Following this dramatic pronouncement Holmes fell into an obdurate silence. I gave it over in despair and turned my attention to the outside world. Above us, a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds spreading away from the volcanic peak of Mount Vitosh.
In the night, the city seemed to possess a peculiar acoustic property. Each sound was magnified, even the clink of our human horses’ shoes. A solitary passing carriage sounded like the parade-ground drill of a brigade of cavalry.
Some fifteen minutes later we crossed a murky, sluggish river and came to a large square. The air was pungent with the smell of stables and rotting vegetables. Despite the elegance and spacious nature of the habitations of iron and copper mine-proprietors to every side, and those built by merchants exporting flax, linseed, honey and tallow, the atmosphere was desolate. In Sofia it seemed nearly everyone except the street-sweepers collecting up piles of horse-droppings was in bed by ten.
Unwilling to approach the Mausoleum in the gloom, the porters halted in the centre at an obelisk remarkably like the milestone in London’s St. George’s Circus. This one honoured the Prince’s predecessor, Alexander. By it stood a small, silent coffee-stall, grey-hooded and with a pale lamp. We crossed the square on foot. The edifice was entirely surrounded by halberdiers. An officer in charge held a lantern to our faces and gave us permission to enter. My senses were already heightened by the sight of Salomé pressing her mouth to the severed head of John the Baptist. Inside they were further assaulted by the hot-house temperature, the massed flowers, the burning candles, the overpowering incense, all contained and compressed within Imperial porphyry walls.
Holmes gave a satisfied grunt. ‘Ah, she is still here,’ he whispered.
A single shaft of moonlight from an upper window fell upon the young woman’s cadaver. Her face was mask-like. A winding-cloth covered her up to her neck. A ruche of black gauze disguised as far as possible the strikingly vivid strangulation marks. By her side lay a pair of gloves and a fan. In the candlelight her lips shone in a crimson ellipse, shaped and coloured by the art of the undertaker with cochineal dye and beeswax. No longer utterly pallid, the cheeks were now too red.
A custodian lay asleep on the floor, wearing a shabby dark brown suit of the native tweed, the black-cloth collar shiny with grease. He awoke at our entry. Noting our attire, he rose respectfully. Holmes signed to him, ‘We have come to pay our respects to the dear departed’, adding aloud, ‘In our country, our custom is to show the utmost respect for the dead by a kiss.’
Startled, I began, ‘But, Holmes - ’
I was silenced by his urgent whisper: ‘Not now, Watson, I beg you.’ Louder, he continued to address me, ‘Doctor, you may pay your respects to the dear departed in your turn, in your own way, as I must in mine.’
The man took hold of the shroud as though to throw it back to reveal a hand. ‘On the lips,’ Holmes repeated, illustrating his words by tapping a forefinger to his own. Reaching into his pocket as he spoke my companion brought out a gold hundred-leva coin. It glistered even in the dim light.
Overwhelmed by Holmes’s superb assurance, the man took the gratuity with a slight, if uncertain nod, and moved across the marble floor to withdraw the rope between us and the catafalque. He pointed wordlessly to a small jewelled casket containing a chrismaria of holy oils before turning away to permit us the moment’s privacy.
Holmes stepped forward. He bent over the dead woman. For a moment his face hovered over hers like a bird of prey, a gap of a mere inch between his nose and hers. In the dim light he looked more Iroquois Indian than Celt. Suddenly his head dropped down. His face pressed voraciously into the swathe of bright red colouring. His thin lips swept from side to side across her mouth like a bison wiping away snow to reach the vegetation below. That the first kiss I had ever seen delivered by the most perfect reasoning and observing machine the world has ever known should be delivered to a woman’s corpse shocked me to my very essence. My legs went weak with the horror of it.
For perhaps six seconds Holmes’s lips remained locked to hers before he detached himself and straightened up. He dipped a finger in the chrism and touched a small amount of the sweetened olive oil at the point the woman’s nose met her forehead. The scent of balsam lifted into the heated air of the Mausoleum.
A further long minute passed. My comrade stepped away from the catafalque and turned to thank the custodian. The man’s eyes widened. He gave a shriek the like of which I had never before heard from a human-being. It vibrated with a frenzy of terror in the small space enclosed by the red marble walls, reverberating across the Mausoleum until it ran together into one long unearthly scream.
Holmes turned swiftly to me. The same thrill of horror which sent the custodian fleeing suffused me. My comrade’s close-set grey eyes and sharp, hawk-like nose were now conjoined with a ghastly slash of crimson which extended his mouth more than an inch to either side. He looked as if he had feasted ravenously on the dead woman’s blood, as though he was now a member of the brotherhood of vampires.
These many years later I retain a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’ triumphant expression, the ring of his voice, his proclamation, ‘The matter grows in interest. Watson, I have seen and done everything that I need to. Pay your respects if you wish and we must leave.’
Still reeling from the horror of his face, I reached down and gave a swift pull at the shroud to access the woman’s hand. With the winding-cloth withdrawn, a ship’s chain holding fast to her wrists and ankles became visible. The hand I intended to bring to my lips fell away with a loud clank. The authorities had made sure this unclaimed corpse was firmly pinned down by the dead weight of cast-iron. The victim of a vampire would never rise up from the dead to pursue a frightened populace.
Chapter XIX
DÉNOUEMENT
TO my immense relief Holmes led us out of the Mausoleum. We found ourselves once more on the dusty square. The halberdiers, deeply disconcerted by the custodian’s headlong flight through their cordon, fell away in confusion. I chided my companion immediately. ‘Holmes, kissing a dead woman on the mouth is not something I would expect - ’
He interrupted me with a grim but satisfied look. ‘Pshaw, Watson! I can assure you the meeting of our lips was as instructive as a meeting of our minds. I have in my hands,’ he continued confidently, ‘all the threads which have formed such a tangle.’
‘Then I wish you would put me out of my bewilderment!’ I exclaimed. ‘Never in all my years with you - ’
‘My dear Watson,’ my comrade returned, ‘I do not wish to make a mystery but a little over-precipitance may ruin all. We must move with great speed, otherwise I would put you out of your misery. Soon I shall lay an account of the case before you in its due order, showing you the various points which guided me in my deduction. I merely remind you that women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.’
I was not to be silenced. ‘I have no doubt even a connection between old Army boots and a Turkish bath is perfectly self-evident to a logical mind, and yet I should be obliged if you would indicate what in the name of the Almighty could you discover by giving the cadaver so - so - muscular a kiss on the mouth? I would never have expected - ’
‘My dear sir,’ Holmes broke back impatiently, ‘in your time in my wake what you would never have expected would fill far more battered tin-boxes than the dozen or so shilling dreadfuls you have so far managed to scribble.’ He continued in a more placatory tone, ‘I tell you we are enveloped in a riddle wrapped in a mystery as deep and complex as anything we have ever confronted. Remind me, what was your explanation for the abrasions on her face?’