by Kim Newman
Our client joined us looking in. She said: “The room was very much as you see it now. My father uses it chiefly for storage of things he has brought back from his various travels and then never finds time to catalogue, or else judges at second thought to be not worthy of display.
“I dragged Hayden — or his body — in there, and left him on the dusty floor.
“Understand that this was not part of any thought-out plan for concealing what I had done. It was only a shocked reaction, like that of a child trying to hide the pieces of a broken vase. Hardly aware of what I was doing, I came back here to the middle of the room, and picked up from the carpet the stone that had done the deed. I carried it into the lumber-room also, and threw it on top of that which lay on the floor already. I then came out of the lumber-room and closed its door, and locked it — though it is rarely if ever locked — with a key I knew was kept in the top drawer of my father’s desk.
“Then, with my mind still whirling in terror, I looked around. The letters, where were they? Still in Hayden’s pocket, for now I remembered distinctly seeing him replace them there. It might be wise to get them out, but for the moment I could not think of touching him again.
“And there was blood on the carpet. I had noted that already, in my frenzied panic. But now, as my mind made its first adjustment back toward sanity, I saw that the spots were only two or three in number, and so small against the dark pattern that no one entering the study casually would be in the least likely to notice them. Here, gentlemen, is where they were — over the past year they have faded almost to invisibility.”
My companion had crouched down and whipped out a magnifying glass, with which he scrutinized closely the indicated section of the carpet. He stood up frowning. “Pray continue,” he said again, his voice non-committal.
“I was still hovering near the desk, in a state of near-panic, not knowing what to do, when as in a nightmare I heard a brisk knock on the door to the hall, and the voice of my beloved Richard. A moment later, before I could say anything at all, the hall door opened and Richard came in. From the look on his face, I knew immediately that he was aware, at least, that something was gravely wrong.
“My fiancé evidently already knew much more about Hayden than I had ever suspected. Perhaps the duke, Richard’s father, had employed investigators — to this day I do not know what had made my dear one suspicious of me. But he was full of suspicion on that day, and with cause — though not with as great cause as he feared.
“Richard confronted me. ‘He was seen coming in here, the man Hayden. Do you tell me that he is not here now?’”
“I do not remember what I said in reply. I must, however, have looked the very picture of guilt.
“Richard looked quickly round the study, even peering behind pieces of furniture where a man might possibly have had room to lie concealed. It took him only a moment to do so; the furniture was then very much as it is now, and offered, as you can see, little in the way of hiding places.
“He tried the door of the lumber-room then, and I was sure for a moment that my heart had stopped.
“‘This door is locked. Do you know, Louise, where the key is kept?’”
“I understood perfectly that he would force the door at once if no key were available. Silently I went to the desk, and got the key from the upper drawer, where, in my confusion I had just replaced it; I handed it to Richard, still without a word. At that moment I knew with certainty that final ruin was upon me, and I could not bear another instant the horror of waiting for the blow to fall. I thought that after Richard had seen what I had done, then, in that moment of his greatest shock, I might appeal to him. I could only hope that he loved me as truly and deeply as I did him.
“But his gaze was black and forbidding as he took the key from my hand and turned away. He was in the lumber-room for only a few moments, but I need not tell you what an eternity they seemed to me. When he reappeared, his face was altered; yet even as I gazed at him in despair, a sudden new hope was born within my breast. For his new expression was not so much one of horror or shock, as one expressing a great relief, even though mingled with shame and bewilderment.
“For a moment he could not speak. Then ‘Darling’, he said at last, and his voice cracked, even as mine had moments earlier. ‘Can you ever forgive me for having doubted you?’”
“Without answering, I pushed past Richard to the door of the lumber-room.
Everything inside, with one great exception, was just as I had seen it a few minutes earlier before I had locked the door. There were the dusty crates and cartons untouched, certainly, by any human hand in the intervening time. There on the floor, in lighter dust and hardly noticeable, were the tracks left by my own feet on my first entrance, and by the horrible burden that I had dragged in with such difficulty. There was the stone with which I had struck the fateful blow — but the piece of stone lay now in the middle of the otherwise empty patch of bare floor. Of the body of the man I had struck down there was not the smallest trace.”
My friend the detective emitted a faint sigh, expressing what, in the circumstances, seemed a rather inhuman degree of intellectual satisfaction. ‘Most interesting indeed,” he murmured soothingly. “And then?”
“There is very little more that I can tell you. I murmured something to Richard; he, assuming that my state of near-collapse was all his fault for behaving, as he said, brutally, made amends to the best of his ability. To make the story short, we were married as planned. Hayden’s name has never since been mentioned between us. Our life together has been largely uneventful, and in all outward aspects happy. But I tell you, gentlemen — since that day I have lived in inward terror … either I am mad, and therefore doomed, and imagined the whole ghastly scene in which I murdered Hayden; or I did not imagine it. Then he was only stunned. He somehow extricated himself from that lumber-room. He is lying in wait for me. Somewhere, sometime … neither of you know him, what he can be like … he still has the letters, yet he has in mind some revenge that would be even more horrible … I tell you I can bear it no longer…” The lady sank into a chair, struggling to control herself.
The detective turned to me. “Dr. Corday, it is essential that we ascertain the — nature of this man Hayden.” A meaningful glance assured me what sort of variations in nature he had in mind.
I nodded, and addressed myself to the lady, who had now somewhat recovered.
“At what time of day, madam, did these events occur? Can we be absolutely sure that they took place after dawn and before sunset?”
The lady looked for a moment as if she suspected that madness was my problem instead of hers. “In broad daylight, surely,” she replied at last. “Though what possible difference…”
I signed to my friend that I must speak to him in confidence. After a hurried apology to our client we withdrew to a far corner of the study. “The man she knocked down”, I informed the detective there, “could not possibly have been a vampire, because the force of the blow that felled him was borne in stone, to which we are immune. Nor could he, even supposing him to be a vampire, have shifted form in broad daylight, and escaped as a mist from that closet under the conditions we have heard described. Nor could he in daylight have taken on the form of a small animal and hidden himself somewhere among those crates and boxes.”
“You are quite sure of all that?”
“Quite.”
“Very good.” My friend received my expert opinion with evident satisfaction, which surprised me.
For my own part, it seemed to me that we were getting nowhere. “My life has been very long,” I added, “and active, if not always well spent. I have seen madness … much madness. And I tell you that the lady here, if I am any judge, is neither mad nor subject to hallucinations.”
“In that opinion I concur.” Still my friend did not appear nearly as disconcerted as it seemed to me he should. There was, in fact, something almost like a twinkle in his eye.
“Then what are we to make of this?” I
demanded.
“I deduce…”
“Yes?”
Again the twinkle. “That one of her father’s trips abroad, before the wedding, took him to Arizona. But of course I must make sure.” And with that; leaving me in a state that I confess approached speechlessness, my friend went back across the room.
He approached our client, who still sat wearily in her chair, and extended both his hands. When she took them, wonderingly, he raised her to her feet. “One more question,” he urged her solemnly. “The stone with which you struck down Hayden — where is it now? Surely it is not one of those still on the desk?”
“No,” the lady marveled. “I could not bear to leave it there.” Going back to the door of the lumber-room, she reached inside, and from a shelf took down a pinkish stone of irregular, angular shape, a little larger than a man’s fist. This she presented to my friend.
He turned it over once in his hands, and set it back upon the desk. A confident smile now transformed his face. “It is my happy duty to inform you,” he said at once, “that the man you knew as Hayden will never bother you again; you may depend upon it.”
Dracula paused here in his narration. “In a moment I was able to add my own assurances, for what they were worth, to those of the famed detective. That was after I had walked over to the desk and looked at the weapon for myself.
I knew then that the man struck down with it could indeed have been a vampire; nay, that he must have been. For when he died of the effects of the blow, there on the floor of the lumber-room, his body, as is commonly the case with us, had at once undergone a dissolution to dust, and less than dust. His clothing, including the letters in his pocket, had, as would be expected, disappeared as well. No humanly detectable trace was left when the fiancé opened the door a few moments later.”
“A vampire?” I protested. “But, he was struck down with a stone…”
“I was looking,” said Dracula softly, “at a choice Arizona specimen of petrified wood.”
* * * * *
FRED SABERHAGAN is the author of many popular science fiction and fantasy books including the Berserker series, Swords trilogy and Lost Swords series. A special tip of the deerstalker for the classic novels The Holmes-Dracula File and Séance for a Vampire.
“The Executioner” by Lawrence C. Connolly
Illustration by Luke Eidenschink
The Executioner
by Lawrence C. Connolly
I awoke in an overstuffed bed, in a chamber larger than the whole of my London rooms. Coal burned in the fireplace, but the main source of light came from electric bulbs in two wall-mounted sconces, each trailing a wire that snaked along the wall before vanishing into a hole beside a curtained window.
A cabinet stood open near the fireplace. A tweed suit hung inside. Beside the cabinet, on a dressing table, lay an array of personal items: shirt, collar, tie, leather case. Of these, all but the case appeared to be mine. How they and I had come to be here, I had no idea. Nor did I know where here was.
There was a darkness in me, an emptiness that suggested I had slept far longer than a single night. Yet I recalled no dreams, only the distant memories of a cliff, water, and the body of a man broken on jagged rocks. I had tracked him across the continent, seven-hundred miles to a precipice in the Swiss mountains. The chase had ended there, with him lying dead at the base of a cataract, and I remember looking down at him, watching his body grow larger, expanding in my view as if his broken remains were rising toward me. But in truth it was I who was moving, hurtling downward, still pursuing him even as he lay smashed below the falls. And then, just as the speed of my plunge reduced his body to a blur, I hit the water.
After that, I remembered nothing.
I pushed back the covers and tried getting up. My body ached, the pain worsening as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, looking down at what should have been the floor. But in that instant, it was as if I were back on the cliff, losing my grip on a jagged ledge….
I blinked.
The memory receded. The floor returned. No body beneath me now, only a pair of slippers, fleece-lined, scuffed along the toes. I put them on, feeling their familiar indentations. Like the things in the cabinet and on the table, the slippers were mine.
I found a chamber pot beneath the bed. It was chipped but clean. I knelt beside it, still trying to make sense of where I was. Then I stood and crossed the room, shuffling like a man twice my age, coming at last to the window where I pushed back the curtains and looked out at a moon-lit night. Mountains cut the horizon, jagged peaks of rock and pine. Water roared, muted by distance. Reichenbach, I thought. I’m still in Meiringen. I pressed my face to the window, looking for the falls, seeing only a curl of mist rising from a chasm halfway between me and the distant peaks. And on the edge of the precipice….
I cupped my hands around my face, blocking the glare from the electric lights until I discerned a silhouetted man standing on a ledge. He wore a greatcoat, hem billowing in the wind. But other than that, and the long hair that whipped about his head, he stood so still that he might have been a statue.
The glass fogged. I wiped it with my sleeve, but when I looked again the figure was gone.
I turned from the window, this time noticing a dining cart and chair behind the dressing table. Had they been there before? A covered tray sat atop the cart, as did a pitcher, drinking glass, smoking kit, and a large sealed envelope. I left the window and raised the cover on the tray: bread, cheese, smoked meats. I covered them again, sat in the chair, and inspected the smoking kit. The case was mine, as were the contents. I took out the pipe, filled its bowl, and turned my attention to the envelope. Inside, I found a letter written on a single sheet of foolscap, folded twice. The handwriting was of a size comparable to the paper: large, elegant, and executed without a single blot or amendment.
It read:
Dear Mr. H:
If you are awake and reading this, then my efforts to restore you have succeeded. You no doubt have many questions, as do I. To that end, I propose a test, one which may commence whenever you are ready.
The procedure is simple.
I would like you to dress as soon as you are able. Leave your room and descend the staircase at the end of the hall. From there, you will make your way to a lighted chamber on the ground-floor. One of my servants will be waiting. Do not let his appearance alarm you. He will give you no worry as long as you move directly to the chair that awaits you.
You are to sit in the chair and remain in it until the conclusion of our interview, which will commence shortly after you are seated. The chair will be partitioned from the rest of the room by a velvet rope. Under no circumstances are you to venture beyond the rope.
If these instructions seem eccentric, I apologize; but I assure you they are absolutely necessary. Perhaps, soon, you will understand my reasons for them. In any event, your cooperation is not requested, it is absolutely required.
You may be wondering about the personal items in your room. Many of them are indeed yours, sent here at my request by your brother Mycroft. One of the exceptions is a pharmaceutical case. Considering your condition, I thought it prudent to supply something for your pain.
The food is from my private stores, the water the purest in Switzerland.
There is no need to thank me for any of these things. Nor do I expect thanks for having pulled you from the Aare. Indeed, it is I who am indebted to you for an opportunity to test my procedures, and possibly to untangle a knot that I have been wrestling with since the night of your fall.
In light of such considerations, I remain…
your host, caregiver, and
most humble servant,—
M Adam
The clothes were indeed mine.
I dressed slowly, favouring my right leg, hip, and shoulder, which I realized, once I had removed my nightshirt, were badly bruised. I found a pocketbook in the jacket pocket. It was new, as were the banknotes inside. A heavy weight in another pocket proved to be a
Webley revolver. I had begun carrying one like it in response to threats from the man who had become my obsession, the man I had last seen smashed on the rocks at the base of the falls.
I did not bother with the pharmaceutical case. My pain was severe, but anything strong enough to take away its edge would certainly do the same to my wits.
Leaving the case on the table, I left the room.
More electric fixtures burned in the hall, positioned to illuminate a line of paintings, large reproductions of familiar masterworks. I paused beside one, resting my leg, studying what appeared to be a watercolor of God creating the first man. In it, God hovered in the air, bending low to exhale the breath of life into his creation. I stepped closer, drawn by the expression on God’s face. He looked terrified. An inscription in the painting’s corner read:
“Elohim Creating Adam”
by M Adam, 1888
after W Blake 1795
The other paintings featured similar subjects. In each, the face of God was the same: slender, pale, apparently terrified.
I reached the stairs and gripped the banister, slowing my pace until I reached a long hall where the only light came from a doorway thirty feet on. I moved toward it and stepped inside.
A creature greeted me. It was of human size, except for its arms and head, which were disproportionately large. It resembled an orangutan. Yet it was hairless and dressed like a servant, and its fingers, when it raised them to indicate the waiting chair, were long and delicate.
The chair stood beneath an overhead light, the beam focused so precisely that the rest of the room remained in darkness. I looked again at the servant, recalled the assurance of M Adam’s letter, and sat in the chair. The overhead light expanded as I settled back. More lights came on illuminating the room which turned out to be a small library lined with books and paintings. Across from me, perhaps fifteen feet distant, a second chair sat beside a closed door.
I leaned forward, peering across the velvet rope that stretched in front of me. A wave of vertigo ensued. The room shifted before me. I felt myself falling.
