'What are you talking about?' said Irving.
'I am almost afraid to say it,' Stoker said. 'Perhaps my imagination is merely overactive. But those marks are not imaginary.'
'Bram, for God's sake! What is it?'
'Have you read Carmilla. by Le Fanu?” Stoker said.
Irving stared at him uncomprehendingly. ' What? Sheridan LeFanu, the novelist? What are you… “ His voice trailed off as he stared at the marks on Angeline's throat. 'You mean that story about a countess who was a-' He caught himself and lowered his voice so that only Stoker could hear him, '-a vampire?' He swallowed hard and shook his head. 'No, no, that is absurd, a fantasy. Such creatures don't exist.'
'How can we say for certain?' Stoker said. 'I admit it sounds incredible. Henry. but how else can you explain those marks upon her throat?'
'She must have accidentally stabbed herself with something. a brooch. perhaps.'
'Twice? Both times, directly overthe jugular vein
'No. I have heard enough.' said Irving. 'I am sending everyone home before you have the entire cast in a panic.'
'I do not think that would be wise,' said Stoker. 'The police will probably want to question everyone.'
'The police! Must we have the police?'
'I see no avoiding it.' said Stoker. 'We have a dead young woman on our hands and no explanation for her demise. The police will have to be called in. An investigation must he
Irving passed his hand riser his eyes. 'Oh, dear Heaven! Very well, Bram, you handle everything. But for God's sake, be careful what you tell them! Please, make no fanciful suggestions. As for myself, I am quite done in by all of this. God, she died in my very arms! If the police wish to speak with me, they can find me at home, but if there is any way it can be avoided- 'I will handle things. Henry.' said Stoker.
'Yes. Yes, you'll see to everything, won't you?'
'I always do,' said Stoker.
'And for Heaven's sake, no wild theories about… you know.'
Stoker glanced up at him and then looked back down at the dead girl. 'Yes,' he said. 'I know.'
2
Electricity had come to London. but it had not yet arrived in Limehouse. Westminster Bridge was the first place to receive electric lighting in 1858, but it was not until 1887 that the first station of the Kensington and Knightsbridge Electric Lighting Company was opened. The first large power station started operation in Dwptford in 1889; the London Electricity Supply Company was formed and the city was lit electrically from fleet Street to Aldgate, but it took a long time for electricity to completely replace gas and in 1894, much of London was still illuminated by gaslight. The gas companies were consuming over six million tons of coal per year and the malting effects could be seen in London's famous fogs. An atmosphere permeated by soot particles had blackened the city's buildings and it was frequently so thick that coach traffic was forced to move at a snail's pace and pedestrian trawlers often became lost in their own neighborhoods due to lack of visibility.
The lime kilns around the docks which gave Limehouse its name dated back to the 14th century. It was a center of shipbuilding, a part of the industrial East End. Most of the area's residents were employed in the shipyards and on the ducks and most of them were poor. There was a large population of immigrant Chinese, especially around the Limehouse Causeway, where gambling houses and opium dens could be found by those in search of London's more decadent diversions. It was in Limehouse that Sax Rohmer's evil Oriental mastermind, Fu Manchu, made his London headquarters.
Just off the Limehouse Causeway, in a tiny side street that was little more than an alleyway, there was a small apothecary shop owned and operated by an elderly Chinese named Lin Tao. The old man was bowed and wrinkled, with a stringy white beard that reached halfway down his chest and a white braid that hung down his back to his waist. His forehead was high and he always wore a small, embroidered cap, not unlike a Jewish yarmulke. His slanted eyes, rather than giving him the so-called 'cruel' aspect stereotypically attributed to his people. were soft and kind. He spoke English excellently, in a quiet, musical voice with a Chinese accent, and he lived in the back rooms of his establishment with his young orphaned granddaughter, Ming Li, whom he was educating in the trade.
Ming Li preferred to go by the name Jasmine, which had been bestowed upon her by an old ship's captain who frequently came to Lin Tao's apothecary shop for a preparation to ease the pain of his arthritis. Jasmine was the scent she wore and most of Lin Tao's non-Chinese customers called her by that name. She was nineteen years old and very beautiful, with thick, jet black hair that hung down to her hips and a narrow, oval face. She was as slender as a bamboo stalk and her legs were long and exquisitely formed. She had long since learned what most men wanted from her, but she was not as vulnerable as she looked. Although few people knew it, her grandfather, for all his withered appearance, was a master of an ancient Oriental form of combat and he had taught it to his granddaughter. In China, he had once been an important man. It was for that reason they had left, booking passage on a freighter of the Blue Funnel Line. Lin Tao had become too important and too well known. And his age had made him vulnerable to ambitious younger men. He had started anew in London and in Limehouse; he had become a respected man in the Chinese community. A man of authority, A man whose granddaughter no one in the know would touch, because an insult to Ming Li would have meant death. Besides, Jasmine knew how to protect herself. And Jasmine was in love.
The man Jasmine was in love with lived upstairs in a small room above the apothecary shop. He helped her grandfather in the shop and he seemed to know a great deal about the apothecary's art, though his knowledge was of a different sort than Lin Tao's. They often spent long evenings in discussion over tea, sharing their respective knowledge. The man was secretive about his past, but Lin Tao understood that and he had instructed Jasmine not to bother him with questions. He respected his boarder's privacy. He also respected his wisdom. This man had come into the shop two months ago, looking for work. He had been penniless. At first, her grandfather meant to turn away this bearded stranger with the shabby clothes, but it quickly became apparent to him that this man had culture. He also possesed a great deal of unusual knowledge, though he would not say how he came by it. He had proper manners, unusual in an occidental, and he spoke the language of the mandarins as if he had been born in China. He also spoke a number of other languages with equal fluency, a definite advantage in a community of Chinese and Lascars and numerous other foreigners, many from the ships that called at the West India Docks. He said he was a doctor. When Jasmine was alone, she sometimes said his name out loud to herself, enjoying the sound of it. Morro. Dr. Morro.
In her imagination, she had created a romantic past for him, knowing nothing of his real history. He had once been an important man, a man of position, but something terrible had happened, some tragedy which had hurt him deeply, making him turn his back on everything he knew. He kept this secret hurt close to his heart, punishing himself for whatever it was that he had done. He was an older man, old enough to be her father, but Jasmine did not see him in that light. She wondered what it would be like to ease his hurt, to take it from him with her love. to help him find his way to a place of position in the English society as a respected physician, a surgeon perhaps, in one of
London's better hospitals with an office of his own in Harley Street and a fine home in
Grosvenor Square which she would share with him as his wife.
But, although Dr. Morro was always kind to her, his manner towards her was more that of an uncle than a potential lover. He did not look at her as other men did, with desire clearly written in his eyes. And he was often preoccupied, so that sometimes he did not hear her when she spoke to him and she had to raise her voice slightly to break through his train of thought. There were times when he would be sitting with her grandfather, drinking tea and talking quietly, and they would abruptly stop their conversation the moment she came in. Then they would resume it once again, as if casually, but Jasmine knew that they were no longer talking about the same thing. Her
