The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(76)

“Morris?” I said.

“Come now, Watson,” Holmes said. “Who else do we know that has been connected to vampires, has extensive knowledge of the same, and is American?”

I snapped my fingers. “From Van Helsing’s band of followers. Quincey Morris! The Texan!”

“Quite so,” Holmes said. “I assume the real Randall Thorne is dead back in America?”

“Yes,” Morris admitted, staring at Holmes as if he were the Devil himself.

“What I don’t entirely understand is what the Mariner Priest offered you to make you come back here after you had quit England.”

“An escape from the posse,” Thorne, or rather, Quincey Morris, said. “And her.” His gaze flicked to Mary. “You don’t understand. Lucy haunted my dreams. Then Mina. Only I couldn’t get either to look at me, except as an enemy. When I got the message from a strange party that Boucher and I could get quick and free passage out of America as long as I was willing to assist a certain infected woman that needed assistance, that didn’t seem like a burden as much as an enticing opportunity.” The euphemism was thinly veiled to anyone who knew better, but Morris’s gun-waving theatrics had caused everyone on the docks to give us a wide berth and it was unlikely anyone could make out much more than every third word.

“His assistance must have seemed attractive to you,” Holmes said to Mary, “for you to trust him so quickly.”

“Quincey’s bold,” Mary said with a smile. “Brave, strong, decisive, and not afraid of a little blood. Plus he knows I have the protection of someone very powerful. He’s too smart and self-serving for that. You can trust self-serving in a man.”

“Mary!” I said, pleading now. “It doesn’t have to be like this! You don’t have to throw in with murderers and thieves.”

“Oh, John,” Mary said, “of course I do.”

“We can assume that the subterfuge at the pub was a lie,” Holmes said, “and a poor one at that, since you very clearly weren’t a hunter of the infected. What purpose could that serve?”

“Your friend has the right of it,” Morris said. “Sorry for the tall tale, Doctor, but I thought it would buy us more time than the truth. Mary told me it wouldn’t do any good, that you would never back down, but I confess that I wanted to meet the man that Mary had attached herself to before me. How you held onto her, I admit, I cannot fathom. She’s more woman than one man can hold without bloodshed, I’ll tell you. Probably always has been underneath.”

“Was Victor Apligian one of those casualties?” Holmes said.

“The Highgate boy?” Morris said. “I tell you, someone had already done him by the time I came across the scene. I won’t lie to you. We’ve had too much subterfuge in this affair already, when I’d rather just come headlong at any problem. I’ll admit, I had it in mind to kill the Apligian boy, the way he and Maggie were carrying on, but I didn’t do it.”

I ground my teeth. Somehow, Morris referring to Mary using her assumed name, and in such a familiar manner, added additional injury to that already volatile situation.

“She knows how that always maddens me,” Morris continued. “But the boy was already dead when I found him. Seems someone else had it in for Victor, too.”

“But you disposed of the body without ever bothering to search it?” Holmes said.

“All those graves about, it was an easy matter. Lord knows I’ve cleaned up after Maggie before.” Morris shrugged, a strange gesture with both prisoner and pistol in his possession. “Figured the actual murderer would have taken any money.”

“The important thing was to divert attention from the vampire bite, was it not?” Holmes said.

“Exactly,” Morris agreed.

“A girl’s got to eat,” Mary said primly. “Victor was our contact for a fast ship, no questions, out of England. I knew however things turned out here with you that we’d likely need an escape route ready. It made sense to combine two goals.”

“Then you came to London because of us?” Holmes asked.

“Of course I did,” Mary snarled. “There’s a bounty on you that would set us up in style for life. Besides, what better way to put my old life to rest, to put the pathetic name of ‘Mary’ behind me and embrace my new life as ‘Maggie’? The world would be a better place for those of us among the blood if you were no longer in it.”

I was stricken to the core by Mary’s cruel words, spoken so matter-of-factly, but Holmes merely nodded as if she had already confirmed something he long suspected.

“You say it made sense to combine two goals with Victor Apligian,” Holmes went on. “Just as it made sense to arrange passage for you and Victor alone, leaving your two erstwhile companions here in the law’s tender mercy? At least, that’s what you told Victor.”

Mary’s face was a sudden mask of anger. “Damnation on you and your deductions.”

“Maggie?” Morris said. “What is this now?”

“How?” Mary snarled. “I told no one that! How could you know?”

“I didn’t,” Holmes said. “Not for a certainty. Until now. Thank you for confirming it. Victor Apligian did have his bags packed, and still had the pearl on his person, a trifle that Mr Morris clearly hadn’t known, suggesting that some negotiation of Victor’s own had drawn things out.”