While I was engaged in this second call, Prince Dracula had once more entered the public bar and resumed his role of entertainer. Still, I refrained from saying openly on the telephone that we were facing the definite possibility that this Kulakov and our mysterious vampire were one and the same.
"Is there anything more you can tell me about him-Mycroft? It may be vitally important."
"Yes, John, actually there is a fair amount of information." And Mycroft relayed to me the suspicions then current in British intelligence circles, that the Russian count was quite likely mixed up in the conflict between terrorist revolutionaries and the Okhrana, or Tsarist secret police. Each of these parties was known to have agents in England. Some people, men and women, were double agents, trying to play both sides.
"And his personal description, Mycroft-his appearance?"
"I have never laid eyes on the man myself. But he is described as tall and well built, about forty years of age. Has red hair and beard and greenish, peculiar eyes. He seems to be heir to some remote but extensive Siberian estates that were his father"s and grandfather"s before him. Another-"
"Red hair," I repeated. "And beard. Tall and powerful. Even green eyes."
"That is the description I have been given."
Mycroft had more information at his fingertips. The Russian count had apparently come to England unaccompanied save for a faithful servant or two. Our own intelligence service supposed him, and doubtless his servants as well, to be involved, in some way hard to determine, in the ongoing duel of secret agents between the monarchy and the revolutionaries.
There was still more. Mycroft had discovered a dossier on one man bearing the given name and patronymic of Gregory Efimovitch, who had attained a fair degree of prominence in the intrigues among Russian exiles, and Mycroft had already set in motion an investigation to determine his current whereabouts.
"Can we establish any connection," I asked, "between this man and Kulakov?"
"So far I cannot. But sooner or later we will discover the link if it exists."
Presently I rang off the telephone, looked in at the public bar to let my colleague know the latest call had been completed, and preceded him back to our rooms to report to Holmes.
On my arrival upstairs I found my friend in conversation with Martin Armstrong and Rebecca Altamont, both of them much restored in appearance from the last time I had seen them.
Armstrong and Rebecca Altamont had each awakened in Baker Street shortly after noon that day, Thursday, and had been promptly handed my messages by Mrs.
Hudson. After our landlady had provided them with a hasty meal, the young people had come rushing back to Amberley on the first train available. The two appeared at the Saracen"s Head at seven o"clock on Thursday evening, after having stopped first at Norberton House to bathe and change.
They came to our inn partly with the intention of seeing Inspector Merivale, who also occupied a room there. Further, Holmes had said he wanted to see Armstrong, and I had sent a message to Norberton House-where any request from me was rather coldly received-asking the young American to call on me.
On the arrival of Armstrong and Miss Altamont, Holmes had ordered tea to be served in our rooms, and I found him entertaining our visitors there.
Prince Dracula, now once more relieved from his duties in the bar downstairs, looked in, and I had introductions to perform. "This is Mr. Prince," I said, using an alias we had agreed on earlier, "who has come down from London with me. He is another a.s.sociate of Mr. Sherlock Holmes."
Prince Dracula had been looking forward to a well-earned sleep, in his own room, during the day"s remaining daylight hours. But he was also eager to meet these people who were so deeply involved in our mystery. "How do you do?"
I thought that Rebecca Altamont colored slightly when Dracula bowed and greeted her with continental politeness-an a.s.sured manner which clearly indicated his n.o.ble origins.Later, I heard from both Martin Armstrong and Miss Altamont, that they on seeing Dracula for the first time, had taken note, as I had myself, of the strong resemblance between the cousins. Though neither of the young people said anything at the time of their introduction, both, as they told me later, were ready to believe there was some family connection. Still, I thought the present likeness not as great as it had been six years earlier; my friend, I realized, had aged perceptibly in that interval-the change was more noticeable in the hours immediately following his confinement-while Holmes"s distant relative impressed me as looking even younger in 1903 than he had in 1897.
Both Miss Altamont and Armstrong, of course, were delighted to learn that Holmes had managed to avoid serious injury while in captivity. Soon the young man eagerly demanded of my friend what news he might have of Louisa.
Holmes shook his head. "There is no news directly; I did not see her, or hear her name mentioned."
The American"s face fell. "But you know now who her captors are? They must be the same men who held you."
"Very likely. But as yet, I can tell you nothing on that score."
Rebecca broke in: "At least you can tell us whether my sister is still alive? You now have evidence of that?"
Holmes looked very grave. "I am afraid I cannot promise you an answer on that point either."
Armstrong leaped to his feet. "What do you mean? G.o.d! Don"t tell me the sc.u.m have killed her after all? Or that they have... have..."
"I said that I can promise you nothing. But perhaps I can show you something that has a bearing on Louisa"s fate. Can you come with me tonight?"
"Of course-wherever you wish!"
"Am I to be excluded?" demanded the young woman.
"By no means." But then Holmes turned to face Armstrong fully, and my friend"s expression was grim. "In return, Mr. Armstrong, I require complete candor on your part. Will you now tell us the full story of how the rowboat was capsized?" Holmes"s expression had grown still more ominous. "I am convinced that in your earlier account of the matter to us, you omitted certain details of great importance."
At this key point, our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Merivale. Soon Armstrong, in the presence of Scotland Yard, admitted that there was something he had not told.
While Rebecca Altamont, her face suddenly pale, sat back in her chair, the inspector demanded: "Why did you say nothing about this until now?"
Armstrong looked pleadingly from one of us to another. "Gentlemen, it was so strange a thing that I couldn"t bring myself to mention it. But now-now that we know Louisa"s still alive-why, it"s plain that whatever is going on must be very strange indeed. And this odd piece will fit in with the rest somehow." He turned an appealing look in my direction. "Do you see what I mean, Doctor?"
"If you will tell us everything you know," I advised him, "your meaning may be easier to grasp."
"Of course." Martin Armstrong drew a full breath and seemed to pull himself together. "Gentlemen-Becky-I now confess that at the time-just as I turned in the moment of the boat"s capsizing-I thought I did catch just a glimpse of something very strange.
"As we began to go over, I twisted my head around, looking over my right shoulder... and I retain the distinct impression of a pale hand, or at least of human fingers, grasping the gunwale on that side. Then a few moments later, when I was under water, I felt the sense of some stranger"s body near me there. But I hope you will understand, so brief and fragmentary were these impressions, so unsupported by either logic or common sense, that ever since, I have discounted them as the result of nerves, or actual hallucinations."
Holmes demanded: "And you have never mentioned to anyone-to Miss Altamont here, for example-what you thought you saw?"
Armstrong shook his head violently. "How could I? Rebecca would have believed me mad."
"Perhaps not," the lady herself said, shaking her head.
The young man went on to explain that the sense of some mysterious presence had not appeared to him to offer any genuine explanation of the upset. At the moment of crisis, of course, he had given little thought to causes, but expected it would be relatively easy to make sure that both girls were safe.
We urged him to tell the whole story again, this time as truthfully as possible, and he agreed. When he had come up, gasping, to the surface after his initial plunge, Armstrong had immediately seen Becky struggling to stay afloat; he swam to her and guided her to sh.o.r.e, which was the work of less than a minute.
"Then Becky and I looked at each other. And both of us said the same thing at the same moment: "Where"s Louisa?"
"There was the rowboat, now floating almost placidly, drifting upside down. There were the two oars. I seem to recall seeing a floating banjo and a picnic basket. But no sign at all of Louisa. I wondered, was she on the other side of the boat, or had she come up underneath it?"
In a strained voice, Martin went on to tell us that he had stripped off his light summer coat, which was already sodden, and then his shoes, and in light summer trousers and shirt-sleeves, plunged back into the stream. Quickly, he made sure that no one was trapped under the boat. He came out from under it and dived again, thinking that surely, surely, his fiancee"s head must appear above the water at any moment...
"I did find her hat-did I mention that before, gentlemen? Yes, her hat, in the water... but that was all."
Time dragged on, the horrible minutes following the capsizing of the boat lengthening into a full hour, and extending themselves endlessly after that...
Rebecca, of course, had summoned aid as quickly as possible. But dusk, which was gathering at the time the boat tipped, had deepened almost totally into night before there were answering shouts and lights coming through the trees.
"We searched on, of course, through the night. Men and boys from the neighboring houses and farms, as well as from Norberton House, looking along the sh.o.r.e and in the water. Gradually, we all lost hope. No one found... found her... until broad daylight. By then, the girl, whoever she was, had been dead for hours. Her... her body lay on the bank, nearly a mile downstream." Briefly overcome by emotion, the young man had to pause. "Oh, G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d, when I thought that was Louisa-"
In the morning, as we already knew, there had been the limp, white, unbreathing body to be taken up, carried home and mourned over. Drowning was the obvious cause of death. As we had earlier learned, there had been no visible injuries-certainly no more than a few scratches, including the two small marks upon the white, still throat.
Within a day or so, an inquest had been held upon "the poor girl, in the full belief that she was Louisa," and her body had been duly interred.
When Armstrong had concluded his story, Rebecca Altamont took his hand and did her best to comfort him; and I remember that at the time, it crossed my mind that when grief and terror had been surmounted, there might be the chance of a more tender attachment growing between them.
Presently the young American, recovering himself a little, proposed a plan in which several of we men would return in the same rowboat to the scene of the catastrophe, and one or more might strip and jump into the water to try the experiment of tipping the craft over, just to see how difficult it was, even where the river was shallow enough to allow more or less solid footing on the muddy bottom.
"If it proves really impossible to capsize the boat that way," he concluded, "then perhaps I was hallucinating after all."
No one answered that directly. I could see Dracula smile faintly, no doubt at the thought of himself going for a bathe in the bright morning daylight. In a moment, the prince murmured that he would decline to take part in such an exercise. "Running water and I are not always on the best of terms," he added. "Not to mention my tendency to sunburn." I could see that this refusal and comment both rather puzzled the young American.
Holmes commended Armstrong"s plan of reenactment as worthy, possibly useful. "But unfortunately there is no time for it now; there are other matters which much more urgently require our attention."
Armstrong blinked at him. "Of course. And I still insist that the first of them is finding Louisa, wherever she may be, and thereby putting an end to this nightmare."
At this juncture Holmes suddenly brought the name of Count Kulakov into the conversation. Both of the young people could immediately confirm that there was, or had been, a foreigner of that name living in the neighborhood and attending a few social events, though neither Armstrong nor Miss Altamont had ever met the man, or even seen him.
But Rebecca then went on to recall hearing Louisa say that she had met him, and did not like him.
"I remember she told me that on one occasion-months ago, before you two were engaged, Martin-he had paid her attentions that were not entirely welcome."
Armstrong frowned. He harked back to his stay in St. Petersburg and tried to recall anything he might have learned about Count Kulakov during that time. "I do think I might have heard the name somewhere-but where? Is there a possibility that he is somehow involved in this business?"
"A distinct possibility." Then, changing the subject again, Holmes asked if the Altamonts had any plans for another siance.
Armstrong and Rebecca, during their brief stop at Norberton House before coming to see us, had already been apprised of the intentions of the family there.
Louisa"s parents were naturally expecting them to keep those plans secret from any investigators who might interfere.
But Armstrong had his own agenda regarding siances. "If these scoundrels think they can somehow smuggle Louisa into the house again, and then whisk her away as they did last time, they"re in for a surprise. The police are watching, too."
Holmes"s continued questioning of Armstrong and Miss Altamont elicited the information that Sarah Kirkaldy was refusing even to talk about the possibility of another sitting. With her brother"s body in a coffin in the parlor, that struck me as hardly to be wondered at.
The young couple also had information for us regarding the time of Abraham"s funeral, which they were naturally expecting to attend. He had been struck down half an hour before midnight Tuesday and had died on Wednesday morning. The funeral and burial were planned for Sat.u.r.day morning.
"Probably I shall not attend," Holmes mused thoughtfully. "Yet I dare not delay interviewing Miss Kirkaldy as long as that. Her own safety, I think, will not permit it, and even tomorrow may be too late." He shifted the direction of his gaze. "Mr.
Prince?"
Dracula, as if he had been expecting to be called upon, smiled and nodded gently. He appeared ready to abandon his hope of catching a nap before sundown. "If you wish, Mr. Holmes, I shall be glad to visit Norberton House. Perhaps I can establish some rapport with Miss Kirkaldy. I will, of course, convey our sympathies to her on the loss of her brother-and it may be that she will tell me a few interesting things."
Shortly, the prince and Armstrong had gone off together.
Holmes"s recuperative powers, as I have remarked before, were truly impressive.
As nightfall drew near, only half a day following his rescue from the crypt, he was on his feet again, insisting in his masterful way that there be no delay in our investigation. When I remonstrated with him that he required rest after his ordeal, he snapped back: "I have lain inactive quite enough during the past forty hours, I a.s.sure you!"
Two items now had very high priority on my friend"s agenda. One was the interview with Sarah Kirkaldy, which matter he fortunately had been able to entrust to his cousin.
"She must be induced to tell us all she knows about this evil man! He is, I have no doubt, her brother"s murderer."
As for the other objective, Holmes, speaking to me privately, insisted that it was now imperative that we open the burial vault of Louisa Altamont and interview her as soon as possible-whether Martin Armstrong was on hand or not.
It struck me that six years earlier such an a.s.sertion, with regard to any young woman whose body had been put into a tomb almost a month ago, would have seemed strong evidence of madness. Now I could only accept Holmes"s plan as a way of dealing with an even more terrible truth.
"We must admit the gravest doubts as to whether it will ever be possible for her to rejoin her loved ones. Still, it is essential that I speak to her without further delay.
Murder has been committed. The expedition will, of course, be dangerous."
"If you intend to go at night, I should rather describe it as foolhardy!"
"Calm yourself, Watson. Naturally, the danger will be vastly greater after sunset, when our chief opponent will be more likely to put in an appearance. But I intend to go nowhere after dark until Prince Dracula has rejoined us. Then we shall have odds of at least three to one in our favor, and, I think-our ally being who he is-no need to be overly concerned."
Holmes had already made arrangements with Martin Armstrong for the young man to accompany us when we went to open the tomb of Louisa Altamont. Holmes hoped to be able to demonstrate to the still-hopeful fianci the truth of what had happened to his beloved. Despite my friend"s a.s.surance to the breathing Miss Altamont that she should not be excluded from the revelation, he had no intention of bringing her on this first expedition.
Armstrong had agreed readily. He still had his own reason for wanting an exhumation: the hope to prove that someone else had been interred under his fiancie"s name.
13.
I accepted the a.s.signment from Cousin Sherlock calmly, not antic.i.p.ating that it would present any particular difficulty. "There is, of course," I commented, "the matter of my obtaining an invitation to enter the house. I expect that would greatly facilitate matters."
"Of course." Holmes nodded.
"Of course," echoed Armstrong, nodding too. Naturally he, being still innocent of the least bit of vampire lore, could not have understood my being so particular about wanting an invitation to cross a mere threshold; but he very quickly volunteered to introduce Mr. Prince to the Altamont family as his own friend, a man experienced in dealing with psychic problems. "I understand that it will be wise to refrain from mentioning any connection the gentleman might have with Sherlock Holmes and Dr.
Watson."
Soon-the time was now eight o"clock, still full daylight on a long summer evening-Armstrong and I were on our way, chatting together companionably enough. I have several reasons for remembering with great clarity that particular summer day: One is the fact that it marks the occasion of my first ride in a motorcar.
For several years I had been looking forward to the event, realizing that sooner or later I should have to accustom myself to the horseless carriage. When the opportunity arrived, I dutifully equipped myself for the adventure in borrowed goggles and a long dust-coat, telling myself that this was only one more step in my never-ending adjustment to an ever-new and changing world. In fact the ride, with Armstrong at the controls, was neither as bad as I had cynically expected nor quite as exhilarating as I had dared to hope. The sheer speed (I suppose some thirty miles an hour, substantially beyond the twenty recently established as the British speed limit for cars) was no real novelty; in some of my four-legged forms, I could have outsped the machine, at least over a short distance. And flying on the support of one"s own organic wings, another act to which I am no stranger, is in my judgment a sensation far superior to that of riding in any mere land-bound device.
The young American (as Watson so liked to call him) and I were on our way, terrorizing an occasional dog or cat as we shot through the village, shouting back and forth to each other over the roar of machinery and the rush of air. Talking in this way we touched on several matters, including the current disposition of Louisa"s parents. I gathered that both elder Altamonts were eager, as only recent converts are wont to be, for more doings in the world of spirits. Father and mother were fretting in their impatience to see their departed daughter again. Though I gave Armstrong no a.s.surance, I was convinced that very encounter could be arranged, but was far from convinced that it would be wise to do so.According to Armstrong, there were even rumors (the servants had been gossiping) that the senior Altamonts, unable to wait, had tried to hold another siance last night, even without the help of an experienced medium. The result seemed to have been a complete failure. Well, I thought, things might have been worse.
Little daunted (if the rumors were true), Louisa"s parents were supposedly planning another sitting for tonight, still nursing hopes of getting the grief-stricken Sarah Kirkaldy to cooperate. Perhaps, I thought, the elder couple were wondering why Sarah, considered an expert in other worldly matters, should be taking her temporary separation from Abraham so hard; one might have thought that her brother, being himself a medium, should have a particularly easy time in getting back.
I supposed that Louisa"s parents would be inclined to blame any new failure, as they had blamed the old, on strange, malignant powers that had been somehow attracted to the scene by Sherlock Holmes and his a.s.sociates, including the police.
None of this, I thought, was very logical; but then, logic had never been the spiritists"