Chapter 26
Chapter
This was not, the attentive reader will recall, the first time Stoker and I had had cause to enter a house unlawfully.
But in this case, the ends most decidedly justified the means.
Who cares for a bit of broken window glass when a crime is to be solved!
Although, it occurred to me only after we had applied ourselves to forcing our way into the garden door, we might have chosen a window that did not consist of a rather fine set of stained glass panels.
They depicted the goddesses Flora and Fauna accompanied by the symbols of their domains.
Both were tall and wearing elegant draperies, Flora wreathed in blossom while Fauna was surrounded by all manner of wild and docile creatures brought to heel.
Stoker gained ingress through a particularly pretty pane featuring a swan.
“Pity,” I murmured as he gathered the glass feathers into a neat pile.
“You said time was of the essence,” he reminded me coldly.
“It is,” I assured him. “But there is no need to enter like Visigoths. We are modern and civilised Europeans.”
“I doubt Von Hilsing will see it that way when Johnson informs him of the damage,” he whispered back.
We had remained in the back garden for more than an hour, watching the lights in the downstairs extinguish one by one until the house was shrouded in darkness.
Secreted under the shrubbery, we had watched Johnson leave—quite correctly—through the rear door, locking the house carefully behind himself.
We waited a further half an hour lest he return for some forgotten purpose, then crept forwards, shaking life back into our limbs as we embarked upon our escapade.
Once the glass was breached, Stoker turned sideways, slipping nimbly as an eel through the panel, an astonishing feat for a man so fully muscled as he.
I followed, running into the impenetrable hardness of his back as he paused, waiting in the darkness.
The stench of fresh paint was still present, making me wonder precisely how many rooms were meant to be redecorated while the master of the house was away.
“What are we doing?” I inquired in a whisper. I could see nothing at all, not so much as a suggestion of the dimensions of the room or its furnishings.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed.
Stoker moved away, his feet passing almost noiselessly over the carpet.
Only by listening intently could I detect the slide of his soles as he walked.
A moment later, there was the soft susurration of taffeta curtain panels being slid apart, and I opened my eyes.
A shaft of moonlight shone into the room.
It was diffused by the leaves of the garden, shedding a silvery glow onto the carpet, but now I could make out the shapes of the furniture.
A heavy round table stood in the center of the room.
It was set with a single chair of tufted upholstery, a tall crystal candelabra taking pride of place in the centre of the table.
A dozen other chairs were lined against the walls, awaiting guests, I imagined.
But that sole chair at the table was lonely, I thought, standing in solitary splendour.
A finger to his lips, Stoker slid his other hand into mine, and we moved forward as one. The floor was marble, so there were no creaking floorboards to fear, and so long as we walked slowly and with care, we were silent as shadows, wraiths that haunted the mansion of the millionaire.
There were no lamps lit anywhere in the house, and in the great foyer, the long windows were hung with thick curtains of heavy velvet.
But above them were transom windows, undraped and permitting just enough moonlight to show us the way.
Stoker moved towards the study, and I shook my head, pointing upwards.
I could see the arch of his brow in the gloom, but I pointed again, more emphatically, and when I turned towards the staircase, he followed.
It had been constructed for an entrance, that staircase, for grandeur and hospitality.
One could easily imagine a hostess draped in pearls and duchesse satin directing her guests towards the vintage champagne.
Or perhaps a bride, descending on her father’s arm, her train sweeping elegantly behind her.
Instead the steps had been laid with newspaper, each tread carefully covered to protect the pale marble.
“I do not like this,” Stoker muttered behind me.
There were noises in the house—the soft ticking of the clocks, almost but not quite synchronous—and the unmistakable tiny patter of mouse feet behind the walls.
But no human sounds made themselves known, and we continued on, pausing at the top of the staircase to choose which of the half-dozen doors we should try.
“His suite would be the first,” Stoker murmured in my ear. “It will overlook the garden and be quieter than the rest.”
I nodded and we moved together to unlatch the door.
It opened onto a sort of sitting room, the walls lined with bookshelves filled to groaning.
I went to the window to make certain the thick curtains were tightly pulled.
“Those will not admit a crack of light,” I whispered. “I think we might dare a candle.”
He nodded, and I reached into my pocket for a box of vestas.
When I had struck one and lit a candle, the room revealed itself in detail.
There was a fireplace of dark green marble, heavily veined, and beside it sat a deep armchair—just the one.
This was no place for convivial entertaining of intimate friends.
It was a solitary aerie, the room of a recluse who admitted no one to his private pleasures.
The most surprising thing about the room was not the number of books but the fact that each had been bound in matching green kid, the covers stamped in gold with Horace Von Hilsing’s initials.
“You cannot be serious,” Stoker said as he pulled one free from the shelf. “He has bound copies of magazines to read. This one is numbers of Punch from twenty years ago.”
“What an odd little man,” I said, taking out a volume of my own. “This one is a textbook from a school in Massachusetts. It is inscribed with his name in a child’s handwriting, but it has the same binding as the others.”
“He has bound everything,” Stoker said, showing me a set of essays from a secondary school. “Everything he touched, it seems, reprinted into a matched set. God, the cost of it all.”
“And no one to share it with,” I said, suddenly fiercely glad that I was not alone in the world. I could not imagine owning such wealth and being so impoverished that I could not call a single person my friend, much less my soul’s twin as I had in Stoker.
I shook myself and carried on, searching the desk for some indication of exactly where on the Continent Horace Von Hilsing might be found.
There was a blotter, the page fresh and untouched.
I skimmed it lightly with a pencil, but no markings showed through.
The drawers were empty save for a dull paper knife and a sheaf of writing paper, not the heavy, embossed sort used for correspondence, but only the rough sheets for sketching out one’s thoughts before composing a letter.
“The desk has been cleared,” I told Stoker.
“There is nothing of note here,” he said, rising from the armchair. He had been searching its cushions, no doubt in hopes of finding secrets.
He paused and looked around. “The room is rather dirty,” he observed, drawing a finger across the mantel. “It hasn’t been dusted in some time.”
“Von Hilsing is abroad,” I reminded him.
“The room ought either to be properly dusted or the furniture shrouded in sheets,” he said severely. “That is how things are done in great houses. This is slipshod. And very curious. I suspect Von Hilsing would not care to know his things are being cared for so cavalierly in his absence.”
He was lost in thought, no doubt pondering cobwebs in the corners, so I moved to the connecting door which led, I surmised, to the bedroom. I did not expect to find much of significance in there, but it was against my principles to leave stones unturned.
I opened the door and paused on the threshold, regarding the enormous four-poster bed draped in green silk. “Stoker, I do not think Mr. Von Hilsing will be much put out by dust on the mantel.”
“Hm?” His voice was distracted. “Why so?”
I did not take my eyes from the slight figure propped up in the bed.
“Because I believe he has been dead for quite some time.”