The Hammer Horror Omnibus

by John Burke

  “Why did Namaroff issue a false death certificate? Who is he trying to shield?”

  While Carla held the lantern high he scrambled out of the grave. She took his arm to steady him, and together they went to sit on the step of a grandiosely columned tombstone.

  “ ‘Our whole history is incredible,’ ” Carla quoted, “ ‘filled with monsters and fear.’ ”

  That was exactly what his father had said. All at once Paul realized, too, where they had been said. He stared at Carla.

  She nodded sadly. “Yes. I’m sorry. I read your father’s letter. Doctor Namaroff wanted me to memorize as much of it as possible.”

  “But why?”

  “He was hoping there would be something in it which would throw new light on . . . on Medusa . . . the legend . . .”

  The name came out only as a whisper, as though Carla feared that merely to utter it was to bring the Gorgon down upon her.

  “Why are you telling me all this now?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Everybody here’s afraid.”

  “Yes, but this is new. It’s not just the castle and the . . . the creature . . . that’s not all I’m afraid of.”

  “Of Namaroff?” he said.

  “Yes.” Again it was only a whisper.

  “But why?” When her head sank in dejection he commanded: “Go on—tell me!”

  “You asked me just now who he’s trying to shield. There is somebody—or something. And I don’t know who. He used me to spy on you—he’d use anyone who suited his purpose—and he must want to know more than he does. But he already knows more than anyone ought to. I’m sure of that. There’s something in him . . . something too secretive, too contriving. And possessive . . .”

  The note in her voice struck a resonance in Paul’s mind. He said: “Is Namaroff in love with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And jealous?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you leave the Institution? It can’t be very pleasant, working in this atmosphere and with that man coveting you—”

  “I can’t leave. I owe him a great deal. He plays on my gratitude, and I know he’s doing it, but I can’t leave.”

  It was a grotesque place for it to happen, but suddenly she was in his arms. Paul held her close, and knew that, whatever else happened, when he left Vandorf he would take Carla with him.

  Aloud he said: “You’ll come with me. We’ll leave Vandorf together.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Don’t be afraid. When you’re with me there’s no need to be afraid.”

  She lifted her mouth to his. They kissed, and through her shuddering body he felt both her desire for him and that incommunicable terror which permeated this whole accursed valley.

  “Paul,” she breathed.

  He forced himself to hold her away from him. “Carla, there’s no need to be afraid,” he repeated firmly. “You’re a free person. You can leave Vandorf—leave Namaroff—whenever you choose.”

  She shook her head.

  “But why not?” he demanded, exasperated by the defeatism of it all.

  “I don’t know why.”

  In this deathly setting Paul could almost begin to believe in other spells, in a general malaise suffusing the entire district. The whole place was in the grip of a disease, a demoniacal possession which drew people into a marsh, drew them gradually towards the centre where the ultimate horror waited for them. All will-power was sapped; nobody would stand up and defy the powers of darkness.

  He said: “Carla, the two of us . . . it seems too soon to talk about us, but you know—damn it, you must know—”

  “Please . . . please, no!” She cut him short by getting up and backing away. “It would all be so simple,” she said, “loving you.”

  “Then make it simple!”

  But before he could say any more she had turned and run off into the night. He saw her as a pale wraith flitting between the tombstones, and then she was gone. He could hardly pursue her now. He couldn’t leave his father’s grave open to the sky and the gaze of any inquisitive villager. He set to work to close it up again.

  He was exhausted by the time he got back to the millhouse; so exhausted that sleep was impossible. Thoughts whirled round in his head—thoughts of his father, a stone corpse in the earth, and of Carla, warm and alive and incomprehensible.

  A heavy knocking at the door jolted him out of his confused reverie.

  Paul looked round for a weapon. No one who called at this early hour of the morning could mean any good. He seized a poker from the fireplace and went along the passage.

  “Who’s there?”

  “My dear boy, do you propose to keep me standing out here all night?”

  Paul slammed back the bolts and opened the door. Professor Meister stood in the doorway, stooping slightly from his great, spindly height so that he could see into the passage. He kept his head lowered as he came in, then straightened up with a sigh.

  “I can’t tell you”—it came out in a rush from Paul’s stammering lips—“how glad I am to see you.”

  Meister was taken aback by this greeting. He studied his young colleague keenly, and his dark features seemed to cloud with even deeper shadows.

  “Paul . . . whatever has happened to you?”

  “I’ve been ill,” said Paul lamely.

  “Ill? You look as though you’ve been in your grave and had to dig your way out.”

  It was an unfortunate image. Paul shuddered. To deflect that shrewd, analytical stare he asked: “How did you get here at this time of night?”

  Professor Meister stalked on into the sitting room and looked around. Its apparent cosiness provoked a nod of approval. He let Paul take his coat from him, and sat down by the fireplace.

  “Transport in this part of the world is somewhat primitive,” he said. “I arrived in Vandorf very late. I have the impression”—he glanced slyly at Paul for confirmation—“that even at the best of times it is not a particularly hospitable village. After dark it does not extend much of a welcome to visitors. It was with the greatest difficulty that I found someone who would direct me to your residence—and then I had to do the journey on foot, taking several wrong turns on the way.” He placed the tips of his fingers together and pursed his lips, as though about to embark on one of his more esoteric philosophical disquisitions. But what came out was a sharp direct question: “What has been happening?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve come a long way to hear it.”

  9

  There was a light on in Namaroff’s laboratory as Carla walked round the side of the building. She hesitated. She didn’t want to talk to Namaroff or run the risk of being questioned by him. She wanted to go to bed. Even more, she admitted to herself, she wanted to turn and retrace her steps; to go back, to say to Paul that she would leave with him at once. Surely that would solve everything? The intangible fears that surrounded her in Vandorf would be dispelled. She would escape from the miasma of this valley.

  Yet she turned and went towards the laboratory. Even while she hated Namaroff and the power he had over her, she could not deny that power. Somehow he made it impossible for her to leave Vandorf. Somehow he drew her to his side now, in the dark hours of the night.

  Namaroff did not look up as she entered. He was bent over a table, a scalpel in his hand. Under the scalpel was the head of Martha, her dead mouth twisted as though it had frozen into the grimace made when she spat at Ratoff.

  Namaroff lifted the brains from the opened skull and laid them in a dish. Then he said, still without looking round:

  “You have been out tonight, Carla?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “For a walk.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Namaroff carried the dish to a bench along the wall. He began to lay out instruments ready to his hand.

  Carla said: “What are you hoping to find?”
>
  “Hoping?” He shrugged. “I am merely carrying out a routine examination. Looking for signs of deterioration. Or any special features which may explain the poor creature’s illness.”

  She noted that, now that Martha was dead, he was prepared to describe her tolerantly as a poor creature.

  “What kind of deterioration?” she asked. “Do you think there’ll be something . . . out of the ordinary?”

  When Namaroff did not answer, she went on: “Do you remember when we found Paul Heitz?”

  “I do.”

  “It was the night Martha escaped. And the night you told me that the Gorgon had taken on human form.”

  “So?”

  “Was it . . . was it Martha?”

  “No, Carla,” said Namaroff heavily, “it wasn’t Martha.”

  “You suspect somebody?”

  “It’s too early to say.”

  He sighed, as though reproaching her for interrupting him; but she knew him well enough to be able to tell that he was deeply disturbed.

  “We work closely together,” said Carla, hating to make such an appeal to him yet driven on by her need to know. “I think I should know—”

  “What you should know”—he swung unexpectedly round to face her—“is that you are in great danger.”

  “Danger?”

  “Of your life.”

  “But why should there be any—”

  “You must believe me,” he said forcefully. “You must do as I say. Don’t go out—alone, or with anyone else. Tell me always what you are doing. Stay close to me, Carla. We will overcome this terrible thing. But you must trust me.”

  “I have a right to know. If there’s danger, I should know what form it will take.”

  “The form it will take?” he said grimly. “Better that I should not tell you. Not until I’m sure.”

  10

  Meister said: “So you saw only her reflection?”

  “It was enough,” said Paul.

  They stood looking down on the innocent surface of the pool. With Professor Meister beside him, Paul could almost have felt that the whole thing had been a dream—if his memories had not been so vivid. Even now he could hardly bear to look into the water in case that monstrous face should take on substance and leer hideously up at him.

  “Hm.” Meister made a slow circuit of the pool. “When Perseus beheaded Medusa, he guided his blow by looking at her reflection in the shield he carried. If your story is true, the girl Sascha must have looked directly at the Gorgon—and so did your father. What spared you is the fact that you saw only her reflection.”

  “Then you believe me?”

  “I’m not saying that the Gorgon exists. Unquestionably you saw something. Hallucination or not, it was real enough for you—and for your less fortunate predecessors.”

  “She was not a hallucination.”

  “No,” said Meister quickly, “of course not.”

  “Professor, please don’t try to humor me. Is the idea of the Gorgon any stranger than the theory of reincarnation, which admits to a dead person’s spirit inhabiting a human body?”

  “A theory,” came the dry retort, “which has yet to be proved.” Meister turned back towards the house. “Now, as to your own story. Let us start with the assumption that Medusa, whose head is spoken of in legend over many centuries as having never lost its power, has indeed come to this neighborhood in some form or another. Let us suppose that the true characteristics manifest themselves only at certain intervals, under certain conditions. Have you met many people since you’ve been here?”

  “Very few.”

  “Any women?”

  “Only the one I told you about—the one in the hospital.”

  “Oh, yes. Carla . . . er . . .”

  “Hoffmann,” said Paul eagerly—so eagerly that he saw Meister smile as they went into the house.

  “What’s she like?”

  “Very beautiful.”

  “I see. You’re in love with her?”

  “I didn’t say so,”

  “You didn’t have to,” said Meister. “And now”—he yawned—“I think a good night’s sleep is called for. We will follow it by some inquiries at the police station.”

  “If they let us in,” said Paul.

  Meister looked at him reprovingly. “They will let me in.”

  Paul had his doubts about this. Professor Meister might be a man of consequence at home, but here there was likely to be little respect for his scholarly attainments.

  In the morning he discovered his mistake. The Professor had no intention of relying merely on his reputation as a scholar.

  He loftily talked his way into the presence of Inspector Kanof—or, rather, made his way there by dint of refusing to admit that there could be any possibility of denial. Paul, catching the backwash of Kanof’s glare as they entered his office, felt that this was where they came to grief. But Meister, with calculated arrogance, took Kanof’s breath away at once.

  “I wish to look through the files which you keep on residents of Vandorf—particularly newcomers to the district.”

  The Inspector gasped. “How dare you come in with such a request? Such files are confidential, for official use only.”

  “I fear they are not used as thoroughly as they ought to be. There are one or two points I wish to check.”

  “Under no circumstances will you be permitted to see any of our files. There is no precedent—”

  “Don’t use long words, Inspector. They don’t suit you. I may say that if you don’t wish to assist us, I shall go higher up.”

  “Higher up?”

  “I presume that even you, Inspector, acknowledge the existence of a superior? The Foreign Secretary, for example.”

  “I don’t believe—”

  “A very valued friend of my dear brother.”

  “I can check on that.”

  “Check on it, by all means,” said Meister savagely. “But unless you are very quick about it, my good fellow, and unless I am allowed to see your files . . .”

  Kanof writhed and argued, but he stood no chance. Meister was by turns bullying and sardonically reasonable. In the end Kanof agreed that the Professor should be given access to the records.

  “Starting,” said Meister, “with those of women aliens registered here within the last ten years.”

  When Kanof set his staff bustling down the corridor to collect the files, Meister permitted himself a slight smile in Paul’s direction. Kanof, though now obsequious to his older visitor, made a great show of ignoring Paul as though this might in some way restore a balance.

  “Visitors to Vandorf,” explained Kanof when files and photographs were piled on the desk before him, “are required to register only if they wish later to become citizens. Among those still resident here . . .”

  He tried to maintain his dignity by being over-helpful where before he had been uncooperative. Meister paid no attention. He turned over files and photographs quickly, and then held out a picture to Paul.

  “Is this her?”

  Paul looked at a slightly creased photograph of Carla. Her mouth was too set: she had obviously been uncomfortable before the camera.

  “It hardly does her justice, but—”

  “But it’s her? Mm. How long has she been here?”

  “The information’s on the back,” said Kanof.

  Meister turned the card over. “Seven years. When did these murders start?”

  Kanof jumped. “Murders?”

  “I’m referring to the ones which you failed to solve and which everyone in the community has been at such pains to ignore.”

  “Five years ago,” Kanof grunted.

  “Thank you.”

  Meister put the photograph back and rose. Paul got up, filled with unease. He did not see how Meister’s mind was working. As they walked out of the building into the open air, he said:

  “I don’t see how Carla comes into this.”

  “Or you don’t want to see?” said Meister gently.<
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  11

  The sound of Paul Heitz’s voice along the crackling, whispering telephone line reinforced Carla’s determination. During what remained of the night she had tossed and turned, trying to free herself from a bondage she did not understand. In daylight she had tried to be rational and had found that being rational also meant doing what her heart told her to do. She wanted to cry this down the telephone to Paul, but instead she warmed silently with the fervor of her own resolve, and took his message to Namaroff in the laboratory.

  “Mr. Heitz is on the telephone. He and Professor Meister want to make an appointment to see you.”

  “Meister?”

  “From Leipzig University.”

  “I can’t see them,” said Namaroff. “Tell them I’m busy.”

  “Mr. Heitz was very insistent.”

  His stony eyes were dull with menace. “I have told you, Carla, that for your own safety you must do as I say. This is one of those times when obedience is essential. Go and tell Mr. Heitz that I do not wish to see him or his friend.”

  Carla began to turn away. She would tell Paul that; but she would take the opportunity of telling him many other things.

  Abruptly Namaroff said: “Carla.” When she stopped, he slammed his hand down on the bench. “When you went for your walk last night, you said you were alone. You lied to me.”

  It was all she needed to spark her off. “Do I have to account to you for everything I do?”

  “You were with Paul Heitz, weren’t you?”

  She needed to hit back, to seize on every opportunity for a break that would be permanent.

  “You’ve been spying on me,” she accused him. “Who do you use? Ratoff, I suppose. Always Ratoff—spying and watching me, telling you everything I do when I’m out of your sight.”

  His expression told her that she was right. In an unexpectedly subdued tone, he said: “It’s only for your own good.”

  “And who are you to decide what’s good for me?”

  “I’m trying to protect you. I told you last night, there are times when you shouldn’t be alone.”

  He had told her, but not in quite those words. Something about them struck a chill to Carla’s heart, which had been filled with such different emotions a few minutes ago. She was afraid of the implications in what he said; yet not so afraid that she was going to evade them.