“Exactly one hour later,” I interrupted, “it first spoke to me!”
“Two o’clock yesterday morning,” Lonergan went on, “I was given two days——”
“At nine last night,” Max cried, “I, also, was given two days! More than one of them has passed!”
I looked at my wrist watch. One-thirty.
“It is now——” I began.
But I was interrupted.
“Gaston Max!” said the Voice.
We all sprang to our feet.
“John Lonergan!”
I glanced at Lonergan. His mask of Red Indian stoicism failed to hide the fact that he had paled.
“Brian Woodville!”
We stood there, a tense trio, amid silence which seemed to throb; then:
“All three have until to-morrow midnight,” the Voice went on. “This is the last warning. You have until to-morrow midnight.”
In my records of this encounter with a creature more than humanly terrible, in my memories of the part I played in, literally, saving the world from destruction, the following day—it was a Wednesday—forms a peak. It was destined to be memorable.
We had until midnight.…
Since our feeble subterfuges were plainly matter for laughter on the part of the Voice, we had agreed to breakfast together on the balcony of my apartment.
As I came out of the bathroom and stood for a moment looking across sunny lawns where gaily chattering holiday makers already hurried to their hotels from early constitutionals, I questioned, once again, the reality of it all.
Gaston Max’s story—what did it mean? That the presence of Mme. Yburg in that stricken village had been accidental was an explanation which reason rejected. Her visit to Hartford, Connecticut, at the time of the radio mystery, made it impossible to ignore the significance of what might otherwise have passed for a coincidence.
“A tremendous electrical discharge,” someone had said in speaking of the Pyrenees tragedy; and the American mystery was also one of unknown waves.… “Perhaps the high priestess of some new religion of destruction.” Mme. Yburg had been so described by Gaston Max.
At the time appointed, the latter gentleman joined me. He wore gray flannels and a blue reefer jacket. His socks, his shirt, and his tie harmonized pleasingly.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, coming up the steps, “our American friend is late!”
“Not yet,” said I, consulting my watch: “You are absolutely on time.”
He dropped into a chair and stared reflectively at the beautiful prospect. Presently:
“I have been watching trout down there in the stream,” he said.
“Inspiring idea. What about trout for breakfast?”
“Good,” he acknowledged; adding, characteristically, “I am all for it. Early breakfast is not in my line. But blue trout, toast, and a cup of coffee—yes, I could manage this! But”—he glanced aside at me—“it was not of breakfast I was thinking as I watched those trout.”
“No?”
“No! They head always upstream—watching the oncoming water. Any danger, they suppose, would approach on the current, which they can see. They do not realize—being fishes—that they are trapped; that it is only a question of somebody’s whim how soon they will be cooked and eaten!”
I stared at him curiously. He was not looking in my direction. Seen in profile he had a magnificent head.
“We are heading upstream,” he went on—“you and I and Mr. Lonergan. But we have this advantage over the trout: we do know when we are to be cooked!”
“At midnight?”
He shrugged.
“Say, rather, at any time after midnight. But where we share the ignorance of the fishes is in this: we do not know how we are going to be cooked—nor by whom we are going to be eaten!”
Following a short silence, during which I caught snatches of careless conversation from distant passers-by wafted to me over the song of the little stream:
“Having slept on the problem,” I said, “has any theory explaining the Voice occurred to you?”
“None.”
“Or one to account for the giant bat?”
He turned to me impulsively, and:
“I tell you,” he declared, “we are face to face with powers against which we are as helpless as those trout in the Oos are helpless against the net!”
A silence fell upon us, in which no doubt Gaston Max was thinking, as I was thinking, that Lonergan, usually a model of punctuality, had presumably overslept. When, after some aimless chat which mainly served to hide a mutual doubt, fifteen minutes passed and our American colleague still remained absent, I made a suggestion.
“Either Lonergan has forgotten the appointment,” I said, “or something is wrong with him. If you will excuse me for a moment, I will make inquiries.”
“I wish you would.”
I crossed to the telephone, and remembering only just in time the name in which Lonergan was registered at the hotel:
“Would you call Mr. Kluster’s room,” I said to the clerk who answered. “I don’t know his number.”
There was a silent interval, then:
“Mr. Woodville?” inquired another voice, that of an assistant manager whom I knew fairly well.
“Yes.”
“You are asking for Mr. Kluster? I am surprised he neglected to advise you. Mr. Kluster has gone. He left for Düsseldorf by an early train!”
“One wise fish has escaped the net,” said Gaston Max.
But, frankly, I regarded Lonergan’s desertion less lightly. If ever I had come upon a man whom obstacles stimulated and to whom danger was refreshment that man was surely John Lonergan. Besides, ignominious flight was childish—a plain defection from duty with two witnesses to testify against Washington’s special commissioner.
It was utterly incomprehensible.
“It is plain, is it not,” said Max, as we strolled through the gardens after breakfast, “that for us to attempt to hide our movements from M. the Voice is simply silly?”
“Quite plain.”
“Mr. Lonergan has recognized this. So—do not let us judge him hastily.”
I paused, staring at the speaker, but:
“You and I,” he went on smilingly, “have until midnight. Let us use this time to the best advantage. What line of inquiry had you intended to follow to-day?”
“I had planned to visit the Felsenweir mausoleum in the cemetery.”
“Curious,” Max murmured. “So had I. Let us go together.”
A sudden and oppressive darkness had fallen when, half an hour later, we set out. The hall porter proffered a word of advice:
“Don’t go too far, sir. When it rains in Baden at this season, it rains hard.”
Nevertheless, we risked it. I welcomed the Frenchman’s company, although his usual amusing chatter was absent during our walk up to the old cemetery. I could not reconcile Lonergan’s desertion with the character of the man; I believed that Gaston Max had a theory; and he remained silent. Perhaps I was a little bit resentful.
Some few parties returning to the town we met, driven by the threatening storm, but beyond where the steep path bent sharply to the left, offering a prospect of the roofs of Baden-Baden, we had the road to ourselves.
An awning of cloud hung over the green bowl which shelters the town. Its effect was queerly forbidding. Robbed of sunshine, Baden looked like a dead place—like the shell of a fly (why did the image suggest itself?) whose life had been sucked out by a spider. And, as the unpleasant thought came to my mind:
“Do you know,” said Gaston Max suddenly, “that up to the year 1449 or 1549—forgive my bad history—I am not sure which it is—there was a village of Felsenweir?”
“No.”
“There was. No trace of it remains, I am told. It was deserted by all its inhabitants, and now the forest has partly reclaimed the soil it occupied.”
“Why was it deserted?”
“Because of a plague.”
“You mean the Black Death—called in Germany, I believe, the ‘Basle Death’?”
“No, no, not at all. This was another kind of plague. One by one they died, the people of Felsenweir. They wasted away. And it was said—those were the dark ages, Mr. Woodville—that a vampire was visiting the village!”
“Good heavens!”
I pulled up shortly. The angry curtain drawn over the valley now touched with its eastern edge higher slopes of the hills. Premature night threatened us; and no fellow travellers followed the road. Cast back by Max’s words into a dim past haunted by witches and werewolves, I saw that old “plague” in operation… I saw again a gigantic bat alighting amid the tombs. The red mouth of Mme. Yburg smiled at me, and I heard the Voice.
“Does it surprise you?”
“No. But it seems to link up with more recent rumours. I must compliment you on your thoroughness. This story is new to me. Was anyone identified as the vampire?”
“But yes! Those superstitious peasants traced the trouble to Adelheid, Countess of Felsenweir. She was dead, you understand? They enlisted the authority of Mother Church and she was removed from the family vault and buried elsewhere, with a stake through her heart.”
“Then the Felsenweir tomb…”
“Has remained closed since the day that long dead lady was taken from it.”
And now we had reached the cemetery. Its gate was open, but the impending storm had deterred visitors. A phenomenal gloom lay over that place normally gloomy enough. It appeared deserted. Gaston Max looked up at the pall above, and:
“We are in for a drenching, I think,” he said. “But no matter. There is no one whose attention we are likely to attract.”
“No one that we can see.”
Max shrugged his shoulders.
“The Invisible we cannot hope to dodge. In the course of my professional duties, Mr. Woodville, I have of course come in contact with strange things, but never before have I been tracked by a disembodied Voice nor met with giant bats. Failing some new light on these mysteries, I must confess myself defeated. But until midnight we can go on hoping.”
“And after midnight? …”
“We may have nothing to hope for.”
He made a weary gesture, smiling lightly, but his manner—as did my own—concealed a deep unrest. In sunshine it had been possible to shake off the incubus of that invisible menace. Personally I am not ashamed to admit that now, surrounded by tombs, curtained by a lowering storm, a vast uneasiness was claiming me. What my feelings must be when midnight came I preferred not to imagine.
In silence we walked along the path, turning to the left, to the right, and to the left again, until in the oldest part of the cemetery we stood before the strangely conceived tomb of the Felsenweirs.
There was something barbaric in its form. It vaguely resembled a mosque. And I wondered if its builder had been influenced by the Crusades. A Felsenweir banner had flown in Palestine. Two ancient cypresses guarded the door, and this door was of some time-blackened wood, covered with iron scroll-work and seeming to have been unopened for generations. In fact, the queer, square building which palpably had not known a restorer’s hand, ordinarily, I thought, must have lain in ruin. There was something phenomenal in its solidity.
Set in worn stonework above this door, a device had been carved; but Time or the hand of man—I could not be sure which—had completely defaced it. No doubt it had represented the crest of the Felsenweirs, but none could have deciphered it now.
Gaston Max stepped forward and examined the mediæval fastenings. He tested the strength of the woodwork. He turned, smiled, and shrugged. Then, from an inner pocket he took out a lens. He examined the lock, the hinges, and the worn stonework below. He replaced the lens.
“This door has not been opened for many years,” he declared positively.
Vegetation grew close up to the mausoleum on two sides, rank and unkempt. There was an ancient, musty smell.
“Stay where you are on the path, please,” said Max. “There is something I wish to investigate.”
Stepping mincingly like a dancing master, he forced a delicate way through the undergrowth, stooping and peering at the soft ground. In this way he performed a circuit of the building. He rejoined me and again shrugged characteristically.
“Not a trace,” he reported. “No steps but mine have disturbed that smelly tangle for long enough. Name of a good little man! the vampire leaves no footprints. It is not from here, Mr. Woodville, that our charming friend Mme. Yburg was coming when you met her.”
The storm had gathered so blackly above us that I was anxious to commence the return journey, when:
“One thing more,” said Max softly.
He was gazing through ever growing darkness along the path, westward.
“What?”
He pointed, and I stared wonderingly in the direction indicated.
“Mysterious,” he murmured, “yet perhaps no more than a coincidence. But amid all these ancient tombs, most of them hundreds of years old, there is one yonder, you see, which has been renovated quite recently!”
To my mind the explanation was simple enough, but Max’s expression held a sudden triumph as we walked along the narrow mossy path and stood before that monument which had arrested his attention. It bore no inscription and was palpably of great age, but as he had said, signs of recent repair were evident.
As Max, drawing the lens again from his pocket, stooped and began to examine the crevices in the stonework, a blinding flash of lightning came. It whitely illuminated the prospect. It seemed like a reproach, a threat, to those who would disturb the dwellings of the dead. Max started upright; my own heart seemed to miss a beat. As he turned to me, although his face thus lighted looked unnaturally pale, he was smiling. And I thought there was triumph in his glance.
“I may be wrong,” he said enigmatically, “but I think I am right.”
My reply was drowned in a deafening crackle of thunder. In silence we turned and ran along the path as the first great drops of rain began to fall. We made for the lych-gate, the only shelter we knew.
What prompted me to look back from the corner on to the main path, I cannot say. But I did so.…
A tall cloaked figure was standing by the Felsenweir vault! … and I thought of the Countess Adelheid.…
“Max!” I cried.
He was five paces ahead of me, but he pulled up with a jerk and turned. Even as he did so, the figure vanished. There came another blinding flash of lightning followed by a torrent of rain.
“What?” impatiently.
“Nothing. I must have been mistaken.”
And we ran on side by side.
Having changed my wet clothing, had a shower bath and a brisk towelling, I came out of the bathroom and stared through open windows across rain-drenched lawns to Lichtenthaler Allee. The storm had passed, skies were blue, and the day had resumed all its old serenity.
My memories of our recent investigations in the cemetery seemed already trivial—insignificant. Rain-drenched roses gave freely of their perfume; all earth was fragrant; and under the trees which still dripped moisture, men in flannel kit and girls in flimsy summer frocks were appearing again.
Gaston Max, having also changed, presently rejoined me wearing gorgeous plus-fours. His expression was very thoughtful, and as he entered:
“I have been thinking hard, my friend,” he said. “Do you remember the suit I am wearing?”
“I remember it very well.”
“I was wearing it on Monday when I followed Mme. Yburg to the cemetery. I had had no time to change before dinner, and later when I returned, I forgot to leave it out for the valet.…” From his pocket he produced a gold cigarette case. “In the coat is my missing case!”
“Good!” said I, ringing for a waiter. “In a less reputable hotel you might easily have lost it.”
“Yes!” Max was staring out of the open window. “I first missed it, you remember, last night.”
“Quite!”
I turned, glancing at him curiously.
“Does this suggest anything to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah! I may be wrong. To me it suggests a possible theory.”
He pressed a jewelled button in the ornate case and a cigarette shot up magically, which he proffered. It was a caporal but I accepted it.
“Your cigarette case is worthy of the late Harry Houdini.”
Max stared at me fixedly for a moment and then glanced down at the case. There came a rap on the door and the waiter entered.
“I am inclined to agree with you.”
I was puzzled. There was a hidden significance in his words which evaded me. And having ordered cocktails, as the waiter went out:
“You seem to be hinting that there is some mystery about your loss of the case,” I said.
“No,” Max replied, “not about my loss—that was pure chance. But about the case, yes. I think so.”
“Is the mystery of a private nature?”
“Not at all. But as I dislike making a fool of myself, I should prefer to check my theories before I confide them to you.”
He shot a second cigarette into the palm of his hand and replaced the gold case in his pocket; then:
“Consider,” he went on, “the circumstances of our last warning. You remember it?”
“Very clearly.”
“Apart from its apparently supernatural character, it was remarkable for one thing.”
“What was that?”
“It will be clear if I simply remind you that at the time the last warning reached us you were expecting it.”
His words puzzled me for a moment. And then:
“I think I understand what you mean,” I said. “It came to me at precisely the same time as the others had come?”
“But exactly! Whereas my second warning had not been so accommodating. Had you considered this point?”
Frankly I admitted I had not.
“Does it seem significant to you?”
“It does.”
“I will not stress this point—I may be wrong.”
I had become accustomed to the presence of Mme. Yburg at the luncheon hour, but although Max and I lingered, she did not appear. I asked the Frenchman if he knew where she lived. He smiled wryly, and:
“Considering my profession, it seems absurd,” he confessed, “but I have no idea.”
“She is a very clever woman.”
Max rolled a bread crumb softly upon the cloth.
“Undoubtedly. What we know of her history proves it.” He glanced across at me. “How absurd! Never before have I been at such a loss. Frankly, my friend, although we have only until midnight, I have no idea how to occupy the remaining hours. No, none. In short, I have failed in the most elementary duty of a criminal investigator.”
“What is that?”
“The elimination of unessentials.”
“Ah!” I nodded, thinking deeply. “I see what you mean.”
“I have nine theories,” Max went on. “Into four of them I could begin to inquire this afternoon—but of these four three are certainly wrong, and it is possible that the true solution lies amongst the other five—which I cannot investigate this afternoon; or that no one of the nine is the true solution.”
I laughed.
“In these circumstances, what do you propose to do?”
“I propose,” Max replied, “to retire and to meditate.”
“You mean you want to be alone this afternoon?”
He nodded.
“This does not offend you?”
“Not at all!”
“Good. To-night there is, as you must have observed, a fancy-dress dance taking place here. Such occasions always I have observed to be fruitful. Therefore, I think we shall be present.”
“In fancy dress?”
Max shook his head.
“As ourselves,” he answered solemnly. “Let us meet at seven o’clock in the cocktail bar and dine together.”
“We shall still have five hours.” …
When I joined Gaston Max at seven o’clock, I entered a fantastic world.
In England nowadays, except at elaborately organized affairs, the call of fancy dress falls upon deafish ears. On the Continent it is otherwise, or so it appeared to me at the moment I entered the bar.
As a rule few women penetrated to George’s sanctum. This night provided that exception which proves the rule. Cleopatra was there with Frederick the Great in attendance. Pierrette’s cigarette was being lighted by a cardinal. A peasant of the Black Forest came in escorting a nautch girl. There were grotesque figures; few black coats. But whereas the men wore heavy and elaborate costumes—one was in Moorish armour—the women seemed to have pursued a more simple ideal. If ugly man has a tendency to hide, beautiful woman loves to show herself in public.
Max emerged from the colour scheme, the most perfectly dressed man in the room. He looked like a silk hat fresh from the hatter’s.
Having procured cocktails, we edged to a space near the door.
There had been no return of the storm. The night was still and hot. I greeted a few recognizable acquaintances as presently we made our way to a somewhat remote table in the dining room. Fritz was smiling but apologetic.
“It is so difficult, gentlemen,” he explained. “There are many people here, notable people, who come for this occasion and reserve their table so far in advance.”
When, having taken our wine order, Fritz had gone:
“Look about,” said Max in a low voice, bending toward me, “and see if you can find Mme. Yburg.”
“You think she is here?”
“I am sure she is here.”
I leaned back and looked about me. An unseen orchestra played softly. Animated groups surrounded every table in view. Ice buckets were at a premium and I encountered many laughing glances. For the inscrutable, slightly oblique eyes of Mme. Yburg I searched in vain. Let me confess that my quest was not a wholehearted one. I was looking for Mme. Yburg, yes! Undoubtedly she formed a link with that mysterious power which had limited our hours in Baden-Baden. But I was hoping, too, for a sight of frank blue eyes, for a glimpse of a shapely tawny head, and of slim, sun-browned shoulders. My search was unfruitful and I sighed.
“Four and a half hours,” said a voice.
I turned sharply. Gaston Max was smiling at me.
“Did I startle you?”
“Yes, I confess you did.”
“It is amusing.”
The sound of gay voices became a mere background, unreal, deceptive; a painted cloth against which Max and I, willy-nilly, must play a grim drama.
“It is certain,” he went on, “that there are many people here to-night who belong to that invisible organization which speaks to us through the Voice. You agree with me?”
I nodded.
“Do you see our cross-eyed waiter anywhere?”
“No.”
“It is possible he suspects, and has gone. Do you realize, my friend, that no violence has been offered to any of us—that only a Voice has spoken. Yet…” he shrugged… “do you doubt?”
Being conscious of a growing uneasiness almost amounting to a physical chill:
“It’s impossible to doubt,” I replied, “that we are up against the plans of some very high intelligence. What those plans may be…”
Max reached across the table and grasped my arm.
“Have you a match?”
I saw that he held an unlighted cigarette between his lips. Startled, I met his fixed look. Lowering his voice:
“Speak softly,” he warned, “I think somebody is listening.”
When later we penetrated to that crowded ballroom, utter unreality was the keynote of my feelings. I found myself thinking of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”—nor should I have been surprised if the Voice, incarnate and ghastly, a menacing figure from another world, had joined the revellers.
Whom Max had suspected of eavesdropping he had not told me. Perhaps the presence of a heavily disguised group at the next table may have aroused his suspicion. Toward the end of dinner I had asked him outright if he had learned anything which I did not know.
“Yes. My meditations this afternoon resulted in one definite discovery, and one theory. I shall presently tell you what I know and what I suspect. But, now, let us mix with the dancers and look out for Mme. Yburg. If you see her do not let her know—unless of course she is undisguised. If I leave you, do not be alarmed. But at a quarter of twelve be in your apartment.” …
It was all abominably mystifying. We left the dining room and entered the ballroom. And as we pushed our way through a group of people standing immediately inside the doorway, I lost Gaston Max.
To say that he disappeared would be to suggest an illusion: the fact remains that, whereas he entered beside me, on gaining the edge of the floor he was there no longer.
Admittedly I became somewhat abstracted. And for this reason:
As I reached the outer edge of the throng and gazed across the room, my glance, as though magnetically attracted, rested on the gauzily clad figure of an Arab girl. Except for shapely brown arms and suggested outline, nothing of her was visible but the bridge of her nose and two bright eyes.
These eyes, though the lids were darkened, were not the eyes of an Eastern. They were sky blue and they met my glance fixedly. No mistake was possible.
It was the girl of the Kurhaus!
Exploring has taught me many things, not least among them the importance of brisk decision. Rather rudely perhaps I pushed my way around the edge of the dancing floor.
Some few altercations I had, for the way was crowded. But I never lost sight of my objective. She seemed to be alone and I should have thought she was looking for someone amongst the many dancers, except that her glance rarely seemed to leave mine.
Presently I found myself beside her.
Let me say in my defence that I am no Don Juan. Having passed through all those temptations which the fag-end of the war with Germany offered to a fledgling officer, I had never experienced more than a passing interest in any woman. Somehow the sentiment awakened by this sun-kissed Diana was deeper, different, more vital. Otherwise, for my social assurance is not great and my sense of the proprieties is enormous, I should never have had the impudence to behave as I did behave.
When I stepped up beside her, the girl turned and looked at me. Through her gauzy yashmak I could see that she was smiling.
“Lady of the East,” I said, and knew my speech to be rather ridiculous—my heart was beating rapidly—“may I have the honour of dancing with you?”
For one ghastly moment it occurred to me that she might not speak English, but:
“Yes, if you like,” she replied.
Her English was faultless, quite without accent, yet the intonation told me that she was not an Englishwoman.
“Thank you.”
And we joined the dancers. It was a slow procession, yet we were half around the room before we spoke again, nor had I looked into her eyes. Then:
“You must think me very rude, or very brave,” I said, “but I have seen you before.”
“I know.” She met my glance frankly. “I saw you in the Kurhaus last night.”
I laughed, but I was glad. The confession was at once naïve and gratifying.
“And I saw you.”
“I know you did. And somehow I knew we should meet again.”
She danced perfectly and I did not; but it’s more of a woman’s job anyway. Then:
“Surely you are not here alone?” I experimented.
“No. I came with a friend, but I have lost her.”
“That’s odd. Precisely the same thing has happened to me.”
“We seem to have quite a lot in common,” she murmured.
But her sophistication was that of a schoolgirl newly upon the world, and when I laughed at her words, she joined me gaily.
Midnight, with its threat, was forgotten. My mission in the Black Forest sank into a gloomy background. I had found myself in touch with hideous, terrible things. Their very memory was contaminating. I was in danger no doubt; but such is my make-up, thank God, I cast it aside as a snake casts its skin, and for one little hour I was content.
Presently we walked out into the moonlit gardens, my companion glancing about her fearfully.
“If I’m caught,” she declared, “there’ll be a fearful row.”
And as she preceded me down the steps I cudgelled my brains in vain for a clue to something familiar in the way she carried herself—in her intonation—in the poise of her proud head.
I was not alone in my admiration of the graceful Arab, but she was satisfied to be in my company, and of this I was absurdly proud. She was so utterly removed from the dark things which I had met with in Baden—from the cemetery-haunting mysteries of the Black Forest.
We walked along beside the little laughing stream, and:
“It is only reasonable that you should know,” I said, “that my name is Brian Woodville.”
My companion was silent for a moment, then:
“Thank you for telling me,” she replied, “but as it’s all make-believe to-night, I almost wish you hadn’t told me.”
“What?”
“Well, in a sort of way, I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Cinderella?”
“Something like that! But if I can just call you Brian, you can call me Marusa.”
“Marusa? Surely that’s Russian?”
“I suppose it is. Except that in my case I think it’s Polish.”
“But you speak perfect English.”
“I was educated in England.”
“And your home is here?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “At least temporarily.”
The band had been playing for a long time, but I was loath to return, until:
“I’m afraid I must go back,” Marusa said. “There’ll be a perfect hue and cry if I’m missing.”
“By whom?”
She paused perceptibly before replying.
“The friend I came with. Please let’s go back.”
We returned slowly.
“You don’t mean you’re going home yet, surely?”
“I’m afraid I may be.”
“But…”
“I don’t want to. I should love to stay.”
“Then if you’re dragged away, at least tell me when I can see you again.”
“I can’t possibly tell you that—but now that I know your name…”
“Yes… ?”
She stopped in sight of the hotel steps and glanced at me quickly, then away again.
“Do you really want to see me?”
“You know I do.”
“Well… you’re staying here, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps we can meet again some time.”
She walked on and passed up the steps, I following. At the glazed door she halted, extending one round, brown arm to check me.
“Please hide!” she urged. “There’s someone looking for me!”
The sincerity of her words was unmistakable.
“Good-night,” I said. “Promise to see me again.”
Marusa turned and met my fixed glance for a moment. She nodded slightly. Then she went in and I lost sight of her.
A pair of wandering dancers followed a moment later, however, and gave me the cover which I needed. I entered the lobby behind them.
Marusa was standing in animated conversation with another Arab lady, almost identically dressed!
I had seen enough to convince me that my fascinating friend was being reprimanded by her companion and to guess that my night of pleasure was doomed to be cut short. I had seen something else. The slender, graceful figure of the second Arab definitely was not that of the dragon who had accompanied Marusa at the Kurhaus.
Who was this guarded beauty and why was she so mysteriously reticent?
It was sufficient evidence of my infatuation that with the unknown peril of midnight hanging over my head I determined to find out.
I thought I had entered unobserved, and crossing to a distant table I took up a strategic position behind a raised newspaper. As I had suspected, the two women went out. I rushed to a window.
The hall porter was going for a car. I stood up and moved toward the door. A fresh-faced, be-spectacled clergyman who, regardless of festivities in the neighbouring ballroom, had been reading the Berliner Tageblatt at a near-by table, stood up a moment later and walked in the same direction. He carried a soft, black hat; and as I watched a big car draw up at the steps and saw the hall porter assisting the Arab ladies to enter it, the priest collided with me.
His mild eyes considered my irritation through owlish spectacles. I think I had so far forgotten myself as to curse under my breath.
“Pray excuse me, sir,” came a soft clerical voice. “The error was mine. You see, I am very shortsighted.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I am entirely to blame.”
I pushed the door open and hurried down the steps. The car was just moving off.
“Porter!” I cried, when:
“One moment,” said the clergyman. He was at my elbow again. “I think I know your purpose. Do I divine that you are interested in the ladies who have just driven away?”
I turned and stared at him angrily.
“Even so, what business is it of yours?”
“None, my dear sir,” he admitted. “It is not my place to rebuke. Indeed I rejoice in the works of the Almighty, but I may be able to save you a fruitless journey.”
The hall porter had now joined us, and:
“Yes, sir,” he said, “do you want a taxi?”
“I don’t think we do,” the mysterious clergyman replied. “We have changed our plans.”
“Very good, sir.”
Exhibiting a surprising power of grip, my priestly acquaintance urged me down the steps and we moved right, in the direction of the garden.
“My friend,” he continued benevolently, as the hall porter stood staring after us, “I am happy to have been of service to you in this small matter.”
I watched the car driving over the bridge, and disappearing into the shadowy distances of Lichtenthaler Allee.
“The nature of your services is not apparent,” I said angrily.
But now, passing around the end of the building:
“Listen!” growled the priest.
He spoke in another voice! He released his grip of my arm and I turned, staring at him through shadows.
“You’ve got me now,” he went on. “And I’m going to say we have to jump to it. I’m known as Rev. Josiah Higgins of Sydney, Australia. But I’m not sure the change is going to help along a whole lot. It’s three hours to midnight!”
I inhaled deeply, then:
“Lonergan!” I said.
“Surely. But don’t collect too big a crowd by loud applause. You’ve got a crush on the copper-haired maiden. That’s in order—no queries. But what I figure you don’t know is the identity of her girl friend.”
“The other woman?”
“She’s the Jane I mean… Mme. Yburg!”
“I know a cut-in,” said Lonergan, “to where I figure they aim for. If we move fast and have luck we maybe can beat ’em to it.”
I followed his lead, and a devil of a cut-in it proved to be. The discovery that Marusa was an associate of Mme. Yburg had positively dazed me. Marusa, a member of a criminal organization!
Marusa!
Even the miracle of Lonergan’s disguise was forgotten.
On we went at a killing pace, using byways which seemed to be familiar to my guide. I lost sense of direction but my thoughts were so chaotic that I did not even trouble to ask him where we were going, until:
“Not a sound, now,” he warned. “From here on we’re trespassing.”
Turning from a narrow climbing street into a street yet narrower, between houses the first-floor windows of which overlooked the roof of a neighbour, we scrambled up a crazily steep and muddy path, a gully dark as a mine.
I remember wondering vaguely what my dress trousers would look like at the end of the expedition. Presently we climbed out into a neglected kitchen garden.
“Keep me in sight,” said Lonergan, “but don’t talk.”
We crossed an open space, so shadowed by tall trees that no moonlight penetrated to it. I heard the grating of a rusty bolt and followed my guide out upon a narrow lane climbing yet upward into wooded darkness.
For some reason it was more dry than the gully between the houses and the going was better. Presently we left it to go stumbling through a little orchard, with some broken barbed wire to be negotiated and a coppice of pines, the fallen cones soft underfoot. Here the slope was steep as a roof.
We were both breathing heavily as we plunged ankle-deep through soft, damp cones. At the speed we had kept up, it had been a terrific climb. But now we were out on a winding road. Below us lay trees; the town lower yet. Above us were more trees through which I caught a glimpse of a white wall. Lonergan began to run, and although I had little heart for the task, I followed.
He turned aside and plunged up the bank in the direction of the wall. It was a hard scramble and once he stumbled to his knees. He recovered and went on. As we reached the wall—only some four feet high—I inhaled sharply and stared at my companion.
We had come to the cemetery!
“Lonergan,” I said, “what’s the meaning of this? They cannot possibly be here!”
He rested his hand on my arm.
“Listen!”
We both listened intently. But I could detect no sound.
There was a drop of some eight feet on the other side, the level being much below that of the bank upon which we stood. Lonergan climbed over and dropped. I followed and found myself in the oldest part of the burial ground.
We were not twenty yards from the Felsenweir mausoleum. I could see it outlined in moonlight: a sombre, mysterious building.
Lonergan crept forward, choosing shadowy places between the tombs. Inspired by those ghostly surroundings, terrible ideas flocked to my mind. In the Middle Ages, many vampires were reputed to be young and lovely; deathless youth in a living death…
I was checked by a grip on my arm that made me wince.
But I, too, had heard the sound.
Someone was moving softly along on the farther side of the Felsenweir vault!
We crouched down by a moss-grown monument. Blackly one corner of the building lay outlined upon the ancient pathway. I could hear Lonergan breathing. But that faint sound of ghostly movement had ceased.
What I expected to see I cannot attempt to describe. What I did see was an incredibly elongated shadow slowly creeping forward—slowly creeping forward.…
A headless figure!
It is difficult to explain my feelings at this moment. Tense though my curiosity was, redoubled by the shock of to-night’s discovery, I wanted desperately to close my eyes… not to see the Thing which, slowly creeping forward, silently, must soon appear upon the path.
The shadow lengthened, and lengthened—and now, my senses recoiling from that which must come, a dark form detached itself from the angle of the tomb.
Lonergan’s grip upon my arm tightened.
The shape—draped in black from head to feet—glided into moonlight.…
A monk!
My heart was beating wildly. This was so true to pattern, so traditional, yet so ghastly. The shape moved forward, and I saw that what I had mistaken for a black garment was actually purple.
Crouching in an unnatural position, at this moment my foot slipped. I stumbled. Instantly the figure turned.
Under the hood of what I now saw to be a sort of purple domino, keen eyes stared at me.
We were discovered!
Lonergan’s grip relaxed. His hand shot to his hip and he sprang upright. So did I.
“Great heavens!” The hooded man spoke, in a low voice. “It is you!”
Gaston Max!
Lonergan’s hand dropped to his side. He uttered a sound resembling a subdued whistle.
“Suffering Moses!” he said. “This proposition’s got me shot to ribbons!”
Max silently joined us, and:
“You are following the two women?”
He spoke urgently, in an undertone. He was agitated.
“Sure.”
“They are here! Move farther back—still farther.… I arrived one minute too late. They disappeared by the Felsenweir vault. They have not come out.”
In dense darkness under the high wall, we crouched. We were silent. Twenty yards removed, palled in shadow, vaguely resembling the Kaaba at Mecca, the vault of the Felsenweirs jutted up against a starry sky.
I reflected that no one seemed to know where Mme. Yburg lived. I could not forget that I had met her coming from this place under circumstances which she had never satisfactorily explained. Marusa’s residence was equally a mystery. Could it be possible…
My ideas led me into a maze of ghoulish horrors.
Moments passed, lengthening into age-long minutes. A sense of pending horror grew and grew until it became all but insupportable. My mind persistently dwelled upon the shrouded figure of that Countess Adelheid whose body had been dragged from its resting place to…
A dim, hollow booming sound disturbed my ghastly train of thought.
I had heard it before… and, suddenly, I remembered when! I became conscious of a sort of vibration—a drumming in my ears—a sense of pressure.
The guardian cypresses beyond the mausoleum, ebony silhouettes, quivered—or so I thought—like objects seen through a heat haze.
Lonergan was very still.
“Mon Dieu!”
Gaston Max’s whisper was barely audible.
Above the roof of the vault floated a gigantic bat!
Great wings outspanned and long body held almost horizontal, without perceptible movements of flight the thing swept swiftly upward into starry darkness.
I clutched Lonergan’s arm convulsively.
Higher the horror mounted, fast, ever faster, effortlessly—up and up and up—until it looked no larger than a nighthawk far above our heads.
Then… from out of the blue came remote buzzing, like an amplified drone of a wasp. I saw that the bat was headed westward… toward Castle Felsenweir! …
A second purplish winged monster arose from the tomb—a creature identical in every respect! Upward it went—upward… soundlessly. At what I judged to be the same elevation as the other came that high, strange drone.
The second bat headed westward in the track of the first.…
That painful throbbing in my ears ceased. I could see the tops of the cypresses motionless and no longer as through a moving haze. Deep down, from under our feet it seemed, came the dim rumbling. It died away. Silence claimed the old cemetery.
I cannot recall that I have ever before found myself in such a state of passive terror. I was literally bathed in cold perspiration.
That we had seen and heard things of another world would appear to be indisputable. That Mme. Yburg and Marusa—Marusa!—were ghouls, witches, vampires, name them as you please, presented itself as a fact no logic could assail.
Lonergan spoke hoarsely.
“Good God! The way of things is inscrutable. But, unless we’re all mad, I say that to-night we’ve heard the gates of hell open and shut!”
“There will be time enough after midnight to talk—if we are still alive,” said Gaston Max. He tossed his purple domino across his shoulder. “Until then, it is vital that we should act. I have my car hidden below. We can reach it in a few minutes. Attack is always the best defence.… If I knew one thing, I should propose a plan.”
We were following a footpath which would bring us to the town.
“Propose the plan,” Lonergan growled, “and then tell us the one thing you don’t know.”
“Very well. My plan would be this: to drive to the woods below Felsenweir and under cover of darkness to climb up and try to explore that mysterious ruin.”
He paused for a moment, and then:
“Felsenweir is the heart of the mystery, my friends,” he added simply. “It was to Felsenweir the bats flew.”
We walked on in silence for a while.
“I should move to accept your plan,” said Lonergan, “only I kind of feel we’re invisibly covered all the time.… That’s why I changed my identity.”
“Forget this feeling!” cried Gaston Max. “Presently I shall prove to you that such is not the case.”
“Is that so? If you’re right maybe I can help things along. What is it you don’t know?”
“I don’t know how to reach this ruin. I have investigated cautiously—very cautiously. In daytime it would be madness to attempt it. The original entrance is closed and is barred. Quite impossible without ladders. It is then a great climb to the castle ruins. I have explored every foot of the base of that hill but have found not a single point where one could penetrate with hope of climbing to the top.”
“You surprise me a whole lot,” Lonergan declared. “I’ve explored it too, but here’s the difference: I have found a way.”
“What is this?”
“I know a way in! It’s camouflaged, but I found it.”
“Triumph!” Max cried excitedly. “Do you carry a pocket torch?”
“Sure.”
“So also do I. My friends, we are three, and I take it all armed. Let us be resolute, and as Right is on our side, it may be that we shall unmask even the Voice!”
Five minutes later, in Max’s Hispano-Suiza—parked behind a hedge in a meadow—we were speeding along empty roads toward the hill of Felsenweir. I was unfamiliar with the route, but Max, who drove, clearly knew it well.
The little valley of the Oos was already sleeping and we passed not a single pedestrian. Very soon habitations were left behind and the solitude of the Black Forest closed in upon us like a black-gloved hand. Left of the climbing road vast aisles of trees fell away to the valley, to our right they towered up, a menacing wall.
Max pushed on at a speed dangerous for a less skillful driver. Then suddenly he slowed up. He negotiated a hairpin bend, and:
“The woods of Felsenweir,” he said. “On which side of the gateway is this entrance you have found, my friend?”
“East,” Lonergan growled, “but it’s going to be some cross-word puzzle to find at night.”
“All the same, we must find it.”
Here the road lay white under the moon and Max shut off his headlights.
“Don’t drive past the gate!” I said suddenly—“wherever the gate may be. Someone—or something—may be on guard there.”
At my words, Max slowed up—stopped altogether. He turned and stared at me in the darkness.
“I believe this is wisdom. What say you, friend Lonergan?”
“I say,” Lonergan replied, “that we’re the craziest trio from here to the North Pole. I’ve been figuring as we came along that we’re just three cornered rats. We’re scared stiff. Let’s agree we know it. We aim at the throat of the thing that’s cornering us.”
“Name of a good little man!” Max murmured, “it is true. You analyze me so perfectly! But are we to sit down and wait for this threat of midnight?”
“No, sir,” Lonergan answered.
“I’m with you,” said I. “But let’s observe common precautions. Where’s the gateway?”
“It is about another five hundred yards,” Max decided.
“And have we to pass it, Lonergan, to reach this point which you discovered?”
“We surely have.”
“Is there no other route?”
“There is!” Max replied; “though it will cost us fifteen minutes. However…”
He found a spot at which it was just possible to turn the car and we retraced our route for a considerable distance and then turned south along a narrow, bad road.
For a time, it was merely a high-banked, tree-topped tunnel, a cart track villainously rutted, until on the right, crouching under the frowning hill, a moon-patched space opened out.
I could see the sky and the stars and a sort of scarred piece of countryside covered with stunted vegetation and a few trees. Max slowed up.
“Here,” said he, “up to the time of Countess Adelheid, the village of Felsenweir stood.”
The road became all but impassable, inclining easterly. Then, where a fleeting glimpse of stars came again, I saw that we were headed north once more.
“Go easy,” Lonergan growled.
We proceeded very slowly.
“Stop!”
We got out in darkness on to an uneven road. Twenty paces ahead a moon patch lay stark across the path and it pierced some little way up the Felsenweir slopes. The effect was as though silver had been spilled about the bases of ebony pines.
“It’s just beyond the light bit,” Lonergan said. “Maybe we’re safer to leave the caravan right here?”
“Someone must stay to guard the car,” Max stated simply. “Our retreat might be cut off. And then…”
I imagined him shrugging in the darkness.
“Suffering Moses!” said Lonergan. “You’re right! Listen! We all carry German money. Everybody lay a coin on the running board. Odd man for guard duty.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of metal on metal. Lonergan snapped up his torch, snapped it off again.
“I am unlucky,” said Max resignedly. “This is the plan I have thought out. Be cautious, but try to reach the ruins. If we can be sure they are inhabited, then without delay, to-night, we will use official pressure and this place shall be raided.… Good fortune, my friends!”
At times when I recall that insane reconnaissance in the woods of Felsenweir, I know we were mad to have undertaken it. But this is because I fail to reconquer the spirit which drove us: desperation.
We had all in our different ways made light of the last warning and had concealed the real dread which it had inspired. Speaking for myself, I know now that I was behaving as a man behaves who has only one hour to live.
I was out to die fighting.
A shallow ditch bordered the woods and on the bank above it was a high hedge reinforced by barbed wire. Felsenweir was well protected. That point of access which Lonergan had discovered palpably was one in general use; in fact, a cleverly camouflaged gate, the hedge at this point being synthetic. Barbed wire terminated to right and left of the opening. A bolt was concealed amid this unnatural shrubbery. How any man could have discovered such a device was a problem which defeated me until:
“I saw a guy go in,” Lonergan explained.
He fumbled for and found the bolt. Presently he swung back what appeared to be a section of hedge. I wondered again as I had wondered before what could be the connecting link reconciling clever human agency and the seemingly supernatural.
Somewhere beyond that patch of moonlight in the shadows which hid the car, Gaston Max was watching us. But I could not see him.
I followed Lonergan and he partly closed but did not shut the masked gate.
“From here,” said he, “is a path right up through the trees. But we’re lucky if we find it.”
There was a queer blue half-light among the pines reflected from the sky. Max had lent me his electric torch and as we passed beyond the hedge I drew it from my pocket; but:
“Don’t flash a torch,” said Lonergan. “Stand still for a minute with your eyes closed. Stay that way until I give the word. You’ll find you can see like a cat.”
I accepted his guidance unchallenged. It was elementary woodcraft. Darkness so great as that which we produce when we close our eyes is rare. By contrast, half-light becomes full visibility.
“Open ’em,” said Lonergan.
I opened my eyes. What had appeared as impenetrable shadow was impenetrable no longer. For ten or fifteen paces ahead I could trace the path.
“All I know of this old trail,” Lonergan went on, “is what you can see. I got it from the highroad. I was covering the kite who went in. Where it leads, and if it’s beset with ‘pitfall and with gin,’ I can’t say.”
His quotation from Omar was illuminating. John Lonergan was truly a remarkable man.
We stood awhile, getting our bearings. The silence was intense—almost unnatural. Normally, nature is never still, day or night. I listened in vain for those furtive sounds which tell of wild life disturbed.
“I’ve studied around here in the daytime.” Lonergan spoke in a hushed voice. “Never a thing moves in these woods: not a bird—not a squirrel—not a rabbit.” …
My feeling of spiritual oppression grew deeper. Amid a hush in which our movements seemed to create a tremendous disturbance, we moved forward cautiously.…
“Did you ever see a plan of the castle?”
“No.”
We were talking in that hushed undertone one employs when visiting a cathedral.
“I did. It took me long enough to find one; but I found it at last. From the main gate below there’s a military road winding all around the hill at a fair gradient. There used to be other defences at intervals, but they’re defunct, I gather. Then there’s a deep dry ditch, a drawbridge commanded by two towers, and a twenty-yard path leading up to the old guard room.”
“Then I think we should turn left and get on to the road.”
“Do you? Think again.”
The ill-humoured growl, coming from one who in appearance was not only a mild-faced clergyman but also a perfect stranger, sounded indescribably strange.
“We keep off that road like a pussyfoot keeps off whisky. Get it out of your bean that we’re exploring a deserted ruin. If there are men in armour on the walls, why not on the road?”
Men in armour! I think, up to this point, indeed from the moment of meeting Lonergan, disguised, at the Regal, I had moved through subsequent nightmares in a sort of mental stupor. Certainly, the actual facts of our situation now came to me with all the shock of novelty.…
We had until midnight! Pitted against veritable powers of darkness—a bodiless Voice, those flying things—we were advancing upon a castle guarded by giant men in armour!
“Stop!”
Lonergan grasped my arm.
We had been following a faintly defined path sloping steeply upward. I thought we must soon come upon one of the windings of the road. Now, a sort of clearing showed ahead. Moonlight burst through, creating a very eerie impression, and reminding me of a setting of Gordon Craig’s for Macbeth.
An appalling stench of rottenness came to my nostrils.
“With that moonlight in front it doesn’t matter,” Lonergan muttered. “Shoot your torch down on the ground—right here, at my feet.”
I did as he directed.
Not a yard ahead amongst the tangled undergrowth lay a dead fox.…
But the result of my action had far stranger consequences. The carcase was a mass of moving colour!
A sort of dermestes beetle was busy. Their wing cases shone like metal in the ray. But, beautiful yet horrible, a cloud of brightly coloured moths of the death’s head or hawk moth family rose as unexpected light touched that filthy banquet.
“Suffering Moses! Light out!”
I switched off the ray of the torch. Some of the beetles had taken flight as well. These beautiful nocturnal things disturbed at their feast flew out into the moonlight toward the clearing. In a new, breathless silence, faint humming of the hawk moths’ wings was clearly audible.
Then—just as those brilliant insects became visible in the moonlight—one by one, in quick succession, moths and beetles fell! As though the radiance of the moon had meant instant death, they were stricken!
Lonergan grasped my arm.
“Watch! … watch those things falling!”
I pressed the button of the torch again, flashing a ray to right and left. The cause of the stench became evident. The fox was not the only victim.
Hares there were and birds—most of them plucked clean as though long dead; but some, the hosts of beetles and other carrion guests which rose as my ray disturbed them… only to drop in the light of the moon!
“Woodville!” Lonergan’s voice was hoarse, low pitched. “Woodville! We’re on the edge of a death zone! Nothing can live in that clearing!”
I was clammy, icily cold.
“Back! Back!” I whispered. “There’s an invisible barrage!”
Stumbling and slipping, we headed back down the slope. Through the trees in ghostly ranks below us I could see a patch of highroad touched by the moon. Somewhere right of it Gaston Max waited.
Only by a monstrous effort of will did I restrain myself from leaping blindly through the darkness like a wild thing fleeing the hunter.
Up there on the hillside silent Death had awaited us. Was the murder zone fixed mechanically? Was it mobile… sentient… controlled by some evil spider whose eyes, even now, were watching our futile struggles?
One gleam of hope there was in the black horror of my panic. That carrion stretched in the undergrowth suggested that the invisible barrage had been put down at this exact point before. Where they lay, their death leaps had carried them.
“Left!” came Lonergan’s husky voice. “Bear more left. The gate’s five yards this side the light patch.”
Fifteen, twenty staggering paces we made, and nearly reached the hedge—freedom… when:
“Who’s there?”
Lonergan pulled up, grasping my arm.
“Lonergan!”
“Max!”
A ray of light shone out from Lonergan’s torch. We stood so far above the hedge that the ray shot over it and directly upon the pale face of Gaston Max looking upward at us.
In which very moment, and whilst we stood rooted to the spot, came a queer piping cry from high above our heads. A heavy body fell from some lofty, outstretching branch and crashed into the ditch beyond the hedge.…
I saw Max stoop, peer down—move forward.
“Stand still!” I cried. “Stand still, Max! Don’t stir, for your life!”
My voice was totally unfamiliar to me.
The light of Lonergan’s torch became extinguished. I heard him groan.
“Max was wrong! We’ve been covered right along! There’s a second barrage! It’s just been laid down. That’s why the owl fell. We’re trapped between the two! …”
Amid many dreadful memories of those days and nights I find that this moment holds a unique place. There stood our ally. There lay the open road: escape, freedom. An invisible wall separated us!
Death lay in wait upon the slopes above, behind us… perhaps, even now, was creeping down stealthily. Death was before us, unseen, uncanny.…