by Basil Copper
Coleridge assented.
‘Then you do not think these deaths have anything to do with the great wolf which has been terrorising the village and killing local people? Or the wolf I saw in the Castle corridor?’
Abercrombie shook his head.
‘I think we have two things here. Perhaps someone within the Castle let the beast in to confuse matters.’
‘But you yourself said Menlow’s death was due to a wolf,’ Coleridge persisted.
Abercrombie rubbed the edge of his nose with a great finger.
‘So I did, Professor, so I did,’ he said gently. ‘But I have not entirely revealed my thoughts on the matter. And it does not invalidate my theory on motive and opportunity. We must watch our companions carefully.’
He glanced out the side-windows.
‘Judging by the features of the buildings surrounding the courtyard, we have come full circle. It is time to visit the cellars.’
His words struck a chill into Coleridge, who watched silently as his companion produced and lit his dark-lantern.
‘A fatuous exercise, as I have already observed,’ Abercrombie went on, trimming the lamp to his satisfaction. ‘We should certainly have heard something from the servants before now had the beast been prowling these corridors. And if it is supernatural . . .’
He smiled broadly. The two men walked down the long gallery, their feet slapping echoes from the boards. There was none of the Count’s electric light in here, only elaborate oil lamps standing on tables and in niches, and the large candle chandelier, though none were lit. Coleridge longed for the brilliant comfort of electric light. The labyrinthine corridors with their shadowy gloom were beginning to oppress his spirits, and more than once he fancied he had seen the pinpoints of animal eyes lurking at the foot of beams or buttresses.
But the yellow rays of Abercrombie’s lantern and the doctor’s massive presence gave comfort. He paused at the far door, and while he fumbled with the latch the light beams strayed aside, sweeping across a face with tangled hair and wide eyes which seemed so real and vivid that Coleridge almost cried out. He bit his lip and then saw that it was an oil painting, so cunningly recreated from the original by the unknown artist that it seemed to start from its heavy gilt frame.
The lips had a perpetual sneer upon them, and the eyes were so implacable and full of hatred that they appeared to follow the two men all the way down the corridor outside.
‘Now for the cellars,’ Abercrombie repeated.
Coleridge hardly heard him. The eyes and that vicious mouth could belong to only one person in the Count’s long ancestry. As Abercrombie struggled at a massive iron-studded door in a bleak stone corridor, Coleridge knew that he had beheld the face of Ivan the Bold.
CHAPTER 24: THE CELLARS
‘Be careful there! These steps are loose.’
Abercrombie’s admonition came too late. Coleridge felt his heel grate on the crumbling block, which moved away, almost sending him headlong. His finger-tips scraped frantically across the curving wall, drawing blood.
Then the big Scot had him firmly by the collar with his left hand, the beam of the dark-lantern dancing across the steep descent that looked as though it might lead to hell itself, so black and forbidding did it seem to Coleridge’s somewhat fevered imagination. Then he had recovered himself, slightly out of breath.
‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully, his legs trembling slightly.
But there was firm stone beneath him, and as his companion held the lantern downward across the next half-dozen treads, their surface worn into runnels by the passing feet of centuries, he could now see that the way ahead was clear.
‘It was fortunate I saw you in time,’ Abercrombie said drily.
His face, heavily shadowed, appeared vague and insubstantial in the dim light; the black beard powdered with grey at the edges looking as though it were carved in metal. He held the lantern high with a courteous gesture as the two men walked more slowly abreast, keeping their eyes down at their feet.
Soon, a few steps farther, they came upon a lantern standing on a heavy oak bracket set into the wall. The doctor stopped to light it, and by the stronger illumination they could see down to the next curve where a similar lamp was set. Beyond that was velvet darkness.
They descended deliberately, taking their time, each man absorbed in his own thoughts. Their feet made sharp, almost furtive scrapings on the stone blocks, and now and again small particles of grit or crumbling stonework produced little pattering noises which trickled from step to step in front of them, as though something invisible were scampering ahead. The simile was an unpleasant one, and Coleridge quickly dismissed it from his mind.
There was a mouldering smell in here as of the crypt; it was compounded equally of the spicy odour which ancient stone appeared to emanate and of dust, earth, and cobwebs. He wondered idly whether cobwebs did, in fact, give off any smell; but the atmosphere in here certainly brought them to mind.
They had long ago lost to sight the mighty wooden door they had left open at the top of the flight, and now, as they went farther and farther down, the round stair, following gentle curves, seemed to lead them imperceptibly on and the great stone blocks of the curving wall at their left were as massive and as high as a prison.
Oddly enough, the wall at their right was straight, which seemed to infer that they were beneath the main body of the Castle and not under one of the towers.
‘Curious, is it not?’ Abercrombie observed heavily, stopping to light a second lamp.
It appeared as though he had read Coleridge’s mind accurately, and for a moment the savant was startled. He waited while Abercrombie replaced the lighted vessel on the bracket, reassured by the springing back of the shadows but still conscious of the subterranean depths to which they must still descend.
‘Don Juan in Hell?’ the Scot continued jovially, glancing at his companion.
Coleridge smiled.
‘I do not quite follow . . .’ he began.
Abercrombie shrugged.
‘It merely seemed a long way to go to bring up a bottle of wine for the Count’s dinner. Unless he has a more convenient pantry upstairs.’
He was making conversation, and Coleridge guessed that he too was beginning to find the atmosphere oppressive. They went on then and traversed three more curving flights, each bend being served by a solitary lamp on a bracket, and each of which was carefully lit in turn by Abercrombie.
Coleridge was conscious that he had a damp patch of perspiration on his forehead. He guessed it originated in the shock he had received on his narrow escape from falling. It also denoted how warm it was down here relative to the rest of the Castle. There must be thirty or forty degrees of temperature difference in comparison with the open air outside.
They had paused now while the doctor lit the last of the lamps and found themselves on what looked like a vast slab of stone; a sort of platform bounded by a metal railing which had evidently been added in modern times, for the metal was painted a shiny black which gave off gleams in the lamplight as though it were wet.
For some moments Coleridge had been aware of another noise which he could not quite place. The air smelt mouldy, almost damp here, and it had a sickening charnel smell which reminded the professor of a badly tended graveyard he had once encountered in a remote part of Italy during the winter months.
Then he heard it again: the slow drip of water, like a thin thread, giving off a monotonous liquid beat in the velvet darkness. His expression must have been strained or startled because Abercrombie gave a short, harsh laugh which sent the echoes flying.
‘Water, Professor! You forget we are beneath the moat here. I do not know how deep it is, but we are obviously under the outer wall and a long way below the ice which binds the surface.’
Coleridge did not say anythi
ng for a moment. Somehow, the fact that they were below water level made the place seem even more dank and ominous. How deep – and how secret, then! – must be that dreadful dungeon of Ivan the Bold which Homolky had had bricked up all those years ago, as it must lie at some fearful depth in the eternal darkness and silence still so far below them.
He shook off such thoughts with an effort and followed Abercrombie, who was already clattering down a small straight stair made of heavy wood, clutching the handrail firmly with his disengaged hand while he shone the beam of the lantern curiously about with the other.
By its feeble light Coleridge could see massive wooden casks and timber racks of an ancient pattern that stretched out before them, creating aisles that ran forward until they were lost in the far distance of this dark, arched vault. Away to the left there were huge buttresses of smooth-fitting hewn stone blocks, and these Romanesque architectural features ran up in liquid curves to support the arched stone roof far above their heads.
The worn flooring was dry and dusty, and there were the marks of many feet in the dust, no doubt made by the Count’s servants as they went to and from the bins and casks to draw whatever was needed for the huge household above. At any other time Coleridge would have been deeply interested in these social minutiae, but his racing thoughts had a distracting effect and he had time for only cursory glances as he cautiously followed the burly back of Abercrombie.
This was a sinister place for such a search as that on which the couple were engaged, and he wondered for a moment why the Count had insisted on the pair of them coming here. It was an unworthy thought, but it indicated to Coleridge how far his experiences within the Castle walls had corrupted his sensibilities and made him suspicious of almost everyone and everything in the circumstances in which he found himself.
There were no brackets or oil lamps within the main cellar area so far as he could see, and it seemed to go on for a vast extent, judging by the faint pattering echoes of their progress which reverberated beneath the arches for an interminably long time before dying out.
It would obviously be disastrous for the two men to separate in here, apart from its impracticability, for one would be without light, and Coleridge instinctively moved closer to his companion. He had drawn his pistol now, a movement which was not lost on Abercrombie because he gave the professor a wry glance.
‘A bad place, eh?’
Coleridge nodded.
‘I have not seen worse under the given circumstances. It is the perfect area for an animal to hide. Providing it was well fed, it could survive down here for a long time.’
Abercrombie held the dark-lantern high, sweeping its beam across a great rack of barrels that barred their path.
‘You are right. A wolf can go many days without food and suffer no ill effects. And it could drink from there.’
He moved across, into a sort of aisle that ran at right-angles between the line of great pillars and the racks of casks and barrels ahead. The dripping noise was louder now, and as they advanced closer to the side of the vault they could see the lamplight gleam on green slime and a pool of stagnant water that had formed in a runnel where the rough stone floor at the side met the curve of the wall.
Abercrombie moved the lantern beam, tracing the damp area upward to where small beads of water glistened in a crack overhead.
The doctor grunted.
‘There has obviously been subsidence at some time, and the pressure on the vault arch has made that crack, allowing a certain amount of seepage from the moat.’
He grunted again, sweeping the beam about in a wider arc.
‘I should not think it is of any importance, or the Count would have had buttressing put in hand.’
He shrugged.
‘But we are forgetting our purpose here.’
He turned back, and the two men were then confronted by another steep stone stair that led below and which was bordered by a rickety-looking wooden guardrail.
‘It is a pity we have no twine or chalk,’ Abercrombie muttered. ‘We could then be sure we had searched everywhere.’
‘Why not keep to this side-wall and work our way up and down the aisles until we have covered the entire area,’ Coleridge suggested.
Abercrombie nodded in agreement. He was already descending the stair, the lantern beam stabbing nervously in all directions. Coleridge prepared to follow. He saw that the wall at their right was now pierced by worm-eaten wooden doorways that hung askew on great iron hinges of an antique pattern.
His nerves were scalded by a sudden splintering noise. He was just in time to see the wooden handrail give way beneath Abercrombie’s massive hand. The big Scot emitted a strangled cry, and then he had fallen toward the wall. He struck the nearest wooden door with a tremendous impact and all his considerable weight.
Coleridge moved forward quickly to see the door splinter inward amid a cloud of dust and his companion disappear. The lantern, falling from his hand, clattered several times on the floor, and the cellar was then plunged into the darkness of the tomb.
With beating heart Coleridge moved cautiously down the staircase on his knees, one tread at a time. An unearthly blackness seemed to press on the eyelids with a physical force. The deathly quiet, broken only by the occasional drip of water, seared the nerve-ends. He had not heard one sound or cry from Abercrombie after the door had given way beneath him; nothing except the faintest slithering as though his unfortunate companion had been hurried to bottomless depths.
He could feel perspiration trickling down into his eyes. He moved slowly but precisely; he had had one split-second vision of the dark-lantern before it had been extinguished in the fall. If he could not find it, he feared for his sanity under these conditions so far beneath the Castle and remote from help. He had a box of matches in his pocket and hoped to relight the lantern and make a search for Abercrombie.
He might be lying injured now not so very far from him, and it was certain that Coleridge was the only man able to help. As he moved gingerly down, searching with his right hand for the splintered end of the wooden railing where it had broken away beneath his colleague’s weight, he fumbled awkwardly with his left to remove the Count’s pistol from his inside jacket pocket.
It was then that he detected the faint scratching noise, like the sound of claws on flagstones. He had heard it before, and fear coursed through his veins. In that drear place and in the pitch darkness its connotations were enough to unseat the mind, and he fought for control, the trembling fingers of his left hand at length throwing off the safety-catch of the pistol.
The crisp click gave him courage, and he quickly scrabbled to the bottom of the steps. The lantern had been lying at the foot of one of the great wooden casks, and he moved his fingers across the floor in a hesitant arc, almost as though he feared to find fur beneath his hand. The noise he had made had overlaid any further sounds from the vault, and he went swiftly on with his search, deliberately making as much commotion as possible, with black fear gibbering at his elbow.
Relief flooded through him as he felt the warm metal of the lantern at last; it seemed to be unbroken. He put the pistol down quickly, searched frantically in his jacket pocket for the matches. The scratch of the match-head sounded like an explosion, and the resultant yellow flare almost blinded him. He lit the wick with shaking fingers, sweat pouring into his eyes. The yellow light threw the barrels and overhead vaulting into sharp relief, and the shadows jumped backward.
A low snarling noise greeted the light, but Coleridge’s nerves were equal to it now. He had the pistol up ready, his hand none too steady. Two pinpoints like eyes at an angle almost opposite made his heart jump in his chest until he saw that it was the beam of the lantern shining on the necks of two bottles. He trimmed the wick until he had the maximum light and then replaced the metal-and-glass shutter, shining the beam in a wide arc as he got shaki
ly to his feet.
Then he called Abercrombie’s name several times over, ignoring the thunderous echo of his own voice beneath the arches, straining his ears to catch any response in the dead silence which followed.
He still held the box of matches awkwardly in the same hand as that in which he had the lantern, with the pistol in his left. It was the work of a moment to transfer the pistol to his right. He put the lantern down for a second on one of the transverse beams of the rack holding the casks. He stared at the matchbox unseeingly, the echoes of his shouts still reverberating in his ears.
The box reminded him that he had not smoked a cigar for several days, not since the girl had come to him with her terrifying news, in fact.
It was one of those curious, rather ridiculous pieces of information which jumped to one’s mind at difficult moments; perhaps the human psyche blanking off disastrous events with trivia, probably in order to protect the brain. He put the box back into his pocket, moving across to where he had last seen Abercrombie. The place where the door had been now gaped as a black hole in the side-wall.
He froze in midstep as another of those savage snarls echoed and reechoed beneath the vaulted ceiling. It came from the area of blackest shadow that stretched in front of him, between two dusty racks of casks.
He lifted the lantern from the beam with his left hand, bringing up the pistol with his right. His fingers were still trembling slightly so that the yellow beam seemed to shudder and slither over the shadowy ceiling groynes without really picking out detail. But Coleridge’s nerves jumped again as he saw, or thought he saw, two tiny red spots near ground-level at the end of the aisle. He heard the faint scratching and clicking noise on the stone floor that he had experienced before; a furtive, secretive sound that seemed to lacerate the nerves.
This would not do. Coleridge decided against following the beast farther into the vault; whatever it was, it would have to come to him. He was comparatively safe here if his nerve did not crack, and he had the revolver. He did not think it would come too far into the light, but it was cunning, incredibly cunning, as he had already sensed.
