Sherlock Holmes--A Betrayal in Blood

by Mark A. Latham

  “Take it how you like. As soon as work is done on my new house, I’ll be gone, and not before time. Now, shall I go and fetch ’er, or do you want t’stand there all day asking foolish questions?”

  “My apologies; you must be a busy woman. If you would be so kind as to tell Mrs Harker we are here. Is that the sitting room? We shall wait there if we may.”

  I could tell Holmes was intrigued—he did not say as much, but he must have suspected, as did I, that the “foreign fellow” in question was Van Helsing. But why would Van Helsing have bought the guest house in which the Westenras had stayed? We took our seats as the sound of the housekeeper’s chuntered pejoratives faded away down the hall. The room was sparsely furnished, with little more than a table and chairs in what should have been a charming room overlooking the bay. I knew that our visit after dark was unorthodox, and that Mina Harker would be a reluctant hostess at best.

  At long last, the door opened, and Mrs Harker appeared. Holmes and I both rose to greet her, but at the very sight of her I became at once hesitant and nervous. Holmes noticed immediately, for I saw the quick dart of his eyes toward me as I bumbled a greeting. Mrs Harker saw it too, and I detected a flicker of a smile as perhaps she sensed a weakness in me. It was then that I realised the curious absence of any physical description of Wilhelmina Harker in the Dracula Papers. Perhaps she had removed this out of modesty when she had transcribed the documents.

  I could say nothing, but the simple truth was that Mina Harker, but for her colouring, bore some similarity to my dear Mary. The nearness of my grief for my late wife made me see her image in the most unlikely places, and what a trick of circumstance that I should see her here, in the form of a woman whom Holmes believed to be a villainess.

  “Forgive our intrusion on your evening.” Holmes spoke for us both. “I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate Dr Watson.”

  “How do you do,” I said, gathering my wits at last.

  “Goodness,” said Mrs Harker, “the great detective himself, so recently back from the dead, and his equally famous chronicler, here in my presence. And yet, one wonders what the urgent business must be, that it could not wait until morning.”

  “I am afraid we are in Whitby for only the shortest time, Mrs Harker,” Holmes replied. “Our current investigation takes us far and wide, and sets us on a most trying schedule. It was only this morning that we spoke with your husband, for instance. Though we were sorry at the time to have missed you, how fortunate it was that our paths should meet here, so far from home.”

  “I would scarcely call any part of England far from home, Mr Holmes, not after the distance I have travelled. And if the papers are to be believed, you doubtless feel similarly.”

  “I have travelled much in the line of my work.”

  “And what of your work brings you here, Mr Holmes? What could I possibly assist you with?”

  “Why, you are surely the very best person to speak with, Mrs Harker. Professor Van Helsing and his Crew of Light held you in the highest possible regard, and you were the organised hand behind the manuscript now called the Dracula Papers. Who else should I turn to, in order to uncover the truth of the matter?”

  “The truth, Mr Holmes? That suggests you believe the Dracula Papers to include fabrications.”

  “Certainly inaccuracies, which I am sure you would like to rectify. We are dealing with testimonies from many sources, each with their own motivations; and there is often nothing so strange and impermeable as the motivations of men.”

  “Those with whom I travelled were the best of men. There is no subterfuge, no lie to be uncovered. The highest court in the land has declared it so, and thus I cannot see what brings you to my door, Mr Holmes.”

  “And it is now your door, is it not, Mrs Harker? The house belongs to you now, or rather to Professor Van Helsing.”

  For a moment Mrs Harker looked irked; she glanced quickly over her shoulder, clearly annoyed that the bad-tempered Mrs Dryden had given too much away.

  “I am tenant here for now; is there something wrong with that?”

  “Not at all, Mrs Harker. It is just that your husband informed us that you were staying here to sort through the remainder of Lucy Westenra’s things. He did not mention that you were now in residence.”

  “My husband is a private man, Mr Holmes; perhaps he did not want all and sundry to know that his firm is moving north. It is quite an upheaval for all those in his employ, after all, not to mention his clients.”

  “Is Exeter no longer to your liking, Mrs Harker?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I merely make an assumption that the relocation is at your request. It is simply that your husband appears to have everything he requires there. Except, of course, his wife.”

  “That is impertinent, Mr Holmes.”

  “Forgive me.”

  “Only this once. It is true that I yearned to return to Whitby. Lucy and I shared many moments here in this house; happy ones for the most part. I felt the lure of the sea, if you will, and wished to return.”

  “It is strange how grief affects the mind,” Holmes observed. “After all, this house was surely the scene of more than one tragedy for you.”

  “The heart wants what it wants, Mr Holmes. There is no denying it. Besides, there are not so many happy memories in Exeter. A change seemed as good as a rest.”

  “And yet, with all your new-found fortune, you did not buy this house for yourself?”

  Mrs Harker frowned. “Mr Holmes, you still have not answered my question—why are you here?” It was a question we had been asked several times in the past few days, and one that I myself still did not truly know the answer to.

  “I am here, Mrs Harker, to investigate a string of suspicious deaths in the wake of your pursuit of Count Dracula, beginning with the apparent murder of your dear friend, Miss Lucy Westenra, and ending with the slaying of Count Dracula himself, at your husband’s hands and by his own written admission.”

  “M—my husband? No!” Mrs Harker looked panicked. “Count Dracula was a monster; a bloodthirsty creature who claimed the life of dear Lucy, and had to be destroyed!”

  Holmes was unruffled. “And if vampires existed, Mrs Harker, that would be a fine mitigation for hacking at a man’s neck with a kukri knife. Sadly, as there is no such thing as a vampire, it would seem to me that your husband is guilty of murder, and that you and your confederates are accomplices to the crime.”

  “You are wrong, Mr Holmes.” Mrs Harker stood and turned away from us. “I, better than anyone, know that vampires are real. What that creature did to me… and to poor Lucy…” She sniffed away her tears. I stood at once and offered Mrs Harker a handkerchief, which she took without turning to face us. I did not know what had come over Holmes in the last couple of days—he had never been one to place his faith in the gentler sex, but he had at least always remained gallant. To both Genevieve Holmwood and now Mina Harker he had been almost cruel.

  “And to your husband, Mrs Harker,” Holmes persisted. “Do not forget him.”

  She turned angrily to face Holmes, her eyes reddened. “I thank God every day that Jonathan escaped Castle Dracula, and that he recovered from his illness. The spectre of Dracula hangs over him no longer. But for my part, I was for ever changed by my ordeal. And how can I not think of Lucy while standing here, in this house?”

  “I merely observe, Mrs Harker, that any marriage would be strained by the things that you and your husband have faced. His—inconstancy—in Castle Dracula was only the first of a number of trials arrayed before you.”

  “He swore that nothing—”

  “And I am sure that he told the truth, Mrs Harker. Even if there is no such thing as a vampire.”

  I coughed in surprise at the insinuation. If the three beautiful women encountered by Jonathan Harker in that Transylvanian castle were of flesh and blood, then it would take a strong-willed man indeed to resist such sinful temptation. Holmes clearly believed that Jonathan Harke
r was not such a man.

  “I believe in my husband even if you do not. I have ever been a dutiful wife.”

  “But not such a dutiful fiancé, or so it seems from your journals.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Please, Mrs Harker, the evidence speaks for itself, in your own words. While your journals displayed evident concern for your husband’s well-being, at no point did you try to contact him by writing to Castle Dracula. Mr Hawkins’s law firm could surely have forwarded any correspondence, and we already know that you were well in the trust of Peter Hawkins himself. Your betrothed was already delayed by almost a month when you finally received a letter from him (which he later said he was forced to write, a letter dictated by the Count), and expressed any concern whatsoever in your own journals. Either the dates set down so meticulously by Mr Harker are false, or you simply cared not for your husband’s whereabouts.”

  “Mr Holmes, I did write to Jonathan, using the very methods you suggest, only I must have forgotten to include them in the Dracula Papers. And as for my concern, have you not considered that those extracts of the journals expressing my deepest fears for Jonathan’s safety contained such private thoughts that I did not wish to publish them?” Mrs Harker replied fiercely, her hands clenched into fists, and shaking. “As soon as I received news that Jonathan was sick, I rushed to his side. It was not the easiest journey for a lone woman to take, as I am sure you know.”

  “Yes, given the circumstances, your trip to Buda-Pesth and the subsequent wedding was most sudden, and is certainly testament to your prevailing sense of duty. Some might say it was the type of marriage reserved for a man on his deathbed, rather than merely a sick-bed.”

  “My husband’s fever was so severe, the nuns feared he would not survive. So it was a deathbed marriage, if you would put it so, though thankfully Jonathan survived to be a good and loving husband.” She dabbed at her eyes with my kerchief.

  “I can well imagine the emotion you must have felt. Indeed, in your journal you describe the wedding itself in the most emotional terms; the one passage in your transcript where your deepest feelings for your husband are revealed, perhaps. Indeed, you were most insistent in those lines. ‘I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me.’ It appears at first the very image of the dutiful bride. But it could just as easily be interpreted as a heartfelt plea by a woman forced into marriage by obligate circumstance.”

  Upon hearing her own words recited to her like a phonograph recording, Mrs Harker’s eyes blazed for a moment. “To see my husband so weak, so vulnerable, and yet so happy to see me—it was a moment that would have left any bride speechless, Mr Holmes. Happy and sad, and full of love all at the same time. I imagine you are the kind of man who cannot understand such depth of feeling.”

  “Tell me, Mrs Harker, have you always been so certain of your husband’s virtue?”

  “Wh—what do you mean?”

  “I put it to you that Jonathan Harker was never the man you intended to marry, but a man you courted out of some juvenile rivalry with a schoolfriend. I ask whether removing yourselves from Exeter might be for some other purpose. Perhaps you also sought to remove your husband from temptation?”

  “Holmes!” Again I was forced to defend a subject from Holmes’s brusque questioning. Here was an ordinary woman—so similar in manner and appearance to my late wife, that I simply could not stand by and let Holmes upset her further.

  “It is quite all right, Dr Watson,” Mrs Harker said, tears appearing once more in her dark eyes, her colour rising. “Mr Holmes evidently knows already of my husband’s past. He perhaps had a wandering eye in his youth, but that was all dead long ago. Now he is married; he has a duty to me as I have to him.”

  “And would that duty have anything to do with your friend, Professor Van Helsing?” Holmes asked, glancing at me warningly.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Simply put, Mrs Harker, does Professor Van Helsing know anything about you or your husband that might be… incriminating? Some nugget of information that ensures your continued loyalty to each other, and to him.”

  At this, Mrs Harker sat back in her chair, threw her small, pale hands to her face, and wept. I turned to Holmes angrily, and remonstrated with him as decorously as I could.

  “This is unbecoming of a gentleman, Holmes. Perhaps we should postpone further questioning until Mr Harker may be present.”

  “Oh, I don’t see how that would be any better, Watson. As I said earlier, seeing as how Mr Harker struck the fatal blow against Count Dracula, I still believe him to be guilty of a very serious crime. A crime in which, perhaps, Mrs Harker here is not complicit, and may wish to extricate herself from without any malign influence. If I can prove one murder, then suspicion certainly falls on Jonathan Harker for other crimes detailed within the Dracula Papers, or merely alluded to. Such as the death in suspicious circumstances of Mr Harker’s employer, Peter Hawkins.”

  At the mention of Hawkins, Mina Harker sniffed away her tears and looked up at Holmes with despair in her eyes. “Suspicious circumstances?” she croaked.

  “It is suspicious indeed that a man should alter his will, leaving everything to his junior solicitor, just one day before his death, and so soon after Mr Harker returned from his errand to Transylvania. Other than a case of gout, we know of no reason for Mr Hawkins’s sudden demise. It is more suspicious still that this strange affair was never investigated by the authorities. But of course, the legality of the will would be beyond question, given that the beneficiary was himself a lawyer. Oh, but I forget, Mrs Harker—you, too, have extensive knowledge of the law. Did you not write in your journal that you studied all of Mr Harker’s books, the better to aid him in his work?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I am merely trying to paint the fullest picture of events, Mrs Harker. I tend to think aloud, that is all.”

  “Mr Hawkins was a dear friend, who was almost like a father to me. His passing was one of the saddest times of my life, though I had little time to mourn before losing dear Lucy. You would not say such hurtful things if you had known us before all of this.”

  “That’s as may be, Mrs Harker, but instead I must be led by my observations. It seems to me that you are not simply moving house, but fleeing something.”

  Mrs Harker fell silent for a moment. Finally, she spoke quietly, the fight drained from her.

  “Very well, Mr Holmes. I shall tell you, for if the alternative is to be accused of murder on top of all the other tortures of my life this past year, then what choice do I have? Jonathan Harker is no killer; I shall maintain this with my last breath. But he has a weak will, and a wandering eye. There is someone in Exeter, Mr Holmes—in fact, more than just one ‘someone’—with whom Jonathan has had intimacy. He assures me that he has done me no wrong since our marriage, and I suppose I believe that, given his physical state. And yet I have seen with my own eyes the fondness he still holds for another woman—a former friend and neighbour, no less. Professor Van Helsing, out of love for us, secured this property and bade us move here, for the sake of our future happiness. The professor has done us this great kindness for all the multitude of reasons that a true friend could think of, and I fear that you misinterpret this kindness in order to cast a further black shadow over my husband and me.”

  I was stricken with pity for the woman—no more than a girl, really.

  “I see, Dr Watson, that you know how the heart can be broken and remade over and over,” she said. “If Mr Holmes cannot understand what it is to love someone unconditionally, then perhaps you can.”

  “I do,” I said. “My dear wife was more precious to me than anything in the world.”

  “Was?” Mina Harker looked up at me, with sorrow in her dark eyes.

  I nodded.

  “Watson, that’s enough,” Holmes said. “I rather fear that we have overstepped the mark this time. Mrs Harker, I am sorry to have caused you any undue distress.”<
br />
  I was as surprised as anyone that Holmes had offered an apology. Mrs Harker, further endearing herself to me, offered Holmes a forgiving smile by way of acceptance.

  We said our goodbyes, though I noticed that Holmes was quick not to let me exchange any further comforting words with Mrs Harker. As we reached the door, Holmes turned back, at which I almost groaned aloud. He was tenacious, like a terrier with a rat.

  “I must ask one further question, Mrs Harker, and then we shall leave you in peace. Do you have any idea why Count Dracula would come to Whitby, so far from the home he purchased in London, and single out Lucy Westenra as his victim? He could not have known Miss Westenra, or even of her very existence.”

  “On the contrary, Mr Holmes. When I wrote to Jonathan, in the letters that you do not believe exist, I told him I was staying with Lucy. She was such a dear friend that I spoke of her in the most elevated terms, which must have drawn the Count to her goodness like a moth to candlelight. He doubtless commandeered the ship—the Demeter—for the very purpose of landing in Whitby.”

  “And Lucy’s illness and agitated sleep—this occurred before the Count had even embarked the Demeter?”

  “Professor Van Helsing explained that the Count projected some strange, psychical influence, that knew not the limitations of borders or even oceans. I felt that influence exerted upon me, and though I cannot explain it to this day, I well believe it.”

  “And was it a coincidence that Dracula bought a property at Carfax, directly next to an asylum run by Dr Jack Seward, himself a close friend of Lucy Westenra?”

  “It must have been, and a horrid coincidence at that. But Mr Holmes, you promised one more question, and I have already counted three. Will you not leave me to my evening?”

  “My dear lady, I apologise. Good night to you.”

  Holmes tugged at my arm, barely giving me time to doff my hat to Mrs Harker before ushering me out of the house. I looked back as we stepped onto the street, and Mina Harker, her face gleaming pale in the moonlight, nodded weakly at me, perhaps in appreciation for rescuing her from Holmes’s interrogation.