Seance for a Vampire

Nineteen

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 Efimovich, 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 all 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 assume 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 Efimovich 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 also 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 identity of the enigmatic Gregory Efimovich, 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 Efimovich 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 classes–could we locate any Gregory Efimovich 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 our lack of knowledge on the subject will not prevent our accomplishing 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 ownership. 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 Canal 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 assigned 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. Furnishings 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 furnishings 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 passing 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 Efimovich, about whom we had been inquiring earlier, was now also present.

“Then you know who he is?” I demanded eagerly.

“Not I, no sir. but when I say the name to Sasha, who work in the kitchen, he laugh, and say he know who is this Gregory Efimovich, and has seen his dealings with the high nobility. Then Sasha was called away and I heard no more. but I think the man you want has just come into the house.”

We three intruders in evening dress glanced at one another with a heightened resolve, knowing that we might find ourselves confronting not one deadly enemy but two. Yet our first care must be to rescue the helpless girl.

* * *

Within five minutes of my obtaining entrance, I, Dracula, had settled myself in a rather large alcove, furnished with a couple of chairs, just off the main stairway, one level above the ground floor of this St. Petersburg palace. I had even lighted a cigarette and was pretending to smoke. Tobacco is a convenient disguise, and one that I have used before–it serves quite satisfactorily to reassure any suspicious observer that at least one is breathing, even if one has no great respect for the condition of one’s lungs.

From where I sat, I could watch all three branches of the hallway that came together at the stair. When I had given our helpful servant gold, he had followed me upstairs and obligingly added a little information about what we would now call the layout. The hallway straight ahead of me was marked on both sides with bedroom doors. At the far end, it turned to the left, and after two more right-angle turns, came back into sight as the hallway on my left; my point, and it has a bearing on the momentous events that followed, is that either passage could be used to get from the stairs to the room in which Miss Altamont presumably was languishing.

The unfaithful (but useful) servant disappeared, in the quiet way good servants do, and Holmes and Watson set out upon their quest, choosing to go by the central hall. I settled down in a soft armchair, to pretend to smoke, and meditate. A guest or two, coming up or down the stair en route to other parts of the house–the party had spread everywhere– glanced at this fellow seated in the shadows and enjoying a few solitary puffs, and went their way, thinking that he was only waiting for someone.

As indeed he was.

Having established his strategic outpost, the erstwhile Mr. Prince was waiting, as patiently as his nature would allow, for Kulakov, or perhaps for the still-enigmatic Gregory Efimovich, to show himself. I did not intend the former, who had kidnapped and abused my own blood relative, to escape from this party unscathed.

Of course my stated reason for taking up a position just when and where I did was to enable me to stand guard while my breathing colleagues attempted to carry out what was–at least for them–the most important part of the operation.

Ah. Ah, God. bear with me, please. I told you this would be upsetting.

Back to Watson for the moment...

Holmes and I, doing our best to play the role of party-goers on a random stroll, set off down the hall in search of the room where, as the treacherous servant had assured us, the lady prisoner was being held.

We located what we were sure must be the proper door, just as the servant had described it. A soft tap at the door elicited no response; this was not particularly surprising. Our next task was to get into the room despite the fact that the door proved to be locked. Holmes pulled his set of picklocks from his pocket, while I stood by holding a small electric torch.

Overall our plan was simple enough, though we expected to face difficulties in its execution. We would escort the lady downstairs, carrying her bodily if necessary, and bring her straight out of the house to the carriage that Martin Armstrong had waiting in the street. If anyone stopped us or tried to interfere, our claim would be that our companion of the evening had fainted and needed fresh air; if that course failed, we would take such action as we could.

The lock was perhaps more complex than Holmes had expected, and its opening more difficult; but at length he uttered a small hiss of satisfaction, and the door swung in. My friend and I, entering as quietly as possible, found ourselves facing Miss Altamont, who lay supine upon the bed, clothed in a nightdress of elaborate lace. Her head was slightly elevated on velvet pillows, and her open eyes were staring at the flame of a single candle, which burned on a small table at the far side of the otherwise darkened chamber.

The girl made no response to our entry, or to our first reassuring words. Taking up the lighted candle from the table and approaching her more closely, I saw that her face was calm, expressionless, and her eyes fixed on the now-moving flame. More shocking was the fact that I thought I noted some of the characteristics of the vampire in her appearance; but I could not be sure. At least there were no fang marks visible upon her throat.

Naturally we had closed the door to the room behind us. Just as we were starting to lift Miss Altamont from the bed, it suddenly opened; a chambermaid had entered and switched on the electric light. In the next moment, the young uniformed servant, every bit as startled as Holmes and I, gave voice to a faint cry and drew breath for a louder effort.

Before she could scream again, both Holmes and myself were at her side. We had come equipped with a small bottle of chloroform, in anticipation of some such difficulty.

After putting the unconscious servant in a large wardrobe, and blocking the door to the cabinet with a chair, we at length succeeded, by blowing out the candle, in partially rousing the lady on the bed.

Meanwhile, from my post just down the hall, I, Prince Dracula, heard the outraged servant’s faint outcry, but being something of a connoisseur of such noises, I dismissed it out of hand for what it was. No one else in the house, if they heard the cry at all, paid it the least attention.

Next I detected the sounds of four human feet casually approaching, bearing with them two sets of breathing human lungs, one male and one female. They were coming down the hallway on my right. I waited, confidently, to confront whoever might appear.

I waited, I say...

Ahhhhhh.

I warned you at the start... now you must be patient with me for a moment or two.

Thank you for your patience. Now we can proceed.

The unknown man who now came strolling into my sight was accompanied by a woman equally unknown to me, who appeared to be jealous of her escort’s attention, and was trying to engage him in conversation. She was perhaps thirty-five or forty, attractive and bejeweled, obviously a member of the upper classes–and what suddenly riveted my attention was the fact that she was walking worshipfully at the side of a man who obviously belonged to a much different stratum of society.

I was startled, to put it mildly, to observe that the man who drew such worshipful attention from this countess–for such she might have been– appeared to be a peasant. His long shirt, boots, and trousers were all peasant garments, though of fine fabrics never seen on any farm, and he looked about him with bold, piercing eyes. He carried with him, like a wave, strong olfactory evidence that his body had been long unwashed. I found this apparition disconcerting. He wore on a chain around his neck a large pectoral cross of gold.

This peculiar stranger was also carrying, in one massive, thickfingered hand, some kind of crystal cup, half-filled with wine. He held the vessel not in the manner of one serving drinks, but of one consuming them. He savored the contents of the valuable goblet, then almost contemptuously tossed it away empty.

The Russian woman with him continued incongruously and–some would say–shamefully hanging on the peasant’s arm, and at one point, she addressed him as “Holy Father,” which startled me again. besides the large pectoral cross, there was nothing about him to suggest that he might be a member of the regular clergy.

I thought that there were only bedrooms down the hallway in the direction from which the couple came. The suggestion was inescapable, to my experienced eye, that this lout and his fair companion–I even wondered whether she might be the lady of this house–had just been engaging in debauchery. I am not very easily shocked, as you may well imagine, but here roaring peculiarities demanded to be noticed. She was hanging on her consort, obviously tolerating his odor and his strange appearance, now laughing–with him, not at him–and taking obscene liberties with his person.

Perhaps I should mention, even though I am a gentleman, that the lady was somewhat the worse for drink.

The man said something to her again, speaking in crude, peasantsounding Russian, and I caught the name of Kulakov. He seemed to be trying to explain to his companion that he had an appointment to meet Kulakov and have a talk with him.

Then suddenly the man broke off, having become aware of my presence where I sat pretending to be smoking in the shadows. At once he grew interested in me. Something about me–even in the dim light– caught his attention sharply.

Gently but firmly the peasant put his fair companion aside. As he released her, he made a gentle gesture with his broad hand, a wiping motion with the palm out. The hand did not touch the lady, but her eyelids sagged and she sat down on the edge of a big chair, then pitched softly forward to lie partially on a bearskin rug, in which position she fell asleep. Her fair breasts, almost escaping from her low-cut dress, seemed to be menaced by the dead fangs of the white bear.

My gaze lifted to the eyes of the man, who was standing motionless, regarding me. I was being challenged. Deliberately I crushed out my cigarette upon the marble floor. Perhaps this burly, impudent peasant was going to try to stare me down. A great many years had passed since anyone had seriously attempted that.

My eyesight, as you might suppose, is excellent even in dim light. I saw before me a powerfully built man, perhaps a little above the average height–he was not really tall, but he carried himself like a tsar and gave the impression of being tall. His age was in the early thirties. He had long dark hair parted in the middle, and a beard stained with the remains of several meals. His boots and clothing were cut in the peasant style but, as I have already remarked, made of richer materials than ordinary peasants ever saw.

However, all these matters were peripheral, as was his rancid, goatlike smell. It was the man’s eyes that really counted.

Taking a step or two toward me, he put out a broad, strong hand and said in his peasant Russian: “blessings, Little Father. I am Gregory Efimovich.”

Something was happening; I knew that, even as I got to my feet, but was not alarmed. I suppose I must have murmured something in reply. He accepted whatever I said as a fair greeting.

The hypnotic spell that had already begun to engulf me was very subtle, so subtle that I–I, Dracula–was scarcely aware of it at first. In my own defense, I can plead that I was already tired and that many days’ exposure to feeble northern sunlight had been a strain. At any rate, I must confess that I was well on my way to being overcome before I even realized that anything was wrong. To this day I am not sure whether I succumbed to a deliberate assault on the part of Gregory Efimovich, or whether it was only the way he was, part of his nature... for him, as automatic as drawing breath.

Suddenly, whatever the cause, at the suggestion that I might be tired, I was tired, and felt strangely content to sit back in my soft chair and stare into the fire. Have I said there was a fireplace nearby? I don’t remember for certain, but I think there was. The burly peasant’s eyes seemed to be there in the fire, too, as well as in his head, their burning images now woven of the flames...

Oh, it was all very pleasant. I was drifting, a ludicrous sense of safety assuring me that I remained securely in control of the situation, though actually I was in the greatest danger. Dimly, as from a distance, I could see the peasant leaning toward me, hear his saying in his rough Russian: “I see, thou art one of the lovers of blood, like Alexander Ilyich...” To me, a stranger in evening dress and speaking like a gentleman, the peasant used the intimate form of address with serene self-assurance.

“Like Kulakov? A lover of blood?” I chuckled, struck by the perfect appositeness of the phrase. To me, his Russian phrase seemed as oddly ambiguous as does the Neo-Latin, or the Greek: hemophiliac.

“Why yes,” I said. “Perhaps I am.” Gently I licked my lips. Vaguely I turned my gaze to where the dead bear’s fangs still menaced the woman lying on the rug.

But those great dark eyes irresistibly brought me back. “Why dost thou not tell me thy name?”

“Vlad Drakulya.”

“Thou art of the Romany? No? Art thou a friend of God?”

I shrugged, then frowned. This was a serious question. “He and I are old acquaintances, at least... I fear we do not always get along as well as we might.”

“Do not blaspheme.” It was a command, delivered not with anger, but with the serene confidence of spiritual authority.

Obedience was necessary, but still I shook my head. I had not thought I was blaspheming.

“It might be possible to cure thee, Vlad Drakulya.”

“I am not sick.”

“Thy body is in a strange and wonderful condition. I meant to cure thee of thy taste for blood. Dost thou want to be cured?”

Again I shook my head. “That would...”

“What?”

“That would cure me of my life altogether. And I wish to live. What is thy name?” Somehow only the intimate form seemed appropriate to use to this man, as I did not object when he used it to me. His arrogance did not offend, because it was so great that it transcended arrogance.

He shook his head; the deep-set eyes were amused. My responses were unsatisfactory, though perhaps not unexpected. He said: “I told thee my name: I am Gregory Efimovich Rasputin.”

As yet that last name meant nothing to me–nor to the world, not for a few more years. but I believe I smiled, because the Russian word rasputin carries strong connotations of sexual debauchery; rather as if an Englishman or American were to introduce himself as Gregory Porno, or Ephraim Smut.

“A starets,” I murmured. “One of Russia’s wandering, holy fools.” That began, at least, to explain his acceptance among some of the aristocracy. Such people were a tradition among them and perhaps still are. In 1903 ten thousand, perhaps a hundred thousand, of them were walking the highways and byways of the great country, from Poland to Siberia. Not one in a hundred thousand of them, though, the Holy Virgin of Kazan be thanked, more likely not one in a million, carried or now carries in his mind and soul anything like the power of Gregory Efimovich to blast or to heal–or felt or now feels as little responsibility toward his fellow humans.

Gently and irresistibly he was saying to me: “Come with me to the balcony, and we will watch the sunrise together.”

Some remote part of my consciousness assured me that the Christian name and patronymic I had just heard should have been familiar to me, and that it had a particular meaning of great importance, related to some matter on which I ought to be engaged. Yet at the moment it was not possible to pursue the thought...

...because it was absolutely necessary to comply with the suggestion that had just been made. It was one of those suggestions that simply left one no choice. In my time, I have made a few of them myself.

Willingly I got to my feet. Images danced before me, of the cheery, sunlit days (there were a few) of my own childhood and youth. “Yes... it is a long time, it is very long, since I have watched the dawn.”

I think there were stairs beneath my feet, and I remember vaguely that my new guide and mentor, whose commands were always to be heeded, brought me out onto a small balcony, one of several on the eastern face of the large house, and I remember placing my hands on the rail of cold wrought iron that guarded the small space at waist level. And then I was left standing on the balcony, serenely awaiting sunrise, while Rasputin went back indoors, where (as I now realize) he soon caught sight of Kulakov, whom he had been intending to meet and speak with.

The two men began to talk. I heard most of it, recording it without understanding at the time, while my thoughts remained serenely concentrated upon the coming dawn. Shortly it became apparent from their conversation that Kulakov, suffering from his long-term disability, had returned to St. Petersburg primarily, or largely, in search of the one person he knew who could give him relief.

Rasputin was, and had been, treating Kulakov intermittently for certain chronic conditions: nightmares, mental anguish, and some psychosomatic condition of the neck, a lingering result of being hanged.

I got the impression that Kulakov had told Rasputin months ago that he was going to England to try to recover a treasure, stolen from him long ago. but the peasant had not sent the count to England to rape and murder and loot. It seemed that in some general way, Rasputin had suggested that Kulakov try to see that amends were made for old, rankling problems out of his past.

Sounds of revelry from some distant rooms of the palace came drifting into the chamber where the two men were meeting. A gramophone was playing over and over a scratched record–the distorted voice of Mary Garden.

Someone down on the ground floor put a new wax cylinder on the machine–now we had Enrico Caruso. There was an outburst of uproarious laughter; perhaps there were gypsies down there, entertaining in the lower regions of the house, and I wondered in a detached way whether the gypsies had even brought a dancing bear with them, at least into the kitchen or scullery. Certainly a distant crash of falling furniture and crockery indicated that the party was getting out of hand.

Rasputin, however, plainly preferred to keep his distance from such goings-on. Though a peasant and a mystic, he moved upon a different plane from gypsies with their innocuous spells and love potions. He said to Kulakov: “Where hast thou been, my friend? I have not seen thee for months.”

Kulakov: “I have been to England. I told thee months ago that I was going there.”

Rasputin said something that neither I (nor Cousin Sherlock, who as you will see was also eavesdropping) could clearly hear.

“–I told you, Little Father, that there were people in England who had robbed me. I went to get back what was mine. Also, to make them pay for what they did to me.”

Rasputin: “That was not what I advised thee to do. Dost thou love God, Alexander Ilyich?”

“I need help, Gregory Efimovich. Help me. The bad dreams have come back, and I have trouble sleeping, and my neck hurts all the time.”

The holy man told his patient sit in the soft chair where I had been. “Consider the sun and stars, and He who made them. The pain will go. And the dreams, also. I see that thou art worried. but nothing in life is worth worrying over–it all passes.”

Kulakov, the murderous vampire, as if drifting toward sleep, murmured something in a soft, childlike voice.

Then Rasputin spoke again: “Tell me about this treasure thou sayest is lost. What is there about it that is so important?”

And Kulakov, under deep hypnosis, told Rasputin word for word what had passed between himself and Doll, back in 1765.

There, I have told some of it. Almost the worst part, though that is yet to come. I must rest. Watson...

Sherlock Holmes and I, walking Rebecca Altamont between us down the hallway–toward the stairs–from the room in which she had been confined, heard voices ahead and stopped.

The voices spoke in Russian, and of course I could make nothing of them. but for Holmes, the matter was quite different.