by Cave, Hugh
"And you can honestly sit there, spilling your mad theories to the world?" he used to accuse me in his rasping, deep-throated voice. "Good Lord, Munn, this is the Twentieth Century—a scientific era of careful thought—not the time of werewolves and vampires! You are mad!"
And yet, for all his open condemnation, he did not dare to stand erect, with his face lifted, and deny the things I told him. That sinister gleam of his eyes; there was no denying the thoughts lurking behind it. On the surface he was a sneering, indifferent doubter; but beneath the surface, where no man's eyes penetrated, he knew.
He was there in my apartment when she came. That night is vivid even now. There we sat, enveloped in a haze of gray cigarette smoke. I was bent over the desk in the corner, hammering a typewriter. He lay sprawled in the great overstuffed chair, watching me critically, intently, as if he would have liked to continue the heated argument which had passed between us during the past hour.
He had come in his usual unannounced manner, bringing with him an ancient newspaper clipping from some forgotten file in the university. Thrusting the thing into my hand, he had ordered me to read it.
That clipping was of singular interest. It was a half-hearted account of the infamous vampire horror of the little half-buried village of West Surrey. You recall it? It was known, luridly, as the "crime of eleven terrors." Eleven pitiful victims, each with the same significant blood-marks, were one after the other the prey of the unknown vampire who haunted that little village in the heart of an English moor. And then, when the eleventh victim had succumbed, Scotland Yard—with the assistance of the famous psychic investigator, Sir Edmund Friel—discovered the vampire to be the same aged, seemingly innocent old woman who had acted as attendant nurse to the unfortunate victims. A ghastly affair.
But Threng held the newspaper clipping up to me as a mere "trick" of journalism. He denounced it bitterly.
"What is a vampire, Munn?" he sneered.
I did not answer him. I saw no use in continuing a futile debate on a subject in which we had nothing in common.
"Well?" he insisted.
I swung around, facing him deliberately.
"A vampire," I said thoughtfully, choosing my words with extreme care, "is a creature of living death, dependent upon human blood for its existence. From sunset to sunrise, during the hours of darkness, it is free to pursue its horrible blood-quest. During the day it must remain within the confines of its grave—dead, and yet alive."
"And how does it appear?" he bantered. "As the usual skeletonic intruder, cowled in black, or perhaps as a mystic wraith without substance?"
"In either of two forms," I said coldly, angered by his twisted smile. "As a bat—or in its natural human substance. In either shape it leaves the grave each night and seeks blood. It obtains its blood from the throats of its victims, leaving two significant wounds in the neck from which it has drawn life. Its victims, after such a death, inherit the powers of their persecutor—and become vampires."
"Rot!" Threng exclaimed. "Utter sentimentality and imagination."
I turned back to my typewriter, ignoring him. His words were not pleasant. I would have been glad to be rid of him.
But he was persistent. He leaned forward in his chair and said critically: "Suppose I wished to become a vampire, Munn. How could I go about it? How does a man obtain life after death, or life in death?"
"By study," I answered crisply. "By delving into thoughts which men like you sneer at. By going so deeply into such things that he becomes possessed of inhuman powers."
That ended our discussion. He could not conceive of such possibilities; and he laughed aloud at my statement. Bitterly resentful, I forced myself to continue the work before me. He, in turn, thrust a cigarette into his mouth and leaned back in his chair like a great lazy animal. And then—she came.
The soft knock on the door panel—so suggestive that it seemed from the world beyond—startled me. I swung about, frowning at the intrusion. Visitors at this hour of night were not the kind of guests I wished to face.
I went to the door slowly, hesitantly. My hand touched the latch nervously. Then I forced back the foolish fear that gripped me, and drew the barrier wide. And there I saw her for the first time—tall, slender, radiantly lovely as she stood in the half-light of the outer passage.
"You—are Mr. Paul Munn?" she inquired quietly.
"I am," I admitted.
"I am Margot Vernee. It is unconventional, I suppose, calling upon you at this hour; but I have come because of your reputation. You are the one man in this great city who may be able to—help me."
I would have answered her, but she caught sight, then, of Rojer Threng. Her face whitened. She stepped back very abruptly, fearful—or at least so I thought —that he might have overheard her.
"I—I am sorry," she said quickly. "I thought that you were alone, Mr. Munn. I—may I return later? Tomorrow, perhaps—when you are not occupied?"
I nodded. At that particular moment I could not find a voice to answer her; for she had inadvertently stepped directly beneath the bracket lamp in the wall, and her utter beauty fascinated me, choking the words back into my throat.
Then she went; and as I closed the door reluctantly, Rojer Threng glanced quizzically into my face and said dryly:
"Wants you to help her, eh? I didn't know you went in for that sort of thing, Munn. Better be careful!"
And he laughed. God, how I remember that laugh—and the cruel, derisive hatred that was inherent in it! But I did not answer him. In fact, his words were driven mechanically into my mind, and I hardly heard them. Returning to the typewriter, I attempted to force myself once more into the work that confronted me; but the face of that girl blurred the lines of my manuscript. She seemed to be still in the room, still standing near me. Imagination, of course; and yet, in view of what has happened since that night, I do not know.
She did not return as she had promised. All during the following day I awaited her coming—restless, nervous, unable to work. At eleven in the evening I was still pacing automatically back and forth across the floor when the door-bell rang. It was Rojer Threng who stepped over the threshold.
At first he did not mention the peculiar affair of the previous night. He took his customary place in the big chair and talked idly about medical topics of casual interest. Then, bending forward suddenly, he demanded:
"Did she return, Munn?"
"No," I said.
"I thought not," he muttered harshly."Not after she saw me here. I—used to know her."
It was not so much the thing he said, as the complete bitterness with which he spoke, that brought me about with a jerk, confronting him.
"You—knew her?" I said slowly.
"I knew her," he scowled. "Think of the name, man. Margot Vernee. Have I never mentioned it to you?"
"No." And then I knew that he had. At least, the inflection of it was vaguely familiar.
"Her story would interest you," he shrugged. "Peculiar, Munn—very peculiar, in view of what you were telling me last night, before she came."
He looked up at me oddly. I did not realize the significance of that crafty look then, but now I know.
"The Vernee family," he said, "is as old as France."
"Yes?" I tried to mask my eagerness.
"The Château Vernee is still standing—abandoned—forty miles south of Paris. A hundred years before the Revolution it was occupied by Armand Vernee, noted for his occult research and communications with the spirit world. He was dragged from the château by the peasants of the surrounding district when he was twenty-eight years old and burned at the stake—for witchcraft."
I stared straight into Threng's angular face. If ever I noticed that unholy gleam in his strange eyes, it was at that moment. His eyes were wide open, staring, burning with a dead, phosphorescent glow. Never once did they flicker as he continued his story in that sibilant, half-hissing voice of his.
"After Armand Vernee's execution, his daughter Regine lived alone in
the château. She married a young count, gave birth to a son. In her twenty-eighth year she was prostrated with a strange disease. The best physicians in the country could not cure her. She—"
"What—kind of disease?" I said very slowly.
"The symptoms," he said, sucking in his breath audibly, "baffled all those
who examined her. Two small red marks at the throat, Munn—and a continual loss of blood while she slept. She confessed to horrible dreams. She told of a great bat which possessed her father's face, clawing at the window of her chamber every night—gaining admittance by forcing the shutters open with its claws—hovering over her."
"And—she died?"
"She died. In her twenty-eighth year."
"And then?" I shuddered.
"Her son, Franois Vernee Leroux, lived alone in the chateau. The count would not remain. The horror of her death drove him away—drove him mad. The son, François, lived—alone."
Threng looked steadily at me. At least, his eyes looked. The rest of his face was contorted with passion, malignant.
"François Vernee died when he was twenty-eight years of age," he said meaningly. "He, too, left a son—and that son died at the age of twenty-eight. Each death was the same. The same crimson marks at the throat. The same loss of blood. The same—madness."
Threng reached for a cigarette and held a match triumphantly to the end of it. His face, behind the sudden glare of that stick of wood, was horrible with exultation.
"Margot Vernee is the last of her line," he shrugged. "Every direct descendant of Armand Vernee has died in the same ghastly way, at twenty-eight years of age. That is why the girl came here for help, Munn. She knows the inevitable end that awaits her! She knows that she can not escape the judgment which Armand Vernee has inflicted upon the family of Vernee!"
Rojer Threng was right. Three weeks after those significant words had passed his lips, the girl came to my apartment. She repeated, almost word for word, the very fundamental facts that Threng had disclosed to me. Other things she told me, too—but I see no need to repeat them here.
"You are the only man who knows the significance of my fate," she said to me; and her face was ghastly white as she said it. "Is there no way to avert it, Mr. Munn? Is there no alternative?"
I talked with her for an eternity. The following night, and every night for the next four weeks, she came to me. During the hours of daylight I delved frantically into research work, in an attempt to find an outlet from the dilemma which faced her. At night, alone with her, I learned bit by bit the details of her mad story, and listened to her pleas for assistance.
Then came that fatal night. She sat close to me, talking in her habitually soft, persuasive voice.
"I have formed a plan," I said quietly.
"A plan, Paul?"
"When the time comes, I shall prepare a sleeping-chamber for you with but one window. I shall seal that window with the mark of the cross. It is the only way."
She looked at me for a long while without speaking. Then she said, very slowly:
"You had better prepare the room, Paul—soon."
"You mean—" I said suddenly. But I knew what she meant.
"I shall be twenty-eight tonight—at midnight."
God forgive me that I did not keep her with me that night! 1 was already half in love with her. No—do not smile at that. You, too, after looking into her face continually for four long weeks—sitting close to her—listening to the soft whisper of her voice—you, too, would have loved her. I would have given my work, my reputation, my very life for her; and yet I permitted her to walk out of my apartment that night, to the horror that awaited her!
She came to me the next evening. One glance at her and I knew the terrible truth. I need not have asked the question that I did, but it came mechanically from my lips, like a dead voice.
"It—came?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "It came."
She stood before me and untied the scarf from her neck. And there, in the center of her white throat, I saw those infernal marks—two parallel slits of crimson, an eighth of an inch in length, horrible in their evil.
"It was a dream," she said, "and yet I know that it was no dream, but vivid reality. A gigantic bat with a woman's face—my mother's face—appeared suddenly at the window of my room. Its claws lifted the window. It circled over my bed as I lay there, staring at it in mute horror. Then it descended upon me, and I felt warm lips on my neck. A languid, wonderfully contented feeling came over me. I relaxed—and slept."
"And—when you awoke?" l said heavily.
"The mark of the vampire was here on my throat."
I stared at her for a very long time, without speaking. She did not move. She stood there by my desk; and a pitiful, yearning look came into her deep eyes.
Then, of a sudden, I was gripped with the helplessness of the whole evil affair. I stormed about the room, screaming my curses to the walls, my face livid with hopeless rage, my hands clawing at anything within reach of them. I tore at my face. I seized the wooden smoking-stand and broke it in my fingers, hurling the shattered pieces into a grinning, maddening picture of the Creator which hung beside the door. Then I tripped, fell, sprawled headlong—and groped again to my feet, quivering as if some tropic fever had laid its cold hands upon me.
There were tears in Margot's eyes as she came toward me and placed her hands on my arm. She would have spoken, to comfort me. I crushed her against me, holding her until she cried out in pain.
"Merciful Christ!" I cried. And the same words spurted from my lips, over and over again, until the room echoed with the intensity of them.
"You—love me, Paul?" she said softly.
"Love you!" I said hoarsely. "Love you! God, Margot—is there no way—"
"I love you, too," she whispered wearily. "But it is too late, Paul. The thing has visited me. I am a part of it. I—"
"I can keep you away from it!" I shouted. "1 can hide you—protect you—where the thing will never find you!"
She shook her head, smiling heavily.
"It is too late, Paul."
"It is never too late!"
God! The words sounded brave enough then. Since then I have learned better. The creature that was preying on her possessed the infernal powers of life-indeath—powers which no mortal could deny. I knew it well enough, even when I made that rash promise. I had studied those things long enough to know my own limitations against them.
And yet I made the attempt. Before I left her that night, I hung the sign of the cross about her lovely throat, over the crimson stain of the vampire. I locked and sealed the windows of my apartment, breathing a prayer of supplication at each barrier as I made it secure. And then, holding her in my arms for a single unforgettable moment, I left her.
The apartment above mine was occupied by a singular fellow who had more than once called upon me to discuss my work. He, too, was a writer of sorts, and we had a meager something in common because of that. Therefore, when I climbed the stairs at a quarter to twelve that night and requested that he allow me to remain with him until morning, he was not unwilling to accede to my request, though he glanced at me most curiously as I made it.
However, he asked no questions, and I refrained from supplying any casual information to set his curiosity at rest. He would not have understood.
All that night I remained awake, listening for signs of disturbance in the rooms below me. But I heard nothing—not so much as a whisper. And when daylight came I descended the stairs with false hope in my heart.
There was no answer to my knock. I waited a moment, thinking that she might be yet asleep; then I rapped again on the panels. Then, when the silence persisted in haunting me, I fumbled frantically in my pockets for my spare key. I was afraid—terribly afraid.
And she was lying there when I stumbled into the room. Like a creature already dead she lay upon the bed, one white arm drooping to the floor. The silken comforter was thrown back. The breast of her gown was torn open. Fresh blood gl
eamed upon those dread marks in her throat.
I thought that she was dead. A sob choked in my throat as I dropped down beside her, peering into her colorless face. I clutched at her hand, and it was cold—stark cold. And then, unashamed of the tears that coursed down my cheeks, I lay across her still body, kissing her lips—kissing them as if it were the last time that I should ever see them.
She opened her eyes.
Her fingers tightened a little on my hand. She smiled—a pathetic, tired smile.
"It—came," she whispered. "I—knew it would."
I will not dwell longer on the death of the girl I loved. Enough to recount the simple facts.
I brought doctors to her. No less than seven expert physicians attended her and consulted among themselves about her affliction. 1 told them my fears; but they were men of the world, not in sympathy with what I had to tell them.
"Loss of blood," was their diagnosis—but they looked upon me as a man gone mad when I attempted to explain the loss of blood.
There was a transfusion. My own blood went into her veins, to keep her alive. For three nights she lived. Each of those nights I stood guard over her, never closing my eyes while darkness was upon us. And each night the thing came, clawing at the windows, slithering its horrible shape into the room where she lay. I did not know, then, how it gained admittance. Now—God help me—I know all the powers of that unholy clan. Its nocturnal creatures know no limits of space or confinement.
And this thing that preyed upon the girl I loved—I refuse to describe it. You will know why I make such a refusal when I have finished.
Twice I fought it, and found myself smothered by a ghastly shape of fog that left me helpless. Once I lay across her limp body with my hands covering her throat to keep the thing away from her—and I was hurled unmercifully to the floor, with an unearthly, long-dead stench of decayed flesh in my nostrils. When I regained consciousness, the wounds in her throat were newly opened, and my own wrists were marked with the ragged stripes of raking claws.