THE NIGHT WIND HOWLS

by Frederick Cowles

  It must have been almost half an hour before I dared get out of bed and close the window. After that I fell asleep immediately and slept soundly until the maid called me at eight o’clock.

  In the broad daylight the events of the night seemed too ridiculous to be true, and I decided that I had been the victim of some fantastic nightmare. In answer to the landlord’s polite inquiry I vowed I had spent a most comfortable night, although I am afraid my looks must have belied the statement.

  II

  After breakfast I went out to explore the village. It was rather larger than it had appeared on the previous evening, some of the houses lying in a valley at the side of the road. There was even a small church, Romanesque in type and sadly in need of repair. I entered the building and was inspecting its gaudy high altar when a priest came in through a side door. He was a lean, ascetic-looking man, and at once gave me a friendly greeting. I returned his salutation and told him I was from England. He apologised for the obvious poverty of the building, pointed out some good fifteenth century glass, a carved font of the same period, and a very pleasing statue of the Madonna.

  Later, as I stood at the church door with him, I looked towards the castle and said, ‘I wonder, Father, if the Lord of Kaldenstein will give me a welcome as friendly as the one I have received from you?’

  ‘The Lord of Kaldenstein,’ repeated the priest with a tremor in his voice. ‘Surely you are not proposing to visit the castle?’

  ‘That is my intention,’ I replied. ‘It looks a very interesting place and I should be sorry to leave this part of the world without seeing it.’

  ‘Let me implore you not to attempt to enter that accursed place,’ he pleaded. ‘Visitors are not welcomed at Kaldenstein Castle. Besides that,’ he went on with a change in his voice, ‘there is nothing to see in the building.’

  ‘What about the wonderful vaults in the cliff and the man who has lived in them for three hundred years?’ I laughed.

  The priest’s face visibly blanched. ‘Then you know of the vampire,’ he said. ‘Do not laugh at evil, my son. May God preserve us all from the living dead.’ He made the sign of the Cross.

  ‘But Father,’ I cried, ‘surely you do not believe in such a medieval superstition?’

  ‘Every man believes what he knows to be true, and we of Kaldenstein can prove that no burial has taken place in the castle since 1645, when Count Feodor died, and his cousin Ludwig from Hungary inherited the estate.’

  ‘Such a tale is too absurd,’ I remonstrated. ‘There must be some reasonable explanation of the mystery. It is unthinkable that a man who came to this place in 1645 can still be alive.’

  ‘Much is possible to those who serve the devil,’ answered the priest. ‘Always throughout the history of the world evil has warred with good, and often triumphed. Kaldenstein Castle is the haunt of terrible, unnatural wickedness, and I urge you to keep as far away from it as you can.’

  He bade me a courteous farewell, lifted his hand in a gentle benediction, and re-entered the church.

  Now I must confess that the priest’s words gave me a most uncomfortable feeling and made me think of my nightmare. Had it been a dream after all? Or could it have been the vampire himself seeking to make me one of his victims, and only being frustrated in his plan by my accidental gripping of the crucifix? These thoughts passed through my mind and I almost abandoned my resolve to seek admittance to the castle. Then I looked up again at the grey old walls gleaming in the morning sunshine, and laughed at my fears. No mythical monster of the Middle Ages was going to frighten me away. The priest was just as superstitious as his ignorant parishioners.

  Whistling a popular song, I made my way up the village street and was soon climbing the narrow path which led to the castle. As the ascent became steeper the path gave place to a flight of steps which brought me on to a small plateau before the main door of the building. There was no sign of life about the place, but a ponderous bell hung before the entrance. I pulled a rusty chain and set the cracked thing jangling. The sound disturbed a colony of rooks in one of the turrets and started them chattering, but no human being appeared to answer my summons. Again I set the bell ringing. This time the echoes had hardly died away when I heard bolts being withdrawn. The great door creaked on its hinges, and an old man stood blinking in the sunlight.

  ‘Who comes to Castle Kaldenstein?’ he asked in a curious high-pitched voice, and I could see that he was half-blind.

  ‘I am an English visitor,’ I answered, ‘and would like to see the Count.’

  ‘His Excellency does not receive visitors,’ was the reply, and the man made to close the door in my face.

  ‘But is it not permitted that I should see over the castle?’ I asked hurriedly. ‘I am interested in medieval fortresses and should be sorry to leave Kaldenstein without inspecting this splendid building.’

  The old fellow peered out at me, and in a hesitant voice said, ‘There is little to see, sir, and I am afraid you would only be wasting your time.’

  ‘Yet I should appreciate the privilege of a brief visit,’ I argued, ‘and I am sure the Count would not object. I do assure you I shall not be a nuisance and I have no desire to disturb His Excellency’s privacy.’

  ‘What is the hour?’ asked the man.

  I informed him that it was barely eleven o’clock. He muttered something about it being ‘safe whilst the sun is in the sky’, and motioned me to enter. I found myself in a bare hall, hung with rotting tapestry and smelling of damp and decay. At the end of the room was a canopied dais surmounted by a coat of arms.

  ‘This is the main hall of the castle,’ mumbled my guide, ‘and it has witnessed many great historic scenes in the days of the great lords of Kaldenstein. Here Frederic, the sixth Count, put out the eyes of twelve Italian hostages, and afterwards had them driven over the edge of the cliff. Here Count August is said to have poisoned a prince of Wurttemburg, and then sat at a feast with the dead body.’

  He went on with his tales of foul and treacherous deeds, and it was evident that the Counts of Kaldenstein must have been a very unsavoury lot. From the main hall he conducted me into a number of smaller rooms filled with mouldering furniture. His own quarters were in the north turret, but although he showed me over the whole building I saw no room in which his master could be. The old fellow opened every door without hesitation and it seemed that, except for himself, the castle was untenanted.

  ‘But where is the Count’s room?’ I inquired as we returned to the main hall.

  He looked confused for a moment and then replied, ‘We have certain underground apartments, and His Excellency uses one as his bed-chamber. You see he can rest there undisturbed.’

  I thought that any room in the building would give him the quietness he required without having to seek peace in the bowels of the earth.

  ‘And have you no private chapel?’ I asked.

  ‘The chapel is also below.’

  I intimated that I was interested in chapels, and should very much like to seen an example of an underground place of worship. The old man made several excuses, but at last consented to show me the crypt. Taking an old-fashioned lantern from a shelf he lit the candle in it, and lifting a portion of the tapestry from the wall, opened a hidden door. A sickly odour of damp corruption swept up at us. Muttering to himself he led the way down a flight of stone steps and along a passage hollowed in the rock. At the end of this was another door which admitted us to a large cavern furnished like a church. The place stank like a charnel-house, and the feeble light of the lantern only intensified the gloom. My guide led me towards the chancel and, lifting the light, pointed out a particularly revolting painting of Lazarus rising from the dead which hung above the altar. I moved forward to examine it more closely and found myself near another door.

  ‘And what is beyond this?’

  ‘Speak softly, sir,’ he implored. ‘It is the vault in which rest the mortal remains of the Lords of Kaldenstein.’

  And whilst he was speaking
I heard a sound from beyond the barrier—a sigh and the kind of noise that might be made by a person turning in his sleep.

  I think the old servitor also heard it, for he grasped me with a trembling hand and led me out of the chapel. His flickering light went before me as I mounted the stairs, and I laughed sharply with relief as we stepped into the castle hall again. He gave me a quick look and said, ‘That is all, sir. You see there is little of interest in this old building.’

  I tried to press a five-mark piece into his hand, but he refused to accept it.

  ‘Money is of no use to me, sir,’ he whispered. ‘I have nothing to spend it upon for I live with the dead. Give the coin to the priest in the village and ask him to say a Mass for me if you will.’

  I promised it should be done as he desired and then, in some mad spirit of bravado, asked, ‘And when does the Count receive visitors?’

  ‘My master never receives visitors,’ was the reply.

  ‘But surely he is sometimes in the castle itself? He doesn’t spend all his time in the vaults,’ I urged.

  ‘Usually after nightfall he sits in the hall for an hour or so, and sometimes walks on the battlements.’

  ‘Then I shall be back tonight,’ I cried. ‘I owe it to His Excellency to pay my respects to him.’

  The old man turned in the act of unfastening the door, and fixing his dim eyes upon my face said, ‘Come not to Kaldenstein after the sun has set lest you find that which shall fill your heart with fear.’

  ‘Don’t try to frighten me with any of your hobgoblins,’ I rudely replied. Then raising my voice I cried, ‘Tonight I shall wait upon the Count von Kaldenstein.’

  The servant flung the door wide and the sunlight streamed into the mouldering building.

  ‘If you come he will be ready to receive you,’ he said, ‘and remember that if you enter the castle again you do so of your own free will.’

  III

  By the time evening came my courage had quite evaporated and I wished I had taken the priest’s advice and left Kaldenstein. But there is a streak of obstinacy in my make-up and, having vowed to visit the castle again, nothing could turn me from my purpose. I waited until dusk had fallen and, saying nothing to the innkeeper of my intentions, made my way up the steep path to the fortress. The moon had not yet risen and I had to use my flashlight on the steps. I rang the cracked bell and the door opened almost immediately. There stood the old servant bowing a welcome.

  ‘His Excellency will see you, sir,’ he cried. ‘Enter Kaldenstein Castle—enter of your own free will.’

  For one second I hesitated. Something seemed to warn me to retreat whilst there was still time. Then I plucked up courage and stepped over the threshold.

  A log fire was burning in the enormous grate and gave a more cheerful atmosphere to the gloomy apartment. Candles gleamed in the silver candelabra, and I saw that a man was sitting at the table on the dais. As I advanced he came down to greet me.

  How shall I describe the Count of Kaldenstein? He was unusually tall, with a face of unnatural pallor. His hair was intensely black, and his hands delicately shaped but with very pointed fingers and long nails. His eyes impressed me most. As he crossed the room they seemed to glow with a red light, just as if the pupils were ringed with flame. However, his greeting was conventional enough.

  ‘Welcome to my humble home, sir,’ he said, bowing very low. ‘I regret my inability to offer you a more hospitable welcome, but we live very frugally. It is seldom we entertain guests, and I am honoured that you should take the trouble to call upon me.’

  I murmured some polite word of thanks, and he conducted me to a seat at the long table upon which stood a decanter and one glass.

  ‘You will take wine?’ he invited, and filled the glass to the brim. It was a rare old vintage, but I felt a little uncomfortable at having to drink alone.

  ‘I trust you will excuse me for not joining you,’ he said, evidently noticing my hesitant manner. ‘I never drink wine.’ He smiled, and I saw that his front teeth were long and sharply pointed.

  ‘And now tell me,’ he went on. ‘What are you doing in this part of the world? Kaldenstein is rather off the beaten track and we seldom see strangers.’

  I explained that I was on a walking tour and had missed my way to Pfarrkirchen. The Count laughed softly, and again showed his fang-like teeth.

  ‘And so you came to Kaldenstein and of your own free will you have come to visit me.’

  I began to dislike these references to my free will. The expression seemed to be a kind of formula. The servant had used it when I was leaving after my morning visit, and again when he had admitted me that evening, and now the Count was making use of it.

  ‘How else should I come but of my own free will?’ I asked sharply.

  ‘In the bad old days of the past many have been brought to this castle by force. The only guests we welcome today are those who come willingly.’

  All this time a queer sensation was gradually coming over me: I felt as if all my energy was being sapped from me and a deadly nausea was overpowering my senses. The Count went on uttering commonplaces, but his voice came from far away. I was conscious of his peculiar eyes gazing into mine. They grew larger and larger, and it seemed that I was looking into two wells of fire. And then, with a clumsy movement, I knocked my wine-glass over. The frail thing shattered to fragments, and the noise restored me to my senses. A splinter pierced my hand and a tiny pool of blood formed on the table. I sought for a handkerchief, but before I could produce it I was terrified by an unearthly howl which echoed through the vaulted hall. The cry came from the lips of the Count, and in a moment he was bending over the blood on the table and licking it up with obvious relish. A more disgusting sight I have never witnessed, and, struggling to my feet, I made for the door.

  But terror weakened my limbs, and the Count had overtaken me before I had covered many yards. His white hands grasped my arms and led me back to the chair I had vacated.

  ‘My dear sir,’ he said. ‘I must beg you to excuse me for my discourtesy. The members of my family have always been peculiarly affected by the sight of blood. Call it an idiosyncrasy if you like, but it does at times make us behave like wild animals. I am grieved to have so far forgotten my manners as to behave in such a strange way before a guest. I assure you that I have sought to conquer this failing, and for that reason I keep away from my fellow-men.’

  The explanation seemed plausible enough, but it filled me with horror and loathing—more especially as I could see a tiny globule of blood clinging to his mouth.

  ‘I fear I am keeping Your Excellency from bed,’ I suggested, ‘and in any case I think it is time I got back to the inn.’

  ‘Ah, no, my friend,’ he replied. ‘The night hours are the ones I enjoy best, and I shall be very grateful if you will remain with me until morning. The castle is a lonely place and your company will be a pleasant change. There is a room prepared for you in the south turret and tomorrow, who knows, there may be other guests to cheer us.’

  A deadly fear gripped my heart and I staggered to my feet stammering, ‘Let me go . . . Let me go. I must return to the village at once.’

  ‘You cannot return tonight, for a storm is brewing and the cliff path will be unsafe.’

  As he uttered these words he crossed to a window and, flinging it open, raised one arm towards the sky. As if in obedience to his gesture a flash of vivid lightning split the clouds, and a clap of thunder seemed to shake the castle. Then the rain came in a terrible deluge and a great wind howled across the mountains. The Count closed the casement and returned to the table.

  ‘You see, my friend,’ he chuckled, ‘the very elements are against your return to the village. You must be satisfied with such poor hospitality as we can offer you for tonight at any rate.’

  The red-rimmed eyes met mine, and again I felt my will being sapped from my body. His voice was no more than a whisper and seemed to come from far away.

  ‘Follow me, and I will conduct
you to your room. You are my guest for tonight.’

  He took a candle from the table and, like a man in a trance, I followed him up a winding staircase, along an empty corridor, and into a cheerless room furnished with an ancient four-poster.

  ‘Sleep well,’ he said with a wicked leer. ‘Tomorrow night you shall have other company.’

  The heavy door slammed behind him as he left me alone, and I heard a bolt being shot on the other side. Summoning what little strength was left in my body I hurled myself against the door. It was securely fastened and I was a prisoner. Through the keyhole came the Count’s purring voice.

  ‘Yes, you shall have other company tomorrow night. The Lords of Kaldenstein shall give you a hearty welcome to their ancestral home.’

  A burst of mocking laughter died away in the distance as I fell to the floor in a dead faint.

  IV

  I must have recovered somewhat after a time and dragged myself to the bed and again sunk into unconsciousness, for when I came round daylight was streaming through the barred window of the room. I looked at my wrist watch. It was half-past three and, by the sun, it was afternoon, so the greater part of the day had passed.

  I still felt weak, but struggled over to the window. It looked out upon the craggy slopes of the mountain and there was no human habitation in sight. With a moan I returned to the bed and tried to pray. I watched the patch of sunlight on the floor grow fainter and fainter until it had faded altogether. Then the shadows gathered and at last only the dim outline of the window remained.