The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(62)

“No, I suppose not. What is the family business?”

“Undertakers,” Flora Apligian said. “Though now, after Father’s death, most of the business has been handled by others.”

“Your mother?”

“Mother is dead along with Father. It’s just Victor and me now. Hmm.” She hid her quivering lip with another sip of tea. “Just me, I suppose.”

“How did your brother come to be a groundskeeper? That’s not a very common occupation for someone with his background and means.”

“No,” she said, pursing her lips. Clearly, it wasn’t something she’d been happy with. “He always liked Highgate. When he was younger, some of the current groundskeepers discovered Victor trimming some of the plants himself with a stolen pair of gardener’s shears. They sort of adopted him, I guess you could say. Victor was actually good at that sort of work. It was one of the few things he was good at. The grounds manager was a friend of father’s, and they let him stay on.” She frowned. “Is there something wrong with the tea?”

“No. It’s fine.” I made myself take another sip from my still full cup. I’d always hoped that my taste for tea would return, somehow, after the change, but it never did. I didn’t mind the sugar, but the tea itself was so strong and bitter to my palate now that I might have been drinking sewage.

“Tell me,” I said slowly, “did your brother often do work for the cemetery after dark? Is that not somewhat unusual?”

“It is unusual,” she said, “though not so much for my brother, who often used it as a place of business, but not what I would call cemetery business.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t follow you.”

“Perhaps not,” she said. “Victor fell in with a bad crowd among some of the other groundskeepers. They did not mind Victor being simple-minded, I guess. Rather the opposite, as they found it a useful trait in their criminal activities. Victor was unfailingly loyal to them, you see. Even when it wasn’t in his best interests.”

“Criminal, you say?”

“Your eyes light up!” Miss Apligian said. “More press for you and your glory-seeking friend, yes? Oh, Victor had a fine list of shocking habits for your stories, Doctor. Clandestine meetings in the middle of the night, sudden sums of money and great pains to avoid the police. And some of the characters that he’d do business with, well, none of them were from the gentry, that much is certain. None of them were welcome here, of course, and Father forbade Victor to associate with them, but Victor was quite beyond our control outside the house.”

“These men who Victor fell in with,” I said. “Can you tell me their names?”

“Only one, but he is the principal person you want,” she said. “The ringleader. Mason Harweather. He’s the first mate on the Merry Widow. He had achieved an influence over Victor that neither Father nor I ever managed. Victor would do anything for him. A perfectly odious man.”

“Can you describe this Harweather?”

“Not well. I have only seen him once, out in the street while I looked down through an upper window. Somewhat stout, with thin, reddish hair.”

“It was not here that he met them?”

“No. I always understood that he used the cemetery for that, or occasionally the alehouses. There is one just around the corner from here. These are all guesses, however. He did all his business away from the house.”

“What do you know about Victor’s role in these affairs?”

“He was the liaison between Harweather and whoever controls such affairs. A message boy, in essence. It did not call for much intelligence, only the loyalty that was Victor’s strongest asset, and the unlikelihood of such an innocent-looking lad being involved.”

“We found such a letter on his person, or at least the envelope for one,” I said. “From Victor himself. Would such a letter be part of this?”

“I hardly think it likely. Victor’s penmanship was atrocious. Such a task would only be a burden to him, and likely to anyone trying to read it. I understood that he carried letters from others only. Now, Doctor, I believe that I have been perfectly frank with you. Have I not?”

“Admirably so,” I said.

“I am being so in part because I believe that to attempt to hide such things would only increase the length of your investigation here, and I wish for that to be as brief as possible. To be blunt, I consider both you and your press-seeking friend unwelcome here. It is already nuisance enough that I will have to repeat this information for the official police, for I surely will have to, won’t I?”

“Yes,” I said, “very likely.”

“Very well, then,” she said. “Is there any other information I can give you and so send you on your way?”

“Did Victor smoke?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did he show any signs of illness these past few days? Reduced appetite, surliness or any reluctance to go out during the day?”

“Not that I’m aware of, though to be forthright with you, Doctor, we had become much like strangers to each other. This is quite a large house, and it is easy enough to avoid someone else living in it, if that is your desire. I know he went out to the docks yesterday morning. As far as I know, he was eating regularly.”