breathing from the depths of
the shadows, the eyes watching him as intently as he did the faded script.
A guard came around at closing time
to tell Ujvari to go. With a sigh of impatience, Ujvari packed up the
manuscript and his translation. As he reached for his coat, the old man
stepped from the shadows near the door and walked toward the pool of light thrown
by Ujvari's desk lamp.
"This
is not an exhibit area," Ujvari commented more harshly than was polite.
"A word
with you please," the man responded.
Ujvari
shuddered. The man was Romanian, the voice too much like his father's. Could
they have met before? "Speak quickly.
The museum is closing and I
have an appointment."
"Appointment.
Perhaps with Mrs. Beason?"
"Beason?"
Ujvari looked at the man more closely. He had met him before, perhaps at the
Orthodox Church soon after he'd come
to London.
"The
woman for whom you work."
"I work
here, nowhere else." Ujvari circled the man and walked toward the doors to
the exhibit area.
"You
work on the journal of the Countess Karina, the
vampir
."
Ujvari did
not look back.
"I want
that book!" the man called. "Give it to me! Your soul depends on
it!"
Ujvari
continued on. Outside the door, he spoke a few words to a museum guard and,
certain the old man would be led away,
continued out. All along he
had been cautious, some sixth sense warning him that danger approached. Now he
understood why.
His
countrymen believed. Even here they believed.
And they
knew all too well how to deal with the
vampir
.
The following afternoon, as Ujvari left for lunch, a guard called
him over to introduce him to a gentleman who had just asked for him.
"You're getting to be a popular one," the guard whispered to him
good-naturedly. "First the young woman, then that old man prying into
your affairs yesterday, and now a real gent. Talk to this one, why don't
you?"
The sight of Lord Gance made Ujvari
somewhat nervous. The cadaverous frame, the pale skin, the light gray eyes
whose pupils seemed so sharp as to be piercing made him think too
uncomfortably of the creatures whose lives the countess had exposed so unpleasantly.
But the name
was familiar, and Ujvari had met Gance at a museum function two years before.
Satisfied, Ujvari introduced
himself.
Gance offered to buy Ujvari a meal, but the man refused it and
took him into his workroom instead. The deserted room was an even better place
for the business Gance wanted to discuss. Since Ujvari had said nothing, and
appeared most anxious to leave, Gance went right to the point. "Some
weeks ago, a woman hired you to do a translation. I came to ask how you are
proceeding."
Ujvari
stared at Gance a moment then replied carefully, "if someone did hire me,
the matter would be between us."
"The woman is a relation of mine. The family is quite
concerned about her. You see, it seems that she has been under some delusion
about ... Damn, it is so very hard to admit this . . . about some sort of
demons. Her husband fears that she may need psychological help."
Ujvari eyed
him coldly, saying nothing.
"Her name is Winifred
Beason," Gance went on. "Her husband is Emory Beason of Exeter. The
pages you are translating are handwritten, somewhat old. What else do I have
to tell you to convince you that I know quite well what you are working so diligently
on?"
Ujvari did not look at him. Gance's
guesses were correct. Gance sat in a chair on the other side of Ujvari's desk.
With another man, Gance might have lounged, or not sat at all. Now with his
back rigid, his hands folded in front of him, he looked at Ujvari with the
proper blend of pride and supplication, waiting for the moment when his
adversary would weaken.
Ujvari's
implacable expression softened for a moment. When it did, Gance spoke the
discreet temptation. "The family is willing to
pay twenty pounds if I am
allowed to read a copy of the book that is obsessing her."
The book is fiction, Ujvari thought,
denying everything he had come to believe. It can be nothing more than fiction.
Nonetheless, the old man who'd spoken to him yesterday had seemed obsessed
with obtaining it. Now Gance offered him as much as he made in a year for what
would require nothing more than a few hours' work. If he looked too closely at
the motive behind the offer, he would never be able to accept it. "I'll
allow you only to read it," he said. "I don't have the work here, but
if you meet me later tonight, I'll bring it."
Or change
his mind. Nonetheless, Gance had no choice. They agreed to meet at a coffee
house near the museum. Afterward,
Gance passed the hours
touring the Egyptian exhibits, looking at the ornate jewelry on their velvet
pillows in the glass display cases.
He was wealthy enough to buy a copy of anything he saw. What he
could not purchase was the sense of history these inanimate objects held. And
the mummies, so carefully preserved so many centuries ago, had the same feel of
tragic antiquity.
A small girl and boy were touring the exhibits with their nanny,
staring at the linen-wrapped forms, making jokes about the bodies inside. They
were scarcely six years old, how could they understand death? Gance did. At
forty-one, he had begun to see his future clearly, and all the young women
with their innocence begging to be lost could not postpone his fate.
It was dark when Gance left the museum, and an annoying drizzle
dampened his hair and wool outercoat. By the time he reached his house in
Mayfair, his coat weighed heavily on his back, and the early spring damp seemed
to have chilled even his bones. He stood by the hearth in his wood-paneled
den, thinking of Mina, the mark she had made on his neck, and of eternity, and
of blood.
Gance arrived at the coffee house a
little before the appointed time, ordered the darkest roast and waited. He had
expected Ujvari to be late-wrestling with a conscience was always
time-consuming work-but as the first hour passed, he began to wonder if the
translator had changed his mind. Finally, he paid his bill and left.
"Mr.
Ujvari did not come to work today," a museum guard told Gance when he
arrived there the following morning. "He was
recently ill. I suppose he's
having another bad spell."
Gance wasn't so certain. He left and
returned later in the morning, working his way to the back of the exhibits.
When he was briefly alone, he disappeared into the storage area, and through
it to the room where Ujvari worked. Cold and silent, the room offered no sign
that anyone had been there that day. Gance stopped at the museum office, but no
amount of persuasion, including monetary, allowed him to obtain Ujvari's home
address.
The next morning, he considered
Graves's troubling information and, respecting Mina's apparent wishes in the
matter, mailed a note to her via Winnie Beason at the children's hospital,
detailing everything he had heard during what he termed his "chance encounter"
with William Graves. Duty done, he settled into his London house, intending to
visit the museum each day until Ujvari returned.
The days had lengthened enough that it was still light when Winnie
Beason and her ward, Margaret, left the hospital. They took a cab to the
center of town, where Margaret left to run an errand. On the way home, Winnie
stopped briefly at Mina's to discuss the fund drive and to deliver a letter
that had come to her at the hospital. As the cab dropped her off at home,
Winnie noticed her front door partly open. Mr. Beason was not expected for
another hour, but as his plans sometimes changed, she was hardly concerned.
It would be like him to
forget to close the door when he entered.
In the
center of the hallway floor, she saw lying open the satchel she used for her
hospital documents, the papers that had been in
it ripped and scattered.
A robbery! There had been enough of
them in the area in the last year. She had started to back away from the house
when the door to her husband's study swung open. A man stood there, with a
revolver pointed at her chest. "I've been waiting some time for you, Mrs.
Beason. Please come in and talk with me."
Winnie had never heard a voice so
softly cold, so naturally lethal. If she had not been certain he would shoot her
in the back, she would have bolted from the room. Instead, she used what
courage she had to stare at him boldly, memorizing his features as she walked
past him into her husband's study.
The intruder
had done more damage here. Drawers had been pulled out, their contents
scattered. The beautiful over-mantel
mirror she had inherited from her grandmother had been pulled from
its mountings, its beveled glass cracked so that, as she looked at it, she saw
her fearful expression multiplied in a dozen small reflections.
How dare she
feel so helpless! How dare this man ravage her home! "What in the hell do
you want?" she demanded, amazed at
the force in her voice.
"Come
into your parlor, Mrs. Beason. I need to speak to you."
She did as
he asked, sitting on the chair close to the fireplace, within comforting reach
of the andirons. They were a defense,
perhaps a futile one, but she
felt better knowing they were close.
"Now,
Mrs. Beason, tell me about the Romanian journal. First of all, where did you
get it?"
"There
is a used bookstore on Bow Street. I bought a box of cookbooks and discovered
it among them. I was curious and so I
arranged. . ."
"Where
did you get it? The truth this time."
"Very well." Her stomach
was churning, and she thought she would be sick. These feelings seemed so
terribly feminine, but she reminded herself that almost any man would feel
equally terrified when a stranger pointed a gun at his chest. She tried to
relax, crossing her legs and resting her hands on the low arms of the chair.
As she hoped, her gesture released some of the man's tension as well, and he
lowered the pistol. Winnie found it suddenly easier to breathe.
"I found it on a trip east," Winnie said. "I did
not purchase it; I discovered it in an old castle Mr. Beason and I were
exploring." "Better. And what town were you near?"
Winnie
considered everything Mina had told her. She had never been very accurate with
names, but she did recall one. "Bacau,"
she replied.
"Excellent!"
Somehow the intruder's smile seemed even more predatory than his scowl had
been. "Now, Mrs. Beason. Why did
you take the book?"
"The
castle had a strange history which made me curious. If you want to see it, I
can't help you. I gave the book to someone to
translate. It hasn't been
returned."
"The
translator does not have it."
Winnie
frowned, "If it's being sent, I haven't received it yet. If I had, I would
give it to you gladly just to get you to leave. It's of no
real value save
curiosity."
"Yet
you paid handsomely to have it translated." He waved at the room around
them. "You're not wealthy enough simply to
indulge curiosity."
Now that she was calmer, Winnie
hunted for clues to the man's identity. He was not more than forty, with dark
brown eyes and coal-black hair worn somewhat too long to be fashionable. His
clothes were tailored but of a slightly dated style. His hands were clean and
uncalloused. As she listened to his voice, she detected an accent in the way he
pronounced his vowels. Enough, she thought. Any more and her expression would
reveal her knowledge.
"You'd
be amazed to what lengths I would go to satisfy my curiosity," she
commented dryly, and continued staring at him. "I
suspect you would as
well," she added.
He shook his
head. "I know all I need to know. Now, tell me, did the creatures in that
castle touch you?"
"Creatures!
The place was quite deserted." She hoped she sounded sincere, for she had
begun to understand this man's
obsession.
He ignored
her comment, demanding in a voice loud enough to be heard through the entire
house, "Did you sleep there?"
"No!"
she replied, but he went on.
"Did you dream of death and blood? Were there marks on your
neck in the morning?" "Were there what?" Good Lord! Winnie
thought. The man was obsessed.
Without
warning, he pulled her to her feet and dug the gun's barrel into her side.
"Tell me what you saw. Confess!" he screamed.
Motion behind her attacker caught
her attention, but she fixed her eyes directly on his, keeping them steady. Her
mouth felt too dry for speech, and the room spun. For a moment, she thought
she would do something perfectly silly, then she decided that fainting was the
best move. Her eyelids fluttered and she slid slowly downward, supported only
by his weight.
Caught off
guard, the man let her go. As he straightened, Margaret brought a coal shovel
down on the back of his head. He fell
hard above Winnie. Fearful of
hitting her mistress, the girl waited too long to strike again. He twisted and
shot her as the shovel was