The House of the Wolf (28 page)

CHAPTER 38: SETTING THE TRAP

‘I have a scheme which may bring this business to a conclusion,’ said Abercrombie.

He regarded Coleridge sternly.

‘It is one not without some risk and rather resembles what we British, in respect of our Indian Empire, refer to as staking out a goat.’

The two men sat in a strange octagonal chamber which the Count had designated as a smoking-room. It was comfortably furnished with leather divans and armchairs, and the richly panelled walls were hung with weapons and trophies of the chase. A tremendous fire roared in the chimney, and from the way it bellowed one minute and then appeared to damp down the next, Coleridge inferred that there was a great gale blowing outside, even though camouflaged by the immensely thick walls of the Castle.

In fact the blizzard was at its height, as the Countess had predicted, and Coleridge did not relish being trapped here for another week or more with someone who seemed intent on taking further lives. He shifted uneasily in his comfortable wing-chair as he stared at his companion, blinking in the light of the electric chandelier overhead which denoted that the room was one of the Count’s more important and favoured apartments.

They were alone for the moment; dinner had been early at the Count’s special request. It was still only nine o’clock, and they were due to meet for the colonel’s conference at ten. The rest of the party had dispersed temporarily to their rooms, but Coleridge guessed that they would soon reassemble, as none of them now liked to be alone. Not that he blamed them. Even the servants were affected by the general atmosphere, though there was no reason to think any of them were at personal risk.

‘I am not quite sure I understand,’ Coleridge said in answer to Abercrombie’s remark.

‘I was referring to tiger-hunting,’ Abercrombie went on. ‘A goat is used, generally tethered at night with the hunter in a tree above, ready to shoot the tiger when he appears to kill the animal.’

His eyes seemed to burn with great intensity. He rubbed his thick hands together. Coleridge’s cigar-smoke went up straight and even to the richly carved ceiling of the panelled room.

The doctor gazed broodingly into the fire as though he could see the creature they sought somewhere in the flickering flames. Coleridge had noticed there were two of the massive wolf-head firedogs here. They seemed to glare mockingly at the two men as the firelight caught their polished surfaces.

‘We are dealing with a wild beast, if your theories are correct,’ Abercrombie continued after a short silence.

‘And cunning as he may be – wolf or werewolf, if you insist on your extravagant thesis – he will not be able to avoid taking the bait.’

‘Which is?’ Coleridge prompted.

Abercrombie crossed his legs, clasping his thick fingers together across his knee.

‘The solution to this whole mystery, including the identity of the murderer,’ he continued calmly. ‘The announcement of vital evidence which has come into our hands, preferably at the colonel’s conference tonight.’

Coleridge tapped out the ash from his cigar in a carved onyx tray at his elbow.

‘Which is what? We have no such evidence.’

Abercrombie chuckled.

‘I have been giving the matter some thought. The murderer does not know, cannot be sure, that we have no evidence. I will get to that later. We will manufacture some, if necessary.’

Coleridge understood now. His experiences were obviously adversely affecting his thinking processes.

‘That is the bait of which you are talking?’

Abercrombie nodded.

‘Exactly.’

Coleridge was smiling.

‘And you want me to be the goat, staked out, as you put it?’

Abercrombie was smiling too.

‘If your nerve is up to it. It is not without a certain risk.’

Coleridge made a wry mouth.

‘I should have to know more. You are proposing a remote location, I take it. And though I do not care for your analogy, I see your point.’

Abercrombie rubbed his palms together with a heavy rasping noise.

‘I have not mistaken my man. And I see the idea appeals to you. I shall be there, of course, to see that no harm befalls.’

‘One would hope so,’ said Coleridge drily. ‘Suitably hidden, of course.’

‘Naturally,’ Abercrombie put in. ‘I will not tell even you where I shall be concealed, or you might give the situation away.’

Coleridge looked at him dubiously.

‘Supposing something prevents you from taking up your position?’ he queried. ‘What happens then?’

Abercrombie shook his head, little glints of humour dancing in his eyes.

‘You are no worse off, Professor. You have your pistol, have you not?’

Coleridge stared at him without answering. Though, as Abercrombie said, there was a strong element of risk, the more he thought about the plan the more he liked it.

‘Supposing this creature will not come?’

Abercrombie shrugged heavily.

‘Nothing is lost. We will not announce the location, so he will have to keep you under surveillance. But we should make it plain that you will retrieve the evidence from wherever it is hidden and place it in Anton’s hands tonight. Before midnight, say.’

Again the dubious look passed across the professor’s face.

‘Ought we not to let Anton and Rakosi know what we purpose?’

Abercrombie shook his head emphatically.

‘Nobody must know. Otherwise the scheme will not succeed.’

He bit his heavy lip.

‘If only we had some evidence, something plausible that he could not resist. For if you have proof of the culprit, then he cannot afford to let you live.’

Coleridge felt impelled to frankness.

‘There is something,’ he ventured. ‘Indisputable proof relating to lycanthropy in this case. Menlow had the scientific test results. They disappeared with his death. They will now reappear according to my story.’

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

‘I have made up my mind, Doctor. I will be your bait. But I trust you will play the part of the hunter with all your considerable energy.’

Abercrombie gazed at him with approval.

‘You may be sure of that,’ he said fervently.

‘We need not waste time in idle speculation now. You have merely to say you have hidden the evidence for security. You will retrieve it from a distant part of the Castle before midnight. That should be sufficient. The odds are you will be watched from then on.’

He leaned forward and fixed his companion with dark eyes.

‘But you must make the story plausible. Your life may depend upon it.’

Coleridge nodded, stubbing out his cigar.

‘I will do my part, so long as you do yours.’

‘Capital!’

The doctor jumped up, beaming on his companion.

‘That I can promise. And now, as it is just about to chime ten o’clock by the timepiece in the corner, I think we should rejoin the good colonel.’

Anton had gone back exhaustively through the events of the past few days. None of Coleridge’s colleagues had anything to contribute to their previous depositions. The tedious business of question, translation, and answer had gone ahead, and now, at almost half-past ten, Coleridge felt that little had been added to their earlier interrogations.

But he did not underestimate Colonel Anton. The Chief of Police had listened intently to the answers of everyone in turn and had made copious notes. Coleridge knew that he had collated and compared them with depositions made previously, and he also knew that any discrepancy would have been observed at once.

So that he was rather cautious when it came to his turn. Anton had closed his hooded eyes as he listened to the translation of the professor’s answers. He still wore a dark uniform, with the holster of his pistol buckled at the waist, and with his heavy black moustache drooping over his thick lips resembled some rough Mexican revolutionary, Coleridge thought. He was smoking a strong black cheroot this evening, and the thin, pungent smoke went up in slow whorls to the ceiling.

They sat in the room in which they had taken dinner, and the relief of everyone at being there was almost audible to the senses. It was obvious that all the guests in the Castle would have preferred even an interrogation from the colonel to the lonely solitude of their own rooms and the melancholy of their thoughts.

During the course of the examination it had become clear that further search had been made for Raglan, but his disappearance still remained inexplicable. Anton did not think he had left the Castle precincts, and Coleridge was inclined to agree with him. It was still snowing thickly, and even at the time of Raglan’s disappearance it would have been almost impossible to have quitted the Castle without visible tracks having been left in the fresh snow.

Coleridge thought he had introduced his own part in the proceedings rather cleverly. He had been guided by Abercrombie, who had promised to make him an opening that would seem both logical and inevitable. Coleridge had to concede that he had done it most skilfully. There had been general discussion following the interrogation when Anton, through Rakosi, had asked the members of the Congress for their suggestions.

Some, notably those from Shaw and Sullivan, had been even more bizarre than the truth as Coleridge saw it, and Abercrombie had not been slow to capitalise on this. He had subtly insinuated that the authorities were hampered by lack of evidence. His eyes in the reddish face had flickered to Coleridge at this point, as already arranged, and the latter had broken into the debate as though reluctantly drawn.

His strong card was that he inclined to the supernatural, which lifted the cloud of suspicion from his companions. The atmosphere visibly lightened as he went haltingly on, and he noted Abercrombie’s glance of approval. As he talked, Coleridge covertly studied his companions’ faces. Shaw’s emaciated form, with his silver hair and drooping moustache of the same colour; Abercrombie’s bluff expression and bristling black whiskers; Dr. Sullivan’s grouse-moor exterior, with his greying hair and middle-aged heaviness; George Parker’s stocky athleticism and his veiled expression beneath the luxuriant black beard.

These, the sad survivors of a Congress which had started out so auspiciously; Coleridge felt a stab of self-pity for the specialist interests of an outstanding event which had been destroyed at the whim of a madman, but he immediately suppressed it. He was choosing his words with care now, and as he went on he could see that Abercrombie, though his attitude was nonchalant and his eyes cast down upon the table in front of him, was following his discourse with complete absorption and approval.

Coleridge was past the worst now. He hinted at possible evidence which had just come to him; he covered himself by saying that the shock of his recent experiences had driven it from his mind. There was a slight stir around the table, but the professor could see no disbelief in the faces raised to his own. He had remembered something which Menlow had entrusted to him; he had not realised its significance at the time and, on the doctor’s instructions, had hidden it carefully. This did not really square with what he had told the Count, but the latter made no comment.

With the violent death of his colleague and the subsequent events which had crowded in, it had slipped his memory, Coleridge went on. Anton’s thick fingers had been drumming on the table to cover his mounting interest as the Count’s translation continued. Now his hooded eyes were sharp and clear, focused almost brutally on Coleridge.

‘Where is this material?’ Homolky translated.

‘Well hidden,’ Coleridge replied. ‘I will search for it when this meeting breaks up and bring it to the colonel’s room before midnight.’

Coleridge could see mild puzzlement spreading on the police chief’s heavy features as the Count translated. This was the vital moment, and he hastened on as though to cover over the cracks in the thin façade of lies he had constructed.

‘Why not tell the colonel where it is?’ Homolky transmitted.

The professor shook his head.

‘I am not quite sure. The events of the past few days have confused my mind. I have no desire to waste police time. I would prefer to search by myself in case I have made an error.’

He paused, looking round the room, while the Count passed on the message.

‘I have no wish to look foolish, particularly if I have forgotten where I hid the material.’

Anton smiled thinly, nodding his head. Evidently Coleridge had said the right thing. The tiny detail of looking foolish, the natural desire of every man to avoid being made ridiculous in front of others, had swung the balance.

Coleridge felt a slight bead of sweat banding his forehead. He avoided Abercrombie’s eyes, though he could sense the big man’s approval of his performance.

Anton nodded in the end and rapped out two brisk sentences to Homolky, shutting his notebook with a snap. Rakosi pursed his lips, putting his hand on the butt of his pistol, which was buttoned into his gleaming holster.

‘Very well,’ said Homolky, after what seemed like a very long time to the professor. ‘Colonel Anton understands your position and your desire to help the judiciary. He will be in his room, available to you until midnight and beyond.’

Coleridge was aware of the general glances of approbation that were being cast upon him by his colleagues. He avoided looking at George Parker and instead concentrated on the colonel and the Count. He had no further ideas of his own, and Abercrombie’s suggestion was the only one which might cause the beast to rise to the bait.

The meeting was breaking up now. Colonel Anton paused opposite Coleridge and gave him another fierce stare. Then he nodded, as if in approval, and held out a hard hand for the professor to shake.

‘At midnight,’ Homolky translated.

Coleridge nodded.

‘I shall be there,’ he said.

CHAPTER 39: SILVER BULLETS

Coleridge eased his way along the dimly lit corridor with a racing heart. He was not sure whether his unknown adversary had taken the bait, but he had been conscious for some little while of certain furtive noises that seemed to echo faintly in his rear. He was proceeding toward the highest part of the Castle where the Count had his laboratory and floral houses. Abercrombie and some of his colleagues had already been there, but so far the professor had never visited that remote portion of the house.

Abercrombie had indicated to him where he must make his pretence of searching and had described it to him accurately; he had also undertaken to make sure the laboratory and the other apartments involved in his plan were unlocked. He had left the conference as soon as it had concluded, so Coleridge guessed he would take up his position for surveillance immediately, which gave him some comfort under the present circumstances.

The large revolver made a tight pressure against his chest muscles as he walked slowly along, orientating himself by the faint light which spilled in at the far end of the corridor. The Castle clock had just struck a quarter past eleven, which gave him plenty of time.

Abercrombie would have arrived some while before this, as they had broken up shortly before eleven. He would have to be early in order to be fully prepared to deal with the thing which Coleridge believed to be carefully dogging his footsteps now.

He needed all his reserves of strength and energy not to flee headlong down the passage at the faint scraping noises in his wake, and he forced his strained nerves under control while he edged slowly along in the deepening gloom. He had studied the plan the girl had made before setting out from his room tonight, and he thought he knew the way well enough, but it was difficult under these circumstances of darkness and silence and he hoped that he had not mistaken a turn on the narrow spiral staircase up which he had just advanced.

He had followed Abercrombie’s advice and had first gone to his room, as though to make preparations. This would give anyone time to gain the guests’ quarters, to keep him under surveillance, and then to follow if he believed the story Coleridge had told. Abercrombie was right; if there were evidence to give a name to the lycanthropic presence which had already taken so many lives, then the thing could not afford to let him deliver it to Colonel Anton.

Coleridge realised he was taking his life in his hands yet again; but in the meantime he had the comfort of the pistol and for the long-term the solid, dependable presence of Abercrombie, presumably concealed somewhere among the plants of the hothouses far above.

The professor understood pipes from the furnaces which heated certain parts of the house were channelled upward to the glassed-in conservatories, perched among the roofs of the Castle, where they would be sheltered from the wind, yet would catch the maximum amount of sunlight.

He was at the end of the corridor now and paused again, waiting for his eyes to become adjusted to the light. There was another narrow stair in front of him, obviously mediaeval in construction and made of some sort of close-bonded granite, smooth and polished by the feet of centuries.

Nothing had changed here except for such concessions to the nineteenth century as the curving metal handrail which followed the stair at his right and the narrow glass windows with heavy wooden frames which covered the occasional arrow-slits at the outer wall. By the ghostly light coming in Coleridge could see that the outside ledges were covered inches deep with snow, and frost filmed the glass so thickly that he could catch only a glimpse of whirling flakes.

A sort of sick dread seemed to coat his soul here in this lonely, silent place where he was remote from all help, bound on such a grim and incredible mission, and where the only sound was his muffled footfalls scraping on the bleak stone. Coleridge had covered two turns of the stair, and light was growing about him. This gave him confidence, and the coming of the light had renewed his courage.

He went quickly up the last two flights, conscious that there were more echoes in his wake than there should have been. He stopped at the top, hearing another step far below that had halted at almost the precise moment, but not quite. Fear was growing within him; if he waited too long, he would not have the tenacity and willpower to complete his purpose.

The long polished corridor in which he stood was lit by oil lamps at intervals, and he crossed to the nearest, first making sure that the place was empty. He consulted Nadia’s inked plan of the top floors – or was it her mother’s? Not that it mattered.

He soon located his position and saw that he must now move to the left to cross the centre of the vast tower in which he stood; if the sketch was accurate this should bring him to a sort of balcony which led to a huge timbered hall stretching between two of the towers. These would obviously be later structures, perhaps built by the Count’s father sixty or seventy years ago. Coleridge had heard that there were even indoor tennis courts at Castle Homolky, as well as a swimming bath and the shooting range of which the girl had spoken.

The whole estate denoted vast wealth and feudal privileges in which cost was the least consideration. It was equally obvious that to such a family as the Homolkys, isolated in a very primitive community as they would have been all those years ago, it was necessary to invent their own amusements; what better place to indulge such comforts and refinements than under the vastness of their own roof?

All these thoughts had passed through Coleridge’s mind in fleeting seconds as he refolded the plan and put it back into his pocket. It made an ugly crackling noise which seemed to flutter beneath the low ceiling of the passage, and Coleridge gave a quick glance to left and right before going on. Nothing moved in the corridor, but still the faint, furtive noise sounded a long way down the stair he had just quitted.

Abercrombie had done his work well. As Coleridge mounted higher, so the light grew, and with it, warmth, which seemed to exude from the polished marble floors of the corridors at this dizzy height. He found the balcony, which had lamps lit along its whole length, and ran across its slatted solid timbers, careless now of the heavy rumble it made behind him.

Beneath him was a dark, warm void, and he could hear water dripping somewhere; perhaps below him were the cisterns which supplied the hothouses and the laboratories. The balcony, which was glassed in at the top, led to a sort of foyer floored in paved coloured tiles which bore Roman motifs. Coleridge had the pistol out now, and he was alert to every shadow, every nuance, of his echoed progress.

The light still grew before him. He opened a glass door and was in what was obviously the Count’s laboratory: there were retorts and racks, test-tubes, bottles of chemicals, shelf after shelf of specimens in jars, aisles of mahogany filing cabinets doubtless containing documents relating to the Count’s researches, gleaming microscopes on the desks and benches.

There was electric light in here, coming from fittings suspended from long cords in the glass ceiling. There was also an enormous weight of snow upon the heavy iron trusses, Coleridge could see, but judging from the clear patches in the glass roof it was obviously melting from time to time because of the warmth within.

And it was warm after Coleridge’s long climb up among the draughty stone staircases. He walked down the gleaming aisle of filing cabinets, making sure the place was empty. There was almost no sound up here apart from an occasional creaking noise which he took to be either the weight of snow upon the iron girders supporting the roof or perhaps the wind buffeting the great mass of ice.

Beyond him was a green jungle where writhing vegetation rioted among the white metal staircases and balconies, giving the Homolky hothouses the appearance of some fantastic spa; perhaps Baden-Baden or Vichy, seen as though in a distorting mirror or in some troubled dream. Coleridge was no botanist, and he could not identify many of the colourful blooms that trailed gaudy blossom like blood or brilliant orange across the vista. It was an incredible tropical contrast to the bleakness outside.

Then he remembered his role, thinking he might well be watched from among the heavy banks of blossom. He quickly put the pistol back into his pocket, hoping that Abercrombie was securely placed to come to his aid quickly if danger threatened. He opened the big glass door in front of him and stepped into a heavy, cloying atmosphere that seemed as oppressive as the Matto Grosso.

The white balcony appeared to sway and give rather too much for Coleridge’s sense of security, and he instinctively clutched the railing at his right elbow. It was very hot indeed, and he hoped this would not take too long. Perspiration was already making his shirt stick to his back.

He paused, looking down into the vast arena spread below him where pools of water bearing great tropical lily pads gave back the electric light a thousandfold.

He and Abercrombie had worked out exactly what he was to do, but Coleridge, consulting his watch, deliberately slowed the routine. He was convinced he had been followed here, and he had to allow time for the creature to discover him at his task.

He went along the balcony and onto a sort of ornamental teak bridge in the Chinese style, red-painted and frail-looking, that spanned an awesome drop and led to the opposing balcony. It was a huge place, and Coleridge could glimpse other greenhouses beyond, faintly seen through the vast sheets of glass, but the lights were switched off in those and he knew that whatever drama had been planned for tonight would be played out here.

He walked quickly across the teak bridge, anxious to get off it, and did not breathe more easily until he had gained the other side. He first wanted to make sure he had an escape route near before committing himself fully to the scheme he had agreed with Abercrombie. He could now see that the balconies ran round all four sides of the enormous conservatory; that they were connected by catwalks and staircases to each other and to other gangways and staircases that led to the ground floor.

He had his foot on the first step of one of these, in the act of going down, when the half-hour struck from the Castle clock, enormously magnified up here at the very top of the vast edifice and brought clearly in the bitterly cold air outside by the strength of the wind that was driving the snow.

There was now no sense in delaying; Abercrombie was obviously in position, and whatever creature had been following him on the staircases of the lower Castle had had time to reach the conservatories. This was the worst moment so far as Coleridge was concerned, and he felt his limbs beginning to tremble as he set off down the series of stairs that led to the ground floor of the glasshouse.

He felt exposed and insignificant down here, under the light of the overhead lamps, and his eyes flickered from one set of white-painted balconies to another, but nothing moved in the artificial yellow glare.

The green foliage, broken by the crude colours of the exotic flowers, rose thickly about him the farther down he went, and he again caught the heavy, cloying stench that appeared to have something unhealthy and decadent about it. The greenery was more dense than he had supposed, rising in a wall high above his head and full of shadows. The large fleshy leaves looked artificial and rubbery; others like wax flowers of foliage, shining and still in the stagelike atmosphere.

The dark water of the lily ponds reflected the lights in crescents, spirals, and stars as he walked quickly along, his feet rattling on the pierced metal flooring that was designed for quick and easy drainage. There was a sort of aisle in the centre, between two of the largest semicircular ponds, that acted as a focus of attention; in the very middle of the aisle, Abercrombie had told him, was an ornamental palm let into heavy trunking. It was in the earth at its foot that he proposed to dig.

The foliage was so high now that Coleridge could see only dripping green shadow on all sides of him. It was a bad place, but at least there was the outlet of the staircases and he could see all the broad blankness of the airy white balconies from here. He walked over swiftly, the revolver heavy against his chest muscles, and selected a small trowel from a rack of implements that was screwed to a metal railing here.

He took one more look round the high arcading of this gigantic horticultural cathedral before kneeling to dig at the foot of the palm. As he did so an enormous shadow passed across the lighting, and the ferns at his back stirred.

Before he could regain his feet there was a snarling sound that raised the hairs on his neck, and the gigantic wolf with the grey patch on its back broke cover and stood for one horrifying second glaring at him.

Then, as he shouted and cowered away, it launched itself at his throat.

Coleridge had fallen clumsily and rolled over, which saved his life. The beast’s charge carried it so close, some of the rough hairs of its flank rasped across his cheek and he could feel the warmth of its reeking, foetid breath. He shouted again, and this seemed to alarm the creature because it swerved in midflight and cannoned into a large iron upright, seeming to make the whole conservatory shake.

Desperation now had given Coleridge a clear head. He had the pistol out, tugging it free of his pocket, throwing back the safety-catch. Its click was enormously magnified by the acres of glass around them. The animal seemed to understand the sound because it went straight on without stopping.

The explosion appeared tremendous in that vast space; the wolf trembled as it went up the opposite staircase, and Coleridge saw with triumph that he had slightly wounded it in the off forepaw, because it was limping and trailing blood. It was vulnerable then. Before he heard the crack of breaking glass in the background, he loosed off another shot which whined viciously off a metal stanchion.

Fear flooded through Coleridge as the wolf disappeared into thick foliage at the top of the staircase. There was still no sign of Abercrombie. Everything was silent again, except for the distant drip of water somewhere. This was even worse than what had happened in the previous seconds, and Coleridge then knew real fear.

He was drenched with perspiration which ran down into his eyes, and he rubbed with the back of his unoccupied hand to clear his vision. Nothing moved in all the wide expanse of glass but the very faintest agitation of fronds, which seemed to herald the passing of the lurking menace. Coleridge was on his feet again and, crouching, made his way to the foot of the nearest staircase; it was almost opposite the one up which the wolf had disappeared, and he dare not follow that closely.

Then followed perhaps the worst five minutes of his life. He was to all intents and purposes alone in the pitiless glare of the electric light; the tropical softness of the enormous conservatories about him; the only sound the faint liquid beat as water dripped onto the dark surface of a pool; the stealthy whisper of slowly moving fronds eating away at his nerves; every shadow in this clouded jungle a potential danger.