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

“No... yes. She said something about there being’many windows,’ which struck me as strange.”

“How very odd. Anything else?”

“She said:’many windows... but no curtains. And the light comes through.’ Something like that.”

Holmes and I looked at each other, but neither of us could make anything of this at the moment.

Holmes insisted that Armstrong accompany us on our new search. My friend considered it of vital importance now that the young man be brought to a full understanding of his own situation, and Louisa’s.

Before we started out, I gave orders to the innkeeper that Mr. Prince was not under any circumstances to be disturbed; then, going into the room where Dracula was sleeping, I looked at him, with the idea of making sure that all was well with our colleague. I was also fascinated as a medical man and a mere spectator. Dracula, tired by days of exposure to indirect daylight, lay flat on his back upon the bed, fully clothed and with a flattish bag or parcel of some silk-like fabric, containing his earth, unfolded between his body and the coverlet. He was obviously in deep trance. I looked into his open eyes, sought to find a reflex, and tried to take a pulse. I should have thought him dead, had I not known better.

Smithbury Hall, the country house rented by Count Kulakov, was, as Mycroft had reported, some twelve miles from Amberly, an hour and a half by horse-drawn carriage. Holmes declined Armstrong’s offer to drive us there in his motorcar, wishing to avoid the inevitable attention the noisy vehicle would draw in the quiet country.

Meanwhile a decision had to be made as to how and exactly where we were to begin our search. The mention of’many windows’ had suggested to me that Louisa Altamont’s new daytime quarters were inside Kulakov’s country house. but, as Holmes pointed out,’no curtains’ would seem to argue against that interpretation.

Having stopped in the nearest village to make local inquiries, the three of us reached the grounds of Kulakov’s rented estate, which were guarded by a high fence. After circling the estate cautiously on narrow, lightly traveled roads at a considerable distance, we left our carriage in a quiet lane. Crossing the fence, we began a circuitous approach on foot, a cautious process of observing the house from a distance. Now and then we spotted a servant or two moving about, but until the afternoon there was no one else.

At about two o’clock, peering toward the house through gaps in a hedgerow, we saw two men who, even at a distance, wore the indefinable look of official plainclothesmen. They were going, on some business or pretext, to the front door. After a discussion, conducted through the open door with someone inside, they were turned away.

“Merivale,” I suggested, “may be taking action.”

“He may be right to do so.” Holmes’s attitude was gloomy, with little evidence of the wry humor he often displayed when things were not going well. “So far I can claim no progress at all worth mentioning.”

It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Prince Dracula would have been of inestimable help to us in the last stages of our search for the new resting place of Louisa Altamont; but our ally was not available, and we could not depend upon him for everything.

It was late in the day when Holmes, Armstrong, and I came upon an abandoned greenhouse, standing isolated and hidden in a grove of trees at least half a mile from any inhabited dwelling. Though the sun was lowering, it was still bright, and we calculated there would be time to investigate before the fall of night made our presence here prohibitively hazardous.

As we approached the derelict structure, Holmes pointing with satisfaction at the rows of glass panes, many of them shattered, which form a roof and walls supported by pillars of brick and wood..

“Had it not been for the mention of windows, I should have concentrated my efforts on finding an old grave, somewhere in another vault or churchyard. Maybe an antique barrow, with some Druid tinge about it, or an abandoned boat shed. but as matters stand, this looks promising.”

Armstrong, who seemed to have given up hours ago trying to make sense of the search in which we were engaged, only nodded. “What now?”

“We must get in, and quickly.”

Both doors to the abandoned-looking structure were locked, and the quickest way in was to break yet another pane of glass.

Inside, cobwebs and rust only confirmed the idea of long abandonment. Digging and poking around in search of a hiding place, we came upon a large wooden toolchest, suitable for the storage of shovels and similar implements, and on lifting the lid of this, I uncovered Louisa.

Martin Armstrong, who had been looking over my shoulder, recoiled with an audible gasp.

There were no satin pillows here, nor even a nest of blankets, but only leaves and earth and mold in the crude wooden box, and the poor girl lying among them, looking as dead as Dracula had looked when we had left him in the inn.

Holmes came to stand beside us, and we all three silently regarded our discovery. Louisa Altamont was still clad in her burial gown–now sadly soiled and torn, lacking the unnatural powers of preservation of the body that it covered. Her body showed a convincingly lifelike appearance, a startling absence of decay–and there was also some blood, recently dried, around the red-lipped mouth, even spotting the pink cheeks. The hair, in contrast to the once-white gown, seemed fine and clean, as if newly washed. As a medical man, I was of course amazed, though intellectually I had been aware that our explorations were almost certain to lead to some discovery of the kind.

My instincts on seeing Louisa Altamont lying in such deathly stillness were (as they had been in the case of Dracula) to seek for pulse and breath and heartbeat, and actually I did