Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Sometimes, sailors who come from distant seas tell us that they have suddenly seen the formidable coils of one of these monsters rise up from the bosom of the waves. And we have the testimony of students of natural history to assure us that these monsters have inhabited the sea from the beginning of the world. Perhaps the serpent seen in Along Bay is the last of this dreadful species, just as the one whom you know is perhaps the last vampire thrown up from the tombs.

  “His tomb! His empty tomb, which he left more than two hundred years ago, to suck on the blood of the living. I wanted to see this tomb! I have seen it. I lifted the stone, guided by a man, by the most humble of men, who pitied me. This man is the caretaker of the Coulteray Chapel — it is he who aids me, in secret, in sending these letters to you. By his aid I visited the crypt.

  “The family vaults are there. The first and second vaults on the right. There is one marked ‘Here lies Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome, Marquis of Coulteray, First Equerry to his Majesty.’ And a plate, under the date, on which is inscribed: ‘The remains of Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome were dispersed in 1793 by the Revolution.’

  “Dispersed! Dispersed! I know where they are, these remains of Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome. And you, Christine, you who do not believe me, will also know it one day. They are in very good health.

  “What a sight that crypt is! The empty vault attracted me. Something tells me that some night I shall awake beneath that slab of stone, and that I, also, in my turn, shall get up, a pale shadow who seeks her life.

  “From such a destiny spare me, seigneur! Christine, you know at what price, you know what must be done with my corpse, so that it will not rise again after death.

  “At least let my torment cease with my life. Sangor has promised not to spare me when I am dead. He has no reason to deceive me when I am dead, and, besides, it is to his interest to perform this last act, which will deliver me forever from the horror of feasting on earth.

  “I have arranged for that. You will think that I am madder than ever, Christine, Christine! I hope that I shall soon have the opportunity to convince you of what is going on here, to give you decisive truth, irrefutable; and then you will come quickly, won’t you, you and Monsieur Masson? — you will save me if there is still time.

  “The marquis never leaves me. Now that I am nothing more than a breath he appears to love me much more than before. The relative freedom which I still enjoyed in Paris is over. He has given up trying to abuse me about the state of his mortal love. He no longer tries to deceive any one, or to convince me that I am only imagining things — all that is finished. I am now the prisoner of a husband who is devouring me. His lips will not leave me until I heave my last sigh. Here he is, calmly drinking, without remorse, the pale blood which the diabolical ingenuity of Saib Kahn still causes to flow in my veins.

  “I do not know how I can continue to drag myself about. But that Hindu doctor would bring the dead back to life.

  “Christine, I shall try to tell you how I tried to use those forces by which — I do not know whether it is witchcraft or no — he revived me, by which he kept me from departing on my last journey. But enough for to-day. Enough, they are coming! I hear them! They are entering, returning from their ride, and they will come to find out how I am feeling. Shing-shing has already opened the door for them.”

  Second Letter— “My dear Christine, you know how they brought me away from Paris after the scene which you and Benedict Masson witnessed. They never counted on having you see it, I can assure you. They believed that they were alone in the house.

  “When you ran in answer to my cries, when you entered the room where I was already their prey, and struggling vainly against his bite, his face bending over me, already intoxicated by his passion for blood, my blood, his face became terrible, and I said to myself: ‘They are doomed!’

  “But it was I who was doomed. They left you downstairs, for if they had put you out of the way it would be too serious, much too complicated. After all, what had you seen? Nothing. What had you heard? The shriek of a mad woman — always a mad woman. That which I had previously confided to you had been called ‘the ravings of a deranged mind.’

  “Nevertheless, after such a scene, you had beheld enough to disturb the most skeptical. They understood that. There was nothing more to do but to finish with me, until they were no longer thirsty.

  “So they brought me away.

  “I knew well enough that would be the end. The frightful fear of such a death, to be followed by I do not know what more horrible, made me drag myself toward you a last time, after they had believed me incapable of further movement. Christine, Christine, it appeared to me that, in that last interview, the too well established equilibrium of your tranquil spirit, too tranquil spirit, was shaken.

  “I saw in your eyes not only that customary pity which I had often read there in my despair, but something more, something which I might put in these words: ‘Is by chance the mad woman then right?’ — and I also saw a new look on Benedict Masson’s face. Well, hurry, come quickly, if you do not want to find me dead.

  “I tried to escape while on the way here. I had determined to do it. I had decided to run the risk of being locked up in a cell in the asylum — they have often threatened this — rather than go on in this agony. But they guessed my intention. They foresee everything. Sangor and Shing-shing foresee every movement that I plan to make. Saib Kahn, who was also on the trip, as you may well know, reads my thoughts. The marquis can well rest at his ease, for they keep close guard over his prey for him.

  “However, I attempted the impossible. I could do nothing when in the automobile. While we were still in Paris the car was transformed into an iron cage, the shutters were closed and curtains were drawn. What mattered if I shrieked inside?

  “But I did not cry out. I awaited my opportunity. It came. At daybreak we had a puncture. They had to work on the car. I pretended to be asleep, exhausted of life, to be almost dead. They carried me into a room in a hotel, which was on the ground floor, overlooking the yard, where they were repairing the car on one side, and opened in the rear on a garden leading into the open country.

  “I could see the outskirts of a wood at a distance of about a hundred meters. Oh, I thought, if I could reach that wood and hide myself behind the trees, or in the leaves scattered over the ground, and escape them.

  “Lying on the bed where they had placed me, I looked over the short distance that I would have to cross in the light of the early dawn-in thought I had already crossed it and was in safety in the woods.

  “But in reality, what could I do? Sangor was stationed before the door. A little further off the marquis was walking up and down with Saib Kahn. In the yard were the men from the garage, that they had woke up, hurrying to put the car in condition. In the garden, just under my window, was Shing-shing. I knew his habit of scampering about everywhere, and that he was not able to remain in any one place for more than a moment — at home they used to fasten him up, sometimes in his kennel like a savage watchdog whom they could only be sure of keeping in place with a chain around his neck. My hope was in this knowledge.

  “Already, nimble as a cat, I had seen him climb into a tree to eat some kind of fruit. What could he see from the top of the tree? Then I saw him suddenly sway from branch to branch, springing onto the edge of the window sill, which was open on the first floor and disappear into the building.

  “In a moment I was on my feet. I opened the window. I had not felt so strong for a long time. I do not weigh more than a feather, but my feet would carry me like the wind. I let myself slip down into the garden and I had already started when, suddenly, I gave a loud shriek — I had felt the bite.”

  Third Letter— “Dear Christine, I write you when I can and how I can, usually at night by the light of a small night lamp. At the slightest sound I hide my papers, but I feel that I must write and convince you that you must come. Show my letters to Benedict Masson. I am counting on that. I count on you both. I say it agai
n and I will not cease saying it.

  “And, if you arrive too late, well, perhaps my letters will be the means of saving others, for it is impossible that the truth will not be known some day. It is impossible that this monster, who bites from a distance, should continue to stalk about for centuries among his victims, who may perhaps believe that they have been pricked by a rose bush which kills them.

  “My dear Christine, I take up my story at the point where I left off last night. I felt that the monster had bitten me and that he was somewhere behind me.

  “Ah, that horrible feeling. I knew it! It comes at the moment when I least expect it, always at the moment when I am not expecting it. I felt his pointed teeth penetrate the vein, then withdraw after he had left the venom.

  “Yes, venom! I think that vampires are like vipers with a hollow tooth full of venom, a certain poison which spreads through your body, swiftly bearing a languor that it is impossible to resist. Immediately you have the feeling that your strength is ebbing away from you, as through an open door, the tiny hole caused by the bite. A numbness steals over you which deadens the pain, but which is all the more terrible when one knows the result of it, as I do.

  “The result is that the monster himself comes.

  “For vampires have this peculiarity which vipers have not: they can bite from a distance.

  “I knew he was there.

  “I did not even turn around. With a supreme effort I tried to struggle against the prostration which was gaining on me.

  “I managed to drag myself to the fence which inclosed the garden.

  “And then, conquered, I retraced my steps. Then I saw the marquis in the window. He was laughing.”

  Fourth Letter— “Are they afraid of something? Druine, the sexton, the keeper of the crypt, whom I have mentioned to you, an honest man in every respect of the word, told me to be on my guard. If they learned of his devotion to me he would lose his place, and it is his only means of livelihood. But that is not what stops him, his fears are all for me.

  “He is an honest servant; I shall recompense him. Meanwhile we are taking every precaution, feigning an extreme devotion, and, under pretext of offering alms for the chapel, I slip my notes into the contribution box. Shing-shing, who follows the train of my mantle about like a bad imp of perversity, can only see an act of faith in this. Druine opens the poor box and sends the notes to you.

  “After my last escapade they threw me in the car as if I were a packet, and I did not get out again until we arrived in the courtyard of the château.

  “Coulteray is a real prison. The moats and the walls date from the middle ages. The chapel and the ruins of the dungeons are in the courtyard. They let me walk in this courtyard, which they still call ‘the bailiwick,’ a place controlled by a bailiff, as they did in olden times.

  “The chapel has an ossuary, a little graveyard which surrounds it with beds of flowers.

  “At this season all these stones, which belong to the past and the dead, have nothing particularly doleful about them, for they are hidden by a springlike verdure. This verdure triumphs everywhere, eating into the walls, filling all the gaps. Life is abounding on all sides, but is fleeing from me.

  “From my window, which is on the first floor, I can catch a glimpse through a gap of an exquisite landscape, which is reflected in the calm waters of a river that empties into the Loire a little farther down. And I am dying! I came here to die! I feel, I know that they won’t leave this spot until after my death.

  “They have only brought me here so that they might see me draw my last breath in peace.

  “The marquis has never been kindlier, gentler, or more thoughtful. He has made himself my servant. He wants to be the only one to serve me. Never has he said such kind things to me. He swears that he has never loved any one but me. Ah, how he loves me, how he loves me! How he offers me his arm to feel my weakness. His love has taken all of me.

  “He is the Great Vampire. The world is full of little vampires. There are scarcely any couples who do not devour each other. One has to eat the other. One profits to the detriment of the other. Sometimes it is the male; sometimes the female. The strongest egoism reduces, little by little, the being who lives in its shadow, to zero. We find this to be true in every household. But ours is another thing.

  “Ours is the story of a great vampire who has come out of his tomb, two hundred years old, who has ceased to count his victims. I have invented nothing, I shall never be able to tell you enough. I am not relating stories, but facts. Druine was not ignorant of the fact. Druine believes, as many others do, others who live in the village and who flee when the vampire passes.

  “He confessed this to me while we were standing in front of the tomb, and I told him all.

  “But he can do nothing for me. Nothing before my death. But you, Christine, and you, Benedict Masson, you can save me before death. I am waiting for you.”

  Fifth Letter— “To-night he accompanied me to my door like a submissive lover; and he retired very sadly. Then I quickly closed the door, slipped the bolt and ran to my window. I have closed the window, for, as long as the window is open, he can bite me at a distance. Now I am more at ease, I feel that I am going to have a quiet night.

  “What peace on earth — at last — at last! I can catch a glimpse of a glorious moon through the gap in the ramparts. The landscape around me is bathed in silver. I feel as though I had wings and were as light as an angel. If I opened the little window, I imagine that I could balance myself over the glimmering waters of the Loire.

  “I would gaze for the last time at the reflection in it of my earthly image, then soar above to the stars, detached forever from the ties of blood which have held me bound to this cursed earth.

  “But I will not open the window. It is too dangerous! —

  “The wound can enter by the window!

  “Horror! Horror! I am wounded!

  “I am wounded!

  “But how did the wound enter? Who will ever tell?

  “Mercy! Mercy!”

  Sixth Letter— “Can you conceive it? Yes, everywhere was closed! He bites me now through the walls! And you do not hasten to me?”

  Seventh Letter— “I am going to prove to you that I am not mad! No book in the world has ever said that a vampire can bite through the walls. And yet I have been bitten! I have searched! I have searched everywhere and, at last, I have discovered a little hole, as big around as a finger, in the wall opposite my praying stool. It is through that little hole that the monster bit me while I was at prayers.”

  Eighth Letter— “Ah, I want to know! I want to know how he can bite from a distance! I shall know, if he leaves me enough time. No! No! I am not mad! I am not mad!”

  Ninth Letter— “Oh, the horror! the horror when he raises his face of an Indian demon to me and says: ‘I love you.’”

  Tenth Letter— “That is how the Indian demons loved — those Assuras which have been tamed by Saib Kahn — those first vampires known to the world. Not far from Benares there is a cemetery full of their victims. The Great Vampire of Europe returned there to visit his ancestors and met Saib Kahn — out there he had a great reputation in the English colony — who, although he is a modern doctor, is, undoubtedly, in direct communication with those Assuras. This is thoroughly believed in India and enhances his reputation out there.

  “But I used to laugh at it!

  “I looked upon him as a charlatan. I did not believe in vampires then. I was wrong! I have had time to learn since then, and I would like to instruct others who still doubt.

  “But I think that the proof will come.

  “I have as much intelligence as Sherlock Holmes, believe me, and it should be used on an investigation of this order.

  “I want to know how he bites from a distance.”

  Eleventh Letter— “Yesterday I. almost touched the proof! The proof that I am not mad!”

  Twelfth and Last Letter— “I have the proof! I am sending it to you! Now hurry, for he will kil
l me if I do not die quickly enough.”

  And this is the last scribble which the post brought her — to this was added a little registered package. Christine broke the seals of the package in a state of mental agony, in an anguish which she no longer fought against.

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE PROOF

  MOTHER LANGLOIS, THE cleaning woman, whom the Norberts had taken back into their service for policy, told and even swore to the following startling tale:

  “It was about ten o’clock in the morning and the man who brings the special delivery matter from the post office, delivered the little box to Mlle. Christine, who signed for it.

  “Mlle. Christine was alone in the shop. I ought to state that I had not seen any of the family but her for two days. She remained in the shop to take care of those customers who, by chance, happened in, but there were not very many.

  “She appeared very agitated and worried. She tried very hard to pretend to me that there was nothing wrong, but you can’t fool Mother Langlois.

  “Her fine airs were of no use. I saw very well that there was something that was not quite right. And it was very easy for me to guess that it had something to do with Cousin Gabriel — now, they all called themselves cousins in the house: Cousin Gabriel, Cousin Jacques, etc.!

  “They didn’t try to hide it from me any longer, that Cousin Gabriel was living in the house and that he was very ill, or that he had had to have a very urgent operation, of which they didn’t know yet what the outcome would be, in spite of the knowledge and learning of Sawbones, who never left him days or nights.

  “Gracious me! What a lot of details about Cousin Gabriel they gave me. He was the son of old Norbert’s eldest sister, and he had been given up by all the doctors, but they were trying to save his life, etc.

  “As for me, I didn’t care a rap if they had Cousin Gabriel in the house or not. I didn’t have any more work to do and that was the main thing. The patient was shut up in the apartment on the ground floor in the rear of the garden, where I never went. They went in from time to time and opened the windows, just to change the air.