Skatsman swayed and would have fallen, but he was flanked now by two great horses. Their riders reached down to lift him bodily from the ground. He kicked feebly at thin air as they cantered with him down between the ranks of stakes to where the caped Vlad V. now waited.
Before the director’s unbelieving eyes there passed a bobbing procession of mutilated forms, some of them still writhing weakly on the cruel stakes. Jerry Sollinger, Glory Graeme, Sam “Sugar” Sweeney, they were all there. Even Philar Jontz, though only his head decorated its stake.
As the horses drew level with the bony horror in the cape, Skatsman was lifted higher still and he saw the waiting, needle-sharp point of the last, empty stake. He might perhaps have screamed but only knew how to snarl. He did neither but threw back his head and laughed—albeit hysterically, insanely—laughed right into the fleshless, helmeted face whose black eye-sockets so keenly regarded him.
He was Harry S. Skatsman, wasn’t he? And this was his epic, wasn’t it? This was his big scene!
What else could he do?
“Action! Camera!” he snarled—as they rammed him down onto that last terrible fang of Vlad the Impaler.
BASIL COPPER (1924–2013) became a full-time writer in 1970. His first story in the horror field, “The Spider,” was published in 1964 in The Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories, since when his short fiction appeared in numerous collections and anthologies, and was adapted for radio and television.
Along with two non-fiction studies of the vampire and werewolf legends, his other books include the novels The Great White Space, Necropolis, The Black Death, and The House of the Wolf. Copper also wrote more than fifty hardboiled thrillers about Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday, and he continued the adventures of August Derleth’s Sherlock Holmes-like consulting detective Solar Pons.
In recent years, PS Publishing has reissued definitive editions of the author’s short fiction in three volumes of Darkness, Mist & Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper and the two-volume set The Complete Adventures of Solar Pons, along with the restored Gothic novel The Curse of the Fleers, and the British Fantasy Award-winning bio-bibliography Basil Copper: A Life in Books, all edited by Stephen Jones.
When Greek Meets Greek
Basil Copper
Dracula wanders across the world, often spending long periods observing humanity . . .
I
From where Thompson sat at the high terrace, the sea was a blinding incandescence below him, the sun stippling the wavetops to points of fire. Across it crawled black shadows like beetles: fishing boats returning from their afternoon catches. Thompson had been involved in a bad motor smash some weeks before and had come down to the Cote d’Azur for a month’s rest to complete his recovery. For this reason and because he had come so close to death, the beauty of the world and the merest minutia of everyday life arrested his attention as never before.
He had chosen the Magnolia because it was high up and far from the coast road and also because close friends had stayed there some while before. He had escaped the roar of traffic and the resultant fumes, but the shrill chirring of the cicadas at their day-long worship of the sun, and the occasional whine of a jet belonging to the French Air Force making white scratches across the blue, did not disturb him and after three days he did not even notice them.
Below him, on the lower terrace, he could see the Greek pacing with long athletic strides, his shadow stenciled on the dusty tiles as a hard, black silhouette. A tall commanding figure in an impeccable white drill suit and collar and tie, despite the heat. He had deep black hair brushed back from his broad forehead, and a sensitive, highly intelligent face, which, however, often wore an expression of intense melancholy. Thompson had first noticed him two mornings before, when he was crossing the hotel lobby to set out on one of his solitary walks.
The Greek, whose name was Karolides, was accompanied by a dazzlingly beautiful girl. The Englishman was so taken by her strange, almost ethereal beauty, that he had questioned the proprietor of the Magnolia, who had told him she was the guest’s daughter. The couple came there for a month every year and Thompson’s informant had added that the Greek was reputed to be fabulously wealthy but unlike many people who gave that impression when they came to stay, was actually a millionaire. But the girl was in delicate health and needed sunshine and sea air.
Perhaps that was the reason for his melancholy, Thompson thought. Now, as he sat on with the early dusk beginning to slant across the sea, he saw that the Greek had been joined by his daughter. Darkness comes early on that side of the Mediterranean as the sun descends behind the mountains, so that the solitary watcher was unable to make out the details of her features at this distance. That she was beautiful, he had no doubt. Although he had only momentarily glimpsed her in the hotel lobby, she had the sort of striking looks that made men’s heads turn to stare after her. Some, possibly older men, would retain the memory of her until the end of their lives.
The hotel was not overfull, even though it was the height of the season, and the sprinkling of elderly diners who assembled for the evening meal would not distract him from the contemplation of the Greek financier and his daughter, Thompson thought. For he understood from the proprietor that the couple often stayed in for the evening meal, though they were sometimes out on various expeditions during the day.
Thompson did not really know why he was taking such an interest in this couple. That they were striking and sophisticated people, used to wealth and wide travel was obvious, but there was something beyond mere idle curiosity in Thompson’s case. Perhaps it was an invalid’s preoccupation with events from a distant and contemplative viewpoint. For Thompson’s grueling background of medical research had given him little opportunity for leisure until now. Time seemed to stretch endlessly before him and he was beginning to enjoy his enforced idleness, now that more interesting people were starting to swim within his vision.
Now, their muffled conversation drifted up to him in snatches from time to time, blended with the soft susurration of the sea, so that he was unable to make out anything other than fragmentary phrases in Greek and English. The forms of the pair, who had drawn close together, were dark now, blended into the gloom of the encroaching night, the only distinct thing about the tableau being the red glow of a cigar which Karolides had lit, which carried to the silent watcher an even richer aroma than the suffocating perfume of tropical plants.
A purple dusk was hovering in the gulf below, somewhere between sea and sky, and a solitary bird was trilling his own version of ‘The Last Post’ before relapsing into silence. Presently, the pair went in and the night seemed cold and chilly, now that it was no longer warmed by their presence. There was a steely glint to the hazy sea and far out, the dim lights of vessels passing and re-passing on their mysterious errands. Thompson shivered suddenly, though it had nothing to do with the slight breeze which had suddenly sprung up. Presently he too went in to his solitary dinner.
II
Thompson saw nothing of his fellow guests the following morning, for he breakfasted late and it was past ten o’clock before he quit the table. He took the hotel bus the short trip into town and did various errands. He called in at the post office, where there were several letters awaiting him, none of any importance; went to Thomas Cook; and drank an aperitif at a café terrace, in a shady corner overlooking the sea, where he never ceased to marvel at the passing parade of grotesque human beings that aimlessly meandered to and fro along the Grand Corniche.
Later in the afternoon he would swim, but for the moment he was content to idle away an hour or two in such trivial pursuits. He passed the interval before lunch in investigating the cool interiors of two elegant bookshops and then walked back up the dusty road that wound among luxurious villas, until he reached the hotel. Guy, the dark-haired waiter who usually served his lunch, brought Thompson a Cinzano with ice and lemon on the lower terrace before he went to his room to freshen up.
He ate lunch in his usual corn
er of the dining room, oblivious of the animated hubbub about him, and after a reasonable interval strolled back down the hill to the town, where he changed into bathing trunks and enjoyed a leisurely swim out to a tethered raft about half a mile from shore. The freshness of the sea and the salt air did his tired limbs good and he lay spread-eagled on the raft for what must have been two or three hours. No one came near him, for most of the other swimmers, who included many young children, kept to the shallows close in shore.
Once or twice sailing boats and larger yachts passed quite close to him, and just before he quit the raft for his return swim, a blonde girl, who was sunning herself on the stern of a rather palatial vessel, switched on her portable radio, and the nostalgic voice of Charles Trenet singing ‘La Mer’ came drifting across the water, making an appropriate background to his return to the beach.
He took the bus back this time, as he was feeling rather tired after his exertions and once again climbed up to the high terrace for the tranquil hour before dinner which he had come to enjoy. But on this occasion there were some loudmouthed English tourists at an adjoining table so he came down early. As he was passing into the dining room he was faintly surprised to be accosted by the tall, commanding figure of Karolides.
“Mr. Thompson, is it not?”
The Greek, once more immaculate in white tropical drill, paused with amusement, noting the faint flicker that passed across his fellow guest’s face.
“Oh, I admit I looked you up in the hotel register. You seemed rather lonely in your corner by yourself last night, so I wondered whether you would care to join us for dinner this evening.”
“That is extremely kind of you”, Thompson stammered. “If you’re sure I wouldn’t be an intrusion . . .”
The other put a hand on his shoulder in a sudden intimate gesture. “Not at all. We’d love to have you. Ravenna is easily bored, I’m afraid, and there are so few guests here of a suitable age.”
He indicated the elderly diners in the background with a wry gesture, and the amusement in his eyes prompted a hesitant laugh from Thompson.
“Of course. It’s very kind of you. If you’re sure . . .”
“Certainly, Mr. Thompson. Come along.”
The Greek glided effortlessly between the restaurant tables so that Thompson had difficulty in keeping up with him. As they approached the corner where the girl was sitting he saw that she was even more beautiful than he had imagined. Her face was a perfectly round oval and she had the most extraordinary eyes he had ever seen; a deep emerald green which seemed to have unclouded depths in them, so that Thompson felt almost embarrassed to look into them. But he noticed also that though she could not have been more than twenty-six or twenty-eight, and her complexion was smooth and perfect, yet there was a pallor which should not have been there.
“This is Ravenna.”
The girl acknowledged the Englishman’s presence with a slight inclination of the head. Her dark hair was cut short and immaculately coiffed, and she wore gold earrings of a conch-like shell pattern which set off her beauty in a way the guest had not seen on any other woman. The table was in a railed-off enclosure that was banked with flowers. The maitre d’hotel and a wine waiter were hovering in attendance and the latter hurried forward to draw out the chair for the Greek. Thompson’s speculations were cut short by Karolides indicating to him the vacant chair which one of the waiters had immediately pulled up and, almost before he was seated, an extra dinner service was being put in position on the white linen tablecloth.
He had hardly time to settle himself, when Karolides announced, “You will be our guest, of course.”
He waved away the Englishman’s protests.
“Think nothing of it. A great pleasure to have you with us.”
He spoke perfect English, and Thompson guessed that he had mastered a number of languages, which would obviously be necessary in his dealings with the international world of commerce.
“Mr. Thompson is a distinguished man of science, my dear. But now he is recuperating from a bad motor accident. It is up to us to help entertain him and rescue him from the boredom endemic to the lot of one who is passing a solitary sojourn in a Riviera hotel. Is it not so, Mr. Thompson?”
Karolides smiled and the distinction of his countenance and the beauty of his daughter erased the momentary irritation Thompson had again felt at being introduced in such a manner. He wondered how his host had got the information. But his slight embarrassment passed as the girl again inclined her head and said in a low, musical voice, “I am so sorry to hear that. I do hope you will soon be better.”
Thompson mumbled some banal expression of thanks and was relieved when Karolides started studying the menu and there was a sudden flurry of waiters around the table. During the transmission of the orders and the decanting of the wine, the guest again had the opportunity of studying the couple. His first impression of the girl was reinforced rather than diminished as the meal progressed. As might have been expected the food and the wine were of the finest quality and, perhaps slightly under the influence of the latter, Thompson found his stiffness relaxing and soon he was completely under the spell of the pair. Karolides spoke eruditely and entertainingly about a wide variety of topics; firstly regarding his worldwide business interests and particularly his Greek shipping fleet.
From there he advanced to literature and the arts in general and Thompson then realized that the reason his host’s name was familiar was because he had donated wings to hospitals in Greece, Great Britain and America and had also given prodigious sums to art foundations and a great many charities.
Ravenna too was well read and steeped in the classics as well as modern authors; and she seemed equally informed on a wide range of interests in the arts, including painting, ballet and music. As the meal progressed, Thompson lost his reserve and started to open his heart a little more freely. As a scientist he had never had enough time for the gentler pursuits which occupied much of the leisure hours of the wider world, and when he was able to converse on an equal level with Karolides on some obscure literary point he felt his spirits lifting and the Greek seemed equally appreciative of his guest’s background and taste.
When the evening was over Thompson felt as though he had known this couple all his life. A naturally reserved man, he was drawn out by the brilliant conversation of this pair and especially through Karolides, was led into another world; one where money was no object. But this was no mere vulgar matter of acquisition but the accumulation of funds for specific purposes; although he was too courteous and tactful to mention it, his host had done much to alleviate suffering and poverty in the world with the great outpouring of his wealth; this Thompson already knew from a quick study of the financial pages of national newspapers.
The girl too, with her own interest in art and culture, made a deep impression on him, as might have been expected. He did wonder why, with all the assets at their disposal, the couple did not stay at one of the big international hotels that were scattered along the coast, but assumed that natural modesty and the discretion already displayed by the couple were the reasons behind it. After all, it was fairly obvious that they would be recognized at one of the great palaces and would probably run into friends in the international set. He remembered too, that the girl’s health had not been good. Then he dismissed the question from his mind; after all, it was none of his business.
When they parted at the entrance to the dining room, Karolides laid his smooth, manicured hand on his guest’s shoulder in a discreet gesture of affection.
“Consider us your friends”, he said in a deep, resonant voice.
Thompson saw that the girl’s eyes were fixed on him with a particular brilliance and he could not resist their appeal. He mumbled his thanks and made his way somewhat awkwardly up the fine marble staircase with the wrought-iron balustrade that led to the guests’ rooms, instead of taking the small, creaky lift. When he sought his bed he lay awake for a long time, listening to the distant murmur of the sea. He fe
lt a little feverish, but his somewhat overheated state owed nothing to the wine.
III
Thompson was up early the next morning, bathing and shaving himself quickly and was downstairs for breakfast by half-past eight. When he entered the dining room he felt slight disappointment, mingled with relief, to find it occupied merely by a sprinkling of middle-aged ladies toying with their coffee and croissants. Disappointment at not seeing Ravenna; relief that he might not have to make small talk in the presence of her father, when he wanted to take a walk with her alone and find out more about her.
The illness of which he had heard also intrigued him; as a scientist as well as a medical man, for he had several doctorates, he was professionally concerned as well as in a friendly capacity. But there had been a pallor in her features which he had noted and which was not normal in such a young and vivacious woman, though it had not been obvious the night before. Possibly the wine and the warmth of the summer night had temporarily dispelled it.
He was just going out when he saw, through the wide windows facing the sea, Karolides and Ravenna passing along the front of the building where they got into a big open touring car parked in the driveway. As they disappeared down the steep, winding road that led to the Corniche and the open sea, he had a sudden stab of disappointment. It was absurd, of course, as he barely knew the couple, but there was something about the girl that captivated him. He had been too busy in his career ever to contemplate marriage and now that he was approaching forty, and had narrowly escaped death a short time before, he was conscious that there were a great many things in life that he had missed. A wife, for one thing.
In the Footsteps of Dracula Page 11
