And now my newly acquired possession is safely home and I have hung it between the two windows in my study.
May 12th. There is something queer about the Florentine mirror. Last night I returned home late from my club and happened to glance in the glass as soon as I entered the room. Instead of my own face looking back at me, I was confronted by the reflection of a much younger man—a dark fellow with long, wavy hair. Just for a moment he looked out at me and then my own reflection appeared. I was quite alone in the room at the time, and I cannot convince myself that any trick of the light produced such a clear and unusual image.
May 13th. The face is there. I have seen it again—this time in broad daylight. The eyes are green and they regarded me so intently that I felt as if my soul were being drawn out of my body.
Curiously enough I was not afraid. I know that the thing in the mirror is evil, and that it desires to bend me to its will. Yet the face is very beautiful and I am falling under its spell. Am I going mad? Is this some delusion created by a disordered mind? It cannot be, for my health is good, and I can hardly doubt the evidence of my own eyes.
May 14th. Tonight he has spoken to me. The green eyes looked into mine and I heard a soft voice say, ‘I who have been dead for over two centuries speak to you across the years. You shall complete the task which I failed to accomplish. Seven deaths I promised him in sacrifice, and only four were offered. Three more must die ere I gain my reward, and it is for you to complete what I began. My master shall be your master, my reward shall be your reward. I shall belong to you, and you shall belong to me throughout time and eternity.’
The face vanished immediately after this speech, but a hiss of quiet laughter seemed to echo through the room. What is wrong with me? I feel an overwhelming affection for this youth whose face appears in the mirror. I have a desire to help him—even to kill for his sake.
May 15th. Perhaps I am mad. I do not know, but I am sure of one fact—I am a murderer. After I had written in my diary last night I knew that the only way to meet the youth whose reflection appears in the mirror was to do as he desires. For his sake I had to commit a murder.
I slipped a razor into my pocket, got the car from the garage, and drove slowly along Oxford Street. Without any difficulty I picked up a woman. She was one of those street-walkers, already past her prime, and glad enough of the chance to earn a pound. She raised no objection when I suggested we should drive out to Richmond Common. I had forgotten that the gates close at dusk, so we had to turn back towards Putney. I parked the car in a quiet spot on the heath, and we walked over to a clump of trees. There I pulled out my razor and, before she could utter a cry, slashed her throat. The warm blood gushed out over my hands, and I wiped them on the grass.
I was home before midnight and the face in the mirror smiled at me.
May 16th. The will of the face in the glass has become my will. For his sake I have killed again.
On this occasion I drove out to Woolwich, and in a public-house in Beresford Square, fell into conversation with a young soldier. He had already had quite enough to drink, but I plied him with more beer. At closing-time we left the place together and walked in the direction of the barracks. He was too drunk to realise what was happening as I led him across the artillery parade-ground to the gloom of a tree-shaded road. It was all so very simple. One stroke with the razor and he fell with just a faint gurgling cry. I dragged the body into the hedge and leisurely strolled back to the garage where I had left my car.
May 17th. The newspapers are full of reports of the two murders. The woman’s body was discovered last night by two lovers who sought seclusion in the coppice. They found more than they bargained for.
A policeman came upon the soldier’s body early this morning, and the Press are now trying to connect the two crimes. What do I care! The face in the mirror has smiled at me again. One more person must die and then the price is paid in full. Tomorrow he will tell me where to find the third victim.
May 18th. O God! This is horrible. Soon after lunch the sky suddenly darkened and a storm broke over the city. Whilst it was raging he appeared to me. He had left the mirror and stood in the centre of the room with a cruel smile on his lips and a red glow in his eyes. The lightning seemed to flash around him, and he appeared as some young god come down to earth.
‘You have done well,’ he said. ‘Yet there is one more life to be taken before we can both be rewarded.’
‘Where shall I find that one?’ I asked.
He laughed a hollow, mirthless laugh. ‘You have not far to seek. Let the knife kiss your own throat. There will be no pain. It will be over so quickly, and then we shall be together for all eternity. You are my friend and cannot deny me this simple request. Yours is the third life. As the clock strikes midnight you must die by your own hand.’
‘No, no,’ I screamed. ‘I cannot die. I want to live. I am afraid of death.’
But he had gone and only the echo of his laughter remained. I rushed across the room to that hellish mirror. I tore it from the wall, cast it upon the floor, and stamped upon it. The glass shattered, but he is still there with his fascinating beauty and his evil eyes. I must be losing my senses. I cannot get away from those eyes and that low mocking laughter. The razor is on the table at my side. It is an easy way out, but I will not die. I tell you I will not die.
Still the eyes gaze at me from every fragment of that shattered mirror, and even the frame has become a living thing. The satyr grins, the snake writhes, the mutilated face twists in ghastly contortions. Merciful heavens! I see it all now. That hideous, inhuman countenance is the face in the mirror—all its loveliness gone, a decaying, putrid thing.
And now the rats have come to life. There are rats everywhere. They scamper about the floor, and one has even climbed to my knee. I will not be tortured in this way. The razor has killed men. Why should it not kill rats?
Two minutes to midnight. A rat shall be the third victim. Its eyes gleam so brightly. O God! They are his eyes looking at me, willing me to die, and the hour is striking. . . .
Extract from the Daily Courier, June 2nd, 1936.
A terrible tragedy was discovered yesterday afternoon at a flat in Padgham Street, W.1. The occupant, Mr Roland Device, had not been seen for over two weeks, but it was presumed that he was away from home.
Yesterday his sister called at the flat, and being unable to secure admission instructed the police to effect an entry. A ghastly discovery awaited them when the door was forced open. The unfortunate gentleman was found dead from a throat wound which appeared to have been self-inflicted.
A particularly horrible aspect of the case is that the body must have been in the flat for some time, and the features have been terribly mutilated and disfigured by rats. Near the corpse a beautiful Florentine mirror was found shattered into a thousand pieces.
Extract from the Daily Courier, June 3rd, 1936.
Further light has been shed upon the Padgham Street tragedy. It is understood that the police have discovered a diary which conclusively proves that Roland Device was responsible for the murders at Richmond and Woolwich about the middle of last month.
Device’s mind evidently became unhinged, and his madness seems to have been connected with the Florentine mirror found in the flat. Curiously enough this mirror has had a remarkable history. From the broken frame a brief document has been recovered. This was written in 1674 by a certain Silvio de Varro, who appears to have been the servant of Alessandro Voragine.
It is known that Voragine was accused of sorcery and thrown into prison at Genoa. He died in prison and his body was left in the cell for weeks. When the officials went to remove it they found that rats had gnawed the nose, eyes, and ears away.
De Varro states that the mirror was used by his master in experiments and, in memory of Voragine, the servant carved the gilt frame.
The document concludes with these words: ‘O master, I have done as thy spirit hath commanded. I have fashioned the frame for your glass, I have car
ved the horrors of death and corruption, and therefore I pray that you may no longer trouble me.’
The Vampire of Kaldenstein
I
SINCE I WAS a lad I have been accustomed to spend my vacations wandering about the more remote parts of Europe. I have had some pleasant times in Italy, Spain, Norway, and southern France, but of all the countries I have explored in this fashion Germany is my favourite. It is an ideal holiday land for the lover of open-air life whose means are small and tastes simple, for the people are always so friendly and the inns are good and cheap. I have had many excellent holidays in Germany, but one will always stand out in my memory because of a very queer and remarkable experience which befell me.
It was in the summer of 1933, and I had practically made up my mind to go on a cruise to the Canaries with Donald Young. Then he caught a very childish complaint—the measles, in fact—and I was left to make my own arrangements. The idea of joining an organised cruise without a companion did not appeal to me. I am not a particularly sociable kind of person, and these cruises seem to be one round of dances, cocktail parties, and bridge drives. I was afraid of feeling like a fish out of water, so I decided to forgo the cruise. Instead I got out my maps of Germany and began to plan a walking tour.
Half the fun of a holiday is in the planning of it, and I suppose I decided on a particular part of the country and changed my mind half a dozen times. At first I fancied the Moselle Valley, then it was the Lahn. I toyed with the idea of the Black Forest, swung over to the Hartz Mountains, and then thought it might be fun to re-visit Saxony. Finally I fixed upon southern Bavaria, because I had never been there and it seemed better to break fresh ground.
Two days of third-class travel is tiring even for a hardened globe-trotter, and I arrived at Munich feeling thoroughly weary and sore. By some good chance I discovered The Inn of the Golden Apple, near the Hofgarten, where Peter Schmidt sells both good wine and good food, and has a few rooms for the accommodation of guests. Peter, who lived in Canada for ten years and speaks excellent English, knew exactly how I was feeling. He gave me a comfortable room for one mark a night, served me with hot coffee and rolls, and recommended me to go to bed and stay there until I was completely rested. I took his advice, slept soundly for twelve hours, and awakened feeling as fresh as a daisy. A dish of roast pork and two glasses of lager beer completed the cure, and I sallied forth to see something of Munich.
The city is the fourth largest in Germany and has much of interest to show the visitor. The day was well advanced, but I managed to inspect the Frauen-Kirche with its fine stained glass, the old Rathaus, and the fourteenth century church of St Peter, near the Marien-Platz. I looked in at the Regina-Palast, where a tea-dance was in progress, and then went back to The Golden Apple for dinner. Afterwards I attended a performance of Die Meistersinger at the National-Theater. It was past midnight when I retired to bed, and by then I had decided to stay in Munich for another day.
I won’t bore you with a description of the things I saw and did on that second day. It was just the usual round of sights with nothing out of the ordinary.
After dinner Peter helped me to plan my tour. He revealed a very intimate knowledge of the Bavarian villages, and gave me a list of inns which eventually proved invaluable. It was he who suggested I should train to Rosenheim and begin my walk from there. We mapped out a route covering about two hundred miles and bringing me back to Munich at the end of fifteen days.
Well, to cut a long story short, I caught the early morning train to Rosenheim, and a deadly slow journey it was. It took nearly three hours to cover a distance of forty-six miles. The town itself is quite a cheerful place of the small industrial type, with a fifteenth century church and a good museum of Bavarian paintings housed in an old chapel.
I did not linger there, but started off along the road to Traunstein—a pleasant road curving round the Chiem-See, the largest lake in Bavaria.
I spent the night at Traunstein and the next day pushed on to the old walled town of Mühldorf. From there I planned to make for Vilshofen by way of Pfarrkirchen. But I took a wrong turning and found myself in a small place called Gangkofen. The local innkeeper tried to be helpful and directed me to a field path which he said would prove a short cut to Pfarrkirchen. Evidently I misunderstood his instructions, for evening came and I was hopelessly lost in the heart of a range of low hills which were not marked on my map. Darkness was falling when I came upon a small village huddled under the shadow of a high cliff upon which stood a grey stone castle.
Fortunately the village possessed an inn—a primitive place but moderately comfortable. The landlord was an intelligent kind of chap and friendly enough, although he informed me that visitors were seldom seen in the district. The name of the hamlet was Kaldenstein.
I was served with a simple meal of goat’s milk cheese, salad, coarse bread, and a bottle of thin red wine, and, having done justice to the spread, went for a short stroll.
The moon had risen and the castle stood out against a cloudless sky like some magic castle in a fairy tale. It was only a small building—square, with four turrets—but it was the most romantic-looking fortress I had ever seen. A light twinkled in one of the windows, so I knew the place was inhabited. A steep path and a flight of steps cut in the rock led up to it, and I half considered paying the Lord of Kaldenstein a late visit. Instead I returned to the inn and joined the few men who were drinking in the public room.
The company was mainly composed of folk of the labouring class, and although they were polite they had little of that friendly spirit one is accustomed to meet with in German villages. They seemed morose and unresponsive and I had the impression that they shared some dread secret. I did my best to engage them in conversation without success. Then, to get one of them to speak, I asked, ‘Tell me, my friends, who lives in the castle on the hillside?’
The effect of the harmless question upon them was startling. Those who were drinking placed their beer-mugs on the table and gazed at me with consternation on their faces. Some made the sign of the cross, and one old chap hoarsely whispered, ‘Silence, stranger. God forbid that he should hear.’
My inquiry seemed to have upset them altogether, and within ten minutes they all left in a body. I apologised to the landlord for any indiscretion I had been guilty of, and hoped my presence had not robbed him of custom.
He waved aside my excuses and assured me that the men would not have stayed long in any case.
‘They are terrified of any mention of the castle,’ he said, ‘and consider it unlucky to even glance at the building after nightfall.’
‘But why?’ I inquired. ‘Who lives there?’
‘It is the home of Count Ludwig von Kaldenstein.’
‘And how long has he lived up there?’ I asked.
The man moved over to the door and carefully shut and barred it before he replied. Then he came over to my chair and whispered, ‘He has been up there for nearly three hundred years.’
‘Nonsense,’ I exclaimed, laughing. ‘How can any man, be he count or peasant, live for three hundred years? I suppose you mean that his family has held the castle for that length of the time.’
‘I mean exactly what I say, young man,’ answered the old fellow earnestly. ‘The Count’s family has held the castle for ten centuries, and the Count himself has dwelt in Burg Kaldenstein for nearly three hundred years.’
‘But how can that be possible?’
‘He is a vampire. Deep down in the castle rock are great vaults and in one of these the Count sleeps during the day so that the sunlight may not touch him. Only at night does he walk abroad.’
This was too fantastic for anything. I am afraid I smiled in a sceptical manner, but the poor landlord was obviously very serious, and I hesitated to make another remark that might wound his feelings. I finished my beer and got up to go to bed. As I was mounting the stairs my host called me back and grasping my arm said, ‘Please, sir, let me beg you to keep your window closed. The night air of Kalden
stein is not healthy.’
On reaching my room I found the window already tightly shut, although the atmosphere was like that of an oven. Of course I opened it at once and leaned out to fill my lungs with fresh air. The window looked directly upon the castle and, in the clear light of the full moon, the building appeared more than ever like some dream of fairyland.
I was just drawing back into the room when I fancied I saw a black figure silhouetted against the sky on the summit of one of the turrets. Even as I watched it flapped enormous wings and soared into the night. It seemed too large for an eagle, but the moonlight has a queer trick of distorting shapes. I watched until it was only a tiny black speck in the far distance. Just then, from far away, a dog howled weirdly and mournfully.
Within a few moments I was ready for bed, and disregarding the innkeeper’s warning I left the window open. I took my electric flashlight from my rucksack and placed it on the small bedside table—a table above which hung a wooden crucifix.
I am usually asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow, but on this particular night I found it difficult to settle. The moonlight disturbed me and I tossed about vainly trying to get comfortable. I counted sheep until I was heartily sick of imagining the silly creatures passing through a gap in a hedge, but still sleep eluded me.
A clock in the house chimed the hour of midnight, and suddenly I had the unpleasant feeling that I was no longer alone. For a moment I felt frightened and then, overcoming my fear, I turned over. There, by the window and black against the moonlight, was the figure of a tall man. I started up in bed and groped for my flashlight. In doing so I knocked something from the wall. It was the little crucifix and my fingers closed over it almost as soon as it touched the table. From the direction of the window came a muttered curse, and I saw the figure poise itself on the sill and spring out into the night. In that brief moment I noticed one other thing—the man, whoever he was, cast no shadow. The moonlight seemed to stream right through him.
THE NIGHT WIND HOWLS Page 6