by John Burke
She said: “Tell me about those times. Tell me . . . what happens . . . what happens to me.”
It was as far as she dared go. And Namaroff simply shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“Because it’s all an invention. You’re trying to frighten me.”
“I only want to take care of you.”
The genuine suffering in his voice was the most terrifying thing of all.
“Frighten me!” Carla cried again. “So that I’ll submit to being your prisoner. I’ve had enough. I’m sick of your jealousy, and sick of these horrors you help to build up around the place—sick of you!”
She turned towards the door and this time he let her go without a word. She would have preferred him to shout abuse after her. It was with a shaking hand that she picked up the telephone earpiece and spoke into the trumpet of the mouthpiece.
“Paul? I’m sorry I was so long. I was trying . . . but Dr. Namaroff won’t see you.”
“Won’t he? Did he give any reason?”
“He says he’s too busy.” There was a sceptical murmur along the wire. Then she said: “Paul—meet me tomorrow. Tomorrow morning.” She quickly estimated the time she would need, to be able to see him and to be on duty at her usual time. “Meet me at seven o’clock in the morning,” she said, “at the Castle Borski.”
Before he could reply she had to hang up. Ratoff was a few yards away, carefully not watching her, and just as carefully appearing not to listen. She was sure he had not been there a moment ago and sure that he could not have overheard her tense, quiet last words. But his mere presence was infuriating. In the morning she would have to take every precaution to shake him off if he had any suspicions of her.
It proved to be a pale, still morning. As she slipped away from the Institution buildings she looked back several times, but there was no sign of anyone stirring. Carla felt jubilant. The air was fresh, birds were singing in the trees along the stream, and as she climbed the slope from Vandorf the Institution and the village itself looked smaller and smaller, less and less significant.
Then the birdsong grew feebler. By the time she reached the forest there was silence, broken only by her own footsteps and the occasional snap of a dry twig. The castle loomed ahead. In the morning light it could have been imposing, if not beautiful; but it was haunted by invisible shadows, echoing with sounds inaudible to the human ear.
Carla climbed without flagging, crossed the courtyard, and entered the great hall. It was not until she was inside that she asked herself why she had chosen such a meeting-place. Of course she was less likely to be followed here: even Ratoff would be scared of this place. But there had been more to it than that. In this unhallowed, desolate jumble of turrets, statues, and cobwebs she felt strangely safe. At one and the same moment she felt fear and security.
Slowly she climbed the staircase. Between two statues stood a stone chair with the dimensions of a throne. It was spattered with flinty fragments. Carla brushed them aside and sat down facing the balcony rail, waiting.
All was going to be well. Paul was coming and they would make plans and go away. Whatever deep-seated motive it was that had kept her in Vandorf so long, it was going to be dislodged from her mind.
There was a scraping sound from the hall below. A few pieces of stone were kicked across the floor.
Carla rose and went to the edge of the balcony.
Paul looked up at her, and she caught a tremor of apprehension in his face before he recognized her. Then he came hurrying up the stairs.
“Why did you ask me to meet you here?”
“Because nobody else would dare to come.”
“And you knew that nothing would keep me away?”
She ran to him and into his arms as he reached the head of the staircase.
“Paul . . .”
“Have you changed your mind?” he said.
“Yes.” She burrowed her head beseechingly into his shoulder. “Paul, I’ll come away with you.”
His arms tightened about her. “You will?”
“I don’t feel chained to Vandorf any more. I’m not afraid any longer. I’ll go with you, Paul. Now. Can we leave now—today?”
What she was asking was that he should link her arm with his and hurry her down the stairs, out into the world, sweeping aside Namaroff and the difficulty of getting their luggage to the distant railway station and all the other petty problems. But even as she spoke she sensed his reservations. Something had happened.
He said: “Yes, we’ll leave. But not immediately.”
“Why not?”
“I . . . I have one or two things to settle before I go.”
“But you were the one who wanted me to turn my back on everything here. You were the one who—”
“Carla, we’ll go away together. I promise you that. But remember that my father died here. I came to solve a mystery, and I believe I’m getting closer.”
“Two days ago—”
“Two days ago,” said Paul, “Professor Meister wasn’t here. Now he’s helping me.”
“To do what?” she demanded.
“To find the Gorgon.”
Panic took her. There was no safety in Paul’s arms. She broke free so that she could see him better, and so that he could see her and be persuaded by her. There was so little time left. Intuitively she knew this. They must leave now or not at all.
“Paul, don’t stay! If you love me, take me away from here while there’s still time.”
“I’ll take you away,” he said, “as soon as I can. I promise.”
“Now, Paul—now.”
“It won’t be long.”
He was stubborn. The cooperation of Professor Meister had filled him with new determination. She would not be able to sway him.
Suddenly she felt that she must not stay here for even another minute with him. The impulse that had driven her here now drove her just as frantically away. Unknown forces were closing in on her. She had longed for him to take her away before they struck, but he wouldn’t listen. If she was to escape from this place it must be on her own.
She turned and began to run down the stairs.
“Carla!”
His footsteps pounded after her, but he slipped and had to cling to the rail to regain his balance. At the foot of the staircase Carla turned and looked up at him. She made one last, choking plea.
“Now—can we leave now?”
“Carla, I promise that as soon as—”
“Too late!” The echo of her own voice was like an eerie wail from some dungeon in the depths of the castle. “It will be too late.” She took her last look at him. “I may never see you again.”
Then she ran across the hall and the courtyard and out on to the precipitous path. Behind her he called her name over and over again, but she knew that if she stopped to listen he would have nothing fresh to say. As she approached the line of dark trees she thought she saw a figure moving in and out of the shadows, and contemptuously she fitted the face of Ratoff to it in her mind. But it didn’t matter. It was too late for anyone to do anything. She was herself. She would trust in no one again, be subjugated by no one again.
She sobbed and stumbled towards the freedom and forgetfulness that only she could achieve.
12
The knife flashed sharply in the morning light. Paul, wretchedly emerging from the trees above the millhouse, turned to look back at the castle and so saw the blade in time. He swayed to one side, and Ratoff blundered into his left arm.
“Paul!”
Professor Meister was scrambling up the slope. Ratoff wavered, then turned and ran before the two men could converge on him. Meister tried to intercept him, but was shaken off with a wild sweep of the knife. Then Ratoff turned and threw the knife viciously and accurately. It whistled past Paul’s ear and into a tree.
Ratoff plunged into the undergrowth.
Meister came up to Paul. “Did you recognize him?”
“It was Ratoff. One of the attendants at the hospital.�
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“Perhaps in future you might be good enough to tell me where you’re going.”
Paul dodged this one. “Why did Ratoff try to kill me?”
“Your friend Namaroff probably knows the answer to that one.”
“Doctor Namaroff isn’t answering questions these days,” Paul observed.
“Not voluntarily.” They walked down towards the millhouse. Meister reached out and wrenched the knife from the trunk in which it was embedded. “While you were planning whatever jaunt it was that occupied you this morning, I was doing some research of my own. To be quite candid, while you were snoring the night away I paid a visit to Namaroff’s establishment.”
Paul gaped. “Did he see you?”
“I was not formally announced. I broke in and went through his medical files.”
Paul found it hard to visualize the dignified man striding beside him as a burglar. It was an aspect of Professor Meister’s character which would not have been readily credited by most of his fellows or students in Leipzig.
“Did you find anything?” asked Paul, marvelling.
Meister did not reply until they were indoors. Then he produced some folded sheets of paper from inside his coat. They had evidently been torn from a file and stuffed hastily into his pocket. He skimmed them, then looked gravely at Paul and began to read aloud.
“ ‘Carla Hoffmann, probationary nurse. Enrolled Vandorf Medical Institution 1903. Attack of amnesia . . .’ ” Thoughtfully the Professor skipped a few lines and began to select the relevant items. “Amnesia—loss of memory—in 1905. That’s five years ago. In 1906 she underwent intensive treatment and was apparently cured. Meanwhile she continued to work in her profession. Hmm. That’s odd. Now, let’s put some of these pieces together.” Paul was possessed by an unreasonable urge to shout Meister down. He didn’t want a case built up against Carla. Even if it was a convincing case, he didn’t want to hear it. “The first of the Vandorf murders,” said Meister relentlessly, “coincided with the beginning of these attacks of amnesia. Namaroff must have been well aware of this. Ordinarily her condition would have put an end to her career as a nurse. Why should Namaroff have kept her on? When you told me your story of events here in Vandorf, you gave me a distinct impression that he was in love with her.”
“That doesn’t mean that—”
“Just a minute.” Meister turned over a crumpled page. “In 1906 Namaroff closed the case and stated that she was cured. But was she cured? I don’t think so.” He slapped the paper down. “She was always being followed—being watched. Didn’t she tell you that? And this very morning there was Ratoff, prowling, always following her.”
“Because Namaroff is jealous,” said Paul.
“Possibly. And possibly also because he’s afraid of what she may do. Because she still loses her memory around the time of the full moon.”
“How do you know that?”
Meister nodded at the pages before him. “If we were to check these dates, I’m sure you would find they fitted. The full moon . . . the occurrence and recurrence of the amnesia . . . and the murders.”
Paul could stand no more. “You’re seriously suggesting that Carla—”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Meister shook his head pityingly. “I’m not in love with her.”
“Oh, you’re mad. A young girl as beautiful as Carla . . .”
“Medusa was beautiful. According to the legend, it was her beauty that aroused the jealousy of a goddess and resulted in her becoming hideous. There is nothing so hideous as beauty warped. And even if we are talking in symbolic terms—even if the Gorgon myth is something twisted and distorted through the thousands of years in which it has been known—there is still a destructive spirit with which we must contend. It has found a resting place in somebody.”
“Not Carla.”
“In the cemetery you begged her to go away with you,” said Meister. “That’s what you told me, isn’t it? She refused. Why?”
“She . . . she wasn’t ready to leave.”
“Why not? Because something stronger than herself held her in thrall.”
“But today,” Paul argued triumphantly, “she asked me to take her away. She wanted to go immediately. She was even more frightened of staying than she had been of going.”
“Even more frightened,” Meister echoed. Then brutally he said: “I’ll tell you why she was frightened, Paul. Because tonight is the first night of the full moon.”
It was all so neat, so academic. Paul had always admired Professor Meister. He had felt privileged to work with him and to watch his methods. But now he rebelled against the cold, unemotional selecting and arranging of facts and suppositions. Logic and cold reason might be all that counted in purely academic subjects, but Carla was a living, breathing human being. He ought to have taken her away when she entreated him to do so. Whatever had happened here in Vandorf was beyond his understanding. Let Professor Meister stay here for the rest of his life and try to unravel it if he wished. He could regard it as a cultural exercise. He would become a hoary old specialist in the subject.
Paul said: “What are you trying to do? To destroy Carla—and me?”
Before Meister could reply, there was a scream in the distance. It was a woman’s voice. Paul ran to the door and looked along the path into the woods. Meister went to the window.
“This side!”
They rushed into the garden. Beyond the pool, Carla was struggling with Ratoff. She shook him off and made a dash for the house. Ratoff made a move to catch her up, then saw the two men heading for him. He turned and scrambled over the low wall, and was soon lost among the trees. Carla collapsed against Paul, clinging to him.
“I had to see you again.”
“It’s all right,” he soothed her. “It’s all right.”
They went back up the garden and into the house. Meister glanced quizzically at Paul, who refused to meet his gaze. Automatically he shielded Carla from the Professor, drawing her closer to him and guiding her to a chair facing in towards the fireplace.
Meister said gently: “I think you’ll wish to be left alone together for a little while.”
He made a graceful withdrawal.
Paul drew a chair close to Carla’s and took her hands in his. He said again: “It’s all right.” And then he knew that only one thing would make it all right. “We’ll go away,” he said, “at once. Today.”
“Is there . . . still time?” It was a plea from the heart of her.
“Of course there’s time. There has always been plenty of time,” said Paul bravely, defying the absent Professor. “But if it means so much to you, we’ll leave today.”
“I ought not to have come.” Her faith in him died like a candle flame. Her illness and the uncertainties that followed it must have made her subject to these impulsive fits, this swing between confidence and despondency. “I can’t leave. I’ve always known I couldn’t leave. But I came to you . . .”
“You came to me”—he tried to give her a new, solid assurance—“because you knew this was the right thing to do.” He willed himself to sound confident enough to overcome all her fears and irresolution. “You know what life here is like, and what it’ll always be like. You’ve just been attacked by your friend Namaroff’s pet jackal—simply because you tried to come and see me, I suppose? There’s every reason for leaving and none for staying. I’m sorry I was stupid about it this morning. You’re quite right: you have got to leave—and leave immediately.”
After this splendid pronouncement Paul realized that he was a little less sure about the ways and means of getting out of Vandorf in a hurry. The railway station was some distance away, and he had no idea of the timetables in operation here.
Tentatively he said: “We must get to Leipzig . . .”
“There is a train at noon.” Carla spoke with all the brightness of a child who had for months been playing a private, secret little game involving just such a journey. “There is a change at the junction, and then it reaches Leipzig a
t . . . oh, it must be about five o’clock. Leipzig”—she repeated the word like a magic incantation.
“That settles it, then.”
The two of them sat back. There was a long silence between them. Now that the decision had been made, there was time for them to look at each other and smile. Paul began to make plans in his head. He would continue at the University—it would be amusing to remind Professor Meister, in years to come, of the fantastic notions he had once had about Frau Heitz, as she would then be—and they would have a son, two sons, perhaps a daughter . . . He looked at her across the small space between them and tried to communicate all this without putting it too soon and too clumsily into words.
“If I can get away,” she said dreamily, as though answering him.
It was not the answer he wanted. There could be no doubts now. He said: “You can leave. You’re going to leave. After today there’ll be no more of Vandorf—for you or for me.”
A fist thundered on the door. There was a brief pause, then another pounding.
Meister came quietly back into the room.
“It seems we have visitors,” he said. “You had better take her upstairs.”
Paul took hold of Carla’s arm and hurried her up the crooked staircase. On the landing he looked into his own room and into Meister’s. There were no hiding places.
Below them the door opened and they heard the murmur of a voice which made Carla tense, like a dog which has been whipped too often, frightened too often.
Then Meister spoke, clearly and directly. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Doctor.”
“I’d like to make this brief, if you don’t mind,” said Namaroff. “A short time ago a young woman was seen in the grounds of this house . . .”
Paul hurried Carla to the far end of the landing, where a narrower and even more twisted flight of stairs led down to a side door.
“You must go.”
“But you . . . ?”
“They’ll be searching the house in no time at all. If I’m missing, they’ll guess we’ve made a run for it together. If you go alone—”