Chapter 21 #2
“ ‘Otherwise occupied’?” His voice had taken on a strangled quality. “How might one be otherwise occupied whilst Lord Ruthven is busy ramming a brooch into one’s throat?”
“The activity would have to ensure that Lord Ruthven’s proximity was extreme,” I reasoned.
“And that a certain contact between his person and the flesh of the neck was to be expected. Furthermore, the contact might lead to moderately painful sensations as well as pleasurable ones in order to ensure his victim would not pull away. That would obviously suggest activities of an amorous nature. In short, a passionate embrace in the course of which Lord Ruthven may distract his victim with caresses so arousing that his victim does not put an end to them until he has accomplished his task of inflicting the injury with his stickpin.”
“Thus ensuring that when the victim notices the pain or even the blood, they would naturally conclude they have been attacked by a vampire.”
“Precisely. And as the bite cannot be a fatal one, it is presumed he must be looking for some other result from the interlude.”
Stoker tipped his head thoughtfully. “No doubt a modest bite—coupled with the heightened atmosphere of his home, his attempts to make himself appear otherworldly—would persuade his victims that they are now in thrall to him. It is a bit of theatre to act as the coup de grace to the rest of his amateur dramatics.”
“Yes, it all makes perfect sense if you consider him a consummate performer and nothing more. There is the greasepaint in the form of the powder and hair dye, costuming in garments that appear exotic to the average Englishman, and even effects of lighting and setting to heighten his performance.”
“To say nothing of his little affectations of character,” Stoker added. “I think you have worked it out marvellously well, my love. Shall I conclude you are coming to the realisation that vampires do not exist?”
“One cannot draw that conclusion definitively,” I returned. “One can only surmise that Lord Ruthven is not one.”
“Veronica, there are no such things as vampires.”
“Do stop gritting your teeth. You will wear them down to nubs,” I warned. “Besides, it is the soundest scientific reasoning to entertain the possibility that vampires might exist. I can only say with increasing certainty that Lord Ruthven is most likely not among their number.”
“How?” he demanded. “How can you claim it is sound scientific reasoning?”
“Starfish,” I replied promptly. “The echinoderms of Asteroidea. You were a naval man, certainly you are familiar.”
“Yes, Veronica. I am familiar with starfish. I grew up on the Sussex coast, remember? Every boy who wanders English beaches knows starfish.”
“Then you know what happens when a limb is lost.”
“It is regenerated, but I fail to see—oh, for the love of bleeding Jesus, you are not actually suggesting that a man might regenerate his entire body.”
“Of course not. The human animal is far too complex an organism for that,” I assured him. “But it is possible that the consciousness may regenerate.”
“It bloody well is not. Consciousness is—”
“Choose your next words carefully,” I told him. “You are about to be dogmatic on this subject, and I would remind you that we know comparatively nothing about consciousness. It is a universe yet uncharted.”
“That it is,” he allowed, “but we can agree, I believe, that it is thoroughly unlikely that consciousness would leave upon death and reappear, bringing with it the ability to live forever in some liminal state that is neither entirely dead nor alive.”
“One may be in such a liminal state when one is comatose,” I reminded him.
“When comatose, a person is literally unconscious,” he returned with an air one would hate to describe as smug. (But one would be sorely tempted.)
“That is open to debate. There are cases where patients have awakened from apparent oblivion only to recite remarks made in their presence when they were senseless. In those cases, physical life was not extinguished, and consciousness was imperfect but it was in some sense present.”
“That does not answer my point about eternal life,” he reminded me.
“Perhaps vampires do not enjoy eternal life,” I temporised. “Perhaps it is only extended past its natural expectation. Consider Patricia. Her kind live to be well over a century, more than two!”
“Again, a Galápagos tortoise is not the same as a human being,” he said patiently. “Humans are far more complicated a mechanism.”
“All the more reason to suppose there is still much we have left to learn. Surely you can admit, we have not even begun to plumb the depths of what it means to be human! Only a handful of years ago, we did not understand what a germ was or how it might live inside a body, inflicting infection. The most erudite men of science believed that miasmas and evil humours were responsible for our afflictions. Now we know better. Do you really mean to say that you are so arrogant that you cannot concede the slightest possibility that something beyond our understanding may yet exist in the human experience?”
He opened his mouth, then snapped it closed again. When he spoke it was a hoarse rasp. “There. Are. No. Such. Things. As. Vampires.”
I waved a hand. “We shall make an agreement not to agree.”
To my surprise, Stoker resisted the urge to nettle me further. “You realise what this means? The diminutive nature of the stickpin?”
“That it could not have been the instrument of violence used against Maurice Quincey,” I said grimly.
“Indeed. A pin such as you describe would cause as much blood to flow as a paper cut. In order to drain Quincey’s body entirely, something much larger would have been required to puncture his jugular, particularly because if he were drugged—which I suppose he must have been in order to have been murdered so viciously with no marks upon him—the pulse would have slowed. ”
“And thus the blood would have flowed more slowly,” I concluded. “Excellent point.”
“My medical training does occasionally come in useful. Surely we have learnt something this evening. Why are you so bedevilled?”
“I am not bedevilled. I am thinking.” I did not care to share my thoughts with him, largely because of the wager we had made. It was more than a mere guinea—it was the principle of the thing. Let a man best you once, and he just might try to make a habit of it.