The Hammer Horror Omnibus (2 page)

The path which Bruno had taken cut through the lower edge of the woods. It was an old path and had been badly overgrown when Bruno first came to the millhouse, but now he kept it reasonably passable simply by tramping to and fro a great deal.

Sascha ran in under the trees. The moonlight was a broken flicker through the branches, making a ghostly latticework on the ground and the tree trunks.

There was a movement up the slope, away from the path.

Sascha called: “Bruno!”

Her voice was like the sound of a lonely night creature, the only one daring to raise a plaintive cry in the stillness of the forest.

The shape moved on through the shadows.

Sascha stumbled off the path and emerged into a clearing. Clouds slid across the moon, obscuring it for a few seconds and then spilling light once more into the gap in the woods. At the end of a long avenue of firs the castle rose sharp-edged against the night sky. Below it, light sparked and shimmered on the surface of a pool that had once been part of the moat. In the silvery glow the scene could have been a tranquil, soothing one but for the craggy harshness of the castle itself.

Bruno could surely not have come up this way. Sascha turned back towards the path.

A featureless shadow stood waiting for her.

Sascha tried to speak, but no words would come. She took a step forward, then glanced desperately to one side. If she ran to her right she could scramble down the slope and meet up with the path farther down the hill.

She began to make a wide, trembling circuit of the unmoving shape.

Then it moved. It came out of the dark shelter of the trees. The moonlight that had been so beautiful was now cruel. It shone with an unearthly radiance on the face of the creature.

Sascha screamed. She knew that she was awake and that this was real, but she tried to claw her way up and out of the nightmare. The creature advanced. Sascha had no strength, no way of escaping. She felt the searing stab of pain in her forehead and put her hands up, but they, too, had lost their strength and fell away again.

She stared full into that mask of terror. The truth was more appalling than any of the tales they muttered in her father’s inn. She knew what the truth was, and knew that it was too late. She screamed again and again because it was too late.

3

T
he corpse was brought down the hillside by pony and trap to the Medical Institution. The staff had heard that it was on its way and were going about their duties in a hushed, wary fashion as though anxious to catch any faint murmur of the details. It was rumored that it was “another one of those”—and beyond that nobody cared to speculate.

Carla Hoffmann was filled with dread. When she came here in 1903 as a probationary nurse she had been shocked by the warped nature of many of the local people and by its unsavory manifestations which so often had to be treated in the clinic. But if had been her job to cope with such problems, and she had learnt that job thoroughly. She had learnt not to be nauseated and not to despise anyone. Even after her own illness, a couple of years after she came here, she had recuperated swiftly and Dr. Namaroff had insisted on keeping her on. Physical disgust was something that could be overcome. A physical collapse could be overcome. Fear was not so easy to conquer.

Fear was irrational. Fear was something that came down from the hills and breathed coldly on warm flesh. Fear had no business to exist in a sane, efficient world. Yet it had been settling down into the valley in recent times like a mist that would not disperse. It was not only the superstitious villagers who felt it: it permeated the wards and corridors of the sanatorium. No antiseptic could keep it out, no drugs deaden it.

Carla stood in the entrance hall and waited for the shrouded burden to be lifted from the trap on the drive. The pony whinnied and was difficult to control.

“Ah, Miss Hoffmann!”

She had been so engrossed in the arrival of the corpse that Inspector Kanof’s voice came as a complete surprise. She started and turned towards him, trying to keep the distaste out of her eyes. Kanof was a grey little man, always sneering at the peasants of Vandorf yet greasily trying to keep in with them when it suited him to do so. She hated the way he looked her up and down: if it were not known to everyone that Dr. Namaroff kept her jealously under his own wing, there would have been trouble from Kanof long before this.

“Inspector Kanof.” She forced a respectful cordiality into her tone. “You have come to see the Doctor, of course.”

“Of course.” The Inspector glanced at the two attendants lifting the body on to a trolley. “Which of us do you think he will wish to see first? I think perhaps his other visitor is in no hurry now, hm?” He snickered and gave her an evil, self-satisfied little grin.

Carla walked briskly away down the corridor. Her own reflection came to meet her from the glass panel of a door at the end—the reflection of a trim, dark-haired girl with brown eyes and a lithe walk. This was how she had always wanted to see herself: a coolly competent young nurse moving skilfully about her business in the setting of a well-appointed modern hospital. But the white walls threatened her with indefinable shadows, and when she entered the laboratory she felt her usual twinge of instinctive distaste. Dr. Namaroff’s presence had been having this effect on her for many months now. It had been bad to start with, and now it was getting worse. But he had saved her from black despair after her illness and had kept her on here. She owed him a debt of gratitude.

And he intended to exact every penny of it. As he turned to greet her, delicately lifting his scalpel from the fragment of brain tissue in the dish before him, he smiled—the patient smile of a man who intends to get his own way in the end.

“The body’s available for you to see, Doctor,” said Carla stiffly. “And Inspector Kanof’s waiting.”

“Better show him in first.”

Carla held the laboratory door open. Kanof came down the corridor with a spry, bumptious stride. Carla wanted to go away and leave them to their discussion; but she could not. Unobtrusively she began to tidy the bench where Namaroff had been working.

Namaroff said: “Well?”

“The girl is the daughter of Janus Cass, landlord of the Saracen Inn,” said Kanof. He drummed a thoughtful little tattoo on the bench with two fingers. “This may not be the same as the others.”

“You mean you hope it isn’t.”

“Naturally. Another unsolved murder would hardly be good for my prestige in Vandorf.”

“Ah. So you will make sure that this one is solved.”

“Yes,” said Kanof forcefully. “You may rely on that.”

Namaroff’s lips curled into a mocking grimace that stayed frozen on his mouth while his pallid grey eyes stared into and through Kanof. The bleak scrutiny made the policeman shuffle uneasily. Finally Namaroff allowed himself a whimsical nod.

“You think you know who did it?”

“A young man. Staying at the old millhouse and carrying on with the girl. Lovers’ quarrel—that’s the way I see it.”

“Very plausible.”

“Lovers do quarrel.”

“Of course they do, my dear fellow. Does the young man confirm this theory of yours?”

“He’s still missing.”

Namaroff’s grave expression retained a hint of the earlier mockery. “Unfortunate. Most unfortunate. But you know who he is?”

“His name is Bruno Heitz. An artist—the son of some professor at Berlin University.”

The mockery faded. Namaroff whistled softly. “Professor Jules Heitz,” he said. “I know him. We were students together. You’ll be getting in touch with him?”

“Immediately, Doctor.”

Namaroff pondered, then said: “I suggest not immediately. Wait until you find the young man.”

“You may be right.”

Namaroff suddenly became aware that Carla was still in the laboratory. He gazed at her with piercing intensity, then softened into a smile which she found even more repulsive than his anger, and said:

“Carla, my dear, perhaps you’ll wheel the corpse in. It’s time I examined it.”

Carla went halfway along the corridor and waved to the attendant, who began to push the trolley towards her. The attendant was Ratoff, a swarthy little man who belonged to this part of the country, but who had freed himself from his background and become a devoted servant of the Institution. He had a streak of callousness that stood him in good stead in this job. His respect for Dr. Namaroff bordered on adoration.

They steered the trolley into the laboratory. As it turned, it jarred slightly against the door jamb. A hand that protruded from beneath the sheet wavered for a second, and the middle finger dropped off.

There was a scream that rang through the building.

Carla, watching the finger drop to the floor and lie there, unnaturally grey and hard, thought at first that it was her own voice crying out, resounding in her head. But Ratoff had turned and was racing back along the corridor. Namaroff brushed past Carla and followed.

The two men flung themselves through the doors at the end of the corridor. The doors swung to and fro as though in a high wind. The scream came again, and again, rising and falling.

Carla reached the hall as Namaroff started up the main staircase.

Above them a crazed woman was struggling to free herself from two attendants. Ratoff had just joined them, but was in danger of being kicked or elbowed down the stairs again.

It was Martha. Oh, God, poor Martha, thought Carla. This time he won’t be lenient. This time it won’t be curative treatment for her—it’ll be punishment.

The woman’s hair hung down over her face. Wildly she tossed her head to free her eyes so that she could see to gouge and kick and spit. Her scream sank to a breathless sob as she doggedly wrestled with her captors. It was an imploring sob, a plea for understanding that was beyond anyone in the universe.

Her struggles weakened. There were three strong, practised men against her now. At last they subdued her and she sank exhausted against the stair rail.

Sister Grethe came out on the landing. She had two gashes down her left cheek, bleeding furiously, as though Martha’s nails had struck savagely with the intention of marking her for life. The fury of the attack must have been overwhelming, and Sister Grethe had been glad to leave the final battle to the men.

She cautiously descended a few steps.

Namaroff was white with rage. “How did this happen?”

“She pounced on me, Doctor. As soon as I got to the door of her cell—her room, that is.”

“This is the second time. Put her in a straitjacket . . . and keep her in it.”

Martha whimpered and began to sag, her knees giving way until she was a crumpled heap on the stairs. Ratoff stood above her, taking no chances.

Carla felt a sickness that turned her stomach over. She knew all too well what it felt like to be lost. She remembered the bewilderment, the groping uncertainty, the yearning to cry out and beat one’s fists against something or somebody. Namaroff had helped her through the worst phase and she had come back to the clean, clear world; but supposing she hadn’t been able to respond—supposing she had collapsed into the fog as Martha had done? Would Namaroff have been so patient then, or would he have condemned her to the imprisonment he was now prescribing for Martha? If Namaroff hadn’t fallen in love with her he might not have persevered.

She turned to him, wanting to plead with him as he came down the stairs, but Sister Grethe spoke first. As Martha was half led, half carried past her, she shrank back and said:

“It was the full moon again. The same as last time.”

“Sister!” Namaroff’s voice cracked like a whip. “That’s quite enough of that. Go and get those cuts of yours attended to.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Namaroff turned away. He indicated that Carla should accompany him, and they went through the doorway where Kanof had been viewing the proceedings with sadistic interest.

The corpse lay in the stillness of death, shrouded and remote from all the agonies and shoutings of life. Carla mutely indicated the finger on the floor. Namaroff made a quick, hissing intake of breath and then twitched the sheet from the body.

Kanof approached. “You’ll perform an autopsy, of course, Doctor?”

Namaroff ran his fingers over the solid, unyielding head of what had once been an eager, vital young woman.

“On a body that’s turned to stone?” he said.

4

T
he journey from Berlin had been a long one. The frontier of Bohemia was not impossibly far, but there was no direct route to Vandorf or indeed to any major town in the vicinity. These people had lived in seclusion with their own customs and their own gruff dialect too long to want to make things easy for visitors.

The wretchedness that had clung to Professor Jules Heitz from the moment the news reached him now became worse. He could see why his younger son had been stirred by this sinister countryside and why his youthful romanticism should have brought him back here time and time again. In his creative imagination there might well be a unique splendor to be captured from these surroundings. But this was no consolation to Professor Heitz. Here there could never be any loveliness. For him this place meant only death: the death of a girl he had never met, and the death of his son Bruno.

It was made very plain to him as soon as he reached Vandorf that he was not welcome. When he had announced his intention of coming to the inquest he was warned that he should not attempt to put up at the local inn, as the dead girl’s father was capable of violence. After he had used what influence he had with a local dignitary whose son was studying with him—a remote contact, and one which took some pains to establish—he was found accommodation in a town five miles away, over the ridge and out of sight of Castle Borski. He would have to be driven in for the inquest. And perhaps that was best. Walking down Vandorf’s shabby, dispiriting main street, he saw the stunted men of the district nudging each other and pointing him out, and the women twitching back curtains to glare at him. Whatever charm Bruno might have found here, Bruno’s father was not one to be charmed by old ways and inbred backwardness.