“Vampires? You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Max Slattery. In the hearth the fire crackled and hissed pleasantly. Outside the steady rain had become a booming thunderstorm, complete with splintering flares of brilliant lightning. Betsy Arnot sat in her chair with Kate Warne’s journal in her lap, her gnarled hands resting together possessively on top of the worn deerskin cover as though it was a family treasure, which perhaps it was.
“Not at all,” said the old woman, eyes bright behind her old-fashioned glasses. “It’s all very matter-of-fact and plainly written—more a series of notes and observations than what we might think of as a diary these days. It mostly concerns events between July first and July eleventh, 1863.”
“Two days before the New York Draft Riots,” murmured Carrie.
“Quite so,” said Betsy Arnot. “The journal describes Kate’s meeting with a young woman named Echo Van Helsing and their resultant search for what Kate refers to as a Vampyr, a vampire. The name which keeps on popping up throughout the pages is Draculiya. The young Miss Van Helsing was sure this creature had murdered her father, a Dutch naturalist named Abraham Van Helsing.” Outside lightning flared wildly, followed almost instantly by an earsplitting clap of thunder. Carrie almost jumped out of her seat. “Have a cookie,” said the old woman.
“This is 1863?” Carrie asked. “The words ‘vampire,’ ‘Van Helsing’ and ‘Dracula’ are used?”
“Draculiya and Vampyr, with a y. Yes.”
“Then it’s a fraud,” said Carrie firmly. She selected one of the Toll House cookies from the plate and took a bite. “Bram Stoker didn’t publish Dracula until 1897. The characters were fictional. There was no Dracula or Van Helsing. They were a product of Bram Stoker’s imagination.”
“Tom Clancy the thriller writer is often credited as having said ‘The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.’ He’s actually paraphrasing the real quotation by Mark Twain: ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.’”
“And just what does that have to do with the price of bread, if you don’t mind me asking?” Max said.
“Dracula is what is referred to as an ‘epistolary’ novel; in other words, it’s not a single narrative; it’s a collection of notes, observations and diary entries, remarkably like the ones in Kate Warne’s journal.” The woman’s bright eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “And very much like Stephen King’s first published novel, Carrie.”
“So what?” Max countered skeptically.
“In 1878, long after the Civil War was over, but almost exactly twenty years before Dracula was published, a famous British actress named Ellen Terry and an actor named Henry Irving toured Shakespeare in America, particularly New York. Much as he loved his wife, Olivia, Mark Twain became infatuated with Ellen Terry and they became close friends. Mark Twain also became friends with Ellen Terry’s and Henry Irving’s stage and business manager, a young Irishman who fancied himself a writer. His name was Bram Stoker.”
“You’re saying that Mark Twain gave Stoker the idea for Dracula? That the vampire was real?”
Betsy Arnot nodded complacently. Lightning flared and crashed. “Based on Kate Warne’s journal, that would appear to be the case.”
“How did Mark Twain get the journal if it was delivered to John Jones?” Carrie asked.
“My great-great-grandfather had known Mark Twain ever since he started spending his summers in Elmira, writing in that little study the family gave him on the old Quarry Farm property. One day he mentioned the journal and the fact that it was in code to Twain. He had an interest in such things, and since Kate was long dead by that time, my great-great-grandfather saw no harm in letting Twain try to break the code. As soon as he saw the cipher he recognized it and had no trouble decoding the entries.”
“You know this for a fact?” Carrie asked.
“I do. Stoker discusses it in his correspondence with Twain.”
Carrie stared, dumbfounded. “There are letters between Bram Stoker and Mark Twain?”
“Yes. The letters and the journal form the bulk of what was in the trunk that was sent to me from the lawyers handling the estate of Twain’s only granddaughter, Nina Gabrilowitsch.”
“Why haven’t you ever published them?”
The old woman shrugged. “I’ve considered it over the years. I could almost certainly get a book deal out of it, or at the very least some sort of fellowship.” She smiled. “My fifteen minutes of fame, I suppose.”
“But you didn’t,” said Carrie.
“No,” Betsy Arnot answered. “I suppose because I felt that the reputations of too many people were involved. Kate Warne’s, for instance. Some of what is included in the journal verges on insanity if not something even more disturbing. Stoker would be branded a plagiarist at best, and it wouldn’t have done Twain’s reputation any service either; he was renowned for the love he had for his wife, and his relationship with Ellen Terry has always been a secret; who am I to break that confidence? Mark Twain is a national treasure. I didn’t want to tarnish that image. I still don’t.” She smiled again. “Not to mention the fact that bringing all this to light now wouldn’t do much for people’s estimation of my own sanity. Old ladies shouldn’t go around promoting the idea of vampires; that’s a one-way ticket to the old-folks farm.”
“Then why talk to us about it now?”
“When you called me on the phone you told me there was a connection to a series of killings in the here and now, killings just like the ones in New York in 1863. Kate Warne and Echo Van Helsing started something a century and a half ago. It’s time we finished it.”