Castle Shade

by Laurie R. King

  I could see no passenger—but to my surprise, he opened the rear door to reveal a long, well-padded bench-seat running front to back. On it lay a young woman, whom he helped upright and down to the running-board as a crowd began to pour from the shop, greeting the new arrivals with cries of joy and the offer of supporting hands to help her down to the ground. Their focus, I saw, was less on her than on the blankets she cradled: a new mother, returning to her family. The flock of people started to move away down the road, only to come to a halt when a young man and an older version of the patient turned back. The young man, grinning hugely, seized the doctor’s hand to pump it furiously. The older woman added her thanks by reaching up to pat the doctor’s cheek with one hand, pulling his head down to her level so as to deliver a kiss to the other side.

  The happy family moved off. Only when they had disappeared down a side-lane did the doctor turn, revealing the proud smile on his aristocratic features, and move back towards the car, running a quick diagnostic eye on the two of us as he did so.

  I gave him a smile and nodded towards his motor. “You appear to be both doctor and ambulance service.” It was a clever job, converting a long-bedded motorcar designed for rifles and game into safe transport for the ill and feeble. The pad on the long box even had a sort of bumper, to keep the patient in place during turns.

  “A difficult birth,” he replied, lifting his leather bag from the floor at the front end of the padded bed. “We nearly lost both mother and son. I was happy to bring her back, since I was coming to Bran.”

  His English was accented but fluent, his features those of Transylvania—a narrow face with high Slavic cheek-bones and bright blue eyes, his fine-textured skin gone ruddy with the summer. His hair was going grey; his strong, slender hands might have been designed to wield a scalpel. He wore a tan-coloured suit of lightweight wool, bespoke in Paris by the looks of it, rather than native dress. His tie was perfect, his shoes glossy, and he would have been more than a little intimidating were it not for the layer of dust on the motorcar and the fact that he’d gone out his door that morning without his wife or housekeeper noticing the need for a fresh collar, visible as he moved to pull the doors shut.

  At last, he turned to face us directly.

  Holmes held out a hand. “Sheldon Holmes. My wife, Mary.”

  “How d’you do? The name is Mikó. Come in, you are early for surgery but I can fit you in before others arrive. Which one of you am I seeing today, and what is the problem? Salut, Casimir—cum esti?” he called to the man standing in the shop doorway.

  Casimir the shopkeeper replied and the two men exchanged rapid-fire conversation—which, to judge by the gestures, had to do with the woman the doctor had brought to town—as the doctor continued moving towards the door of the out-building. The door looked new—certainly its paint was pristine—and the shiny lock surprisingly robust. Its key was on the end of his watch-chain. The bolt it slid back was substantial. By way of contrast to this daunting security, a friendly little shop-bell tinkled overhead as the door came open, and we were ushered into Bran’s medical centre.

  The first room was where patients waited to be seen, with a few worn chairs, some bright watercolours, and a basket of children’s blocks. Beyond it lay the surgery itself, with three chairs, a desk, a curtain in one corner if privacy was required, and three tall, glass-fronted storage cabinets. The space was well maintained and scrupulously clean, with enough modern equipment on the shelves to be reassuring. When I spotted the steam sterilizer tucked behind one of the cabinets, it was a relief to know that any treatment we might require here would be linked to the twentieth century, not the nineteenth.

  Holmes, however, was interested in a different piece of technology. “That’s quite a safe you have there, Doctor.”

  I leaned over the desk to see, and yes, it was an unexpected addition to a rural doctor’s offices. Not large, but absolutely solid, and planted into the wall. And so recently, the plastered seam had yet to be painted.

  The doctor gave a rueful shake of the head. “Someone broke into the surgery during the spring. They took some money, and a few pieces of equipment that I suppose looked saleable. But they also took the drugs that I keep here—phenobarbital for fits, morphine derivatives in case of emergency surgery, that sort of thing. Sad, to find the problems of the city showing up here.”

  He waved us towards the two chairs set on the other side of the desk from his. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “Doctor Mikó, we do not require medical attention,” Holmes replied, “merely a few minutes of your time. One of the girls who works in the castle was menaced last night.”

  “Menaced?”

  “Threatened.”

  “I know what ‘menaced’ means,” the doctor said, “but I know nothing about it. I’ve only now arrived in Bran. What happened?”

  “Just a fright, apparently. But what I wish to ask you about is the other girls, injured during the spring. A kitchen maid who cut her hand, and a child who tripped in the woods.”

  The doctor sat back in his chair, fingers threaded together over his stomach as he studied us. “You are staying up at the castle, I think. I heard there were English visitors up there.”

  “We are, yes.”

  “You are friends of the Queen?”

  “We are acquaintances.”

  “Her ‘acquaintances’ do not generally take an interest in the welfare of village girls.”

  “The Queen has become aware of some problems in the village. She is concerned, and asked me to see what I could find out.”

  “Why you?”

  “Why not? You think she should come down and ask, herself? Or perhaps have the police come?”

  The doctor thought for a time, although I had no clue about what. He had given the excited family an honest, open smile, but to us he showed a perfect poker face, handsome and without the least expression. However, in the end, he nodded. “The child was nothing—some scratches, was all.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Where did she fall? Coming through the woods near the customs—”

  “No, where were her scratches?”

  “Her hands and knees, naturally. Nothing that some soap and a kiss from her Mama wouldn’t treat. A scrape up her right arm that we kept an eye on—children who live on farms are sturdy, but they are also around a lot of germs. A scratch near her eye that could have been serious if it had been two inches over. Some scratches on her neck. Nothing serious, merely a jumble.”

  Jumble? “A ‘tumble,’ you mean?” asked Holmes.

  “Yes, sorry—a tumble. Little fall.”

  “The scratches on her neck. What were those like?”

  The doctor sat back in his chair again. “Are you asking if the marks on the child’s neck were puncture wounds?”

  I don’t know about Holmes, but I was surprised at the question.

  “Were they?”

  “There is no such thing as a vampire, Sir.”

  “Of course not. But were they?”

  He ran his tongue back and forth across his teeth, as if contemplating the process Holmes was suggesting. “There were two or three spots where the skin was broken rather than…what is the word? Braided?”

  “A-braded.”

  “Yes. Sorry, my English is out of practice.”

  I stepped in. “On the contrary, your English is excellent. Where did you study?”

  “I began in Vienna, then went to London—Barts. Before the War, naturally.”

  “You must enjoy having the Queen to speak with, revisiting the language a little.”

  His face went expressionless again. “I do not see Her Majesty. She has her own physician, who comes when she requires him.”

  “Her loss and the area’s gain,” I said smoothly. “The villagers seemed about to strew roses at your feet.”

&
nbsp; He relaxed, pushing away the insult of not being thought good enough to attend royalty. “And I will find a fat, nicely plucked chicken in the motor when I leave this afternoon—perhaps two.”

  Holmes took us back to the topic at hand. “The other girl, the one who cut herself in the castle kitchen. Did you attend her?”

  “I did. That was a nasty slice, down the centre of the palm. I had to stitch it. It went bad for a time. The infection finally did heal, but she will never have as much flexibility in that hand as before. The Queen happened to be nearby, and her fast thinking kept the girl from losing too much blood—she grabbed up a clean onion and wrapped the girl’s hand around it, hard, to keep on the pressure. She was lucky it was one of my days here in Bran.”

  “There is no other doctor in the area?”

  “Râșnov has one, four days a week.”

  “So they would have sent for him?”

  “They would have sent for me. I come when I am needed, no matter the time. I can be here in an hour—half that if I hurry.”

  “Your wife must resent the disturbed nights.”

  “I have no wife. And the people here are healthy and self-reliant. I am rarely called upon more than once in a month.”

  Holmes picked up the questioning again. “There were no other incidents, while the Queen was away?”

  “None. And now this menaced girl last night. What happened?”

  “One of the kitchen girls, by name of Vera, was walking home late last night when a voice from the graveyard greeted her and said it was a soldier named Andrei who died in a nearby battle in 1916.”

  “Andrei Costea. A hard-working boy, not even seventeen when he died. But Vera Dumitru? I would have thought her one of the more sensible village girls. Thank you for letting me know, I will see her today, before I leave.”

  “You live in Brașov?”

  “Just north of the town, the family house is there. Convenient for the hospital, but I feel it is important to serve where I am needed as well.”

  “A noble commitment,” Holmes said dutifully. “This young soldier, Andrei. Was his body recovered?”

  “I believe so. Yes, I’m sure I have seen his sister visiting him in the graveyard.”

  “But you personally did not identify him.”

  “I was in uniform myself then. Serving the other country, of course—during those years, Roumania was the enemy.” His wry smile spoke volumes of the changes of fortune in this part of the world—and then his gaze went past us to the adjoining doorway, and we heard the melodious tinkle of the bell. He pulled out his watch, pushed it away. “I am afraid, Mr and Mrs Holmes, that the surgery is now open and my first patient is here. If you need me for anything else, do not hesitate to have the castle get a message to me. I am here three days a week—and, as I said, other times, pro re nata.” He smiled as we shook hands, then turned to his first patient of the day, a young boy cradling his left elbow while his worried mother let loose an incomprehensible flood of words.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Outside, a pair of lads the same age as the one inside were perched on a low wall, trying to look unconcerned over the fate of their friend. I gave them a smile meant to be reassuring, and followed Holmes, who had gone into the shop.

  Holmes is over six feet tall. When he plants himself in a room, people tend to edge away, particularly women who do not come up to his chin. Casimir the shopkeeper was somewhat taken aback at the parting of the customers, but as he focused on Holmes, then on me, he rallied enough to say, “English, yes? How may help?”

  I murmured to Holmes, “Buy some peppermints.”

  “I—yes, my good man. Peppermints.” One long finger jabbed in the direction of the glass jar filled with sweets of startling hues. Casimir reached for a scoop and a sheet of paper, and Holmes continued. “The doctor. He was burgled.”

  Casimir looked blank.

  “Someone robbed him? Stole?”

  “Ah, yes. Stole. Ver’ bad. How much you like?”

  It was Holmes’ turn to give an uncomprehending look, so I answered. “Two scoops. Please.”

  The scoop descended into the jar, and I turned my attention to the shelves, always a fascinating insight into a village’s life. The usual sacks of rice and flour were interspersed with ground maize. Tins of foods familiar and not—could those actually be red peppers, rather than tomatoes?—and boxes of everything from candles to laundry soap. Hanging from the rafters were an assortment of dried sausages and cheeses, and the highest shelves, reachable by ladder, held oversized cook pots and paraffin lanterns.

  “When was it?”

  The scoop stopped moving. “When. When.” Followed by an address in Roumanian to the audience, who chimed in for a time before consensus was reached. “Iunie.”

  “June. Does anyone know who did it?”

  No hesitation: “Tigani.”

  A chorus of voices arose, apparently in agreement. Arms were raised, pointing in the direction of Brașov. I held out some coins, letting Casimir choose his payment for the sweets. But while he was doing so, my gaze wandered up…

  “Earl Grey!”

  He looked up from his task, then cast a glance over his shoulder and laughed. Several of our audience joined in. “You want buy?” He stretched up and took the packet down from its solitary splendour on the shelf. When he placed it on the counter, a puff of dust flew up from its surface.

  “No thank you. But you sell it?”

  “Sell this, you want. Hey, maybe give it to you free, you buy something else.”

  “Is there not much of a market for Earl Grey here, then?”

  “You ever taste that?”

  “I don’t care for it, no. But I believe Queen Marie does.”

  “Oh yes. Her Majesty came five years ago, I put that box up maybe next year. Sat there ever since. Should be ‘Queen Marie Tea’ not Earl of Grey.”

  Chuckles from the others in the shop told me that this was a local jest. I finished paying for our sweets, and had to be reminded to take them with me as I followed Holmes out.

  “So,” I said. “Everyone in Bran knows the Queen’s odd taste in tea, not just those who work in the castle.”

  “Given that the packet has been a local gag for several years, that no doubt includes the nearby community of Tigani.”

  Tigani was a word I recognised, from its European cognates, although they call themselves Roma, which simply means people. In England, they are called gipsies, though they migrated not from Egypt, but from northern India, over a thousand years ago. Like any nomads, they do not mix well with the settled peoples. And like my own Jewish people, they tend to be blamed for any problems in a neighbourhood.

  Wherever the Roma lived, they would be well familiar with villages rising up with cudgels and flames to drive them out. I thought it unlikely that the local Romany encampment would risk breaking down the door of a doctor’s surgery to steal medical equipment and drugs.

  The two boys were still on their wall. I fished a mint from the twist of paper and tucked it into my cheek, then passed the remainder to them. From their reaction, you’d have thought the packet contained golden guineas.

  Holmes was standing beside the doctor’s new-looking motorcar. I paused at its back window to peer inside.

  Shooting-brakes are designed as transport for hunting, and generally only have a front seat. Sometimes there is a bench or fold-down seat in the back, but more often, the back is open, a space to transport dogs to a shoot or birds and game home. In this one, the passenger side of the front seat was missing. Instead, seven feet of padded wooden bench ran from dash-board to back door, long enough for the tallest man to stretch out on. The wood was simple pine, bashed about and marked by heels, but the pad was covered with leather, and sturdy brass hinges suggested that the box was used for the doctor’s storage as well as transporting pregnant women and
injured farmers. Across from it, on the driver’s side of the back area, was a shorter, unpadded bench. Gouges and oil-stains on the floor suggested that the car was used to shift all manner of things. Including, by the looks of it, his patients’ gifts of chickens that were still alive.

  “It would make a fine rural omnibus,” I said to Holmes. Who did not hear me, because he was already out of earshot.

  I jogged down the road to catch him up, and asked him what he’d thought of the doctor.

  He was silent so long, I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard, but he’d only been thinking. “Doctors are a class I find difficult to see with an objective eye. My experience with them has been of polar opposites, with Watson at one end and a handful of perfectly vile individuals at the other. Whenever I encounter a doctor who appears as noble and generous of heart as Watson—well, my impulse is to mistrust the evidence of my eyes.”

  “Has that impulse been wrong, ever?”

  “It has, unfortunately. Those who raised the most suspicions turned out to be saints, one and all.” He gave a wry laugh.

  “And speaking of saints, are we headed to see your priest?” It was far too early for those hours of uninterrupted “study” that he had promised me, although I could already feel my energies flagging. “You must have met him last month.”

  “I sought him out. As I said, there is nothing quite so useful as a village priest for translating, though generally through a filter of Latin or Greek. Although in fact, Father Constantin speaks English fairly well.”

  “I’m glad to know I won’t have to struggle with my Latin declensions.”

  “Today we require his memory, not his linguistic skills. If, however, it stretches back that far.”

  We found Father Constantin in the small garden behind the presbytery, or whatever the Greek Orthodox called their priest’s home—although until Holmes greeted him by name, I assumed him to be the gardener.