Séance for a Vampire, Fred Saberhagen [win 10 ebook reader txt] 📗

with him that he required rest after his ordeal, he snapped back: “I have lain inactive quite enough during the past forty hours, I assure 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 assertion, 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 is he–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 fiancé the truth of what had happened to his beloved. Despite my friend’s assurance 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 reasons for wanting an exhumation: the hope to prove that someone else had been interred under his fiancée’s name.

Thirteen

I accepted the assignment from Cousin Sherlock calmly, not anticipating 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 understandingly.

“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 assurance, 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 séance 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 co-operate. 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