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After Mina Murray asks Sherlock Holmes to locate her fiancee, Holmes and Watson travel to a land far eerier than the moors they had known when pursuing the Hound of the Baskervilles. The confrontation with Count Dracula threatens Holmes' health, his sanity, and his life. Will Holmes survive his battle with Count Dracula?

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	09 janvier 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781780921716
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title Page

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PLAGUE OF DRACULA

By
Stephen Seitz

Publisher Information

First edition published in 2012 by MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com

Digital edition converted and distributed in 2012 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com

© Copyright 2012 Stephen Seitz
The right of Stephen Seitz to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.

Cover design by www.staunch.com

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following for their help and support: Bob and Sally Sugarman in particular for taking this project on; Jeanne Cavelos, whose sharp eye for error and authorial missteps turned this novel from a hobby into an actual story; and my wife, Susan Austin, for unflagging love and support.
Further thanks to Steve Emecz at MX Publishing and Gargoyle Books in Rome for giving this tale new life.
S.S.

Introduction

For years, devotees of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson have been searching for Watson’s fabled tin dispatch box, last known to be in the care of Cox & Company in London. That box contained Watson’s notes and records of his cases of Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, many stories have been written claiming to have been based on the documents contained therein. But there is one problem with those stories: the Charing Cross branch of Cox & Company was obliterated by Nazi bombs during World War II. Watson’s records went with it.
However, that does not mean everything was lost. Watson was a compulsive scribbler, and kept a daily journal, which he first mentions in A Study in Scarlet . The doings of his life naturally included his adventures with Sherlock Holmes, and that journal survives.
How do I know this? Because those volumes sit next to me as this very moment as I write this. I have no doubt of their authenticity; they have passed a series of extremely expensive chemical tests and handwriting analyses. There are plenty of extant samples of Watson’s handwriting; once he became famous, many of his patients kept his prescriptions so they could have his autograph. I am also convinced that Watson is the physician most responsible for the bad reputation doctors have for poor handwriting. If only he’d used a typewriter!
I come by these volumes (almost) honestly; Watson left his estate and belongings to Sherlock Holmes after his death in London in 1929, at the age of 77. Holmes put them into storage and forgot about them.
They come to me because my great-aunt married a man named Holmes, who turned out to be a distant relative. Both Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft died childless. Neither death has ever been announced, and my every inquiry has hit a very British brick wall. I doubt we’ll ever know when or how Mycroft died. But Sherlock lived into his ninetieth year, leaving this world in 1944, serving his country to the end.
His estate had to be settled, and luckily my great-uncle was stationed in England when he received word that, so far as could be determined, he was Sherlock Holmes’ closest relation. He did not care; a farmer from the hills of upstate New York, he had no idea who Sherlock Holmes was, but was grateful to have the farm at Sussex Downs, its contents, and of course, the money. My great-uncle sold the farm. Luckily, he was also an incurable pack rat. He took everything else back home in case he could use anything on his own farm; the Holmes hives, in fact, are still producing honey. What Uncle Bob couldn’t use went into the attic.
On a family visit when I was ten, I was playing up there when I came across a musty old trunk, one of several. I tugged at the lock, but it didn’t give. That aroused my curiosity, and the more the lock refused to budge, the more determined I was to break it. Finally, I found an old toolbox, grabbed a screwdriver, and snapped the brittle tin.
Inside, a treasure trove: a heavy revolver, many scribbled pages of manuscript, a dried snakeskin, fake beards and moustaches, but mostly copybooks. The scrapbooks, notes for monographs, the never-completed Whole Art of Detection , The Practical Handbook of Bee Culture , so much more.
In the other trunks, I found manuscripts, letters, memoranda, newspaper clippings, all kinds of tobacco apparatus, an ancient hypodermic - everything but Holmes’ famous Stradivarius. (My great-aunt persuaded Bob to donate it to the Smithsonian. The violin on display there may well have once belonged to Sherlock Holmes.)
I opened one of the copybooks and discovered I could barely read it. The handwriting was atrocious, and I wasn’t accustomed to Watson’s usage then, so I took it home and stuck it on a shelf. Several years passed, and I discovered The Hound of the Baskervilles , which quotes Watson’s journal extensively. That rang a bell, and I examined the long-forgotten volume. The journal extracts quoted in Hound came right from the journal in my lap; they were not much changed in the final publication.
I have since hauled all the combined personal effects and extant papers of Holmes and Watson to my home in Vermont. In Watson’s daily journal is the first draft of Holmes’ cases, as they occurred day by day, as well as details of the unchronicled cases Watson hinted at from time to time. Once Watson realized how intense interest in Holmes had become, he kept separate, more detailed notes of his experiences for publication, while using the journal to keep track of events in his own life.
I have also learned the extent to which Watson changed things to suit his stories. Names, dates, and places; often, Watson transplanted events from one case into the published account of another. It was necessary to do so; with every word, Watson was at great risk of libel.
For example, Watson knew of Professor James Moriarty and his right-hand man Colonel Sebastian Moran well before “The Final Problem.” Moriarty and Moran both appear in The Valley of Fear , which took place in 1887, but was published in 1914. However, “The Final Problem,” which appeared in 1893, was Watson’s first published account of Moriarty. Watson pretended he had never heard of Moriarty in order to tell a better story.
What you now have in your hands is extraordinary: how Holmes and Watson became enmeshed in the notorious case of Count Dracula. In general, I have retained the epistolary form used in Dracula , quoting directly from the sources, rewriting and paraphrasing mostly for the sake of clarity. Happily, there has been no difficulty in securing outside documentation for the Dracula story; the Harker, Godalming and Seward papers have been freely available for years, and I have used them where they fit into the story. Most of the Harker and Seward entries appear here for the first time. To obtain them, I contacted the British law firm my family used to settle the Holmes estate in England - the one founded by Peter Hawkins, in fact, known today as Hawkins, Harker, Graham & McFarlane. Their tireless researchers were able to find the letters, journals, and newspaper clippings I needed, and more. (Amanda Keswick’s note to her parents, for instance, was stuck to the back of an RSVP pasted in her wedding album.) All other entries are from Watson’s journal or letters unless otherwise noted. I have peppered the text with footnotes where appropriate; I hope the reader will not find these overly intrusive.
I should note that I have left out a lot. Watson wrote everything down, including the details of his generally mundane daily life when he was away from Baker Street. In his journal he comes across as a stronger personality than he did in the Sherlock Holmes memoirs; as often as not, Holmes turned to Watson for a medical opinion, but in the Canon Holmes seems to know all and even instructs Watson. Again, Watson sacrificed accuracy for a better story. Watson’s own modesty has forever enhanced the reputation of Sherlock Holmes, and I hope we can help correct the record a little. Watson was far more than a sounding board in the partnership.
There are twenty of the journals, covering the years 1886 to 1927, and fascinating reading they often make. Besides filling in the gaps of the Sherlock Holmes saga, we find many of the missing details of Watson’s own life: his second career as a police surgeon, the story of his stormy third marriage later in life, his experiences in Afghanistan and in World War I, the death of his brother, and more. If there is sufficient interest, perhaps additional sections of the journal might see publication.
Stephen Seitz
Springfield, Vt.

Part One: Castle Dracula
Chapter One: Mina Murray
Letter, Dr. John H. Watson to Mary Watson
August 3, 1890

Dear Mary,
Holmes is dozing, so I am taking this opportunity to explain my actions over the last few days. I apologise for the suddenness of our leave-taking and for the hasty note I left.