"Well, look for yourself,” said Holcombe, throwing back the sheet. "All I could find were those two marks on her throat there. See? It's obvious. Varney the Vampire has claimed another victim. Call Thomas Prest, he wrote the book, ask him what old Varney has been up to lately. Scribblers of penny dreadfuls in the crime lab! I've never heard of such a thing! This isn't Scotland Yard anymore, it's a bloody literary society. Ah. Neilson, there you are! Where the devil have you been? You look as if you have been up all night. Do you think I could manage to distract you from your carousing long enough to get some work done?"
"I'm sorry. Dr. Holcombe," said Neilson, putting on his apron. "I'm afraid I overslept this morning. I-"
"I don't wish to hear any excuses. I'd simply be tremendously flattered if you managed to show up on time. This place is a veritable madhouse. People coming and going, why already this morning you have missed Miss Mary Shelley. She was here with Inspector Grayson, looking for the odd spare part or two."
"Ian, is it even remotely possible that I might get a straight answer from you this morning?" Grayson said, exasperated.
"I don't know how she managed to lose such a great deal of blood," said Holcombe. "There. are you satisfied? I've proven my ineptitude. Perhaps she was a hemophile. Perhaps young Neilson did it, he was obviously out all night, stalking unwary actresses. Open your mouth. Neilson, let's see your teeth."
"Sir?" said Neilson. frowning.
"We seem to be infested with wolves and vampires this week," said Holcombe. "Do try to keep up, Neilson. Inspector Grayson has promised us a surprise later in the afternoon. He's going to bring us someone who's been turned to stone by one of the Gorgon sisters. Oh, and while you're at it. after you've finished cleaning up, see if you can find me a large mallet and a wooden stake. It wouldn't do to have this young lady stumbling about the lab and knocking things over after we have closed up for the night."
There was a knock at the laboratory door. Neilson opened it to admit Conan Doyle. "I was told that I could find Inspector Grayson here," said Doyle.
"Ah. there you are, Watson!" said Holcombe. "Come in. conic in. the game's afoot! Professor Moriarty has bitten an actress in the neck and we're all terribly concerned! Do let me know how it all comes out. I'm off to down a few pints myself. at the pub across the street. I'm obviously only in the way here!"
He stormed past an astonished Conan Doyle and slammed the door on his way out.
"Has that man gone mad?” said Doyle.
Grayson sighed. "Please accept my apologies. Dr. Doyle. I'm afraid that Holcombe's not himself today. Apparently, his professional pride's been stung a bit over-"
"Say no more, I quite understand." said Conan Doyle. "In point of fact, I am something of an interloper here. I think I can understand his irritation."
"Ian Holcombe's a good man," said Grayson. "I suspect his irritation is directed more at himself than at you. It seems I've brought him another body to confound him.'
"What'? Not another one?" said Doyle, coming closer.
"No, not a 'werewolf this time," Grayson said, smiling wryly. "This time, we apparently have the victim of a vampire."
"A what?"
" See for yourself." said Grayson. "Miss Angeline Crewe, an actress with
Mr. Irving's company at the Lyceum. She collapsed on stage during a rehearsal and apparently died within moments of her collapse. Notice the marks upon her throat."
"Hmmm. yes. I see." said Conan Doyle. "Definitely teeth marks. And cause of death was a significant loss of blood?"
"Yes, that is what Holcombe said. An insult to the system, as he put it. Surely you're not suggesting that she was killed by a vampire?"
"Rubbish, Grayson." said Conan Doyle. "That's utter nonsense. What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their graves by stakes driven through their hearts? It's pure lunacy. However, the vampire of legend was not necessarily a dead man. A living person might have the habit. I have read, for example, of the old sucking the blood
of the young in order to retain their youth. We must seek our answers among the natural, rather than the supernatural phenomena."
"What do you mean?" said Grayson.
"There are any number of contributing factors that could combine to sustain the legend of an undead vampire." Conan Doyle said. "For example, did you know that teeth appear longer in an exhumed corpse because the tissue of the gums" shrinks after death?"
"I didn't know that," Grayson said.
Conan Doyle nodded as he examined the body. "It's quite true. In the past, there were few, if any, truly reliable tests for death, you see, and this gave rise to an uncommon number of premature burials. You will, no doubt, be familiar with the practice once followed by many of the coffin makers, who had devised various sorts of bellfries to stand atop the graves, with ropes leading down through tubes into the coffins so that someone buried prematurely could pull upon the rope and ring the bell as a signal for rescue. It never proved to be a very practical solution. Exhumed corpses found with blood upon their mouths were sometimes thought by the more imaginatively inclined to have left their graves and fed upon the flesh of the living. The actual explanation was a great deal less dramatic, though no less tragic. They were not really dead at the time of their burial and when they awoke in their coffins. they often bit themselves in their frenzy to escape. Also, for a long time, there was ignorance of the tact that hair and nails continue to grow for some time after death. This also contributed to the erroneous belief that the corpse was still 'living.' Unusual soil conditions in various parts of the world, particularly in volcanic regions, can result in an antiseptic environment that delays decomposition, which would account for reports of unusual preservation of dead bodies. Again, people often seized upon the more melodramatic explanations rather than the actual truth. Incomplete observation is worse than no observation at all, Grayson, and under properly observed conditions, all such things can be logically explained. Someone happens to see a so-called body leave a mausoleum and we have a report of walking dead, when a more careful investigation would undoubtedly have unearthed — you will excuse the pun-the explanation that a derelict had broken into a tomb to find shelter from the cold."
"But you spoke of living persons having the habit of vampirism," said Grayson.
"Quite so." said Conan Doyle. "There was, for example, the famous case of the notorious Gilles de Rais of France, tried in the year 1440 for the murder of over two hundred children. He stabbed them in their jugular veins and allowed their blood to spurt upon him so that he could drink it while he abused himself. At approximately the same period, there was also a Wallachian prince named Vlad Dracula, who built the citadel of Bucharest in 1456 and was so fond of impaling people upon spikes that he became known as Vlad Tepes, from the word repo in his native language, meaning 'spike.' He impaled over twenty thousand Turkish prisoners after one battle alone. From there, perhaps, stems your folklore concerning impaling vampires with wooden stakes. And then there was the case of the Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory, brought to justice in the year 1611 for the killing of over six hundred young girls. She tortured them in her dungeons, bled them and then bathed in their blood, supposedly to benefit her complexion."
"Good God," said Grayson.