Simon Hawke - The Dracula Caper

"Arthur, it's good to see you," said Bram Stoker, rising to his feet. It was early evening and the pub was crowded. Conan Doyle had worked his way through the crowd unrecognized. He approached the table Stoker was holding for them and took Stoker's hand.

"How are you, Stoker?"

"Reasonably well, Don't know that I can say the same for you, however. You look a bit the worse for wear. Sit down. Are you all right?"

Conan Doyle sat down heavily and leaned hack wearily in his chair. Stoker waved for another pint of bitters. "I have not been sleeping well," said Doyle. "These killings have all of my attention at the moment. I can think of nothing else. The matter is driving me to complete distraction. I sit up half the night, smoking pipeful after pipeful, filling the room with a latakia fog, racking my brain, attempting to arrive at some sort of rational explanation for the whole affair, but every line of reasoning I try to follow leads me nowhere. Nowhere, that is to say, near an explanation that is rational. I have just come from Scotland Yard. There has been yet another murder."

"Another one!" said Stoker. "When?"

"Apparently sometime last night," said Doyle, pausing a moment while the drink was set before him and then lifting the glass and drinking deeply. "A young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old, found in the most appallingly disgusting condition. Decency forbids me to describe it. Yet the cause of death itself was almost identical to that of Angeline Crewe. Insult to the system brought about by a profound loss of blood."

"Human teethmarks on the throat?" said Stoker.

Doyle sighed. "Yes, I am afraid so. It seems certain that we are faced with two separate fiendish killers, and yet I cannot help feeling that these killings are connected somehow, despite the fact that we are looking at two different methods of murder. I have no sound basis for drawing this conclusion, but I feel it as an exceedingly strong intuition. You said in your message that you had some information connected with this case."

"Well, I knew, of course, that you were involved in the investigation," said Stoker. "Inspector Grayson took me into his confidence. Has he discussed our last meeting with you?"

Doyle shook his head "Not beyond telling me that the two of you spoke about that young man, Tony Hesketh, whom Grayson has been anxious to question in this case "

Stoker pursed his lips thoughtfully. "He didn't mention the name Dracula to you?"

"Dracula?" Doyle frowned. "What, you mean Vlad the Impaler? Oh, I think I understand. No, actually. it was I who mentioned the name to Grayson, while telling him about-"

"No, no. I did not mean in that connection," Stoker said. "Grayson mentioned the name while telling me about the conversation that you had with him, about the vampire legend and how it may have come about. No, what I was referring to was the fact that it was a name I recognized as belonging to someone I had recently met. An Eastern European nobleman whose name is also Dracula.'

"Coincidence," said Doyle. shrugging. "Doubtless that was why Grayson never mentioned it. You mean that was all you had to tell me?" He was unable to hide his disappointment.

"Not quite." said Stoker. "This Count Dracula was in the company of young Hesketh when I met him. Also a coincidence? Perhaps. They came backstage to speak with Angeline Crewe. The Count seemed quite attentive towards Miss

Crewe. She seemed to know him. Hesketh invited one of the other young women in the company, Miss Violet Anderson, to join them for dinner. The Count seemed quite attentive towards Violet, as well, and she did not seem to mind. All four of them left together. Now Angeline is dead, Hesketh is missing, and no one has seen Violet for at least a week "

"I see. How very curious. Has anyone inquired after Miss Anderson?"

"Sh e had sent word that she was ill" said Stoker, "and we replaced her with an understudy, but when there was no further word from her. I became concerned and sent round to her flat to see how she was feeling. She was not at home and her landlady has neither seen nor heard from her."

"And you mentioned this to Grayson?" said Doyle.

"Well, yes and no," said Stoker. "That is to say. I mentioned having met a man named Dracula, because it seemed a singular coincidence when he brought up the name in that context, but it wasn't until after I had spoken with him that it occurred to me to look into Violet's situation, so I did not discover that she was missing until only this morning. under the circumstances, I became alarmed and, knowing you were involved, I at once sent word to you."

"Why to me and not to Grayson?" said Doyle.

"Well, frankly, because I know that you have already predisposed him not to consider certain possibilities inherent in this case I thought we should discuss the matter further."

"Precisely what are you suggesting?"

"I am suggesting that perhaps the reason you have not been able to find a rational explanation for these events is that there is no rational explanation."

Doyle set down his glass and sighed, shaking his head "Really, Stoker! Are you seriously suggesting that there is sonic sort of supernatural manifestation behind all of this? That we are dealing with a werewolf or a vampire?"

"Perhaps both." said Stoker. "According to legend. vampires often have servants, familiars of a sort, to protect them during their periods of' vulnerability."

"Oh, come now, Stoker!" Doyle said. "What utter nonsense! Do you honestly expect me to believe that a 15th century Wallachian voivode has been resurrected from the dead and is now among us as a vampire? With some sort of lycanathropic manservant, no less? I fear you have become carried away by your own imagination."

"What was it your detective was so fond of saying." Stoker said, "that if you eliminate all the probable explanations, what remains, no matter how improbable, MUM be the answer? Something like that, wasn't it'?"

"Something like that, yes," said Doyle irritably. "However, we are still a long way from eliminating all the probable explanations. For example, has it occurred to you that what we are dealing with may be a madman who, in his perverse dementia, believes himself to be a vampire?"

"No, quite honestly, that had not occurred to me," said Stoker. He grimaced, wryly. "I must admit, it makes more sense than my own theory."

"Well, don't feel too badly about it old fellow." Doyle said. "That was not something that just came to me. In the course of racking my brain over these murders, I considered a number of seemingly outrageous theories. One was that the murders were accomplished with the aid of a trained gorilla. Another was the possibility that we could be faced with a madman who believed himself to be a werewolf. Interestingly enough, those werewolf killings, as Holcombe and I have started to refer to them, took place during the time of the full moon and they have apparently stopped now. But in their stead. we now have these vampire- style murders. As if…"

"What is it?" Stoker said.

"I am not certain," Doyle said. "Perhaps I've been infected by your active imagination. Stoker, but what if, indeed, the killer were a madman who believed himself to be a werewolf? According to legend, werewolves are active only during the time of the full moon, so if his delusion were associated with the lunar phases, then it would follow that the killings would correspond accordingly. And the werewolf murders have stopped now. However, what if our madman's compulsion to murder were so strong that he could not bring himself to stop until the next full moon? He would have to find some sort of justification that would allow him to continue killing and since he already believes himself to be a werewolf, could he not also convince himself that he was a vampire, as well?"