Seance for a Vampire

Fourteen

In our telephoning and in other matters we had taken such precautions as seemed reasonable to prevent the fact of Holmes’s rescue being revealed prematurely to the general public. by this means we hoped to keep our chief enemy also in the dark regarding the true state of affairs, and to avoid such difficulties as would inevitably be caused by journalists swarming round. Still, we realized that it would be extremely difficult to preserve the secret for many hours or days, unless Holmes were to remain in hiding, or adopt some disguise. Neither alternative seemed attractive.

Despite our desire for secrecy, we had felt it our duty, before there was any question of a general announcement, to notify Inspector Merivale at least that Holmes was safe. We did so promptly, and Merivale then quietly called off the official search.

Merivale, having absented himself for a while on other business, returned at dusk to our rooms in the Saracen’s Head; this was rather awkward, as at the time Holmes and I were only awaiting for Dracula and Martin Armstrong to come back from Norberton House before we launched our clandestine operation to open the tomb of Louisa Altamont.

This time it was obvious from the inspector’s expression, even before we heard his report, that the official investigation was not going well. No convincing motive for the murder of Abraham Kirkaldy could be attributed to any of the people known to have been at the séance. No suitable weapon could be located; whatever object had been used (something much harder, sharper, and heavier than a human hand) must have acquired bloodstains. The reports of witnesses, including my own, were confused and contradictory regarding the presence, at the time of the murder, of another outsider besides the mysterious girl or woman in white. Some who had attended the séance had seen nothing of the kind, while others, including myself, were absolutely certain that at least one additional intruder had been present on the terrace.

In this state of general uncertainty, Merivale had succeeded in getting the official inquest postponed for a few more days.

My own version of events, as I now repeated it once more for the inspector, was simple, even though possibly hard to believe. It was also substantially, if not totally, truthful. I gave it as my impression that one or more unknown trespassers had invaded the séance and that they were responsible for the violence; but I had seen only vague shapes and could give no description of them. To make amends, in a sense, for this unsatisfactory evidence, I was able to hand the inspector the missing jewels which Mr. Prince in my presence had recovered from the cemetery.

Holmes was now able to offer the police some corroboration of my evidence. He stated that he was able to give no real description of his abductors–he allowed the implication to stand that there had been more than one. As far as he was concerned, they remained shadowy figures, impossible to identify.

My friend then told the inspector a convincing tale–similar to my own evidence in being true in its essentials, though incomplete–of being questioned in the dark woods and then imprisoned in the hidden crypt under the abandoned chapel.

Merivale marveled at all this, as well he might, but could not very well dispute any of it. He naturally expressed a wish to see the abandoned chapel, and announced his plan of visiting it when daylight came.

“Must be a gang, by the look of it,” said the Scotland Yard man, reluctantly, still marveling at Holmes’s story even before he had a chance to see the slab. “And the girl, Mr. Holmes? What about Louisa Altamont? Is she still alive or isn’t she?” The question had the sound of a fervent plea for help.

Holmes slowly shook his head. “In my opinion, Inspector, there is nothing to be gained by searching for a living Louisa. It is a tragic business, but I fear that sooner or later, the family will have to reconcile themselves to the facts.”

Merivale sighed. “As I thought, then. That’s too bad. Would you have a word with young Armstrong, Mr. Holmes? I’ve tried, and Dr. Watson has tried, to convince him that his young lady’s not coming back. Maybe if you...”

“I shall do what I can. I have already had a talk with Mr. Martin Armstrong.”

“Excellent.”

We had earlier received by telephone from Mycroft enough evidence to at least cast strong suspicion upon Count Kulakov. Holmes now suggested that the police begin to take an interest in the visiting Russian. At the same time, Holmes warned Merivale that the gentleman should be kept ignorant of the fact that the official police were interested in him.

“I strongly advise against making an arrest, or even bringing the man in for questioning. I doubt very much that you would find it possible to subject him to the penalties of the law.”

“He enjoys diplomatic immunity, you mean?”

“Something of the sort.”

Merivale seemed doubtful, but acquiesced and outlined a plan for assigning one or two good men to keep a watch round Norberton House at night.

“There’s another matter to be considered,” the inspector offered next. “We have to consider who played the part of the spook at both séances. The Altamonts continue to swear it was actually their daughter, materialized out of the world of spirits; and young Armstrong, too, believes it was really his fiancée, though he keeps the business on an earthly plane. If we must consider that impossible, can we rule out Sarah Kirkaldy herself as the mysterious ghost in white?”

Holmes nodded thoughtfully. “It seems to me we can. There I believe we are on somewhat firmer ground. My associate, Mr. Prince, has already spoken with her.”

Shortly after dark, Mr. Prince returned to the inn, having accomplished his assigned task of interviewing Sarah Kirkaldy. Dracula, looking younger and more energetic now that the sun was gone, appeared behind Inspector Merivale’s back to signal me through one of the windows of our upstairs sitting room. I made some excuse and joined the prince in the adjoining room.

Dracula wanted to inform me, out of Merivale’s hearing, that on his way back to the Saracen’s Head he had detoured to the private cemetery. There he had managed to pick up another piece or two of the recently stolen jewelry, and had also found evidence that our chief enemy–Count Kulakov, if our suspicions were correct–had revisited the old chapel in our absence. This evidence took the form of rampant, raging vandalism–headstones and a decorative stone bench had been smashed and the pieces scattered about. In any case, we might as well give up all hope and pretense of keeping the secret of Holmes’s survival.

While the inspector was still in our sitting room at the Saracen’s Head, I was called downstairs to take another telephone communication from Mycroft in London. The chief news Mycroft offered was that no connection whatsoever could be traced between the Russian exile named Gregory Efimovich, and Count Kulakov, or to anyone else in buckinghamshire– “though perhaps there is one to that fellow Ulyanov I mentioned.”

Even more dashing to our hopes for a solution, Mycroft’s Gregory Efimovich had been in jail in Liverpool for the past several months.

After returning to the inn, and there holding a brief private talk with Watson, I, Prince Dracula, enjoyed a short private chat with Inspector Merivale of Scotland Yard. Something about me had evidently interested the inspector when we were introduced. I could have wished that this second meeting might have taken place in more doubtful lighting, and under circumstances denying the inspector any chance to examine me closely or engage in prolonged conversation–but only the last of those conditions was fulfilled.

I had been introduced to Merivale, as I had been presented to Armstrong, to Rebecca Altamont, and to others, as Mr. Prince, one of the members of the small organization that the great detective had begun to put together in recent years–particularly since Watson had moved out of the baker Street lodgings.

Merivale, as he talked to me now, appeared a little dubious about Mr. Prince–or would have been dubious had not Sherlock Holmes solemnly vouched for me.

On hearing that I had just come from Norberton House, the inspector naturally wanted to know whether I had spoken to Sarah Kirkaldy there, and, if so, what I found out from her.

“Yes, I was privileged to talk to the bereaved girl–she is a sweet soul.” Out of the corner of my eye I beheld Watson, who had just entered the room, staring at me. What had possessed me to make Mr. Prince such a cloying individual in the eyes of Scotland Yard, I really do not know. “Her brother’s funeral is Saturday.”

“Right, and I plan to be there. How about you, Mr. Holmes?”

Holmes, who had now come in as well, shook his head. “My plans are as yet uncertain.”

Merivale was also determined to interview the young woman yet again. I did my best to discourage him from the effort, without seeming to try to do so.

Despite my warnings to myself, I was already beginning to take a personal interest in Sarah. Ah, was ever woman in such humor wooed? Was ever woman in such humor won?

Richard the Third. Shakespeare. Remind me to tell you a story about him some day. I mean the poet, not the king. Though our careers did somewhat overlap (he died, I think, in 1485) I never met that monarch. I hear myself beginning to babble, but never mind. I told you at the start that certain aspects of this tale of séances tend to make me nervous–and we are getting closer to them.

Ah, that Edwardian summer! The delights of young love–no, of course I hardly qualified as young myself–but all the more delightful to my aging bones was the experience of youth, the gift of Sarah’s warm young skin, and later her blood, and our shared laughter. Yes, during the following nights and days, I did that much for Sarah Kirkaldy; taught her how to begin to laugh again, gave her strong armament with which to face the fear and murder of the world.

I think it was a vintage year in many ways.

In 1903, motorcars were becoming commonplace in britain–where there were already more than eight thousand such machines–and in much of the United States, where that very summer, the Ford Motor Company was being organized and the Wright brothers were hard at work preparing for their first successful flight, eventually to take place on 17 December.

In Switzerland, twenty-four-year-old Albert Einstein, no doubt enjoying a feeling of security by reason of his newly attained degree in physics and his steady job at the Swiss patent office, was in the process of marrying a young lady he had met at the university in Zürich. And in all quarters of the globe, the æther was being frequently disturbed by experiments with wireless telegraphy, carried out by researchers of several nations.

While waiting in one of our rooms at the inn for Cousin Sherlock and Martin Armstrong to join us, so we could pay our nocturnal visit to the cemetery, Watson and I relaxed with separate newspapers. I had taken up a recent edition of The Times of London and pondered some of the articles. I think I even read a few of them aloud to Watson.

I reflected upon how much my understanding of the british had– as I thought–improved since my first visit to the islands some twelve years earlier (see The Dracula Tape) and yet how much I still found in their ways to marvel at.

The pages of today’s edition alone offered much food for contemplation:

EGYPTIAN HALL–England’s HOME OF MYSTERY.

Established 30 years. Manager Mr. J.N. Maskelyne...

I read no further under that heading, being already confronted with quite enough mystery.

CAUTION–A.S. LLOYD’S EUXESIS–

for shaving without soap, water, or brush...

PERRY & CO.—ELECTRIC LIGHT FITTINGS...

Money Spent on Education is the best of Investments...

LATEST INTELLIGENCE–

THE SOMALILAND OPERATIONS.

Prisoners and deserters state that a british force is at Galadi and that Mullah has moved from bur to Gumburro with his footmen...

With regard to the above item, the modern reader may note that the more things change, et cetera...

At Bangor petty sessions yesterday Mr. Horace Plunkett was summoned for furiously driving a motorcar along Holyhead Road. Evidence was given by two solicitors that the motorcar passed them at great speed and nearly upset their vehicle. They estimated its speed at 50 mph. A fine of £5, with costs, was imposed.

The legal speed limit in britain, I remembered, had recently been increased to 20 miles per hour.

THE AMERICA CUP TRIALS...

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES: SIR–I fear the 60 hours rain which we enjoyed on June 13, 14, 15 has utterly destroyed the prospects of partridge shooting for this year, at least in the southern Midlands...

BUER’S PILES CURE–gives instant relief...

CRYSTAL PALACE–MASSED BANDS–GREAT CONCERT...

WEATHER–Generally fair to fine and warm, for the next three days...

TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS REWARD FOR EVIDENCE which will lead to the Conviction of Driver or Owner of MOTORCAR which, between 4 and 5 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, ran into and knocked down two polo ponies...

A BEAUTIFUL HOME, 45 minutes from London amidst delightful scenery on the Kent and Surrey borders, to be SOLD, comprising a choice family mansion and heavily timbered park and woodlands of 300 to 700 acres as desired...

I had always found the prospect tempting, of being able to enjoy such an estate in rural England. Alas, my previous attempt along that line, some twelve years earlier (again, see The Dracula Tape), had taught me that such dreams were only folly for Prince Dracula–or Mr. Prince.

COAL–LOWEST SUMMER PRICES...

EXEMPTION of DOGS from VIVISECTION

Petitions to Parliament for the above are now being issued post-free...

EMPLOYMENT-OF-CHILDREN BILL...

NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS, Neuritis, Neuralgia, Sciatica, Lumbago, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Rheumatism, Gout and Malaria speedily cured by the highly recommended Ultra Violet Electric Light Lamp and combined Double Light baths and Currents of High Frequency and Ozone... LIGHT CURE INSTITUTE. HOME TREATMENT if required, Distance no Object...

At WORSHIP-STREET, the two men charged with attempting to defraud Frederick Wensley of £2,225 by means of a trick–the sale of brass filings as gold dust–were brought up on remand...

SERIOUS ILLNESS OF THE POPE–A sudden change in the condition of Leo XIII caused great anxiety...

THE UNITED STATES (from our own correspondent)– The President celebrated the Fourth of July by announcing at Huntington, “There is not a cloud of a handbreadth in the sky. We are on good terms with all the peoples of the world.”

THE ASSASSINATION OF A RUSSIAN GOVERNOR...

Why Don’t You Try BISHOP’S VARALETTES for 25 days for 5s?

They work wonders in all uric acid troubles...

A MEDICINE OF IMPERIAL REPUTE

WOODWARD’S

“GRIPE WATER”...

SEQUEL TO THE TSAR’S RECENT MANIFESTO–The optimistic hopes of many of the Russian Liberals that the Tsar’s recent manifesto heralded a large extension of local autonomy will hardly be upheld by the publication of the reprint of the conference held at Tsarskoe Selo on May 16... “One seems to encounter the Muscovites everywhere these days,” I remarked.

Watson, lapsing into the comfortable manner of one London clubman communicating with another, grunted from the opposite chair some comradely agreement. Since I had played so important a role in the rescue of Cousin Sherlock, he evidently was content at least to tolerate me. For the time being. Currently his boots were off and his stocking feet elevated on an ottoman, his upper half invisible behind his newspaper. I suspected that he was half asleep.

Need I say that my feelings toward that most unimaginative man were–and still are–mixed? but I had responded to his summons as quickly as I could, and with a sense of urgency, confident that the invocation had not been made frivolously.

I read on.

CRICKET

GENTLEMEN vs PLAYERS

The second day’s play in the Gentlemen vs Players match at Lord’s yesterday presented in every way, except the weather, a great contrast to the first...

CHURCH OF ENGLAND HOMES FOR WAIFS AND STRAYS...

ST. PETERSBURG–A Wireless Telegraph station has been established at Port Arthur, with the object of organizing regular telegraphic communication with Russian warships...

I cast my newspaper aside. Watson’s had now collapsed into a kind of tent, behind which he was snoring. Holmes came into the room shortly, and I, Dracula, began to argue with him, because I still felt real doubts as to whether Holmes’s kidnapper should be regarded as the only villain in the piece. For all we knew, young Louisa Altamont might have yielded willingly to her fanged seducer, even before the boating “accident”—and that traumatic event, if carefully investigated, might bear some different interpretation.

My cousin the detective did not care much for my tentative hypothesis, though he conceded to me that it was entirely possible that a treasure had been stolen from our mysterious Russian-speaking vampire at some time in the past.

Presently abandoning the argument, which had never been very intense, I announced my immediate intentions, or some of them anyway, and nipped out of doors. Shifting quickly to bat-form under cover of the blessed night, I made my second visit in a few hours to Sarah Kirkaldy, who I must confess was beginning to seem more and more attractive. Tut-tut, you say. With brother Abraham still laid out in his coffin in the parlor downstairs?

Actually, I refrained from any romantic endeavors on that night. I found Sarah keeping vigil by the coffin. For a while, I peered in through a window at this touching scene, then flew round the house, making an estimate of its security, before deciding that my seduction of Sarah had better wait. Maybe at least until tomorrow night.

While looking in the parlor window I also observed, briefly and more chastely, Rebecca Altamont, who like a good girl was reading another book–I could not make out the title–and keeping bereaved Sarah company in her deathwatch. That dutiful young woman was spending most of her time with her parents now, trying to shield them from further hurt.

I thought that the younger Miss Altamont, too, stood at some risk from her family’s mad enemy. I decided that tomorrow Mr. Prince must find an opportunity to warn becky, as he had already warned Sarah, of the dangers of taking the night air unaccompanied. Of course rebellious becky, if she knew Mr. Prince to be secretly associated with Mr. Holmes, would probably spurn the warning.

Even postponed for one more night, such early wooing would have to be classifed as very impetuous. but certainly there was good reason not to leave Sarah unattended. I would go to her, when I went again, with the genuinely altruistic motive of offering protective advice, and real protection.

Readily enough I imagined myself the scene that might take place upon my finding her in her room, restless and unable to sleep...

At my blackguardly intrusion, her gasp, of outrage mixed with other things. “Where did ye coom from?”

“You called me, Sarah.”

“I didna!” Pulling the bedclothes up ever more tightly under her chin. but her outrage was hollow.

“Perhaps it was your beauty alone that called... with such a voice that I was quite unable to resist.”

Well, soon enough I would probably play out that scene, or one much like it, in reality. I wondered whether my new potential conquest had been in communication with our chief foe since the former disastrous séance. Or whether this Count Kulakov–if that was really his name–his mind wandering as Cousin Sherlock said it did, or else focused sharply on revenge, had forgotten about Sarah and her dead brother for a time. A blessing for them if it were so–but one cannot always rely on blessings.

When I, Dracula, felt that I had done all that could reasonably be done to enhance Sarah’s security, and that of the household in general, I flew back to rejoin Cousin Sherlock and the worthy Watson at the inn. En route I actually passed (without, of course, being noticed) Armstrong in his roaring Mercedes, bound for the same goal. On reaching the Saracen’s Head I looked in at the window of Inspector Merivale’s room, where a steady snore informed me that the poor, tired man had retired early.

Gathered at our improvised headquarters, we felt reasonably certain that the last of the regular parties sent out to search for Holmes had retired or been recalled from the field, and as soon as Armstrong had rejoined us we equipped ourselves as best we could for the effort that lay ahead. The necessary materials included some tools suitable for breaking and entering. Even I might have trouble entering this tomb without them.

Let Watson tell the tale again.

Holmes had earlier remarked, and Dracula reminded us, that now the Altamont mausoleum qualified as a dwelling place, being inhabited by a living (though unbreathing) human; even should the doors stand wide open, those portals would be closed to any vampire lacking a direct invitation to enter.

Armstrong was familiar with the village and its environs, and was able to provide us with some tools. As we left the inn, the night was mostly cloudy, with little moon, which suited our purposes admirably.

In response to a question from Holmes, I assured him that I had indeed come equipped with my old service revolver.

“And wooden bullets?”

With some dignity I was able to reply that such necessities had not been forgotten.

Armstrong looked from one of us to the other as if quite convinced that we were both mad.

(Holmes told me he had considered waiting, tactfully, until Dracula was absent on some errand, to equip himself and me with implements intended for an even grimmer purpose: a wooden stake and large hammer. but Dracula would accept the need for such implements if tonight’s investigation indeed led us to the resting place of the vampire rapist and murderer, and if the latter should, by some good fortune, be in his coffin. At any rate, it would be hard indeed to conceal from the prince any sizable objects that we were carrying.)

Our party was fully assembled near midnight. The four of us set out for the cemetery secretly; we now had a rented carriage big enough to hold us all, and Dracula himself harnessed our horses without disturbing the stable boy.

Young Martin Armstrong’s impatience with the general failure to find any clue to the whereabouts of the living Louisa was reaching a dangerous level, nearing the point of frenzy. Despairing of ever obtaining official permission, he was ready to consider a rough-and-ready exhumation of the occupant of Louisa’s tomb as one way of making progress.

He mentioned that he had been planning his own independent expedition along that line, but he joined forces with us gratefully. He understood, he said, the desirability of having other witnesses present besides himself when the tomb was opened.

Though the night was very dark, so that I supposed even the horses could scarcely see the road, Dracula drove the carriage without lights, and without apparent difficulty. In about twenty minutes we were dismounting, leaving the horses and the lightless vehicle at a little distance from the burial ground. before we left the animals, which seemed skittish, Dracula soothed them somehow, and they started to crop the grass.

An owl flew hooting overhead as we once more approached the Altamont family mausoleum, its walls pale in the garish light of our electric torches. The sweet honeysuckle vine was now marked, somewhat to my surprise, by clustered, night-blooming, purple-white flowers. I stared intently and suspiciously at a small shape flying near these, thinking about bats, until Dracula assured me it was only a nightfeeding hawk moth, by which these flowers were mostly pollinated.

I held a small electric torch, and by its light Holmes needed only a moment or two to pick the old lock of the iron grating. The fastening of the inner door to the mausoleum yielded almost as quickly to his skilled fingers. The process of opening these barriers was silent; all the locks and hinges had been oiled and repaired less than a month ago, at the time of Louisa’s funeral.

Meanwhile Mr. Prince stood back a little, watching silently and with every appearance of tranquility, first with his hands in his pockets, then with his arms folded under his short cabman’s cape. He might have been listening to the ordinary sounds of the night–insects, an owl, the murmur of the nearby stream–but I felt mortally certain that he was on guard, in a way that we could never be, against any attack by our chief adversary.

Not far away was the place where Abraham Kirkaldy was to be buried–by the kind charity of the Altamonts, put under the soil in a simple grave. Tonight the open pit, edged by its pile of fresh earth, yawned at us, awaiting its tenant, and when we shone our lights in that direction provided us with an ominous reminder of mortality.

Having all, or most of us, crowded into the little building, we now turned our attention to the small crypt in the wall where almost a month ago Louisa’s body had been laid to rest. A small brass plate on the door confirmed the exact niche. Another door to be opened, and the casket was exposed. There was, as was more commonly the case a few years ago, a double coffin, the inner vessel of lead and hermetically sealed.

Dracula, resting one hand on the outer casing, turned his head and assured us silently, with a slight shake of his head, that the inner coffin was currently empty.

Holmes and I exchanged glances, while Armstrong, more and more puzzled, not aware that any discovery had yet been made, or that any decision was being taken, continued to look on impatiently.

Sherlock Holmes sighed, and I realized that he had decided it would be best to open the coffin, to demonstrate its vacancy to Armstrong. Though the young man was bound to misinterpret this discovery at first, yet it was a step on the way of preparing him for the truth which he might sooner or later have to face. I wondered whether Holmes also expected, or hoped to find some clue or evidence in the coffin, even though it should be untenanted.

Dracula returned to his position as sentry outside the mausoleum, while I continued to hold the lantern, and Holmes got to work with hammer and chisel and wrench. The inner container was of soft sheet-lead and easily cut apart.

Armstrong, despite his stoutly expressed confidence in Louisa’s survival, continued to exhibit thinly controlled anxiety while first the outer and then the inner container were being opened.

There were the white-satin pillows, showing a round indentation where a head had rested. but the head was gone, along with the rest of the corporeal tenant of the coffin.

“It is, as you see, empty.”

The young American let out a great sigh of relief. “Gentlemen, we have proof at last!”

I, at least, started in surprise on hearing this comment. but I realized that to Armstrong, the empty coffin was resounding confirmation of his own favorite theory. According to him, Louisa had never actually been interred here at all–no one had.

“Look at the sealing on the coffin, gentlemen–there has been no grave-robbery here. The body we all mourned last month as Louisa’s was taken away somehow at the last moment, and the coffin buried empty. With all that lead, no one noticed the difference in weight. The kidnappers have done a thorough job!”

Sherlock Holmes and Prince Dracula–the latter had now stepped back inside the door–exchanged a look, whose meaning I thought I could read perfectly: it would be useless at the present time to attempt to give the young man anything like a full explanation of the true state of affairs.

In fact, none of we older men could be sure at this point whether Louisa was out roaming, foraging for animal or human blood, or whether our chief opponent had intelligently anticipated our investigation here and had therefore moved Louisa elsewhere. The latter was perhaps the safest, as well as the most likely assumption.

We resealed the coffins, inner and outer, so that a close inspection of the outer would be necessary to tell that anything had been disturbed. We relocked the doors of the charnel house, and in general put things back as they had been. Then we took our departure.

Choosing a moment when Armstrong could not hear him, Holmes put into words the thought we others shared: “Her native earth lies around her for miles in every direction, and there are an almost infinite number of places where she may be hidden.”

Even Dracula could not undertake to find her in any reasonably limited period of time.