Scrambling to their feet in astonishment, they found themselves confronting Vautrian, his face like thunder.
“Your name Schaefer?” he barked.
“Ah – yes!”
“You’re a certified huissier?”
“Yes!”
“I am a duly appointed juge d’instruction. I invoke your assistance in the name of the law.”
Slowly, confusedly, lowering his third glass of brandy – except that it wasn’t his third, not of the day, but more like his tenth or twelfth – Paul Serrouiller cancelled the joke he had planned to make concerning disposal of that nude painting of his sister to the Moulin Rouge where it would look perfect in the entrance foyer.
Vautrian did not have the air of a man inclined for jokes.
He continued, “You are Paul Serrouiller, brother of the late Marquise de Vergonde?”
“What the hell are you going on about?”
His face eloquent of something between disgust and terror, the magistrate drew a deep breath.
“I arrest you for the culpable homicide of your sister.”
“What?” Paul overturned his glass in the act of trying to set it down. “Are you crazy? My sister has been dead for seven years!”
His brother-in-law the marquis roused, scrabbling at the dirty floor with equally dirty fingernails, apparently in search of his spectacles. Jules hastened to his side.
“I was so close to success,” he whispered. “I was so much closer than I knew . . .”
Vautrian ignored the distraction, continuing to address Paul.
“Did you throw a brandy-bottle at the tomb in which she was sealed up, thereby breaking its window and admitting air?”
“What?” Paul licked his lips, casting around for support. But his cronies had sensed something amiss and were withholding it.
“You had been told, had you not, that your sister stood a chance of being resuscitated if the seal could be maintained until a cure was found for her disease?”
“Who pays attention to that sort of rubbish?” Paul exclaimed hysterically. “My sister had been dead for seven years! How can you claim I killed her?”
The marquis moaned, still writhing on the floor.
“But she cannot have been dead for seven years,” said the magistrate. Again he filled his lungs to maximum, as though afraid he might otherwise run out of oxygen.
“On entering the mausoleum, we found your sister not on her catafalque but on the floor, and in the dust around such marks as make it clear that she had risen, taken three clear steps, and collapsed.”
Paul stared, mind bludgeoned into incredulity.
“Moreover . . . Anton?”
The bailiff had been keeping one hand behind his back. Now he revealed what was in it: a swatch of bright blonde hair.
Sibylle’s hair.
“She can have had strength only for a moment. On contact with the full force of fresh air, all that was left of her – save those golden locks . . .” He had to pause and swallow.
“Dissolved,” grated Jules.
“But she had lived!” the marquis cried, striving to raise himself.
Vautrian nodded heavily. “Yes, long enough. Monsieur Serrouiller, I repeat my charge. You had been told that breaching the seal that protected your sister would be tantamount to murdering her –”
“But I didn’t know she was alive!” shrieked Paul.
“You mean you didn’t believe she was,” corrected the magistrate. “That she was, however, has been proved.”
“I – I . . .”
Wherever Paul looked, though, he read no pity in the others’ eyes. It was as though they were all wordlessly concluding:
The marquis really had found out a way to raise the dead. This bastard insisted that he couldn’t have because he wanted to get his hands on the money that was needed to perfect it.
To waste on brandy, more than like!
The marquis uttered a stifled groan, rolled on his back and lay still. Jules checked his wrist for a pulse. He found none.
“Now there truly is no chance of knowing what my master invented,” he said in a gravelly voice, and crossed himself.
“Thanks to this greedy fool,” Largot snapped, adding to Vautrian, “You need assistance in arresting him, monsieur? Serge!”
Expert hands clamped on Paul’s windpipe, dispatching him to limp oblivion. Not before, however, he had heard:
“To cheat humanity of resurrection? Has there ever been a fouler traitor?”
Conscious or not, Paul would have had no answer.
Guy N. Smith
Last Train
Since the publication of his first novel, Werewolf By Moonlight, in 1974, the prolific Guy N. Smith has written almost sixty horror novels, plus thrillers, film novelizations, children’s books and non-fiction guides aimed at farmers, sportsmen and gamekeepers.
His recent horror titles include The Resurrected, The Knighton Vampires, The Plague Chronicles and Witch Spell, while under the alias Gavin Newman he has published a new thriller, The Hangman, and as Jonathan Guy he is the author of the animal books Badger Island and Rak.
The writer also runs a mail-order business, Black Hill Books (established in 1972), specialising in crime and horror fiction with a separate catalogue devoted to his own books and collectables. In 1992 the Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed.
JEREMY WAS FRIGHTENED. Very frightened. For a number of reasons.
The last time he’d been to the city was when he was twelve, he could not remember much about it except that his parents had been with him. He hadn’t been anywhere without them since, except on those rare occasions when they let him go into town on the bus on his own, and then Mother was waiting at the bus stop for his return. Once he’d missed the bus home, come on the next one, and she’d been nearly hysterical. That was when he was sixteen; he was twenty now and nothing had changed much.
Jeremy was still paying the price for his misfortune in being the only child of farmers who had sheltered him from infancy to adolescence and beyond. His mother was turned forty when he was born; it had been a difficult birth, both mother and offspring only survived with a struggle. His father was sixteen years older than Jeremy’s mother, and even now they did not trust their son to run the 100-acre spread on his own. Even the simplest chore had to be referred to them before it was attempted, and it was usually criticized heavily after its completion.
“You’m lucky, Jerry,” his father repeatedly reminded him, spittle stringing from his toothless mouth, his chest wheezing beneath his old brown smock even though he had never smoked. “You could be livin’ close to a town with all kinds o’ things to lead you astray. Out here you’m safe, and after we’ve gone the place’ll be your’n. That’s the time to get married, when you’ve nobody to cook and clean for you. But you’ve got your mother, God willing for a number o’ years to come, so you won’t need a wife yet.”
Jeremy had worked on the farm all his life, six days a week and chapel twice on Sundays, the routine never altered. The farm was situated down a rough track, two miles from the public road, and the only person, apart from his parents, whom Jeremy saw regularly was the postman. And mostly that was a distant glimpse of a red van.
Jeremy became a reluctant recluse. Taking sheep to market with the tractor and trailer on Fridays was no social excursion. Naturally, his father came along and the gathering in the stockyard was invariably that of an older generation. Jeremy became extremely lonely.
Bingo in the village hall was taboo to a true chapelman, his father was aghast that his son had even thought of going. The monthly dance was a waste of time and, anyway, how would Jeremy get home afterwards because there were no buses at that time of night and taxis were too expensive; another thing, a young man needed to be abed early if he was to be up and about at daylight the next morning.
Jeremy was young, his mother supported her husband’s views; when the time came, and Jeremy needed a wife, then he could take himself along to a dance. Dances had their tempta
tions, there was a rumour that young Milly Wain was pregnant and she was always hanging round the hall on dance nights, flirting with chaps. “We don’t want you going getting no wench into trouble, Jeremy!”
The urge was strong, almost unbearable, with Jeremy. Had his mother’s eyesight not been so poor she might have noticed stains on his bedsheets and lectured him on the evils that led to blindness. But she didn’t, and at twenty his craving for a woman was almost unbearable.
It was at the cattle market that an exciting idea came to him. December heralded the annual Smithfield show in the city and there were some tickets on sale; the price included a return train fare and a night in a modest hotel. Whilst his father was busily engaged discussing the alarming drop in the price of lamb, Jeremy bought a ticket. Just one.
“What you bin and wasted your money on that for?” His mother stared in disbelief.
“Because I want to go,” Jeremy held the ticket beyond her reach or else it would probably have been thrown on the woodstove. “It’s educational. And, anyway, I haven’t had a holiday since I was twelve when you took me to London. I’d like to go again.”
“We was with you then,” her lower lip was trembling. “London’s no place for a boy on his own. Nor a woman. Nor nobody. It’s full of drug addicts, muggers, murderers and . . .”
But Jeremy went to London all the same. He walked to the village, caught the bus into town, boarded an inter-city bound for Euston. And eventually arrived in the metropolis.
He’d heard that whores lurked in side streets and shop doorways, that took your money and gave you dreadful diseases in return. But he’d risk anything just to experience that forbidden pleasure which his parents pretended never existed, switching to an alternative television channel if anything came on the screen which did not pass their censorship.
It was wrong, God would know what he’d done, but he’d pray for forgiveness in chapel every Sunday for the rest of his life, if necessary. He’d find a woman somewhere, give her every penny he’d brought with him if she would just let him do what he could not live without any longer. He didn’t care if she was fat or thin, pretty or ugly, just so long as she let him have what he wanted.
He’d almost given up. He’d tramped the pavements until his feet were blistered inside his best Sunday shoes. His collar was turned up against the drizzle of a raw winter’s night, he glanced furtively into every doorway and alley he passed. What did a whore look like? How did you approach one? He found himself hurrying on past dark shadows where only the glow of a cigarette revealed that somebody waited there.
Tired, dejected, lost, he started when a voice spoke to him from the darkness of a passageway between the tall buildings. “Cost you a tenner, love.”
A month’s pocket money for working on the farm, his board and lodgings were his wages, so Father said. Pocket money and nothing to spend it on except a new set of overalls. This time he meant to have full value for his money.
He could not see what she looked like in the stygian blackness of the alley, but he didn’t care. She insisted on payment up front, then she leaned spread-legged against the wall, undid enough of her clothing as she deemed necessary.
That was when the most awful thing happened to Jeremy. Years of fantasizing about this mythical experience came to nothing, those arousements of a thousand lonely nights deserted him. Her annoyance at his impotence only served to further soften his intended prowess. Time was money, and time was running out for her.
Suddenly, she was gone, his ten pound note stuffed in the pocket of her frayed coat, leaving him to his despair and embarrassment.
It was then that Jeremy’s terror began.
He slunk back out into the misty, deserted street, looked right and left. A couple hurried past but they scarcely glanced at him. Alien surroundings, he could not even remember in which direction he had come, where the tube station was where he had alighted in this notorious area.
The earlier traffic had thinned to a spasmodic trickle. An approaching car bore a neon sign with the word “taxi” on it. Just in time Jeremy checked his upraised arm; the only money he had was the loose change jingling in his pocket. In the city, his parents had advised him reluctantly, one didn’t walk about with a wad of money in one’s pocket. His neatly folded banknotes were hidden under the carpet back in his sparse hotel room. He had just enough for a single underground fare to . . .
To where? The names of streets, stations were foreign to him, easily forgotten. Approaching footsteps had him glancing behind him. Somebody was coming; they’d spotted him, they were stalking him. Stopping because he had stopped; walking again when he started off; quickly, trying to catch him up.
He ran. It might have been the echoes of his own footsteps on the pavement but it sounded like his pursuers were running, too. He turned left into a side street; they followed. Right, and left again. Another main thoroughfare. People stood on the opposite pavement, staring.
Everybody was hunting him.
They drove him one way, then another. Physically fit, Jeremy walked the Dingle at home daily, and then up to the top fields to check on the sheep, but the city concrete was sapping his strength. His calves ached, his broad chest heaved with the intake of polluted air. He almost gave up, stood and waited for them to come and take him.
And then he saw the blue and red circle that designated an underground station.
He found the strength to run again, stumbling down a flight of wide steps. Across a foyer, vaulting a ticket barrier. There were no uniformed attendants, the robots had taken over.
On down a steep escalator, looking fearfully behind him. There was nobody in sight, temporarily he had outdistanced those who sought to run him down. Pray God that there was a train imminent, its destination mattered not. Please God, let there be a train and forgive me for what I have done.
There was a train standing at the platform. A long line of cars waited, doors open, they appeared to be deserted. Jeremy ran along the platform, searching for one with late night travellers, company when he needed it most. Alone in a deserted carriage, he was trapped. Mind the gap.
The doors were starting to close. He hurled himself aboard, sprawled headlong as the train jerked forward, began to pick up speed.
The last train, he had made it with seconds to spare. He had escaped the clutches of those who sought to mug him and to do other unthinkable things to him.
It was only when the train was in the tunnel that Jeremy realized that he was not alone in the carriage. He clambered into a seat, glanced apprehensively at his fellow passengers. It was obvious that all three were travelling together.
The man sat opposite his female companions. His age was indeterminable, there was a distinct lack of care about his appearance, yet he had the bearing of one too preoccupied with important matters to be concerned with his personal appearance. His bald head was fringed with iron grey hair that stuck out, demanding a brush and comb. Bushy eyebrows and a hooked nose, the nostrils encrusted with dried mucus, gave him the appearance of a bird of prey.
A well worn, shiny overcoat was belted at the waist, the trousers were several inches too short, revealed odd socks that almost matched, had perhaps been selected carelessly from a clothes drawer without a second glance. The hallmark of one engrossed in his ambitions.
The two women were possibly in their mid-twenties and a similarity of features bespoke sisters, possibly even twins. The one was raven-haired, the other peroxide blonde, dressed in tight-fitting, two-piece suits that showed their slim figures to perfection. Their beauty was breathtaking to one who had come direct from the impatient gropings of a street slut. It was also . . . frightening.
Because of their lack of expression, the way their eyes saw without revealing their thoughts, the manner in which they sat stiffly, unnaturally. Almost a subservience to the one who leaned across and spoke to them in low, barely audible, gutteral tones, spittle dangling from his thin lips.
The blonde woman’s arm moved jerkily, she handed something to
the man. Perhaps she was an arthritic like Mother. Jeremy watched out of the corner of his eyes. Or maybe she had suffered some serious accident that had partially immobilized her. Just as it had rendered her sister a semi-cripple. Maybe they had both been in the same car accident.
Something changed hands, rustled. Jeremy recognized bank notes, tenners. The man was smoothing them out, folding them, unashamedly gloating over them as he transferred them to the pocket of his coat.
“Good, good!” The stranger grunted, tapped his pocket with long white fingers. “You have done well. Everything has worked.”
The eyes beneath those heavy brows stole a glance at the newcomer to the journey. Jeremy cringed, his guts balled and his mouth went even drier than before. This man was undoubtedly a pimp. He had watched a television programme on prostitution late one night when he had stayed up during the lambing season. The other sent these women out to work on the streets, collected their earnings afterwards. He had probably shadowed them to ensure that they didn’t cheat him, met up at a prearranged place afterwards. Now he was escorting them home; they probably lived in his brothel. They were his slaves.
Another sensation pervaded Jeremy. His pulses speeded up, his heart was pounding madly, and not just from his recent exertions. There was a familiar stirring in his lower regions. He became angry over his own failure to achieve an ambition that had plagued his nights of loneliness. Now his arousement had returned to taunt him when it was too late. For even if these women were whores, he had not the money to pay for their services.
The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) Page 34
