Sherlock Holmes--A Betrayal in Blood

by Mark A. Latham

The station was quiet when we arrived, for the queues had not yet begun to form for the day’s travel. Only those fortunate souls who had secured places on the Constantinople-bound Orient Express now made their way to the chilly platform outside. We noted duly that time was on our side at last—the Bucharest-bound train did not run on Tuesdays. If Van Helsing were only a day ahead of us, he would have had to arrange his travel using local lines, and even if his knowledge of the region were superior to our own, that would surely have presented him with several delays.

  We had few opportunities to stretch our legs at the various stops along the way, and did not spend any substantial time off the train until Buda-Pesth the following morning.

  From Buda-Pesth, our tickets afforded us travel first to Klausenburgh, and then to Bistritz upon a local service. Had I known just how basic the train to Bistritz would be, and how long the journey, I would have taken the time to drink in the comforts of the hostelries of Klausenburgh. As it was, I spent what seemed like an eternity on a small, uncomfortable seat, with an old woman bundled up next to me, snoring in my ear the entire way.

  We had not seen hide nor hair of civilisation for the duration of the day. Forests, hills, and snow-capped mountains rolled past the train in an endless procession, with only the occasional fortified church, ruin or tiny medieval village in the distance providing evidence that men had ever trod these environs.

  When finally we reached Bistritz, the sun had almost set, and the tiny train station had about it a lonely, eerie aspect. I was so relieved to walk in the fresh air that I did not care at all that it was freezing cold, or that the local people stared at us suspiciously. We walked a short distance along the main street, ignoring the occasional beggar-boy or the enticements of innkeepers touting for custom, and instead followed the directions that had been given us in Vienna. The concierge at the Klomser had sent our bags onwards to the Hotel Sahlings, though he could not guarantee it would reach our accommodation before us. The rest of our luggage had remained in Vienna—we would have to live pretty rough if we decided to stay on for more than one or two nights. Of our exact plans beyond Bistritz, Holmes had shared little; I wondered just how much of a plan he even had.

  To describe Sahlings as “modest” would be to do an injustice to all those modest but comfortable hotels that populate the market towns of England. Situated just off the town square, the building itself was fine enough, if a little gloomy, but it was clearly running with a skeleton crew, and was in dire need of attention. We managed to communicate well enough with the weary-looking manager, who, I was thankful to find, had received a wire from Vienna and had our room prepared. I was most relieved to find our bags waiting for us, somewhat battered from what I presumed to be its time aboard a freight car, but otherwise a welcome sight.

  Once we had washed and eaten a stodgy local stew, Holmes set about outlining our next moves. He sent me to see the manager again, to find any literature I could on the local area, and to engage the man in conversation regarding any recent English guests.

  “You’re the more personable, Watson,” Holmes said. “Take a drink with the chap and see if you can find anything out.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “I shall be about town, surveying the lay of the land.”

  “Holmes! We are in a strange country, and perhaps a hostile one. We should stay together.”

  “Nonsense. There is too much to arrange, and too much at stake. Need I remind you that Aytown and Singleton could be dead already, and if they are not, their lives depend on our quick action.”

  “How on earth shall we find them?” I asked.

  “If they made it as far as Bistritz, I imagine it will be easy enough. Two Englishmen asking foolish questions will surely stand out. Of course, we will soon be in much the same position, so best have your wits about you. Now, run along, dear fellow—play your part, and I shall play mine, and I’ll see you back here in a couple of hours.”

  * * *

  It was closer to three hours later when Holmes returned, rubbing his arms against the cold.

  “I was worried sick,” I said. “It’s past midnight.”

  “So it is. I ended up in a tavern, and I am afraid I drank rather too much of the local tsuika.”

  “Really, Holmes! How does this help our plans?”

  “Simply because the local rowdies are amongst the most superstitious lot I have ever encountered. A few careful questions followed by several drinks loosened their tongues such that they lined up to frighten a stranger to their town with tales of vampires and werewolves.”

  “Did they tell you about Count Dracula?”

  “After prompting, yes. Perhaps our mysterious Count is something of a phantom after all, Watson, for he certainly haunts our path through this elaborate tale. I maintain that Count Dracula was not a vampire. The locals, however, are not so sure. Here we have mean whispers of a strange, eccentric nobleman, living in his crumbling castle up in the mountains. He comes from an ancient family that fought the Turks in the time of Vlad the Impaler—a family with a reputation for hot tempers and bloodthirsty conquest. Some say he’s immortal, others that the family has long been in league with Satan. No two stories were the same… It seems to me that this lonely ‘exile’, as he calls himself, has been the subject of malicious gossip for a long time indeed.”

  “I still don’t understand how this helps us.”

  “Because when I brought the conversation around to Transylvania’s proud heritage, and the pride of the ancient Magyars, one old man called Dracula a traitor to his kind. He said that foreigners had been trekking back and forth from the mountains on and off for well over a year, carting wagon-loads of goods to some secret location near the castle. I asked if they were German, and the man said no—they were English, like me. He also said that Dracula sat on a hoard of gold, which he never used to help the poor people of his domain, but instead used to line the pockets of foreign investors. A narrative has started to form in my mind, Watson.”

  “How is this narrative any more reliable than stories of vampires?”

  “Because the old man was genuinely angry—he was not merely trying to scare a foreigner with childish tales. And he said something else, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said that Dracula was so disliked by those hereabouts, that he could only find servants from amongst the Szgany.”

  “His gypsies,” I said. These fearless horsemen had been well detailed in the Dracula Papers, as Dracula’s faithful servants in the fight against the Crew of Light.

  “Not his, apparently. The Szgany are ill thought of around here. They are said to be inconstant—mercenaries who sell their blades to the highest bidder. That led to Dracula’s downfall: they turned upon him for a better offer.”

  “And did you learn who made this offer?” I asked.

  Holmes shook his head. “But I’m sure you can hazard a guess. Now, Watson, that is all I discovered. I trust you had a quieter evening, but no less informative.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” I said. “I have a map of the region about the Borgo Pass, and the hotel manager was kind enough to mark on it the road to Castle Dracula. He will also arrange a carriage for our journey tomorrow.”

  “Excellent. And what of Aytown and Singleton? Any mention of other Englishmen passing this way?”

  “He claimed he did not know.”

  “Claimed? You suspect he was lying?”

  “It could have been the difficulty he had in speaking English, but I would say he was reluctant to discuss it.”

  “Let us hope it was the former. If our host is in league with the enemy, we may well have a tough time ahead. But don’t let me worry you, Watson—I am merely thinking aloud. We must get some sleep. Tomorrow will be another long day, and I fear there will be much danger to face before the end.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CASTLE DRACULA

  The coach-and-four set a fine pace along roads that had seen better days, and eventually o
n a bumpy trail that wended its way through gloomy pine forests. The strange calls of unfamiliar creatures sounded dully beyond the shadows that whipped past our ill-fitted windows, through which cold air gusted uncomfortably.

  The driver, swaddled against the cold in such a heap of ragged blankets that he barely resembled a man, spoke very little English, and not much more German. He had managed to inform us that the journey to the Borgo Pass would take perhaps five hours, stopping only a few times at lonely inns and isolated villages along the way to water the horses and stretch our legs. By securing a private carriage at the hotel, rather than the public diligence, we were able to make good time. When asked if he would take us on directly to Castle Dracula, the coachman was strangely reticent, and pretended not to understand. If he refused us later, we would be stranded. I remembered Harker’s diary—he had been likewise abandoned in a harsh wilderness, only to be picked up by a strange black carriage driven by a demonic coachman, who Harker had suggested was Count Dracula himself. Knowing that his account was a fiction proved little comfort now that we were here, looking out onto the mournful, desolate beauty of haunted Transylvania.

  When we did pass by villages and farmsteads, groups of peasants, dressed in their sheepskins and gaily coloured gatya, stared at us impassively. One old woman, upon seeing foreigners taking the road to the Borgo Pass, made the sign of the cross; whether for our benefit, or her own, we could not tell.

  We moved up and down great ranges of hills, until finally we crested a high ridge, and the landscape changed dramatically. Ahead stretched an interminable forest, painted upon the vista in daubs of green, blue and black, reaching all the way to the base of the purple mountain range with its snow-capped peaks lost to enveloping clouds. I considered myself well travelled, but had never seen a land so untamed, so starkly beautiful, and yet somehow so forbidding.

  We passed a sign for Piatra, which we had noted on our map as the nearest large settlement to our destination. The coach forked away from it, however, following an easterly trail that led into a steep valley. The road seemed to be swallowed by the carpet of rocks and trees ahead, only to reappear on the upper slopes of the foothills beyond. We were forced to slow for the inequalities in the road, and had not travelled far when we saw that we were no longer alone.

  From all sides came the shouts of men. From behind us came hoofbeats upon hard ground.

  Upon hearing these sounds, something spurred our driver to action, and he at once took his long whip to the team. The sudden burst of speed along such an uneven road forced Holmes and me to brace ourselves so as not to tumble from our seats. When finally we regained our balance, we were able to look through the grimy windows to see just who approached.

  A dozen or so horsemen trailed behind us, and more rode from narrow paths on either side, gaining rapidly. Although we were strangers in this land, we knew at once from the descriptions we had read in the Dracula Papers, and the things we had heard in Bistritz.

  Szgany.

  Dressed in silks and furs, with large moustaches and carrying long knives, the fierce gypsies of this region now hounded our advance. And behind the horses came a small carriage, which must have approached from the Piatra road, for it could not otherwise have caught us so easily.

  The gypsies called to each other in their strange language, and shouted to our driver, who cracked his whip and quickened his horses to a breakneck speed, like the very devil were on our heels.

  We thundered into a deep forest basin, and jolted up the other side, the snorting of our horses and clattering of the carriage wheels almost drowning out the whooping of the Szgany behind us. Gunfire cracked. We looked back, our teeth rattling in our skulls from the bumpy ride, and we saw that several gypsies had ridden to the fore, firing rifles in the air. If they wanted us to stop, their actions had the reverse effect.

  Holmes reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a revolver. He gave me a nod, and I took up my own gun, which I had hoped I would not need.

  Each of us leaned out of our respective windows, immediately assailed by the freezing mountain air. Holmes fired first—his shot was deliberately high, and caused the gypsies to flinch upon their steeds. One of them now lowered his rifle, holding it in one hand in a most ungainly fashion as he wrestled with the reins in the other. I could see that their warning shots had ceased, and the man intended to fire at us directly. With self-preservation foremost in my mind, I squeezed a round from my revolver, which must have nicked him, for he almost dropped his rifle and ducked low to the neck of his horse.

  Another shot rang out from our pursuers, this time cracking against the rear of the coach. Splinters of wood erupted inside.

  Holmes fired again, missing his mark. The coach now crested a hill; sunlight streamed into the cab, and illuminated the Szgany to our advantage.

  One of the gypsies fell as a bullet struck him in the shoulder—but it had not been fired by me or Holmes. Our coachman cried out in his own tongue, and for a second I wondered if he was the gunman, or perhaps whether he himself had been hit. But then I realised his tone was one of surprise, and turned to look at the road before us.

  The trees thinned out ahead, giving way to rocky, scree-covered slopes. And upon those slopes stood armed men. They were not Szgany, nor even Transylvanian by the look of them, but had the disciplined look of soldiers.

  Our coachman slowed to avoid running into them, and the men at once fanned out, opening fire with their rifles—British, Martini-Henry rifles, if I were any judge—stopping the advance of the Szgany at once.

  There was a short exchange of fire as some resistance was offered, but soon the gypsies had turned their horses about and were racing back down the trail. We thought for a moment that our driver would not stop, but Holmes leaned out and shouted to him in English and German until finally he reined in the horses. Before I could say a word, Holmes sprang out, and made his way back down the road towards our saviours. By the time I caught up with him, he was shaking hands with a tall, thin fellow who looked rather out of place amongst the military men at his side.

  “Alfred Singleton, I presume,” Holmes said.

  The man looked surprised. “Why… yes. We learned just hours ago that two Englishmen were leaving Bistritz after asking about Castle Dracula, and that the Szgany had taken a particular interest in them. But I would wager that our intelligence is at least partly wrong, and that you are neither Garnett Pym nor Chester Creak.”

  “You are correct. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate Dr Watson.”

  “Bless my soul!” Singleton gasped, a look of unimaginable relief upon his pale, lined face. “I’ve heard of you. You’re both the last person I’d expect to see out here, and the most welcome. What brings you to Transylvania, Mr Holmes?”

  “You do, sir. I learned that a villain by the name of Van Helsing was on his way here personally, doubtless to finish off his dark business by murdering the last two true witnesses to his crimes: yourself and a certain Mr Aytown. Where is your companion?”

  Sadness crossed Singleton’s face. “You’re too late, Mr Holmes. Francis met his end at the hands of the Szgany just a week ago. Indeed, he’s buried on the ridge up there. It was sheer luck that I managed to find these men, and they have offered me protection while I continue my research at Castle Dracula.”

  “And these are Royal Engineers?”

  Singleton nodded, and at last introduced us to our saviours. Holmes handed the message from Mycroft over to the leader of the group, Captain Brownsworth, who studied it carefully, before shaking Holmes by the hand also.

  Before further pleasantries could be exchanged, two more Engineers rode up the trail towards us on horseback, one of them with the wounded gypsy thrown over his saddle, hog-tied and cursing.

  “Put a gag on that man, and see to his wound,” Brownsworth ordered. “We’ll find out what he knows later.” The captain turned to us again. “You are welcome to billet with us, gentlemen. We lodge at Castle Dracula.”

  Hol
mes turned to Singleton. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Oh yes, Mr Holmes. If it were not so dangerous, I would have returned home with my findings days ago. But the Szgany patrols have increased in frequency.”

  “They are receiving orders to stop you at any cost,” Holmes said. “And I imagine those orders shall be extended to us now. They were accompanied by a small coach just now. Is that normal?”

  “No,” said Brownsworth. “It’s a deuced impractical vehicle for these trails, too.”

  “Then they have a leader now. A man too old and out of condition to travel with the Szgany by horse. A man whose sense of retribution has led him here, to see personally what you have found in the castle, and to ensure it is destroyed.”

  “You mean to say that was Van Helsing in the coach?” Singleton asked.

  “It had to be. He left England before us, though I had hoped he was delayed sufficiently so as not to plan for our arrival. It seems he had time enough. He will not let us leave here alive.”

  “That’s grave news,” said Brownsworth. “We don’t have enough men to repulse a sustained attack. Just these, plus a handful more back at the castle. We are not provisioned for a siege.”

  Holmes smiled. “Perhaps a siege is exactly what we need…”

  * * *

  The road to Castle Dracula was winding and perilous, twisting its way up the south-east face of a tall mountain, and eventually looping beneath the curtain-walls of ancient fortifications. Many times our coach’s wheels scraped so close to the edge of the great precipice that I was able to look out of the window to stare directly down into a yawning drop, the full extent of which was obscured by billowing cloud.

  By the time we came to a halt, and I was able to step out onto the cobblestones of the courtyard, my legs were like jelly. If Holmes had experienced any anxiety over the hair-raising journey up the mountain, he showed no sign.

  Before us, the castle loomed, black and jagged. It appeared solid enough—featureless grey walls grew upwards from a courtyard strewn with detritus, while parapets and crenellations towered precariously above. The outer walls were in a poor state of repair; ancient battlements stood proud, and even now were patrolled by the small garrison of Royal Engineers, who peered occasionally down the mountain-path through their binoculars. This was a castle that had seen hardship over the long centuries—whatever wealth the reclusive Count Dracula had possessed, he had clearly not used it to keep his house in order.