From the bookshelf he drew a yellow-bound volume stamped in gold letters, The Vampire, His Kith and Kin, by Montague Summers. Leafing through it, he stopped at page 208 and began reading:
There is yet another method of abolishing a vampire—that of bottling him. There are certain persons who make a profession of this; and their mode of procedure is as follows: The sorcerer armed with a picture of some saint lies in ambush until he sees the vampire pass, when he pursues him with his ikon; the poor Obour takes refuge in a tree or on the roof of a house, but his persecutor follows him with the talisman, driving him from all shelter in the direction of a bottle specially prepared, in which is placed some of the vampire’s favorite food. Having no other resource, he enters the prison, and is immediately fastened down with a cork, on the interior of which is a fragment of the ikon. The bottle is then thrown into the fire, and the vampire disappears for ever.
“You observed the color of that bottle?” he asked. “I had coated his interior with a mixture of gelatine and chicken’s blood, of which all vampires are inordinately fond, if they can not obtain the blood of humans. Eh bien, I hope he enjoyed his last meal, though I did not give him much time to digest it.”
“But see here,” I persisted, “if you can pen an evil spirit in a bottle—”
“Ah bah, my friend, why continue harping on that single note? At present I am much more interested in releasing good spirits from their bottles.” He poured himself a generous portion of cognac, drained it at a single gulp, then refilled his glass. “The first drink was for my great thirst,” he told me solemnly. “Now that that has been assuaged, I drink for pleasure.” He took a long, appreciative sip, and set the glass down on the coffee table, gazing at it fondly.
Conscience Maketh Cowards
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
— Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1.
LIEUTENANT JEREMIAH COSTELLO OF the homicide squad refilled his coffee cup, drained it in two gargantuan gulps, and tilted the silex pot over it again. “No, sor, Dr. de Grandin,” he reported, “I’m not exactly satisfied with th’ findin’s. It looks like suicide, I’ll grant, but there’s many a wolf—four- or two-legged—as, looks as innocent as any lamb at first glance, too. Here’s th’ setup: This felly is supposed to have committed suicide by jumpin’ out o’ th’ sixth storey winder, an’ to make assurance doubly sure, as th’ felly says, he tied th’ cord o’ his bathrobe round his neck before he jumped. But, says Dr. Parnell, th’ coroner’s physician, th’ cord broke an’ he was precipitated to th’ courtyard. O.K., says I. Could be. But there’s more here than meets th’ eye; leastwise, Dr. Parnell’s eye.
“You’ve seen throttlin’ cases, I dunno?” he raised his almost copper-colored brows inquiringly.
De Grandin nodded. “Many of them, my old one.”
“Just so, sor. An’ ye’ll be rememberin’ that in most o’ them th’ hyoid bone is fractured an’ th’ larnyx cart’lages is broken, whereas in hangin’ you don’t often find this?”
“Justement,” the little Frenchman nodded.
“Well, sor, every sign was present. If I ever seen a throttlin’ case, this was one. I’m thinkin’ that they choked him ’fore they swung him from th’ winder, An’ here’s another thing: Th’ cord by which he hung before he fell down to the cement o’ th’ courtyard hadn’t frayed out gradual-like. It was clean-cut as if a knife or scissors snipped it off.”
“Vraiment? And what does Dr. Parnell say to this, mon lieutenant?”
“He brushes it aside. Says th’ fractures o’ th’ hyoid bone an’ larynx could ’a’ been made when th’ felly hit th’ ground—which I ain’t disputin’—an’ th’ cord could just as well ’a’ broken clean as frayed out, which is also possible, but”—he stabbed a thick, strong forefinger at de Grandin—“What gits me goat is that all these signs an’ tokens manifestin’ homicide ’stead o’ suicide should be present, yet th’ coroner’s physician bulls th’ jury into bringin’ a verdict o’ self-murder.”
Jules de Grandin tapped a cigarette against his thumbnail, set it alight and blew smoke through his nostrils. “And what do you propose doing, my old and rare one?”
The Irishman raised ponderous shoulders in a gesture of futility. “What can I do, sor? Officially th’ case is closed. Th’ felly died by his own hand, an’ that’s th’ end o’ it. All th’ same, I’ll be afther doin’ some gum-shoein’ on me own. If someone’s done a murder it’s me job to find it out, an’ afther that it’s up to th’ judge an’ state’s attorney—”
The cachinnation of the office telephone broke in, and I rose to answer it. “It’s for you, Lieutenant.” I said, and:
“Yes?” Costello challenged. “Oha? At 1515 Belvedere Street? An’ th’ name—glory be to God!”
In a moment he was back, a look that might have betokened anger or amazement on his broad face. “I’ll say there’s sumpin’ devilish in this business, sors,” he told us. “That was th’ Bureau callin’ to report another suicidal hangin’. Right around th’ corner from the one I’d just been afther tellin’ ye about, an’—here’s th’ payoff!—’tis th’ first man’s brother who’s supposed to ’a’ bumped hisself off this time.”
THE DAYS OF BLISTERING heat were done, and September had come in like a cool and gracious matron. Although there was a hint of fall in the clear air it was still warm enough to enjoy coffee on the veranda that overlooked the side yard where the dahlias bloomed, and after a late dinner we were sitting in low wicker chairs enjoying that delightful languor that accompanies the mingling of eupepsia and slow poisoning by nicotine, caffeine and alcohol when Nora McGinnis, my household factotum, came to us wearing that peculiarly forbidding expression she assumes when anybody obtrudes on “her doctors’” post-prandial period. “If ye plaze, sors,” she announced with something more than a thin rime of frost upon her voice, “there’s two people askin’ for ye; a man an’ woman.”
“Patients?” I asked, stifling a groan. I’d had five T. and A.’s at Mercy Hospital that day, and performed an emergency paracentesis on an aging woman—necessarily without anesthesia—and the fatigue of strained nerves had left me in a state of near-exhaustion.
Nora raised her shoulders in a shrug—a trick she’d caught from Jules de Grandin—and gave me a look that announced complete nescience. “I wouldn’t know, sor. They says as how they’d like to see yerself an’ Dr. de Grandin. Shall I go back an’ say it’s afther hours?”
I was about to nod assent, but de Grandin intervened. “By no means, ma petite. If they desire to see Friend Trowbridge solely it is obviously a medical matter; but if they also wish to consult me that is another pair of sleeves. Tell them we will see them, if you please.”
The couple who awaited us in the consulting room were not entirely prepossessing. The man was middle-aged, balding, heavy-shouldered, rather puffy at the waistline. He wore a neat, dark, formally-cut suit with narrow piqué edging at the V of his waistcoat. From his black-rimmed pince-nez trailed a rather wide black ribbon, and through their lenses he was studying my excellent copy of Renoir’s “Boating Party” with evident disapproval. (In passing I might state I studiously avoid “professional pictures” such as “The Doctor,” “The Study in Anatomy,” or even the slightly humorous cartoons of Hogarth and Hans Holbein.)
His companion was more difficult to catalogue. She was just an average female of indeterminate age with undistinguished features and an undistinguished hat and hairdo. Her dress, though well made and of good material, seemed somehow not urban. A man might find some difficulty saying what was wrong with her, but a woman would have known at once. She had, as Jules de Grandin would have put it, a total lack of le chic.
“Dr. Trowbridge? Dr. de Grandin?” the man asked as we entered.
“I am Dr. Trowbridge,” I answered, “and this is Dr. de Grandin.” I paused, awaiting an exchange of confidences.
Our caller cleared his throat and looked at us, rather expectantly, it seemed to me. “You know m
e, of course.” He did not ask it as a question, but made the announcement as a statement of fact.
De Grandin shook his head and looked distressed. “Je suis désolé, Monsieur, but I do not. I have lived in this so splendid country but a little quarter-century, and have not met all its celebrities. You are not George Washington, or Général Pershing—”
”I am Pastor Rodney Roggenbuck of the Complete Scriptures Congregation.”
The smile that hovered underneath the waxed tips of de Grandin’s small blond mustache gave way to something like a sneer. The shepherd of the flourishing new congregation was known to both of us by reputation. With calculating shrewdness he had filched doctrinal bits from such divergent sects as Whiteism, Christian Science, Russellism, fundamental Calvinism and the Eutychian heresy, spiced them highly with intolerance, and with this potpourri for creed and doctrine had begun crusading against the theatre and movies, medicine and Sunday papers, vivisection, vaccination, newspaper comics, liquor, coffee, tea and tobacco, the teaching of elementary geology in public schools and “graven images”—in connection with which latter he had attempted to enjoin the May processions of local Catholic churches and statuary in the city’s parks. That one professing such beliefs should consult a physician was, to speak conservatively, amazing.
“And which of us do you desire to consult, Monsieur?” de Grandin asked. “Is it that you are indisposé?”
“I’ve come because Lieutenant Costello suggested it.”
“Ah?”
“He tells me you are skilled in magic, witchcraft, and such things.”
“A-ah?” de Grandin repeated, and there was something like cold-lightning flashes in his small blue eyes. I braced myself for an atomic explosion.
“Precisely, sir. He’s no more satisfied that Fred and Theobald committed suicide than I am. “
“And just exactly who, if one may ask, were Fred and Théobald, Monsieur, and why should they not have destroyed themselves, and what concern of mine is it if they did so? Were they, perhaps, your brothers—”
“They were.”
De Grandin sucked in a quick mouthful of air, but his look of angry suspicion did not soften. “Say on, Monsieur,” he ordered. “I am listening.”
“Frederick Roggenbuck was my younger brother. He lived at 1213 Quincy Street. Night before last he was supposed to have hanged himself from the window of his apartment. The coroner says it was suicide.
“Early this morning, or very late last night, my elder brother Theobald who lived with us at 1515 Belvedere Street, just around the corner from my brother Fred’s, is supposed to have hanged himself from a pipe in the basement. None of us heard him rise from bed, or heard him in the cellar, but when Lucinda, the maid who gets our meals and looks after the house, let herself in this morning she found him hanging by a length of clothesline.
“Both my brothers were good, religious men, sir, and well aware of the enormity of the crime of self-murder. Neither would have thought of doing such a thing. Besides, they both had everything to live for—they were well fixed financially, and were engaged in work they loved with holy zeal—”
“Were they, by any chance, associated with you in your labors, monsieur?” de Grandin interrupted.
“They were. Theo was a presbyter and Fred a deacon.”
“U’m?”
“What are you implying, sir? Why do you say ’u’m’ in that manner?”
“Pardieu, Monsieur, why should I not say ’u’m’ in any manner that I choose?” de Grandin shot back testily. “I shall say ’u’m’ or ‘hë’ or ‘sacré bleu’ or anything I wish to say in any manner I desire, and if you do not like it there is neither lock nor bolt upon our door. You are at liberty to leave forthwith.”
“Oh, no offense, sir, I assure you,” Mr. Roggenbuck soothed. “Perhaps we do not understand each other. I wish you’d let me tell you—”
“Your wish is granted, Monsieur.” De Grandin dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette. “Begin at the beginning, if you please, and tell me why it is that you suspect your estimable brothers did not give themselves the happy dispatch. Have you, perhaps, physical as well as moral reasons for your supposition?”
“Lieutenant Costello tells me he informed you of his reasons for suspecting Brother Fred did not do away with himself. In Brother Theo’s case his suspicions are even more firmly founded.
“Theobald was portly, somewhat stouter than I, and just a little shorter, say about five foot six or seven. The pipe from which he is supposed to have hanged himself is eight feet from the floor, the rope by which he was suspended was just a little over two feet long from knot to noose. Theo’s feet swung four or five inches from the floor, and there was no stool or chair or other object which he could have stood on near them. It would have been physically impossible for him to have looped the rope around his neck while standing on the floor, and equally impossible for him to have hanged himself without standing on something, yet there was nothing underneath him, and no object on which he could have stood anywhere within such distance as he could have kicked it from under him while he struggled as he hung.”
“U’m?” Jules de Grandin put his fingers tip to tip and pondered. “And how was Monsieur Théobald arrayed? In his chemise de nuit—”
“No, sir. The night-shirt is a garment feminine in form, and Holy Scripture says explicitly a man shall not put on a woman’s garment. He was wearing pajamas and a cotton bathrobe. His straw slippers had fallen from his feet as he hung from the pipe.”
De Grandin lit another cigarette and blew smoke from his nose. “Perhaps you have a point there, Monsieur. I could not say until I’ve reconnoitered the terrain. Have you other grounds for suspicion, or is there any person you suspect?”
“Yes, sir; I suspect one Amos Frye, my sister-in-law’s husband. I believe he drove them to self-murder by vindictive witchcraft—in fine, that he ‘put a hex upon them,’ as they say in the part of the country from which I come.”
“But this is of the utmost interest, Monsieur. Where may one find Monsieur your belle-soeur’s husband?”
“He is dead.”
“Hein? Feu noir du diable, do you say so? Proceed, Monsieur. Tell more; tell all. Like Baalam’s ass, I am all ears!”
“My wife has an afflicted sister named Eulalia,” our caller answered. “For some years she has had the impression of tuberculosis, but stubbornly refuses to drink of the healing waters of faith, preferring to entrust herself to the worldly aid of physicians.”
De Grandin pursed his lips as if to whistle, but made no comment. His features gave no indication of his thoughts; his eyes were absolutely void of expression.
“She was a wilful, headstrong girl,” continued Mr. Roggenbuck, “and when the war came on as punishment for the sins of the world she insisted on becoming involved in canteen work. Strictly against our wishes, I may add. The Scriptures say specifically, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and every soldier is potentially a murderer. However, she insisted on consorting with these men of blood, and finally she married one of them.
“We offered her a home while he was overseas, and would have made him welcome when he returned, although he was a Gentile—that is, not of our faith—but he insisted on her living with him in an apartment he provided. Then he secured employment as a traveling salesman, and was forced to be away from home much of the time. Eulalia’s impression of disease became stronger, and at last we took her to our house, where she could receive treatment in accordance with the tenets of true religion. When he returned from his trip we refused to let her go to him, or let him come to her. My wife Rosita is her sister, and I am like a brother to her, aye, more than a brother, since I have her spiritual welfare at heart—what’s that, sir?” he broke off as de Grandin murmured something sotto voce.
“Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, it is that I seem to recall a passage in the Bible that says a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, since the twain are one flesh—”
“My dear sir! If y
ou understood such things you’d know that Holy Scripture is to be received seriously, but not literally. Besides, the reference is to a man’s cleaving to his wife, not a wife’s cleaving to her husband; and in addition we are not Eulalia’s father and mother, but her sister and brother-in-law. I challenge you to find a passage in the Bible which says a woman shall desert her brother-in-law to follow her husband!”
De Grandin’s expression would have done credit to a cynical, blond Mephistopheles, but he answered with astonishing mildness, “You have me fairly there, Monsieur. I do not think that I can cite you such a verse. And now, as you were saying—”
“Amos made several attempts to see Eulalia, and was on the brink of bringing legal action when he was unfortunately killed in a highway accident. Most fortunately my brothers happened by while he lay dying by the roadside, and Theobald, who as a presbyter has power to loose or retain sins, gave him absolution. We thought, at least we hoped, that he was saved, but it appears his vengeful, earthbound spirit has pursued my poor, dear brothers, hounded them to suicide; made them self-murderers.”
“What makes you think so, Monsieur?”
“Almost a year ago, shortly after Amos’s fatal accident, my brother Fred began to have strange feelings. Have you ever had the feeling you were watched intently by some evilly-disposed person, sir? That is the feeling Fred complained of—as if someone who wished him ill were looking at him from the back continually, waiting opportunity to pounce. Sometimes the feeling grew so strong that he would turn around to see if he were actually being stared at; but there was never anybody visible.
“Three months later Theobald began to suffer the same eerie sensations. They had no privacy. When they disrobed for bed or for the bath that feeling of surveillance was on them; when they walked along the street or drove their cars they felt another walked behind them or was sitting at their sides; when they wrote a letter or perused a book there was always the impression that another looked across their shoulders, watching every move they made, never taking their eyes off them, never ceasing to hate them with poisonous, suppurating hatred. It must have been a terrible sensation, and one calculated to drive them to madness and self-murder.”
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