Our journey back to Bistritz, and then on to Vienna, was by no means a simple one. It took far longer to return than it did to reach Transylvania, for we travelled incognito, with an armed guard and a prisoner in tow. We were forced to wait for trains at unsociable hours in order to assure a quiet passage, and sometimes we had to rely on private road-coaches, providing slow progress across Europe.
It was only upon finally reaching Vienna that Holmes was able to communicate with Mycroft, though at a cost of an extra day’s stay. After an exchange of telegrams, Holmes was finally able to secure us passage aboard a train, in a private car reserved courtesy of the British government, and kept secure by a stout Royal Engineer kindly assigned as our escort.
Up to that point, Van Helsing had spoken little, save to taunt Holmes, and to act with bravado, asserting repeatedly that the German government would send agents to rescue him, and that Holmes and I were on borrowed time. Once aboard the train, however, resistance seemed to drain from him. It became clear that no one was coming for Van Helsing—if the Germans knew of his predicament, they had surely deemed him expendable.
The first evening after leaving Vienna, 27 April, we sat for a miserable dinner in virtual silence. Once we had finished, a change came upon the professor, and over cigars he made his confession to Holmes. Yet still he was assured of his own cleverness, believing that Holmes could not possibly have guessed everything about his complex schemes.
“Oh, I have the measure of it now,” Holmes said. “Anything I have not yet deduced is surely not worth knowing. And I have gathered enough evidence to present in a court.”
“So, you are having the better of me, you think? Go on, Mr Holmes—explain to me that which you think you know. Let us see how clever you are.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Holmes said. “It began almost twenty-seven years ago,” Holmes began, “with a series of events that might appear innocuous to all but those who look for the connections.
“A baby boy was born to your wife, Elisabet, and I imagine that the birth of your first son brought you unimaginable joy. You doted on the child, and even went so far as to leave the German secret service in order that you might raise him without forever looking over your shoulder for enemies. You retired to Amsterdam where you resumed your former occupation as a professor of medicine. I imagine from your family name that your father was Dutch, or at least half Dutch, and so it was natural for you to make your home there. Although you struggled in the post due to your medical knowledge being woefully out of date, the influence exerted by your old office ensured that the university turned a blind eye to your failings as a teacher. I suppose the German government wanted to keep you happy, firstly so that you might never be tempted to reveal the intelligence you had gathered over the years, but also so that they might one day call on your assistance without fear of ill-will between you.”
“Excellent, Mr Holmes.”
“Thank you. Now, the boy. His name was Arthur or, more likely, Artur. He was a bright lad, and at first he brought great happiness into your life. But as he grew a little older—perhaps when he was four or five—you started to suspect something was amiss. The boy did not really resemble you at all, but instead had the refined features of a man you knew—a man who had once vied with you for the affections of Elisabet. Count Dracula.
“You had supposed that their affair was long over by the time you married, but now you knew that you had been cuckolded by Dracula. He had remained a family friend, and often visited you in Amsterdam. The jealousy and anger you felt festered each time he was near, and you began to transfer those feelings to your boy.
“I cannot know exactly what happened next, Professor, so perhaps you would be so kind as to help me. I am sure that you faked the death of the boy—perhaps you even intended to kill him but could not go through with it—and in the end placed him in the care of an old contact, not in the German government, but the British one. Lord Godalming.”
“That is close enough to the truth,” said Van Helsing, his antagonistic smile fading, his tone becoming clipped and severe.
“The only reason I can think of that you would do this is because of Germany’s close ties to Transylvania and, especially, Bistritz. You needed the boy far away from Dracula and anyone who might tell him the truth.
“You told Dracula not only that the boy was dead, but that you knew Arthur was his child. Your wife, in the throes of grief, would offer Dracula no succour, and so he swore never to bother you again, and returned to his castle a broken man.”
Van Helsing nodded.
“Your terrible deception, however, did not remain a secret,” Holmes said. “Years later, Dracula somehow discovered that his son was alive. He sent agents to find out more, and these agents came back with news. His son, Arthur, was alive and well in England. I confess the details are incomplete, Professor. I can only assume Renfield played some part in bringing Arthur’s survival to his attention, as Dracula was a notorious recluse, wild in his ways, while Elisabet was mad from her loss, and from your own uncaring attitude towards her.”
“Ah, but how cruel you are, Mr Holmes. Cruel, and yet astute. Elisabet’s friends, they pry and they pry, until I am force to act, to secure their silence. By then, it is too late—rumours are sent to Dracula, for those who love Elisabet knew that he love her also, and might come to save her. But he did not. He hear the name of Lord Godalming, and he begin to plot. Dracula, perhaps mad himself, he contact Lord Godalming, inviting him to visit Castle Dracula, and to survey it for his great railway.”
“Ah. Godalming was too old and frail to travel,” Holmes said. “And so a solicitor was dispatched instead: Renfield. Let me guess—he had photographs of the Godalming family?”
“In a newspaper, brought at the specific request of the Count. Dracula, he recognise the boy, just as you did.”
“So Count Dracula made a deal with the British, and they snapped up the land he offered in order to build a railway across the Carpathians before Germany could even begin their great Baghdad project. In return, through a long and meandering legal process, Dracula arranged to transfer his assets to London, sending his family heirlooms abroad in great boxes, perhaps to protect his fortune from the enemies who would certainly come calling once his deal with the British became common knowledge. Enemies such as yourself, Professor.
“When finally he managed to visit England and discovered the new identity of his son, he found that you had pre-empted his movements, and had set yourself against him. He contacted Arthur’s fiancé, Lucy Westenra, but you killed her for what she knew and blamed her death on the Count. The loss made a broken puppet of Arthur Holmwood, whom you controlled utterly. You vilified Count Dracula, and found an unwitting crew of assistants, galvanised by Lucy’s death, who would later serve as reliable witnesses in your complete assassination of him—both figuratively and literally. After dragging Dracula’s name through the mud, you pursued him all the way back to Transylvania, using his own gypsy servants to hound him, and to murder the one man who saw the truth at last: Quincey P. Morris.”
Holmes was not a man to gloat in his moment of triumph. If his eyes blazed now, it was not with smugness or superiority, but with a righteous zeal. Van Helsing, on the other hand, bore a severe expression of hatred for his opponent. He clapped his hands slowly.
“Remarkable, Mr Holmes,” he said, upon ceasing his facetious applause.
“It seems that Count Dracula, the man you painted as a monster, is the most truly noble figure in this sorry tale,” Holmes said. “He surprised you. You did not think Dracula had it in him to leave Transylvania—to wake up from the endless cycle of grief and misery in which you had placed him. But when he found out about your schemes—at least in part—something stirred in him. Dracula rode out against you like his ancestors rode out against the Turkish army.”
“He was defeated in the end.” Van Helsing allowed himself a rueful smile.
“But at what cost, Professor Van Helsing?” Holmes asked. “The Count was surely right. You have become an embittered, lonely old man. Your wife, whom I am sure you loved once, is lost to you as surely as if she too were dead. Her son, whom I am certain you love still, despite yourself, is set on the same path of misery and possibly madness. And you shall stand trial for the many crimes you have committed.”
“Stand trial? Oh no, Mr Holmes. Men such as me do not stand trial like the common criminal.”
“We shall see. Regardless, your crimes will be made known to those whose lives you have ravaged. There will be a comeuppance for the Harkers, and Seward, and Genevieve Holmwood—I doubt we can prove irrefutably that she was your ‘bloofer lady’, but I am certain that, should we make a thorough search of Ring, we will find that she is drugging Lord Godalming, will we not?”
Van Helsing only smiled.
“When he has recovered—if he recovers—Lord Godalming will learn of the chaos you have wrought, and why. Perhaps then he shall know peace.”
“It is not your place to speak with Arthur.” Van Helsing’s voice was a quiet snarl.
“It may not be my place, but it is the right thing to do.”
“Your so-sanctimonious morality, it sicken me! You sit in judgement over Abraham Van Helsing? I am your prisoner now, yes, but not for very much longer, I think. I still have the friends, no? Powerful friends, Mr Holmes. When they learn of what you do, there will be much trouble between our nations. For the price of one backward, inbred nobleman from the mountains, who do no good in his life, you would risk war?”
“There will be no war, Professor. Your own crimes, and the evidence I have collected, shall see to that. You do not know, of course, that a certain German agent in London has already learned of the affair and has disavowed your actions. No, I rather think a truce shall be signed over this railway enterprise, and one or both of our nations shall withdraw from the venture. Your greatest mistake is in thinking that your own life is worth more than the safety of every other citizen in Britain and Germany. If there is one thing I can tell you from personal experience, it is that we are all of us expendable.”
The defiance drained from Van Helsing’s features. He turned to stare out of the window, as the snow-covered hills gave way to green-black forests that stretched for as far as the eye could see. Finally, he nodded slowly.
“I am hearing enough. Mr Holmes, you have been an adversary most worthy, but the end has come now. Will you permit me to be sleeping? I have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from your so-cruel justice. At least afford Van Helsing some privacy to his thoughts, eh?”
Holmes acquiesced, and showed Van Helsing to his compartment.
“You understand, of course, that you will be under guard?”
“Of course.”
Holmes slid the door shut, and Van Helsing, secured inside, drew the curtain across the window.
At Holmes’s nod, an Engineer came and stood by the door.
A gunshot rang out behind us, muffled, but unmistakeable. I turned in shock, to see the guard pushing into Van Helsing’s compartment. Holmes did not flinch, and so I rushed back without him.
Within the confines of the sleeper compartment lay the professor, dead. A tiny pocket-pistol was discarded beside him. He must have had the weapon concealed all this time, but never used it to attempt an escape; rather, he had saved his one bullet for a much more desperate contingency. Blood ran from the ugly wound at the side of Van Helsing’s head. About him were scattered a multitude of papers, most now bloodstained.
I looked back along the aisle, to where Holmes stood gravely. He merely nodded, as though he had predicted this outcome all along.