On approaching him with my professional manner I had better success, and soon succeeded in getting his hand bandaged. Still Altamont, though yielding to my ministrations, seemed scarcely aware of his injury. Gradually I understood that the man had undergone something approximating a religious conversion, during the last few minutes of darkness following the appearance of his daughter–the image, the figure he had seen, had very probably touched, had been genuinely that of his little girl.
As I tied the knot securing the bandage on his hand, he roused himself from this ecstatic trance to become aware of who I was and what I was doing. His manner turned grim. “I was wrong, Watson, I was terribly wrong. Oh, forgive me, Louisa–the blessed spirits will forgive me, I know they will!”
“The blessed spirits?” I asked hollowly–my thoughts were still full of that shadowed horror which had hung near me in the darkness, and had struck twice at members of our group.
Martin Armstrong, who had now collapsed into another chair nearby, was also overjoyed, but while listening to Louisa’s father, kept shaking his head in obvious disagreement. “No,” the young man interjected at one point. “No, sir, you don’t understand. Oh, she came back, she did indeed! but the blessed spirits had nothing to do with it!”
The father, however, ignored this comment, and springing up suddenly from his chair, began clutching at one person after another, weeping in his growing joy and his continuing amazement.
Repeatedly he told us how Louisa, in the brief interval when she had been present, had spoken to her father of things no one else could possibly have known. Though stunned with astonishment, he was certain of her identity.
“And then... and then... certain things happened. There was a dreadful interference... which drove her away again.” Once more a sterner expression came into his face, and he looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time since the lights had been restored. “Where,” he demanded, “is Mr. Holmes?”
Armstrong, in the background, was still in smiling disagreement, but made no further argument.
Tersely I explained, as best I could, the situation with regard to Holmes.
As he heard me out, Ambrose Altamont, his clothing disheveled, his hair standing on end, assumed a new expression. Presently he began to speak in a much harder voice. In a few moments I understood–he now blamed Holmes and me for his daughter’s untimely flight, and the accompanying violence.
“Sir,” I protested, “it was neither Holmes nor I who struck down the young man lying on your terrace!”
Energetically he waved off my protests. “No, of course not. Not with your own hands. but it was the interference, you see, which caused the trouble–it must have been.”
I would have protested, but fiercely he waved me to silence. “There are dark powers as well as light. I was warned about such things, but I would not listen. I did not believe, because I had not seen.” Then Altamont paused, seeming to reconsider. “Not that it is entirely–perhaps not even chiefly–your fault. I must share fully in the blame, Dr. Watson. I must curse the day when I brought you two here to interfere.”
Our client–now evidently our former client–went on to express great concern over the fate of Abraham Kirkaldy, which he at last seemed to realize, and to issue me a stern warning that all further harassment–by which he evidently meant all investigation–of the mediums must cease. Obviously the spirits were angry at our hostile intrusion, and with some justification.
Yes, Altamont was saying in effect, it was certainly too bad if something terrible had happened to Holmes, and if something even worse had happened to the poor young man–yes, he, Louisa’s father, blamed himself for bringing in the detectives.
He fixed me with the eye of a fanatic, even as he attempted to comfort his wife. “Can you understand now, Doctor, that we are dealing here with powers that must not be mocked? I tell you sir, my worst fear now is that tonight’s interference might have driven our little girl away from us for good!” And Madeline Altamont screamed again.
Meanwhile Martin Armstrong and I had begun to insist that the police must be called in–some unknown person had committed an act of violence which was almost certain to prove fatal. And–a servant discovered the fact while we were arguing–a robbery had taken place as well. A safe in Ambrose Altamont’s study was found open, and some items of jewelry it had contained, all fairly common things of no enormous value, had been taken.
Fortunately, Norberton House was equipped with a telephone.
The local constabulary were on the scene within twenty minutes following my call. A quarter of an hour after their arrival, they were in agreement with me that the help of Scotland Yard would, in this case, be very desirable if not absolutely essential. Holmes was still missing. No trace could be found of the weapon which had struck down Abraham Kirkaldy, while it was obvious that his injury must be due to something more than an accident.
Four more hours passed, and full daylight had broken over the scene before Scotland Yard’s help arrived, in the person of Inspector Merivale, whom I was heartily glad to see.
Merivale was a tallish man with keen blue eyes, dark hair, and a small mustache of which he was rather vain, frequently stroking or smoothing it with a finger. He was, I knew, regarded by Holmes as one of the best of the younger detectives at Scotland Yard. On his arrival he justified this opinion, as I thought, by temporarily setting aside the clamor of other witnesses wanting to be heard, to listen very seriously to my testimony regarding the disappearance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. To my disappointment, it soon became apparent to me that the representative of the Yard more than half-believed that Holmes had vanished of his own volition, and would reappear in the same way when he was ready.
Needless to say, I made no mention to anyone, including Merivale, of Holmes’s earlier suspicions regarding vampires, and how they had been confirmed. Whatever help my old friend might need from me, I would be unable to provide it while confined in an asylum.
An energetic search of the immediate vicinity revealed no trace of any skulking strangers–or of Holmes. At the direction of Scotland Yard, plans were made to bring in a dog to follow the trail. Within an hour of Merivale’s arrival, the animal and its handler were on the scene, and I provided them with some items of clothing Holmes had brought with him from London and which were now in his room. but after following what seemed to be the right trail through the garden for twenty yards or so, the brute came to a sudden stop, howled pitifully, and absolutely refused to go on.
Despite what had happened to young Kirkaldy, Merivale professed himself doubtful that Holmes faced any immediate peril; fraudulent mediums were not, as a rule, violent. Then he added: “You know, Dr. Watson, better than anyone else, what he’s like. The tricks he’s played on all of us down through the years.”
I shook my head wearily. “Nothing that happened last night was a trick, inspector. Not on our part, at any rate.”
All the police were willing to do whatever they could for Sherlock Holmes; but after the most thorough search possible of the house and grounds, they had no trail to follow.