Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Chapter XV IN WHICH A BODY IS DISCOVERED

OUTSIDE the Barringtons’ villa, Holmes was about to step into our conveyance when matters took a further unexpected twist. Footfalls of someone in a great hurry came to our ears. The sound was accompanied by loud sobs. A woman was rushing towards the villa entrance. Without hesitation I leapt down from the carriage and fell in with Holmes at a jog behind her.

As she entered the villa she cried out, ‘Madam, Madam - a body has been found!’

Mrs. Barrington hurried from the sitting-room in alarm.

‘A body!’ she repeated. ‘Gentlemen,’ she added, catching sight of us, ‘this is my housekeeper. We have taught her English for my husband’s sake.’

‘A body, Madam,’ the housekeeper confirmed.

‘Found where?’ Mrs. Barrington demanded.

‘In the Mount Vitosh forest. Near an obrok.’

For several seconds Mrs. Barrington stared in silence at the bearer of the terrible news.

‘Has it been identified?’ she asked finally. ‘Is it - my husband?’

‘No, Madam, it cannot be Captain Barrington.’

‘Why so?’

‘It is not a man - ’

‘Then a boy?’

‘Not a man nor a boy.’

The three of us stared, waiting while the housekeeper drew in another agonised breath.

The woman continued, ‘She has been stripped of all her clothing!’

Our hostess gasped. ‘She?’

‘Yes, Madam. It is the body of a woman, a young woman hardly older than yourself! How she came there or how she met her fate are questions which are still involved in mystery. And the most terrible thing of all - ’

The housekeeper gulped for breath. She brought her hands up to her ears with a shiver of horror as though to shut out the words she was about to utter.

‘What terrible thing?’ Mrs. Barrington demanded, her hands also beginning to rise. ‘Tell me quickly!’

‘The charcoal burners say that unlucky birds have been seen flocking to that part of the forest. They say the killing is the work of a vampire recently arrived. The old women have sent for the relics of Saint Ivan Rilski to exorcise the evil creature which did this dreadful thing.’

‘Why should they think it was a vampire?’ our hostess cried out, a quiver in her voice.

The housekeeper crooked her middle- and fore-finger and darted them at her throat.

‘Her body was completely drained of blood.’

The voice portrayed the housekeeper’s mind-shattering terror. She managed to gasp, ‘They say her eyes still glow with a baleful light. And - ’

‘And what? Tell us at once!’ our hostess demanded.

‘The vampire cut off all her hair,’ the woman replied hoarsely. ‘The woman was shorn just like a sheep.’

Our hostess turned white to her very lips. She stood petrified for a moment. Before I could take three short paces to her side she fell to the floor in a deep faint.