The Day the World Ended Page 9

  We walked along beside the little laughing stream, and:

  “It is only reasonable that you should know,” I said, “that my name is Brian Woodville.”

  My companion was silent for a moment, then: “Thank you for telling me,” she replied, “but as it’s all make-believe tonight, I almost wish you hadn’t told me.”

  “What?”

  “Well, in a sort of way, I’m not supposed to be here.”

  ''Cinderella?”

  “Something like that! But if I can just call you Brian, you can call me Marusa.”

  “Marusa? Surely that’s Russian?”

  “I suppose it is. Except that in my case I think it’s Polish.”

  “But you speak perfect English.”

  “I was educated in England.”

  “And your home is here?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “At least temporarily.”

  The band had been playing for a long time, but I was loath to return, until:

  “I’m afraid I must go back,” Marusa said. “There’ll be a perfect hue and cry if I’m missing.”

  “By whom?”

  She paused perceptibly before replying.

  “The friend I came with. Please let’s go back.” We returned slowly.

  “You don’t mean you’re going home yet, surely?” “I’m afraid I may be.”

  “But . . ."

  “I don’t want to. I should love to stay.”

  “Then if you’re dragged away, at least tell me when I can see you again.”

  “I can’t possibly tell you that—but now that I know your name . .

  “Yes . . .?”

  She stopped in sight of the hotel steps and glanced at me quickly, then away again.

  “Do you really want to see me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Well . . . you’re staying here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps we can meet again some time.”

  She walked on and passed up the steps, I following. At the glazed door she halted, extending one round, brown arm to check me.

  “Please hide!” she urged. “There’s someone looking for me!”

  The sincerity of her words was unmistakable. “Good-night,” I said. “Promise to see me again.” Marusa turned and met my fixed glance for a moment. She nodded slightly. Then she went in and I lost sight of her.

  A pair of wandering dancers followed a moment later, however, and gave me the cover which I needed. I entered the lobby behind them.

  Marusa was standing in animated conversation with another Arab lady, almost identically dressed!

  5

  I had seen enough to convince me that my fascinating friend was being reprimanded by her companion and to guess that my night of pleasure was doomed to be cut short. I had seen something else. The slender, graceful figure of the second Arab definitely was not that of the dragon who had accompanied Marusa at the Kurhaus.

  Who was this guarded beauty and why was she so mysteriously reticent ?

  It was sufficient evidence of my infatuation that with the unknown peril of midnight hanging over my head I determined to find out.

  I thought I had entered unobserved, and crossing to a distant table I took up a strategic position behind a raised newspaper. As I had suspected, the two women went out. I rushed to a window.

  The hall porter was going for a car. I stood up and moved toward the door. A fresh-faced, bespectacled clergyman who, regardless of festivities in the neighbouring ballroom, had been reading the Berliner Tageblatt at a near-by table, stood up a moment later and walked in the same direction. He carried a soft, black hat; and as I watched a big car draw up at the steps and saw the hall porter assisting the Arab ladies to enter it, the priest collided with me.

  His mild eyes considered my irritation through owlish spectacles. I think I had so far forgotten myself as to curse under my breath.

  “Pray excuse me, sir,” came a soft clerical voice. “The error was mine. You see, I am very shortsighted.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I am entirely to blame.”

  I pushed the door open and hurried down the steps. The car was just moving off.

  “Porter!” I cried, when:

  “One moment,” said the clergyman. He was at my elbow again. “I think I know your purpose. Do I divine that you are interested in the ladies who have just driven away?”

  I turned and stared at him angrily.

  “Even so, what business is it of yours?”

  “None, my dear sir,” he admitted. “It is not my place to rebuke. Indeed I rejoice in the works of the Almighty, but I may be able to save you a fruitless journey.”

  The hall porter had now joined us, and:

  “Yes, sir,” he said, “do you want a taxi?”

  “I don’t think we do,” the mysterious clergyman replied. “We have changed our plans.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Exhibiting a surprising power of grip, my priestly acquaintance urged me down the steps and we moved right, in the direction of the garden.

  “My friend,” he continued benevolently, as the hall porter stood staring after us, “I am happy to have been of service to you in this small matter.”

  I watched the car driving over the bridge, and disappearing into the shadowy distances of Lichtenthaler Allee.

  “The nature of your services is not apparent,” I said angrily.

  But now, passing around the end of the building:

  “Listen!” growled the priest.

  He spoke in another voice! He released his grip of my arm and I turned, staring at him through shadows.

  “You’ve got me now,” he went on. “And I’m going to say we have to jump to it. I’m known as Rev. Josiah Higgins of Sydney, Australia. But I’m not sure the change is going to help along a whole lot. It’s three hours to midnight!”

  I inhaled deeply, then:

  “Lonergan!” I said.

  “Surely. But don’t collect too big a crowd by loud applause. You’ve got a crush on the copper-haired maiden. That’s in order—no queries. But what I figure you don’t know is the identity of her girt friend.”

  “The other woman?”

  “She’s the Jane I mean ... Mme. Yburg!”

  CHAPTER XI - THE GATES OF HELL

  1

  “I know a cut-in,” said Lonergan, “to where I figure they aim for. If we move fast and have luck we maybe can beat ’em to it.”

  I followed his lead, and a devil of a cut-in it proved to be. The discovery that Marusa was an associate of Mme. Yburg had positively dazed me. Marusa, a member of a criminal organization!

  Marusa!

  Even the miracle of Lonergan’s disguise was forgotten.

  On we went at a killing pace, using byways which seemed to be familiar to my guide. I lost sense of direction but my thoughts were so chaotic that I did not even trouble to ask him where we were going, until:

  “Not a sound, now,” he warned. “From here on we’re trespassing.”

  Turning from a narrow climbing street into a street yet narrower, between houses the first-floor windows of which overlooked the roof of a neighbour, we scrambled up a crazily steep and muddy path, a gully dark as a mine.

  I remember wondering vaguely what my dress trousers would look like at the end of the expedition. Presently we climbed out into a neglected kitchen garden.

  “Keep me in sight,” said Lonergan, “but don’t talk.”

  We crossed an open space, so shadowed by tall trees that no moonlight penetrated to it. I heard the grating of a rusty bolt and followed my guide out upon a narrow lane climbing yet upward into wooded darkness.

  For some reason it was more dry than the gully between the houses and the going was better. Presently we left it to go stumbling through a little orchard, with some broken barbed wire to be negotiated and a coppice of pines, the fallen cones soft underfoot. Here the slope was steep as a roof.

  We were both breathing heavily as we plunged ankle-
deep through soft, damp cones. At the speed we had kept up, it had been a terrific climb. But now we were out on a winding road. Below us lay trees; the town lower yet. Above us were more trees through which I caught a glimpse of a white wall. Lonergan began to run, and although I had little heart for the task, I followed.

  He turned aside and plunged up the bank in the direction of the wall. It was a hard scramble and once he stumbled to his knees. He recovered and went on. As we reached the wall—only some four feet high—I inhaled sharply and stared at my companion.

  We had come to the cemetery!

  “Lonergan,” I said, “what’s the meaning of this? They cannot possibly be here!”

  He rested his hand on my arm.

  “Listen!”

  We both listened intently. But I could detect no sound.

  There was a drop of some eight feet on the other side, the level being much below that of the bank upon which we stood. Lonergan climbed over and dropped. I followed and found myself in the oldest part of the burial ground.

  We were not twenty yards from the Felsenweir mausoleum. I could see it outlined in moonlight: a sombre, mysterious building.

  Lonergan crept forward, choosing shadowy places between the tombs. Inspired by those ghostly surroundings, terrible ideas flocked to my mind. In the Middle Ages, many vampires were reputed to be young and lovely; deathless youth in a living death . . .

  I was checked by a grip on my arm that made me wince.

  But I, too, had heard the sound.

  Someone was moving softly along on the farthest side of the Felsenweir vault!

  We crouched down by a moss-grown monument.

  Blackly one corner of the building lay outlined upon the ancient pathway. I could hear Lonergan breathing. But that faint sound of ghostly movement had ceased.

  What I expected to see I cannot attempt to describe. What I did see was an incredibly elongated shadow slowly creeping forward—slowly creeping forward. . . .

  A headless figure!

  It is difficult to explain my feelings at this moment. Tense though my curiosity was, redoubled by the shock of tonight’s discovery, I wanted desperately to close my eyes . . . not to see the Thing which, slowly creeping forward, silently, must soon appear upon the path.

  The shadow lengthened, and lengthened—and now, my senses recoiling from that which must come, a dark form detached itself from the angle of the tomb.

  Lonergan’s grip upon my arm tightened.

  The shape—draped in black from head to feet— glided into moonlight. . . .

  A monk!

  My heart was beating wildly. This was so true to pattern, so traditional, yet so ghastly. The shape moved forward, and I saw that what I had mistaken for a black garment was actually purple.

  Crouching in an unnatural position, at this moment my foot slipped. I stumbled. Instantly the figure turned.

  Under the hood of what I now saw to be a sort of purple domino, keen eyes stared at me.

  We were discovered!

  Lonergan’s grip relaxed. His hand shot to his hip and he sprang upright. So did I.

  “Great heavens!” The hooded man spoke, in a low voice. “It is you!”

  Gaston Max!

  Lonergan’s hand dropped to his side. He uttered a sound resembling a subdued whistle.

  “Suffering Moses!” he said. “This proposition’s got me shot to ribbons!”

  Max silently joined us, and:

  “You are following the two women?”

  He spoke urgently, in an undertone. He was agitated.

  “Sure.”

  “They are here! Move farther back—still farther. . . . I arrived one minute too late. They disappeared by the Felsenweir vault. They have not come out.”

  2

  In dense darkness under the high wall, we crouched. We were silent. Twenty yards removed, palled in shadow, vaguely resembling the Kaaba at Mecca, the vault of the Felsenweirs jutted up against a starry sky.

  I reflected that no one seemed to know where Mme. Yburg lived. I could not forget that I had met her coming from this place under circumstances which she had never satisfactorily explained. Marusa’s residence was equally a mystery. Could it be possible . . .

  My ideas led me into a maze of ghoulish horrors.

  Moments passed, lengthening into age-long minutes. A sense of pending horror grew and grew until it became all but insupportable. My mind persistently dwelled upon the shrouded figure of that Countess Adelheid whose body had been dragged from its resting place to . . .

  A dim, hollow booming sound disturbed my ghastly train of thought.

  I had heard it before . . . and, suddenly, I remembered when! I became conscious of a sort of vibration —a drumming in my ears—a sense of pressure.

  The guardian cypresses beyond the mausoleum, ebony silhouettes, quivered—or so I thought—like objects seen through a heat haze.

  Lonergan was very still.

  “Mon Dieu!”

  Gaston Max’s whisper was barely audible.

  Above the roof of the vault floated a gigantic bat!

  Great wings outspanned and long body held almost horizontal, without perceptible movements of flight the thing swept swiftly upward into starry darkness.

  I clutched Lonergan’s arm convulsively.

  Higher the horror mounted, fast, ever faster, effortlessly—up and up and up—until it looked no larger than a nighthawk far above our heads.

  Then . . . from out of the blue came remote buzzing, like an amplified drone of a wasp. I saw that the bat was headed westward . . . toward Castle Felsenweir! . . .

  A second purplish winged monster arose from the tomb—a creature identical in every respect! Upward it went—upward . . . soundlessly. At what I judged to be the same elevation as the other came that high, strange drone.

  The second bat headed westward in the track of the first. . . .

  That painful throbbing in my ears ceased. I could see the tops of the cypresses motionless and no longer as through a moving haze. Deep down, from under our feet it seemed, came the dim rumbling. It died away. Silence claimed the old cemetery.

  I cannot recall that I have ever before found myself in such a state of passive terror. I was literally bathed in cold perspiration.

  That we had seen and heard things of another world would appear to be indisputable. That Mme. Yburg and Marusa—Marusa!—were ghouls, witches, vampires, name them as you please, presented itself as a fact no logic could assail.

  Lonergan spoke hoarsely.

  “Good God! The way of things is inscrutable. But, unless we’re all mad, I say that tonight we’ve heard the gates of hell open and shut!”

  3

  “There will be time enough after midnight to talk— if we are still alive,” said Gaston Max. He tossed his purple domino across his shoulder. “Until then, it is vital that we should act. I have my car hidden below. We can reach it in a few minutes. Attack is always the best defence. ... If I knew one thing, I should propose a plan.”

  We were following a footpath which would bring us to the town.

  “Propose the plan,” Lonergan growled, “and then tell us the one thing you don’t know.”

  “Very well. My plan would be this: to drive to the woods below Felsenweir and under cover of darkness to climb up and try to explore that mysterious ruin.” He paused for a moment, and then:

  “Felsenweir is the heart of the mystery, my friends,” he added simply. “It was to Felsenweir the bats flew.”

  We walked on in silence for a while.

  “I should move to accept your plan,” said Lonergan, “only I kind of feel we’re invisibly covered all the time. . . . That’s why I changed my identity.” “Forget this feeling!” cried Gaston Max. “Presently I shall prove to you that such is not the case.” “Is that so? If you’re right maybe I can help things along. What is it you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know how to reach this ruin. I have investigated cautiously—very cautiously. In daytime it would be m
adness to attempt it. The original entrance is closed and is barred. Quite impossible without ladders. It is then a great climb to the castle ruins. I have explored every foot of the base of that hill but have found not a single point where one could penetrate with hope of climbing to the top.”

  “You surprise me a whole lot,” Lonergan declared. “I’ve explored it too, but here’s the difference: I have found a way.”

  “What is this?”

  “I know a way in! It’s camouflaged, but I found it.” “Triumph!” Max cried excitedly. “Do you carry a pocket torch?”

  “Sure.”

  “So also do I. My friends, we are three, and I take it all armed. Let us be resolute, and as Right is on our side, it may be that we shall unmask even the Voice!”

  Five minutes later, in Max’s Hispano-Suiza— parked behind a hedge in a meadow—we were speeding along empty roads toward the hill of Felsenweir. I was unfamiliar with the route, but Max, who drove, clearly knew it well.

  The little valley of the Oos was already sleeping and we passed not a single pedestrian. Very soon habitations were left behind and the solitude of the Black Forest closed in upon us like a black-gloved hand. Left of the climbing road vast aisles of trees fell away to the valley, to our right they towered up, a menacing wall.

  Max pushed on at a speed dangerous for a less skillful driver. Then suddenly he slowed up. He negotiated a hairpin bend, and:

  “The woods of Felsenweir,” he said. “On which side of the gateway is this entrance you have found, my friend ?”

  “East,” Lonergan growled, “but it’s going to be some cross-word puzzle to find at night.”

  “All the same, we must find it.”

  Here the road lay white under the moon and Max shut off his headlights.

  “Don’t drive past the gate!” I said suddenly— “wherever the gate may be. Someone—or something —may be on guard there.”

  At my words, Max slowed up—stopped altogether. He turned and stared at me in the darkness.