Dracula Sequence - Seance For A Vampire Part 18

A mile to our north and out of sight from our hotel on the far bank of the broad Neva, there rose the sullen, dun-colored walls of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, at once a stronghold and a prison. Towering four hundred feet above those walls, and visible from most parts of the city, rose the slender golden spire marking the site of the cathedral contained within the fortress.

For three miles along the southern bank of the Neva ran a solid quay of pink Finnish granite, lined on its inland side by the Winter Palace, the Admiralty, the foreign emba.s.sies, and the palaces of the great n.o.bles, the wealthy merchants and landowners.

Currently the Russian capital was a city of about a million and a half people. This made it not as large as London, but still to be cla.s.sified as one of the great cities of Europe and the world. And from the bustle of commerce along the quays, and the evident respect shown toward the monarchy by most of the people, it was plain that their Majesties Nicholas and Alexandra were still secure on their thrones, despite the continual ferment of terrorists seeking to incite revolution.

The Winter Palace, a huge and, as one might expect, an imposing edifice, built in the eighteenth century by the Empress Elizabeth, was seldom occupied by royalty at this season of the year. The Tsar and Tsarina, as Armstrong informed us, were in the habit of spending their summers at Tsarskoe Selo, the Tsar's village, a construction of fantastic extravagance fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg. This miniature domain had been called "a world apart," and "an enchanted fairyland." Eight hundred acres of green lawn-well over a square mile-in the imperial park delighted the four daughters of the imperial family, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, whose ages were eight to two, respectively.

The horse-drawn tram had not yet been replaced by the electric vehicle, and motorcars were much more a rarity than in the vicinity of London. Rubber-tired carriages were fairly common in the summer, and the main streets, at least, were all smoothly paved.

Now we put into action, as best we could, the plans which we had made aboard s.h.i.+p. We were each of us to seek out our professional contemporaries in St.

Petersburg, and endeavor to find out what we could about our quarry.

Dracula mentioned casually that there might be in the St. Petersburg area some local vampires with whom he could establish useful contact. "Most likely it will be something indirect-I have a place to start, the name of a certain breathing friend of an old friend."

Zubatov, then head of the Tsarist secret police, acquainted with Sherlock Holmes at least by reputation, was obviously a powerful man, important either as friend or foe; and Holmes would pursue his own inquiries by that means.

Armstrong felt almost at home in Petersburg, having spent much of the previous winter and spring in the city in the course of his duties as international correspondent for his American newspaper. He had found the place interesting, and had enjoyed many aspects of the local society. Others, such as the official censors.h.i.+p, were extremely distasteful. But mainly he had suffered by being separated from Louisa, until, to his joy, he had been rea.s.signed to London.

For my part I endeavored, though I met with little success, to establish some contacts among the local medical community, by means of shared interests or mutual acquaintances. One friend of a friend turned up unexpectedly-a Russian who had been doing research on plague, in Paris, but his knowledge of Count Kulakov, or of anyone who might know the count, proved to be nil. From my new acquaintance, I learned little more than that this city had been called "the Babylon of the Snows," or sometimes "the Venice of the North"-the latter because of the number of ca.n.a.ls and natural waterways.

I learned also that in summer, cholera was always a serious concern. It was important to make sure that drinking water was boiled.

I was pleased to observe that telephones were as readily available as in most parts of Britain. All of the best hotels and other important buildings had at least one instrument installed, and I was told there were many thousands of subscribers in Russia.

Our business in the city was facilitated by the fact that several of our party understood the language of the city's common people. Holmes spoke a little Russian and understood more-this knowledge, as he explained to me, being one of the fruits of two years of travel in Tibet. And Prince Dracula soon demonstrated fluency in the tongue of Ivan the Terrible, though Holmes told me there was much that was old- fas.h.i.+oned, even archaic, in Dracula's speech. The prince said that he had never visited St. Petersburg before; I admit being somewhat awed by the realization that he was considerably older than the city.

Armstrong, during the past year having spent several months in St. Petersburg, had a smattering of modern Russian.

Of particular help to me was the fact that every cultured person in the capital spoke French, some of them by preference over their native tongue; in addition, a fair number spoke English.

On our first evening in St. Petersburg, some of our party visited a certain bas.e.m.e.nt cafi called the Red Jingle, rather a bohemian establishment. Under a poster advertising last season's performances of Anna Pavlova, we discussed our next move.

We intended to learn who might be Kulakov's special friends and a.s.sociates in St.

Petersburg, and Cousin Sherlock had been able to come up with some clues along that line. Everything we had learned so far tended to confirm that our quarry probably did not have many intimate a.s.sociates, here in Petersburg or anywhere else.

We still did not know whether Kulakov had yet forced his fangs upon his latest victim and hostage. Personally I thought it probable, though I admitted there might be reasons for him to do otherwise.

Meanwhile I was congratulating myself for having managed to bring Sarah along, though the stern demands of duty kept me from seeing anything like as much of her as I would have liked.

Getting a black look from Watson now and then, I condescended to a.s.sure the good doctor that he need not be worried about Sarah's becoming a vampire. With a little restraint on the part of both parties involved, such an outcome could be delayed for a long time, and most of my love affairs did not end in that result.

Gradually our slowly growing network of contacts in the city began, like a tangle of grapevine, to bear fruit. Within two days we learned that in the higher social circles where he was known, Kulakov planned to present Rebecca as his new wife, acquired in England. In recent years he had been known in St. Petersburg as a widower, his last reported wife having died some years ago.

Insofar as we could discover, it had never been the count's habit, before his latest trip to England, to mix much in St. Petersburg society, but he was on fairly intimate terms with a few of the n.o.bility. Though appearing socially from time to time, he mainly kept to himself, spending most of his time on his extensive country estates.

Martin Armstrong was still being tormented by his mixed feelings toward the dead Louisa. His beloved was, or had been, one of the undead. Having some difficulty in believing that Louisa was now truly departed, Armstrong was also antic.i.p.ating a similar outcome for Becky. He brooded sleeplessly upon her fate, the unbearable fact that from now on, she might be compelled to spend her days, or many of her daylight hours, sleeping in her tomb. And he had learned from the party of vampire-hunters the uses of the wooden stake.

Who would her lover be when she had become a vampire? Not Kulakov any longer-vampire and vampire do not bed together.

No, Becky's new lover would have to be a breathing man. And there could be no future in society-any form of human society, as Martin thought-for such a couple.

Sarah Kirkaldy, as Dracula's lover, had, by the time we left for Russia, been brought to a certain practical understanding of vampirism. By this time Sarah, though her grief for her brother and her desire for revenge were genuine enough, was beginning to wonder, perhaps to calculate, how such powers as had been revealed to her might be turned to a medium's professional advantage.

Every witness-there were not many-who reported seeing Kulakov since his return to St. Petersburg, said that the man gave evidence of some kind of mental or physical infirmity. We wondered whether this infirmity had provided him with one strong reason, perhaps really the only reason, to come back to St. Petersburg. "Is it possible that he comes here in hopes of getting relief from these symptoms?" I asked.

No one answered.

The beautiful white nights, persisting well into July, made a favorable impression on the breathing visitors, but somewhat hampered the visiting and native vampires alike.

Holmes asked Martin Armstrong for confirmation that Rebecca Altamont did not speak Russian. Then the detective mused that this lack would doubtless add to the girl's sense of helplessness and isolation, and make it harder for her to attempt an escape unaided, even if she were able to contemplate such a course.

In engaging our hotel rooms, we had particularly asked for a suite equipped with a telephone. In the first two days of our stay, the instrument seldom rang; but toward the end of the third day, I answered a call and heard, to my great astonishment, the voice of a distraught woman whom I could only gradually, and with some uncertainty, recognize as Rebecca Altamont.

I will not repeat in detail all that the mesmerized and terrorized woman said, or elaborate on my futile attempts to interrupt and offer her some hope. Suffice it to say here that she cursed us, one and all, for interfering with her happiness, and warned us to go home.

There followed a little shriek as the instrument was evidently pulled roughly from her grasp, and then a gloating postscript in an unfamiliar male voice which I soon realized must be that of Kulakov himself.

"Dr. Watson, I take it? Mr. Holmes is not available at the moment? Ah, too bad."

Kulakov went on to give his own warning, to the effect that until now he had treated his prisoner kindly, but if Sherlock Holmes and the other meddlers did not promptly take themselves out of the country, he would soon begin to punish Rebecca Altamont for what he called our misdeeds.

"The exact mode of this chastis.e.m.e.nt I leave, for now, to your imaginations. And ah, I must not forget. Let this call serve as formal announcement that a wedding ceremony is in prospect; I think, though, that it will be delayed until my bride and I have reached the country. It is easier there to find a priest with a dependable, sensible att.i.tude in these matters."

At that, I thought that the connection was about to be broken; but then the vampire remained at his 'phone long enough to deliver a parting shot. "Oh, and convey my goodwill to the family of thieves, the infamous Altamonts. Tell them I will yet have my treasure back. And give them my congratulations-they raise such tasty daughters. It is too bad they have no more."

There was a laugh, then a sharp click at the other end of the line, followed by the impersonal humming of the wires.

Rebecca was being held hostage for our good behavior.

18.

Reeling under the shock of the horrible threat directed at Rebecca Altamont, our little group met in a council of war to determine what our next move should be.

We were all horrified, of course, at Kulakov's new challenge; the most terrible aspect was his threat to carry his helpless hostage away to one of his remote country estates, where the lord of the manor customarily ruled as a law unto himself, unfettered by any of the constraints imposed by an urban society; and where we would find it much more difficult if not impossible to reach either the criminal or his victim.

Prince Dracula of course was something of an exception when it came to considering impossibilities. On being informed of Kulakov's challenge he announced stiffly that, even if we were to fail in St. Petersburg, he would probably consider that his honor required him to mount an extended campaign, spending years if necessary, to recover the girl or at least to take vengeance on her abductor, We appreciated this att.i.tude on the part of the prince, but at the same time we took rather less satisfaction from the idea of mere vengeance serving as a subst.i.tute for rescue.

We considered the idea of trying to communicate our proud defiance, and the grimmest possible warning, to our foe, but soon decided that the only good response would be effective action.

The more I saw of the city and its people, the more I found St. Petersburg a very foreign place to English eyes, despite its homelike fogs and dampness. But at the same time, the metropolis struck me as quite European-not Eastern or Asiatic-and exceedingly impressive.The city sprawls over nineteen islands, most of them at the time of our visit green with summer trees, and for miles along the ragged, swampy edge of the mainland. It is divided down the middle by the river Neva, which seems to carry with its flow the smells of pure wilderness water and bitter cold. I was startled to learn that the broad Neva is only forty-six miles in length. It drains Lake Ladoga, which, in turn, is fed by a number of streams flowing out of the infinite northern forests.

The islands upon which the city is built included: the Island of the Apothecaries, with its botanical gardens; Kamerny Island, where are situated the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist and the Summer Theater; Ielagin Island, with its palace and famous oak trees; Krestovsky Island, with a medieval castle, gardens, and yacht club.

These and other outlying districts are invaded in summer by city-dwellers hungry for s.p.a.ce and fresh air. Restlessly seeking out our several professional contacts, we prowled joylessly among the cheerful throng dining in restaurants, eagerly surrounding the bandstands, and attending the cafi concerts.

The layout and architecture of the city were far less Russian than European, especially Italianate.

People still talked about the bicentenary celebration that had been held in and for the city only two or three months earlier, back in May, 1903.

We were all of us occupied in our own ways with seeking information in and about the city; I for one became well acquainted with its cabdrivers (izvoshniki), many of whom spoke French, or even English to some degree, and who were all alike attired in a sort of uniform, chiefly consisting of a long, blue coat, thickly padded and secured with a brightly colored belt. The summer outfit included a small top hat of a peculiar shape, making the wearer look, as I thought, like some fanciful creature from the pen of Lewis Carroll. The cabs, strangely, in a place where winters were so severe, were not tightly enclosed, and only leather hoods protected their pa.s.sengers from rain.

Fortunately I could manage tolerable French, which most of the Russian n.o.bility preferred to their native tongue; to my relief, that proved adequate to see me through most encounters in my pose of casual traveler.

Holmes, endeavoring to ascertain whether either of Rebecca's parents might have recovered sufficiently to be informed of the latest news about their surviving daughter, exchanged cables with Mycroft almost on a daily basis. The name of an intermediary in London was used, since it was judged desirable for several reasons to keep Mycroft's name out of the public eye as much as possible.

Had our situation in St. Petersburg not been so tragic and so desperate, I believe that Holmes would have thoroughly enjoyed his visit. He was now able to meet personally with men whom he had heretofore communicated with only by letter and by cable, and to exchange with the Petersburg police important information on a number of professional matters.

To an Englishman, the main streets of this city are startlingly wide and straight (the elegant Bolshaya Morskaya has signs in French and some in English over the windows of its shops), and many of the buildings which line them have imposing stone f.a.gades. The dampness and fog tend to make the English feel at home.

Cathedrals and smaller churches abound.

The Bronze Horseman, a monumental statue of Peter the Great, celebrated by Pushkin in a famous poem, stands just east of the English Embankment, near the Admiralty. The equestrian statue, commissioned by Catherine the Great to honor her ill.u.s.trious predecessor, shows Peter in Roman wreath and toga, right arm outstretched toward the west, making his bronze horse rear on a huge rock, trampling under its hooves the serpent of sedition.

With renewed determination, we pressed our search for our quarry and his prisoner relentlessly through the city, and even through the suburbs.

It was only after a nerve-racking delay, following several days of fruitless search and investigation, that we succeeded in locating Kulakov's townhouse in St.

Petersburg. Our task had been rendered more difficult by the fact that the legal doc.u.ments of owners.h.i.+p were in another name.

Carefully we approached the house, and observed it from front and rear. Wherever the master might currently be, at the moment he was clearly not in residence, no more than he had been in his rented country house in England. In fact, the Petersburg house and its small garden had the look of having been long unoccupied. Shortly after our discovery of the place, and even while we still had it under observation, a small squad of servants appeared and hastily plunged into the task of airing the building and evidently preparing it for occupation. Holmes, through his official and unofficial contacts, soon managed to learn that the count, while en route from England, had sent his housekeeper a cable from Copenhagen.

That night we four men approached the building stealthily, managed to enter without disturbing any of the servants in their sleep, and subjected the premises to a thorough search. It did not take long to convince ourselves that the prisoner we sought could not be here, and that therefore Kulakov himself was almost certainly still taking his daytime slumber elsewhere.

The terrible thought haunted us that the Russian pirate's hostage might already have been dispatched to some remote Siberian province, and was being borne hourly, by carriage or by rail, farther and farther out of our reach. Prince Dracula and Sarah Kirkaldy were still conducting their daily hypnotic sessions, and the evidence from these was against Rebecca's having been carried out of the city-Kulakov was still in the city, and there were times when he seemed to be looking directly at his captive.

But still, the horrible possibility loomed.

Then, just when all prospects seemed dark, encouraging news came to us-by precisely what route, I will not specify, even now, after the lapse of some fourteen years. Evidence came into our hands that the woman we sought was being kept out of sight in the house of a certain eminent person who was perhaps allied deliberately with Kulakov, or perhaps was being forced, by blackmail or other means, to accommodate the vampire's wishes.

Taking counsel quickly among ourselves, we hunters decided to risk everything and enter the mansion in question, by stratagem if possible, by force if necessary, and to do whatever was required to rescue Rebecca Altamont-whether she was still breathing or had become nosferatu-from her evil captor. To this end, we joined our hands in a solemn pledge.

19.

Moving in and around the great city of St. Petersburg, meeting at our hotel to exchange information, the members of our party continued, each in his or her own way, to press the search for Count Kulakov, for his prisoner, and for the mysterious Gregory Efimovitch, who seemed to have a dark, controlling influence upon our enemy.

Certain signs suggested that we were making progress-at least our efforts had provoked the count into trying to warn us off-but in other respects we faced great and terrible difficulties. Some of these problems were simply a result of the fact that we were foreigners.

Again it seemed necessary to make sure that all of our party understood the dangers we were facing. We were putting ourselves at a grave risk in our efforts to rescue Rebecca. Dracula dutifully advised us that we breathing folk, at least, were risking arrest and imprisonment, which in Russia could involve a fate more terrible than quick death. However, we were in agreement that duty and honor alike forbade any thought of turning back. Whatever fate our enemy might inflict upon his helpless hostage if we persisted, there was no reason to think that she would be spared the same doom if we withdrew.

At last-whether it came through some mysterious local contact of Dracula's, or whether it was first established through Sarah Kirkaldy, I never learned-there fell into our hands the first real clue as to where and when we might reach Kulakov.

At last, to our great relief, we believed we had succeeded in identifying the house in the city where Rebecca Altamont was being held, almost a mile from the count's own townhouse. Having ascertained this much, we thought it safe to a.s.sume that Kulakov would not likely be very far from this other dwelling, or remain absent from it for any great length of time. We remained determined to take whatever chances were necessary to effect the young woman's rescue.

Unfathomable complications lurked in the fact that we still had not learned who the important Gregory Efimovitch might be. Holmes suspected the name might be that of some Russian mastermind who was engineering a deep plot.

We had received an indication that Kulakov expected to meet this mysterious individual on a certain night-and in the very house where Rebecca Altamont was being confined.

Welcome confirmation of our first clue came by another route: A servant, angry at master or mistress for some abuse and therefore susceptible to being bribed, had claimed to know the ident.i.ty of the enigmatic Gregory Efimovitch, and had even affirmed that the man we had so long sought to identify would be in the palatial residence tomorrow night; but when our agent demanded to know who Gregory Efimovitch might be, more money was demanded. Before the matter could be resolved, the conversation was interrupted and the informant of our informant had been called away.

Sherlock Holmes in particular, as he paced through our connecting rooms in our hotel, fretted and pondered over this continuing lack of knowledge. Neither in Holmes's world of police and crime, in mine of medicine, nor in Prince Dracula's peculiar domain-that netherworld of the strange and the occult, straddling the aristocracy as well as the lower cla.s.ses-could we locate any Gregory Efimovitch who seemed likely to be of particular importance to our quarry.

Holmes gave vent to his frustration. "It would appear that the man must be of the first importance-and yet he does not exist!"

"I trust that our lack of knowledge on the subject will not prevent our accomplis.h.i.+ng our objectives," I observed.

He smote the table beside him. "We must not allow it to do so. But I fear the want will make itself felt!"

The house, or perhaps I should say the palace, in which we at last ran our quarry to earth was one of those great mansions in the district including Bolshaya Morskaya Street and several of the more important cross streets in the western portion of the city.

Even at this late date, it is perhaps wise for me to refrain from specifying closely the exact location of the house involved, or telling more about its owners.h.i.+p. Suffice it to say that it stood near the Court Embankment, and that not far away were the palaces of the Grand Duke Alexandrovich and Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich. The Yusupov palace on the Moika Ca.n.a.l stood within a stone's throw. In the vicinity of the Winter Palace there were also the Stieglitz Palace, Shermetev Palace, Beloselsky Palace, Stroganov Palace, Marinsky Palace, Chernishevskaya Palace, Vladimir Palace, and many others.

On the appointed night, Holmes, Dracula, and I made our way to a rendezvous just outside the mansion. Martin Armstrong also was ready to play his a.s.signed role, which consisted of having a hired carriage in readiness for a quick getaway, not far from the house.

Having staked out our several positions, we waited until past midnight for Kulakov to appear, but without result. Possibly, we thought, he had entered without our seeing him; there might be another entrance than those we were covering. At length we decided to delay no longer; even if our quarry had eluded us, Rebecca Altamont presumably remained inside, and having come this close, we did not intend to leave without her.

At first, in planning our excursion, we had thought that the owner of the mansion might possibly be induced to invite us in, or some of us, if we simply presented ourselves at the door and sent in our cards as if making a social call. On the other hand, the chance of our being turned away had seemed very great, as did the likelihood that our attempt would alert our enemy.

In the end we thought another arrangement more likely to succeed. Ideally of course an entrance during the day was preferable, but as matters stood, the only feasible time seemed to be at night, when fortunately late revelry seemed the rule rather than the exception, and neither domestic staff nor invited guests would be likely to take much notice of an extra gentleman or two, who behaved as if they had a right to be there. At least we could hope that such would be the case.

One encouraging sign upon the night we watched the house was a series of carriages coming and going at the main entrance, testifying that an even greater and later celebration than usual was in progress.

The treacherous servant, to whom I have already alluded, admitted us through a side door.

The mansion's resplendent interior was in keeping with its outward aspect.

Furnis.h.i.+ngs included ornaments of old English silver, inlaid chests, Renaissance bronzes, and carved wooden chairs and tables. One anteroom contained a set of furniture made chiefly from elephant tusks. The dining room, decorated with gilt cups and majolica plates, boasted a Persian carpet and a splendid inlaid sideboard, upon which stood a magnificent bronze and crystal crucifix-Holmes, in an aside, whispered to me that it was Italian, of the seventeenth century.

Once inside, and free to move about, walking boldly and taking care to avoid any appearance of furtiveness, we found ourselves in a mansion the equal in splendor and elegance of any to be found in England. The furnis.h.i.+ngs included old European master paintings, Chinese jade, vases of Dresden porcelain, and French and English inlaid furniture.

It boasted an oak-paneled dining room, capable of seating at least forty people at a single table, with red-velvet curtains and a red-granite mantelpiece. On pa.s.sing into the house, I had observed that on the ground floor there were at least two kitchens, and the one into which I obtained a glance was walled with marble.

The servant who had admitted us spoke English fairly well, and as we came in, he whispered to us where Rebecca Altamont was to be found. He added that Count Kulakov had now arrived as well; I was about to turn away when the fellow appended, almost as an afterthought, the information that the Gregory Efimovitch, about whom we had been inquiring earlier, was now also present.