The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(40)
The man’s face turned ashen. “Sherlock ’Olmes? I’ve ’eard of ’im. What’s ’e doin’ mixed up in this?”
“It’s all right, Clem,” the woman said. “This is a blessin’, not a tragedy. If anyone can ’elp the poor woman, it’s this man and ’is friend.”
“They are here, then?” I said. “Lucja Nowak and her sister?”
“You’re not part of the official police force?” the man said.
“Mr Sherlock Holmes has ever gone his own way,” I said. “I cannot promise leniency if she was part of the gruesome murder at H?tel du Chateau Blanc, but many a time someone has been under threat of law and Holmes has been able to help them by shedding light on the matter. If she is innocent, there is no better man to help her.”
“Come on, then,” the clerk said, waving a hand.
The Seaman’s Port lobby contained oak panelling with nautical displays hung throughout, odds and ends that had clearly never been on an actual boat. Nor could your average seaman have afforded a glass of sherry in the restaurant there. We passed down a long panelled hallway. The clerk knocked softly at the last door.
“Miss Nowak?” he said. “It’s all right. It’s Clem, from the desk. There’s a man ’ere to see you. Not from the police. I think ’e may be of some ’elp.”
The door opened slowly, revealing a pretty young girl around twelve years of age, with a solemn white face, wide grey eyes and soft pale hair that floated about when she turned her head to look up at me. Her abstracted look reminded me of nothing so much as Holmes’s when he was riddling out a complex puzzle.
I smiled down at the girl, who must have been frightened with recent events, but she stared back, showing no sign of alarm or any other concrete emotion.
“No fish,” she said. “You can come in.”
I looked at the clerk to see if this strange address held any meaning for him, but he shrugged, turned, and left.
I entered, closing the door behind me, for the child had wandered deeper into the apartment. Following her led me into a sitting room where her older sister waited. I would have known that they were sisters, even if I hadn’t been told, with the fair skin, ash-blonde hair, and peculiarly solemn grey eyes. The young woman had none of the child’s composure, however, and seemed somewhat broken. She sat half-facing a window, with red-rimmed and darkened eyes that spoke of more than one sleepless night.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” I said, but got no response. Not entirely comfortable standing in a strange woman’s personal compartment with only the silent child as a chaperone, I stood with my hat in my hand, waiting diffidently.
The woman stared out the window for many long seconds before she finally noticed me, and started.
“A man,” the girl said. “Clem brought him.” She looked back at me. “I like him.” This surprised me a bit, as the girl had given no such sign, but, determined to put a brave face on things, I smiled down at the distraught woman.
“Miss Lucja Nowak?”
After a moment of consideration, she nodded.
“If it lies within my power,” I said, “I should most like to be of assistance.”
Her face looked up at me with the most curious series of expressions – startling in such a subdued person – bewilderment, exaltation, disappointment, and finally, bitter resignation.
“You can’t,” she said slowly. “No one can.”
“If any man can help you,” I said, “it is my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes. What can you tell me about the murder at the H?tel du Chateau Blanc?” After some silence, I added, “A man was murdered there, wearing a U.S. marshal badge. Did you see him?”
The woman seemed to have forgotten I was there, and only continued to stare out the window. I turned to the little girl. “What is your name, then?” Normally the subject of murder was far too loathsome to burden such a child with, but there seemed to be no other option.
“Elzbieta,” she said. “He weren’t no marshal.”
My response was cut off by a terrific pounding at the hallway door.
“I know you’re in there,” a heavy, surly voice bellowed. “Don’t make me break down the door!”
The reaction from the woman and the girl to this racket was only a knowing look, completely ignoring me. It was a terrible thing, that look. The unspoken communication between the two sisters held depths of lost hope and resignation. Hardened as I was to such things, it still sent a shudder through me. Written clearly on their faces was the verdict, long understood, that all plans to escape would be foredoomed to utter failure. Only the waiting remained for these two.
The door shook again, which sent a hot flare up inside of me. I went back to the door, where the hinges already showed signs of coming free of the woodwork. It shuddered again under the heavy blows, and I yanked it violently open.
“Good God!” I said. “What is the meaning of this?”
The man facing me stopped short with his clenched fist still in the air and peered at me with bulging eyes barely held in check by a pair of small oval glasses. These, in turn, sat on a flat white nose. From under the brim of his squashed and dripping hat, unruly, greasy black hair stuck out in all directions. A similarly disreputable bushy moustache covered his mouth like a drowned Pekinese. A trace of scarring, mostly hidden by the moustache, lay on the top of the man’s mouth. It was a pale, odious face, with a crafty and vicious expression.