Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula by Christian Klaver

Author:Christian Klaver [Klaver, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

Chapter 12

FAIRVIEW HOUSE

“If we are to continue having clandestine midnight meetings in the heart of cemeteries,” Holmes said once we’d returned to Baker Street, “we shall have to locate those silk masks of yours from the Milverton affair.” Holmes lit his pipe and puffed on it luxuriously.

“What are our next steps?” I asked.

“I shall need to check the docks,” Holmes said, “to look for any sign that the Mariner Priest may have returned, possibly bringing Mary with him, which would be one explanation for the facts.”

“And the other?”

“Why, that she never left England in the first place.”

“Holmes! Surely that can’t be true. We have kept careful tabs over all the vampire activity in London. The cemeteries, the morgues, even the butcher shops⁖”

“Yet we have not been entirely successful,” Holmes said, “for while there have been few vampire incidents outside of the Baron Gruner affair and those directly related to the Mariner Priest, that is not the same as having none. So there are at least a few vampires that continue to remain undiscovered in London. She might be one of those. Or she may have left London for the countryside and now returned. Even our Midnight Watch cannot keep tabs on all of England. It is a Herculean enough task to attempt to do so on bustling London. It is also possible that Mary did not depart on the Mariner Priest’s ship at all. But I must make absolutely certain. The Mariner Priest has been guilty of more than a few subterfuges in his past, to say the least.” He had his pipe going well now, and was staring out into the blackness of the night.

“But, Holmes, where is Mary, then? Can we say for certain that she was the one that committed this foul murder? Could it have been a random attack?”

“Watson, could it be that you don’t see the significance of the lip rouge?”

“I’m sure that I am very slow.”

He turned away from the window to face me. “It’s the most suggestive detail we’ve yet encountered in this case.”

“I see that it identifies the vampire as a woman, and one likely to have returned to an outwardly civilized, if risqué, appearance, if she wears lip rouge. That’s how you knew it was a… what did you call it… mature vampire?”

“Precisely,” Holmes said.

“I see. And also because of the repeated bites over time. A newly born vampire would have drained him dry in one feeding. The rareness of mature vampires and the pearl are what make you think it’s my Mary.”

“It pains me to say this, Watson, but she is hardly ‘your Mary’ anymore. But it’s possible she’s no longer the Mariner Priest’s creature, either. We still know precious little about how he manages to create vampires in secret and accelerate them through the bestial stage, or what repercussions that process may have. There are many indications that he also has some method of controlling them that we don’t understand, but that is mere conjecture now. I am getting ahead of myself.

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