“Your uncle is – ill,” I said. “That’s what Hammond King asked me to tell you. We’re trying to keep things quiet until we can take him away for a rest.”
“You mean he’s crazy?”
I shrugged.
“I’ve always thought so,” Lorna declared. “Even when Aunt Irene was alive, I knew there was something wrong with him. He led her an awful life.”
She halted, bit her lower lip, and continued.
“After she died, he got worse. He kept dogs at the house, guarding it. He wanted to guard her tomb, he said. I haven’t seen him now for almost a year. Nobody has seen him since the day she died. She had a heart attack, you know. He buried her in the private vaults on the estate. He wouldn’t even let me see her or come to the funeral.
“I knew he hated me, and it came as a surprise when I got his wire yesterday, asking me to come down from Frisco to talk about the will. That didn’t make sense, either. After all, Aunt Irene left him the whole estate, even though he can’t touch the money for a year.”
Something clicked into place. I decided to follow it up.
“By the way, who was your aunt’s physician?” I asked.
“Dr Kelring.”
“I’d like to talk to him,” I told her. “It’s important.”
“You think he might know what’s wrong with Uncle Igor?”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “He must know.”
I looked him up in the book. Dr Roger Kelring. I called his downtown office, not hoping for much of anything. Still, this gang seemed to work late. Hammond King was on the job, and Igor Petroff was a regular night-owl. Or was he? “They fly by night.”
The phone gave off that irritating sound known as a busy signal. That was enough for me.
“Come on, Miss Colby,” I said. “We’re going over to Dr Kelring’s office.”
“But you didn’t talk to him,” she objected.
“Busy signal,” I explained. “On second thought, I’d just as soon not say anything to him in advance.”
“What do you mean? Do you think he’s mixed up in all this?”
“Definitely,” I assured her. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if your uncle was up there with him now.”
Lorna put on her coat and we went downstairs. In the lobby, she halted indecisively.
“Wait a minute, Mr Kirby. Aren’t we going to report seeing Uncle Igor in my room? After all, if he’s sick somebody should be looking after him. He may be—”
“Dangerous? Perhaps. But let’s not start something we can’t finish. It’s my hunch that he’s over at Dr Kelring’s office. Don’t ask me why, but I’ve got reasons. Besides, you don’t want to get mixed up in a lot of cross-questioning, do you?”
She agreed. I was relieved. What could I do if we called some Law? Tell them that a suspected vampire was running around attacking girls in hotel rooms?
Besides, I didn’t think Igor Petroff was “running around”. He might be flying around. Or he might be working according to a plan. Dr Kelring would know the plan.
We took a cab to Kelring’s office, in a building off Pershing Square.
“What’s the doctor like?” I asked Lorna.
“He’s a rich woman’s doctor,” she told me. “You know – smooth, quiet, genial. He’s about fifty, I guess. Bald-headed, with a little goatee. I only saw him once, at Aunt Irene’s, a few months before she died. He was pleasant, but I didn’t like him.”
Lorna’s voice betrayed her inner tension. I understood. It’s not every night that a girl is attacked by a vampire, even if he’s a member of the family.
Partly for that reason and partly for personal pleasure, I held her arm as we took the elevator up to Kelring’s office. A light burned behind the outer door. I opened it and stepped in. I had no gun, but if there was anything doing, I counted on the surprise element.
There was one.
Seated at the desk in the reception room was a man of about fifty, bald-headed, and wearing a small goatee. His hand rested on the telephone as though he were going to pick it up and make another call.
But Dr Kelring would never make another call. He sat there staring off into space, and when I touched his shoulder his neck wobbled off at an angle so that his goatee almost touched the spot between his shoulder-blades. Roger Kelring was quite, was definitely, was unmistakably dead.
I was patting Lorna’s shoulder and making with the reassurance when the phone rang. Its sharp note cut the air, and I jumped. For a moment I stared at Dr Kelring, wondering why his dead hand didn’t lift the receiver and hold it to his ear.
Then I got around the desk, fast, and pried his cold fingers from the receiver.
“Lorna,” I said, “how did – he – talk?”
“You mean Dr Kelring?” She shuddered.
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t remember . . . Yes, I think I do. He had a soft voice. Very soft.”
“Good.”
I whipped out my handkerchief and covered the mouthpiece. Just a hunch.
“Hello,” I said lifting the receiver.
“Hello. That you, Kelring?”
I jumped as I recognized the voice. Hammond King!
“What is it?” I said, softly.
“Kelring, I must talk to you.” He sounded frightened. Too frightened to analyze my voice.
“Go ahead. What’s on your mind?”
“Did you ever read ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’?”
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Kelring. She’s alive out there. I know it!”
“Who’s alive?”
“Mrs Petroff. Don’t stall me, Kelring. I’m desperate.”
“What makes you think so, man?”
“It happened two months ago. I was out there at the house with Petroff, arguing about the will. You know he’s been trying to get me to turn over the estate before the time stipulated. I won’t bother with details, but I heard a noise. A woman’s voice, coming from behind the wall. It came from the private staircase behind the bookshelves – the one leading down to the family burial vaults in the hillside.”
“Get to the point, King,” I said.
“He tried to hold me off, but I made him take me down there. I don’t know how to tell you this – but beyond the iron grille entrance, in the vaults, I caught a glimpse of Irene Colby Petroff. Alive.”
“But I pronounced her dead of heart failure,” I said, remembering what I’d been told.
“She was alive, I tell you! She ran into one of the passages, but I recognized her face. I tried to get Petroff to open the grille and go in, but he dragged me back upstairs. Then he told me the story.”
“What story?”
“You know, all right, Kelring. That’s why I didn’t call before. I wanted to investigate on my own. Now I need your help.”
“Better tell me all you know, then.”
“I know that she’s a – vampire.”
I held my breath. King didn’t wait for any comment.
“Petroff broke down and confessed. Said he knew it and you knew it. She’d been mixed up in some kind of Black Magic cult in Europe when he met her. And when she died, she didn’t really die. She lived on, after sundown, as a vampire.”
“Preposterous!”
“I wasn’t sure myself, then. I wanted to call in the police. But Petroff pleaded with me. Said he had the guard and the dogs and kept people away. He had her locked up down there, fed her raw liver. Because you were trying to work on a cure. He asked for a little more time. And he explained it all. Gave me books on demonology to read. I didn’t know what to believe, but I promised to wait. Then, three nights ago, he called and told me that she had tried to attack him. He asked me to come out this afternoon and talk things over.
“I went out there about four today. Maybe I was a fool, but I took some garlic with me. The books say garlic wards them off. When I arrived, I found Petroff lying on the floor. There were two holes in his throat – the marks of a vampire�
�s teeth. So he has become a vampire now!
“I got frightened and ran. I knew he had sent for his niece, Lorna Colby. I wanted to talk to her before I did anything. Then, tonight, a young man called on me. Said he was from the newspapers. He knows something, too.
“Kelring, I’ve made up my mind to act. I won’t call the police. I – I can’t. They’d laugh at me. But there’s a monster loose tonight, and I can’t stand waiting any longer. I’m going out to the Petroff place now.”
“Wait!” I said.
His voice was shrill as he replied. “Do you know what I’ve been doing, Kelring? I’ve been sitting here molding silver bullets. Silver bullets for my gun. And I’m leaving now. I’m going out there to get him!”
“Don’t be a fool!” I yelled, in my natural voice.
But he had hung up.
“Come on,” I snapped at Lorna. “I’ll call the police and report on Kelring now. But we’re getting out before they come.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Petroff’s house,” I answered.
She nodded. I moved around the table. As I did, I saw something on the floor. It was a spectacle-case. I picked it up, turned it over. It was an expensive case, with an engraved name. The silver signature read:
Hammond King
4. Vampire’s Teeth
As the cab driver grumbled about the long haul, I told Lorna what I thought was wise.
I was too groggy to think clearly. Lenehan thought I was drunk, I’d jumped arrest, I’d eavesdropped, and impersonated, and messed up a murder. And it looked like an even busier day tomorrow unless I could straighten this tangle out tonight.
That’s my only excuse, I guess. I was a punch-drunk fool to take Lorna to that house, with only a crazy hunch to guide us, and armed with nothing but my suspicions.
But I did it. We rolled up to the black, forbidding portals of the Petroff place. We walked up the porch of the Petroff mansion and the cab waited in the driveway. I didn’t see Hammond King’s car, and I was glad we had arrived first.
He was wrong, I thought. Petroff was not here. And if he wasn’t, we could find that staircase, take a look into the vault, and see for ourselves whether Irene Colby Petroff walked or slept forever.
Never mind the details. The garlic odor choked us in the creaky hall. It flooded the parlor as I lit the lamp, tapped bookcases, and found the button that opened a section of the wall. Lorna shivered at my side. The setup looked like something out of “The Cat and the Canary”.
I kept listening for sounds. All quiet on the Western Front. With the light streaming from the parlor behind us, we took the secret staircase in stride. Down below was another panel in the wall. I switched on the light and walked down a long corridor. It was damp. King had said the private vaults of the family were out under the hillside.
We rounded a turn and came to the iron grille barring the hall. A perpetual light burned behind it. I tried the door. It was open. It squeaked as I pushed.
The squeak was drowned in a scream.
I turned.
Something black scuttled around the corner of the passageway. Something swooped down on Lorna, engulfed her in a sable cloud. I saw glaring eyes, red lips – Igor Petroff was here!
I made a dive for him. Petroff didn’t dodge. He stood there, and as I came on, his arm lashed out. The blow caught me off balance and as I wavered, his hand moved out. Something flashed down, and then I fell.
There was a blurred impression of movement, screaming, and scuffling. Petroff had dragged Lorna through the grille, down into the vaults.
I lurched to my feet as another figure raced around the bend. More blamed traffic down here, I thought, dazedly.
It was Hammond King.
He didn’t see me. He stared, glassy-eyed, as he ran past into the gloom of the corridor beyond. He was carrying a gun. Silver bullets!
I dashed after him. As we took another flight of stairs, I gazed over his shoulder at the family vaults beyond.
Lorna stood in a corner, crouching against a wall. The cloaked figure of Igor Petroff glided towards her, and I thought of Dracula, and of childhood terrors, and of nightmares men still whisper about.
Hammond King didn’t think. He began pumping shots from his gun, firing in maniac fury.
Petroff turned, across the room. And then, he smiled. He didn’t fall down. He smiled. He smiled, and started to run toward Hammond King with his arms extended, and Hammond King gave a little choking gurgle and fell down.
I didn’t fall. As Petroff advanced, I ran to meet him. This time I was not off balance. I let him have one right on the point of his white chin. He grunted, but his arms swept up and then I felt the cold embrace as he clawed at me. I hammered into his ribs, but he was hard, rigid. Rigor mortis is like that, I thought madly.
He smelled of dampness and mold and ancient earth. His arms were strong and he was squeezing me. I dropped to the floor and he began to reach for my throat. He chuckled, then, deep in his throat, an animal growl. A growl of hunger, the growl of a carnivore that scents blood.
He had me by the neck, and I reached out with one hand and scrabbled frantically against the floor until I felt the cold steel of the gun Hammond King had dropped.
Petroff wrenched my arm back, trying to tear the gun from my fingers. I wanted to fight him off, but his other hand was at my neck, squeezing. I felt myself falling back, and I pulled my arm free and brought the gun-butt up against his head, once, twice, three times.
Igor Petroff wobbled like a rundown mechanical doll and dropped with a dull thud.
I got up and slapped Lorna’s face. She came out of her trance, crying. Then I went over to Hammond King and slapped him around. Just a one-man rescue squad.
“Go upstairs, you two,” I said. “The cab driver’s waiting outside. Tell him to go into Centerville and bring back Sheriff Shea. I’ll meet you in a moment.”
They left.
I went through the vault until I came to what I wanted to find. When I was quite finished with my inspection I went back upstairs.
Lorna and Hammond King were waiting in the parlor. She had fixed her hair again, and he looked well enough to smoke a cigarette.
“The police should be here in five minutes,” King said.
“Good.”
“Perhaps I’d better look outside,” he suggested. “I’m expecting Dr Kelring.”
“Kelring isn’t coming,” I said, gently. “He’s dead.”
“But I talked to him over the phone.”
I told him who he’d talked to. And then I decided to tell him a few other things.
“You should have gone to the police the night you saw Mrs Petroff here,” I said. “Then all this wouldn’t have happened.”
“But I saw her. She was alive.”
“Right. But she wasn’t a vampire. Too bad you believed that crazy story Petroff concocted. When you stumbled onto her existence, he had to think of something and the vampire story just popped out. After you half swallowed it, he planned the rest. He had to convince you completely, and he was good at planning.”
“What do you mean?”
“It all started, I think, when Petroff and Dr Kelring decided to fake Mrs Petroff’s death. They were in on it together, to split the inheritance. They didn’t have the nerve to kill her outright but drugged her, held a private funeral, and faked the death certificate. Then Petroff kept her a prisoner down here in the vaults. That’s why he had dogs and a guard. She was alive until about three days ago.”
“How do you know?”
“I just found her body in the vault,” I explained. “And I’ve seen her living quarters – a room beyond. She’s dead now, all right, and I’d say she died of starvation.”
“I don’t understand,” Lorna sighed.
“Simple. When her fake death was accepted, Petroff and Dr Kelring were all set to divide the spoils. But there were no spoils – not for a year, according to the terms of her will. They hadn’t counted on that. So Petroff was try
ing to get King, here, to advance money against the inheritance.
“King, being a smart attorney, would do no such thing. But after he saw Mrs Petroff alive and heard this vampire line, he began to weaken. Petroff took advantage of it, showing him books on demonology, and telling wild stories about secret cults.”
Hammond King nodded miserably. “He was wearing me down,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t release any money. I couldn’t, legally.”
I took over again. “Then, three days ago, Mrs Petroff actually died. Perhaps he deliberately starved her, perhaps not. In any event, she was dead, and his extortion plot and fake death was now actually murder. He wanted that money at once, needed it desperately.
“So he phoned you, King, and asked you to come out today, planning to show himself lying on the floor as the victim of a vampire attack. He had it figured that you’d be too shocked to call the police at once. Then, after dark, he would call upon you as a supposed vampire, threaten you with his bite, and get you to advance personal funds against the estate.”
King was looking bewildered.
“But I’d never do that,” he protested. “He must have been mad!”
“He was – and desperate, too.” I grinned. “Here’s where I come into the story. Dave Kirby, the Boy Reporter. I got here today just after you left in the afternoon. I blundered in before Petroff could escape, so he lay there on the floor, hoping to fool me. When I left for the sheriff, he took a powder.
“Now the jig was up, but Petroff decided to carry the plan through. If he worked fast, he might still succeed. He’d called Lorna, asked her to come to town. He had only one idea – to appear before her as a supposed vampire and thus further bolster his story when he saw King and demanded money. This he was doing as I arrived at Lorna’s room. He fled, and undertook his next step in the plan – the murder of Dr Kelring.”
“But why would he murder Kelring?” King asked.
I shrugged. “There were several reasons. The first is the one that led me to the scene. You remember, I came out to the house for an interview on the Petroff estate art treasures, an interview Petroff had already refused to grant.”
The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction Page 67