The Day the World Ended Read online

  “A couple of ticks behind, to be exact,” I murmured.

  J had previously grappled with the problem of what it was about the Frenchman’s mode of speech which intrigued me. At this moment I grasped it. He used the latest slang with facility—but gave the terms a new quality. In other words, reported, much of his conversation would have read like that of an Englishman; heard, it wTas peculiarly different.

  He swept aside my natural suggestion with dramatic scorn.

  “No, no!” he cried. “To-night I am host!”

  Host he was—and a number-one host he proved himself to be. He had ordered dinner at the Kurhaus —not, he explained, because he regarded the cuisine there as superior to that of the Regal, but “because it is always a change.”

  I perceived, when we had taken our places at a reserved window table where we could both see and hear the excellent orchestra, that M. Paul was a gourmet of discrimination. He had ordered a dinner —upon which he invited my amateur comments— that displayed Teutonic cookery to its greatest advantage. This evidenced genius. So many people order a French meal in a German restaurant.

  Any doubts I had had respecting my later appointment at the Kurhaus were speedily removed by M. Paul.

  “I hope it does not mean loneliness for you,” he said. “But at half-past nine I must run away.”

  It suited me very well and I said so.

  “Good,” said M. Paul. “Then we can enjoy our dinner.”

  He talked of many things, and entertainingly, but ere long, as I had anticipated, touched upon Mme. Yburg, to whom he referred as “your charming little friend.”

  I took him up on that, knowing the expression, translated into the speaker’s tongue, to possess a subtly different meaning.

  “Mme. Yburg is certainly charming,” I agreed; “and we are friends. But only friends. We met a week ago.”

  His keen, handsome, actor’s face registered a momentary surprise which I could have sworn was real. But believing, as I did, that M. Paul and Mme.

  Yburg were allies in a thus far incomprehensible conspiracy, I challenged my own judgment. In the woman’s society, that afternoon, I had certainly forgotten, or had dismissed, those mediaeval ideas which I had built up around her. Now, I asked myself if I was in the company of a dupe or of an accomplice.

  Mme. Yburg was fascinating; I had experienced the thrall of her peculiar personality. Was this brilliant Frenchman, with his feverishly bright eyes and pale skin, a discarded fly? Had the spider bled him white and cast him away? And was the poor infatuated victim jealously searching the horizon for who should be his successor ? Or . . . ?

  “You surprise me, Mr. Woodville,” he said—and his sincerity one would have set beyond dispute. “I quite thought you were old friends.”

  He looked at me in a new way, and began to talk about Paris.

  I was nonplussed, and I fenced so badly in my subsequent attempts to draw the conversation into desired channels that I began to wonder if all my theories about M. Paul were wrong! A welcome turn was given to a very aimless conversation by my companion.

  Gazing rapturously over my left shoulder:

  “Ah, name of a good little man,” he murmured— “how exquisite! No! it cannot be that she is German.” His racial prejudice made me laugh, but:

  “Laugh, my friend, if you wish,” he said. “But the goddess Diana is reborn a mortal. See, here is our coffee. You may move your chair. Please select a cigar”—the head waiter had brought a case—“and share with me the joy of looking at a beautiful girl.”

  I declined the cigar—I never smoke them—but lighted a cigarette and turned as M. Paul suggested. The object of his interest was unmistakable. She sat at a table not far removed, in the company of a plain, elderly lady than whom a more formidable duenna could not well be imagined.

  Perhaps it was “written,” as the Moslems have it; but, at the moment of my turning, the girl was looking in our direction. I found myself meeting a grave regard from the most liquid, frank, yet searching blue eyes I had ever seen.

  Their glance held me. I stared too long for courtesy. “Diana reborn” was not so extravagant as I had supposed. The subject of M. Paul’s poetry was deliciously tanned as one would imagine that divinity to have been. Her perfect arms and shoulders seemed to have absorbed the glow of sunlight. She was joyously, naively youthful, and her hair was a golden bronze such as surely must have crowned the Greek goddess.

  No doubt my honest admiration was all too apparent. The girl flushed and glanced aside. I found myself focussed by a pair of black-rimmed spectacles worn by the duenna, which resembled dragon’s eyes.

  Embarrassed by my own bad form, I turned to M. Paul. But he was dreamily gazing over my left shoulder. The orchestra outside in the gardens began to play, and:

  “Was I not right?” he murmured. “They are playing the Fire Music. See! it calls to her—the grandeur of Germany’s only genius! She has a beautiful soul in a beautiful body!”

  CHAPTER VI - MR. JOHN LONERGAN

  1

  The orchestra in the gardens had ceased. Only distant strains from a band inside the Kurhaus and a mingling hum of conversation played like a sustained motif over rhythmic crunching of many leisurely feet when Mr. Lonergan joined me at a sheltered table. A waiter hovered in the background, and:

  “Beer,” said Mr. Lonergan. “It’s surely a treat to be able to order beer and to get beer when you order it. Do you keep your private papers under lock and key in your apartment at the Regal ? ”

  I stared at the speaker in the semi-darkness. To my shame, be it confessed, I had been somewhat distracted up to the time that he had so abruptly fired this question at me. I had been listening in memory to a laughing voice with a queer, deep note in it, and watching a tall, slender figure moving through the throng with easy, graceful, yet boyish steps. The waiter had been unable to tell me who she was—and I had not dared to follow, being already suspect by the guardian dragon. But of whom did she remind me—and why?

  But now, I came sharply to my senses, and:

  “I do,’ said I. “Why do you ask?”

  “ Because somebody was exploring in there a while back.”

  “What! in my room?”

  “Surely.”

  He rolled a very abbreviated cigar into a more comfortable position and paid for the beer which was now set before us. As the waiter moved away:

  “It must have been the manservant,” I said quickly. “He has the key.”

  “I'm talking sense,” Lonergan rejoined ill-humouredly. “The kite / mean had no key. He arrived and he quitted per balcony window.”

  “You saw this! And you let him escape!” “Suffering Moses!” Lonergan groaned. “How ever did you pull off the Brazil contract without brains!” He drank deep whilst I watched him in growing anger. After all, the man was no more than a hotel acquaintance; and I should have resented such rudeness even from an old friend. As he set down his glass: “Possibly, Mr. Lonergan,” I said smoothly, “you confuse bad manners with wit. I assure you that I find nothing funny in being called a fool by a comparative stranger.”

  “Is that right?” he replied gloomily, and banged the table to attract the waiter’s attention. “Well, I'm not laughing. Here am I playing a lone hand in a murderous game, and I find out that one of the suspects is on my side of the border. He’s a man that’s done good work, and I look for intelligent cooperation-”

  The waiter attended.

  “Beer,” said Lonergan. “What do I find?” He shook his head gloomily. “Stupidity. But maybe I'm too hard on you. It’s a game that needs experience, Listen! You’re fussed. Forget it. If you and I are to get out of this pleasant spot alive, we have to b< clever!”

  As he spoke, somehow my anger changed to another emotion—in which wrath was present, certainly, but from which apprehension was not missing. Lonergan bent forward across the table, so that his face was lost in shadow.

  “We’re covered at this very minute!” he said tensely. “You and
I are up against the toughest proposition that either of us ever faced. Don’t look around. I have a plan. We’ll go back to the hotel.”

  I reserved further comment, and some ten minutes later together we walked down the tree-lined arcade with its expensive little shops and on along Lichtenthaler Allee.

  2

  When in a comparative solitude my surly companion broke long silence:

  “You put one wise move across,” he conceded grudgingly. “You figured out that the best spot to study Felsenweir was the Devil’s Elbow—and you covered your tracks from everybody but me. That’s exploring, I guess. I’m not so good on maps.”

  My humour was nearly restored, and:

  “For a man of your experience,” I said, “wasn’t it rather foolish to confuse me with the other party? My credentials are easily checked.”

  “Maybe they are,” he returned. “But bigger men than you are in the enemy’s camp.”

  His aggressive ill-humour was unique.

  “If, as you say, we are covered,” I remarked, “isn’t it unwise of us to be seen together?”

  “No, sir,” he replied. “I’ve baited a trap, and you’re part of the bait. We’ll go straight to your apartment, and when I’ve done talking maybe you’ll grasp the size of the proposition.”

  But when, at the far end of the alcove, a spot distant from my shuttered windows, John Lonergan had talked solidly for half an hour, I was merely more bewildered than before.

  “May I suggest beer?” said I.

  “You can keep right on suggesting beer,” he replied, “while I stay in Europe. And you’ll never hear me say No.”

  His place in the drama was clear enough. He had been detailed by the United States authorities to follow Mme. Yburg! (I now learned that she had recently returned from America.) Of his methods of “following” I had had personal experience; and he had adopted a similar system in the case of the mysterious German lady.

  She had left the port of New York in a slow boat. Lonergan had “followed” in the Mauretania—sailing twenty-four hours later—and had been waiting at Cherbourg for her arrival!

  During the overland journey he had succeeded in making her acquaintance.

  “Get it clear,” said he, in his unmusical voice, “that we’d never have let her go if we’d had all the facts on the day she sailed. . .

  The facts to which he referred were astounding. But in what way they were related to those other facts—known to me—and to the rumoured outbreak of vampirism in the Black Forest, was a complete mystery.

  Briefly, it appeared that some two months earlier there had been a disastrous disturbance of radio in the American Continent. It had affected seven states; namely: New York, Massachusetts,’Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Furthermore, it had operated in the North Atlantic over an area roughly contained within lat. 40-45, long. 65-70.

  The newspapers had been “gagged,” I was given to understand. But during a period of three weeks or more the phenomenon had occurred at irregular intervals. It had consisted of a complete silencing of all radio communications.

  Experts employed upon the job had finally traced the mysterious influence, narrowing down their inquiries to a point where it seemed certain that a wave of unknown character, which “dumbed” or diverted all others, was being sent out from the neighbourhood of Hartford. A process of combing followed; and the result was noteworthy.

  Interference had ceased for a week or more. But on private, enclosed property belonging to an absent landlord, the searchers came upon a dismantled plant which taxed the experience of many specialists. In some respects it suggested that here had been a secret transmitting station. In other respects it was unlike—or had been unlike—any such station known to the investigators.

  “Some of the stuff brought away is still under examination,” said Lonergan. “Latest reports don’t help. But how I came in was this: the kite the lay-out belonged to—his name don’t matter—had beat it to some destination unspecified. A local hotel register showed that a certain Mme. Yburg had been staying in that locality all over the time the funny business was going on. Inquiry proved that they had been acquainted.

  “One agent was detailed to trace the missing man and his associates. I was given the job of covering the woman. She’d quitted. But I cut in on her at Cherbourg.”

  “But have none of the American inquiries led to anything? She must have been in touch with others there as well as with the missing proprietor of the Hartford property.”

  “She was,” Lonergan replied. “And they’ve been closely covered. It’s a mighty big thing of some sort. There are people high up socially in it. She butted into another bunch of ’em in Paris. When she alighted here I thought you were one of the circus.”

  “And I thought you were! But who is Mme Yburg? Have you any data bearing on her history?’ “No, sir.” He regarded me under drooping lids. “Have you?"

  “Nothing—beyond a few hints she has dropped about herself.”

  “I should quote that stock pretty low. And now— I’ve put my cards on the table. Where do you come in?”

  3

  Let me say at once that doubts of Lonergan’s bona fides still remained. There is Scots in my make-up somewhere, and I am capable of a sort of belated cautiousness. But, I argued, in any event I had nothing to gain by hiding what little I knew.

  Without undue waste of words, therefore, I told him. The rumours current in London had not reached New York apparently. Lonergan listened with a Sioux-like immobility; but I could see that he was keenly interested all the same.

  When I spoke of the great bat alighting in the cemetery, he flicked his eyes, but otherwise gave no sign of incredulity. My later meeting with Mme. Yburg he seemed to regard as important, for:

  “How was she dressed?” he snapped suddenly. The inquiry, breaking his long silence, came with something of the effect of a pistol shot. I told him—for I remembered every detail very clearly. My conversation with Mme Yburg I also reported, and:

  “I could have sworn you had a date with her that time/’ he said. “I followed you for half a mile and then gave it up!”

  “Good Lord! I thought someone was following me! ” “That so?” said Lonergan gloomily. “Bad work. Have you kept the caporal you picked up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mme. Yburg smokes-”

  “Egyptians. Always.”

  “Ah! Did you see anything of Paul?”

  “He passed me on my way up! He was in a car.” “Ah! I lost him for two hours. But I got the pair of ’em along to a party and listened in. They gave nothing away.” He was silent for a while, then: “Felsenweir is some kind of headquarters. I made my mind up on that point a week ago.”

  “But a headquarters of what?" I asked helplessly. “Of vampires?”

  He shot one of his keen glances along the room in the direction of the shuttered window.

  “ It wouldn’t be surprising—with men in armour on the walls!”

  I could not fail to note a subtle change in the speaker’s voice—a note of humility wholly unfamiliar. And now he fixed his eyes upon me, lids fully raised, with an expression almost of pleading.

  “Is that your story, complete?” he asked. “Because if it is, you’re lucky!”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I mean, sir, that even a giant bat maybe can be accounted for; men in armour the same. But if you had heard a Voice in the night, calling you by name, when not a living soul was near-”

  “Stop!” I jumped up. “I have heard it!”

  “What!”

  Lonergan was on his feet, facing me.

  “I have been given two days!” I cried excitedly. The knowledge that I was not alone in my nightly terrors, that another had experienced what I had experienced, that, in short, I was sane, brought a mental relief and a flood of gratitude which I found no word to express.

  “Suffering Moses!” Lonergan dropped back in his chair, still staring at me. “My
father, sir, was a pious man and a minister. If he never approved of anything I did before, I'll say he’ll approve of what I do now.”

  He clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and: “Thank God!” he whispered fervently.

  4

  That strange, short prayer completed, John Lonergan became himself again.

  “Never mind the details,” he said. “The plain fact’s enough, and it’s Balm of Gilead. There’s work for both of us. Just step right across to the table and I’ll show you something.”

  We moved out of the alcove and went to the big writing table. From a pocket of his dinner jacket, Lonergan drew out a fat wallet. And from the wallet he selected three photographic prints which he laid side by side on the blotting pad.

  “I wasn’t working from so good a look-out as you,” he said. “There’s a tree branch in the way. But if these aren’t pictures of a man in armour, tell me what they are. I travel a telescopic camera—and it can’t lie!”

  With interest and ever-growing amazement I examined the prints. They represented the figure of just such a grotesque man at arms as I had seen on the walls of Felsenweir. The legs of the figure were concealed in each case. But the head and trunk showed in sharp detail. The quality of the armour intrigued me. It was unlike that of any period which I knew. And the odd, square helm worn by this weird patrol was equally unusual. One gleaming arm, upraised, held a heavy mace.

  But, even whilst I studied these extraordinary pictures, I was listening. I thought I had detected a faint sound on the balcony.

  I heard some few distant footsteps, voices, and the ripple of the Oos; but nothing else.

  “Well?”

  “I have never seen armour like it.”

  “Did you ever see any kind of armour walking?”

  “Only at a pageant, perhaps, with an actor inside it.”

  “And who do you suppose was inside that?”

  I looked up at him, over my shoulder.