Dracula in London

“Must be the butler’s day off too,” chimed in another neighbor.

“You say your father’s, here, miss?” This was the policeman, slow and majestic, in the mode of a large and overbearing uncle. “I’d like to have a word with him, if I may.”

“He doesn’t like to be disturbed.” Carrie could hear her own voice threatening to break into a childish squeal. For a little while, for a few hours, it had looked like they might be able to survive. But now…

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs. But—”

“Asleep, then, is he?”

“I—I—yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Oh yes, you are, I don’t think! See here, my girl, unless I have some evidence that you and the young ‘un here are under some supervision, you’ll both be charged with wandering, and not being under proper guardianship.”

Carrie, standing at bay at the foot of the stair, gripping her brother by his shoulder, raised her voice in protest, but the voices of the others increased in volume too. They seemed to be all talking at once, making accusations and demands—

Suddenly their voices cut off altogether. Their eyes that had been fixed on Carrie rose up to somewhere above her head, and behind her on the stair there was a creak of wood, as under a quiet but weighty tread.

She turned to see a tall, well-built, well-dressed man coming down with measured steps. Perfectly calm, as if he descended these stairs every day, a gentleman in his own house. His brownish hair, well-trimmed, was touched with gray at the temples, and an aquiline nose gave his face a forceful look. At the moment he was fussing with his cuffs, as if he had just put on his coat, and frowning in apparent puzzlement at the assembly below him.

Carrie had never seen him before in her life; nor had Christopher, to judge by the boy’s awestruck expression as he watched from her side.

The newcomer’s voice was strangely accented, low but forceful, suited to his appearance, as his gaze swept the little group gathered in his front hall. “What is the meaning of this intrusion? Officer? Carrie, what do these people want?”

Carrie could find no words at the moment. Not even when the man came to stand beside her in a fatherly attitude, resting one hand lightly on her back.

“Mr. Martin—?” The bobby’s broad face wore a growing look of consternation. Already he had retreated half a step toward the door. Meanwhile the nosy neighbors, looking unhappy, were moving even faster in the same direction.

“Yes? Do you have official business with me, officer?”

Vincent had disappeared.

The policeman recovered slightly, and stood upon official dignity; thought there might be some disturbance. Duty to investigate. But soon he too had given way under the cool gaze of the man from upstairs. In the space of a few more heartbeats the door had closed on the last of them.

The mysterious one stood regarding the door for a moment, hands clasped behind his back—they were pale hands, Carrie noted, strong-looking, and the nails tended to points. Then he reached over to the hat rack on the wall behind the door, and plucked from it a gentleman’s top hat, a thing she could not for the life of her remember seeing there before. But of course she had scarcely looked. And then he turned, at ease, to regard her with a smile too faint to reveal anything of his teeth.

“I take it you are in fact the lady of the house? The only one I am likely to encounter on the premises?”

The children stared at him.

Gently he went on. “I am not given to eavesdropping, but this afternoon my sleep was restless, and the talk I could hear below me grew ever and ever more interesting.” The foreign accent was stronger now; but in Soho accents of all kinds were nothing out of the ordinary.

“Yes sir.” Carrie stood with an arm around her brother. “Yes sir—that is, there is no other lady, er woman, girl, living here at present.”

“That is good. It would seem superfluous to introduce myself, as you have already, in effect, introduced me to others. Mr. Martin I have become, and so I might as well remain. But when others are present, you, Carrie, and you, young sir, will address me as ‘Father.’ For however many days our joint tenancy of this dwelling may last. Understand, I do not seek to adopt you, but a temporary arrangement should be to our mutual advantage. A happy, close-knit family, yes, that is the face we present to the world. When it is necessary to present a face. Ah, you will kindly leave the upper regions of the house to me—if anyone should ask you, it is really my house, paid for in coin of the realm. In the name of Mr. de Ville.”

“Yes sir,” said Carrie, elbowing her brother until he echoed the two words.

“And now, my children.” Mr. Martin, or de Ville, set his hat upon his head, and gave it a light tap with two pale fingers, as if to settle it exactly to his liking. Carrie noticed that as he did so, he ignored the old mirror on the wall beside the hat rack. And she could see why, or she imagined she could, because the small mirror did not show the man at all, but only the top hat, doing a neat half-somersault unsupported in the air, its reflected image disappearing utterly just as the hat itself came to rest on the head of the mysterious one.

“I am going out for the evening,” he informed them. “I advise you to lock up for the night as solidly as possible. Do not expect to see me again until about this time tomorrow. Pleasant dreams…”

On the verge of opening the door, he checked himself, frowning at them.

“The two of you have an undernourished and ill-clad look, which I find distasteful, and will only provoke more neighborly curiosity. Here.” White fingers performed an economical toss; a small coin, glittering gold, spun through the air. Christopher’s quick hand, like a hungry bird, snatched it in midnight.

That night brother and sister slept with full bellies, having gone out foraging amid the early evening crowds, to a nearby branch of the Aerated Bread Company. At a used furniture stall Carrie had also bought herself a nice frock, almost new, and a couple of pillows; it was awkward living in a house where there were no beds or chairs. And Christopher had found a secondhand pair of shoes that fit him well enough. They were going to sleep on the kitchen floor again, but they were getting used to it.

“Where’d he sleep, is what I’d like to know,” said Chris next day, climbing the stairs up from the parlor. The man had said he’d not be back till sunset, so now in midafternoon there was no harm in gratifying their curiosity, never mind that he’d said to keep below.

Both of the bedrooms were as desolate as ever, and the dust on their floors showed only their own footprints, one set shod, one five-toed, from yesterday’s exploration.

“And how’d he get into the house?” Carrie wanted to know. “Didn’t come past us downstairs.”

“You don’t suppose—?”

“The skylight? Why’d a man do that?”

” ‘Cause he don’t want to be seen.”

And they went up the narrow white stair, through the trapdoor.

The skylight was as snugly fastened as before. Out of persistent curiosity they approached the mysterious box again. The lid, once moved, fell clattering with shock and fright.

“Oh my God. He’s in there!”

But none of this awakened Mr. Martin.

After initially recoiling, both children had to have a closer look. In urgent whispers they soon decided the man who lay so neatly and cleanly on the earth in his nice clothes was not dead. His open eyes moved faintly. In Carrie’s experience, people sometimes got drunk, but never had even the drunkest of them looked like this. Some people also took strange drugs, and with that she had less familiarity.

A ring at the front door broke the spell and pulled them down the stairs. A solid workman stood on the step, cap in hand. In a thick Cockney accent he said he had come to inquire about a box, one that might have been delivered here “by mistake.” Carrie, in a clean dress today, and with her face washed, denied all knowledge and briskly sent the questioner on his way.

“I don’t think he believed me,” Carrie muttered to her brother, when the door was closed again. “He’ll be