Sherlock Holmes--A Betrayal in Blood

by Mark A. Latham

  This was a true success, and I allowed myself a chuckle. I had not, until last night, truly considered Mrs Harker as our enemy; now I most certainly viewed her as such, and a devious one at that. Finally, however, we had an advantage.

  Holmes put away the letter, took up the heavy ledger, and marched at once out into the adjoining corridor. There, the harbourmaster, who had apparently been about to join us, attempted to stop us from removing the log, quoting chapter and verse all manner of procedures and by-laws regarding the official status of the document. Holmes fixed the man with his most imperious glare, and said, “If you wish to protect the reputation of this office, you will explain to me at once why this ledger contains a forged ship’s log, which falsifies the accounts of several mysterious deaths at sea. I assure you, sir, that charges of conspiracy will be brought upon every man in this office unless you cooperate.”

  There was a brief spell of defiance from the aging harbourmaster, who was clearly not used to being browbeaten by civilians; yet ultimately he was a public servant, and understood only too well the seriousness of the matter being put before him. All the bureaucracy in the world would not protect him should Holmes’s accusations prove true. He explained that the head of the Harbour Board was one Robert Browning, who was responsible for all logs regarding wrecks and disasters at sea. He would have signed the documentation regarding the Demeter’s log personally.

  With a tip of his hat, Holmes marched out, with me in his wake, and soon we were heading up the lane to the Harbour Board offices.

  * * *

  “I am a very busy man, Mr Holmes, can’t we do this some other time?” Mr Browning was an uncommonly brusque gentleman, who did his best to give Holmes and me short shrift, but he had not counted on Holmes’s tenacity.

  “I am afraid not,” Holmes replied. “We must return to London today, and this matter is one of utmost urgency. Now, will you talk to us, or should I take this to Scotland Yard and have them pay you a visit?”

  Holmes dropped the ledger upon Browning’s desk. The man had been glancing nervously at it for the whole time we had been arguing, and now he became very quiet. Browning’s clerk had been standing behind us in the door of the office, trying to get us to leave; now, Browning waved him away, and the clerk removed himself from the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Now then, Mr Holmes, what’s all this about?” Browning offered an innocent smile, but beads of sweat had already formed upon his balding brow. Here was a man who carried great guilt.

  “I think you know very well,” Holmes said. “This ledger contains the supposed translation of a ship’s log—the Demeter, a schooner wrecked off the coast of Whitby last year. The log, as added to the official archives by you, sir, is a work of fiction; a forgery, provided by a third party to obfuscate some terrible crime.”

  “Wh… where is your evidence?” Browning stammered.

  “I can prove beyond doubt that the log is a forgery. I can prove who wrote it, for I am already investigating her part in another crime entirely.”

  “Her? Then you know—”

  “Indeed I do. What I do not know is why you, a respected public servant—an elected official, no less—would allow this travesty to occur unchallenged.”

  “It… I… Look here, Mr Holmes, I took that record on good faith. It was translated from the ship’s log by the Russian consul, and—”

  “Translated,” Holmes snapped. “From this?” He took out the pages of the original log and placed them on the desk beside the book. “Eight pages survive, and more than half their content smeared and illegible. And yet miraculously the ledger contains sixteen pages of precise, uninterrupted accounts of the Demeter’s fateful last voyage. Did you fail to notice this oversight when you received the pages ‘in good faith’?”

  “Pages… must be missing,” Browning said, panic in his voice. “Misplaced. Yes, that’s it, misplaced. There must have been more.”

  “I think not, Mr Browning. I think that when I take these scraps to the Russian embassy myself, I shall find little in common between the truth and the official account. Why would you do such a thing to those poor sailors?”

  “As I said, I received those pages in—”

  “So you claim incompetence? Or perhaps negligence? Both preferable, I suppose, to criminal conspiracy, although I am not sure how a judge will see it.”

  “Look, Mr Holmes, the Demeter is long gone. Her crew is gone. There was no funny business on the part of any man or woman in Whitby that contributed the wrecking of that schooner. No crime has been committed, beyond the alleged falsification of records. No harm has been done.”

  “No harm?” Holmes raised his voice now, and drew himself up to his full height. His aquiline nose and angular features took on the aspect of a buzzard ready to strike down at the gizzard of a startled rabbit. The effect was not lost on Browning. “All hands died aboard that ship. Families mourn the loss of brothers, sons and friends, with only lies and fairy stories to console them. And yet you say no harm was done? For shame, sir! Perhaps I should give your regards to the Russian embassy while I am there—perhaps they will share your sentiment.”

  “Enough, enough!” Browning held his palms out in a gesture of surrender. “What can I do to make amends, Mr Holmes? Please, I cannot let this thing come to light. I would be ruined.”

  “Then why strike a bargain with such a villainess? This Wilhelmina Harker—yes, I know her name, do not look so surprised. You can begin with an explanation as to why a Harbour Board official would become a partner in crime to such a woman.”

  Browning’s head sank into his hands, and finally he explained himself.

  During the investigation into the mysterious wreck of the Demeter, Browning was approached by a young woman whom he had never seen before, and was suddenly and passionately thrust into a romantic affair with her. Browning described how he quite lost his head upon receiving the attentions of such a pretty, eloquent and confident woman, and in the heat of the moment reneged on his marriage vows to forsake all others. The very next day, however, Browning received a visit from the woman, who showed to him several photographs, taken by an accomplice, and threatened to show these photographs to his wife unless he helped her.

  Under these conditions of blackmail, the log of the Demeter was handed to the woman—who he now knew to be Wilhelmina Harker—and later returned to the Harbour Board office by a London reporter, with a signed statement supposedly from the Russian consul regarding the log’s translation. Browning, already too far embroiled in a plot he could not understand, presented this information as fact at the inquest, and no more was heard on the matter. The unnamed newspaper correspondent made sure to be indiscreet in his local enquiries, causing gossip to spread like wildfire amongst the fishwives, fortifying Mina Harker’s version of events in the popular imagination.

  “What do you suppose really happened to the Demeter?” I asked.

  Browning shook his head. “I do not know for certain, and I doubt we will ever know the truth, for the original log is in too poor a condition to read. Perhaps one of the sailors carried some horrid disease, or perhaps the first mate really was a murderer as the captain first suspected. And then there was the dog…”

  Holmes’s eyes lit up. “Yes, the dog. It was later described in the Dracula Papers as a wolf, but the original statement makes no such claim. I would guess that the hound carried some foreign illness that beset the crew, and then itself escaped in the wreck. Several witnesses saw it run along the shore.”

  “I daresay you are right, Mr Holmes, although no dog was ever found.”

  “Back to these photographs, Mr Browning—are they still held over you?”

  “They are, which is why I would not testify to anything I have told you unless my life depended on it. For the sake of my poor wife…”

  Browning broke down in a fit of trembling, his eyes full of such remorse that it was hard not to feel for him, for all his foolishness. He asked Holmes to swear that his name would not
be dragged into the case unnecessarily, so that he might at least attempt to make it up with his wife and, of course, keep his position on the Harbour Board, for which he had worked all his life.

  “I can make no guarantee,” Holmes said. “I will do what I can, on that you have my word, but your actions have allowed more than one murder to go undetected and unchallenged. Though I am sure you would have behaved differently had you known, the fact remains that the consequences were severe indeed.”

  At these words, Browning almost wept, and expressed his gratitude to Holmes. Here was a man of great seniority within his little world of sailors, fishermen, clerks, records and cargoes. And yet before Holmes he had become timid and humbled. I could only be glad that I was Holmes’s friend, and not an enemy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  When finally we returned to Baker Street, my head still aching dully from the previous night’s trials, we found two letters waiting for us. The first came as some surprise to me—it was from Van Helsing himself! Due to our trip to Whitby this letter was not received until a delay of some two days had passed. Holmes bemoaned this as soon as we received the communication, but also found a silver lining: Van Helsing had not expected us to go north quite so suddenly, which led Holmes to believe the things we discovered there were of genuine interest, rather than any staged performance of Van Helsing’s design.

  Letter, Abraham Van Helsing to Sherlock Holmes,

  10 April 1894

  I have reviewed your cases, and see you have an impressive record of bringing to justice criminals most nefarious—or most careless. Though the police they celebrate you highly, Mr Holmes, it appear to me that without the mortal foe who to make mistake, the great Sherlock Holmes is no more than the bloodhound chasing the wounded fox, no? I tell you in words plain, Mr Holmes, there are some foes in this world that are beyond you. The greatest opponent that you ever face was the Professor Moriarty, who almost was the end of your life. Yet the creature Dracula, whom I pursue to the end of the earth, was worth ten of your Moriarty. I am the one who see to the end of his threat most terrible.

  I am to think that you would fare not so well against the likes of Dracula, you with your mind so closed to possibilities beyond the five senses. Imagine therefore how poorly you would fare against one who could defeat even Dracula. I am to hope for your sake, Mr Holmes, that you never are to discover a foe so powerful, so ruthless, and so single-minded in his goals.

  Van Helsing

  The second letter was from Holmes’s informant, Langdale Pike, who had indeed sent a reply via messenger. Holmes had asked Pike for any information he could find on Mina Harker and Genevieve Holmwood, notably regarding if either of them had any history in the theatre.

  Letter, Langdale Pike to Sherlock Holmes, 13 April 1894

  Holmes,

  How interesting that Lady Godalming has come to your attention. You must surely know that I have been collecting snippets on her for some time, for she caused quite the stir last season, and who knows what marvellous scandal she will incite this time? We simply must exchange intelligence when next we meet.

  Genevieve Holmwood was once simple Jennie Megginson of Scarborough, a lady’s maid, of all things, who went on to play the seaside dancehalls. She had a particular talent for stage make-up and costumery, and worked her way up from assistant to actress. It seems she’s always been quite the ambitious one. She spent some little time in London, where she auditioned more than once under the name Genevieve Kidd, for a certain theatre manager whom I know. She had some talent, it is said, and even portrayed Juliet at the Royal in ’89, though not to any notable acclaim. He says her success was somewhat disproportionate to her talents, and she was a touch too self-absorbed to be a true artiste. Anyway, she disappeared from the limelight not too long after that, due to a poor temperament making her ill-dispositioned toward critique, and she has not been heard of again, until now, of course.

  That is all I could find at such short notice, but I shall continue to make discreet enquiries. In exchange, I expect you to attend my next dinner party—you always make for the finest entertainment, Holmes, and yet you rarely put in an appearance. What are friends for, after all?

  Your friend,

  L.P.

  Upon reading the letters, Holmes at once scribbled two messages—one a reply to Pike, and the other a short missive to Inspector Bradstreet. He then ran downstairs to find a messenger, and despite the late hour returned successful.

  “I am afraid your hot bath and rest shall have to wait, Watson,” he said. “We must work quickly if we are to tighten the net.”

  “Whatever now? What can you hope to achieve at this hour?”

  “Why, night-time is the perfect time for our purpose.”

  “Which is?”

  “To find a vampire, of course!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE BLOOFER LADY

  We stood beneath the shadow of St Michael’s, looking along a dark, cypress-lined avenue that led to the sombre Egyptian-style tombs of Highgate Cemetery. Inspector Bradstreet and I stamped our feet against the midnight chill, while Holmes seemed not to notice the cold at all. The weather in London had taken a turn for the worse, and even now a fog was dropping upon an already gloomy scene.

  “Excellent,” said Holmes. “The conditions are almost as they were on that fateful night when Lucy Westenra’s corpse was seen walking abroad. What better time to recreate those ghastly events.”

  Bradstreet looked alarmed. “Recreate them? With all due respect, Holmes, I did not come all the way out here to cut the heads off any corpses.”

  “Nor will you have to, Inspector,” Holmes said cheerfully. “The corpse in question has already been mutilated by Lord Godalming; I shouldn’t imagine it will do any walking about on our watch.”

  Since receiving confirmation of Lady Godalming’s theatrical past, Holmes had become convinced that she had played another key role at the behest of Van Helsing—that of the mysterious “bloofer lady”, or the “Hampstead Horror”—an Un-Dead of Dracula’s making that had been seen haunting Highgate, and eventually revealed to be the restless body of Lucy Westenra. This “vampire” had snatched several children from the surrounding area before fleeing back to her tomb, whereupon she had been stopped once and for all by the Crew of Light. At Van Helsing’s instruction, Arthur Holmwood had struck Lucy’s head from her body, ending the new vampire’s reign of terror.

  Holmes now clutched several pages from the Dracula Papers, and scanned them once more. “We tread in the very footsteps of our notorious vampire hunters,” he said. “Let us see if we can find out how the trick was performed.”

  Bradstreet was by now well in our confidence, and as certain as Holmes that some great conspiracy was underway. After seeing the fate of Frank Cotford, however, he was not inclined to take his suspicions to his superiors without hard evidence. Holmes had sent a messenger asking Bradstreet to meet us at Highgate, and to bring a set of tools with him. To his credit, Bradstreet had come equipped for some grim work, even though he did not have the support of Scotland Yard on the matter.

  “I’ve never been one to believe in fairy stories,” said Bradstreet, “though I tend not to tempt fate where I can help it. I hope you aren’t planning to wake the dead tonight.”

  “Why, Inspector, what a peculiar thing for a man of the law to say. No, I do not presume to wake the dead, though perhaps they shall speak to me.”

  “This is a raw night for loitering around graveyards, Mr Holmes, especially if you’re planning on opening up a tomb.”

  “Actually, Inspector, given the legalities of such a venture, I was going to insist that you open it.”

  The inspector grumbled at this, while Holmes set off briskly, taking the path through the graveyard, explaining to us his theory as he went.

  “We are told by the Dracula Papers that this particular Un-Dead fiend preyed exclusively on young children. I’d guess that ‘bloofer lady’ is in fact a child’
s attempt at saying ‘beautiful lady’, recorded literally by the reporter. None of the children who encountered the bloofer lady were killed, but all had small, inexplicable puncture-marks on their throats, and were lethargic and weak. What restraint this fledgling vampire showed! Do you recall the descriptions of the women in Castle Dracula given us by Jonathan Harker? Do you remember how insatiable in his bloodlust Dracula himself was aboard the Demeter, according to the falsified log? But here we have an Un-Dead, newly made, hungering for blood, and yet able to drink but a token amount from so tempting a victim as a plump child?

  “Genevieve Holmwood, in the guise of Lucy Westenra, walked about the cemetery at night, scaring the wits from anyone who saw her.

  “Van Helsing hired Lady Godalming—then simply plain Miss Kidd, do not forget—based primarily on her appearance. An actress with her best days behind her, of notably similar looks to Miss Westenra… well, I imagine he thought Christmas had come early. Even though she must have known the immorality of what she was about to do, Miss Kidd entered Van Helsing’s employ, probably for the first time in what would become quite the criminal partnership. She abducted children who played out late upon the neighbouring heath, luring them to her, and probably feeding them sweets laced with laudanum. When the children fell into a drug-induced sleep, during which they would feel nothing, Miss Kidd pricked at their throats, perhaps with a brooch-pin, and then left them to recover alone. The children would have remembered nothing during their fug, but for the mysterious woman, and certain nightmares induced by the drugs in ones so young. After several repetitions of this ruse, the local community would have become fearful for their children. Rumours would have spread, tales would have become taller. By the time word of the ‘Hampstead Horror’ reached the ears of our newspaperman, the story was so entrenched in the popular imagination that it almost wrote itself.”