The Empty Coffins Page 8

  “Just what are we to think?” Peter demanded. “The fact remains that Elsie would not leave her grave by daylight. The only time she could have departed was in the interval when you say nothing happened. And those two dead men in the lane are proof that she must have become a vampire.”

  “You are sure it was not George Timperley?” Singh enquired.

  “Certain. He’s back in his coffin.”

  “Strange,” the mystic mused. “Very strange.”

  “No more strange than your remarks and behav­iour,” Meadows said. “Where have you been during the interval? We lost track of you after those two men were found in the lane.”

  There was a queer light in Singh’s eyes as he looked down into the grave.

  “I busied myself doing something which all of you gentlemen neglected to do. I looked for ev­idences of the attacker.”

  “Evidences?” Peter repeated. “What need was there for that? Weren’t those two blood-drained corpses sufficient evidence in themselves?”

  “Not altogether. I had the wish to discover some sign of the creature, or object, which had so ruthlessly slain them. I was successful. For­tunately the night is wet and footprints are clearly visible. In the clayey soil at the side of the lane, not far from your car, doctor, I found signs of heavy boots. Two sets—one belong­ing to a smallish man, and the other to a much bigger person.”

  This sudden material discovery in the midst of the supernatural gave Peter a decided mental jolt.

  He looked up at Singh fixedly.

  “Do you mean,” Meadows asked deliberately, “that you think ordinary human beings attacked those two poor devils?”

  “I consider there is that possibility,” Singh replied. “I expected to find the naked footprints of a woman—but there were none. Only these foot­prints of two men, going up the bank into the field beyond.”

  “And then where?” Peter asked quickly.

  “I lost them in the grass,” Singh answered, impassive again.

  Dr. Meadows became thoughtful. “This may throw a new light on things.” he said. “It makes me think of something poor Mrs. Burrows once said— ­You remember, Peter, when she asked me did I think that perhaps a maniac was at work, making every­thing look as though a vampire were the cause?”

  “I remember,” Peter assented. “But no human agency could account for Elsie leaving her coffin. And what about George Timperley? He didn’t only leave his coffin: he returned to it! I just can’t see any criminal being responsible for things like that.”

  “On the other hand, spirits do not wear size seven and nine boots,” Singh commented.

  “I’d like to see those prints,” Meadows decided. “We had better return this coffin and grave to nor­mal and then perhaps you won’t mind showing me what you’ve discovered?”

  “With pleasure,” Singh murmured, and from there on he did not pass any comment. He assisted in the task of re-closing the grave and when it was done, to the point of the wreaths being back in position, he looked from one man to the other.

  “Do you consider, doctor, there is any point in maintaining guard here?” he asked. “We have proved Mrs. Malden has left her coffin. What more—”

  “She has to be found,” Meadows interrupted. “Two of us must keep on constant watch, being relieved at intervals.... You two men can stop,” he added, motioning to the couple who had done most of the digging. “The rest of us will go and see those prints you’re talking about, Singh.”

  The mystic nodded and led the way from the cem­etery. When a point of the lane was reached near Meadows’ car Singh pulled a small torch from his pocket and flashed the beam on the wet ground.

  After searching for a moment or two he picked up the perfectly clear prints, freshly made, which went up the bank and vanished in the field beyond.

  “No doubt about that,” Meadows admitted. “But they lost themselves in the grass above, didn’t you say?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then, after pondering, Meadows turned up his coat irritably against the drizzle.

  “Doesn’t seem to be much more we can do,” he said. “You said, Peter, that you were staying on watch tonight. That still go?”

  “Definitely,” Peter answered. “If there’s any chance of locating Elsie I don’t intend to lose it. If nothing happens you can take over tomorrow night.”

  Meadows nodded. “Very well then.... There are two men who can help you if anything happens; and you other two”—he looked at the couple standing beside him—“had better stay around here in case of trouble. You’re taking on the job of those two luckless policemen. Or are you scared to do it?”

  The two men shook their heads. Countrymen, both of them, they were not easily frightened.

  “Will those two policemen become vampires when they’re buried?” Peter asked; and Meadows shrugged.

  “Presumably—if they were killed by a vampire. From these other evidences Singh has found I am beginning to wonder…. Can I give you a lift back, Singh?”

  “Thank you, no.” The mystic’s white teeth gleamed in a smile. “I have decided to stay. Probably Mr. Malden will be glad of my company.”

  “He has the other two men,” Meadows pointed out.

  “The more I have the better,” Peter answered. “You carry on, Doc, and I’ll see you tomorrow...or rather when the day comes.”

  Meadows nodded and walked back to his car. After a while it started off down the lane, the red rear light disappearing in the drizzle. The two countrymen looked at each other, turned their collars up higher, and then began a slow pacing back and forth after the manner of sentries.

  “I suppose we’d better get back to the cemetery grounds, Singh,” Peter remarked.

  “I think we could turn our time to better pur­pose, Mr. Malden,” the mystic answered. “Follow­ing those footprints, for example.”

  “But I thought you said the trail lost itself in the grass!”

  “To a certain extent it does. I did not take the time to examine the traces thoroughly. We can do so now, since those other men are on the watch in the cemetery.”

  Peter did not agree immediately. Wandering in an open field in the early hours of the morning, and with only Rawnee Singh for company, seemed to him a dangerous occupation. It was not that he was frightened of the mystic, but he was certainly uneasy about him. Left to his mercy Peter was not sure but what he might suddenly pull a knife.

  “You hesitate,” Singh murmured. “Surely, Mr. Malden, you are anxious to know everything about this unhappy, ghoulish business?”

  “Of course.” Peter made his decision abruptly. “We’ll see what we can find.”

  He scrambled up the bank quickly, Singh foll­owing behind him with his torch beam waving. Here at the top of the bank the rain and wind seemed heavier. Peter stood huddled and waiting as the mystic caught up with him, the circle of light flashing on the wet soil to reveal the two sets of prints clearly.

  “They both come and go,” Singh pointed out. “Observe?”

  Peter looked with renewed interest. So far he had only thought of them moving one way—from the lane, but not to it.

  “It is my belief,” Singh continued, “that two men came from somewhere, attacked the unfortunate policemen, and then retreated. The prints going away from the lane are such deeper than those going towards it. Plainly, the men carried something heavy.”

  “Not bodies, anyway,” Peter said. “We found those.”

  “Perhaps—blood,” Singh said. “It would weigh as heavy as water, and there must have been a good deal of it.”

  “Now we’re back where we started,” Peter sighed. “You are trying to offer a material explanation for something which we believe my wife—as a vampire—created.”

  “Do you wish to believe that of your wife?”

  “My God, no! I’m simply thinking that—”

  “Mr. Malden,” Singh interrupted, “we have here the first signs which suggest that this busines
s of vampires may not be entirely genuine. Let us see if we can discover the starting point of these prints.”

  So there began for both of them the slow, ted­ious business of following first one set of prints, and then the other, pushing aside wet grass to find the indentations in the oozing soil below. Foot by foot progress was made until, gradually, out of the murk, there loomed a dark towering shape which Singh’s torch beam could just pick out as a crumb­led wall gleaming with rain.

  “From the look of things, Mr. Malden,” he comm­ented, “our trail ends and begins there—at that wall.”

  “We’d better make sure,” Peter said, satisfied by this time that Singh was evidently not planning any kind of attack.

  He hurried forward the few remaining yards, Singh behind him, and they stopped when they had gained the towering ruin. At the base of the wall the prints were still visible. They went through a gap in the wall and vanished again in the stone ­riddled square that had once been a quadrangle.

  “What is this place?” Singh questioned, switch­ing off his torch for the moment. “I am not fam­iliar with the local history.”

  “It’s the old chapel,” Peter responded. “About fifteen years ago it was destroyed by fire. This is the only remaining wall. In the square here there used to be the cloisters, and under them sev­eral of the crypts and mausoleums. It’s a spot with historic connections and that’s all. The new chapel in the cemetery was built to replace this one.”

  “Interesting,” Singh commented. “I find it most— Look!” he broke off quickly, and gripped Peter’s arm.

  Peter gazed steadily, feeling his heart beginn­ing to race. There was no doubt of the fact that at the far end of the ruined cloisters a figure had come into view. In the darkness and rain it was only a blurred grey outline, but as Singh switched on his torch details leapt into view.

  It was Elsie, her hair flowing in the wind, the shroud moulded against her graceful form!

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE WALKING DEAD

  For a moment or two Peter could not believe what he saw, but gradually the penetrating beam of the torch forced him to it. Undeterred by it, appar­ently, Elsie continued to advance, making no sound, the shroud blowing out behind her in the wind. The effect was eerie in the extreme, her form vanishing at intervals as she passed the crumbled stonework that had once formed part of the cloisters.

  “What do we do?” Peter whispered at length.

  “Slay her, my friend. We have no alternative. That is our main reason for being here, is it not?”

  “I can’t do it. I can’t even bear to look at her—”

  Peter half turned to go but Singh flung out his free hand and stopped him.

  “If you have not the courage to kill her, Mr. Malden, then neither have I. We’ll see what happ­ens.”

  As though drawn to them by magnetism Elsie finally left the protected area of the old cloisters and stepped into the open quadrangle. Immed­iately the wind began to buffet her and her shroud became plastered to her slender figure with the rain.

  “That’s queer,” Peter said, frowning. “She must have been perfectly dry until she got this far. Where’s she been, I wonder—?”

  “Her mouth seems to tell the answer,” Singh muttered; and watching intently as the girl came ever nearer Peter could see what he meant. Her lips were dyed red, far beyond their normal shade.

  “I don’t believe it,” Peter said stubbornly. “Elsie would never become a vampire! It’s all crazy, insane! I saw her die—I also saw her buried— Yet now she’s walking! I’ve got to know the truth—!”

  He suddenly lunged forward and raced across the quadrangle to where she was advancing. Reaching her he seized her slender shoulders fiercely. He had time to notice that they were icy cold through the rain-saturated shroud.

  “What in God’s name has happened, dearest?” he demanded, halting her.

  She looked at him fixedly in the light of Singh’s advancing torch as he hurried across the wind-swept space. Peter tried to look only into the dull stare of her eyes. He kept his gaze away from the reddened lips.

  “I’m Peter,” he insisted, hugging her to him fiercely. “For heaven’s sake, Elsie, speak to me! Say you are really alive—that you never died—!”

  No word escaped her, but as she remained motion­less in his desperate grip he realized that her lips had drawn back from her teeth and she was moving her mouth slowly towards his throat. She was an inch away from it when he flung her away from him in loathing. She collapsed on the stone­work, rain swamping onto her barely protected figure.

  “Mrs. Malden, can you not answer me?” Singh demanded, studying her with a fixed, baleful stare. “I am Rawnee Singh, mystic. I have powers not given to most mortals. I order you to speak—to tell us the truth.”

  Elsie slowly rose again from the stonework and seemed as if she were struggling to say something. She managed to jerk out a few words….

  “Peter—beloved— In the name of God, help me now—”

  She swayed visibly. Peter forgot all about the revulsion that had prompted him to hurl her away from him. To him she was again Elsie, the wife he had believed dead, chained by same unimaginable circumstance to a beyond-the-grave influence. But he did not reach her side. Before he got there something hissed out of the rain and dark and he felt a sharp stab in the arm. Pain shot the length of it and his limbs felt as if they had seized up. He dropped into darkness, his senses foundering….

  * * * * * * *

  When Peter recovered consciousness he became aware of an electric light, a ceiling which needed white­washing, and many shelves lined with bottles. Fill­ed with a sensation of cramp he forced himself up on to one elbow. Then he gave a little sigh of relief. Seated quite nearby, regarding him stead­ily and yet with professional detachment, was Dr. Meadows.

  “Good,” Meadows said. “You’re okay. I must have worked out the antidote correctly.”

  “Antidote?” Peter rubbed a hand bewilderedly over his forehead. “For what? How did I get into your surgery anyway? Last thing I remember I was—”

  “Lying flattened out in the remains of the old chapel. I’m not quite sure what happened, but apparently there was some kind of a fight, in which Rawnee Singh was involved. Apparently it was he who fired a poisonous dart into you. Then he began to run around as though he’d gone crazy. The men on guard heard his cries and came to investigate. By the time they got there he’d gone, but you were lying unconscious. They picked you up and tele­phoned for me. I brought you home in my car and diagnosed the trouble. Fortunately it was a poison not entirely unfamiliar to me that was affecting you, and I made up an antidote.... That, son, seems to be all there is.”

  “But there’s much more to it than that!” Peter cried, getting up slowly from the divan. “What about Elsie? You saw her, didn’t you? Or at least the guards would?”

  “Elsie?” Meadows too got up. “No, there was no sign of her. Should there have been?”

  Peter groaned and beat a fist impotently against his forehead.

  “Damnit, Doc, I had her in my arms. She cried out to me for help— She was alive! Alive, I tell you! She was cold, yes, but on such a night and in only a shroud—”

  “Explain it a bit more sensibly,” Meadows in­sisted. “Take it easy, Peter!”

  Peter nodded wearily and began to tell his story in detail. Meadows listened without interrupting, then when it was over he fingered his jaw pensively.

  “All decidedly strange,” he said at length, pond­ering. “Certainly there was no sign of Elsie when the guards got to the spot. And Singh, too, had gone.”

  “And you say he was running round like one crazy?”

  “So the guards said. They judged it by the wild way his torch was swinging about and the cries he was giving. They knew his voice, of course. But when they arrived they found the torch lying on the ground, still lighted—but he had disappeared.”

  “And they didn’t try to find him?”

  “You were the main c
oncern.”

  Peter was silent for a while, then he glanced up at the clock. It was half past three in the early hours.

  “Thanks for saving me, Doc,” he said quietly, and Meadows merely gestured and smiled.

  “I saw enough tonight to satisfy me that Elsie is alive,” Peter went on deliberately. “I don’t believe she ever really died—just as Singh fore­casted.”

  Meadows laughed shortly. “That’s ridiculous, Peter! I saw her die myself, and Sir Gerald Mon­trose verified it. You remember?”

  “Yes, I remember, but what I saw of Elsie to­night convinces me that she’s alive, but under some compelling influence. I don’t think she’s a vampire, either, in spite of the apparent bloodstains on her lips. Behind all this fiend­ish business there’s a human hand. A criminal—and one of the worst criminals ever, apparently.”

  Meadows motioned to the chairs again and then continued:

  “Let’s see if we can get some sense into this, Peter. I need to do so as much as you since, in a sense, I love Elsie—or else her memory—every bit as much as you do. You say that Singh fore­casted that Elsie would not die?”

  “Not quite that, Doc. He said there would be a termination in her consciousness which, to him, did not entirely represent death.”

  “Mmmm. Let us couple that with the fact that he was responsible for attacking you tonight—and what do we get? That he is back of every­thing that is going on. In other words, he knew that Elsie would not really die, so it was simple enough for him to forecast a state of—suspended animation, or whatever it was.”

  “But,” Peter pointed out, “you just said that you saw Elsie die. And that specialist confirmed jour opinion.”

  “Medical men are not infallible,” Meadows ans­wered. “The way things are going it begins to look as though Elsie settled into a condition resembling death, and both I and Sir Gerald were misled. After that....” Meadows shrugged. “Well, who can say? Singh is a mystic of renown. Poss­ibly he controlled Elsie by mind force. Possibly lots of things.... It seems that he knew from the very moment that he set eyes on her, on the night she went to see him at the fair, what was dest­ined to happen to her. Of course he did! It looks as if he had it all planned out.”