me that on one occasion—months ago, before you two were engaged, Martin—he had paid her attentions that were not entirely welcome."

  Armstrong frowned. He harked back to his stay in St. Petersburg and tried to recall anything he might have learned about Count Kulakov during that time. "I do think I might have heard the name somewhere—but where? Is there a possibility that he is somehow involved in this business?"

  "A distinct possibility." Then, changing the subject again, Holmes asked if the Altamonts had any plans for another séance.

  Armstrong and Rebecca, during their brief stop at Norberton House before coming to see us, had already been apprised of the intentions of the family there. Louisa's parents were naturally expecting them to keep those plans secret from any investigators who might interfere.

  But Armstrong had his own agenda regarding séances. "If these scoundrels think they can somehow smuggle Louisa into the house again, and then whisk her away as they did last time, they're in for a surprise. The police are watching, too."

  Holmes's continued questioning of Armstrong and Miss Altamont elicited the information that Sarah Kirkaldy was refusing even to talk about the possibility of another sitting. With her brother's body in a coffin in the parlor, that struck me as hardly to be wondered at.

  The young couple also had information for us regarding the time of Abraham's funeral, which they were naturally expecting to attend. He had been struck down half an hour before midnight Tuesday and had died on Wednesday morning. The funeral and burial were planned for Saturday morning.

  "Probably I shall not attend," Holmes mused thoughtfully. "Yet I dare not delay interviewing Miss Kirkaldy as long as that. Her own safety, I think, will not permit it, and even tomorrow may be too late." He shifted the direction of his gaze. "Mr. Prince?"

  Dracula, as if he had been expecting to be called upon, smiled and nodded gently. He appeared ready to abandon his hope of catching a nap before sundown. "If you wish, Mr. Holmes, I shall be glad to visit Norberton House. Perhaps I can establish some rapport with Miss Kirkaldy. I will, of course, convey our sympathies to her on the loss of her brother—and it may be that she w
ill tell me a few interesting things."

  Shortly, the prince and Armstrong had gone off together.

  Holmes's recuperative powers, as I have remarked before, were truly impressive. As nightfall drew near, only half a day following his rescue from the crypt, he was on his feet again, insisting in his masterful way that there be no delay in our investigation. When I remonstrated with him that he required rest after his ordeal, he snapped back: "I have lain inactive quite enough during the past forty hours, I assure you!"

  Two items now had very high priority on my friend's agenda. One was the interview with Sarah Kirkaldy, which matter he fortunately had been able to entrust to his cousin.

  "She must be induced to tell us all she knows about this evil man! He is, I have no doubt, her brother's murderer."

  As for the other objective, Holmes, speaking to me privately, insisted that it was now imperative that we open the burial vault of Louisa Altamont and interview her as soon as possible—whether Martin Armstrong was on hand or not.

  It struck me that six years earlier such an assertion, with regard to any young woman whose body had been put into a tomb almost a month ago, would have seemed strong evidence of madness. Now I could only accept Holmes's plan as a way of dealing with an even more terrible truth.

  "We must admit the gravest doubts as to whether it will ever be possible for her to rejoin her loved ones. Still, it is essential that I speak to her without further delay. Murder has been committed. The expedition will, of course, be dangerous."

  "If you intend to go at night, I should rather describe it as foolhardy!"

  "Calm yourself, Watson. Naturally, the danger will be vastly greater after sunset, when our chief opponent will be more likely to put in an appearance. But I intend to go nowhere after dark until Prince Dracula has rejoined us. Then we shall have odds of at least three to one in our favor, and, I think—our ally being who he is—no need to be overly concerned."

  Holmes had already made arrangements with Martin Armstrong for the young man to accompany us when we went to open the tomb of Louisa Altamont. Holmes hoped to be able to demonstrate to the still-hopeful fiancé the truth of what had happened to his beloved. Despite my friend's assurance to the breathing Miss Altamont that she should not be excluded from the revelation, he had no intention of bringing her on this first expedition.

  Armstrong had agreed readily. He still had his own reason for wanting an exhumation: the hope to prove that someone else had been interred under his fiancée's name.

  13

  I accepted the assignment from Cousin Sherlock calmly, not anticipating that it would present any particular difficulty. "There is, of course," I commented, "the matter of my obtaining an invitation to enter the house. I expect that would greatly facilitate matters."

  "Of course." Holmes nodded.

  "Of course," echoed Armstrong, nodding too. Naturally he, being still innocent of the least bit of vampire lore, could not have understood my being so particular about wanting an invitation to cross a mere threshold; but he very quickly volunteered to introduce Mr. Prince to the Altamont family as his own friend, a man experienced in dealing with psychic problems. "I understand that it will be wise to refrain from mentioning any connection the gentleman might have with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson."

  Soon—the time was now eight o'clock, still full daylight on a long summer evening—Armstrong and I were on our way, chatting together companionably enough. I have several reasons for remembering with great clarity that particular summer day: One is the fact that it marks the occasion of my first ride in a motorcar.

  For several years I had been looking forward to the event, realizing that sooner or later I should have to accustom myself to the horseless carriage. When the opportunity arrived, I dutifully equipped myself for the adventure in borrowed goggles and a long dust-coat, telling myself that this was only one more step in my never-ending adjustment to an ever-new and changing world. In fact the ride, with Armstrong at the controls, was neither as bad as I had cynically expected nor quite as exhilarating as I had dared to hope. The sheer speed (I suppose some thirty miles an hour, substantially beyond the twenty recently established as the British speed limit for cars) was no real novelty; in some of my four-legged forms, I could have outsped the machine, at least over a short distance. And flying on the support of one's own organic wings, another act to which I am no stranger, is in my judgment a sensation far superior to that of riding in any mere land-bound device.

  The young American (as Watson so liked to call him) and I were on our way, terrorizing an occasional dog or cat as we shot through the village, shouting back and forth to each other over the roar of machinery and the rush of air. Talking in this way we touched on several matters, including the current disposition of Louisa's parents. I gathered that both elder Altamonts were eager, as only recent converts are wont to be, for more doings in the world of spirits. Father and mother were fretting in their impatience to see their departed daughter again. Though I gave Armstrong no assurance, I was convinced that very encounter could be arranged, but was far from convinced that it would be wise to do so.

  According to Armstrong, there were even rumors (the servants had been gossiping) that the senior Altamonts, unable to wait, had tried to hold another séance last night, even without the help of an experienced medium. The result seemed to have been a complete failure. Well, I thought, things might have been worse.

  Little daunted (if the rumors were true), Louisa's parents were supposedly planning another sitting for tonight, still nursing hopes of getting the grief-stricken Sarah Kirkaldy to cooperate. Perhaps, I thought, the elder couple were wondering why Sarah, considered an expert in other worldly matters, should be taking her temporary separation from Abraham so hard; one might have thought that her brother, being himself a medium, should have a particularly easy time in getting back.

  I supposed that Louisa's parents would be inclined to blame any new failure, as they had blamed the old, on strange, malignant powers that had been somehow attracted to the scene by Sherlock Holmes and his associates, including the police. None of this, I thought, was very logical; but then, logic had never been the spiritists' strong point.

  Looking toward the house from the long drive, as we came rattling and roaring up to the front door, I could recognize, from Watson's description, the terrace where the murder had taken place, and I observed how the broken French window had been temporarily boarded up. I supposed that any real clues to the identity of the intruder at the last séance had long since been removed, either by accident or by the police.

  Shortly we were at the door, divested of our long white coats and goggles, standing in a cloud of our own slowly settling dust.

  When we had been shown in to meet the master and mistress of the house, Armstrong, ready to embroider the truth and demonstrating a cool skill in the work, claimed to have met me during his most recent sojourn in St. Petersburg, where (allowing for my ineradicable central European accent) I, like Armstrong himself, had been one of the corps of foreign correspondents.

  Old Altamont's handgrip was firm, but his eye was wary. His formal greeting was followed quickly by a blunt question: "Are you an agent of Sherlock Holmes?"

  I blinked at this, and considered my answer thoughtfully. Finally I responded: "I have met the man, and I respect him. Nevertheless, there are important areas of human experience—far from the realms of law, or chemical science— with which his knowledge and skill are sadly inadequate to deal."

  "You are yourself a sensitive?" Mrs. Altamont inquired of me hopefully. I noted that she had somewhat modified her vivacious dress, as recorded by Watson, but had not gone back to mourning.

  Again I pondered carefully. "Sensitive, in a psychic sense? Dear lady, I would be loath to make that claim. Still, I cannot deny that there have been in my life certain incidents hard to explain by any other..."

  And so on. Soon Armstrong, taking advantage of a pause in the spiritualist chatter, somewhat belatedly informed ou
r hosts that Mr. Holmes had returned from his adventure and was safe. The Altamonts were charitable enough to express what sounded like sincere satisfaction with this news. In their current mental state they appeared uninterested in any of the fine points, such as whether Holmes's kidnapper had been a spirit or mere flesh and blood.

  Wading boldly into this confusion, Mr. Prince, who had already hinted broadly enough at his own psychic powers, presented himself to the bereaved parents as one who might be able to help them in their current difficulties. Though, as he admitted when asked straight out, he had never conducted a séance. He did not volunteer the information that he had never even attended one.

  He soon overcame his hosts' suspicions that he might be some kind of investigative agent. Conversing in ever more familiar terms, but in increasingly hushed voices, we moved slowly through the house toward an unstated goal. Naturally today's first order of business for any visitor in this home was to view, with appropriate gloomy aspect and sad murmuring of platitudes, the body of young Abraham Kirkaldy.

  All that was mortal of the youth had been embalmed, dressed in a new, fairly expensive suit, and coffined tastefully in a parlor amid comfortable-looking white-satin pillows and a great many flowers, awaiting interment on Saturday morning. Dead as mutton was that lad, as I could see at first glance. No question in his case of that mysterious undeath which walks by night and sups on blood—not that I had thought there would be, but it was as well that the expert should make sure.

  The coffin was open—I had wondered whether it would be. The side of the head on which the murderer's blow had fallen was turned away from the viewer, and the hair was long enough so that when properly arranged, it covered, or almost covered, the extensive damage.

  Within a quarter of an hour after my arrival, I was seated in a (different) parlor and pretending to sip at some no doubt excellent tea (readers should remember that my taste in liquid nourishment is sharply limited). By this time, I was hinting strongly that I should like to be allowed to speak with Sarah Kirkaldy. Naturally, I promised to treat the bereaved sister with great courtesy and tact. I gently dropped an additional hint that I just might be able to convince the girl to conduct another séance within a day or so.