It was a close, sultry night, with that ominous stillness which, to my mind, always presages some form of disaster. My housekeeper had long ago retired for the night, and I was sitting near the open window smoking and wondering idly what had become of Fergusson, whom I had not seen for three days. On one of his bursts again, was my conclusion. I would have to look him up in the morning and give him a talking to, though I smiled bitterly to myself as I thought of how little use that would be. Things could not go on like this, however, if Fergusson did not want to be dismissed from the service. While I yet pondered on his folly, footsteps creaked on the stairs without, and I looked round to see the man of whom I was thinking standing in the doorway. His eyes were bloodshot and protruding, and his hair – he had come in without a hat – fairly standing on end. His clothes were in disorder, and there was a look of wild terror in his face, as he staggered into the room, that for the moment alarmed me.
The next I muttered to myself, ‘Drunk again!’ as I crossed to the table beside which he had collapsed into a chair.
He raised his head as I sat down opposite him and looked wildly round the room, as though searching for a presence he could feel but could not see.
‘Ward,’ he said suddenly, turning his terror-stricken eyes on me, ‘do you believe in ghosts?’
‘Spirits?’ I asked, contempt in my tones as I pointed to the whisky-bottle on the sideboard. ‘Yes! So do you, or you would not be here now in that disgusting state.’
He flung up his head impatiently.
‘Do you believe in transmigration?’ he asked again. Fergusson, the cool, the resolute, was trembling like a scared kitten.
‘I thought we settled all that to our entire satisfaction years ago at coll.,’ I told him.
But he went on wildly, unheeding my jesting treatment of the matter.
‘Ward, do you think it possible that a man, we will say a Chinaman, could come back to earth in the form of a vampire, to haunt one who has wronged him?’
‘Why?’ I queried amusedly. ‘Have you seen him?’
His face was ashen with terror and his lips livid as he muttered—
‘I have!’
‘My dear man,’ I laughed, ‘you’ve got ’em again, got ’em badly, for this time your rats have wings!’
He answered nothing, only looked apprehensively round the room. I went on:
‘Best rat poison for vampires and such, Fergusson, is a course of strict teetotalism, and a few doses of bromide, administered not to them but to yourself.’
But my irony was lost on him.
‘Listen, Ward!’ said he, gripping my arm as in a vice, and there was something of deadly earnestness in his voice that forced my attention. ‘Last night I came home from the club as usual’ – I had no need to ask him in what state ‘as usual’ was, I knew, alas! too well – ‘and went to the little cupboard where I had stowed three bottles of whisky that I had obtained from the chief officer of one of Butterfield’s boats discharging sugar in the river, in order to continue the orgy, and found them gone.’
He stopped and glanced round the room again.
‘Good job for you!’ said I unsympathetically.
He continued—
‘I went in and shook May out of her sleep, and asked her what she had done with them; but she professed entire ignorance of them until I gripped her arm till she writhed in pain’ – he groaned, and from that I concluded that he must be sober now, but suffering from delirium tremens – ‘then she cried out in her agony that she had smashed them so that I should not drink myself to death.
‘But I told her roughly she lied, and that I would not release her until she showed me where she had hidden them. She only sobbed, “Have makee break! Have makee break!” Then, Ward, in a frenzy of drunken passion I got a length of cord and bound her slender wrists and ankles to the head and foot rails of the bed. Bound them’ – he shuddered violently – ‘until I could see the cords cutting into the tender flesh, and her delicate limbs swelling under the torture, and I stood beside her and laughed in glee while she moaned, “Have makee break! True, have makee break!”’
His head sank on his arms and he groaned again in anguish of remorse. I rose to my feet in sudden heat and strode to his side, shaking him roughly by the collar.
‘Fergusson!’ I cried fiercely, ‘is this true? Answer me, man! Is this true?’
‘As true,’ he replied miserably, ‘as that I look forward to burning in hell for it!’
‘You cur!’ I cried, flinging him from me, for I knew the depth of the girl’s devotion to him.
He did not resent it nor attempt to excuse himself, only looked up at me with a bitter laugh – a laugh that reminded me of the savage snarl of a wounded hyena – and I shuddered involuntarily.
‘Listen, Ward, for there is more to come!’
I took two or three hasty turns to and fro, then sat down opposite to him again. He went on with feverish haste, eager to get it over.
‘I left her there, Ward! Left her in torture!’ His voice rose almost to a wail. ‘Left her, and went back into the other room. A gust of wind from the open window had blown the lamp out and the room was in darkness, and as I stood there gloating like a fiend over the moans that came from the bed in the other room something swept up against the closed window; a moment later it had returned and fluttered in through the open one.’
He stopped suddenly, and a violent trembling shook his frame.
‘Ward, it was the “Thing”!’
‘What the—’
‘Yes!’ he cried eagerly, ‘the vampire!’
I felt in no mood to laugh at his absurd fancy now. I felt too shocked at the cruel treatment he had meted out to May.
‘It came into the room, Ward, and flapped in ever lessening circles round my head. I struck out wildly at It, for I was intoxicated and did not fear It at the time. But It took no notice of my vicious lunges; It sailed three times round my head, then as I thought flapped its way out again through the open window. I looked at my watch; it was exactly one o’clock.
‘Firm set on getting more drink, I left the house again, leaving May to her agony, and made my way back to the club. It was closed, but I made the boy give me a full bottle of whisky, saying I wanted a peg, and brought it away with me.
‘I must have drunk half of it before I got back to the house, and when I went in I found the groans had ceased. I went to May’s bedside—’
The curtains at the window stirred slightly, and he broke off suddenly with a great start, terror writ large in his face.
‘Ward!’ he cried, with livid lips, ‘It is coming! The “Thing”!’
‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘That was a puff of wind.’
The man was utterly unnerved. I had to pacify him as one soothes a little child.
‘Go on with your vile story!’ I told him at last.
‘I went to May’s side, and there, Ward, was the “Thing” on her face. It had Its head just under her ear, with its great wings slowly fanning. Ward!’ he almost shrieked, ‘It was sucking her life’s blood! Do you hear me? Sucking her blood! She had swooned with the pain of the cords and the horror of this “Thing”, and I – I stood there, made fearless with drink, laughing in devilish joy at the sight I saw. How long I stayed I do not know, but at last I sank down in stupor beside the bed. I knew nothing more until this morning.’
‘And then?’ I asked. I was getting interested in this curious mental aberration of Fergusson’s.
‘Then, when I arose,’ he broke out in sudden fury, ‘she was dead! Dead, Ward! Dead! dead! dead!’
Suddenly he grew deadly calm, going on with the quietness of a surgeon diagnosing a case.
‘There was a tiny puncture under her ear, just on the jugular vein, with a little globule of blood no bigger than a bead exuding from it; but the pillow was bathed in blood, soaked through and through.’
Matters were looking black indeed, for I had no doubt at the time that Fergusson had killed her in the frenzy of his drunken pa
ssion. Afterward I had no cause to change my mind.
‘I think it must have dazed me, for I threw myself across her cold body and lay there until the moment before you saw me,’ he continued vacantly. ‘I got up then, leaving her poor stiffened limbs still bound to the bed-rails, and came on here.’
‘Fergusson,’ I said gravely, ‘do you realise what this means, lad? It means murder, and murder is an ugly word – even in China, Fergusson!’
‘I realise what it means,’ he answered gloomily, ‘and I almost rejoice at it. It will prove one thing – it will prove that Justice, though in the abstract drawing a wrong conclusion from her premises, will yet be right in the fundamental fact.’
‘What fact?’ For, having come to the same conclusion myself, I did not follow the drift of his reasoning.
‘The fact,’ he replied with a harsh laugh, ‘that I murdered her; though I swear to you, Ward, that no drop of her blood was shed by hand of mine.’
I smiled pityingly, and as I still smiled the little clock in the next room chimed out, then paused for a second and struck one. The smile and the words I was about to utter froze on my lips, for I felt the hair gradually rising on my head with vague, undefined apprehension. At the same moment something struck with a muffled thud against the side of the open window, and I heard a soft, insistent flapping of wings. A sudden puff of wind from somewhere fanned my cheek, as on the floor I saw the dark shadow of some huge ‘Thing’ that was fluttering slowly round the room.
For a space I was too terrified to look up, and when I raised my eyes it was to see a black, shapeless mass flapping through the open window into the blackness of the night beyond. Fergusson had covered his eyes with his hand as he cowered in his chair, shrunk into himself. Now he raised his head and put out a palsied hand, seizing my arm, as he whispered hoarsely—
‘Ward, did you see It?’
‘See what?’ I asked uneasily, more to give myself time to recover my equanimity.
‘It! The “Thing”!’
By this I had regained my composure, and was ready to laugh at my foolish fancy.
‘What thing?’ I asked him again.
‘The vampire!’ said Fergusson in the same sepulchral whisper.
‘Bosh!’ I answered lightly. ‘There was something came into the room, but it was merely a large bat attracted hither by the light.’
‘It was a vampire,’ insisted he, ‘the vampire!’
‘We are not in South America now,’ I replied testily, thoroughly ashamed of my sudden fears, ‘and there are no vampires in China.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Fergusson repeated doggedly, ‘it was a vampire.’
‘A flying-fox, perhaps,’ I told him, ‘and they are harmless, herbivorous like the bats.’
I was puzzled what to do with Fergusson. I could not leave my old chum to be taken in my own house, much as he might deserve it. At last an idea came to me that would at least give us more time.
‘Fergusson,’ I asked, breaking in on the dream into which he had fallen, ‘did you lock your door before you came away?’
‘Lock it? No! Why?’
‘Give me your keys,’ was all I said.
He handed them to me, and leaving him sitting there I sped across the road and gained his house.
Everything was in darkness, but prompted by an impulse of curiosity I could not control, I crept softly into the bedroom and struck a match. Perhaps, after all, the whole thing was but a fancy of his distorted brain, and all might yet be well.
As the match flared up, I held it above my head and looked around. Ah, no! There was the poor girl lashed, as he had described, to the bed, the cords sunk deep in the tender flesh. The pillow, too, was drenched in blood, as he had said, and as I bent over her I saw a small incision in her neck, just below the ear.
It was true enough, then! But in spite of that curious little puncture in the fair skin, I still believed this ghastly thing was the terrible handiwork of my friend, and turned away with a shudder, locking the door ere I left.
I returned to Fergusson, trying by my relation of plans for his escape, to rouse him from the apathy into which he had sunk.
To have attempted to get away by one of the regular Shanghai boats would have been suicidal folly; but there was a Jardine steamer sailing for Hong Kong in two or three days’ time, and if he could stow away in her I hoped he might be able to conceal himself in some remote corner of the world before the hounds of justice were set on his track. I explained to him that I would report him ill to the comptroller, so allaying suspicion for his non-appearance; and when the boat was ready to sail he was to slip out and sneak on board, trusting to chance to explain away his presence when she was once at sea. No one would be likely to go to his rooms, and provided he lay low in mine he would have a very fair chance of success.
Fergusson, for his part, looked on the whole matter indifferently and took very little interest in the maturing of the plans for his own safety.
Very surprised was my little housekeeper to find when she awoke next morning that my friend had spent the night on the couch in the other room. Of course we told her nothing of what had occurred. Nor did we think it wise to tell her that he would spend two or three days with us, deeming it better to let her find out for herself as the time passed and he still made no move to go to his own home.
Now that I come to the last part of this terrible history I hesitate to set it down, lest it should be looked upon as a mere freak of my imagination. And yet I have not said enough to clear my old friend’s name of the black stain of murder and establish his innocence, wherefore I must proceed, though discredit be cast upon the close of the tragedy.
Yet I myself, as I look back from the vantage-coign of these after years, feel a dread steal over me lest, after all, it should be nothing but the coincidence of a large bat having flown into my room at the precise hour of one, and on another night having hovered near Fergusson’s head at the same eerie hour. The rest may have been but the delusions of his drink-maddened brain and my own overwrought fancy. I dread the thought that it may be so, for if such a series of extraordinary coincidences be possible, then it means that Fergusson was a foul murderer.
But speculation is idle; let me finish the gruesome narrative.
That night of pain and horror wore slowly away, and never before or since have I watched the grey dawn creep slowly up from the East with such feelings of gratitude and relief.
The ensuing day, too, passed away without event; so also another night and a day crept by.
I had to leave Fergusson during each day in order to attend to my duties; but I reported him at headquarters unwell, telling the Customs doctor that it was his intention to call shortly and let him prescribe.
The fourth night since the poor girl, lying now so stark and swollen in that silent house, had met her death closed in, and a strange change fell upon Fergusson.
Tomorrow at dawn he was to escape to safety in the outgoing Jardine steamer, and as yet we fancied ourselves secure in the certainty of no one having entered the house of death.
But Fergusson seemed to have abandoned all hope of flight, or, rather, a gloomy despondency that whispered to him of its futility, had settled like a black pall over his being.
All through the early part of that dreadful night I sat talking to him, trying one moment to soothe his craven fears, and the next to rouse him from the apathy of his despair. He was completely unnerved, and had a shuddering premonition that the Thing was hovering near, in spite of my repeated assurances that, except for ourselves, the room was empty.
Suddenly, far into the night – how far I knew not then, for I had tried not to count the chimes of the little clock – his terror-sharpened perceptions caught the sharp tramp of distant feet on the flags of the little street below. He rose with shaking knees to his feet and tottered to the window. I had beard the sound too, and followed him, peering over his shoulder. What we saw was the chief of police, with four men in the uniform of the Imperial Constabulary, stand
ing outside Fergusson’s door.
As we watched, Major Barnes gave an order in a low undertone, and he and two constables advanced into the house.
We stood watching, frozen into inaction, until they emerged again, and with a low whistle, answered from somewhere behind us, strode straight towards my door.
Then, as the blood rushed back to my palpitating heart, I saw what this meant for Fergusson. By some means the crime had already been discovered, and the hounds of the law were on his trail.
I ran round the room, looking frantically for some means of escape. The front door was impossible; the wall that bounded one side of the little court was far too high for a man to scale without due preparation; and on either side impassable go-downs, with blank walls, having nor door nor window by which to gain access.
He was fairly trapped like a rat in its hole!
But as I gazed in despair at the wall which formed the boundary of the lane that separated us from the British Consul’s grounds, my heart went bounding into my throat with joy and hope, for I beheld, what before had escaped my attention, a stout wire stay that, leading from the roof of the go-down beside my window, was made fast to the flagstaff within the grounds, from which in the daytime floated the British Jack. It was nearly horizontal, inclining if anything slightly downwards for about thirty yards until it reached the staff. It passed well clear of the high wall, and should present no obstacle to a desperate man to traverse.
I swung hurriedly towards Fergusson, who was standing at the window, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, gazing moodily down at the advancing constables.
‘Fergusson’ – I was almost jocular in the intensity of my relief – ‘are your muscles as fit as in the old coll. days?’
‘Pretty well,’ he answered absently, without taking his eyes from the street below.
I seized his arm and dragged him forcibly to the rear window.
‘See that wire stay?’ I cried exultantly, ‘you can easily traverse that hand over hand to the flag-staff; slide down and slip through the consul’s grounds to the river side; then take – steal if necessary – a sampan, and try to get down to Chin Hai. There get aboard one of the outward-bound junks, bound anywhere, so you can get another chance of freedom. The night is dark, and not expecting to find you overhead, they are safe not to see you cross.’
Dracula’s Brethren Page 37
