The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(18)
Holmes again looked surprised. “You yourself have done this?”
The thin smile returned to Dracula’s lips. “I have. Very recently, in fact.”
I shivered at the fearsome and predatory look on Count Dracula’s face, but Holmes was unfazed and merely made a note in his book. “Most interesting.”
“So,” Dracula continued, “when Mina and I came to London, our plan had been to wait until nightfall then leave the ship in order to seek out some of your London night life. But, again, I underestimated our enemy and overestimated the safety of your much lauded civilization. Your London police force was nowhere to be found when someone set fire to our ship. A burning alcohol bottle thrown into the rigging, I understand, though I did not know this at the time. All I knew was the sudden call of fire and the immediate smell.”
“How did you come to know it?” Holmes asked.
“Conversation overheard from the gathering crowd,” Dracula said. “I suspect a confederate among the crew of the ship, because a second fire started in the hold at the same time. I was in our quarters, resting, and slow to rouse, while Mina had gone on deck. By the time the fire had overtaken the ship, we were quite cut off from each other. At the same time, it was apparent that we must abandon the ship. I could hear her on the deck, you understand, and recognize her steps even among so many. I will tell you, gentlemen, that I have faced the Turkish hordes, but never did my heart quail as it did when I crouched at the bottom of the hatchway ladder, listening to Mina make her escape amid all that chaos. The stench of the smoke, the roar of the flames as her boot heels crossed the deck, and then a great crash as some part of the rigging came down and broke through the deck just as she gained the dock.
“Once she was safe, I tended to myself, acquiring a few things from our cabin and then making my way to the hold. As I said, this, too, was in flame, but not yet so fierce as the fire above, so I was able to pry up enough boards in the ship’s hull for water to come in and allow me to escape that way. I swam through the relative darkness of the water and did not surface again until I was in the shade of the dock.”
Dracula seemed a creature of inhuman stillness when he wanted, but traces of humanity clearly remained, because he started pacing back and forth between the short space from the chair to the darkened window.
“Having no need to breathe,” Holmes said, “as normal men do, I would imagine this to be the safest route for both of you. Why did Mina not simply jump into the water?”
Dracula paused in his pacing and faced us. “You surprise me again, Mr Holmes, with your astuteness, but in this, you are only half correct. While you have no doubt observed that my lungs do not work as yours do, it is a mistake to think that water is our friend. You will discover this, too, on your own, Doctor. Rain is of no consequence, but do not cavalierly enter the water, as your new life depends on it. When waters close over the vampire’s head, a stupor far worse than the sun clamps down upon him, followed shortly by the real death. Even a very brief time submerged is extremely dangerous for our kind. Mina might enter the waters and, having no experience with the water as a vampire, never come out again. She was well aware of this. I tell you that my short swim under the boat to the dock was a harrowing thing. It may have lasted two minutes, possibly three, and I almost did not make it before the darkness closed on me for good. It was as much as I could do to cling to the dock pylons and let life slowly return to my form.”
Dracula started pacing again. “But it was then that true despair came to me, for I heard Mina cry out from the dock above me, and other voices, men’s voices, calling to each other in such a way that I came to understand that they were dragging her away. They did this by impersonating London policemen, though I did not realize that it was an impersonation until later. But the part that chilled me to the bone was that the voice commanding your policemen was one I recognized. Adaliene, the eldest of my banished sisters.”
“Here?” I said. “In London?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Dracula said. He turned back to Holmes. “I do not know how they managed this subterfuge or how Adaliene was able to move freely and unhindered in London, and under what guise she gave commands to your police. I was able, however, through questioning pedestrians in your city, to track Mina’s abductors to a warehouse nearby. Both Mina and Adaliene are striking in appearance, making their passing somewhat notable. There, I found Adaliene, but not Mina, who had already been taken away in a carriage. I followed Adaliene, hoping she would lead me to Mina, but instead she led me to the Carfax Estate. There I made my presence known and, after dispatching men around her, questioned Adaliene. But other agents in her new master’s employ had taken Mina, but Adaliene did not know where. My trail ended there.”
“Adaliene could tell you nothing more?” I said, drawn into the Count’s story despite my misgivings regarding having someone like Dracula as a client.
“She told me that Mina was lost to me,” Dracula said, “unless I agreed to do her master’s bidding. She had removed Mina’s finger herself, though the order came from her master. Also that I would continue to receive trophies until I complied with his wishes and left London.”
“Adaliene knew,” Holmes said, “that this threat would have a significant impact on you?” At my incredulous look, he added, “While this may seem obvious to most of us, it is not a tactic an adversary would have faith in if they had only known Dracula from Stoker’s book alone.”