Wrath of the Ancients

by Catherine Cavendish

  “No, sir, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Markus smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “That’s fine, Frau Palfry. Thank you, I’m sure my house is in safe hands while Leichner is enjoying his vacation. His first proper one since entering my employ I believe?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but I have been here six years and he has never taken more than three days off at a time. He doesn’t have any family, you see sir. I suppose he doesn’t really have anywhere to go or anyone to go with.”

  “So, high time he did have a break.”

  “Yes, sir. He works very hard.”

  “Indeed, Frau Palfry. As you do yourself. Thank you.”

  Frau Palfry inclined her head slightly and left.

  Markus was satisfied he had done right by his butler, but a growing sense of unease kept him awake that night, along with a memory.

  When he had been down there with the butler, examining the holes made by the drill, they had both felt the same draft at the same time. The draft that had led his butler to turn whiter than Markus’s bed linen. And the butler had described a noxious smell of something long dead. That same smell had floated briefly into Markus’s own nostrils. And it had come from beyond the wall.

  Chapter 16

  Markus crossed the hall on his way out to dinner. He never made it.

  Frau Palfry’s scream stopped him dead.

  He tore down the stairs to find the terrified housekeeper, sobbing and shaking, being comforted by the cook and the new maid.

  “Whatever is all this noise about?” Markus said.

  Frau Palfry choked back her sobs. All eyes turned to him.

  The cook spoke. “I’m sorry, sir, Frau Palfry saw something in the corridor where all the work’s going on. It frightened her.”

  Markus kept his voice calm. He took the housekeeper’s trembling hands in his. “What did you see there?”

  Frau Palfry raised her tear-stained face to his. Her eyes were red from weeping but wild and terrified. She shook her head, slightly at first, then vigorously.

  Markus tried again. Unease built up in his stomach. “It’s all right, you can tell me.”

  “I…I…c-can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Tell me. Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  She wrenched one hand free and pointed behind her without turning around. “Down there. Something…unnatural.” She swayed and Markus caught her before she fell in a dead faint.

  The cook and the maid helped to get her to a chair, where they positioned her with her head between her knees. Within seconds she was coming to. She sat up and put her hands to each side of her head. “Buzzing.”

  “I’ll get you some brandy, Frau Palfry,” the cook said, and seemed grateful for something to do.

  “Not cooking brandy,” Markus said, “The good stuff. There’s a case of Remy Martin in the wine cellar.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and indicated the correct one to the cook. She hesitated for a moment and then hurried away.

  Less than a minute later, Frau Palfry opened her eyes. An earsplitting scream from the corridor. Someone running as if their life depended on it.

  The cook raced into the kitchen, clutching a bottle of cognac in one hand and her chest with the other, her face ashen.

  “Whatever’s the matter?” Markus asked. His heart beat quicker and the growing fear coalesced into something approaching terror.

  He took the bottle from the cook’s trembling hands and set it down on the nearby table.

  The cook made an obvious effort to control herself sufficiently to speak, while Frau Palfry gazed straight ahead, a glazed expression on her face.

  “I saw…what she must have seen.” She pointed at Frau Palfry. “A man. A horrible, unnatural man. He came through the curtain.”

  “In front of the demolished wall?”

  The cook nodded.

  “Then I must investigate this immediately. We’ve got an intruder in the house. One of you call the police.” Markus was already half way across the kitchen when the cook stopped him.

  “Sir, you don’t understand. This is no intruder. It’s not human.”

  A vision of Leichner in the library, saying the same thing, flashed into Markus’s mind. For the first time, doubt crept in.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “It’s…it’s a ghost. A demon. A thing, not of this world.”

  Markus stared at her for a few seconds. He had never been religious and didn’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo his mother had held so dear. Now he was expected to believe he had ghosts in his basement? He quashed the fear and strode out into the corridor. At the far end, the curtain that had been hung from floor to ceiling ruffled slightly in the merest of drafts.

  A moment’s hesitation and then Markus started toward it. He ignored the growing stench of death, reached the curtain and swept it aside.

  Did he imagine the sigh? The stench grew impossible to ignore and he removed a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He clamped it to his nose and flicked the light switch. Amazing that the electricity still worked, even after all those years of disuse.

  The illuminated bare room had been walled up for so long, anything could have died in here. A rat or mouse most probably. The wall had only come down earlier today and revealed nothing of interest except a small, square room with walls on three sides and a door. Heavy, locked and no key. The workmen would knock it down tomorrow.

  Markus stepped inside. The floor was stone flagged and dusty. The walls were yellowing plaster, with a few hairline cracks but nothing significant. He bent down. Through the keyhole, he could barely make out another room. Against the far wall there seemed to be some furniture, but too indistinct to identify. Would this be where they found the Klimt?

  He was about to step away when he caught a slight movement. He peered closer. Then jumped back as if he had been shot.

  A black, red-veined eye met his. And he didn’t imagine the raucous laugh that accompanied it.

  Markus sped back across the room, tossed the curtain aside and dashed down the corridor. In the kitchen three pairs of scared eyes met his.

  Still slumped in the chair, Frau Palfry spoke slowly. “You saw it too, didn’t you?”

  “I…I’m not sure. I thought I saw an eye. Through the keyhole. But that isn’t possible.

  Frau Palfry nodded. The others looked on. The cook still clutched her chest.

  “She said the dead walk in this house.” The housekeeper’s voice was expressionless.

  Markus fought to bring his breathing back to normal. “Who said that?”

  “Magda Varga. She told my uncle, her brother Ferenc, just before she went missing. He tried to warn me about this house, but I ignored him. As the years went by and nothing happened, I forgot his words.”

  “Where is your uncle now? I must speak to him.”

  “In a cemetery. In Budapest. He died two years ago.”

  “What else do you know, Frau Palfry? Is there anyone I can speak to? Anyone who is still alive and remembers this house from before those rooms were walled up?”

  Frau Palfry’s lips were colorless, her skin almost transparent. The shock she had received mere minutes ago seemed to have aged her ten years.

  “Maybe one person. She was a typist. My uncle said she was at the heart of everything that happened here. Maybe she is still alive. She will be old if she is. In her eighties.”

  “Do you have a name for this lady? I must find her.”

  “Her name is Adeline Ogilvy.”

  Chapter 17

  Wimbledon, London

  Adeline Ogilvy removed her reading glasses and set them down on the occasional table next to her chair. She picked up the letter in her lap and set it down beside them, before raising herself to her feet. These days, even a relatively short per
iod of inactivity made her joints lock and her first few steps were unsteady as she began her slow progress from her living room to the kitchen, where she filled the kettle and switched it on.

  She had become a creature of habit these days. Up at eight thirty every morning, she would potter about doing light housework where dust had dared to land. Eleven o’clock would see her fix her hat firmly, with a hatpin, on her neatly permed white hair. Most days, she would don a coat—lightweight and showerproof for summer, warm tweed for winter and the colder days of spring and autumn. On her feet, serviceable well-fitting shoes. Painful bunions meant that comfort had long been preferable over fashion. Then, with her handbag over her arm and her wicker shopping basket in hand, she would open the door of her little terraced house and start her slow walk to the local shops.

  Adeline would occasionally enter one of the new supermarkets but preferred the personal service of the greengrocer she had known since he was a baby and the baker whose bread warmed and comforted her with its fresh baked, homey smell wafting from his shop into the street.

  That particular morning, Adeline had decided against negotiating a too-narrow aisle with a trolley whose wheels wanted to move in separate directions. More than once, this had resulted in her pushing harder and harder, only to need rescuing from a teetering stack of baked beans by a spotty fifteen-year-old male assistant. No, today, she would exchange pleasantries with obliging shopkeepers in their own small establishments.

  The streets of Wimbledon were far busier these days and the street noise had changed. She rarely saw a horse and cart —with the exception of the occasional brewer’s dray and the rag and bone man. She frowned at the stench of oil, diesel, and petrol, as the cars whizzed by and motorbikes careered past. They seemed especially keen to make as much noise as possible, revving up as they passed her. She was remembering the old days of horses clip-clopping along, leaving piles of steaming manure behind them. A wry smile creased the corners of her lips. Perhaps not such good old days after all.

  At that moment, the dreadful teenager from across the street whizzed past in his battered and rusting Ford Anglia; its multi-tone horn competing with the blaring car radio.

  “Is that really necessary?” Adeline realized she had voiced her displeasure out loud. Much to the amusement of a young man in a suit, who tipped his hat to her.

  “There’s talk of banning those things,” he said, smiling.

  “What? Teenagers in souped-up cars?”

  He laughed. “No, those car horns.”

  “Well, all I can say is, it can’t come soon enough.”

  The man smiled again and went on his way. Adeline continued up to the shops as she did every day except Sunday. Her Sunday routine largely depended on the weather. If fine, she might venture into the park and walk along the paths, admiring the trees, shrubs, and flowers, except in late autumn and winter of course. Then she tended to hibernate in front of her cheery fire, read a book or maybe watch an old film on television. Sometimes she might listen to a play on the radio, or even potter about in her tiny back garden.

  At eighty-four, Adeline knew she must remain as active as she possibly could. The minute she gave way to the aches and pains of rheumatism and sheer old age, the sooner her joints would atrophy, and that was unthinkable.

  The kettle boiled and Adeline warmed her teapot with a little of the boiling water, emptied it, added two spoons of tea leaves and boiled the kettle again.

  Never make tea with water that has been allowed to go off the boil.

  Her mother reckoned she could always tell if someone had done that.

  “The tea has no flavor,” she used to say.

  Adeline had found no reason to doubt her.

  Five minutes later, Adeline brought her tea tray into the living room and moved her reading glasses and letter before setting it down on the table. She poured her tea and eased herself back down into her chair.

  She took a couple of sips of the scalding tea and set her cup and saucer down on the tray. She retrieved her glasses and reread the unexpected letter.

  My dear Mrs. Ogilvy,

  I trust you will forgive the intrusion, but I find I am in urgent need of your help.

  I am the present owner of a house in Hietzing, Vienna, which I understand you used to live and work in for some weeks during 1913, at which time, I am given to understand, some extraordinary events took place. I believe you knew a woman by the name of Magda Varga who was the aunt of my housekeeper. She related these events to her brother, Ferenc—my housekeeper’s uncle. Sadly, soon after she did so, Magda Varga disappeared and no trace has ever been found of her.

  Adeline raised her head and tears welled up in her eyes. How many times had she thought of dear, brave Magda over the years? She had imagined her married, with children, all grown up and with children of their own no doubt. But all the time, Magda hadn’t been living any sort of life. From this letter, it sounded as if everyone believed she was dead. That house… that evil place. Did Quintillus have a hand in her disappearance?

  She went back to her reading.

  My reason for contacting you is to tell you that, after years of peace, something is once again happening in my home. It seems to center on the basement and particularly around an area which was walled up long ago, but which I, in my foolishness, sought to open up in my quest for a long lost painting. I believe you may have been familiar with it. The artist was Gustav Klimt and the portrait is a representation of Cleopatra.

  At the second reading, the impact of what was happening in that house hit her much harder than the first time. Not that the writer had gone into any great detail, but his description of the figure he had seen, brought memories of Quintillus’s hideous form flooding into Adeline’s brain.

  She read on to the end, careful not to miss a single word, looking for a mention of the gold statuette of Set, but there was none. That, at least, was a blessing.

  She read the signature “Markus von Dürnstein.” The letter was headed with his family crest and the paper was the finest quality. His handwriting was almost copperplate and his English impeccable. His name was vaguely familiar and Adeline had a dim memory of a newspaper article she had read in The Sunday Times recently. Count Markus von Dürnstein pictured with the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. Some trade deal. Adeline remembered it only because of the contrast between the two men. Harold Wilson in his trademark Gannex overcoat with his pipe in his hand. The Count stood a few inches taller, smartly dressed in a dark suit. The photograph showing the two men shaking hands was posed and false. The Count’s smile seemed pasted on for the camera.

  This influential man had sought her out. He was offering to come to London or to pay her flight out to Vienna. If she took the latter option, she was welcome to stay as his guest. Adeline shuddered. On no account could she stay in that house. She didn’t even want to enter that place. She remembered how insistent Professor Mayer had been that she never return there under any circumstances. Adeline could hardly believe herself. She was actually considering taking the Count up on his offer. Up to a point. She would have to stay somewhere, and, on her restricted income, she couldn’t afford to pay for it herself. No matter. The Count had anticipated that option as well. He was offering to pay for her accommodation in a luxury hotel.

  He had included his telephone number and asked her to call him, reversing the charges.

  Adeline’s mind wandered back and an image of Gustav Klimt flashed into her mind. The way she had felt in his presence. No man had ever had that effect on her since. How many times she had wished she had taken him up on his offer and posed for him. She could have made it work. She could have gone to his studio at weekends. Would she have become his mistress? She sighed.

  But a sudden memory of Quintillus soured her reverie, stained her mood, and drove all pleasant thoughts out of her mind. Her rational self knew that, dead or not, he would have found a way to ruin it. He de
stroyed everything and everyone he came into contact with. Nothing would have stopped him from pursuing his obsession to make Cleopatra his own.

  Adeline struggled to her feet once more and limped at first as she made her way into the hall. The lone telephone in the house rested on a London telephone directory on top of a telephone table, which incorporated a padded seat. She lowered herself with a little difficulty. Too low for her these days. She would have to add a couple of cushions to this before long.

  She touched the phone, hesitated, removed her hand and weighed up her options. She could, of course, ignore the Count’s request. Part of her mind screamed at her to do just that. She could carry on her comfortable life here, with all its habits and routines, or she could put herself in danger again. Because whatever other option she chose would lead inevitably in that direction.

  Markus von Dürnstein could come to London. That posed far fewer risks for Adeline. She had almost convinced herself that this is what she would propose. He could come here, they could discuss what was going on and then… What? He would go away again, knowing a little more, but still unable to do anything.

  Adeline forced herself to admit something she had suppressed for over fifty years. Those terrifying weeks in Vienna had left an indelible impression on her. For weeks, months, even years afterward, she would wake screaming in the night. She would see Emeryk Quintillus’s mummified skin and eyeless face.

  When was the last time she had dreamed of it?

  Last week.

  There was unfinished business in Vienna, and she wouldn’t resolve it by staying here.

  Adeline made her decision, took a ragged breath, and picked up the receiver.

  Chapter 18

  Entering Café Central, Markus scanned the shabby room for the person he was about to meet for the first time. He could hardly miss her. She seemed so out of time and like her photograph. She was dressed in a tweed tailored jacket, her snow-white hair newly permed. Her smart brown hat, with its old-fashioned hatpin, completed the look of an elderly British lady.