Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula

by Steve Seitz

  I do not mean to shock or dismay you. What follows is necessary for Inspector Gregson to do his duty. I must lay the facts out as I know them.

  We hired gipsies to bring us to the castle, as none of the townspeople would do it, and they pitched camp in the castle’s courtyard, promising to stay until we were ready to leave.

  We awoke at dawn, as Holmes was eager to return to London, and I to you. But while we slept, a sudden snowstorm swept in, leaving several inches of cold, wet snow in the courtyard, with more coming down. We also discovered that the gipsies had abandoned us in the night. We were trapped at the castle with no means to leave, other than on foot in the middle of an icy gale.

  “Watson!”

  Holmes was in the stable. A small, shallow grave had been chipped out of the hard dirt floor. We retrieved shovels and exhumed the body. A small girl, no more than four years old, had been wrapped in a blanket and buried there. Her head had been cut from her tiny body, and her mouth stuffed with a garlic clove. This is how Roumanians deal with suspected vampires.

  I confess that I started to weep, but Holmes forced me back to the business at hand.

  “I know how you feel, Doctor, but perhaps there is something else there. I need a trained medical eye if we are to achieve justice for this poor creature.”

  I steadied myself and set to work. At first, I could find nothing wrong, save for a touch of malnutrition. Properly cared for, she could have had a long, happy and fruitful life. Instead, she was sacrificed on the altar of vampire superstition.

  But then I took a closer look at the severance point. It had been done cleanly, with a sharp blade. Just above the poor girl’s collarbone, along the jugular vein, I found two punctures and the indentation of teeth. Probably human teeth; between the punctures I spotted a short, even scratch that no animal I know of would have left.

  “This is sheer cruelty, Holmes,” I said once I steadied myself. “It looks as though someone with extended canines tried to drink this girl’s blood. Though that can’t be possible. There are human monsters in the world, but none I know have fangs.”

  “We’re not alone in this castle,” Holmes said tensely.

  “Could it have been Jonathan Harker?”

  “I cannot dismiss the possibility,” he said.

  I fondled the crucifix that hung around my neck.

  We fashioned a crude coffin from a feed bin, laid the poor child’s remains in it and offered a prayer for her; the ground was too solid to dig even a shallow grave. Holmes nailed a note in German onto the lid asking whoever found it to give the girl a proper burial.

  If only we had taken rooms overlooking the courtyard! We might have heard something and averted tragedy. With heavy hearts and little conversation, we made our toilets and breakfasted.

  Holmes sank onto a sofa with his pipe and sat for more than an hour, turning events and observations over in his mind. O, for a photographer! Sitting there by a fireplace the size of our sitting room, lost in contemplation, the smoke from the embers blending with the smoke from Holmes’ own pipe, the very picture of quiet and determined ratiocination at work.

  I shall always remember him thus, Mary. It is a pity I have only published two accounts of this admirable mind and keen intellect. They will no doubt sink into obscurity, and it will take the regular police years to learn that which comes to Holmes by instinct. And there is so much more to tell!

  While Holmes was lost in the forest of analysis, I went back to the stable, in case there was anything to be found. I checked every window and door hoping for an open one, but no luck.

  “You’ve been to the stable again, I perceive,” Holmes said when I rejoined him. “Your boots attract straw like a magnet attracts nails.”

  “And keys,” I said smugly, dangling a large ring thick with them, some hundreds of years old and some of recent manufacture.

  “Watson! You outdo yourself! Where did you find them?”

  “Hanging behind the door that led us into the castle in the first place.”

  Holmes smacked his forehead. “Well done,” he said. “Now we can begin a true and proper search.”

  Mostly, we found unused, dusty rooms. But on the floor below our own, we found a stairway door that had been forced open and then fitted with a new lock. Holmes opened it with the shiniest key on the ring.

  “Eureka!” he cried when the door swung open. “Harker has been here! Look!”

  The floors had not been swept in centuries, and in the dust were three sets of footprints along the same general path. As I opened the windows to allow more light, Holmes examined the footprints in closer detail. Treading lightly along them with his glass, he followed them into several rooms, but eventually made a beeline toward the large suite that occupied the corner of the hallway. I tried the doors that had no footprints in front of them. Like so many of the others, they appeared to have been neglected since the 15th century or so.

  I was standing in the smallest room we’d encountered so far; but for the furnishings and its place near the great hall, it was little more than a dungeon. Its tiny window looked out onto the courtyard, and I stared out. The temperature had risen slightly; the snow had turned to sleet, and now a thick crust of ice had formed on top of the snow. I had to remind myself it was still August.

  The art fascinated me. The paintings here were unlike those in other parts of the castle. Though centuries old, the three pictures did not tell tales of conquest or extol the beauty of Transylvania. Something different was shown here.

  The first painting depicted a wedding held in a chapel. The groom clearly hailed from the Dracula line, and the bride must have been a foreign noble; she wore bright red and green finery, and she had long, flowing blonde tresses, not often found in this region. I imagine in life she must have been quite beautiful. The groom’s countenance is stern, the bride’s apprehensive. It does not appear that the artist had any training or much natural ability; Holmes agreed, when he saw the painting, that the style was close to primitive. I speculate that the artist may have been the only Dracula courtier available who could record the scene.

  The second painting, executed by a surer hand, is a horror, showing demons claiming the bride’s body as the helpless Dracula groom grovels to save her. From the dark buboes on her body and the bleeding wounds, I should say the poor woman died from plague. Yet the third painting, by the same artist, shows the demons bowing before Dracula’s imperious glare as bodies blaze in a pyre - more evidence that plague swept through this castle.

  Left unexplained is how that Dracula ancestor conquered the demons. Perhaps he caught the disease and somehow survived? It’s rare, but not unheard of. A man who survived the plague might be seen as a demon in this part of the world.

  I started when Holmes called my name from the door.

  “Harker for sure,” he said. “But a puzzle remains. It’s all in the footprints.”

  I know this seems as though I’m rambling, Mary, but it is all important. For one thing, writing this is helping to soothe me as Holmes tosses and turns in his fever. My kingdom for a horse!

  “Harker has walked these floors twice,” said Sherlock Holmes. “This set of tracks represents his first time here, and he explored the rooms, but the large suite at the end of the hallway caught his attention. It is easy to see why; it has a writing-desk and grand views to the south and west. The set leading out is Harker returning to his room to avoid raising the Count’s suspicions.”

  “There is only one more set, Holmes.”

  “Precisely, Watson. With the facts we have at hand, I believe that Harker tried to escape from that room. Come. We must investigate.”

  And so we did, for at least two hours. The views from that suite were as splendid as any of the others, but there were no handholds in the walls beneath them, as there are in other parts of the castle. If Harker had escaped by climb
ing down a wall, it was not this one.

  All we knew for certain was that Jonathan Harker had been in that room and may have fallen asleep there; we could tell that from a large sofa that had been drawn into the room from a corner where it must have sat for two hundred years, and which had been dusted off. The dust in the casements was undisturbed. There was no other exit we could find, and there was nothing whatsoever to indicate by what means he had left the room.

  “Curious, Watson,” Holmes finally admitted. “I cannot explain it.”

  “Let us locate Count Dracula’s chambers,” I said. “We’ll find answers there.”

  We took a look out the southern window for a fresh calculation of where the Count’s room was likely to be and walked down the cold stone stairway. If we were looking for a family crest or other sign of nobility to identify the door, then we were disappointed. Holmes singled out a thick anonymous oak door as the one; it could have as easily been a storeroom. It didn’t seem to have been opened for years.

  “Are you sure, Holmes?”

  He replied by placing a key in the rusty lock. It took all Holmes’ considerable strength to turn the tumblers, and both our shoulders were needed to push the door open. Save for some old furniture and a great pile of coins on the floor, the room was empty.

  Holmes was frankly shocked.

  “This can’t be,” he said, and then his face relaxed; there was another door in the room. “Another stairwell, Watson.”

  “Take a look at these coins, Holmes,” I said. “Some of these guineas go back to Henry VIII. There’s old Greek money here, Turkish, German ... a numismatist would be in heaven. I can’t begin to imagine what they’re worth in sterling.”

  “The Count must be a trusting man,” Holmes said. “Perhaps he used this room to mask the true location of his chamber. We’d better get lanterns.”

  Down the chilly, damp spiral staircase we went. After groping our way for what seemed like hours, we reached the bottom and the rich, unmistakable aroma of moldy earth. We followed the aroma down another dark, dank passage that eventually led to the ruins of a medieval chapel.

  What magnificence lost to history! Gaping holes in the roof allowed the elements to ravage what must centuries ago have been a thriving and devout house of worship. Indeed, we had to elude bullets of sleet as we made our way about. Massive curtains and shutters blocked the elaborate stained glass windows that once glowed with the passion of Christ. There was more family history, with elaborate carved panels of Dracula heroics in the Crusades adorning the sanctuary. The wood was rotten in some areas, and centuries of wind, rain and snow caused some of the panels to splinter.

  Once we opened some of the windows, we could see that, a long time ago, a great deal of vandalism had been committed. All relics of the Catholic Church had been eradicated. The altar was demolished, and the accoutrements of worship - candlesticks, goblets, vestments, Bibles - all were gone. Once the afternoon’s dull grey light filled the room, I could see that the carved panels served a double purpose; they covered up any sacramental art that might be on the walls.

  The room began to darken again, and the sleet fell harder.

  “The vaults have to be nearby,” said Holmes.

  The first two we encountered held nothing of interest, except to an archaeologist. But the third, a vast cavern easily the size of the great hall, showed signs of much recent excavation. So much earth had been dug up that the workmen might have been laying a new foundation.

  Holmes sighed. “This is where the gipsies dug the earth the Count wanted shipped to England,” he said. “If Harker is still here, then this is the likeliest place we’ll find his body. Let’s see if anything looks like a fresh grave.”

  Despite the cold and sleet, we opened several windows to let in the feeble light. Our searches were painstaking and thorough, and at the end of them, we found nothing except indentations where some large coffin-sized boxes had been piled.

  “You don’t suppose Dracula shipped the body out in one of the boxes for later disposal, do you?” I suggested.

  “That’s precisely what I think. A box that heavy would never surface, especially if it were dropped in fresh water along the way.”

  In the end, our searches proved fruitless. All that digging, and nothing to show for it; certainly nothing to point us in the direction of Jonathan Harker. We returned to the great hall and lit a fire.

  Later. Fool that I am, I fell asleep for nearly an hour. Holmes is worse, and now I truly despair for his life. Luckily, the storm drove some of the chickens the gipsies left behind into the stable for shelter, and I have butchered one. What an unanticipated use for my surgical talents! It will soon be done roasting. I plan to pack some of the meat for a journey down the mountain, and will make some chicken broth with the carcass. That should boost Holmes’ strength if he can keep it down.

  Right now, his head is bright with fever, and his rantings tell me he is experiencing horrific nightmares; indeed, perhaps he is going through last night all over again.

  I don’t feel very well myself. The altitude and the cold have been playing havoc with my war wounds, and my shoulder is singing with pain right now.

  To the business at hand. The storm eventually subsided, and cold, clear moonlight streamed through the windows, providing the only light in the hallways. I spent a good part of the evening in the library updating my journal (which I also want you to give to Inspector Gregson) while Holmes found an ancient tub and heated some water for a soaking bath.

  I had the strangest hallucination as I walked down the hallway to my room. There were motes of dust dancing in the moonlight. I know there is nothing unusual about that, but these seemed to be forming into something. As they moved, they drew closer together. I could not break my gaze; there was a mesmerizing quality to the sight.

  And then I saw three women materialize out of the darkness.

  Please know that what I write now is not written to hurt you, despite our recent difficulties; but I cannot omit these events, and I will not lie to you.

  So captivated was I by the dancing dust that I did not see the women step into the soft white moonlight. I can only describe them as gorgeous, the essence of feminine beauty made alabaster flesh. All I could see at first were their smiles, sharp white teeth dazzling in the moon’s rays, their tresses flying free, their garments white, loose and flowing.

  In the back of my mind I thought of that poor gipsy girl and the sharp bite marks on her neck, but that image faded as the women drew closer to me.

  Did they not notice the cold? I wondered absurdly.

  Two of these sirens might have been fraternal twins and were almost certainly members of the Dracula family. The sharp, stark features that made the Dracula men so forbidding gave these women frosty, regal beauty. To see that stern visage and high forehead softened and made lovely in feminine form both disquieted me and drew me ever closer. Their lips were full, red and voluptuous, and their eyes seemed to glow like red coals in the darkness.

  The third, clearly their leader, was more slender, but also more striking, with hair like spun gold flying about, and an unmistakable sense of familiarity stole over me as I struggled to remember where I had seen her before.

  She said something in Hungarian, and then it struck me like a thunderbolt. She was the very image of the Dracula wife who had died of plague centuries before!

  She said something else in Hungarian. I stared, mute as a post, and then one of them said, her voice mellifluous and seductive despite her accent, “Are you the English also?”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “You stare with such wonder,” she said. “Have you never seen women before?”

  “I thought I had,” I replied, almost in a whisper.

  I should have run away but I could not. Despite their demeanour, their luminosity, their increasingly obvious hunger, I felt
myself slipping into a soporific state. I could not have stopped them from working their will even if the castle had been burning down around my ears.

  I took a step forward, and remembered the crucifix given to me by the village innkeeper. Frantically, I thrust it at them.

  The women hissed like cats and shied away as if blinded by a flash. I found strength to hold the icon up and then, down the hall, a door opened. Sherlock Holmes emerged from his bath, clad only in his dressing-gown.

  “Holmes!” I cried. “Run! They killed Harker!”

  A harsh silvery laugh greeted my sally. The women passed me swiftly and attacked Holmes, shoving him into his room and slamming the door. I heard the lock snap, and groaned; Holmes had the keyring. Inside I heard harsh, crystalline laughter, and thought of what cats must feel on capturing a sparrow.

  You know well Holmes’ indifference to the charms of the fairer sex, but from the lascivious sounds from behind the door, I could tell he was succumbing. I heard no resistance.

  I pounded on the door and bellowed.

  “Your crucifix! Holmes, the crucifix!”

  More laughter, some frightening sounds of struggle, and then soft murmuring and soon, silence.

  Had I been thinking clearly, I would have gone to the woodshed and returned with an axe. But bloody images of what they were doing to Holmes filled my head, and I became a crazed man.

  That’s when I remembered the south window. If there were handholds for one room, there must be for others. I raced upstairs, to the room above Holmes’. I whipped the window open and a pale yellow beam filled the space, a cold breeze blowing in.

  Looking down, there were handholds, unless they were shadowy illusions of the moonlight. Thinking of the horrid fate even now befalling my closest friend, I tentatively dipped a toe to the first hold. It slid in smoothly. I lowered myself to my full body length. Another toehold, then a handhold. The chilly breeze frayed my face as I groped in the shadows, and the castle’s stone was rough and mocking as I held my cheek to it, not daring to look down.