The Leichester Vampire

The Leicester Vampire
By
Peter Yin

The weather was foggy and wet. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson were reading newspapers. Sherlock Holmes was a detective in London, and he liked doing some experiment. He really enjoyed it. Watson was a doctor in London and he worked hard. At this time, a strong man ran in with a tall hat that looked like a lighthouse. His name was Mr. Smith.
“Holmes, Holmes a scary thing happened in our neighborhood. Please help me this time.”
“Look at yourself. Mr. Smith, teased hair with a red nose. This must be something very scary,” said Watson, “I think Holmes can help you, he helps people just like you.
Dirty shoes and wet umbrella, unlucky maybe, you live in the north of Leister, it is not a good place for people to live in,” said Holmes.
“What? How do you know that? You are right! I do live in the north of Leister. In a small village, that only has a few families in it. We live happily. People are friends there. We have a party together once a week. People in our small town have great holidays: we have New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas, and Halloween, all the normal holidays. You know, we had a great time before this thing happened last week; it was a scary thing in our village. This thing has destroyed our happy life, now it has only his family, and mine live in this town. I could not stand it any more, so I came to see you. You are the only one who can solve this problem,” said Mr. Smith.
“Ok, what is the question?” Holmes asked.
“I have a good friend called William. K. Shakes. This thing happened in his home.
Once, his servant Mr. Potter was sweeping the floor. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise, which came from the second floor; he went upstairs, into the baby’s bedroom. He saw Mrs. Shakes sitting on the baby’s bed, putting her mouth on the baby’s throat, and drinking the baby’s blood. Mrs. Shakes had blue eyes and long straight hair. She was putting her mouth on the baby’s throat and seemed to be drinking blood. Mr. Potter was too scared to stand up. He saw Mrs. Shakes with blood around her mouth. To his surprise, Mrs. Shakes walked forward to him, gave him 5 pounds, and asked him not tell anyone what he had seen. He agreed, but still decided to wait and watch.
From that time on, Mr. Potter could not sleep any more, because he always thought about the baby’s health. When he lay on the bed, he always pictured Mrs. Shakes with straight black hair, putting her mouth on her baby’s throat, drinking his blood.
One day, he told this thing to Mr. Shakes. “Mr. Shakes, there is something wrong with your wife. She drank her baby’s blood. I saw that. Please believe me.” said Mr. Potter.,
”Are you kidding? She drank our baby’s blood. It cannot be!” said Mr. Shakes. Of course, he did not know anything, but he could not believe his ears. He always thought his wife was the best girl in the world; every man thought the same thing.
”No, please believe me. Or your baby will die.”
Just as they were talking, the loud baby’s cry came again. So they ran to the baby’s bedroom in a hurry. This time, Mr. Shakes felt a little scared and excited, because of the baby’s crying. A big red mark was on the baby’s throat, because Mrs. Shakes put her mouth on it. In this situation, Mr. Shakes and Mr. Potter were very frightened and then ran as quickly as they could.
The vampire, Mrs. Shakes, seemed to want to say something, because when the two men ran away, Mr. Potter once had turned his head and heard, “Hey, wait. I was not” after these words, he could not hear anything more. That is all.”
“That is a good story. I mean very good.” Said Holmes, and clapped his hands, “I have never heard such a good story. I will be glad to help you this time. Wait for me in your old house. I will go there tomorrow.” said Holmes.
“Thank you very much, Sherlock Holmes. You are the best detective in the world,” said Mr. Smith, walking out of the room waving his hands.
“I promise to finish this thing perfectly in three days. Do not be worried about anything,” Holmes said loudly.
After Mr. Smith left, Watson said, “You promised, you will finish this thing? Remember this, if you promise one thing, no matter if you have time or not, you have to finish it quickly.”
“Oh, my dear Watson you look tired. You need to have a good sleep. Well, before I go for a walk, let me see if I can relax you by playing the violin, and maybe you can sleep for awhile.”
Sherlock Holmes had short hair, tall nose, and a clear, good-thinking mind. There was something strange in Watson’s mind, because he is not good at detective work. He just thought he could help Holmes finish this thing quickly.
Watson could not go to sleep, because of the things in his mind. He always wondered, “How could Holmes know things about people and places. To him, the story that Mr. Smith told, was a real horror story. He had that picture in his mind every minute. He pictured a women standing in a dark room, her long hair keeping her face covered. He saw some spiders and their webs on the walls of his mind. The vampire had two sharp teeth and a white face; she also has two red marks on her throat, because someone drank her blood before so she became a vampire. How scary this story is!
It was good weather the next day. When Watson got up, and stood near the window, he looked outside and heard birds singing. Holmes called Watson after a few minutes, “Hurry up, hurry up, my dear Watson. We have to go and catch the early train.”
They went down stairs, went to the train station, and sat down on a bench. They were at that old house in a quarter of an hour.
“Wow! This is the oldest house I ever seen Holmes,” said Watson in surprise, “It is really big. This house has three or four floors with sharp roofs everywhere on it. It has short bushes just inside the big garden.
“Well I think there is another difference in this garden. Not only is this a huge garden, but also it has another strange thing. You know, the more the house is, the more surprising thing it has. This dog has something different with its neck. It seemed like a kind of disease.” Holmes walked after Watson and looked at the dog carefully.

“I am afraid that I do not understand what you said.” Watson asked.
“Of course, you will know in a few minutes.” He said.
Soon Mr. Potter came out and met Mr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. He welcomed them into that house. People there were friendly to Holmes and Watson. They gave them Chinese Green Tea. The family wanted them to have dinner with them. They talked about Mr. Shake’s family and something about vampires. Watson thought that they always did this or that for their guests. They prepared Chinese Food, and some east European food.
Holmes’ activity was strange and made Watson feel guilty, because he acted impolitely. He did not understand why, but he knew Holmes was doing something mentally.
It took only a few minutes, he had looked around this big house three times, went to Mr. Shake’ s room five times, and ‘vampire” Mrs. Shakes room three times. Then he walked toward us.
‘Thanks for serving Watson and I. Let me tell you the truth now.”
“What, have you already solved this ‘vampire’ case?”
‘‘All of you do not know what I did in these last few minutes. You have just said Mrs. Shakes was a vampire, because she drinks her baby’s blood. I am one hundred percent sure this is wrong. She never drank her baby’s blood,” said Sherlock Holmes in a loud voice.
“Have you heard the story about our British queen, who drank her baby’s blood to suck out some poison? She wanted to save her baby’s life. At that time, people thought she was a vampire, too. Her intelligence made people believe her.
“Did you notice your dog downstairs in the garden? It also has a similar poison in its body. After I went to your weapon room, I notice a kind of weapon that was used by South American Indians some years ago. It has a poison on it because Indians wanted to slaughter animals. At that time, they had no easy way to kill something, so they used their knives to cut one kind of poisonous tree. They collected the poison, and put the venom on their weapons to make it easier to kill animals. Your baby may have touched the weapon, and ate food after that therefore swallowing the poison. Your baby then played with the dog that has the same disease in its body. Mr. Shakes wants to suck the poison after she notices it. Now, let us listen to Mrs. Shakes,” said Sherlock Holmes.
Just at this time, Mr. and Mrs. Shakes both came down stairs to the sitting room.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Holmes. First, I want to say, that I put my mouth on my baby’s throat, because my baby has a disease, which is the same as the dog. That would make him die in a few months. The only way to solve this problem is to suck out the poison in the baby’s throat. I can only do it myself, if I let my husband know it, he will be crazy.” said Mrs. Shakes.
“Thank you very much, Sherlock Holmes. How did you know that the dog’s disease was in the child?” asked Mr. Shakes in surprise.
“It’s a really simple case; I have just told your servants downstairs, you can ask them. We have to go now Watson, I still have some bomb experiments”
“How can I ever repay you, Sherlock Holmes? This is an important thing for our family. Thank you so much.”
“Nothing, thank you. We have to go now, Watson.”
“OK, let us go. “By the way, don’t forget to keep your baby carefully.”
How did you solve that case so quickly?”
“Let us go, Watson. You have seen me solve this kind of mystery many times,” said Holmes as he lit up a cigar, and expounded to Watson about the latest “fuse” theory he had developed.
“By Jove… always thinking about your experiments and your cigars.”