Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories (33 page)

Four?
We were five!
Marcello Souvestre stood before us, just within the door! We all saw him, for he was there. His bloodless face was turned towards us unmoved; his hands hung by his side as white as his face; only his eyes had life in them; they were fixed on Detaille.

“Thank God you have come at last!” I cried. “Don’t stand there like a fool! Help us, can’t you?” But he never moved. I was furiously angry, and, leaving my hold, sprang upon him to drag him forwards. My outstretched hands struck hard against the door, and I felt a thing like a spider’s web envelop me. It seemed to draw itself over my mouth and eyes, and to blind and choke me, and then to flutter and tear and float from me.

Marcello was gone!

Detaille had slipped from Magnin’s hold, and lay in a heap upon the floor, as though his limbs were broken. The Sister was trembling violently as she knelt over him and tried to raise his head. We gazed at one another, stooped and lifted him in our arms, and carried him back to his bed, while Sœur Marie quietly collected the broken phials.

“You saw it,
ma Sœur
?” I heard Magnin whisper hoarsely.

“Yes, monsieur!” she only answered, in a trembling voice, holding on to her crucifix. Then she said in a professional tone—

“Will monsieur let me bind up his wrist?” And though her fingers trembled and his hand was shaking, the bandage was an irreproachable one.

Magnin went into the next room, and I heard him throw himself heavily into a chair. Detaille seemed to be sleeping. His breath came regularly; his eyes were closed with a look of peace about the lids, his hands lying in a natural way upon the quilt. He had not moved since we laid him there. I went softly to where Magnin was sitting in the dark. He did not move, but only said: “Marcello is dead!”

“He is either dead or dying,” I answered, “and we must go to him.”

“Yes,” Magnin whispered, “we must go to him, but we shall not reach him.”

“We will go as soon as it is light,” I said, and then we were still again.

When the morning came at last he went and found a comrade to take his place, and only said to Sœur Marie, “It is not necessary to speak of this night”; and at her quiet, “You are right, monsieur,” we felt we could trust her. Detaille was still sleeping. Was this the crisis the doctor had expected? Perhaps; but surely not in such fearful form. I insisted upon my companion having some breakfast before we started, and I breakfasted myself, but I cannot say I tasted what passed between my lips.

We engaged a closed carriage, for we did not know what we might bring home with us, though neither of us spoke out his thoughts. It was early morning still when we reached the Vigna Marziali, and we had not exchanged a word all the way. I rang at the bell, while the coachman looked on curiously. It was answered promptly by the
guardiano
, of whom Detaille has already told you.

“Where is the Signore?” I asked through the gate.

“Chi lo sa?”
he answered, “He is here, of course; he has not left the Vigna. Shall I call him?”

“Call him?”
I knew that no mortal voice could reach Marcello now, but I tried to fancy he was still alive.

“No,” I said. “Let us in. We want to surprise him; he will be pleased.”

The man hesitated, but he finally opened the gate, and we entered, leaving the carriage to wait outside. We went straight to the house; the door at the back was wide-open. There had been a gale in the night, and it had torn some leaves and bits of twigs from the trees and blown them into the entrance hall. They lay scattered across the threshold, and were evidence that the door had remained open ever since they had fallen. The
guardiano
left us, probably to escape Marcello’s anger at having let us in, and we went up the stairs unhindered, Magnin foremost, for he knew the house better than I, from Detaille’s description. He had told him about the corner room with the balcony, and we pretended that Marcello might be there, absorbed betimes in his work, but we did not call him.

He was not there. His papers were strewn over the table as though he had been writing, but the inkstand was dry and full of dust; he could not have used it for days. We went silently into the other chambers. Perhaps he was still asleep? But, no! We found his bed untouched, so he could not have lain in it that night. The rooms were all unlocked but one, and this closed door made our hearts beat. Marcello could scarcely be there, however, for there was no key in the lock; I saw the daylight shining through the key-hole. We called his name, but there came no answer. We knocked loudly; still no sign from within; so I put my shoulder to the door, which was old and cracked in several places, and succeeded in bursting it open.

Nothing was there but a sculptor’s modelling-stand, with something upon it covered with a white cloth, and the modelling-tools on the floor. At the sight of the cloth, still damp, we drew a deep breath. It could have hung there for many hours, certainly not for twenty-four. We did not raise it. “He would be vexed,” said Magnin, and I nodded, for it is accounted almost a crime in the artists’ world to unveil a sculptor’s work behind his back. We expressed no surprise at the fact of his modelling: a ban seemed to lie upon our tongues. The cloth hung tightly to the object beneath it, and showed us the outline of a woman’s head and rounded-bust, and so veiled we left her. There was a little winding stair leading out of the passage, and we climbed it, to find ourselves in a sort of belvedere, commanding a superb view. It was a small, open terrace, on the roof of the house, and we saw at a glance that no one was there.

We had now been all over the casino, which was small and simply built, being evidentally intended only for short summer use. As we stood leaning over the balustrade we could look down into the garden. No one was there but the
guardiano
, lying amongst his cabbages with his arms behind his head, half asleep. The laurel grove had been in my mind from the beginning, only it had seemed more natural to go to the house first. Now we descended the stairs silently and directed our steps thither.

As we approached it, the
guardiano
came towards us lazily.

“Have you seen the Signore?” he asked, and his stupidly placid face showed me that he, at least, had no hand in his disappearance.

“No, not yet,” I answered, “but we shall come across him somewhere, no doubt. Perhaps he has gone to take a walk, and we will wait for him. What is this?” I went on, trying to seem careless. We were standing now by the little arch of which you know.

“This?” said he; “I have never been down there, but they say it is something old. Do the Signori want to see it? I will fetch a lantern.”

I nodded, and he went off to his cabin. I had a couple of candles in my pocket, for I had intended to explore the place, should we not find Marcello. It was there that he had disappeared that night, and my thoughts had been busy with it; but I kept my candles concealed, reflecting that they would give our search an air of premeditation which would excite curiosity.

“When did you see the Signore last?” I asked, when he had returned with the lantern.

“I brought him his supper yesterday evening.”

“At what o’clock?”

“It was the Ave Maria, Signore,” he replied. “He always sups then.”

It would be useless to put any more questions. He was evidently utterly unobserving, and would lie to please us.

“Let me go first,” said Magnin, taking the lantern. We set our feet upon the steps; a cold air seemed to fill our lungs and yet to choke us, and a thick darkness lay beneath. The steps, as I could see by the light of my candle, were modern, as well as the vaulting above them. A tablet was let into the wall, and in spite of my excitement I paused to read it, perhaps because I was glad to delay whatever awaited us below. It ran thus:

Questo antico sepolcro Romano scoprì il Conte Marziali nell’ anno 1853, e piamente conservò.
In plain English:

“Count Marziali discovered this ancient Roman sepulchre in the year 1853, and piously preserved it.”

I read it more quickly than it has taken time to write here, and hurried after Magnin, whose footsteps sounded faintly below me. As I hastened, a draught of cold air extinguished my candle, and I was trying to make my way down by feeling along the wall, which was horribly dark and clammy, when my heart stood still at a cry from far beneath me—a cry of horror!

“Where are you?” I shouted; but Magnin was calling my name, and could not hear me. “I am here. I am in the dark!”

I was making haste as fast as I could, but there were several turnings.

“I have found him!” came up from below.

“Alive?” I shouted. No answer.

One last short flight brought me face to face with the gleam of the lantern. It came from a low doorway, and within stood Magnin, peering into the darkness. I knew by his face, as he held the light high above him, that our fears were realized.

Yes; Marcello was there. He was lying stretched upon the floor, staring at the ceiling, dead, and already stiff, as I could see at a glance. We stood over him, saying not a word, then I knelt down and felt him, for mere form’s sake, and said, as though I had not known it before, “He has been dead for some hours.”

“Since yesterday evening,” said Magnin, in a horror-stricken voice, yet with a certain satisfaction in it, as though to say, “You see, I was right.”

Marcello was lying with his head slightly thrown back, no contortions in his handsome features; rather the look of a person who has quietly died of exhaustion—who has slipped unconsciously from life to death. His collar was thrown open and a part of his breast, of a ghastly white, was visible. Just over the heart was a small spot.

“Give me the lantern,” I whispered, as I stooped over it. It was a very little spot, of a faint purplish brown, and must have changed colour within the night.

I examined it intently, and should say that the blood had been sucked to the surface, and then a small prick or incision made. The slight subcutaneous effusion led me to this conclusion. One tiny drop of coagulated blood closed the almost imperceptible wound. I probed it with the end of one of Magnin’s matches. It was scarcely more than skin-deep, so it could not be the stab of a stiletto, however slender, or the track of a bullet. Still, it was strange, and with one impulse we turned to see if no one were concealed there, or if there were no second exit. It would be madness to suppose that the murderer, if there was one, would remain by his victim. Had Marcello been making love to a pretty
contadina
, and was this some jealous lover’s vengeance? But it was not a stab. Had one drop of poison in the little wound done this deadly work?

We peered about the place, and I saw that Magnin’s eyes were blinded by tears and his face as pale as that upturned one on the floor, whose lids I had vainly tried to close. The chamber was low, and beautifully ornamented with stucco bas-reliefs, in the manner of the well-known one not far from there upon the same road. Winged genii, griffins, and arabesques, modelled with marvellous lightness, covered the walls and ceiling. There was no other door than the one we had entered by. In the centre stood a marble sarcophagus, with the usual subjects sculptured upon it, on the one side Hercules conducting a veiled figure, on the other a dance of nymphs and fauns. A space in the middle contained the following inscription, deeply cut in the stone, and still partially filled with red pigment:

D. M.
VESPERTILIAE
·
THC
·
AIMA–
TOΠΩTIΛOC
·
Q
·
FLAVIVS
·
VIX
·
IPSE
·
SOSPES
·
MON
·

POSVIT

“What is this?” whispered Magnin. It was only a pickaxe and a long crowbar, such as the country people use in hewing out their blocks of tufa, and his foot had struck against them. Who could have brought them here? They must belong to the
guardiano
above, but he said that he had never come here, and I believed him, knowing the Italian horror of darkness and lonely places; but what had Marcello wanted with them? It did not occur to us that archaeological curiosity could have led him to attempt to open the sarcophagus, the lid of which had evidently never been raised, thus justifying the expression
piously preserved
.