Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace

by Olga Wojtas

  A bribe. He wanted a bribe. If this was going to free me to carry out my mission, it would surely be an allowable expense. I reached into my reticule and pulled out my purse. It wouldn’t open. I tugged at it, wrenched at it, tried to creep up on it unawares, but there was nothing doing. It remained firmly closed. Miss Blaine was being tougher on expenses than I had expected.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Would you accept an IOU?”

  With a low snarl, he shoved me straight into the cell and locked the door. I heard him cross the main office and leave, locking the front door behind him as well.

  The cell was very dark. And very cramped. There was no way I would be able to do my yoga exercises. I experimented briefly. Eagle Pose was fine, and I could just manage Reverse Triangle Pose, but Salute to the Sun was out of the question.

  I have huge respect for the rule of law, but it seemed to me that, even leaving out the impossibility of exercising, it was my duty to escape. I was already two days into my mission, and the level of tingling still hadn’t alerted me to whom I was trying to help.

  I attached the drawstrings of my reticule to my skirt’s button fastenings to keep it safe, before going as far back in my cell as I could. I took two steps and a hop, and then, engaging my glutes and my abs, I sprang into the air, fingers closing over the sill of the transom window. Keeping my shoulders back, I performed a perfect pull-up, and nudged the window fully open with my forehead. The heavy skirt with its two petticoats was a bit problematic – I wished I was on a mission where I could wear trousers – but eventually I managed to wriggle one leg over to freedom, followed a while later by the other one. It was the matter of but a moment to drop down, landing neatly on the balls of my feet and rolling back onto my heels. Perhaps I should do a parachute jump for charity some time.

  I dragged a chair over to the cell door and stood on it to pull the transom window closed, in order to conceal how I got out. And then I found that all I had done was exchange a small, dark prison for a larger, lighter one. There were bars on the windows that proved immoveable, and a securely locked door. On my previous mission, I had been provided with a certain amount of useful equipment. This time, my luggage contained a number of unexpected items, but they were in my room at Madeleine’s, and, in any case, I couldn’t see how they would help here. I wondered whether the contents of my reticule might provide the answer. I emptied it out on the desk. Nothing practical, although I noted that my purse now opened. I wondered if it would close again if I went to the howff and ordered a stiff drink. Miss Blaine certainly wasn’t giving me any extra assistance. In fact, that seemed to be the crucial point. She had provided violettes de Toulouse for the small boy, but she wouldn’t let me bribe or dig my way out of incarceration. It was as though she was happy to see me being punished.

  I would have to rely on my own resources. I began searching for a spare set of keys. Nothing was hanging on the wall, so I went over to the plain wooden desk and started opening the drawers. The top one contained a pen, a bottle of ink, and some pencil stubs. The middle one contained a bar of carbolic soap, a small scrubbing brush and some dusters. I detected Madeleine’s hand in this. The bottom drawer contained three folders, the first bulging, the second less full, and the third looking empty.

  The first contained page after page of meticulous paperwork in a fine, bold hand, presumably Sylvain’s, since they were all incident reports. And what incidents they were. The most exciting ones I found were the occasional missing cow, which was invariably found before the day was out. Some people might describe Sans-Soleil as douce (yet another Franco-Scots word), but a better description would be utterly boring.

  One missing cow report in particular caught my eye – the animal wasn’t named, but Sylvain must have been particularly fond of it, since the report was embellished with a large heart. He had set off in search of the missing animal, following hoof prints and reports of the sound of a cow bell. It had taken him many hours of travel, but he eventually tracked the beast down to the village of Sans-Saucisse, where it was causing havoc, eating the flowers in the municipal flowerbeds. He took charge of the animal, assured the town council that it would be fenced in appropriately in future, and promised a letter of apology from the mayor of Sans-Soleil.

  The report ended: “The happiest day of my life – united with my beloved.” I was quite shocked for a moment until it struck me that searching for the missing cow must be the important police business that had led him to Madeleine’s village. I could imagine the excitement among the lassies of Sans-Saucisse when a devastatingly handsome stranger came to call. True, I hadn’t actually seen Sylvain, but he would have to be devastatingly handsome to pull a babe like Madeleine. And there’s something about a man in uniform, even if it’s only a kepi and a cape.

  I turned to the second folder. If the first one made policing sound non-eventful, this was of a different order. Its reports consisted entirely of assaults. As I read, it turned out that these were assaults perpetrated on villagers by Sylvain. All of the victims were male. And they had all been in the process of trying to chat up Madeleine. Every report ended in the same way: “[X] apologised to Madeleine. Warning given. No further action.”

  Sylvain seemed to think he was not only a guardian of the law but also a guardian of Madeleine. Not only completely inappropriate, but also entirely unnecessary, since everything I had seen of Madeleine suggested that she was more than capable of looking after herself.

  I flicked open the third folder, expecting to find nothing. There was a page with one log entry, frustratingly undated: “Discovered on my desk this morning.” And beside it was a single scrap of paper. A paper with words I had read once before. “Souviens-toi, tu dois mourir.”

  Remember you must die.

  Five

  A clear warning, if not a clear threat. It looked as though Madeleine was a widow after all, and I really would have to be nice to her.

  And then a terrible thought struck me. Was it the mayor who had sent Sylvain the threatening message? Was it the mayor who had killed him? I didn’t want to think of the mayor as a murderer, but was that purely because of his louche attractiveness? I had had no problem thinking he was a vampire. But vampires weren’t technically murderers – far from killing people, they turned them undead.

  I searched in vain for any notes Sylvain might have made that would cast light on who had sent the message. I looked again at the previous folder. It suggested quite a lot of suspects: every bloke he had beaten up. Or perhaps, unlikely though it seemed, a wife who objected to her husband being beaten up. Or at least objected to him being beaten up by someone other than herself. Since fingerprinting was still in its infancy and lie detector tests wouldn’t be invented for another twenty years, the best I could do would be to wave the scrap of paper in each villager’s face, demanding, “Did you write this?”

  But I couldn’t do anything at all while I was stuck in the police station. I had an urge to hurl myself against the locked door, like a moth crashing into a lightbulb. That would simply result in a dislocated shoulder, but even so, my pulse raced and my muscles tensed in anticipation. This was no good – I was tiring myself out to absolutely no effect. It was time to be zen, focusing on the moment, letting go of what I couldn’t control, and releasing myself from frustration and anger.

  I shoved the note in my reticule and sat on the floor in the lotus position, which was quite difficult given that I was wearing my DMs. Thoughts flitted into my mind, but I didn’t focus on them, and simply let them go. More thoughts. Let them go. More thoughts. Let them go. I started to hum songs from Frozen. Gradually, so gradually that I didn’t notice, I fell asleep.

  I was wakened by the sound of a key turning in the lock. What passed for daylight was streaming through the windows. Fortunately, I’m not one of those people who take a while to come to. I scrambled to my feet, and by the time the door opened, and the mayor and the police officer came in, I was busy dusting the desk.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” I
said. “How may I help you?”

  The police officer gaped at me. He rushed over to the cell and tried the door, which was still locked.

  I didn’t pay much attention to him. My focus was on the mayor, a potential murderer. Admittedly, he didn’t look much like a potential murderer. He looked perplexed, more attractive than louche. But if he thought that would put me off my guard, he was sadly mistaken.

  The policeman gave up tugging at the cell door. “How did you get out?” he demanded.

  “Get out?” I repeated vaguely. “Oh, that. That was easy. Remember what Lovelace says about stone walls and iron bars.”

  The policeman gave the mayor a questioning look. The mayor gave a Gallic shrug.

  “Stone walls,” I repeated. “They do not a prison make.” I waved towards the windows. “Nor iron bars a cage. I would have left already, but the place is in such a state, I thought I should tidy up a bit first. Madeleine doesn’t want Sylvain to come back to such a mess.”

  “Sylvain is dead,” grated the policeman. “He will not come back. Ever.”

  The mayor didn’t respond to this. He addressed me. “You say you were leaving anyway?” He confronted the policeman. “In that case, I want my money back.”

  “Certainly not,” said the policeman. “If she had escaped, I would have rearrested her and you would still have had to pay the fine to get her out.”

  It was an interesting use of the word “fine”. It would have been more accurate to say “backhander”.

  “If I had escaped, as you put it, I would have made sure I left the area as quickly as possible, and you would have had no chance of rearresting me,” I said. There was no need to tell them I would have to remain in the village until I found out what my mission was in time to complete it.

  “I beg you not to leave the area, Madame Maque…” said the mayor, stopping there so as not to wear out my name. “Please stay for our celebrations. As mayor of our little village, it is my honour to pay your fine. Officer, you confirm that Madame Maque is not at risk of rearrest?”

  The policeman gave me a hard look. “Not unless she gets into any more trouble.”

  I sensed an underlying threat.

  “I guarantee madame’s good behaviour,” said the mayor, ushering me out of the police station.

  “My behaviour is a matter for me, and me alone,” I said quite sharply.

  “Of course,” he murmured. “I was simply trying to ensure your exit from the police station without further delay. Now, I believe you wanted to see our village shield? I would be delighted to show you round the town hall.”

  This could be an attempt at kidnap.

  “That’s very kind,” I said, “but I really should get back to Madeleine.”

  Once he had got his sigh over and done with, he said, “It’s not far out of your way. I insist.”

  Kidnap or assassination. My toes tensed inside my DMs. He might find it easy enough to do away with policemen, but he would meet his match with a Blainer.

  “Well, if you insist,” I said, bestowing an artless smile on him to keep him off his guard.

  We walked through the village, and every time we saw someone, the mayor gestured towards me like a horse owner whose filly had just won at Ascot.

  “Madame Maque, our distinguished visitor, is coming to the town hall to see our village shield,” he said. “She tells me it won third prize in an international exhibition.”

  The villagers observed me in a sullen sort of way, like Ascot racegoers who had been forbidden to enter the royal enclosure.

  He certainly wasn’t making any secret of the fact that we were together. Perhaps he was creating an alibi. I wasn’t convinced that peering at mountain ranges to tell the time was completely accurate, and he might be able to create enough confusion over when I had last been seen to get away with it.

  Eventually we reached the town hall. The mayor pulled the door open and politely stood back to let me go in first. I knew how dark it was in there.

  “Don’t you keep the door locked?” I asked at the threshold, stalling for time as I let my eyes adjust to the darkness inside.

  “No, I no longer have – what I mean is, it’s the people’s hall,” he said. “They must be able to come here whenever they want. Please, madame, do go in.”

  I stepped over the threshold, bracing myself in case of attack. “It’s very dark,” I said in a startled voice, concealing the fact that I could now see perfectly well. Even the dim daylight coming in the doorway had some effect, reflected over and over again, and I noted that the coffin was no longer there.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Let me remedy that.” His voice was shaking. That was good. He was nervous, and would make mistakes.

  He walked past me to the other end of the hall and retrieved a brass lamp that was lurking beside the stacked chairs. Squinting through the gloom, I could see him remove the globe, adjust the wick, light it with a match and set it on the stage. It was only the endless mirrors that made it remotely effective. The globe was smeared and grubby with soot and gave out virtually no light.

  He turned, and I could see that he was trembling. “I brought you here under false pretences,” he whispered. “I had to make sure nobody could hear us.”

  “Really? Why?” I sounded politely interested, but I kept my distance. I would react the instant he advanced on me. I could easily get to the door before him, but it might be better if I disabled him before I left.

  He hung his head. “What I did was terrible.”

  His plan was obvious. He was going to confess to murder, in the expectation that I would be paralysed by shock, and then he would attack.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “What did you do?”

  “It’s not what I did, it’s what I didn’t do.”

  I realised he was one of those murderers who insists on playing psychological mind games with the prospective victim.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “What didn’t you do?”

  “I didn’t … I didn’t …”

  His voice was so faint that I could scarcely hear it, but if he thought that was going to make me come closer to him, he had another think coming. I had a mission to be getting on with, and I really couldn’t be bothered playing psychological mind games with a murderer.

  And then I realised he was crying. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and I was sure he wasn’t just putting it on: Stanislavsky hadn’t yet done the groundwork for method acting. No, he was a murderer who regretted his crime. I took a couple of steps closer to him, still maintaining a cautious distance.

  “You didn’t mean it?” I prompted gently.

  He didn’t seem to be listening to me. “I’m so ashamed,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  He was definitely remorseful. That was good. Perhaps not good enough to save him from the guillotine, but still proof that he was a fundamentally decent person.

  “Madame Maque, can you forgive me?”

  This was unexpected.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m not a priest.”

  He was crying even more now.

  “It’s all my fault. I should never have let them arrest you and jail you.”

  “Sorry?” I said

  “Yes, bitterly. I shall regret my cowardice to the end of my days.”

  “That’s what you’re upset about, me being arrested?”

  “Yes, I should have stood up to them, and to hell with the consequences. But I was too much of a coward.”

  It was scarcely cowardice to let the police and the judiciary do their job. He had stated on the record that he didn’t want to press charges, and had been threatened with jail when he tried to argue against my imprisonment.

  “You couldn’t have done anything more,” I said. “It wasn’t like you had a choice.”

  He turned grateful eyes on me. “You understand? Thank you.”

  “So, this is why you brought me here?” I asked. “To say sorry to me?”

  He shook his head. “No. I have something to ask y
ou. Something you may find impossible to agree to.”

  I hadn’t completely relaxed my guard, and now I was back on full alert. “Go on.”

  “I have no right to ask this, considering the disgraceful way you have been treated, but when you get back to Engl–” He saw my expression and rephrased, “when you get back to wherever it is you come from, please, I beg you, don’t tell anybody you were arrested.”

  I could imagine the headlines in the Evening News: “Morningside Librarian Jailed for Vicious Assault on Council Chief.”

  “Don’t you worry,” I assured him. “I won’t say a word.”

  “You really mean it?”

  “I really do.”

  He came at me with his hand outstretched, and I was about to fell him with a rising elbow strike when I realised he only wanted to shake hands.

  “And I’ve got something to ask you,” I said. “What happened to Officer Sylvain?”

  He dropped my hand as though his bones had suddenly crumbled into dust.

  “I don’t know,” he said dully. “Truly, I don’t know. I only know that he’s dead and buried.”

  This man was no murderer. I like to keep an open mind, but there was no doubting his sincerity. What I doubted was my own unexpected reaction when he shook my hand. I had tingled. It wasn’t a full tingle, just a very faint one, but it was still a tingle.

  I felt my face get hot. The mayor clearly wasn’t the subject of my mission, so I must simply be tingling at the touch of a louchely attractive Frenchman. I hoped Miss Blaine wouldn’t find out.

  To cover my embarrassment, I looked around the hall.

  “The lighting isn’t very good,” I said.

  The mayor waved up at the chandeliers. “When people are in, I light the candles. When it’s just me, I manage with the oil lamp.”

  “It’s not much use,” I said. “You have to clean the globe. Soap and water. Let’s take it to the kitchen and get it washed.”

  “There isn’t a kitchen,” he said.

  “All right, the bathroom.”

  “There isn’t a bathroom. There’s just the hall, here.”