“Now, Watson, this is liable to be most interesting, and, I hope, will be for the betterment of our case rather than its hindrance.”
Holmes took up a missive from the tray by the door, and flashed the envelope in my direction. The simple lettering read, “To S.H. from L.P.”
“Pike?” I asked.
Holmes smiled as he tore it open, and sat in his favourite armchair by the fireplace to read it—an armchair that was somewhat tatty since the German intruders had paid a visit. I ate my breakfast distractedly, eagerly awaiting the news.
“Watson, I am afraid this matter requires my urgent attention. I must go to see Pike this very afternoon.”
“If we must, Holmes,” I sighed, not relishing a meeting with the languid fop.
“No, Watson, I must go alone, for we cannot diverge too far from the plan if we are to bring our case to a swift conclusion. You shall go to see Seward—you are the better candidate for the trip anyway, given your credentials. I’m sure I would only put Seward on the defensive. All you need do is delve into the tragic case of Seward’s notorious patient, Renfield. If that isn’t enough to provoke agitation, throw in some insinuations about medical malpractice on the part of Van Helsing—that should do the trick.”
“We want him to become angry?”
“Absolutely. He is no good to us if he’s thinking straight. If you are able to pry into the affairs of the asylum further, pray do so—I am certain Seward keeps a good many records, and perhaps the rest of the staff recall the fate of Renfield.”
“I am not averse to the idea, Holmes, but I believed this visit to Seward to be of singular importance. I would rather you were there to ensure the plan is executed smoothly.”
“I trust you implicitly in this matter, Watson. Now, finish your breakfast and make a start. I shall meet you for a spot of luncheon at Jack Straw’s Castle—shall we say one o’clock? I had better change if I’m to meet Pike—you know how he cannot abide slovenliness. I shall see you this afternoon.”
* * *
I was thankful that the previous day’s particular had not lingered overmuch, although the air still smelled smoky and stale, like a card room the morning after a lengthy session of whist. Upon our last visit to Purfleet Asylum, Holmes and I had entered the grounds by stealth. This time, I gained admittance at the gate, and strolled along a broad drive that wove through manicured grounds towards the large redbrick hospital. A few inmates pottered around the lawns, taking exercise, with white-coated orderlies close at hand. Caretakers, doctors and civilian visitors seemed free to mingle amongst the feeble-minded patients, affirming what Holmes and I had already discerned—that this establishment in no way catered for lunatics of a truly dangerous bent. Lunatics such as Renfield.
R. M. Renfield represented a conundrum in the Dracula Papers. A madman of great unpredictability and physical strength, he was supposedly under the psychical influence of the Count, although his past history with Dracula was not detailed in the papers. Categorised by Seward as a zoophagous lunatic, he had spent much of his time under Seward’s care collecting flies, which he then fed to spiders, and then to sparrows, which he in turn ate. His great mania was the belief that all life was equal, and that by consuming life in ever-increasing quantity he would somehow gain power like his “master”, Count Dracula. Dr Seward had made a morbid study of the man, encouraging his fixations to the point of irreconcilable lunacy, which had surely contributed to Renfield’s death. A death that had occurred away from all witnesses, in a cell occupied only by Renfield and Van Helsing. The professor’s sworn testimony was that Dracula had materialised in the cell and killed Renfield, but there was no other witness to support this account. To my mind, for the death of Renfield and the quackery that had surely sent Lucy Westenra to an early grave, Dr Jack Seward had much to answer for.
Arranging an audience with Seward was easier than I had anticipated. Once a duty nurse had established my credentials were in order, I was asked no difficult questions about my business at Purfleet. It seemed that the entire staff was used to impromptu visitors, from benefactors to professional men curious about the latest advances in alienism. The doctor himself was on his morning rounds, and in his absence I was extended every professional courtesy, being given a cup of tea and shown presently to Seward’s office, where I was asked to wait.
The tremendous opportunity of sitting unaccompanied in Seward’s office was not lost upon me, and I at once set about examining everything I could, employing the methods that Holmes had for so long tried to impress upon me.
The office was not over-large, and even in the morning an electric lamp was on, as only a small, barred window in the south wall provided natural light. I would have expected Seward, as the administrator of a private establishment, to choose a more comfortable office for himself.
Dominating the room was a large desk, scattered with many papers and books. I tried each of the six drawers in turn, finding only two unlocked. In one was a stack of papers too dauntingly large to sift through in the uncertain amount of time I had. In the other was a folio of hospital stationery, ink, pens and a blotter. More interesting to my eye was a small bottle tucked towards the back of the drawer, containing chloral hydrate. It was perfectly plausible that Seward kept it for use on his patients, but there were no other drugs about the office, as far as I could tell. I recalled that he had admitted in the Dracula Papers to using the drug.
I closed the case and the drawer, and looked around quickly. There was a large file-chest against the wall, and a side table next to it upon which sat Seward’s prized phonograph. It occurred to me that the chest might contain Seward’s wax cylinders, and so I opened a few of the drawers, and found my assumption confirmed. Each drawer contained rows of neatly arranged cylinders, each marked only with a small label, upon which was a date written in the nigh-illegible scrawl of a doctor—a good reason why he favoured dictation over a handwritten journal, perhaps. The cylinders were arranged only roughly in date order, as though they had been taken out and played multiple times. I cursed the fact that our copy of the Dracula Papers had been stolen, for I had not had the chance to memorise many of the key dates. However, there were two periods that I had committed to memory: 17 September—the night Lucy Westenra’s mother died in such dramatic fashion—and 2 October, when the lunatic Renfield had been killed.
I searched as quickly as I could, trying not to disturb the cylinders such that Seward might tell they had been tampered with. To my frustration, it appeared that the entries for the dates I required were missing. I wondered if Mina Harker had ever returned them to Seward after transcribing their contents, or if they had been destroyed so that the only remaining evidence was Van Helsing’s narrative. This begged the question of why so many cylinders for the year 1893 remained. Did they merely contain records of his patients, unrelated to the Dracula Papers? Or were they additional diary entries that Seward had deliberately withheld?
Spurred on by that thought, I continued searching even as I heard footfalls in the corridor outside, drawing steadily closer. I turned each cylinder towards me quickly and methodically, scanning each date and then turning it back as I’d found it. I heard a voice, and was sure my name was being spoken some short distance away. The footsteps resumed.
At last, I saw with small triumph the date “21 September ’93”. This was close enough—indeed, it was the date of Lucy Westenra’s funeral, if my memory did not deceive me.
Shoes squeaked on the floor directly outside the office, and I acted purely on instinct. In a trice, I had taken the cylinder, and pushed the others back to close the gap. I shut the drawer as quietly as I could, slipped the cylinder into my bag, and bent over the phonograph machine as if in study of it, when a man entered the room and cleared his throat.
“A beauty, isn’t she? Dr Watson? I am Dr Seward.”
I straightened, and turned to shake the man’s hand, conjuring my most congenial smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance; I have heard so much about you.”
“All of it good, I hope?”
“Thank you for making the time to see me,” I said, side-stepping any insincere platitudes. “You must be a very busy man, with such a large establishment to run.”
“Yes, but part of the task of overseeing a successful private hospital is entertaining visitors. We thrive on donations from patrons as well as payments from families of the sick. And, of course, the odd referral from respected physicians never goes amiss.”
“It is interesting that you brought up the subject, Dr Seward. Was it a referral that brought the infamous zoophage, Renfield, into your care?”
“No, as a matter of fact it was chance alone. I imagine any number of hospitals could have admitted him, but it was strange happenstance that brought him to my door.”
“Might I ask who it was that paid for his care? Family? An employer?”
“I cannot discuss the private affairs of patients with just anybody, Dr Watson—even those of deceased patients. And you should know better than to ask.” He affected a scolding tone in an awkward jest. “Now, Doctor, I am sure you are not here to pick my brains about finances, and you have certainly not come to make a donation, though I hope I may persuade you of the value of our little enterprise all the same.”
“It is true, I am here primarily on business of another kind; although, as a man of medicine, I am always ready to expand my knowledge of other disciplines.”
“Excellent! An open-minded man is always welcome at Purfleet, I assure you. However, I must urge you to speak plainly about your other business here. I have heard, of course, that the famous Sherlock Holmes and the indomitable Watson have taken an interest in the Dracula Papers, but I would hear your side of the story first.”
Seward said this with a grin and a conspiratorial wink, which I could not truly understand. If he had heard I was investigating him, then why would he appear so at ease? Holmes had said that Seward might well be innocent of all but the adulation of his old teacher. I, on the other hand, harboured a deep suspicion of the man, both for his delusional medical procedures that doubtless saw Lucy Westenra into an early grave, and for the cruel and unusual way in which he nurtured the mania of his patient, Renfield.
“I would say that I have no ‘story’, Dr Seward. My friend Sherlock Holmes is investigating the precise circumstances around the death of Miss Lucy Westenra and—”
“Why?”
“Pardon me?”
“A court of law has already ruled that no wrongdoing occurred, which means that the legal system has admitted the existence of vampires. So why would Sherlock Holmes concern himself with any of the details of the case? Unless, of course, he has taken a turn for the mad and you really do wish to admit him. Wouldn’t that be delicious? Imagine the study that could be made of such a brain.”
Seward was quick of wit, certainly, though somewhat haunted about the eyes. His interruption had thrown me slightly from my rehearsed lie. I could not very well confess that Holmes had been set on this path by a brother in government.
“Information has been passed to Mr Holmes that raises questions of reasonable doubt over the veracity of the Dracula Papers,” I said at last.
“Raised by whom?”
“I cannot say.”
“I admire your integrity, Doctor. However, I stand by every word of the Dracula Papers, and would swear to its factuality on oath. There is an end to it.” He folded his arms, and gave me a satisfied grin.
“Every word?” I asked. Seward’s smile faded a little. His eyes shadowed.
“Yes.” He sounded uncertain.
“It is just that—and please excuse my directness—there are some details within the papers that I had assumed to be honest mistakes, certainly on the parts of yourself and Professor Van Helsing.”
“Professor Van Helsing does not make mistakes,” Seward snapped, jerking forwards angrily, and then quickly resuming a more relaxed posture. He leaned back against the door, and smiled again, only this time there was a twitch to his lips. The light in the room was poor, but I believed there was a jaundiced cast to Seward’s features and a puffiness around the eyes, that spoke to his reliance on chloral hydrate.
“Then the mistake must have been yours, Doctor, unless you can explain to me otherwise.” I held his gaze firmly. Although I had been instructed to antagonise the man, I also had to extract some facts from him—it was a fine balancing act, and I was uncertain if I had the guile to succeed.
“I shall endeavour to assist if I can,” Seward said.
“Miss Westenra’s physical state—the symptoms described in the papers sound remarkably like anaemia, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes.”
“And yet she was not treated for the condition?”
“Lucy’s many symptoms were enough to convince Professor Van Helsing of the real cause of her illness. He alone amongst us had seen such things before.”
“Symptoms such as…?”
“Rapidly fluctuating levels of energy, occasional delirium and… and the marks upon her throat.”
I nodded thoughtfully. All but the marks were plainly caused by conditions well known to science, though apparently not to Seward. The marks… after hearing Holmes describe the deliberate pricking of small children by the “bloofer lady”, I imagined someone close to Lucy had made those puncture-marks. All of this went unspoken. Instead I prompted, “But you did analyse her blood?”
“And found it healthy. This is on record.”
“But no such test exists that could rule out anaemia, Dr Seward. If she was drained of even a small amount of her blood, it would have been paler, and you would have surely seen a marked drop in blood pressure. By a similar token, if anaemia was to blame, a qualitative analysis would have overlooked—”
“Dr Watson, I was trained by Van Helsing himself. Perhaps his methods of diagnosing exotic blood disorders have not reached these shores yet.”
“There is nothing exotic about anaemia.”
“And there was nothing anaemic about Lucy!” Seward’s eyes blazed. Seeming to realise that he had become angry, he thrust his hands into his pockets. “Besides, the Count was possessed of so many uncanny abilities, the professor has often postulated that he could control the very blood in his victim’s body, like the moon pulling the tides. His influence would have made my tests quite inconclusive.”
He sounded sincere enough, but his words could easily have been spoken by one of his patients.
“Which is why you initially thought Lucy’s symptoms were mental, rather than physical?” I asked.
“I had much reason to suspect a mental cause for Lucy’s problems at first, Dr Watson. She was suffering from terrible nightmares—what some might call ‘night terrors’—and sometimes this led her to bouts of sleepwalking. This habit returned in Whitby, where once she walked out in the night along East Cliff, and was found by Mina in a terrible state.”
Something about his tone set my mind working, and I interrupted his flow. “You sound familiar with Whitby, Dr Seward,” I said. “I myself was there only recently, but for the first time. Did you visit often?”
He paused, his large eyes scanning my features. “Not often, although I did pay a visit to Lucy and Mina at the start of the summer.”
All at once I recalled reading a similar allusion in the Dracula Papers, but had put it down to an error in the telling. So, Seward had met Mina Harker before Lucy’s death—I was not certain whether this fact was significant.
“Was it a casual visit, or were you already worried about Lucy’s health?” I asked, trying my best to maintain a friendly tone. “If you must know, Dr Watson, I received a telegram from Miss Murray—now Mrs Harker—expressing concern for Lucy’s state of well-being. Of course, I travelled there as soon as I could.”
“What about her own physician?”
“It was natural that she should call upon me. Lucy and I were… close… once upon a time. That’s all.”
“Well, if the Dracula Papers have taught us nothing else, it is that Lucy Westenra was an extraordinary young woman. I mean, she must have been, to have so many good men prepared to lay down their lives for her.”
“She was the best of women, Dr Watson. The Dracula Papers give only the vaguest insight into Lucy’s qualities. She was fickle in love, certainly, but she was not the empty-headed girl that some might think.”
Seward sounded melancholic in the extreme. The Dracula Papers certainly had made Lucy Westenra sound somewhat woolly-headed, but Holmes and I had already seen evidence to the contrary in her correspondence with Miss Reed—correspondence that Seward presumably knew nothing about.
“I say this only reluctantly, given your obvious strength of feeling,” I ventured, “but something has troubled me deeply since I read the Dracula Papers, and it has nothing to do with vampires.”
Seward said nothing, only looked at me earnestly with his dark eyes. I found what I had to say unpalatable, but remembered Holmes’s instructions, and so determined to be resolute.
“The blood transfusions given to Miss Westenra… the basis for their medical efficacy is thin indeed. It might be said, by those experienced in such matters, that such transfusions could only have served to expedite the patient’s passing.”
At those words, all colour drained from Seward’s face. His expression became so grave, and his pallor so ghastly, that I felt wretched for my indelicacy.
“I would never have harmed Lucy. Never. My love for that fine girl forbade such a thing. The Hippocratic Oath forbade it.”
“The Hippocratic Oath requires that one provides a regimen for healing the sick, based on one’s ability and judgement. It does not preclude… errors.” My stomach turned somersaults as I continued goading the man, but I did my best to set my features and steady my hands. I was determined to get the measure of him.
“Errors of judgement, or of ability?” This question was delivered almost with a snarl. Seward walked past me, and sat in his chair so that the desk was positioned between us. Either he felt vulnerable to my questioning and sought sanctuary in the familiar, or he looked deliberately for a way of projecting some form of authority over my challenge. What better way for a mind-doctor to do that than to take up the position of consultant, forcing me to assume that of the patient.
“We all make mistakes, Dr Seward, especially when the case is so personally affecting. Your duties here, as well as the great mental strain, must have left you exhausted.” I did not want to mention the man’s drug use unless I had to, though I suspected it had something to do with his lapses of judgement.
“Which is precisely why I called upon Professor Van Helsing to guide me. I would not risk the life of any of my patients for the sake of pride.”
“I am sorry, Dr Seward, but one only has to look at the case of Mr Renfield to know that is not entirely true.”
Seward leant forward across the desk, his fingertips pressed together. “You return to the topic of Renfield, Dr Watson. Perhaps I misjudged your visit—perhaps you are here to talk about him, after all.”
“Among other things, Dr Seward. His story is a rather pathetic one. The treatment he received here appeared, at least to me, improper.”
“Improper how?” Seward had now adopted a sardonic smile, as though he were toying with me. I could not fathom the man—he seemed inconstant and irrational in the extreme.
“You provoked Mr Renfield; you encouraged his mania.”
“The better to understand his condition. One man’s singular discomfort, put under the most intense experimentation, may derive a cure for similar cases of madness in the future.”
“Is that also why you drugged him, in order to steal his pocket-book?”
“It is. And the contents of that book, which were jealously and violently guarded by Renfield, were invaluable to my research.”
“What about the man’s family?”
“He had none.”
“Someone must have admitted him to your care. Was there nothing from his past you could glean that would have answered your questions, rather than feeding him spiders, and promising him a kitten for his depraved appetites?”
“Perhaps I did delve into the man’s past, Dr Watson. Perhaps what I found was irrelevant.”
“You described Renfield as an undeveloped homicidal maniac,” said I. “Surely something must have triggered these tendencies?”
“Something did, Doctor. Count Dracula.”
“Ah. And when Renfield broke free, on more than one occasion, he was somehow impelled to run to Carfax, the home of Dracula?”
“You see, Doctor, you have read the papers, and yet you feign ignorance.”
“Not at all, Dr Seward. I only try to clarify those events not explicitly described by the Dracula Papers, and yet of singular interest to a detective. For instance, Renfield was supposedly a man of great physical strength, prone to violent outbursts, unpredictable in the extreme, and, you say, under the malign influence of a vampire. And yet you kept him here, in conditions not suitable for containing such a man. The other patients here do not appear dangerous. Why, many of them walk about the grounds perfectly harmlessly. The walls surrounding this property can be scaled quite easily by a determined man—hardly sufficient to hold back lunatics who might prove a danger to society.”
“Are you quite finished, Dr Watson?” Seward said, with a raised eyebrow.
“That depends, Dr Seward, on whether you have any answers.”
“I shall do better than provide answers. Come, Doctor, let me take you on a little tour of my establishment, and you will soon see for yourself the measures that were taken to contain Renfield, and how his death was a tragedy, albeit an unavoidable one.”
He opened the door and held a hand out to indicate the corridor beyond. I stood, took up my hat and bag, and followed.
Our tour took us deeper into the hospital, which was more sprawling than it appeared from the south front. The primary block, containing staff quarters, consulting rooms and operating theatres, led to two long, narrow wings, which jutted northward either side of a paved quad. One wing was for female patients, and another for males, and it was into the latter that Seward led me. He droned a practised patter about the merits of his establishment, until finally we reached a small stairwell.
“And here, Dr Watson, we reach the part of the hospital that most visitors do not get to see. But if it will put your mind at rest, I shall give you the extended tour. I have nothing to hide.”
I followed Seward down the narrow stairs, which led to a basement level where no natural light permeated. Electric lights were affixed to the walls, but they were dull and yellow compared to those upstairs. At the foot of the stairs was a heavy, reinforced door, which Seward opened by the means of three separate locks, using his ring of great iron keys. As the door swung open, we entered a dimly lit corridor, all stone floor and bare-brick walls, with a musty odour of damp pervading the air. A steward sat at a desk before us, with a paraffin lamp burning away so that he could better see his copy-books and charts.
The corridor was lined with metal doors, each of which had a grille inset at eye-level, which could be covered and uncovered to look in upon the patients. A hatch in the centre of the door was positioned so that the steward could push the inmates’ meals into the cell. I hesitate to use the word “cell”, but there is no better description for these chambers. Not all of them were occupied, but as we passed by the ones that were, Seward directed me to the grille, so that I could see the poor devil within while he gave a commentary of their condition. My presence at the door invariably encouraged a terrible wailing, or a physical protest as an inmate threw themselves against the door, while struggling within a strait-waistcoat.
“This poor devil has a morbid fear of his own flesh,” Seward said. “He thinks there are invisible insects crawling under his skin. It is a fascinating mania. If his strait-waistcoat is removed for more than a few minutes, he begins to tear at his own face quite violently. The scars you can see are from a time when he was able to acquire a knife from the refectory, with quite gruesome results. Ah, this next one is a favourite of mine.”
I peered through the grille to see a scrawny man, with a filthy glove-puppet on his hand. Though I could not hear what he was saying, he appeared to be in deep conversation with the puppet. When it “replied” to him, the man’s lips did not move at all.
“Terrence is a talented ventriloquist,” Seward explained with a chuckle. “He communicates mostly through the doll. It tells us that it is the heir to a fortune, trapped in a doll’s body by a jealous family. I have no idea of the cause of this particular story, for the man himself is not rich at all. It is a queer tale indeed. Anyway, come, Dr Watson—Renfield’s old cell is just up here.”
We walked on, leaving the howls of the mad echoing behind us. We reached the end of the hallway, where a second steward was stationed, and the corridor took a left turn. Here there were two further cells, one of which Seward unlocked and opened. It was a small room, perhaps six feet by eight. A small window, grubby and barred on the inside, was sited near the ceiling, letting in scant light from the quad above. A cot-bed, latrine bucket and small locker were the only furnishings. It would be much like the berth of a merchant vessel were it not for the padded walls. “You see, the room is presently unoccupied, but I doubt it shall be so for long. I have several intriguing cases clamouring for my attention—the result of some small notoriety since the Dracula Papers became public knowledge. I can take my pick of the finest lunatics.”
I stared at him aghast.
“Oh, don’t be censorious, Dr Watson.” He smiled. “The patients upstairs represent my primary income, and no expense is spared in either curing them or keeping them comfortable for the duration of their stay—whichever the family desires. I would do nothing whatsoever to cause them discomfort. Those down here, however, are lost causes. They represent my personal collection of acute mental disorders, which I study in the hopes of one day finding a cure for others like them. If that proves impossible, then at least I can say I had in my possession a truly unique specimen.”
“Renfield… was he such a specimen, in your eyes?”
“Naturally. Renfield was the first—the one who showed me that only the close pursuit of madness would ever lead to the cure for madness. He was much disturbed, and his illness incredibly specific. Were it not for the influence of Count Dracula over his poor mind, I imagine he would have been a crowning glory in my catalogue of manias. As it was, his brain afforded me an interesting study, though alas I could find no physical signs of psychical manipulation within the grey matter.”
“You dissected his brain after his death? To find what? Physical evidence of psychical phenomena?”
“Precisely!” Seward’s eyes lit up. “And I shall do the same with all of these subjects when the time comes. Imagine if I could find the exact part of the brain that causes a man to think himself possessed, or the reincarnation of Napoleon, or infested with insects like our man back there. With a simple insertion of a needle into the affected area, the condition could be cured. Or perhaps even induced… now there’s a prospect!”
“I remind you of that Hippocratic Oath again, Dr Seward. ‘Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free’.”
“Wonderful, you quote it verbatim. But of course, I did not enter Renfield’s house. He entered mine.”
“Hmph. Melius anceps remedium quam nullum.”
“Ah, you are from that school of thought. ‘It is better to do something than nothing’. But I am doing something, Dr Watson. I am giving these wretches a greater purpose.”
To my mind, the real Jack Seward had now materialised. For all of his fine manners and unctuous fawning, I now saw Seward as a reptilian fellow. For him, everything was a calculation, an experiment; ethics be damned. I wondered that he could display such depth of feeling for Lucy Westenra, or such fierce loyalty to Van Helsing. Such erratic, almost compulsive behaviour would have made it easy for Miss Westenra to spurn him, and easier still for Van Helsing to use him. I saw now that this was a machine playing at being a man, without a true understanding of what that meant. He was Holmes without genius, without empathy.
“And what purpose did Renfield serve?” I asked. “Your study of his brain yielded no clues. Your literal feeding of his obsessive mania only prompted him to escape, more than once, and eventually sped him to his end.”
“Dracula sped him to his end, not I.”
“There were no witnesses to the terrible fate of Renfield… bar one.”
“You are about to make a serious accusation, Dr Watson, against one of my oldest and dearest friends. Be careful what you say.” Seward remained cool in his manner. There was no outburst as when I had questioned him about Van Helsing earlier. This was altogether more disconcerting, for I had no idea what the man was thinking.
“What other conclusion am I to draw? To the outsider, it would appear that Mr Renfield was driven beyond his endurance, his fragile grip on reality torn away. And it was you who allowed that to happen. In the end, utterly lost to madness, he could just as well have killed himself. He could have assaulted Professor Van Helsing, leaving your friend little choice but to act in self-defence. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Maybe Van Helsing was acting to protect you, so that none would learn just what a wretch you had made poor Mr Renfield.”
“Protect me?” Seward got to his feet and looked down his nose at me. “No, Professor Van Helsing taught me self-sufficiency, resilience, and objectivity. He nurtures such qualities in all he meets. In fact, there is only one man he has ever coddled as long as I have known him.”
“Oh?”
“You must surely know that the professor holds my good friend Arthur—that’s Lord Godalming, of course—as dear as his own lost son.” Seward’s tone was noticeably bitter.
“I have met Lord Godalming recently, and it did not seem so to me. It was quite to the contrary, in fact, given his lordship’s condition.”
“Really?” Seward looked almost pleased at the news that his friend was suffering. “Then maybe Arthur will now learn to stand on his own two feet, lest he end up in my care.”
“A fate I’m sure he would do well to avoid,” I muttered. This drew a fierce glare from Seward.
“I can see, Dr Watson, that I am not going to convince you of the efficacy of my methods, the value of my establishment, nor of my innocence of whatever crime you imagine I have committed. As such, I’m afraid I must, with regret, ask you to leave.”
“I apologise if you are insulted,” I said, deliberately mealy-mouthed. “I would hate to outstay my welcome.” We walked back along the corridor a little way, before I paused and said, “The cell in which Renfield dwelt has bars at the windows—they all do. How then did he come to escape through the window, as stated in the Dracula Papers?”
“When Mr Renfield first came to us, we did not know what a danger he could be. He was kept upstairs. After his second escape attempt, we made a home for him down here. There is a simple explanation for all of your suspicions, you see.” Seward said nothing further to me, but instead spoke to one of the attendants. “See Dr Watson out, would you? I think I shall stay and have a chat with our puppet-man. Or, rather, with his puppet.”
I was ushered from the dank cellar, the rattle of Seward’s keys at a cell door behind me making me shudder as I thought of what might befall those poor lunatics in Seward’s care.
I left the steward behind as we reached the entrance hall, and intended to depart straight away, but I was intercepted by another man, a stout fellow, with auburn moustaches. He held out a large, freckled hand in greeting.
“Dr Watson, is it? I’m Dr Hennessey. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I heard the friend of the famous Sherlock Holmes was here, and could not resist coming to meet you. I’ve read your reports in the Strand. Fine stuff, eh? Could I detain you for a few minutes?”
I remembered Dr Patrick Hennessey from the Dracula Papers, for his sworn statement appeared in the manuscript, detailing one of Renfield’s escapes to Carfax whilst Dr Seward was away tending to Miss Westenra. The inclusion of his account in that collection of lies and elaboration led me to be suspicious of the man. However, his request upon my time was delivered earnestly, such that I was certain he had some pressing business that he could not state publicly. For that reason, I acquiesced and followed him to his office.
The room was on the first floor, next door to the hospital library. It was far more lavishly appointed than Seward’s, and I remarked upon it.
“Ah, yes. Traditionally this is the administrator’s office, but Dr Seward likes to lead a monastic existence downstairs, close to his patients. He is a man of singular habits.”
“I had noticed,” I said.
Hennessey offered me a cigar from the box on his desk, and I accepted gratefully. While we smoked, he came down to business.
“I will speak plainly, but quietly,” he said, in an Irish lilt. “The walls have ears in this establishment, and no one is to be fully trusted. Not the nurses, not the orderlies, and certainly not the administrator.”
I nodded my understanding.
“What do you make of this Dracula business, Dr Watson?”
“I… remain unconvinced,” I ventured.
“As well you should. For sure, I saw some queer goings-on with regards to Renfield, but that’s par for the course in a place like this. I had no reason to suspect any ‘supernatural’ cause for Renfield’s mania until Dr Seward called Professor Van Helsing in for a second opinion. And what an opinion he gave!”
“Unbelievable, some might say.”
“I do say,” Hennessey scoffed. “Look, Dr Watson, I do not know you, save for what I have read. I do not know Sherlock Holmes. If either of you are not what your reputations suggest, then I am damning myself by what I am about to tell you. But if you have even half the integrity and decency that your stories suggest, then perhaps there is hope for me, and for the inmates of Purfleet Asylum.”
“I can only endeavour to be the best that I can be,” I said. “As can we all.”
“It is harder for some than for others, trust me.” Hennessey took a puff on his cigar. I saw now the worry lines upon his round face; the weariness of his expression. Something weighed greatly upon the man’s mind. “What did you make of Dr Seward’s collection?” he said.
“To be frank, Dr Hennessey, I found it troubling, and unethical.”
“Then you are a man after my own heart.”
“Begging your pardon, but why then do you work under him? I am not sure I could be party to such cruelty at any price.”
Hennessey winced. “I have wrestled with my conscience for some time, Dr Watson, and in truth I feel the same way, but there is more here than meets the eye. I could say that I stay for the sake of the other patients—those who have not yet experienced the crueller side of Seward’s treatment. I could say also that I stay out of loyalty to the friendship I once shared with Dr Seward, before he became… changed. Both of these things are true, but I know that they are not reason enough. In truth, Seward knows things about my history that, should they come to light, would see me out of work, probably for ever.
“I was not always an alienist, or ‘mad-doctor’, as some call us. I was once a physician, like yourself. I do not know you, Dr Watson, and will not confess all my sins; I only ask that you believe me when I say I once made a mistake, and one of my patients paid for that mistake gravely. When it seemed my career in medicine was over, Dr Seward offered me an opportunity here. Unfortunately, what I took for altruism was actually something more sinister.
“With the arrival of the lunatic, Renfield, Dr Seward’s behaviour became steadily more erratic. The man who once swore never to perform any treatment that might agitate a patient’s mental disorder, upon his oath, began to do exactly that, provoking violent turns and fuelling Renfield’s dangerous delusional fantasies.
“It was only when Renfield escaped to the empty house next door—Carfax—that I realised the extent of Seward’s cruelty. I apprehended the patient with no small difficulty, and once he was sedated I wrote my report for Dr Seward, who was away on some other business. I delivered my report to Seward’s desk, and whilst there, something caught my eye. I saw his notes concerning Renfield, strewn across his desk. What I read there sickened me to the pit of my stomach.
“A few days later I confronted Seward, who was here with Professor Van Helsing, and we argued. I threatened to resign, and Seward played his trump card. He had kept records of my earlier misdemeanour, and had invented further embellishments besides—embellishments that might not only cause me to be struck off the medical register, but perhaps even put on trial. He is blackmailing me, Dr Watson. Oh, I don’t believe he would have stooped so low when I first met him, but he is a changed man. His personal tragedies, his growing obsessions, and his… vices, have gone hand-in-hand to transform an idealistic young doctor into a megalomaniac.”
“You speak of his feelings for Lucy Westenra,” I suggested. “And his dependency upon a certain drug.”
“You have seen the symptoms for yourself?”
“And the evidence, too.”
“And there is more. I feel Seward has been manipulated.”
“By Van Helsing?”
“Aye. But whatever the cause of his change of character, the damage is done. I have been warned quite explicitly to stay quiet, and not to contradict the version of events as told in those dratted Dracula Papers.”
“I see. So why speak out now? And why to me?”
“As I said, I believe you to be a man of integrity. Besides, a gossiping nurse has already revealed to me that Seward appeared quite agitated in your company. That alone tells me that you are not in his pocket. The same cannot be said of the police—I hear Van Helsing dines regularly with the assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard.”
“Really?” That was interesting news indeed, for it in some way explained the rapid decline of Cotford’s career.
“How else would such a cock-and-bull story as that contained in the Dracula Papers gain such traction? Van Helsing has friends in high places, which has so far left me nowhere to turn. But then here you are, Dr Watson. I confess I have selfish reasons for putting my trust in you. If Dr Seward should receive his just desserts, I would be free to start afresh. He could make his accusations about me all he liked, but if his own reputation were in tatters, I would be more likely to weather the storm of scandal that would follow. Who would listen to a man who drove his own patient to madness and death, and whose shocking neglect contributed to the death of an innocent young woman?”
“You know something of the case of Miss Westenra?”
“Enough to know that the treatment that Seward and Van Helsing administered to the girl was quackery.”
“Dr Hennessey, I believe you and Sherlock Holmes would get along famously.”
“Perhaps, if he is the forgiving sort.” Hennessey looked sad, and quickly changed the subject. “We don’t have much time, Dr Watson. Here, be so good as to sign this for me. It is a copy of A Study in Scarlet. If Dr Seward asks me why I spent time with you this afternoon, I shall tell him that I enjoy your stories of the great detective.”
I took the book and signed it for him.
“Now take these, Dr Watson, and tell no one here that you have them.” Hennessey passed me two large, tattered notebooks. “They belonged to Renfield. Seward ordered them to be destroyed shortly after the man’s death.”
This was an unexpected boon, and I took the notebooks eagerly. Flipping through the pages, it appeared that one was written in a neat hand, including many pages of shorthand. A packet of letters was stuffed untidily inside the front cover. The other journal was written in a scrawl, and contained page after page of tally charts and childlike scrawlings.
“There were others, but these were the only two I could save from the incinerator. The one you hold there was written during his time here, and is a cruel account of a man’s descent into utter madness. The other was admitted with him when his legal firm brought him to us.”
“Legal firm?”
“Oh, didn’t you know?”
“Please, Dr Hennessey, what legal firm? Who admitted this man Renfield to the care of Dr Seward?”
“A man who is no longer with us,” the doctor said. “One Peter Hawkins, of Exeter.”
* * *
The information given me by Dr Hennessey had set my head in a spin, and I left as quickly as I could thereafter, the better to take this vital new evidence to Holmes. The Irishman had explained that R. M. Renfield had been a junior solicitor in the Exeter legal firm owned by Peter Hawkins, and now administered by Jonathan Harker. The journals he had given me not only cast doubt upon how much Seward and Van Helsing had known about the Harkers before the start of their tale, but also just how much of their insane story had come from a true madman, from Renfield himself, rather their own imaginations. It was Renfield who had first been sent to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula; it was Renfield who had contracted brain fever and been driven mad by his experiences in the Carpathians. It was Renfield, not Jonathan Harker, who had been Dracula’s guest.
I made my way next to Jack Straw’s Castle. On the journey, I immersed myself in Renfield’s journals, which instilled within me a sense of fearful dread. We had since the beginning discounted the possibility that Jonathan Harker and Dr Seward had been among the knowing conspirators. Now, I had to consider that Van Helsing and Mina Harker were not the only villains in this thickening mystery, but were only part of a conspiracy to murder.