his head, that the inner coffin was currently empty.
Holmes and I exchanged glances, while Armstrong, more and more puzzled, not aware that any discovery had yet been made, or that any decision was being taken, continued to look on impatiently.
Sherlock Holmes sighed, and I realized that he had decided it would be best to open the coffin, to demonstrate its vacancy to Armstrong. Though the young man was bound to misinterpret this discovery at first, yet it was a step on the way of preparing him for the truth which he might sooner or later have to face. I wondered whether Holmes also expected, or hoped to find some clue or evidence in the coffin, even though it should be untenanted.
Dracula returned to his position as sentry outside the mausoleum, while I continued to hold the lantern, and Holmes got to work with hammer and chisel and wrench. The inner container was of soft sheet-lead and easily cut apart.
Armstrong, despite his stoutly expressed confidence in Louisa’s survival, continued to exhibit thinly controlled anxiety while first the outer and then the inner container were being opened.
There were the white-satin pillows, showing a round indentation where a head had rested. but the head was gone, along with the rest of the corporeal tenant of the coffin.
“It is, as you see, empty.”
The young American let out a great sigh of relief. “Gentlemen, we have proof at last!”
I, at least, started in surprise on hearing this comment. but I realized that to Armstrong, the empty coffin was resounding confirmation of his own favorite theory. According to him, Louisa had never actually been interred here at all–no one had.
“Look at the sealing on the coffin, gentlemen–there has been no grave-robbery here. The body we all mourned last month as Louisa’s was taken away somehow at the last moment, and the coffin buried empty. With all that lead, no one noticed the difference in weight. The kidnappers have done a thorough job!”
Sherlock Holmes and Prince Dracula–the latter had now stepped back inside the door–exchanged a look, whose meaning I thought I could read perfectly: it would be useless at the present time to attempt to give the young man anything like a full explanation of the true state of affairs.
In fact, none of we older men could be sure at this point whether Louisa was out roaming, foraging for animal or human blood, or whether our chief opponent had intelligently anticipated our investigation here and had therefore moved Louisa elsewhere. The latter was perhaps the safest, as well as the most likely assumption.
We resealed the coffins, inner and outer, so that a close inspection of the outer would be necessary to tell that anything had been disturbed. We relocked the doors of the charnel house, and in general put things back as they had been. Then we took our departure.
Choosing a moment when Armstrong could not hear him, Holmes put into words the thought we others shared: “Her native earth lies around her for miles in every direction, and there are an almost infinite number of places where she may be hidden.”
Even Dracula could not undertake to find her in any reasonably limited period of time.
Know, then, that Martin Armstrong, despite his brave statements to the contrary, had actually been troubled by the empty coffin–it was as if until now he had not really believed that his own bizarre theory was true, but had only been using it as a kind of psychic crutch, to cope with the reality of death. but now he had to believe in it–or allow that something else must have happened which was even stranger. Uncomfortable with either possibility, the young American returned to his room in Norberton House a little after midnight and fell uneasily asleep.
Some hours later, in the midst of that deep satisfying darkness (at least I find it so) that comes not too long before the dawn, Martin had fallen into an unpleasant dream–he told me about it later. It seemed to him that he was struggling to row a huge, ungainly boat upstream, all the while feeling tormented and cast into despair by the knowledge that he was late–terribly, irretrievably, late for the most vital appointment of his lifetime.
He was roused from this dream, none too soon for the sake of his mental health, by a familiar voice, softly and persistently whispering his name; and he opened his eyes in predawn darkness to find his beloved Louisa sitting close beside him, right on the edge of his bed.
She was very close to him–in fact in actual contact. She even held a hand stretched out, as if she were about to touch his cheek, his throat, caressingly.
The next few moments were full of confusion for the young man. before he became fully aware that he was not still dreaming, some part of his distracted mind could not help noticing the reassuring solidity of Louisa’s corporeal presence. Her body, though slender as always, weighed down one side of the mattress with a more substantial effect than he would have expected. The window behind Louisa’s head created an aureole of predawn sky light–the ghostly glow of stars and moon and cosmic rays–around the tangled paleness of her hair. At the moment, with this backlighting, Martin could see nothing of her face even though she sat turned directly toward him.
The night in general was very quiet, but somewhere in the background, far to the east, thunder and lightning played, a flare and sound too distant to have awakened him.
“Martin?” Louisa’s voice, uttering his name once more, was small and lost, just as he had heard it at the seance. but he had no problem in identifying it as hers.
He sat up automatically, pushing back the covers, wiping the sleeve of his nightshirt across his eyes, reflexively expressing doubt as to what they showed him. “Oh... my darling. I knew you couldn’t be dead. I knew it!” He paused. “Are you all right?”
Foolish question, because he could see how she was–lovely, fresh, and warm, and still dressed in the cerements of the grave.
He strained to see her face, but that was still well-nigh impossible.
“Martin, can you help me? I’m caught in the most hideous nightmare. I can’t go to Mother or Father–I don’t dare–becky’s room’s right next to theirs. If I can’t turn to you, then there’s no one.”
“Of course, of course, love. You can turn to me, Lou. What’s happened?” He was aflame with both fear and fascination, dying to know what had happened to her in the hands of the kidnappers. In the back of Armstrong’s mind was the idea that he would have to have second thoughts about marrying a woman who had suffered a fate worse than death.
And even now, in his first awareness that she had come back to him again, there came a moment of revulsion at the sheer strangeness of this new Louisa. He tried to put the strangeness from his mind, to focus his attention on her beauty–but he could not entirely succeed.
“Marty,” she repeated. “Can you help me?”
“Of course, Lou. What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know. Help me out of this.” And for a moment, Louisa buried her invisible face in her pale hands.
Armstrong choked, at about this point, and could think of nothing further to say. The only certainty in all the world was the total, unarguable awareness of Louisa’s presence in his room, in his bed.
At last he managed, “You’ve got free of them now.”
“Got free?” Her hands came down. Now he thought that he could see her eyes. And something about her teeth, as if she were smiling strangely.
“Free of the villains who took you away,” the young man replied. “You’re here. Safe. With me.” but even as he spoke those words they sounded odd and hollow in his own ears, and he knew with part of his mind that they were not true. Whatever strange and terrible thing had happened to Louisa had not yet been put right; and neither of them were yet anywhere near being truly free.
“No, Marty, I’m not free. Not free at all. Whenever
