SPOILERS
| Added | Thu, 30/05/2024 |
| Release date | 1927
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| Original title | The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
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| Феномены | |
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"The Vampire in Sussex" (English: "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire") is one of the stories by English writer Arthur Conan Doyle about the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. It is included in the final collection of short stories "The Sherlock Holmes Archive", published in 1927.
Sherlock Holmes is approached by a tea merchant, Mr. Robert Ferguson, who suspects his wife of being a vampire. In a letter to Holmes, he tells his story. Ferguson is married for the second time to a beautiful young Peruvian woman, they have a son, while he is still a baby. In addition, another son of Ferguson from his first marriage, fifteen-year-old Jack, lives in the house, who, having injured his spine in childhood, became partially disabled. The relationship between the stepmother and Jack does not work out from the very beginning, moreover, recently the stepmother has attacked the stepson twice, inflicting severe beatings on him.
Suddenly, the wildest case occurs: the nurse enters the room where the baby is lying, and sees the mother, biting into the child's neck, sucking his blood. Almost going crazy from what she saw, the nurse wants to immediately tell Ferguson everything, but the mother begs not to say anything and even pays her money for it. But this incident shocked the nurse so much that soon she could not stand it and told Ferguson about this terrible case. He perceives what he has heard as a bad joke, but then a shrill cry of a baby is heard in the nursery. Ferguson and the nurse run into this room and see that the mother is bent over the child, whose neck has bite wounds, and the mother's lips are covered in her son's blood. The mother categorically refuses to give any explanation for what happened and locks herself in a separate room, where a faithful maid began to carry food and drink.
Extremely interested in this unusual case, Holmes, accompanied by Watson, travels to Ferguson's house in Sussex to begin an investigation. Holmes points out that the walls of the house are decorated not only with paintings, but also with a "collection of South American utensils and weapons." In addition, Holmes notices a strange illness of the dog living in the house: the spaniel is almost paralyzed for no apparent reason. After talking with Ferguson's eldest son and examining the baby, Holmes tells Ferguson that the case has been solved, but he will make all further explanations only in the presence of Ferguson's wife. Going up to her room with Watson and Ferguson, Holmes reveals the essence of this unusual case.
Hating his little half-brother and, most importantly, his healthy brother, Jack decides to ruin him. Using a poison-tipped arrow from a collection of weapons, Jack first checks its effect on the dog, and then stabs the baby in the neck with an arrow. By a happy coincidence, the mother witnesses this scene and manages to suck the poison out of the wound. All subsequent cases of "vampirism" were related to the fact that the mother wanted to finally rid her son of the poison. Knowing how much her husband loves his eldest disabled son, the young woman did not dare to reveal the terrible truth to him.
Phenomena in artwork: A vampire
A young woman is suspected of vampirism, who allegedly drank the blood of her own child:
.. The babysitter was away from the child for a short time. The baby's loud cry made her quickly return to him. When she entered the room, she saw her mistress, the mother of the child, who was bending over the baby and, apparently, biting his neck. There was a small wound on the neck, from which blood flowed in abundance.
...
the husband turned his wife's face to the light and saw that her lips were covered in blood. There could be no doubt! She drank the poor boy's blood!..
At the same time, the dog in the house also suddenly fell ill (something like paralysis), followed by the mother of a small child.
As it turned out, the stepson who was fighting for his father's attention was to blame for all these events. He intended to poison his younger brother by first testing the poison on a dog, and the mother tried to suck the poison out of the wound on the baby's neck, which is why she was mistaken for a vampire.
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