by Robert Bloch
Hey, old man—you like girls? Fresh meat, only five, six maybe—
Now I could see only too clearly. Two of the boys held their victim down, spread-eagled and helpless, while the other two—but I shall not describe what they were doing.
Glancing away, I again met Le Boss’s smile. Somehow it seemed more hideous to me than the sight below.
He groped for a bottle propped against the pile of loot beside him and drank before speaking. “You are distressed, eh?”
I shook my head. “Not as much as you’ll be unless you give me back my key.”
He smiled. “Empty threats will get you nothing but empty hands.”
“My hands aren’t empty.” I jabbed the knife at Sandor’s neck, grazing the flesh, and he squealed in terror.
Le Boss shrugged. “Go ahead. I told you it doesn’t matter to me.”
For a moment I stood irresolute. Then, with a sigh I drew the knife back from Sandor’s throat and released my hold on his sweat-soaked collar. He turned and raced off to the ladder behind me, and I could hear his feet scraping against the rungs as he descended. Mercifully, the sound muffled the laughter from below.
Le Boss nodded. “That’s better. Now we can discuss the situation like gentlemen.”
I lifted my knife. “Not as long as I have this, and you have the key.”
“More empty threats?”
“My hands are not empty.” I took a step forward as I spoke.
He chuckled. “I swear I don’t know what to make of you, old man. Either you are very stupid or very brave.”
“Both, perhaps.” I raised the knife higher, but he halted my advance with a quick gesture.
“Enough,” he wheezed. Turning, he stooped and thrust his pudgy hand into a tangle of scarves, kerchiefs and handbags behind him. When he straightened again he was holding the key.
“Is this what you’re after?”
“Yes. I knew you wouldn’t discard it.”
He stared at the red stone gleaming dully from the crested handle. “I never toss away valuables.”
“Just human lives,” I said.
“Don’t preach to me, old man. I’m not interested in your philosophy.”
“Nor I in yours.” I stretched out my hand, palm upward. “All I want is my key.”
His own hand drew back. “Not so fast. Suppose you tell me why.”
“It’s not the ruby,” I answered. “Go ahead, pry it loose if you like.”
Le Boss chuckled again. “A poor specimen—big enough, but flawed. It’s the key itself that interests you, eh?”
“Naturally. As I told Bobo, it opens the gate to my estate.”
“And just where is this estate of yours?”
“Near Bourg-la-Reine.”
“That’s not too far away.” The little eyes narrowed. “The van could take us there within the hour.”
“It would serve no purpose,” I said. “Perhaps ‘estate’ is a misnomer. The place is small and holds nothing you’d be interested in. The furnishings are old, but hardly the quality of antiques. The house itself has been boarded-up for years since my last visit. I have other properties elsewhere on the Continent where I spend much of my time. But since I’ll be here for several weeks on business, I prefer familiar surroundings.”
“Other properties, eh?” Le Boss fingered the key. “You must be quite rich, old man.”
“That’s none of your affair.”
“Perhaps not, but I was just thinking. If you have money, why not conduct your business in comfort from a good hotel in Paris?”
I shrugged. “It is a matter of sentiment—”
“Really?” He eyed me sharply, and in the interval before speaking, I noted that the sounds below had ceased.
My voice broke the sudden silence. “I assure you—”
“Au contraire. You do not assure me in the least.” Le Boss scowled. “If you do own an estate, then it’s the key to the house that’s important, not the one for the gate. Any locksmith could open it for you without need of this particular key.”
He squinted at the burnished brass, the dulled brilliance of the ruby imbedded in the ornate crest. “Unless, of course, it isn’t a gate-key after all. Looks to me more like the key to a strong-box, or even a room in the house holding hidden valuables.”
“It’s just a gate-key.” Again I held one hand as the other gripped the knife. “But I want it—now.”
“Enough to kill?” he challenged.
“If necessary.”
“I’ll spare you that.” Grinning, Le Boss reached down again into a bundle of discarded clothing. When he turned to face me he held a revolver in his hand.
“Drop that toothpick,” he said, raising the weapon to reinforce his command.
Sighing, I released my grasp and the knife fell, clattering over the side of the open platform to the surface of the sewer below.
Impelled by blind impulse, I turned hastily. If I could get to the ladder—
“Stand where you are!”
It wasn’t his words but the sharp clicking sound which halted me. Slowly I pivoted to face the muzzle of his cocked revolver.
“That’s better,” he said.
“You wouldn’t murder me—not in cold blood.”
“Let’s leave it up to the kids.” As Le Boss spoke his free hand fumbled for the whistle looped around his neck. Enfolding it in blubbery lips, he blew.
The piercing blast echoed, reverberating from the rounded iron walls beside me and below. Then came the answering murmurs, the sudden thud of footsteps. Out of the corner of my eye I glanced down and saw the four naked figures—no, there were five now, including the fully-clothed Sandor—moving toward the platform on which we stood.
Again I conjured up a vision of hell, of demons dancing in the flames. But the flames were merely candlelight and the bodies hurrying beneath were those of children. It was only their laughter which was demonic; their laughter, and their gleefully-contorted faces.
As they approached I caught a glimpse of what they held in their hands. Sandor had scooped up the knife from where it had fallen and the others held weapons of their own—a mallet, a wooden club, a length of steel pipe, the serrated stump of a broken wine-bottle.
Le Boss chuckled once more. “Playtime,” he said.
“Call them off!” I shouted. “I warn you—”
He shook his head. “No way, old man.”
Old man. That, I swear, is what did it. Not the menace of the gun, not the sight of the loathsome little creatures below. It was just the phrase, the contempt with which it had been repeated over and over again.
I knew what he was thinking—an unarmed, helpless elderly victim had been trapped for torment. And for the most part he was right; I was weaponless, old, trapped.
But not helpless.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated. There are subsonic whistles which make no audible sound, and there are ways of summoning which require no whistles at all. And there’s more than human vermin infesting abandoned sewers, lurking in the far recesses of tangled tunnels, but responsive to certain commands.
Almost instantly that response came.
It came in the form of a purposeful padding, of faint noises magnified by sheer numbers. It came in the sound of squeaks and chittering, first as distant echoes, then in closer cacophony as my summons was answered.
Now the yougoslaves had reached the ladder at the far side of the platform. I saw Sandor mount the lower rungs, knife held between clenched teeth—saw him halt as he too heard the sudden, telltale tumult. Behind Sandor his companions turned to seek its source.
They cried out then, first in surprise, then in alarm, as the grey wave surged toward them along the sewer’s length; the grey wave, flecked with hundreds of red and glaring eyes, a thousand tiny teeth.
The wave raced forward, curling around the feet and ankles of the yougoslaves before the ladder, climbing and clinging to legs and knees. Screaming, they lashed out with their weapons, trying to beat back the attac
k, but the wave poured on, forward and upward. Furry forms leaped higher, claws digging into waists, teeth biting into bellies. Sandor pulled himself up the ladder with both hands, but below him the red eyes rose and the grey shapes launched up from behind to cover his unprotected back with a blanket of wriggling bodies.
Now the screams from below were drowned out by the volume of shrill screeching. The knife dropped from between Sandor’s lips as he shrieked and toppled down into the writhing mass that had already engulfed his companions. Flailing helplessly, their faces sank from sight in the rising waves of the grey sea.
It happened so quickly that Le Boss, caught by surprise, could only stare in stunned silence at the shambles below.
It was I whose voice rose above the bedlam. “The key,” I cried. “Give me the key.”
For answer he raised his hand—not the one holding the key, but the one grasping the gun.
His fingers were trembling, and the muzzle wavered as I started toward him. Even so, at such close range I realized he couldn’t miss. And he didn’t.
As he squeezed the trigger the shots came in rapid succession. They were barely audible in the uproar from the tunnel, but I felt their impact as they struck my chest and torso.
I kept on, moving closer, hearing the final, futile click as he continued to press the trigger of his emptied revolver. Looking up, eyes red with rage, he hurled the weapon at my head. It whizzed past me, and now he had nothing left to clutch but the key. His hands started to shake.
My hand went out.
Snatching the key from his pudgy paw, I stared at his frantic face. Perhaps I should have told him he’d guessed correctly; the key was not meant to open a gate. I could have explained the ruby in the crest—the symbol of a lineage so ancient that it still adhered to the olden custom of maintaining a tomb on the estate. The key gave me access to that tomb, not that it was really needed; my branch of the line had other resting-places, and during my travels I always carried with me what was necessary to afford temporary rest of my own. But during my stay here the tomb was both practical and private. Calling a locksmith would be unwise and inconvenient, and I do not relish inconvenience.
All this I could have told him, and much more. Instead I pocketed the key bearing the great flawed ruby that was like a single drop of blood.
As I did so, I realized that the squeals and chittering below had faded into other sounds compounded of claws ripping through cloth, teeth grating against bone.
Unable to speak, unable to move, Le Boss awaited my approach. When I gripped his shoulders he must have fainted, for there was only a dead weight now to ease down onto the platform floor.
Below me my brothers sated their hunger, feasting on the bodies of the yougoslaves.
Bending forward to the fat neck beneath me, in my own way I feasted too.
What fools they were, these creatures who thought themselves so clever! Perhaps they could outwit others, but their little tricks could not prevail against me. After all, they were only yougoslaves.
And I am a Transylvanian.
A Most Unusual Murder
Only the dead know Brooklyn.
Thomas Wolfe said that, and he’s dead now, so he ought to know.
London, of course, is a different story.
At least that’s the way Hilary Kane thought of it. Not as a story, perhaps, but rather as an old-fashioned, outsize picaresque novel in which every street was a chapter crammed with characters and incidents of its own. Each block a page, each structure a separate paragraph unto itself within the sprawling, tangled plot—such was Hilary Kane’s concept of the city, and he knew it well.
Over the years he strolled the pavements, reading the city sentence by sentence until every line was familiar; he’d learned London by heart.
And that’s why he was so startled when, one bleak afternoon late in November, he discovered the shop in Saxe-Coburg Square.
“I’ll be damned!” he said.
“Probably.” Lester Woods, his companion, took the edge off the affirmation with an indulgent smile. “What’s the problem?”
“This.” Kane gestured toward the tiny window of the establishment nestled inconspicuously between two residential relics of Victoria’s day.
“An antique place.” Woods nodded. “At the rate they’re springing up there must be at least one for every tourist in London.”
“But not here.” Kane frowned. “I happen to have come by this way less than a week ago, and I’d swear there was no shop in the Square.”
“Then it must have opened since.” The two men moved up to the entrance, glancing through the display window in passing.
Kane’s frown deepened. “You call this new? Look at the dust on those goblets.”
“Playing detective again, eh?” Woods shook his head. “Trouble with you, Hilary, is that you have too many hobbies.” He glanced across the Square as a chill wind heralded the coming of twilight. “Getting late—we’d better move along.”
“Not until I find out about this.”
Kane was already opening the door and Woods sighed. “The game is afoot, I suppose. All right, let’s get it over with.”
The shop-bell tinkled and the two men stepped inside. The door closed, the tinkling stopped, and they stood in the shadows and the silence.
But one of the shadows was not silent. It rose from behind the single counter in the small space before the rear wall.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said the shadow. And switched on an overhead light. It cast a dim nimbus over the countertop and gave dimension to the shadow, revealing the substance of a diminutive figure with an unremarkable face beneath a balding brow.
Kane addressed the proprietor. “Mind if we have a look?”
“Is there any special area of interest?” The proprietor gestured toward the shelves lining the wall behind him. “Books, maps, china, crystal?”
“Not really,” Kane said. “It’s just that I’m always curious about a new shop of this sort—”
The proprietor shook his head. “Begging your pardon, but it’s hardly new.”
Woods glanced at his friend with a barely suppressed smile, but Kane ignored him.
“Odd,” Kane said. “I’ve never noticed this place before.”
“Quite so. I’ve been in business a good many years, but this is a new location.”
Now it was Kane’s turn to glance quickly at Woods, and his smile was not suppressed. But Woods was already eyeing the artifacts on display, and after a moment Kane began his own inspection.
Peering at the shelving beneath the glass counter, he made a rapid inventory. He noted a boudoir lamp with a beaded fringe, a lavaliere, a tray of pearly buttons, a durbar souvenir programme, and a framed and inscribed photograph of Matilda Alice Victoria Wood aka Bella Delmare aka Marie Lloyd. There was a miscellany of old jewelry, hunting-watches, pewter mugs, napkin rings, a toy bank in the shape of a miniature Crystal Palace, and a display poster of a formidably mustached Lord Kitchener with his gloved finger extended in a gesture of imperious command.
It was, he decided, the mixture as before. Nothing unusual, and most of it—like the Kitchener poster—not even properly antique but merely outmoded. Those fans on the bottom shelf, for example, and the silk toppers, the opera glasses, the black bag in the far corner covered with what was once called “American cloth.”
Something about the phrase caused Kane to stoop and make a closer inspection. American cloth. Dusty now, but once shiny, like the tarnished silver nameplate identifying its owner. He read the inscription.
J. Ridley, M.D.
Kane looked up, striving to conceal his sudden surge of excitement.
Impossible! It couldn’t be—and yet it was. Keeping his voice and gesture carefully casual, he indicated the bag to the proprietor.
“A medical kit?”
“Yes, I imagine so.”
“Might I ask where you acquired it?”
The little man shrugged. “Hard to remember. In this line one pi
cks up the odd item here and there over the years.”
“Might I have a look at it, please?”
The elderly proprietor lifted the bag to the countertop. Woods stared at it, puzzled, but Kane ignored him, his gaze intent on the nameplate below the lock. “Would you mind opening it?” he said.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a key.”
Kane reached out and pressed the lock; it was rusted, but firmly fixed. Frowning, he lifted the bag and shook it gently.
Something jiggled inside, and as he heard the click of metal against metal his elation peaked. Somehow he suppressed it as he spoke.
“How much are you asking?”
The proprietor was equally emotionless. “Not for sale.”
“But—”
“Sorry, sir. It’s against my policy to dispose of blind items. And since there’s no telling what’s inside—”
“Look, it’s only an old medical bag. I hardly imagine it contains the Crown jewels.”
In the background Woods snickered, but the proprietor ignored him. “Granted,” he said. “But one can’t be certain of the contents.” Now the little man lifted the bag and once again there was a clicking sound. “Coins, perhaps.”
“Probably just surgical instruments,” Kane said impatiently. “Why don’t you force the lock and settle the matter?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. It would destroy its value.”
“What value?” Kane’s guard was down now; he knew he’d made a tactical error but he couldn’t help himself.
The proprietor smiled. “I told you the bag is not for sale.”
“Everything has its price.”
Kane’s statement was a challenge, and the proprietor’s smile broadened as he met it. “One hundred pounds.”
“A hundred pounds for that?” Woods grinned—then gaped at Kane’s response.
“Done and done.”
“But, sir—”
For answer Kane drew out his wallet and extracted five twenty-pound notes. Placing them on the countertop, he lifted the bag and moved toward the door. Woods followed hastily, turning to close the door behind him.