The Empty Coffins Read online

  “Elsie!’ Peter screamed, and seized her should­ers. But for all his efforts she did not awaken. At last he lowered her back to the pillow and list­ened for her heart. It was still beating, though somewhat sluggishly.

  Peter did not waste any more time. He rushed from the room, along the landing, then down the stairs into the dark hall. Switching on the lights he whipped up the telephone and rang Dr. Meadows. After a moment or two the tired voice of the medico answered.

  “Yes? Meadows here—”

  “It’s Peter, Doc! Elsie’s been attacked by George whilst I was away. At least I suppose it was George. There are two punctures either side of her throat, blood on the pillow, the window open— I can’t revive her. She’s still alive, but only just I think. For God’s sake come over right away, will you?”

  “I’ll be there,” Meadows promised, his voice taking on more life. “Keep a watch on her until I arrive.”

  Peter put the ’phone down and returned up the stairs. At the top of them he met his mother-in­-law, hastily scrambled into a dressing gown, a boudoir cap over her hair-curlers.

  “What on earth is going on?” she demanded. “Peter, what are you doing fully dressed at this hour of the night?”

  “Don’t bother me now,” Peter answered, brushing past her. “Elsie’s been attacked by a vampire—probably George. I’ve just been ’phoning for Dr. Meadows.’

  He raced back into the bedroom to find Elsie lying just as he had left her, motionless, hardly breathing, her face as white as the pillow beside it. Mrs. Burrows followed Peter in and stood staring in horror at the defiled pillow and the wounds on her daughter’s neck. Then, when the first shock had been absorbed somewhat, she went to the windows and closed them.

  “Did you say—George?” she demanded, her eyes fixing on Peter as he sat at the bedside watching Elsie intently.

  “He’s a vampire. Doc Meadows and I proved it tonight in the cemetery. We were both attacked—”

  “But what on earth—?”

  “Oh, stop bothering me!” Peter snapped. “I’ve enough on my mind!”

  Mrs. Burrows sniffed, then taking a second chair she sat at the other side of the bed and looked at her daughter in silent consternation.

  The intolerably long silence was broken at last by a pounding on the front door. Peter rushed down to open it and came back with the tired Dr. Meadows behind him. Meadows gave a start as he saw the girl, then he got busy with his stethoscope.

  “Well?” Peter asked anxiously. “What’s the verdict?”

  “He got her, Peter,” Meadows answered slowly, grey worry in his face. “No half measures about it. Both jugulars have been pierced and she’s lost a good deal of blood.”

  “I don’t see how,” Peter argued. “Those big bloodstains on the pillow can’t be from her; there are only tiny trickles on her neck from those punctures—”

  “The pillow stains probably come from George,” Meadows answered. “Some blood was spilt as he drew it from Elsie. That’s a likely happening in a vampire attack— Only one thing to do,” Meadows finished briefly. “Keep a watch on Elsie night and day. I’ll let you have some blood-restorative pills with full directions how to use them. If she is not attacked again she might re­cover all she has lost—”

  “But doesn’t this attack make her a vampire?”

  “That can only happen if she dies—and that we must prevent at all costs. Hop down to the ’phone, Peter, and call Scotland Yard. Give them every detail and ask for the same Inspector who has been working on this case. No use bothering with those two clowns in the village. Hurry it up, man!”

  Peter nodded and dived out of the room. Mead­ows considered the girl for a moment, then he filled a hypodermic syringe and applied the needle to a vein in the inside of Elsie’s upper arm.

  “What’s that for?” Mrs. Burrows asked, watching intently.

  “Blood restorative in liquid form,” Meadows answered. “I can’t administer pills until she recovers consciousness.”

  “Peter has been telling me that George caused this—that he has become a vampire. Am I supposed to believe that?”

  “With your daughter in this condition I don’t see how you can do much else,” Meadows retorted.

  “I can’t believe in vampires. Doctor. I’ve lived too long to believe in any superstition of that nature. I prefer to think something material—very material—attacked my daughter, not the blood-thirsty ghost of her first husband. It simply screams out against all reason.”

  “So do poltergeists, phantoms, and evil spirits,” Meadows answered, his voice quieter. “Yet they exist....”

  Since Mrs. Burrows did not pursue the subject he too became silent, working with soft wadding on the punctures in the girl’s throat. The more he studied them the more troubled his face became. He was considering the problem in silence when Peter returned, a hand to his still aching head.

  “I got Scotland Yard,” he said. “The sergeant-in-charge will get in touch with Chief-Inspector Rushton and he’ll be coming up immediately. He’s not in his office at this hour, of course— Well, Doc, how’s Elsie going on?”

  “Done all I can,” Meadows answered, putting a phial of pills on the table. “She ought to recover consciousness towards morning. Those sleeping tab­lets you gave her are hindering things, of course: I’d forgotten them. It may be those, more than actual blood loss, which is keeping her unconscious. Anyway, when she recovers, see she gets these pills every six hours. She’s not to get up until I say so. And she must be guarded day and night against all possible attacks. You still have that Cruci­fix? See that she can keep it handy. In an un­guarded moment, it might save her.”

  “Day and night?” Peter repeated. “Surely no vampire attack by day is possible?”

  Meadows gave a sigh. “No, of course not. I’m getting too tired to think straight. Guard her from sundown to sunrise. During the day she ought to be safe enough.”

  He began to pack up his bag; then Mrs. Burrows spoke.

  “Why was Elsie given sleeping tablets? She’s in no need of them.”

  “I did it to keep her quiet whilst I went out to investigate the cemetery,” Peter said. “And I am not going to argue about it! If you hadn’t slept like a log you could have probably saved Elsie from being attacked tonight!”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Burrows smiled coldly. “And if you had stayed beside her, as any right-minded husband should, you could have handled the situation your­self. Instead you had to go rushing off to the cemetery on some wildcat excursion.”

  “It wasn’t wildcat, Mrs. Burrows,” Meadows said deliberately. “We discovered George had left his coffin: that is proof that he is a vampire.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Mrs. Burrows said flatly. “There’s something about all this that’s peculiar—diabolical, but I do not believe an evil spirit comes into it.”

  Meadows gave her a look and then shrugged.

  “I have to be going,” he said. “I’ve had no sleep yet. Do the best you can, Peter, and I’ll be here during the day. If the police want me—as I expect they will—they know where to find me. Good night, Mrs. Burrows.”

  “Good night,” she answered indifferently, then she got to her feet.

  “You can go back to bed if you wish,” Peter told her, making himself comfortable on the chair. “I must stay awake somehow to watch Elsie and open the door to the police when they come.”

  “I’ll do my share,” she decided. “I’ll rest in the drawing room: you can stay here. And the sooner the police come, the better. If ever there was criminal assault and murder disguised as vamp­ire attacks it is this!”

  She gave another glance towards her silent daughter, tightened her lips, and then went out. The door closed sharply.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KILLER FROM THE GRAVE

  It was towards eight in the morning when a police car swept into the drive of the Timperley resid­ence. From it there alighted Chief-inspector Rushton and Detective-sergeant Mather, both of them in
plain clothes and far too schooled in crime and criminals to believe in vampires. With them also were two uniformed constables, a divisional-surgeon, and a fingerprint expert.

  By this time Elsie was conscious again, but her energy was of such a low order she was hardly able to talk. To the Chief-inspector she had little to say. She was not even aware that she had been att­acked, remembering nothing since falling asleep the previous night.

  Peter, worn out from lack of sleep and anxiety, gave the cemetery details and then, a solid const­able on guard, he went to bed. The Chief-inspector picked up the story from that point and the Divis­ional-surgeon and fingerprint man went to work on their respective jobs.

  Rushton, who had handled the earlier business of the two vampire victims, was once again ill-at-ease in investigating this new onslaught. Throughout the day he covered a good deal of ground, question­ing Mrs. Burrows, Dr. Meadows, and then several villagers. The coffin of George Timperley was re­opened and found to be still empty. The grounds of the cemetery were gone over; and those of the Timperley home. Nothing was left undone, until finally by eight in the evening Rushton returned with his sergeant to the Timperley home to report progress. Because of the necessity of Elsie having to be guarded whilst she lay in bed, he told his story in the bedroom, Peter, Mrs. Burrows, and Dr. Meadows also being present.

  “I am quite sure of one thing.” Rushton said, his square face grim. “The Assistant-Commissioner is going to haul me over the coals when I have to report failure in this business—for the third time.”

  “So you’ve not got anywhere?” Peter asked bitt­erly.

  “I’m afraid not. Fingerprint experts have not found any prints anywhere—or at least any prints that might be of use. What prints there are, chiefly on the window frame of this room here, are blurred with none of the familiar whorl, arch, or loop formation. From the doctor we have the assurance that the blood found on the pillow was yours, Mrs. Malden, which means you actually must have lost far more than that caused by the wounds in your throat. Anyway, the group matches. True, you are not the only person with an ‘O’ type blood-group, but the coincidence of the attacker losing that much blood, and being in the same group, is too coincidental.”

  “A vampire is not a creature of flesh and blood, anyway,” Meadows put in. “Not in the accepted sense, anyhow; so the blood on the pillow could only belong to Mrs. Malden.”

  “So it would seem,” Rushton admitted. “We have also made routine enquiries but have got no further than talk of vampires in general and George Timper­ley in particular. We have not been able to pick up any clues in the cemetery, even though we have noted that George Timperley’s grave, or at least his coffin, is empty. We could of course have kept a vigil by night and see if he appears, but you people have already done that and met with no success. So,” Rushton finished. “I’m afraid we haven’t got very far.”

  “Not a very encouraging admission for Scotland Yard,” Dr. Meadows commented.

  “We’re not magicians, doctor,” the Chief-inspector told him. “In this particular case we are up against a complex problem. A vampire—if such a thing really does exist—is a long way from our territory.”

  “Have you thought of the possibility of the vampire being an excuse for some criminally-minded person to commit murder and assault at random?” Mrs. Borrows asked. “Making everything look as though it is the work of a vampire....”

  “Yes, we have considered that possibility,” Rushton admitted, ‘but it does not get us any further. If it be a tenable theory, the answer is a maniac—and not a sex-maniac, either, since men have been killed as well as women attacked. The whole thing is so motiveless, so utterly lacking in purpose—”

  “From a material, standpoint, yes.” Meadows said. “From the standpoint of a vampire every­thing fits in. It all comes down to one thing: George Timperley is anxious to destroy his former wife and turn her into a vampire like himself. To do that he needs human blood, so to obtain it he kills off villagers, none of whom he liked whilst he lived. It’s as simple as that.”

  “And you think Mrs. Malden is likely to be attacked again?” Rushton asked, thinking.

  “I am convinced George Timperley will do his best. It is up to us to see that he fails. I think we should organize a vampire-watch amongst the villages and attack him the next time he appears.”

  “It seems to be the only move,” Rushton agreed, then he switched the subject. ‘Tell me, about this mystic, Rawnee Singh. What exactly did he have to say? Do you feel able to detail the facts to me, Mrs. Malden?’

  Elsie nodded from where she lay in bed and, by degrees, gave all the details, Sergeant Mather writing busily in his notebook.

  “Quite extraordinary,” Rushton said at length. “I am wondering, since Singh appears to have some kind of other-world connection, whether he might not be able to throw some light on this vampire business.”

  “Hardly likely,” Meadows said. “He’s a mystic, and nothing more. Vampires will hardly be in his line.”

  “Just the same I think I’ll have a word with him,” Rushton decided, getting to his feet. “He has left this district now, of course, but we can soon trace him—and will. I’ll get in touch with you again when I’ve interviewed him.”

  He turned to leave, the Detective-sergeant beside him, then Mrs. Burrows’ voice gave them pause.

  “Inspector, there’s something I’d like to know. What was your divisional surgeon’s opinion of the wounds my daughter had sustained?”

  “The punctures in her neck, madam? Apparently caused by some lance-like object—which we can only assume were the teeth of the vampire. After that, presumably, your daughter’s blood was sucked from the jugular veins. Some of it was spilt in the process, on to the pillow.”

  Peter put a hand to his eyes as if to shut out the Chief-inspector’s cold matter-of-factness.

  “Suppose something had been used to duplicate a vampire’s teeth?” Mrs. Burrows persisted. “Would your surgeon know the difference?”

  “I doubt it. In fact he has no more experience of a vampire than I have. He can only assume.”

  “Which is what I object to!” Mrs. Burrows snapped. “There is too much assumption in this business. I believe—”

  “Mother, please!” Elsie entreated. “I can’t stand all this noise and argument.”

  “No, my dear, of course you can’t,” Dr. Mead­ows murmured. “We’ll drop the subject, and leave it to you to do what you can, Inspector. At this end we will do our best, also.”

  Rushton nodded, bade farewell all round, and then departed with the sergeant beside him. Dr. Meadows considered Elsie for a moment in the light of the bedside lamp, then he glanced at Peter.

  “Want me to take it in turns with you to stay on guard?” he asked. “Hard work for one man alone, and it’s hardly a task for you, Mrs. Burrows.”

  “Why isn’t it?” she asked coldly. “I’ve helped all I can up to now.”

  “No doubt, but if George Timperley should re­appear I very much doubt your ability to deal with him.”

  “I’d be glad of your help, Doc,” Peter said. ‘If you could take on until about midnight I could grab a few hours sleep.”

  “Gladly,” Meadows assented.

  “Which means I am not wanted? ” Mrs. Burrows asked.

  “Oh, mother, why do you have to be so unpleas­ant?” Elsie asked wearily. “Peter and the doctor are only doing what they think is best.”

  “When a mother cannot watch over her own child things have come to a nice pass,” Mrs. Burrows retorted. “At least I know when I’m not wanted.”

  She left the room impatiently and was not at all careful about the force with which she closed the door. Since it was still only early in the evening she went down into the drawing room. Switching on the lights she moved to an armchair by the fire and settled down. She did not read, or watch television. She gave herself entirely up to thought.

  The longer she was preoccupied the more the lines hardened in her face.


  “That could be it,” she told herself at length. “And it is only right that Inspector Rushton should know what I think. Nothing must be—”

  She broke off as there was a sudden click from somewhere. Puzzled, she looked about her, but failed to detect anything unusual. Since it was not repeated she turned back to her thoughtful contemplation of the fire—then with a sudden whirlwind twisting of drapes the French windows burst apart and an apparition in snow white entered.

  Mrs. Burrows stared at the visitor blankly. She was too strong-nerved, too self-possessed, to be afraid: she was instead completely bewildered. Fixedly she gazed at the expressionless face. The only part about it that lived were the eyes and the ghastly mouth, besmeared with red about the lips, the fanged teeth bared.

  “George Timperley!” she gasped at last, and half got to her feet.

  Before she could complete the action the appar­ition moved forward soundlessly on naked feet. Without him uttering a word. George Timperley’s pale, deadly cold hands lashed forward, seizing the now startled Mrs. Burrows by the throat. She managed to give one desperate scream, then she was crushed down again into the armchair.

  Tremendous strength held her there. She kicked and lashed furiously, striking at the icy limbs, slapping at flesh that was as cold and revolting as that of a corpse—but she had not the power to prevent that terrifying face with its blood-stained teeth and lips coming ever nearer to her. At last she felt sharp pain at both sides of her neck and could smell the fetid breath of the monster that had come from the grave.

  Her struggles grew weaker and at last eased altogether, whilst, upstairs, Dr. Meadows gave Elsie a sharp glance. She lay reading, or trying to, but she lowered the book as his eyes met hers.

  “Did you hear something?” he asked, puzzled.

  “I heard a cry—or I thought I did,” Elsie res­ponded. “I don’t suppose it was anything, though. Night bird perhaps.”

  “Not at this time of year,” Meadows answered. “I’ll awaken Peter and he can watch you whilst I see if all’s well.”