by Mike Ashley
“You did not say anything about the car?” commented Monsieur Abime, his pale face just the faintest bit flushed with excitement.
“They will not find a corpse, will they?” explained Monsieur Delacroix. “It would be infringing on a citizen’s privacy to give his name uselessly to the police.”
Monsieur Abime nodded silently and remained watching Monsieur Delacroix.
“It will take no more than an hour for me to secure the car-owner’s name tomorrow,” said Monsieur Delacroix, thinking as he stood. “It is quite certain that he or she is connected in some way with the scream—and I am sure that people do not scream like that unless they are being killed in some horrible way. The police have failed to find any sign of violence before, therefore this person is very cunning and we shall have to be equally as cunning to catch him. We must secrete ourselves in the grounds at the next full moon and watch. Are you willing to do this?”
Monsieur Abime paled again.
“You don’t realise how ferocious the Union d’execution is!” he appealed.
Monsieur Delacroix compressed his lips in exasperation.
“You may be assured, Monsieur Abime,” he said, “that there is no cell of the Union d’execution in Paris. This has been checked and checked again by our police and Interpol. There is nothing. Your fears in this respect are groundless. Whatever it is we are dealing with here, it is not political assassination. Please use your head. The regularity of these—whatever they are—indicates only mania. We shall be perfectly safe if we stay together and hidden.”
Monsieur Abime was unconvinced, but resigned to the fact of his own involvement. Monsieur Delacroix departed at 3.0 a.m. with a promise of rendezvous in a lunar month’s time.
The car, a little corrugated iron, hunchbacked Simca, was owned by Monsieur Philippe Medan, of Rue Lecourbe. Mademoiselle Lamouraux, who was good at this sort of thing, soon ascertained that he was a bachelor, aged thirty-seven, living with his mother, that he had played a gallant part in the Paris uprising of 1944, had trained in Botany—without notable results—and was now employed at the Jardin des Plantes specializing in cactus plants. He had written a few papers for scientific journals and one small book for the amateur on cactus growing. From the telephone operator in the Jardine des Plants Administration building, Mademoiselle, playing the part of a young woman interested in Monsieur Philippe, learnt that he was a solitary kind of fellow who did a lot of voluntary overtime at the Jardin; that he had no lady friends, that he was known in the Jardin as “Sandy,” and that he had a little office of his own just near the back door of the building.
With this smattering of knowledge Monsieur Delacroix passed an afternoon in the Jardin, and by casual gossip with various persons working among the flower-beds, he was able to get the “cactus authority” pointed out to him without the necessity of addressing him personally. Medan was a swarthy-faced block of a man, probably with Corsican blood, deliberate in his walk like some tired peasant, and with a ridged brow that gave him a brooding look. He looked more like fifty than thirty-seven, there was no animation in his step. Life seemed to have beaten him. “Nevertheless,” thought Monsieur Delacroix, “judging by those shoulders you’re as solid and strong as an ox.”
Medan entered the tropical house with his private key and a few minutes later Monsieur Delacroix saw him through the glass erecting a ladder to examine the summit of a tall palm. “I wonder what you’re up to?” mused Monsieur Delacroix as he walked away. “Do you climb the trees and scream at the full moon? You look like an ape.” Monsieur Delacroix stopped in his tracks. The possible connection with animals had not occurred to him before. Could it be that murder was committed and then the body thrown to the lions so that no remains were found? It certainly seemed a possible explanation of the one mysterious thing about this business—where did the bodies go if there had been fifty murders? Of course—meat for the animals! By dawn, all evidence chewed and licked up, clean as a whistle!
Monsieur Delacroix returned to his office a little aghast at his explanation, but triumphant.
Full moon in October fell on the 1st of the month. September had continued mild until two days previous, and then had ensued a steady, strong wind from the north pushing all summer air out of the streets. The sun fought through on both days about midday, but soon retired exhausted. The citizens of Paris now hurled their cars along the cobbled boulevards with a different kind of abandon, with a hurrying grimness as if they felt the breath of winter close behind. Mademoiselle Lamouraux appeared in the office garbed in a thick woollen two-piece suit and numerous accessory garments to ensure protection from the blasts.
Madame Delacroix categorically forbade her husband to spend the night in the Jardin des Plantes (not that she knew the true reason for his proposed vigil) “at your time of life—you must be mad!”
“My dear, I shall be wrapped up warm and we shall be in a sheltered place. After all, it will not be all night.”
“Paul, you are not to go!”
Monsieur Delacroix expressed the overpowering flux of UNO affairs by a shrug.
“I must. But I shall be careful,” he said miserably.
As he crouched with Monsieur Abime in the lee of the brick wall at the rear of the hothouses, Monsieur Delacroix knew his wife to be correct in calling him mad. It was as black and as cold as Space beneath the trees, and his knees and shoulders ached with what felt like deposits of ice crystals. Monsieur Abime groaned softly every now and again and prayed for a cigarette. From their “hide” they could observe the path that passed between the Australian and Cactus houses and forked left to the labyrinth and right to the Administrative building. The nearest loop of the path circling the hillock was a mere five or six yards away, and in the light of the full moon filtering through the trees from high above Monsieur Delacroix was sure they would be able to definitely identify any person climbing the labyrinth.
“It’s midnight,” breathed Monsieur Abime.
Monsieur Delacroix nodded wearily, then clutched his companion’s arm. In the distance was the faint crunching and squeaking of a wheelbarrow being wheeled over the stony paths. Someone was coming from the gate by the Conciergeries on Rue Cuvier. The noise became more distinct and presently they could hear a peculiar mumble of conversation accompanying the harsh cracking of grit. The wheelbarrow was pushed to the foot of the path ascending into the labyrinth and here the pusher rested. In the quiet Monsieur Delacroix felt sure the mumbler said, “Tort your helm,” but the voice was so quiet and slurred that he could not believe his ears.
Monsieur Abime breathed into Delacroix’s ear, “That’s a drunk talking to himself!”
“Or a maniac!” answered Monsieur Delacroix in similar fashion.
The squeaks began again. The two watchers fixed their eyes upon the dappled path and presently a black shape moved in the blackness and became a forward-leaning figure pushing a wheelbarrow in which lay the ragdoll limp shape of another man. As the pair passed the “hide,” the limp shape raised its head and began cursing in a nonsensical way, only to collapse back almost immediately. The pair passed onwards into the shadows.
“Did you see his face?” asked Delacroix softly.
“No, it was in shadow.”
The noise of the barrow stopped, and there was the distant noise of a key rattling on iron as a keyhole was searched for.
“He’s going through the gate at the top,” said Monsieur Abime. “Shall I go after him?”
“Wait,” commanded Monsieur Delacroix.
After a few indistinct noises, they heard the barrow returning, the slam of the gate, and then a helter-skelter skidding as the pusher rushed back along his tracks. He was past Monsieur Delacroix and Abime before they could see his face.
“I’m going up to see what he’s done to that drunk,” said Monsieur Abime. “You stay here, I won’t be a minute.”
At that precise moment a ghastly scream from above seemed to clamp a ring round their hearts. It finished on one last uprising yell
of horror. Monsieur Abime was the first to recover. He athletically clambered over the iron railings on to the path and disappeared towards the summit. Monsieur Delacroix also negotiated the railings but clumsily and stood trembling on the path. Suddenly he was aware that the lights of the Cactus House had been switched on. This was no strange, floating light. He could see the tracery of iron struts forming the skeleton of the greenhouse silhouetted against the lights inside. The murderer was performing his customary ritual. Where was Abime?
There came a second scream, more shattering than the first, since it began with the call “help’ but gargled into a shriek of incoherent horror and pain.
Monsieur Delacroix hurled himself up the path towards the gazebo on the summit. As he ran up to the gate near the summit, he heard a tremendous thrashing going on among the shrubbery surrounding the gazebo. The spiral nature of the path still made it necessary for him to make another half turn of the hill before coming to the level top upon which the gazebo stood, and it was this which saved Monsieur Delacroix’s life. Panting around this stretch of weed-grown path, with the terrifying vegetable noise going on only a yard to his right, fear had time to give him caution. He stopped and peered into the dappled light around the gazebo. He saw the half-severed body of Monsieur Abime hanging in the myriad toothed jaws of a gigantic snake. The tube of the snake’s body was already distended where it had begun to ingest Monsieur Abime, and it convulsed with the prodigious effort of crushing the bones in his limbs.
Monsieur Delacroix nearly fainted. He reeled back into the bushes, then sick and panic-stricken rushed down the spiral path to the lighted beacon of the Cactus House. Blindly he dragged open the heavy, iron-framed door of the greenhouse, and fell into the heat and light. Philippe Medan was on his knees before one of the tree-like cacti. “Help!” rattled Monsieur Delacroix staggering: “In the labyrinth. Oh God! Monster.”
Philippe Medan stood up, his face twisted with emotion. He had some kind of short gardening tool in his hand. With this he struck Monsieur Delacroix across the head. “Fool!” he shouted. He struck Monsieur Delacroix again and again with his full bull-like strength. Too late Monsieur Delacroix realised his folly. He collapsed unconscious upon the concrete floor.
When consciousness had pushed its way up to the surface through layers of pain and sickness, Monsieur Delacroix found himself propped against one of the walls of the greenhouse with his ankles tied together and his arms tied behind his back. Medan was busy at the base of the cactus tree, working with the flitting notions of a barber around a rich client. He had a pad on which he wrote figures after consulting certain spots on the trunk of the cactus, and he also had a syringe which he plunged in the plant to draw off liquid. Between these motions, he circled the trunk fingering the scale-like spines and exhibiting nervous anticipation, as if he expected some miraculous metamorphosis to take place at any moment. Suddenly he stood back, almost falling over Monsieur Delacroix’s legs.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. He stretched his arms up towards the crest of the cactus like a pagan priest welcoming the sun. Monsieur Delacroix was amazed to see the triangular scales forming the bark near the summit of the cactus trunk, lifting and falling back as if puffs of air agitated them from within. This motion quickly spread down the trunk until the twenty-foot column was covered with rhythmic pulses of movement.
“This time!” appealed Medan to the quivering plant. He clenched his fists and visibly willed the plant to do something. Suddenly there was a noise like tearing cloth and the dirty green of the bark parted at the summit and from the yard-long split welled out a most stupendous blossom of tightly packed petals. Simultaneously Monsieur Delacroix breathed in such a powerful perfume that his eyes closed in a paroxysm of delight. The flower burst open in a stunning flamboyance of red and yellow, rustling like a silken umbrella being opened.
Medan fell to his knees at Delacroix’s side.
“What do you think of my lovely?” he breathed.
“It’s incredible!” answered Delacroix sincerely.
“Worth killing for,” amplified Medan with enthusiasm.
Delacroix remained silent, not knowing what to answer.
The flower gave out dense waves of perfume so disturbing to the senses, that Monsieur Delacroix felt the onset of that fever-like disorientation that comes with drugging.
“She must feed,” shouted Medan, “so I kill for her.” Without looking at Monsieur Delacroix, Medan went on, “You know what she is? She’s a survivor from the Miocene. I reared her myself from a seed.” He laughed. “That’s one thing we have to thank the war for—dropping a block-buster so that it blew the insides out of a hill in which a seed had been imprisoned for 40,000,000 years. I found her sprouting there on the side of the crater—near the corpse of a cow.” He laughed uproariously.
“I recognised a stranger and I potted her. Even then her root was a size. It took me five years to realise that she was unique on this Earth. I went back and investigated the place where I had found Selina.” Medan checked momentarily at the realisation that he had revealed his secret name for the plant. “There was a railway tunnel through the hill, and this bomb had pierced the covering of rock and exploded in the tunnel, literally blowing out the heart of the hill—it was all pure Miocene stuff. That and the resemblance to some fossil pieces that can be found in most museums convinced me. She was a pre-historic fern.” Medan closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the scent which filled the greenhouse. He smiled evilly with his eyes still closed.
“She likes blood,” he said. “I found that out one day when I was repotting her. She has a tubular root that is mobile along its length and toothed all the way along inside—like a barracuda’s mouth, and as I lifted her out of the old pot, the root came free and took the end off my finger. She loved it! She grew six inches over night. After that I got the idea, and fed her mice and things of that size. There was no holding her. It became impossible to keep her potted in my apartment, so I moved her into here—surreptitiously, you understand, and by the time she was a big girl, people thought she had been here all the time.”
Medan laughed convulsively at that. Tears ran down his face.
“Of course, she tried to have her root free for hunting in the greenhouse, but I had to discourage that. I kept burying the root until she was forced to burrow under the walls and outside. I lost her for several years after that—the root, I mean—until one night she caught a tramp who had gone into the gazebo for a sleep. I was washing her down at the time and I heard the screaming, then she seemed to come alive under my hands. I realised the connection at once and before the noise had stopped I found out where her root was. The meal transfigured her. She bloomed like you see her. For the first time in her life she bloomed. What an amazing sight! What an incredible phenomenon! Flower for two to three hours, and then an explosion of seed. I collected every one of those seeds—and on every subsequent occasion on which I have been able to make her bloom. Millions of seeds I have. Sacks of them. Every one potentially a beauty like my Selina. Soon I shall embark on my pilgrimage of planting them all over Europe. The Miocene shall be born again!”
Monsieur Delacroix who had been listening to Medan and watching the plant in a semi-coma, was suddenly speared through by the realisation that Medan could not tell him all this and allow him to live.
Medan seemed to be recalled from his dream too. He turned his head and looked at Monsieur Delacroix. “She has never had three bodies in one night,” he whispered. “I wonder what she will do.”
“No!” croaked Monsieur Delacroix.
Medan fetched the wheelbarrow, and despite his wriggling, bundled Monsieur Delacroix into it. He stuffed a handkerchief into Monsieur Delacroix’s mouth and secured the plug with some scrim.
“We must hurry,” he told Monsieur Delacroix. “Once the flower drops she will not feed until another full Moon.”
Monsieur Delacroix was too horror-struck to reflect on the humour of Medan’s use of the word “we.” Come what may, he wa
s going to the most ghastly death conceivable. There was no hope of help—Abime no more now than fertiliser for the plant, as was the hapless drunk before him. Only his wife knew of his intention to watch in the labyrinth—and she would be now deeply asleep. Tears sprang to Monsieur Delacroix’s eyes as he said good-bye to his wife. Medan wheeled him through the gate left open in Delacroix’s frantic escape. They began the last dozen or so yards of ascent. The moonlight was still as strong in the open and the shadows as black beneath the bushes. Monsieur Delacroix became almost demented in his writhings as they came to the end of the path at the edge of the small clearing around the gazebo. If he had not been gagged he would have shrieked his fear of that terrible mouth lurking somewhere in the bushes, but all that came from him were vague mumbles.
“Selina!” called Medan coaxingly. He stamped on the grass. “She can’t hear, you understand,” he explained to Delacroix. “She is sensitive to vibrations in the ground. Selina! Selina!”
There was a rustle in the bracken to one side of the gazebo, and then with a rush the great mouth reared up into the moonlight weaving from side to side like some stupendous cobra. “Ah!” shouted Medan in adoration, and pushed the wheelbarrow nearer. The blind mouth swished over Delacroix missing his recumbent body by a few inches. He had a momentary look right down that fibrous tube and saw the glint of hundreds of spines moving with a wavelike motion into the blackness.
The tube was growing longer with every second, smoothly expanding from the hole under the gazebo. It waved high into the air right above the two men seeming to yearn at the bright moon overhead. Medan stamped his foot again. The mouth seemed to look downwards. Its ghastly, thorn-lined maw gaped wider and then it dived down, mouth fully extended and swallowed Medan completely. Delacroix, rigid with terror, was knocked from the wheelbarrow by the convulsions of the plant. He rolled into the bushes near the entrance to the path and watched in horror the bulge of Medan pass downwards into the earth. The mouth lay prone on the ground in satiation, and then slowly contracted back into its burrow.