by Basil Copper
‘There was a knocking at the door earlier. My husband thought it was one of the servants. He found no-one there.’
Her breathing was becoming agitated again, and her eyes glanced wildly about the dim corridor like a hunted animal. Coleridge gave the servant the pistol and sent him to stand in the middle of the corridor, in case the animal came back. But he knew in his heart that they had seen the last of it tonight.
‘He felt there was something wrong,’ the Countess continued. ‘He went out with his revolver, telling me to lock the door. A few minutes ago I heard three taps and opened, thinking it to be my husband.’
Her lips were a pure white colour as she stared at Coleridge.
‘The wolf came in,’ she said simply.
A scalding fear came over Coleridge then; he guessed it was delayed shock, and he sought the bottle on the corridor table. His nerve steadied, his arm still round the dark-haired woman’s shoulder, he tried to make sense of this new development.
‘You have not seen your husband since?’
Countess Sylva shook her cloudy black hair round her face.
‘The Castle is vast, as you understand. I do not know where he is, except that he was lured away.’
‘You were fortunate, madame. How did you manage to avoid serious injury?’
The voice was so low the professor had to bend forward to hear what his hostess was saying.
‘I fell behind a big armchair, which took the full force of the beast’s attack. I hung on to it and dragged it to a corner of the room, staying behind it. The animal’s claws were able to reach my shoulder only. Then you arrived . . .’
Her eyes clouded over.
‘For God’s sake, what is this curse on our house, Professor?’
Coleridge felt inadequate and impotent in the face of something so black and monstrous that it seemed to inhibit the will. He stood up quickly, throwing indecision from him.
‘Your mother-in-law’s room. Where is it?’
The Countess pointed dumbly down the misty corridor. Coleridge wished he did not have to go, but there was no-one else and his Boston upbringing had instilled in him a strong sense of duty. He took the pistol from the manservant, reaching down a sabre from the panelled wall.
‘Look after madame.’
He gently ran his fingers along the frightened woman’s jawline.
‘Be brave, Countess. Your husband will soon be here.’
He moved away from the brightness of the lamplight into an inky pool of darkness, feeling his courage ebb with the fading of the light. His feet made hardly any noise on the parquet, he was moving so slowly, but his fingers were firm on the butt of the pistol. He did not think there would be anything there; the beast had done whatever it set out to do.
He no longer thought of it as a fact of natural history. Either it was of supernatural origin, able to open doors and turn handles as well as knock on wood, or there was, as some in the Castle had surmised, a human agent behind this using an animal as its nemesis, which was almost as fantastic a possibility.
But beyond Coleridge’s present fear and his presence in this darkened corridor was the image of a young, strong face in the silver-framed photograph on the Countess’s desk on the upstairs gallery.
Had that young Dr. Sanders indeed returned from his asylum, as a man in his forties or early fifties, burning with vengeance? Or had a werewolf brushed paths with man, as the legends and stories in Coleridge’s ancient books opined? Was there, in fact, any sense at all in this holocaust of death and suffering in which Coleridge was embroiled?
He was in complete darkness now but, turning, could see the small, tragic tableau made up by the huddled figure of the dishevelled Countess in the lamplight with the white-haired majordomo nearby; his shadow and that of the upraised sabre making a fine, dramatic silhouette on the panelled wall beyond, thrown there by the yellow glow.
There was a window at his back, and through it, dimly seen, the calm relentless descent of driving snow. But more light was growing ahead, and a few yards to his left Coleridge could see where the open door of an adjoining room gaped blackly. He went forward with unsteady steps, holding the pistol with its four unexpended shots, reluctant to cross the threshold but knowing that he must.
There were two lamps burning here, and by their light Coleridge made out, as though in thickly carved detail, a scene of unparalleled horror.
CHAPTER 34: DEATH COMES TO THE COUNTESS
There was a deep silence in the room, and over it, the smell of death. To Coleridge it was unmistakable. He lingered in the doorway, his legs turning to water before he had a grip on his eroded nerves. He lowered the pistol then. There would be little use for it.
The room was a large and comfortable one, as befitted the titular head of the Homolky family. The walls were panelled, and the eye was led naturally to two points: the great four-poster bed with its wealth of Gothic carving which seemed to take up most of the far wall and the huge, elaborately carved fireplace in which a vast fire was leaping. A spiral staircase, similar to that in Raglan’s room, stood in the far corner and led to a long gallery below the ceiling, where the lamplight gleamed on the massed gilt spines of thousands of books.
Coleridge took all this in in a fraction of time. He stared at the tangled mass of bedding that had been dragged from the four-poster into the centre of the room. Its strange and anarchic shape was composed of whorls of white drapery, reminiscent of the pattern of seashells, against which the gouts and stains of blood stood out in sinister contrast.
For a moment Coleridge could make out little else, as it took a short period for his eyes to become adjusted to the gloom. That the room belonged to the old Countess was not in doubt; there were silver-mounted photographs of her on a bureau which stood near the door and which Coleridge had passed on his way in. There were flowers in bowls too, and these touches of tropical elegance added undertones of grotesque mockery to the charnel scene.
Coleridge moved a little farther forward, his shoes making an ugly scraping noise on the parquet. The action naturally brought him closer to the bed and at a slightly different angle. It was obvious the bedding had been dragged toward the fireplace. Coleridge knew what he would find in the huddled mass on the other side, and he was not anxious to advance the moment.
He had control of his nerves now, and he put the pistol back into his pocket. He moved again, infinitely slowly, as though dragged reluctantly by some force outside himself. He had often noticed the same thing in spectators at a street accident, for example; their horror and repugnance overcome by human curiosity that impelled them to come forward for a closer look.
A clock ticked somewhere in the heavy silence; Coleridge had not been aware of it before. Now, it seemed a grating intrusion on what had become a funereal place. He stopped again, his stomach turning over. A beam of yellow lamplight shone on the whitened, neatly severed arm that lay apart from the bedding like some obscene waxwork exhibit. It undoubtedly belonged to the Countess; he recognised the rings.
The extensive system of blue veins, so typical of the very old, and the thinness of the wrist would have identified the pitiful fragment even without the decoration; a bright corona of blood ringed the upper arm where it had been bitten clean from a point near the shoulder. Coleridge was trembling uncontrollably now but he forced himself on, avoiding the thing on the floor, remembering to look carefully before placing his feet.
He had not far to go. Another yard took him to the object of his search. The Countess lay half in the light, half in the shadow. Her eyes were open, but the face was extraordinarily placid, as though she had had no time for alarm before death was on her. The professor guessed that she had probably died of shock before the extensive wounds were inflicted.
She had made no attempt to defend herself. The wolf-creature had probably dragged her from the bed by the
arm before severing it; Coleridge hoped the old lady had been already dead by then. It had next returned to savage her throat. Despite the wounds, any one of which would have been sufficient to cause death by itself, there was surprisingly little blood.
But then a person of that age might have little, and a sluggish circulation could account for it. Moved by some obscure shaft of compassion, Coleridge turned slowly back to a big leather wing-chair that stood in the window embrasure. He took from it the voluminous silk dressing-gown that was draped across it and gently covered the Countess’s remains, hiding the shocking countenance from sight.
Then he went back and carefully eased a section of the sheeting over the fragment on the floor. He moved a few yards toward the door, his head bowed as though in silent prayer. The lamps shone on, yellow and indifferent, as though the scene had been an ordinary domestic one, typical of the thousands that must have been enacted in this elegant room.
Coleridge was still standing there, wishing himself vast distances from such pain and problems, when he heard hurried footsteps in the corridor outside and a flood of hysterical conversation in Hungarian. He quickly pulled himself together and walked toward the doorway. He was just in time to meet the dishevelled figure of the Count, tall and gaunt in his dark grey dressing-gown, his eyes wild beneath the shock of white hair.
‘Don’t come in!’ Coleridge warned.
The big man stared unseeingly at the disordered room over Coleridge’s shoulder. Then he seemed to crumple. Coleridge put his arm round his shoulder as his host sagged toward the floor.
CHAPTER 35: THEORIES AND COUNTERTHEORIES
Colonel Anton’s face was grim. He confronted the members of the Congress and the family who were sitting on the leather chairs of the conference room, with the police chief on the dais. Professor Shaw and the Count had been translating question and answer, and the process had necessarily been a long one. The only member of the Count’s family not present was the Countess Sylva, who was under guard and recovering in a private sitting-room on the ground floor.
She would not return to her bedroom, and Coleridge could not say he blamed her. He himself had had a private interview with Anton and Rakosi before dawn when, through the Count, he had explained in great detail, aided by the dumb servant’s written deposition, the events of the night.
Now he half listened to the discussion that went on about him, knowing that it would do little good. The Count had not mentioned the professor’s own theory of Sanders: it would all have seemed too fantastic and bizarre for the police officer.
The snow was still coming down thickly this morning. There would be difficult conditions for the Count’s sombre expedition to the village church. In addition to the peasant’s funeral there would be a melancholy procession from the Castle when the hastily constructed coffins of the Count’s own mother and Menlow would be taken to lie in state.
Coleridge felt he should go with the others, but the events of the night had taken their toll and he had slept for less than three hours in toto. The Count had insisted that he should remain to assist Anton and Rakosi. All the conference members had volunteered to attend the service as a mark of respect for Countess Irina but had also been asked to remain by the Count personally; it was obviously more important to discover the perpetrator of these devilish crimes at a Congress which now appeared to be cursed.
The girl was staying too; not only to comfort her mother but also to be near Coleridge. She had not said so, but he could feel it as he watched her downcast head in the front row of leather chairs.
Rakosi sat next to Anton on the platform, his face sad and stern, as he followed the police chief’s discourse; the Count, apparently fully recovered from the ravages of the night, occasionally translating.
Raglan was still missing. Extensive searches had been made, but he seemed to have disappeared as completely as though he had never existed, while heavily armed parties had made a minute search of the Castle, including the cellars. Already there had been whispers among Coleridge’s colleagues; most of them had been at first sceptical at the werewolf theory, but now it appeared that Raglan himself was suspected of the outrages.
Coleridge wondered how long it would be before their resentment turned upon him. After all, he had suspected, if not known, the situation for some time but had not confided his thoughts to the general company. He turned uneasily in his chair, taking in the melancholy features of the dumb majordomo who stood, tall and erect, in his semi-military uniform at the side of the hall, ready to do the Count’s slightest bidding.
His eyes rested with approval on Coleridge and passed to the next in line. Anton’s monotonous question and answer went on; where had everyone been during the night. In bed and fast asleep, of course. No-one had seen or heard anything, even when Coleridge had fired the shots. The Count had been making his investigations in far corners of the Castle; he thought he had heard something and had pursued it with his pistol and the lamp. He had seen nothing and had later come to realise he had been lured away, leaving his family at the mercy of whatever was prowling the corridors. No-one had mentioned the question of how the wolf could have gained access to the old lady’s room.
The only person who had seen anything, other than the Countess Sylva and Coleridge, was the majordomo; he had written down, for the Count and for Anton’s official file, his own account. Though Coleridge had not seen it on this occasion, the tall man had had time to notice the telltale grey patch on the wolf’s back.
It was over at last, and everyone drifted across to the side-tables where Nadia Homolky presided at the coffee urn, the majordomo dispensing strong liqueurs for those who needed them. The melancholy, ravaged face of Father Balaz appeared in the room, snow still glistening on his black robes. He sat at one end of the chamber, coffee cup on lap, talking earnestly to the Count and his daughter, no doubt offering support and comfort.
All those in the hall seemed in a state of suspended shock. Coleridge found himself studying them intently. He had no doubt now that one of them must be the murderous presence who haunted the Castle corridors.
‘But why did you not tell us of this before?’
Shaw had difficulty in keeping the irritation from his voice. His attitude summed up that of the others, Coleridge thought. Not that he blamed them. Both he and the Count had been playing a dangerous game by remaining silent. But Coleridge had bowed to his host’s wishes in the matter.
And it was true it would have done no good even if he had warned his colleagues. They were frankly sceptical of the werewolf theory, even now, and inclined to lay suspicion on Raglan, whose disappearance had only crystallised their feelings in the matter.
Menlow had been on his guard, but even he had been taken unawares. Coleridge himself had had lucky escapes; and if what the girl had told him pointed in the direction of the professor’s suppositions, even Raglan had been carrying out his own investigations into the matter. So he had been on guard too, but that had not prevented him from being hanged from his own bedroom window like a helpless fowl.
Coleridge still inclined to the murder theory; why should Raglan have killed himself? Unless the whole thing had been an elaborate charade, staged for his benefit. He could not rule that out, of course. Such things had happened before, leaving murderers a free hand to prowl the night and prey on further victims. Or someone could have removed the body in Coleridge’s absence.
It would have needed immense strength. All of the members of the Congress fitted that bill, including the Count himself; though some were in middle age, they were of imposing stature and in excellent health. Coleridge blinked. Shaw was repeating his question. He answered to the best of his ability, making things sound as plausible as possible while at the same time avoiding laying the blame on the Count.
As Coleridge finished, Shaw seemed mollified and the discussion became general.
‘And now we mus
t remain here at the mercy of this thing,’ said Dr. Sullivan aggrievedly. ‘While this policeman carries out his fruitless investigations.’
He still affected the suit of dark brown plus-fours which made him look as if he had just come from a Scottish grouse-moor, and with his greying beard appeared a typical savant. But he was deceptively muscular, and his age would have fitted Coleridge’s theory.
The professor’s thoughts were still centred on his somewhat wild ideas about Dr. Sanders and a possible escape from an asylum somewhere. It seemed the only explanation which made sense. That was leaving aside the wolf-attacks in the village. If one presupposed them to be the natural result of preying bands of wolves driven down from the high mountains by hunger, that broke the attacks into two sections.
Those that were entirely natural, presumably perpetrated by a band led by a large black wolf; and attacks within the Castle area by a large animal with a grey patch on its back. With the creature’s incredible cunning, lethal ferocity, and magical habit of appearing and disappearing without first being seen, Coleridge was inclining more and more to the supernatural. Could there be such a thing as a real-life werewolf? One, moreover, which had been incarcerated in an asylum for a large part of its life?
If that were so – and one had to assume a natural time-scale – that limited his possible suspects to men at least in their mid-forties, certainly no later than fifty. Sullivan was in his late forties, he would have said. His eyes wandered over his companions, quietly drinking their coffee, until his brain felt exhausted with the seemingly patent absurdities of his quest.
His new theory also presupposed that the werewolf had first killed some member of the Congress and had taken his place; it seemed even more unlikely, until Coleridge remembered that Sanders had been a fully qualified medical practitioner who was also an expert on folklore.