Sherlock Holmes--A Betrayal in Blood

by Mark A. Latham

  Once the detail had all gathered in the courtyard, Holmes at once asked to be shown the evidence that Singleton had discovered. Singleton agreed at once, and showed us and Brownsworth into the desolate castle, and down into the lower levels.

  “Most of this part of the castle is carved into the very rock of the mountain,” Captain Brownsworth explained. “It’s really remarkable engineering, given its age. The walls above are four feet thick in places, and the ceilings vaulted stonework, reinforced by thick pillars. If it comes to it, this is where we shall hold out—even modern howitzers wouldn’t be able to break through here—a true testament to the old masons.”

  The cellars were extensive—a warren of rooms, large and small, linked by wide passages or tight corridors here and there, with stairways leading to even further depths. Singleton lit torches as we went, which sat in rusting iron sconces, and now cast their primitive orange light about us. Eventually we reached a locked room, which Singleton opened up for us. Once torches and candles were lit inside, Holmes at once began to inspect the room, his keen eyes scanning every detail.

  Several large, empty crates were scattered about the room. At one end, a large safe of fairly modern appearance sat open. Along one wall were shelves, mostly bare save for a few books and various detritus. A table was set up in the middle of the room, scattered with papers and trinkets.

  “A treasury,” Holmes said.

  “You are right, Mr Holmes. Although it was pretty much like this when I found it.”

  “There are drag-marks across the floor, and leading out into the passage beyond. Is there another way into these cellars?”

  “Yes,” Brownsworth answered. “There is a fortified door on the south face, which provides another path down to the road. It is now blocked by rubble from the bombardment.”

  “But previously it would have been used to transport goods in and out of Castle Dracula?”

  “Yes.”

  The boxes that Dracula sent to England probably started their journey in this very chamber,” said Holmes. “I very much doubt that they contained dirt, as the Dracula Papers claim. Are those gold coins I see on the table there?”

  “A handful remained when we got here,” Singleton said. “There are smaller chests in an antechamber below us, stuffed full of gold. In his haste, he must have forgotten them—or perhaps the Count intended to return. These boxes, however, contained the bulk of Count Dracula’s material wealth, which he sought to smuggle away. I have a letter from the harbourmaster at Varna, who swears that Dracula paid for the loading with gold from one of the boxes.”

  Holmes’s eyes lit up. “The action of a man most assured that his wealth would buy him safety and loyalty, and also of someone so long in solitude that he had become naïve about the ill intentions of his fellow men.”

  “That was my opinion too. I rather wonder how smoothly his passage to England would have gone if any ship’s crew knew the value of their cargo. Over on the table there are a few scattered remnants that must have been dropped in the Count’s haste to leave. Some of the papers document the more valuable treasures. There are some letters, also, which I imagine will be of particular interest to you, Mr Holmes. And a gold locket, which I found in the rubble upstairs. I shall let you be the judge of its significance.”

  Holmes gave a look of surprised approval at Singleton’s cleverness. I recalled that the man was a psychical investigator by trade, and in order to catch clever tricksters and charlatans had doubtless perfected some of the techniques upon which Holmes prided himself.

  Holmes went to the table and examined the artefacts, his smile broadening with each paper he looked at. Finally, he picked up the gold locket that Singleton had mentioned, and opened it. He stared for some time at the contents. He removed the small oval portraits, and inspected the backs of each, before carefully replacing them. Finally, he handed the locket to me.

  “Here is the final clue to a little mystery you’ve been dying to solve,” he said wryly. “The portraits are labelled only ‘D’ and ‘Elisabet’ on the backs. What do you make of them, Watson?”

  I studied the portraits. I did not recognise the woman at all. She was pretty enough, and fair, though the portrait was not particularly flattering. The man on the left-hand side of the locket, however, was strangely familiar. I knew it must be Dracula himself, but I had never seen an image of the man. He was dark-haired and pale-skinned; his lips were thin, his nose sharp, and his jaw angular and severe. His eyes were dark and penetrating, located beneath thick eyebrows. Though his features were harsh, he was still a handsome fellow. I stared at it for some seconds more, aware that Holmes was waiting for my epiphany; then it came.

  “Arthur Holmwood,” I said.

  “You see the resemblance?”

  “Very much. Lord Godalming has his mother’s eyes, it seems, but for the rest he is the spitting image of Count Dracula.”

  “When we visited Ring, I studied the family portraits for some time. And the reason was simple—every portrait of every male heir above that grand staircase bore certain physical similarities. Sometimes these were pronounced, sometimes not, but every Godalming had some trait that would identify them as blood relatives.”

  “Except Arthur Holmwood,” I said.

  “He did not resemble his father, his uncle or his grandfather. I could see nothing of his mother in him. I knew then that Arthur Holmwood’s parentage would be a pivotal factor in solving this case.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means that Van Helsing’s motives were very personal indeed. For that woman, Elisabet, is his wife.”

  “Good grief, Holmes.”

  “Van Helsing must surely know that Mr Singleton here has found some vital clues in the castle. The presence of the Royal Engineers has so far deterred any hostile action, and if Mycroft was right then Van Helsing is not in a position to call upon the German Army—or so we should hope! However, he will stop at nothing to end this once and for all. Now that he knows we are here, he will gather his gypsies in greater numbers, and come for us. But we shall be ready.”

  “You have a plan, Mr Holmes?” Brownsworth asked.

  “I think so. I shall need to speak to the prisoner first, of course.”

  “As you wish. I shall have a man translate for you.”

  “Mr Singleton—how much gold was left behind in that antechamber?”

  “A small fortune, for these parts.”

  “Good. A small fortune is exactly what we shall need…”

  * * *

  “Parley! Parley!”

  The cry from the battlements rang off the cold rock of the mountain. From our position in the great gateway of Castle Dracula, we peered out into the gloom, through flakes of snow that fell gently upon the plateau outside the castle walls, and to the dark shapes that moved ominously there, amidst flickering lamplight.

  Holmes himself was nowhere to be seen. He had spent hours plotting with Captain Brownsworth, and although I had my part to play in my friend’s plan, I knew that he was retaining some secrets for himself, until the time was right to reveal his full hand.

  We waited for a response to our request. Negotiation of terms appeared to be our only hope, as the sheer number of armed Szgany that had amassed on the slopes of the mountain had taken the Royal Engineers by surprise—they had not realised just what numbers the enemy could bring to bear. Van Helsing, it seemed, had galvanised the local gypsies to unite against us.

  A full minute passed, and our man on the wall was about to hail them again, when a horseman, heavily clad in furs, trotted from the enveloping snow, calling to us in thickly accented English. “We will parley. Follow me!”

  We had already taken our instruction from Holmes. Now I, along with Captain Brownsworth, and a young corporal named Phillips—fluent in German and Romany—walked out of the castle grounds into the lion’s den, trudging down the wide track and onto the plateau. The gates thudded shut behind us, and we heard the sound of the bars being lowered. As I stared
at the dark figures ahead of us, their horses, lanterns and many rifles hoving into view, I felt suddenly vulnerable. We were placing our lives in Van Helsing’s hands, and trusting to whatever sense of honour he had, that he would not simply take us prisoner or shoot us on the spot.

  The enemy doubtless wanted us to enter their encampment, but we stopped halfway, at a point near the track, beside a distinctive rocky outcrop. This was no-man’s land, where Holmes had instructed us to wait until Van Helsing came to us, beyond the effective range of either side’s guns given the darkness and prevailing elements. As Holmes had predicted, there was an exchange of words in German, and eventually a group of men walked towards us, perhaps a dozen strong. The horseman who had dogged our descent down the track now circled, holding up a blazing torch to light the way of his paymaster.

  As the group drew close, the ranks of the flamboyantly dressed gypsies parted, and two men stepped from their midst. One was a large fellow, with tufts of pale hair protruding from beneath a furred hat; his pale blue eyes smouldered with enmity towards me, and I knew at once that the surviving twin had returned to Van Helsing’s employ. The other was a small, stout man; though he wore a great fur hat and was swaddled in heavy clothes, Abraham Van Helsing was unmistakeable.

  “If my eyes deceive me not, I see Dr Watson,” Van Helsing said. “We are some long way from the Royal Society now, no? Now, you are straying into a land most hostile, friend John, brought here no doubt by Mr Sherlock Holmes. And where is he? Where is the man who think to pursue Van Helsing to the end of the earth?”

  “Holmes did not think you would be well disposed toward him,” I said. “Nor toward Singleton, either. And so I have come to parley in their stead, with Captain Brownsworth.”

  “Ah, the Royal Engineer. Tell me, Captain, are you finding Transylvania to your liking?”

  “It is an education, sir,” said Brownsworth, curtly.

  “Indeed. Transylvania, she have ways, eh? And they are not English ways. Ha! My people, they see you time and time again, blasting charges, digging trenches, and measuring hilltops. Some say you plan to build a railway through the very mountains. I say this would be folly. Do you not agree, Captain? Is it folly?”

  “Lesser men might say so,” replied Brownsworth. “I would call it ambition.”

  “The English, as ever, they overreach. Perhaps I need do nothing to hinder this plan, Captain. It will fail, as all such surveys have past failed. The Carpathians are mistresses most harsh, eh? They will betray; they always betray.”

  “You would know a thing or two about betrayal,” I said. “There is a grave dug on a ridge some way down this trail. A man named Aytown is buried in it.”

  Van Helsing smiled wickedly. “Then the stakes, they are revealed to you, friend John. You know where you may yet end your days, should you take a foolhardy path.”

  “I do not threaten,” I said. “We have a garrison of trained fighting men, with British rifles and British steel aplenty. We shall not be easily moved from Castle Dracula.”

  “I expect nothing less! The British are nothing if not belligerent, no? They fight for the pride, for the honour and the glory, like no other. But they can lose all the same. There are, what? Twenty men in the castle? Look about us here. I have a hundred Szgany now, and more to follow. The castle walls, they crumble; we can outlast you, or we can assault you, but the result it is the same. Out here in this land I need nothing but the numbers to defeat you, and numbers I have.”

  I nodded to Corporal Phillips. He repeated my next words loudly, in the tongue of the Szgany.

  “And will the Szgany die for you, Professor? Will they rush the great walls of the most forbidding castle in these lands, for the promise of hunting rights that should be theirs anyway, or for gold that has been promised by a distant government, which they must wait for even as their comrades die upon this ground?”

  Van Helsing looked confused for a second. He said something in German to the Szgany, which I understood vaguely as, “Do not listen to these English dogs; the German government has never let you down.”

  “Why die here today, for gold that you may never see?” I shouted, with Phillips echoing my words. “When instead you could take gold from us, and this land, in fair payment for your service, and never again take up arms for a foreign power?”

  At this, I took a large purse from my coat, and tipped a shimmering cascade of gold coins into my palm, which I then tossed at the Szgany nearest us. The gypsy snatched one of the coins out of the air as the rest landed in the snow. He held it up in the torchlight, and then bit it to test its authenticity.

  “Pathetic!” cried Van Helsing. “You think you can buy the loyalty of these men? Loyalty that has been owed to Van Helsing for nearly two years? They have seen for themselves my power. They have seen the wealth of my government, and they have been provided for in the manner most handsome. If you have the gold, friend John, then the Szgany can take it after you are dead.”

  The gypsies laughed menacingly.

  “And how many must die to secure it? Are you willing to die first?” I pointed at the big Szgany in front of me. “Or you?” I pointed at the next in line. Phillips translated my words, though I think they understood me well enough. “To storm those walls is madness. We have men with rifles, and grenades. We have machine guns, mortars, and explosive charges set on every approach. We have been busy preparing for a siege, Professor. You may defeat us with numbers, and steal our gold, but you seem to count the lives of these men cheaply. How many are you willing to lose to our guns? A quarter? Half? That is how many it will cost, as I am sure you know.

  “Listen to me!” I stepped forward, trying to instil within my voice a strength that I did not truly feel out there in front of a savage foe. “Professor Van Helsing is willing to sacrifice your lives to take this castle. And he claims he does this because his government wants the land, and will by their grace allow you to live and hunt upon it when the deed is done. This is a lie!”

  “Silence him!” Van Helsing snarled. One of the Szgany stepped forward, but another held him back, and nodded at me to continue.

  “Professor Van Helsing cannot give you this castle. He cannot promise you this land, because his government does not own it. His government does not even want it! The land has already been promised to the British government. These men are here legally, and are the only authority here. If they were trespassers, then surely soldiers would come to remove them. They would not risk your lives in this venture. No! Van Helsing is here of his own volition, pursuing his own enemies. He seeks revenge against Count Dracula, even though the Count is already dead. Would you die for such a man? The kind of man who would dishonour the dead? Would you die for his selfishness? Or would you rather strike a deal with us, and leave here tonight even richer, with no loss of Szgany lives?”

  This caused some commotion, and an angry conversation broke out between the gypsies who surrounded Van Helsing. He attempted to convince them of his integrity, and for a moment a couple of the Szgany, aided by Van Helsing’s large German thug, seemed to be winning the argument on the side of the professor.

  It was then that Holmes’s plan came to fruition. Someone shoved Van Helsing hard in the back, and he stumbled forwards into the arms of Captain Brownsworth. The Szgany who had done this deed now threw off his hat and scarf, and drew a pistol, which he aimed at the other gypsies. But of course this was no Szgany at all, but Sherlock Holmes, in the clothes of the captured gypsy from the castle.

  As angry eyes settled upon him, Captain Brownsworth backed away to us, dragging the struggling professor with him. Phillips now took up a rifle, and I my pistol.

  “Holmes,” I muttered. “We are outgunned.”

  “Corporal Phillips,” Holmes said, ignoring me, “translate for me. Professor Van Helsing has no official business here, and no authority. Your former master, Count Dracula, sold this land to the British Crown. Van Helsing was his enemy. Van Helsing had the Count murdered, and made you all complicit in the
crime. We know this, and can prove it. Believe me, the blood of Dracula is on your hands, and if there is any curse in these lands brought about by the destruction of such an ancient bloodline, it will be on your heads for your treachery.”

  As Phillips translated Holmes’s words, a few of the gypsies checked their stride, while others spat upon the ground in a superstitious effort to ward off evil. The German tried to spring forward, his hatred of Holmes getting the better of him, but the Szgany pulled him back fearfully.

  “And yet all may not be lost for you,” Holmes continued. “If you swear to leave this garrison in peace, and grant us safe passage away from here, with this man as our prisoner, we shall reward each and every man amongst you. Once word has reached this fine captain that we are safely away from Bistritz, you may come to claim the remainder of your gold. If you betray us, you will have to fight, and for what? Professor Van Helsing has already showed that you are expendable in his eyes—he will care not if every last one of you dies upon the tip of a British bayonet. So I ask you now—will you fight for him? Or will you take our gold and go in peace?”

  Holmes spoke with a passion that did not truly translate, and although Van Helsing struggled and swore throughout my friend’s rousing speech, he could break neither the steel of Holmes’s grip, nor of his words.

  While Holmes had been speaking, many of the gypsies had come closer to our position, and we saw now a good many men, some of whom muttered between themselves, while others merely stared at us with deep suspicion.

  The man who had circled us on horseback now swung down from his mount, and pushed through the press of Szgany towards us. He barked something gruffly in his own language—his words were directed at Holmes.