Black Moon

by Seabury Quinn

  “And you have joy in this friendship, hein?”

  “ Oh, yes, sir. It’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.”

  He smiled at her as he rose. “Bien. It will be a happy memory to you in the years to come, I am convinced. Meanwhile, we have others to attend, and if you gain in strength as you have done, in a few days—”

  “But Madelon?”

  “We shall see her and explain all, ma petite. Yes, of course.”

  “Oh, will you? How good of you!” Mazie gave him back an answering smile and nestled down to sleep as sweetly as a child.

  “MISS LEROY’S MAID CALLED three times today,” Jane Schaeffer told us when we stopped at her house on our way from the sanitorium. “It seems her mistress is quite ill, and very anxious to see Mazie—”

  “One can imagine,” Jules de Grandin agreed dryly.

  “So—she seems so fond of the dear child and asked for her so piteously—I finally gave in and told her where you’d sent Mazie—”

  “You what?” De Grandin seemed to have some difficulty in swallowing, as if he’d taken a morsel of hot food in his mouth.

  “Why, what’s wrong about that? I thought—”

  “There you make the mistake, Madame. If you had thought you would have remembered that we strictly forbade all visitors. We shall do what we can, and do it quickly as may be, but if we fail the fault is yours. Bon jour, Madame!” He clicked his heels together and bowed formally, his manner several degrees below freezing. “Come, Friend Trowbridge, we have duties to perform, duties that will not bear postponement.”

  Once on the pavement he exploded like a bursting rocket. “Nom d’un chat de nom d’un chien de nom d’un coq! We can defend ourselves against our ill-intentioned enemies; from chuckle-headed friends there is no refuge, pardieu! Come, my old one, speed is most essential.”

  “Where to?” I asked as I started the engine.

  “To the sanitorium, by blue! If we make rushing-haste we may not be too late.”

  THE BLUE RIDGE OF the Orange Mountains drowsed in the distance through the heat-haze of the summer afternoon, and the gray highway reeled out behind us like a paid-out ribbon. “Faster, faster!” he urged. “It is that we must hasten, Friend Trowbridge.”

  Half a mile or so ahead a big black car, so elegant it might have belonged to a mortician, sped toward the sanitorium, and his small blue eyes lighted as he described it. “Hers!” he exclaimed. “If we can pass her all may yet be well. Cannot you squeeze more speed from the moteur?”

  I bore down on the accelerator and the needle crawled across the dial of the speedometer. Sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five—the distance between us and our quarry melted with each revolution of the wheels.

  The chauffeur of the other car must have seen us in his rear-view mirror, or perhaps his passenger espied us. At any rate he put on speed, drew steadily away from us and vanished round the turn of the road in a swirling cloud of dust and exhaust-smoke.

  “Parbleu, pardieu, par la barbe d’un porc vert!” swore de Grandin. “It is that she outruns us; she makes a monkey of—”

  The scream of futilely applied brakes and clash of splintering glass cut his complaint short, and as I braked to round the curve we saw the big black sedan sprawled upon its side, wheels spinning crazily, windshield and windows spider-webbed with cracks, and lenses smashed from its lights. Already a thin trail of smoke was spiraling from its motor. “Triomphe!” he cried as he leaped from my car and raced toward the wrecked vehicle. “Into our hands she has been delivered, my friend!”

  The chauffeur was wedged in behind his wheel, unconscious but not bleeding, and in the tonneau two female forms huddled, a large woman in somber black whom I recognized as Miss Leroy’s maid, and, swathed in veilings till she looked like a gray ghost, the diminutive form of Madelon Leroy. “Look to him, Friend Trowbridge,” he ordered as he wrenched at the handle of the rear door. “I shall make it my affair to extricate the women.” With a mighty heave he drew the fainting maid from the wreck, dragged her to a place of safety and dived back to lift Madelon Leroy out.

  I had managed to drag the chauffeur to a cleared space in the roadside woodland, and not a moment too soon, for a broad sheet of flame whipped suddenly from the wrecked sedan, and in a moment its gas tank exploded like a bomb, strewing specks of fire and shattered glass and metal everywhere. “By George, that was a near thing!” I panted as I emerged from the shelter I had taken behind a tree. “If we’d been ten seconds later they would all have been cremated.”

  He nodded, almost absent-mindedly. “If you will watch beside them I shall seek a telephone to call an ambulance, my friend . . . they are in need of care, these ones, especially Mademoiselle Leroy. You have the weight at Mercy Hospital?”

  “What d’ye mean—”

  “The influence, the—how do you say him?—drag? If it can be arranged to have them given separate rooms it would be very beneficial to all parties concerned.”

  WE SAT BESIDE HER bed in Mercy Hospital. The chauffeur and maid had been given semi-private rooms, and under his direction Madelon Leroy had been assigned a private suite on the top floor. The sun was going down, a ball of crimson in a sea of swirling rose, and a little breeze played prankishly with the white curtains at the window. If we had not known her identity neither of us could have recognized the woman in the bed as lovely, glamorous Madelon Leroy.

  Her face was livid, almost green, and the mortuary outlines of her skull were visible through her taut skin—the hollow temples, pitted eye-orbits, pinched, strangely shortened nose, projecting jawline, jutting superciliary ridges. Some azure veinlets in the bluish whiteness of her cheeks accentuated her pallor, giving her face a strange, waxen look, the ears were almost transparent, and all trace of fullness had gone from the lips that drew back from the small, white, even teeth as if she fought for breath. “Mazie,” she called in a thin, weak whisper, “where are you, dear? Come, it is time for our nap. Take me in your arms, dear; hold me close to your strong, youthful body—”

  De Grandin rose and leaned across the bed, looking down at her not as a doctor looks at his patient, nor even as a man may look at a suffering woman, but with the cold impersonality the executioner might show as he looks at the condemned. “Larose, Larue, Leroy—whatever name you choose to call yourself—you are at last at the end of the road. There are no victims to renew your pseudo-youth. By yourself you came into the world—le bon Dieu only knows how many years ago—and by yourself you leave it. Yes.”

  The woman looked at him with dull, lack-luster eyes, and gradual recognition came into her withered face. “You!” she exclaimed in a panic-stricken, small voice. “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?”

  “Tu parles, ma vielle,” he replied nonchalantly. “You have said so, old woman. I have found thee. I was not there to keep thee from absorbing life from that poor one in 1910, nor could I stand between thee and that pitiful young girl in the days of the Third Napoleon, but this time I am here. Quite yes. Your time runs out; the end approaches.”

  “Be pitiful,” she begged tremulously. “Have mercy, little cruel man. I am an artiste, a great actress. My art makes thousands happy. For years I have brought joy to those whose lives were triste and dull. Compared to me, what are those others—those farm women, those merchants’ daughters, those offspring of the bourgeoisie? I am Clair de Lune—moonlight on soft-flowing water, the sweet promise of love unfulfilled—”

  “Tiens, I think the moon is setting, Mademoiselle,” he interrupted dryly. “If you would have a priest—”

  “Nigaud, bête, sot!” she whispered, and her whisper was a muted scream. “O fool and son of imbecile parents, I want no priest to whine his lying promise of repentance and redemption in my ears. Give me my youth and beauty once again, bring me a fair, fresh maiden—”

  She broke off as she saw the hard gleam in his eyes, and, so weak that she could scarcely find the breath to force the epithets between her graying lips, she cursed him with a nastiness
that would have brought a blush to a Marseilles fishwife.

  He took her tirade calmly, neither smiling nor angered, but with an air of detachment such as he might have shown while examining a new sort of germ-life through a microscope. “Thou beast, thou dog, thou swine! Thou species of a stinking camel—thou misbegotten offspring of an alley cat and a night-demon,” she whispered stridently.

  Physicians grow accustomed to the sight of death. At first it’s hard to witness dissolution, but in our grim trade we become case-hardened. Yet even with the years of training and experience behind me I could not forebear a shudder at the change that came over her. The bluish whiteness of her skin turned mottled green, as if already putrefactive micro-organisms were at work there, wrinkles etched themselves across her face like cracks in shattering ice, the luster of her pale-gold hair faded to a muddy yellow, and the hands that plucked at the bedclothes were like the withered talons of a dead and desiccated bird. She raised her head from the pillow, and we saw her eyes were red-rimmed and rheumy, empty of all sight as those of an old woman from whom age has stolen every faculty. Abruptly she sat up, bending at the waist like a hinged doll, pressed both shriveled hands against her withered bosom, gave a short, yelping cough like that of a hurt animal. Then she fell back and lay still.

  There was no sound in the death chamber. No sound came through the opened windows. The world was still and breathless in the quiet of the sunset.

  NORA MCGINNIS HAD DONE more than merely well by us, and dinner had been such a meal as gourmets love to dream of. Veal simmered in a sweet and sour sauce, tiny dumplings light as cirrus clouds, and for dessert small pancakes wrapped round cheese or apricot and prune jelly. De Grandin drained his coffee cup, grinned like a cherub playing truant from celestial school, and raised his glass of Chartreuse vert to savor its sharp, spicy aroma.

  “Oh, no, my friend,” he told me, “I have not an explanation for it. It is like electricity, one of those things about which we may understand a great deal, yet about which we actually know nothing. As I told you, I recognized her at first sight, yet was not willing to admit the evidence of my own eyes until she recognized me. Then I knew that we faced something evil, something altogether outside usual experience, but not necessarily what you would call supernatural. She was like a vampire, only different, that one. The vampire has a life-in-death, it is dead, yet undead. She were entirely alive, and likely to remain that way as long as she could find fresh victims. In some way—only the good God and the devil know how—she acquired the ability to absorb the vitality, the life-force, from young and vigorous women, taking from them all they had to give, leaving them but empty, sucked-out husks that perished from sheer weakness, while she went on with renewed youth and vigor.”

  He paused, lit a cigar, and: “You know it is quite generally believed that if a child sleeps with an aged person or an invalid he loses his vitality to his bedfellow. In the book of Kings we read how David, King of Israel, when he was old and very weak, was strengthened in that manner. The process she employed was something like that, only much accentuated.

  “In 1867 she took sixty days to slip from seeming-youth to advanced age. In 1910 the process took but two weeks or ten days; this summer she was fair and seeming-young one night, next morning she seemed more than middle-aged. How many times between my gran-père’s day and ours she did renew her youth and life by draining poor unfortunate young girls of theirs we cannot say. She was in Italy and South America and le bon Dieu only knows where else during that time. But one thing seems certain: With each succeeding renewal of her youth she became just a little weaker. Eventually she would have reached the point where old age struck her all at once, and there would not have been time to find a victim from whom she could absorb vitality. However, that is merely idle speculation. Mademoiselle Mazie had been selected as her victim this time, and if we had not been upon the scene—eh bien, I think there would have been another grave in the churchyard, and Mademoiselle Leroy would have reopened in her play this fall. Yes, certainly.

  “You ask to know some more?” he added as I made no comment.

  “One or two things puzzle me,” I confessed. “First, I’m wondering if there were any connection between her unnatural ability to refresh herself at others’ expense and her refusal to be photographed. Or do you think that was merely for the sake of publicity?”

  He studied the question a moment, then: “I do not, my friend. The camera’s eye is sharper than ours. Skilled makeup may deceive the human eye, the camera lens sees through it and shows every little so small imperfection. It may well be that she did fear to have her picture taken for that reason. You comprehend?”

  I nodded. “One thing more. That afternoon you told Mazie that you were sure the memory of her friendship with the Leroy woman would always be a thing to cherish. You knew the cold and spider-like nature of the woman; how she sucked her victims dry so pitilessly, yet—”

  “I knew it, yes,” he broke in, “and so do you, now; but she did not. She was attached to this strange, beautiful freak; she adored her with the ardor no one but a young, impressionable girl can have for an older, more sophisticated woman. Had I told her the whole truth not only would she have refused to believe me, she would have had an ideal shattered. It is far, far better that she keep that ideal, that she remain in happy ignorance of the true quality of the person she called friend, and cherish her memory forever. Why take something beautiful away from her, when by merely keeping silence we can give her happy recollections?”

  Once more I nodded. “It’s hard to believe all this, even though I saw it,” I confessed. “I’m willing to accept your thesis, but it did seem hard to let her die that way, even though—”

  ”Believe me, my friend,” he cut in, “she was no really-truly woman. Did not you hear what she said of herself before she died, that she was clair de lune—moonlight—completely ageless and without passion? She was egotism carried to illogical conclusion, a being whose self-love transcended every other thought and purpose. A queer, strange thing she was, without a sense of right or wrong, or justice or injustice, like a faun or fairy or some grotesque creature out of an old book of magic.”

  He drained the last sip of his liqueur and passed the empty glass to me. “If you will be so kind, my friend.”

  Vampire Kith and Kin

  “AND I DON’T MIND admitting that the case has got my goat,” young Dr. McCormick told me unhappily. “I’ve never seen another like it, and can’t find anyone who has. Will you come have a look at her tomorrow, sir? Perhaps I’d better turn the case over to you entirely—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” I told him. “If you want to call me into consultation I’ll be glad to help in any way I can, though I’m just a general practitioner, and this seems like a case for a specialist; but if you think it’s hopeless—well, I’m hanged if I’ll let you hand me the bag to hold. Signing death certificates for other doctors’ patients isn’t my idea of recreation—”

  “Oh, no, sir!” McCormick’s sharp denial bordered on hysteria. “It’s not like that, at all. It’s a matter of professional ethics. My personal interest—you see—oh, hang it, sir!—I’m in love with my patient. I can’t observe her objectively any more, can’t regard her illness as a case; can’t even see her as a woman. She’s the woman; the one woman in the world for me, and I’m afraid I might overlook a symptom that might lead me to a cure. When you begin to see a body that’s functioning faultily not as a defective piece of physical mechanism, but as a beloved woman, your value as a scientist is impaired. When every indication of unfavorable prognosis throws you into panic—”

  “I understand, my boy,” I interrupted. “The rule that makes us call in other doctors for our families is a wise one. Sometimes I think the physician, like the priest, should remain celibate. I’ll be glad to look in on your patient—”

  “And so shall I, if you permit it,” Jules de Grandin added as he stepped into the study. “Your pardon, Monsieur,” he apologized to McCormick,
“but I could not help hear what you said to Friend Trowbridge as I came down the hall. It was not that I eavesdropped, but”—he raised one shoulder in a Gallic shrug—“je n’ai que faire de vous dire.”

  I made the necessary introductions and the little Frenchman dropped into a chair, then crossed his hands in his lap and stared fixedly at my visitor. “Say on, Monsieur,” he ordered. “Tell me of this case which has deprived you of the goat.”

  “I’ll try to be as clinical as possible,” McCormick responded. “Her name is Anastasia Pappalukas; age twenty-three, unmarried. And”—his voice took on a sandy grittiness—“she’s dying; dying for no earthly reason except that she is.”

  De Grandin nodded. “You have made the tentative diagnosis?”

  “A dozen of ’em, sir, and they’re all wrong. The only thing I’m certain of is that she’s fading like a wilting flower, and nothing I can do seems any use.”

  “Pardonnez-moi, I do not mean to be too obvious, but sometimes we are blinded by our very nearness to a case. You have not discounted the possibility of latent TB?”

  McCormick gave a short, chiding laugh. “I have not, sir; nor anemia nor any other likely ailment. Her sputum tests are all negative, so are her X-rays. Her temperature is nearly always normal; I’ve made repeated blood counts, and while she’s just below the million mark the deficiency isn’t great enough to cause concern. About her only objective symptoms are progressive loss of weight and increasing pallor; subjectively she complains of loss of appetite, slight headaches in the morning and profound lassitude. Lately she’s been troubled by nightmares; says she’s afraid to go to sleep for fear of ’em.”

  “U’m? One sees. And how long has this condition obtained?”

  “I’m not quite sure, sir. I’ve had the case about three months, but how long she’d been ill before they called me I can’t say. I don’t know much about her background; you see, I’d never met her till they called me. It seems she’s been in what we used to call ‘a decline’ for some time, but you know how vague laymen are. She might have started downhill long before they called me, and not become aware of her condition till her illness had progressed beyond the hope of successful treatment.”