THEY TOOK A ROAD THAT LED TO A NUNNERY NEARBY, where the sisters had a long tradition of nursing sick strangers.317
By the time they reached the convent, Wilma had fallen unconscious from exhaustion and pain. When she opened her eyes, she saw that she was in a small white room, lying on a hard but clean bed. Her leg had been bandaged. Next to her bed sat a girl in nun’s habit, but when Wilma spoke to her in German she didn’t answer, save for shaking her head.
A little later an elderly nun came to her, speaking French very well. She asked Wilma to feel at home and told her that her leg had been injured so badly that she would have to stay in bed for a few weeks to recover.
Wilma was very upset about this, but the nun comforted her, saying, “It is the will of God, blessed daughter, and His will is always best. Who can tell for what purpose He has brought you here? Nothing in this world happens without reason.”
These words greatly relieved Wilma, and she was also glad to know that the two detectives were continuing their search. They were now convinced that Thomas had been mixed up with someone else and that some sophisticated trickery had been pulled to blame him for crimes committed by others. Mr. Hawkins, on the other hand, had to return home, as he had several business matters to look after.
The nuns took care of Wilma as best they could, and although they didn’t speak English, many of them could speak German, some French, and others Italian—and Wilma could make herself understood by all of them. She especially liked a nun from Austria, named Agatha. She was a small cheerful girl with dark eyes who often spoke of her patients, of whom she was very fond. The sisters often visited patients in the neighborhood, even if they lived miles away in all directions. There was also a hospital in the convent, and Sister Agatha in particular had a soft spot for those who recuperated there. She often mentioned a man who’d been lying in the monastery for a long time with brain fever, and when he finally began to improve, he seemed to have lost his memory completely.318 Wilma asked Agatha many things about Castle Dracula, and the girl had a lot to say about it, most of which seemed inconceivable to Wilma. She said that in this area people believed a woman in white wandered through the old corridors of the castle and could sometimes be seen in the moonlit windows. She said there were rumors that anyone who saw her would lose his mind, and that many men who had ventured to find her had disappeared, never to be seen again.
She also said that a band of thugs inhabited the castle, and that their chief was in league with the Archfiend himself.