The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(60)
“Watson,” Holmes said gently. “Whatever can be done will be done, I assure you.”
“And if we do find her, Holmes,” I said. “What then? All the other vampires we’ve dealt with to date have been feral beasts, with little left of the human lives they once led, or else cunning monsters like the baron. What if she’s still got some piece of my Mary left inside of her… only…” I lifted my hands, now cold, dangerous weapons in their own right.
Holmes put a warm hand on my shoulder in comfort. “We shall do,” he said, “what our conscience dictates, as always.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said miserably.
*
Holmes changed into his Captain Basil outfit – one of the few that did not require face make-up – and was out the door and into the London night before the hour was out. I was familiar enough with his methods to know that there would be no telling when he might return.
I could not imagine that the house’s inhabitants would take kindly to a visit in the middle of the night, but neither did I wish to sit around in our empty lodgings without further information, when every possible bit of news was of such personal importance to me. I left without delay, but took my heavy daytime clothes with me. There seemed little reason to take a cab, and I covered the four miles or so from Baker Street with little difficulty.
The Apligian home was Fairview House, a great, dark house on North Hill Street close to Highgate Cemetery, where the dead man had tended the grounds. While not a manse, by any stretch of the word, it was a larger abode than I might have expected for a man with such a modest vocation. The place was by no means in excellent repair, however. With ramshackle boards and peeling paint, it had clearly fallen on ill times. Examining the outside and lawn yielded little of interest. I had managed to spend some time with both the walk and my examination, but there were still many hours before reasonable folk would be up and about. I found an alcove on the opposite side of the street where I could view the house and settled in to wait.
The night still held sway, covering the street and buildings with its sepia tones, when a figure shifted on the roof of a nearby surgery, and I realized that I was not the only one who kept vigil over the Apligian home. The man clambered down from the building, showing himself to be an absurdly tall, lanky man wearing an oversized beaver hat. He had a stern, reddish, weathered, and remorseless face, dominated by a huge, scarred beak of a nose. The long black hair that hung out from underneath the beaver cap was tightly braided, with beads and trinkets of bleached bone woven into it. He wore a black suit with much wear and dust on it, far too short for his oversized body so that four to five inches of wrist and ankle stuck out the ends. He landed easily in the street, despite the fact that his feet were unhampered by boot or shoe of any kind.
He stood for a moment further regarding the house that was also the subject of my interest, then turned and looked to the east where the shadowy bulk of the buildings could be made out against the sky. Not long until sunrise now. I remained motionless as he strode past my own hiding spot and disappeared into the alley behind a bathhouse. I could detect little scent off of him other than a slight whiff of dustiness. That the man must have been a vampire, I had no doubt.
That made two in this case already, straining to breaking point Holmes’s assertion that the average Londoner was more likely to discover an orangutan than a vampire. I slipped out of my doorway to follow him down the street, and then peered carefully around the corner of the bathhouse into the alley. Only to find… nothing. I moved silently into the alley. Of course there was no scent to follow, but there were also no marks in the soot and dirt of the alley, and no sound whatsoever of footsteps. I went down the next turn in the alley, looked at the walls for signs of ascent, but found nothing. The man had utterly vanished.
*
By the time I could approach the house and ring the front door bell, the baleful sun had been in ascension for hours. Its forceful presence was an uncomfortable hot pressure, even clouded as it was by the greyish London sky, and despite the protection of the heavy hat, gloves and great overcoat I had brought for just such an eventuality.
“Forgive my intrusion,” I said to the woman who opened the door. “You are, perhaps, Mrs Apligian?”
“Miss,” she snapped. “Who are you?”
The woman had even features, a dark complexion, and serious brown eyes that spoke of both hardship and the fortitude to endure such hardships, and more. Her hair was also dark, so dark that there was a sheen of blue in it like the raven’s wing. She looked at me boldly. She had a fine, proud bearing and wore a simple dress, but cut from a finer cloth than most.
“You’re not Victor Apligian’s wife, then,” I said, handing over my card. “His sister, then?”
“Sister,” she agreed reluctantly, looking briefly down at the card, then back at my face. “Flora Apligian. Something has happened to Victor, hasn’t it?” Her brown eyes clouded over and she was forced to look away.
There could be no dissembling in the face of such honesty and pain. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“What’s he done now?”
“Your brother’s been shot and murdered, Miss Apligian. His body was discovered at the bottom of a grave in Highgate. I’m very sorry.”
She sagged in the doorway for just a shadow of a moment, and then straightened again, the firm picture of English gentry. “Well,” she said primly, “I suppose you’d better come in.”