Borrower of the Night vbm-1

by Elizabeth Peters

  ‘If you could only talk,’ I muttered – and then made a quick, instinctive gesture of denial. The Gothic atmosphere was thick enough already. A talking portrait would send me screaming out into the night.

  I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. The old Schloss and its inhabitants should be sleeping soundly by now. I put on a dark sweater, which I had brought for the purpose of nocturnal prowling, and tied a scarf over my light hair. I found my flashlight, and blew out the lamp.

  Talk about dark. I hadn’t seen anything like it since the old days on the farm. The faint moonlight from the window didn’t help much, and when I closed the door of my room behind me the corridor was pitch-black. I didn’t want to use the flashlight until it was necessary, so I stood waiting for my eyes to adjust.

  A hand touched my shoulder.

  I thought of screaming, but my vocal cords didn’t cooperate. Before I could get them into operation I heard a voice.

  ‘Hi,’ it whispered.

  ‘Tony,’ I whispered back. ‘You rat.’

  ‘Scare you?’

  ‘Scared? Me?’

  ‘I figured you’d be prowling tonight. Couldn’t let you go alone. Who knows, you might be nervous.’

  ‘Sssh!’

  ‘Come on, let’s get away from all these doors.’

  He found my hand and I let him lead me until a turn in the corridor brought light – the sickly sheen on the moon filtering through the leaded panes of a window set high above an ascending stair. Tony stopped.

  ‘Those are the tower stairs.’

  ‘I was heading for the Great Hall.’

  ‘Down this way.’

  As we shuffled along the dark passageways, my pulse was uncomfortably quick. The castle was too quiet. There weren’t even the creaks and squeaks of settling timber. This place had settled centuries ago.

  Finally we stepped onto the balcony over the Great Hall. I put one hand on the balustrade and moved back in alarm as it gave slightly. The Schloss needed repairs. No doubt there wasn’t enough money. The proud old family of the Drachensteins wouldn’t have gone into the innkeeping business unless they needed cash. I reminded myself not to lean heavily against that balustrade.

  Below, in the Hall, the armoured shapes were dim in the grey moonlight. The shadows of tree branches swaying in the night wind slid back and forth across the polished floor . . .

  My scalp prickled. That motion was no swaying shadow. There was something moving at the far end of the Hall – something pale and slim, like a column of foggy light.

  The thing came out into the moonlight. I forgot my qualms about the shaky banister, and clutched it with straining fingers.

  The figure below had the face of the woman in the portrait. I could see it distinctly in the light from the windows, even to its expression. The eyes were set and staring; the face was as blank as the face on the painted canvas.

  The apparition wore a long, light robe, with flowing sleeves. The feet – if it had feet – were hidden by the folds of the garment, so that it seemed to float instead of walk. Slowly it glided across the floor, the staring eyes raised, the lips slightly parted.

  There was a sound behind us. Tony, who had been equally dumbfounded by the apparition, swore out loud when he recognized the man who had joined us on the gallery. Personally, I was glad to see George. The bigger the crowd, the better, so far as I was concerned.

  ‘Did you see it?’ Tony demanded. ‘Or am I crazy?’

  ‘I did see her,’ George said coolly. ‘She’s gone now.’

  I turned. The Hall was empty.

  Tony ran towards the stairs.

  ‘Go slow,’ George said, catching his arm. ‘If you wake people like that too suddenly, it can be dangerous.’

  ‘She – she’s – sleepwalking, isn’t she?’ Tony asked.

  ‘What else?’

  I didn’t say anything. George was right, of course. But I sympathized with Tony. George hadn’t seen that infernal portrait.

  Then it hit me, and it was my turn to swear. Maybe George hadn’t seen the portrait, but Tony had; unless he knew of the uncanny resemblance between the two women, one living and one long dead, he wouldn’t have reacted so neurotically to what was – obviously! – a simple case of somnambulism. Tony hadn’t told me about all his research, then. I wondered how many other potentially useful facts he was hoarding.

  I followed my two heroes down into the Hall.

  ‘I think she went this way,’ George said, starting towards the east end of the Hall. ‘You don’t happen to have a flashlight, do you, Lawrence?’

  Tony did. The light moved around the room, spotlighting the suits of armour and the black mouth of the fireplace.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ George said. ‘She couldn’t get out this way. The door is locked.’ He demonstrated, rattling the knob.

  ‘You said she came this way.’

  ‘She must have doubled back under the stairs while we were talking. From the gallery that end of the room is not visible. Her room is in the tower, isn’t it?’

  He led the way without waiting for an answer. At the opposite end of the Hall an open arch disclosed the first steps of a narrow stair.

  ‘We’d better check,’ Tony muttered. ‘Make sure the girl doesn’t hurt herself, wandering around . . . Follow me.’

  The upper floor was a maze of corridors, but Tony threaded a path through them without hesitating once – another proof, if I needed any, that Tony had already explored the Schloss thoroughly. So, I reminded myself, we were not collaborating. He didn’t have to tell me anything . . . I wished I knew what George had been doing. I could feel his presence close behind me. For a big man he was very light on his feet.

  On the first floor of the tower Tony tried a door. It creaked open. The flashlight showed an unfurnished circular chamber with rags of mouldering tapestry on the walls.

  ‘Nobody lives here,’ said George, peering over my shoulder. ‘Irma must be on the next floor.’

  The stairs led up to a narrow landing with a faded strip of carpet across the floor. There was a single door. Tony hesitated, but George marched up to the door and turned the knob. His face changed.

  ‘Lawrence. Look at this.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  George grabbed his hand and directed the flashlight beam onto the doorknob. Below it was a large keyhole, with the shaft of an iron key projecting from it. Tony gaped; but I didn’t need George’s comment to get the point.

  ‘Door’s locked. From the outside. Either this is not Irma’s room – or that wasn’t Irma we saw walking tonight.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘MAY I ASK WHAT you are doing at my niece’s door at one o’clock in the mo rning?’

  The cold, incisive voice came from the darkness of the stairs above us. Tony jumped. The flashlight beam splashed and scattered against the stone arch and then steadied, showing the form of a woman.

  She was rather tall, though nowhere near my height. Her hair was snowy white – a beautiful shade that owed its tint to art rather than nature. Her figure was still slender, and her face retained the traces of considerable beauty. Her makeup and her handsome silk dressing gown were immaculate. She had fought time with some success, but the signs of battle were visible; the keen blue eyes were set in folds of waxy, crumpled flesh, and her neck had the petrified scrawniness older women get when they diet too strenuously. I would have known who she was even without the reference to her niece. She looked the way a dowager countess ought to look.

  ‘Good evening, Gräfin,’ George said calmly. ‘So this is your niece’s room. Did you lock her in? And, if so, when?’

  He had gall. I have a considerable amount myself, but I wouldn’t have dared to ask that question. To my amazement, the old lady answered it.

  ‘I locked her in at eleven o’clock, as I do every night. What has happened?’

  ‘We saw someone in the Great Hall just now,’ George said. ‘It looked like your niece.’

  ‘I see.’ The
light was bad, so I wasn’t sure; but I rather thought she was smiling. ‘Let me show you that it cannot have been Irma whom you saw.’

  She unlocked the door and flung it open. When modest Tony hesitated, she took the flashlight from him and turned it on the bed.

  Irma lay curled up under a thin sheet, her cheek pillowed on her hand. She stirred and muttered as the light reached her eyes. Then she sat bolt upright.

  ‘Wake up, Irma,’ said the Gräfin. ‘It is I.’

  ‘Aunt Elfrida?’ The girl brushed a lock of curling dark hair from her eyes. Then, seeing other forms in the doorway, she snatched at the sheet and drew it up over her breast. The extra covering wasn’t necessary; her nightgown was a hideous, heavy dark cotton that covered her from the base of her neck down as far as I could see.

  The countess moved to the bed. ‘You have been asleep? You have heard nothing? Seen nothing?’

  The seemingly innocuous question had a frightful effect on the girl. Her chin quivered, her mouth lost its shape, and her eyes dilated into staring black circles.

  ‘Ach, Gott – what has happened? Is it – has she – ’

  ‘No questions,’ the older woman interrupted. ‘Sleep again. Sleep.’

  ‘Stay with me!’

  ‘There is no need. Sleep, I say.’

  She moved back, pushing us with her, and closed the door. I had a last glimpse of Irma’s face, rigid with terror, and it made me forget what few manners I possess.

  ‘I’ll sit with the girl, if you won’t,’ I said. ‘She needs reassurance, not mysterious silence.’

  The Gräfin locked the door.

  ‘I have not had the pleasure of meeting you, young woman, but I assume you are our newest guest, Dr Bliss. Is your degree in the field of psychiatry?’

  ‘I don’t have to be a psychiatrist to realize – ’

  Tony stepped heavily on my slippered foot, and the old woman went on.

  ‘My niece’s welfare is my business, I believe. As for your search tonight – I have proved to you that it was not Irma you saw. If you are still curious, gentlemen, I suggest you visit Miss Bliss’s room – if you have not already made yourselves at home there. At the foot of the bed – conveniently placed for visitors – there hangs a certain portrait. And now, if you will excuse me, I need my rest. Good night.’

  ‘Why, that old – ’ I began.

  This time it was George who stepped on my foot. He was shorter than Tony, but he weighed more. I yelled.

  ‘What’s all this about a portrait?’ George inquired loudly. The Gräfin’s footsteps were still audible above. I didn’t care whether she heard me or not.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ I said. ‘Double hell. Come on, you guys. I’ve got a bottle of Scotch in my suitcase, and I think this is the time to break it out.’

  Shortly thereafter George put down an empty glass and stared owlishly at me and Tony.

  ‘All right, Doctors. Let’s hear some high-class intellectual rationalizing. What was it we saw tonight?’

  Tony had recovered his cool. There was only one funny thing. He couldn’t look at the portrait. He just couldn’t stand looking at it. Staring firmly at his glass, he said, ‘Either it was the girl, or it was a ghost. If you believe in ghosts – that’s what it was. If you don’t – someone is putting us on.’

  George snorted and poured himself another drink, without waiting to be asked.

  ‘Is that the academic brain at work? Your alternatives don’t impress me. You think the Gräfin lied about locking that door?’

  ‘That doesn’t follow. There are any number of possibilities. Maybe she thought she locked it, and didn’t. Maybe someone else unlocked it, and locked it again later. Maybe there’s another door out of the room.’

  ‘Yeah.’ George looked more cheerful. ‘That’s so. But do you remember what our apparition was wearing?’

  ‘A light robe,’ I said. ‘White or pale grey, with full sleeves and a gathered yoke.’

  ‘Well, you saw the girl’s nightgown – God save us. I also saw her dressing gown, or housecoat, or whatever you call it. It was lying across the foot of her bed.’

  ‘And it, I suppose, was black,’ said Tony.

  ‘Navy blue,’ I said. ‘With small light-coloured flowers. Very unflattering, with her colouring . . . That doesn’t prove anything. She could have a closetful of long white robes, and she had plenty of time to change.’

  Tony stood up.

  ‘This is a waste of time. You think that girl was faking. Well, I don’t. Come on, Nolan, let’s be off.’

  George sipped his drink.

  ‘You two kill me,’ he said conversationally. ‘Why don’t we put our cards on the table?’

  ‘What cards?’ I asked. ‘You know why we are here and vice versa. If I judge your sneaky character accurately, you probably know by now as much as Tony does. But you don’t know any more than that; and if you did, you wouldn’t tell us. You must be crazy if you think I’m going to give you any information.’

  George reached for the bottle. I moved it away from his hand. Good Scotch is expensive. Unperturbed, he grinned at me.

  ‘You’re quite a girl. If you find the shrine, I might revise my long-seated hostility towards marriage.’

  ‘That’s big of you. But my hostility is just as deep-seated, if not as long established.’

  George stood up. Still smiling, he stretched lazily. Muscles rippled all over him.

  ‘I’m noted for getting what I want,’ he murmured.

  Tony, who had been swelling like a turkey, couldn’t stand it any longer.

  ‘Play your hot love scenes in private, why don’t you?’

  ‘If you’d take the hint and leave, we would,’ said George.

  ‘Oh, no, we wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Out, both of you. I need my beauty sleep. Who knows, I may not find the shrine. Then I would have to rely on sheer sex appeal to catch myself a husband.’

  ‘I’m betting on you,’ said George. He glanced at Tony, who said shortly, ‘It’s all for none and one for each in this game. We’ll see. Come on, Nolan. Good night, Vicky.’

  The undercurrents in that conversation set my teeth on edge, and I was still thinking about them the next morning. When I reached the dining room, Tony was the only one at our table. He grunted at me, but didn’t look up.

  ‘Where’s George?’ I asked.

  ‘Been and gone.’

  ‘Did you two exchange any meaningful remarks after you left me?’

  ‘Define “meaningful.” Tony looked at me. ‘You know what that crook is planning, don’t you? He’ll follow us until we find – uh – something, then jump in and grab it.’

  ‘Time to worry about that if and when we find it. At the moment we aren’t even warm.’

  ‘Wrong. The time to worry is now, before Nolan pops out of a dark corner and hits somebody over the head.’

  ‘He won’t hit me over the head,’ I said smugly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Come to think of it, I wasn’t at all sure. I wouldn’t give Tony the satisfaction of agreeing with him in his assessment of George’s scruples, or lack thereof; but I didn’t object when Tony proposed that we make a joint expedition out to the old Wachtturm. As he said, it wasn’t a good place for solitary exploring. A lot of nasty accidents could occur in a crumbling, deserted place like that.

  Before we had finished breakfast, Irma came to the table. She was wan and pale, with dark circles under her eyes. On her, even baggy eyes looked good. Tony got to his feet so fast he almost turned his chair over.

  ‘My aunt wishes you – both of you – to have tea with her this afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘How nice,’ I said, since Tony was too preoccupied with his tottering chair to be coherent. ‘What time?’

  ‘Four o’clock.’ She didn’t look at me; she was watching Tony from under those long lashes. His confusion seemed to amuse her; she gave him a small but effective smile before she turned away.

  ‘I suppose,’ Tony said, capturing the cha
ir and sitting on it, ‘she’s going to bawl us out.’

  ‘Who, the Gräfin?’ There was only one Gräfin in that house; it was impossible to think of Irma by her title. The word, with its guttural r and flat, hard vowel, suited the old lady.

  ‘Let her complain,’ I went on. ‘If she gives me a hard time, I’ll report her to the SPCC, or whatever the German equivalent may be.’

  ‘Irma’s no child,’ Tony murmured.

  ‘If you want to explore ruins, let’s go,’ I said, rising.

  The going was rough. The undergrowth between the castle and the keep was ninety per cent brambles. They had the longest thorns I’ve ever seen on any plant. Tony kept falling into them; I gathered he was still preoccupied with Irma, because after a while he said, ‘What makes you think the old lady is hassling Irma? We haven’t seen her do anything particularly vicious.’

  ‘You don’t call that performance last night vicious? The girl is scared to death about something. She works like a drudge, of course, while the old bat sits in her tower drinking tea; but it’s more than that.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s hard to put into words, but there is something between the two of them . . . I hate to think of handing the shrine over to an old witch like that.’

  An unwary step took me off the path, such as it was. I stopped, and unwound barbed wire brambles from my ankle.

  ‘So you’re going to hand the shrine over, are you?’ I said. ‘Aside from comments on overconfidence, which I have already made, may I compliment you on your ethics? I assumed you were going to tuck the treasure under your arm and steal away.’

  ‘You’re getting me confused with Nolan. I think he plans just that. I admit, when I started on this deal I hadn’t thought the problem through. I was excited about the hunt itself. Back in Ohio the whole thing was sort of unreal, you know what I mean? I never really thought we’d succeed. It’s different now . . . But I’m sure of one thing. The shrine doesn’t belong to us. All we can do is turn it over to the rightful owner. I never had any intention of doing anything else. And don’t try to kid me; you never did, either.’