The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(72)
The tight knot in my chest that discussing Mary always brought on clamped down in full force. It was as much as I could do to focus my attention on Holmes’s actual question.
“Perhaps she was discovered?” I said. “Or she’s run short of victims she can safely feed from, or money, or shelter?”
“All excellent suppositions,” Holmes said. “Another possibility is some outward stimuli. One of these drives her back to London.”
“Victor Apligian simply had bad luck to encounter her, then? Perhaps the kind of establishments that he spent time in would facilitate that?”
“I don’t think we need to rely on such random circumstances as those,” Holmes said. “We know that Victor Apligian had a connection to this smuggling operation. It is possible the Mariner Priest had his own connection to this operation. We know also that Mary was with the Mariner Priest, if only for a short time. Is it not possible that she could have gleaned information about the smuggling operation through that association?”
“She was always clever that way,” I admitted bitterly, galled that the attributes I had once been proud of in my wife were now turned to such dark purposes. “She’d listen to my stories of our adventures and gather far more from the clues than I first had.”
“She approaches Apligian, then,” Holmes went on. “One reason may be that she is looking for passage out of England, but there are better places, such as Portsmouth or Dover, so she must have something else in mind. Apligian also provides an opportunity for feeding, clearly, so Mary has achieved two goals with one person. However, there are certainly other places that would take the pearl as payment so, again, we have to ask ourselves: why London? However, she has been here for some days. We know this because of the many bites on Apligian’s body. The measurements of the bites confirm that we are talking about one vampire, not several. They also match the size of Mary’s mouth, as best we can recollect, though we have no precise measurements. I don’t suppose you have any?”
“Precise measurements of Mary’s mouth?” I asked, surprised despite myself. “No, don’t be absurd.”
“Too much to ask,” Holmes conceded. “In addition, I perceive that your incisors have changed markedly during your transformation, though possibly not enough to facilitate recognizing vampires in hiding on that characteristic alone. Also, I noted during Dracula’s attack on my person that the incisors grew when he became angry, which warrants further study.”
“Really?” I asked. Now that I recollected the Count’s terrifying visage in my mind’s eye, I could see the fangs, much more prominent than they normally were. I raised my own hand halfway to my mouth wonderingly, then let it drop again.
“Regardless,” Holmes went on. “It still remains a mystery why she should choose London when there is danger for her here and other cities would suit a safe escape much more admirably. If she is leaving the country, it makes the Merry Widow’s departure tonight a very urgent part of our own timetable. Her destination is of interest, too, if the Merry Widow is abandoning her usual trips skirting around the isle in favour of the United States.”
“What of Thorne?” I asked. “Is he not tracking her, too? He seemed to think her death at his hands a certainty.”
“I am not so certain that I should rely on Thorne’s testimony,” Holmes said. “It was a long shot, but I thought someone of his description might have a military record and so I sent inquiries to several officials in Kansas. One of them spent a great deal in this loquacious reply.” He waved a telegram paper at me. “They are familiar with the name. It seems Thorne’s proficiency with the revolver is not to be underestimated. He’s made something of a name for himself in Dodge City, Kansas as a lawman and gunslinger. His record was sterling until last year, when he abruptly ended his law enforcement career by staging a payroll theft from the very people he was supposed to be protecting. He struck gold in Apache territory, but he lost it all shortly thereafter to gambling debts. He hired himself out as a high-rate gun hand after that, often to criminal enterprises in the Americas, but had a habit of shooting his employers when there was enough profitable gain in it. A sudden shift in temperament and prospects, for someone that had been known only as a staunch lawman. His companion is known to them, too. A French Canadian known as Boucher, as you are already aware. They fell in together just as Thorne started his criminal career and have stuck to each other ever since.”
“That fits remarkably well with the men I encountered,” I said.
“There is one discrepancy,” Holmes said. “You described Randall Thorne as ‘very tall’ to me.” He stood up. “Think carefully – would you describe him as taller than me?”
“Well,” I said, “he was wearing a large hat that added somewhat, but even so…” I thought back. “Yes. Yes, I would.”
“That is interesting,” Holmes said, sitting back down. “The Americans describe him as a few inches under six feet, whereas I am just over. The difference is slight, perhaps, and may be attributed to some error…”
“Heeled boots, perhaps?” I suggested.
“Very possibly, or a slight error on the part of you or the Americans, yes? But it does fuel the imagination, does it not?”
“How so?”