by Mark Hodder
“Have you gone stark raving mad?” she screeched. “Who cares where I disposed of that—that—that—”
She stopped, looked again at the pentagram in the middle of the room, looked back at Fogg, and said, “Oh.”
She fell back into her chair and whispered, “Surely you didn’t!”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “I’m rather afraid I did, Mrs Boswell.” He pulled out his pocket watch and muttered, “Midnight, exactly.”
The doorbell jangled.
Fogg pushed one of the levers on the side of his armchair. The display case containing an amulet slid to one side revealing the mirror beneath. The front doorstep was reflected in it, upside down. It was unoccupied. There was no one at the door.
The bell clanged again.
The detective fished something out of his pocket, leaned forward, and offered it to Emma Boswell.
“A real necklace, this time,” he whispered. “A gift from me to you. Please put it on immediately.”
She took it and looked at it: a silver chain with a large crucifix attached. She slipped it on over her head.
“Now, my dear,” Fogg said. “Let us not keep our guest waiting any longer. Please answer the door and be sure to ask him in. Unlike his great great and so forth niece, he’s a traditionalist—he can’t step over the threshold without an explicit invitation.”
Emma stood, crossed the room, and went out into the hallway. Fogg heard the front door being unlatched, then a deep velvety voice said something, to which his secretary replied, “Certainly, sir. Please come in; Mr Fogg is in his study—um—workshop—er—well, follow me.”
Fogg pushed himself to his feet and faced the door. Emma stepped in. She looked scared. In a quavering voice, she said, “A Mr Lacusta to see you, sir,” then moved over to her desk and stood beside it.
The doorway darkened. A tall, very gaunt man entered. He was dressed in a black velvet suit. His skin was stark white and covered entirely by a network of small wrinkles. His fingers were spidery, with black painted claw-like nails. His chin was pointed; his wide, cruel mouth red-lipped; his nostrils flared; his cheeks sunken; his eyes slanted and crimson with pinprick irises. His jet-black hair swept back from a deep widow’s peak and fell behind his tapering ears to his broad shoulders. He was foul. He was putrid. He was compelling.
“Hello,” Fogg said.
The visitor gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Good evening to you. I am Dragoslav Marinko Lacusta. The nameplate beside your front door is accurate, yes? You are the Consulting Detective, Mr Macallister Fogg?”
“I am. Can I be of service?”
Lacusta threw back his head and gave a deep bellow of laughter. The inside of his mouth was dark purple. His canines were very long. He returned his attention to Fogg, and his eyes blazed.
“When a man sends a woman to find a vampire, Mr. Fogg, there is every chance that it will be the vampire who finds the woman. When the female reeks of garlic, it is a certainty. You might as well have paraded her up and down the Strand wearing a sandwich board bearing the words: I am vampire bait!”
“I wish I’d thought of that,” Fogg replied. He gestured towards Emma’s vacant armchair. “Come, sit down. I apologise for the mess. My Consulting Room is being decorated, so I have no choice but to use my lounge.”
Lacusta cast his eyes over the room. “It has the appearance more of a workshop.”
“Or of a study or library; yes, I know. Come, sit.”
Though it was bad manners to do so ahead of his guest, Fogg lowered himself into his armchair. The fingers of his left hand, out of Lacusta’s range of vision, hovered over the various levers.
“I prefer to stand,” the vampire said. He pointed at Emma Boswell. “But you, my pretty thing; you will sit by your master.”
Emma gulped, and said hoarsely, “I have no objection to being called pretty, Mr Lacusta—it’s a rare occurrence—but where Mr Fogg is concerned, I prefer the term employer, or even idiot.”
The vampire looked her in the eyes.
She giggled nervously and curtseyed and ran to her chair and sat down.
“So, Mr Macallister Fogg, I took your bait. I followed the stench. I am here. For what purpose? Could it be that you are another of the tiresome fools who wishes to destroy me? I have encountered a great many over the centuries. Most are dead. Those that aren’t are—” Lacusta smiled nastily, “undead.”
“Destroy you?” Fogg answered, with melodramatic innocence. “Why, of course not!”
“Then what is this for?” The vampire waved his long fingers at the pentagram. “You obviously wanted me to walk across it to reach the chair.”
“Damn and blast and curse it!” Fogg exclaimed. “I was hoping you’d be too distracted to notice it. I confess. You were right. It’s a trap. Sorry about that.”
Emma Boswell gasped and cried out, “Don’t tell him, you blockhead!”
Fogg tut-tutted. “Blockhead? That’s a little uncharitable, don’t you think?”
“You’re the one that’s not thinking!”
Lacusta hissed, “Be quiet, both of you!”
He paced forward until he was at the edge of the chalk marks. “In what fashion, Mr Fogg, is this a trap?”
“It’s a magical symbol. As you have surmised, I was hoping you’d inadvertently step into it.”
“And if I did?”
“You’d be immobilised.”
“And then?”
“I believe a stake through the heart is the done thing.”
“Impressive. Obviously, like me, you respect the old traditions.” Lacusta stepped into the middle of the pentagram. “But your knowledge of them is somewhat slapdash. This symbol is associated with werewolves, not with vampires.” He stepped back out again. “You see? It has no effect at all.” He stepped in. “Your trap does not work.”
“Doesn’t it?” Fogg said. “Let’s see!” He grasped a lever and yanked it.
Dragoslav Lacusta watched in bemusement as a small metal rod swung out from its housing in the fireplace and plucked a Flor de Dindigul cigar from a container.
Emma Boswell whispered: “Wrong lever, dolt!”
“Oh Hell’s bells!”
“Please keep a civil tongue in your head, Mr Fogg.”
“You’re the one calling me names!”
Lacusta snapped, “What are you doing?”
“Stay there a moment, would you?” the detective asked. “Ah! Here we go!” He tugged at another lever. The pentagram swung down as a trapdoor opened beneath Lacusta. The vampire plunged through it. The trapdoor slammed shut. Fogg leaped to his feet. “Come on, Mrs Boswell. To the basement. There’s not a moment to spare.”
They raced across the room.
“I can’t believe you used me as bait,” Emma objected.
“I had to make him feel he was in control.”
Careening into the hallway, they ran to a door beneath the staircase.
“I used his centuries old arrogance against him, and I’m about to do it again.”
They tumbled through the door, thumped down the stairs, and emerged into the basement, which was lit with gas lamps. There was a ceiling-high metal cage in its centre, beneath the trapdoor, and Lacusta was inside it. He’d transformed into a bat-like creature, and was standing with his arms folded, his body wrapped in leathery wings, and his snouted head held at a proud angle. He regarded them disdainfully.
“Pitiful creatures!” he spat. “Bumbling fools! Do you think a cage can hold me?”
“It’s locked,” Fogg noted. “And the bars are of steel. Are you strong enough to bend them?”
“I have no need to be.”
“Then how do you intend to escape?”
“Like this.”
The vampire folded in on itself, turned into a dense column of mist, and began to drift out of the cage.
Macallister Fogg hastily crossed to the corner of the room, picked up his clockwork bellows, and clicked the ON switch.
“I reversed th
e direction of the air flow!” he hollered above the contraption’s deafening roar.
He pointed the contraption at the vampiric cloud, and Great Great Great Great Great Uncle Dragoslav Marinko Lacusta was instantly sucked into it.
Fogg turned the device off, clacked down a clamp at either end of it, and put it on the floor. He straightened, and smiled at Emma Boswell.
“How about that, then?” he asked.
“Frankly, Mr Fogg, I’m absolutely astonished.”
“At my foresight and cunning?”
“At the fact that one of your inventions worked and proved useful.”
V
They presented Lady Hufferton with the sealed clockwork bellows the following day.
“He’s really inside it?” she asked.
“He is, and unless you’re foolish enough to unscrew the clamps, he’ll never get out,” Fogg answered.
“I shall have it buried very, very deeply underground.”
“There are a great many new buildings being erected in London, Lady Hufferton,” Emma Boswell put in. “Why not arrange for it to be embedded in concrete foundations?”
Fogg added, “I second that suggestion. Great Great Great—tell me when to stop—Great Great Great—“
“Stop,” Lady Hufferton snapped.
“—Uncle Dragoslav is unlikely to escape from such a circumstance.”
Lady Hufferton nodded. “I’ll do just that. Thank you Mr Fogg, you’ve done a tremendous job. The moment I read of your exploits in The Baker Street Detective, I knew you were the right man for it. And thank you, too, Mrs Boswell. Rupert will be safe now, and, in a few weeks, I shall die giving birth to him and the Lacusta vampires will be gone forever.” She put the bellows canister down, opened her handbag, and withdrew a thick envelope. “Payment, sir.”
Fogg opened it and looked inside. He gulped. “I—um—that is to say—er—”
His client waved her hand dismissively. “Not another word! Not another word!”
They bid her farewell.
“We’re rich!” Fogg rasped.
“We’re successful!” Emma exclaimed.
“We’ll have a full tea caddy!” Fogg added.
“We can afford a maid! And you can make another one of those sucking machines!”
“Great heavens! Why would I want to do that? Surely you don’t think we’ll encounter more vampires?”
“Not at all. But with a little adjustment, your clockwork bellows will come in very handy for drawing dust and crumbs up off the floor!”
“A risible notion!” Fogg said, mockingly. “Besides, there’s a far better way to invest this lot. I’ve had an inspired and totally original idea!”
“For what?”
“For a steam-powered flying machine!”
THE END