The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(33)

“On an entirely different ship,” Mina added. She handed over another slip of paper, this one in her handwriting. “The information on the ship he’d planned to use, a different ship entirely than the one Allens had booked passage on. According to both Warner and Allens, the Mariner Priest has taken yet another ship, though neither knew any more.” I could see as she handed the paper over that her writing was neat and precise, but also that the paper had a dark red smear on it, potentially blood.

“Warner’s ship sails tomorrow night,” Dracula said, “but Warner himself will not make an appearance.”

“It is our theory,” Mina said, “that the Mariner Priest, if he was ever in London at all, has withdrawn entirely and dismantled his organization here.”

“That is as likely as any other explanation,” Holmes admitted. “The Mariner Priest himself is the prize. Any machinations he has here can be abandoned and rebuilt, as long as the conductor of these events remains free. Seen in that light, his departure by sea makes perfect sense.”

“But where does he go?” I asked.

To that, we had no answer.

“I know this man,” Dracula said suddenly, crossing the room and picking up a piece of paper. He held it up for us to see.

“You ought to,” I said. “You killed him.” Dracula was holding the police sketch of the rifleman.

“And kept him from murdering us,” Holmes added.

“Why, that’s Jack!” Mina burst out.

Holmes and I looked at each other, surprise on both our faces.

“Jack?” Holmes said, turning to Mina.

“John ‘Jack’ Seward,” Mina explained. “Once a dear friend.”

“Ah,” Dracula said, no visible emotion on his face. He was holding the sketch still and staring down at it. “I had not intended to end his life.”

“But,” I said, “you did not take care to preserve it, either.” The Count’s disregard for the lives of our enemies, his tendency to treat this investigation as a campaign of war, struck at the heart of my reservations about Holmes agreeing to work with him.

“No,” Dracula admitted. “I did not. Nor did I take the time to get a good look at his face.”

“Poor Jack,” Mina said, bowing her head and folding her arms about her. She had taken a short step away from her husband. Now he moved towards her and she let him enfold her in his arms.

“I had promised you to spare their lives,” Dracula said, speaking low. “There is no excuse. No forgiveness. My concern at the time had been simply to disable our would-be assassin and return to you as quickly as possible. I had not deliberately intended to end his life.”

She shook her head. “No. Your word was exactly correct. He chose the role of assassin, to lie in wait and murder us from afar. He might have killed you, me, or Dr Watson. He nearly did murder Mr Holmes. He still thinks you responsible for Lucy’s death, I’m sure. It is my foolishness at wanting to return here, to London, that brought us into conflict with him and Van Helsing again.” She touched his face, briefly, and he let her go.

“A strange choice,” Holmes said. “To post a healer as assassin. I would have thought one of the others, the American, perhaps, as a better choice.”

“Arthur,” Mina said, “that is, Lord Holmwood, was an avid hunter and they all joined him regularly. All of them could shoot. I would not have thought Jack to possess the temperament of a cold-blooded murderer, but it has been a long time since I’ve known him, really. Too many great things have happened since.

“Have you any further questions, Mr Holmes?” Mina asked.

“Not at present,” Holmes said. “I have a great deal to ponder.”

“Yes,” she said. “As do we. You know how to reach us now, I daresay?”

“Quite.”

Mina held out her hand to her husband. “Shall we depart, my love?”

Count Dracula’s expression was surprisingly tender as he took his wife’s damaged hand in his own, but then he turned back to us. “Mr Holmes, I thank you and bid you farewell. I do not think it will be long before we meet again. This affair with the Mariner Priest, with Van Helsing, is far from concluded and I fear it is one that will affect both our homelands.”

“Very likely,” Holmes said.

Dracula turned to face me and nodded. “Doctor.” Mina shot back one long look at me, as if she were challenging me again. He is never cruel for cruelty’s sake. I wonder if most men can say the same. Then they were both gone.

*

Once Holmes recovered enough to leave the house, he spent the next few weeks attempting to read the traces of the Mariner Priest’s organization, as it had existed, the way a fortune teller might read tea leaves. He came back from his last such expedition in a furious and dejected mood.

“I have done a great deal in the last few weeks to verify the Count’s version of events over Stoker’s fiction,” he said. “The most striking of these, and the most compelling, is that there is not, nor has there ever been, an insane asylum next to the Carfax Estate, as Stoker’s novel states. Seward did have employment at one, though it was in an entirely different district and his employment there has long since ended. The building is quite empty now.”

“I had wondered about that point,” I said. I was loath to admit that Dracula had been faithful to the truth, but Holmes pressed on.