by Basil Copper
restaurant in town.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Shall we say an hour’s time? In the lobby downstairs?”
~ * ~
VII
The tzigane orchestra was low and pleasing and the food excellent, even if Thompson found the bizarre
decor a little garish. But he had no time for the blurred background to their meal, as he was
concentrating entirely on the girl.
She looked extremely beautiful in a dark low-cut gown with just a simple gold pendant around her neck. He
noticed that somehow—perhaps with a type of white make-up—she had obscured the tattoo marks, for which he
was thankful, as he was conscious that the two of them were the centre of attention.
“You look wonderful,” was all he could manage as they waited for the dessert to be brought to the table.
And it was true. The recent transfusion she had undergone had worked a remarkable transformation in her.
Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks flushed, her whole manner animated and vivacious. The melancholy had
gone from her expression and she smiled frequently, exposing the beautiful white teeth.
“This is all due to you, Mr Thompson,” she said in a low voice.
Thompson shrugged deprecatingly. Ravenna smiled again.
“Your blood now runs in my veins. That means a great deal in our country.”
Thompson felt uneasiness, not for the first time.
“It was the least I could do,” he stammered. “What would the alternative have been?”
“Ah!”
She drew in her breath with a long, hissing sigh.
“That does not bear thinking about.”
She cast her eyes down toward the snow-white tablecloth.
“Tonight you will get your reward.”
Again a great flash of unease passed through Thompson. He pretended to have misheard. And he was so
unused to the ways of women that he was afraid he might misinterpret the meaning.
“I already have that in the joy of your company.”
They had finished the dessert and were on coffee and cognac when Thompson found the manager at his side,
deferential and suave.
“Mr Karolides’s guests,” he said to Thompson, but looking across at Ravenna. Thompson felt a flicker of
amusement; perhaps Karolides owned the restaurant too? They drove back to the Magnolia in the big coupe,
the warm Mediterranean air ruffling the girl’s dark hair. The pair rode up in the lift in silence. He saw
her to the door of her own suite, next to her father’s, No. 46.
“Will you not come in for a nightcap?”
The invitation could not be refused; it was more of a command than a question, and she had already opened
the door and switched on the light. He followed her in to find a replica of Karolides’s suite next door.
He glanced at a gold-framed photograph of Ravenna and a young man of striking beauty, with clear-minted
features and bronze curls. The girl intercepted his glance.
“None of these things will ever come back and all we can do is cry and beat our wings against the
encroaching darkness.”
An oppressive silence had descended on the room and Thompson answered hurriedly, “That is the poetess in
you speaking again.”
She brightened.
“Oh, yes. I heard you had been reading my work.”
“I hope you don’t mind.”
She shook her head.
“You certainly have esoteric tastes,” Thompson went on. “Chiromancy, witchcraft and all those things.”
“I find them fascinating. Can I offer you a goblet of our very special wine?”
Thompson assented and went to sit on a rococo divan so huge that it took up one third of the room’s
length. She handed him the gold-rimmed crystal goblet and they drank a silent toast. The time passed in a
hazy dream. Thompson awoke to find himself sprawled on the divan. The room was in darkness, with only a
pale light shining through the blinds. Ravenna’s cool, nude body was beside him. She helped him to
undress. Then they made love fiercely for what seemed like hours. It was past three a.m. before he let
himself out into the corridor. He sought his room, showered and fell on to the bed. He had never felt so
happy in his life.
~ * ~
VIII
Next morning he was down early, but Ravenna was earlier still. There was no one else in the dining room
except for a solitary waiter, who stood yawning in the far corner near the coffee percolator. The
couple’s hands met beneath the tablecloth.
“Did you sleep well?”
Thompson laughed.
“Fragmentarily,” he conceded. “I hope we didn’t wake your father in the next suite.”
It was the girl’s turn to express amusement.
“Do you not recall what I told you on the raft? That he would laugh if he heard you say that.”
Thompson was bewildered.
“I don’t understand.”
Ravenna gave him a level glance.
“He is not my father. He is my husband!”
“Your husband!”
Thompson felt a great wave of shock and nausea well up inside him. He felt betrayed and looked around the
room like some animal at bay. She put a cool hand on his own as though he were a child who needed to be
soothed.
“I had such great hopes ...” he began wildly.
“Do not abandon them,” she said softly.
Thompson half-got to his feet, caught the waiter’s surprised glance across the room and sat down again
hurriedly.
“What am I to say to him?” he said bitterly. “This betrayal...”
She laughed again.
“You do not understand us. He and I do not have proprietary rights in one another.”
“What do you mean?”
“She means just what she says.”
A shadow had fallen across the tablecloth and Karolides’s tall figure was behind him. He gently pressed
the Englishman back into his seat. He sat down opposite, his hypnotic eyes boring into Thompson’s own.
“Let me explain, Mr Thompson. We had to get your help to save Ravenna. Let that be agreed between us. It
is true we deceived you but that was for a good cause. And nothing has changed in the relationship.”
Anger was stirring in Thompson now.
“But how can you condone such a thing!”
Ravenna looked at him pleadingly but Thompson ignored her.
“Just listen,” Karolides went on in such a very low, even tone that Thompson lapsed into silence.
“In our philosophy of agape, women are not property to be bought and sold. I thought all that old sense
of morality and fidelity had long since disappeared. Ravenna and I enjoy an open marriage. Beautiful
women have a duty to spread their charms about in as wide a sphere as possible, so long as they are not
doing harm to others. Think nothing of it.”
All manner of resentful thoughts were boiling in Thompson’s brain, but he remained silent beneath
Karolides’s imperious gaze. The Greek went on in an even lower voice.
“Do not look so shocked, my dear Mr Thompson. It means nothing to us. Women are not mere possessions as
in many Anglo-Saxon societies. They have minds and bodies that belong to themselves only. A beautiful
woman has a duty to share her charms with others and give them joy also.”
Thompson noticed his napkin had dropped to the floor. To cover his confusion and anger he bent down to
pick it up. As he straightened, he saw a small stain on the underside of the cuff of Karolides’s white
jacket.
“There’s a spot of blood there,” he mumbled.
His host glanced at it casually.
“Oh, yes,” he said awkwardly. “I cut myself shaving. Thank you.”
He dipped his handkerchief in his water glass and rubbed the stain away. Thompson did not miss the
strange glance that passed between husband and wife.
Karolides resumed his monologue as though nothing had happened.
“Such beauty should be shared, is it not? Not hidden away for one man’s selfish delectation. Let us be
friends again.”
He returned Ravenna’s smile good-naturedly.
“You will see it our way, in time ... Come, let us commence our breakfast.”
But Thompson staggered from the room, disgusted to his soul. His anguish was indescribable—his brain on
fire and chaotic thoughts inhabiting his fevered imagination as he walked like a drunken man along the
Corniche, not knowing or caring where he was going. It was only the blare of motor horns that warned him
of his danger, and he ran across the road to the promenade and sought the beach.
Dusk found him there, staring sightlessly out at a sea which had grown cold and turned a gun-metal grey.
It was there that Ravenna and Karolides found him, after a long search, and sat with him for a while.
When it was dark they took his insensible form, placed it in the back of the car, and the Greek drove
swiftly to Professor Kogon’s clinic, Ravenna cradling her lover’s head as the miles slipped by beneath
the whirring tyres.
When Thompson woke he was in a white bed with metal trolleys alongside and a bright light beating from
the ceiling. He vaguely made out the anxious faces of Karolides and Ravenna. He could remember nothing of
the intervening hours. His thoughts were jumbled; like dreams, hallucinatory and chaotic with images that
made no sense. As a medical student he had read in a textbook that ants used greenfly as milch cows. In a
brief interval of sanity he realized that he had been Ravenna’s milch cow. He mumbled something
unintelligible before relapsing into unconsciousness. When he was again aware of his surroundings he saw
that Professor Kogon had a serious face as he conversed with Karolides in low, urgent tones.
“He is dying,” the Professor was saying. “I cannot understand it. He is almost completely drained of blood. And as you know, his type is so rare that we are unable to give him a transfusion.”
He shook his head despairingly. Ravenna looked radiant. Thompson thought she had never looked so beautiful or desirable. His consciousness was fading but he could just see that Ravenna and Karolides were giving him welcoming smiles as he went down to Eternal Life.
There Lies the Danger...
I
As Joshua Arkwright sat at the typewriter in his study one bright April day he was in reflective mood. One of the world’s most successful novelists, he had achieved much in his long and vigorous life. He had published over one hundred books in his lifetime, many of which had been acclaimed as classics, but now, at eighty-five, he was aware of his waning powers. It was not that he had a morbid fear of death, but he knew that he had many more fine works of fiction to give the world and, not for the first time, he regretted the inevitable approach of mortality.
He had, in fact, written a number of works which touched on the subject and he eagerly devoured medical journals which contained articles on efforts currently being made by scientists in the study of prolonging life. He had been particularly interested in recent newspaper reports on experiments being done by Professor Conrad Voss in Switzerland, which were apparently yielding remarkable results. On impulse, he had asked his secretary to contact Voss, and now he was impatiently awaiting a reply to his queries.
He was interrupted by a deferential tapping at his study door and the somewhat flushed face of Yvonne appeared.
‘Professor Voss is calling. I will put him through.’
Arkwright nodded, without a flicker of emotion on his face, though his pulse was a little erratic as he picked up the telephone.
‘Voss here. Many thanks for your enquiries.’ The voice was low and modulated and he spoke perfect English.
‘I am grateful for your call, Professor. You know my age, of course.’
There was a muffled chuckle from the other end of the wire.
‘Naturally, my good sir. I keep an extensive reference library here and I have long been an admirer of your works.’
Arkwright felt a wave of gratification sweeping over him.
‘And I have followed your own career with interest, Professor. My questions stem from the fact that I feel I have a good deal yet to give the world, but time is pressing and my powers - physical, of course, not imaginative - are waning. I have excellent medical advice, but it seems to me that no one has ever approached the reported success of your experiments... I could come over if you thought there was a possibility...’
‘Certainly. And I could accommodate you in my private quarters. A social visit to all intents and purposes. And strictly no publicity.’
‘Naturally, Professor. And I will have the necessary arrangements put in hand immediately. I cannot get away at once, but shall we say in a week’s time? On the fifteenth, if that would be convenient for you?’
‘Admirable, Mr Arkwright. If you let me know the flight time, I will have you met at the airport at Geneva.’
When Arkwright put the receiver down he sat for a long time staring out of the window, not seeing the landscaped gardens below, but with many strange thoughts whirling through his brain. But the die was cast and what could he lose? For Voss had experimented not only on animals, but on human beings, with astonishing results, if the reports in the leading British and Continental medical journals were anything to go by. He picked up the extension and asked Yvonne to come in immediately.
II
‘You understand I cannot promise you immortality. That is quite beyond medical science at the present time, and perhaps for all time, but what I can promise - even at your advanced age - is another forty or fifty productive years, during which you will feel and behave like a much younger man.’
Professor Voss, a striking-looking person in his early fifties, with dark hair cut en brosse, sat behind a vast desk in his consulting room and spread well-manicured hands on the blotter in front of him. The sun was slowly declining behind the snow-capped mountains and casting great shadows over the town and placid lake below, while the well-regulated life of his household went smoothly on behind the grey metal door which led to the main building.
Voss hesitated as he regarded the other, his faded grey eyes sparkling behind gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘You have not asked me the most important question, Mr Arkwright. Though I am sure it is at the forefront of your mind.’
Caught off balance, the prospective patient was at a momentary loss. But Voss immediately put him at his ease.
‘You were going to ask me, surely, that if my treatment is so successful, why have I not experimented on myself?’
Arkwright put up his hand in protest, but the Professor cut him short, though still with an amiable smile on his face. ‘But I have, my dear sir.’ He indicated the rows of metal filing cabinets against the far wall. ‘My experiments have been far more thorough and extensive than the world believes. And I have all the patients’ birth certificates available.’
‘I am impressed,’ Arkwright said.
The Professor’s smile widened. ‘That is what they all say,’ he answered gently. ‘A new age is dawning, Mr Arkwright. Greatly prolonged life, renewed activity without pain or disease. Something the world has long been waiting for.’
‘I must apologise if I have inadvertently...’ his visitor began.
‘There is no need for any apology. We deal in hard facts here.’
Arkwright changed the subject. ‘How long will the treatment take? Your y
oung lady secretary told me...’
Voss had a satisfied expression on his face now. ‘The young lady, as you call her, is over sixty! She was one of my first patients, and has been an invaluable help to me over the past years.’
Arkwright sat back in his comfortable leather chair, lost for words for once.
‘You asked about the length of treatment. A month or so normally, give or take a few days, depending on the patient. You have kindly supplied me with your own medical records. You are in remarkably good health for a man of your age. As to the treatment, that would be expensive, of course...’ He paused, giving Arkwright an enquiring look.
The author brushed the hidden query aside. ‘Money is of no importance,’ he said curtly.
Voss gave him a slight bow. ‘I thought as much. But I have to ask these questions as a matter of form.’
‘Of course.’
‘As you can imagine, much of the procedures and details of the equipment used are secret,’ Voss continued. ‘I and my medical staff have spent thousands of hours, and I myself have poured a fortune into developing the finest possible equipment, to give near-perfect results.’
He spread his hands wide on the blotter again. ‘Nothing in this life is perfect, as you know,’ he said disarmingly. ‘But we come very close to it. Apart from the treatment mentioned, there are many injections to a formula arrived at over a good many years.’