The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(14)
When strong hands finally came to pull me out of the ditch, I did not have the strength to put up even token resistance, and it was then that I finally slipped into true unconsciousness.
Chapter 04
DRACULA’S STORY
I awoke in my own quarters in Baker Street and found myself in the curious position of immediately knowing where I was, without yet understanding how I came by that knowledge. With my eyes closed and my head upon the pillow of my own bed, a great many other things came to me. My rational mind could scarcely credit the information, but the predator inside me knew it all, and needed no proof.
I knew that it was barely night, and that the sun had set less than an hour past. I knew that Holmes was in the next room, despite the fact that he was quite still and made little sound. My brain had been collecting and analysing so many different scents that the conclusions popped into my head quite as if by magic. More remote scents called for my attention almost before I had identified the closer ones and all this information clamoured in my head like a roomful of talking people and I forced myself to go through the information carefully. I knew I must catalogue it if I were to control it. Otherwise, the massive flow of details would drive me to madness.
I picked them out one at a time. The bed had the smells of starch and a strange animalistic aroma. This lay over the top of every other scent in this room and I realized with a start that it was me, John Watson, M.D., or rather, it was the man I used to be. I did not emit this odour any longer and sweat was apparently a substance unknown to my transformed person. The impossibility of the science beleaguered me, but that did not matter as much to me as it might have a week ago. Also in this room was the smell of newsprint, the Arcadia mixture of tobacco that I favoured, various medicines from my doctor’s bag in the corner, books and the soap and oils of my shaving kit. Even through the closed and draped window, I could also detect the air of London streets redolent with the sweat of man and woman and horses, and the droppings from those last, burning coal and the tang of strong drink.
In the next room, through what the air current told me was a partly open door, I could find even more, still just with the power of my new olfactory sense. There was Holmes’s tobacco in the next room. I knew from memory that he kept it in a Persian slipper and could now tell you, within a foot, what part of the room it lay in. His revolver was out, and the scent of spent cartridges told me that it had been fired recently. Holmes’s table of chemistry was a veritable barrage of smells. So strong were these that they might well have blotted all others out, but they were of such an artificial nature that it was quite easy to ignore these and concentrate on the rest. Holmes himself sat in a chair smoking; the sounds of his small motions and even his breathing were quite clear to me. I could even tell that it was the briarwood pipe. The rustling sound told me he read the paper. He was quite alone, I was certain. In the floor below us, I could hear the soft sounds of Mrs Hudson moving about and a faint whiff of the strong Scottish tea that she favoured. I was certain we were the only three in the building.
Which was why it was such a shock to me when I sat up and saw Count Dracula, the villain himself who had placed this horrible curse on me, standing in the shadows behind my opened door. My sense of smell had not registered his presence and somehow this frightened me horribly, as if he had materialized out of thin air.
“You monster!” I cried. Then I called out to the other room. “Holmes, beware! Danger most foul!” I surprised myself by snatching up a heavy oaken bookshelf with the intention of hurling it bodily at my tormentor. I still was not used to my tremendous vampire strength. It had taken several workmen to bring the heavy case up the steps when I purchased it, but I held it easily, unbothered by the shower of books and knick-knacks my manoeuvre caused.
Count Dracula stood immobile, without any expression of alarm. “I apologise, Doctor,” he said mildly. “It was inconsiderate of me to startle you. I should have been more careful.”
“You shall pay for what you’ve done to me, and for what you’ve done to Mary!” I took a step forward in order to hurl my makeshift weapon to maximum effect, but had to stop abruptly when Holmes entered the room and stepped directly between Dracula and me.
“No, Watson!” Holmes said quickly. “The Count is here at my request! Pray do not be hasty!”
“At your request?” I said, and felt, for the first time I can recall, a sharp betrayal at the actions of my constant companion. “You brought that butcher here? So he could see my misery first-hand?”
“He is not the villain that brought this fate upon you, nor upon Mary, my dear Watson.”
“Oh, great mercy of Heaven, Mary…” I moaned, still holding the bookcase above me. In my first lucid moments in many days, the full weight of all that had happened to my Mary swept over me. Even if I could find a way to make Count Dracula pay for his crimes, how could I save her?
“I grieve for your loss, Watson,” Holmes said, stepping close and laying a hand on my shoulder, which now shook with the effort of holding up the bookcase. “But Dracula has not wronged you. He is not the one who has done this to Mary. I give you my word.”
“Holmes?” I said, amazed. “What can you possibly be saying? Who else?”
“That is a matter that bears some explaining. Believe me when I say that not only was Count Dracula not the perpetrator of the crime you accuse him of, but that he was also instrumental in helping me to locate you in time to prevent their final aim, no less than your eternal enslavement. And without Dracula’s help, I should not have been able to prevent it.”