The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula
Christian Klaver
To my wife, Kim, for all her love and support
for all these years.
INTRODUCTION
Astute readers will notice several discrepancies between this text, my previous stories, and the Stoker novel bearing Dracula’s name.
On the Stoker text, I can only beg the reader’s indulgence and state that there are several inaccuracies, not the least of which is the report of Dracula’s untimely demise.
As to the inconsistencies in my own text, particularly surrounding Mary Watson née Morstan, I have been forced to change many dates and names in order to preserve the privacy and dignity of several of Holmes’s original clients, muddling both the timeline in this tale as well as in my original stories. The particularly scholarly student of Holmes’s cases will no doubt note that there are several instances chronologically after The Sign of the Four in which Mary does not appear, one of the many inconsistencies to which I refer. Again, I can only beg the reader’s indulgence, but these small trivialities are necessary to preserve the secrecy under which Holmes and I have been sworn on many of his most delicate cases.
And some readers will already be familiar with Holmes’s “black box”, that depository of cases that included such wonders as “The Giant Rat of Sumatra”, as well as the separate matters involving Mr James Phillimore, and the cutter Alicia. These accounts have yet to see publication, since their grotesque and outré nature would stretch the reader’s sensibilities beyond any normal boundaries. They are, in a word, unbelievable, and I have held these cases in abeyance at Holmes’s request to protect both his reputation and my own small credibility as narrator. But the time has come, finally, to reveal them, as per Holmes’s instructions. I follow these instructions faithfully and humbly, and let my readers judge if we have done wrong to withhold them for as long as we did.
– JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.
Chapter 01
LESTRADE’S PACKAGE
It was late in 1902 when I found myself a resident once more in my quarters at Baker Street. My wife, Mary, was spending some months out in the country visiting the Forresters, and this gave me the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with Holmes to such a degree that I almost felt I had come back to bachelorhood on a permanent basis. On the third day, a tempestuous London storm howled through the chimney and tapped with wet fingers at the windows of our drawing room, making it a distinct comfort for us to be indoors.
But if the conditions appealed to me, they did not bring solace to Holmes. He had no active case at present and was quite beside himself with a hectic lassitude that had him twitching restlessly in his chair. I had tried, earlier in the afternoon, to regale him with a humorous anecdote from home, one with Mary packing up half of our domestic life to take with her into the country, but I let the story trail off when Holmes showed every sign of distraction. Several times he cast a reckless glance at the door or the window, as if expecting some interruption.
“I am a little jumpy, at that, Doctor,” Holmes said with a laugh, and I knew he had deduced my thoughts in that uncanny way of his. “It is only this dreaded inactivity, Watson. It exhausts me as work never does. It is doubly vexing when I know that trouble is brewing on the horizon, only I cannot get my hands on any of the threads, so that I have nothing with which to occupy my waiting hours.”
“Trouble?” I said. I had been at Baker Street for nearly three days, and had the feeling that Holmes had been waiting for something all this time, but he had refused to be drawn out on the subject until now.
“You are unfamiliar with my cases of the past few months, Watson, so I cannot expect you to know my current state of affairs. Of late, I have been involved in several cases that seemed, on the surface, unrelated, but which, I have become convinced, all stem from a single source. I have been seeking them out exclusively, and turning all other unrelated cases away. The missing crews from the Matilda Briggs and the Demeter, certain tangential persons involved in the death of Radghast the booking agent, and the disappearance of Miss Violet Bell are all the work of one mastermind, Watson. It is all connected, and I am carefully drawing all the threads round me, feeling for the spider at the centre.”
“Some new criminal mastermind? I thought you had rid London of any such pestilence.”
Holmes reached out and picked up his briar pipe. He scraped his pipe bowl clean and made ready for a fresh batch of tobacco by the expedient of rapping the bowl against the table leg, heedless of the shag bits on the carpet. He fired his pipe to the desired pitch before answering.
But his answer was interrupted by voices from below.
“At last,” Holmes said, with no small amount of relief. “Let us see how Lestrade’s come along with my little errand. If his urgency is any indicator, he may well have something of interest.”
I did not know to what errand my friend might be referring, yet I could not help but feel a great sense of relief, for Lestrade’s involvement meant a case of some sort. Holmes flashed me a wry smile, which was then gone in an instant. He’d noted my grateful exhalation and known the cause at once.
When Lestrade himself burst into our sitting room, the little detective wore the most solemn expression. In his hand he bore a small veneered case, such as a well-to-do gentleman might use to carry cards or cigarettes.