The Empty Coffins (6 page)

Elsie said nothing. She looked towards the window, at the glancing sun on the leaves.

“So beautiful out there,” she whispered. ‘If only I could go into the garden. You and I to­gether, Peter. If we could walk through the fields, smell the grass, feel the fresh sweet wind of heaven in our faces… Rawnee Singh was right, Peter, wasn't he?”

“I still don't believe it,” he answered stubb­ornly. “Now you are conscious again we'll get you round. You'll be back to health in no time.”

Elsie shook her blonde head slowly. “No. Peter. It is not to be. I'm dying...I know I am.”

Peter got to his feet. “I'm going to ring up Meadows. If he isn't home the maid can tell him to come up immediately. I want to know what is to be done now you've come out of your coma—”

“No, Peter—don't leave me.” Her cold, gentle hand caught at his as he turned to go. “I—I want you to stay.”

“But dearest, I have to look after you. I can't stay here and talk. I want to tell the cook to get something ready for you—”

“Cook? When did we get a cook?”

“Well, she's a sort of housekeeper, cook, maid, and all the lot. I had to get somebody, after your mother went....” Then Peter hurried on, “I'm sure we'll get results soon. All the village is on the watch for George now. The story is even in the papers under the heading ‘The Little Payling Horr­or.' All kinds of people keep arriving to invest­igate—Psychic experts, ghost hunters, sightseers. George has made the place famous—”

“You mean infamous,” Elsie whispered. Then after a long pause she asked, “Did the Inspector ever find Rawnee Singh again?”

“Yes. But all Singh could do was repeat his statement, just as he had told it to you—and me. As for trying to help the vampire situation, he said it was a manifestation of the dark arts and he would not touch it.”

“How right he was,” Elsie murmured, her eyes closing. “How terribly, frighteningly right....”

Peter looked at her in fear for a moment. She was so utterly still he thought she— Then he gave a smile of relief. Her breast was rising and falling gently. She had merely fallen asleep.

He gently moved his hand away and crept from the room; then he hurried downstairs to the telephone. To his satisfaction Dr. Meadows was at home, having just arrived back from his morning round.

“So she's returned to consciousness?” he asked eagerly, as Peter finished explaining. “Good! See that she has some nourishing soup to begin with. I'll be over to work things out. Expect me in about twenty minutes.”

Peter rang off and went into the kitchen. Then he returned to the bedroom and crept in silently. Elsie was still sleeping, so quietly she looked almost dead.

She had not awakened by the time Dr. Meadows had arrived. He studied her for a while and then shook his head slowly.

“I don't like it,” he whispered, as Peter stood beside him. “She's so thin she's nearly a shadow. In the past two weeks she's wasted away in the most alarming fashion—”

“But she can be built up again now she's out of that coma!” Peter looked at him with desperate eyes. “Doc, we've got to bring her back. I can't bear to think that I might—lose her.”

“We'll do our best, but it's going to be tough. The trouble is, she doesn't answer to any known treatment, which is why I think venom from George when he attacked her is consuming her bloodstream—­ Oh, I got that other specialist to come. Sir Gerald Montrose. He should be here today.”

“You think he's a good man?” Peter asked.

“I'm convinced of it. I would hardly call on him—thereby admitting myself baffled—if I didn't believe in him. You've heard of him, surely?”

“Afraid not—but you know what you're doing.”

Meadows was silent for a moment, then he pulled up a chair and sat down.

“All we can do is wait for her to awaken again,” he said. “I wish I'd been here when she awakened before: I could probably have kept her conscious. It may be a long job now.”

“How about your own patients?”

“They can wait. Elsie means more to me than anything else. You know that. She's yours, yes, but that doesn't stop me loving her as much as you do.”

Peter nodded slowly, a thought crossing his mind like a shadow. Then it passed on and he pulled up a chair.

At the end of half an hour Elsie had not awaken­ed. Then the weary waiting was interrupted, by a hammer­ing on the front door. Peter left the room, but evidently the housekeeper had already got ahead of him.

“Who is it, Mrs. Dawlish?” he asked, from the head of the stairs.

“It's a Mr. Rawnee Singh, sir. He says he would like to see you.”

“Singh!” Peter gave a start. He glanced back towards the bedroom, hesitated, and then made up his mind. Quickly he hurried downstairs into the hall. He found Mrs. Dawlish regarding the brown-skinned visitor in some suspicion.

“All right, Mrs. Dawlish, thank you,” Peter said to her. “I'll attend to Mr. Singh.”

Mrs. Dawlish bustled away and Peter looked at the mystic in surprise.

“What brings you here, Mr. Singh? I thought you'd dropped right out of sight.”

“An interview I had with Chief-inspector Rushton led me to examine the case of your wife again, Mr. Malden. I had the idea you might wish to hear my conclusions.”

Peter said nothing. He opened the drawing room door and led the way into it. Then he motioned Singh to a chair. He sat down with a cat-like elegance, his eyes intently studying Peter's face. Even here, with modern furniture around him, his manner was still that of the enigmatic Easterner, rendered all the more obvious by his silk turban with a small jewel in its centre.

“I have little time to spare, Mr. Singh,” Peter said quietly. “I don't wish to seem rude, but my wife is desperately ill and I am keeping a constant watch on her—”

“Along with Dr. Meadows. Yes, I know.” Singh gave his faint smile. “I am afraid both of you are wasting your time. It is willed that your wife will die, Mr. Malden—only much sooner than I had thought. That is what I came to tell you. After Inspector Rushton questioned me and I real­ized that your wife was surrounded by an aura of dark evil I made a special point of studying her vibrations. I found that she will die—today. I thought that if I came personally and told you this you would not find it such a terrible shock when her life ceases.”

“I don't believe it,” Peter said obstinately.

“You mean you prefer not to,” Singh corrected. “It is no use, Mr. Malden: you cannot defeat dest­iny.... However, I also looked further and I discovered that your wife's death is, actually, only the beginning of a new life for her—”

“So you're going to start preaching about the Hereafter as well?” Peter demanded, his nerves on edge. “I'm in no mood to listen.”

“You misunderstand me. I mean that your wife will start life anew as a vampire. That, too, would have come as a terrible shock had I not arrived to warn you.”

Peter sat down slowly. He found it impossible to push Singh's statements on one side: there was too much solemn conviction about them.

“Mr. Singh,” he said deliberately, “you once said you had sympathetic feelings towards people. Is there nothing you can do to help us? You read the future—accurately it would appear. Is there nothing that can be done to save my dear wife from the fate hovering over her?”

“I am afraid not....” Singh considered for a moment, then a thoughtful look crossed his brown features. “There is something,” he said finally, “which is not quite
right
about this whole bus­iness.”

Peter laughed hollowly. “Not quite right? The whole thing smells of diabolical evil from start to finish.”

“I did not quite mean it in that sense,” the mystic said. “I am referring to the underlying current in your wife's aura. I think I should explain that I read the future by means of the vibrations given off by a living body. I believe that these vibrations exist as a pattern and fore­tell the destiny of a living creature from the cradle to the grave. Normally, the cessation of these vibrations represents death—but in certain abnormal cases it could, I suppose, also represent a cessation of bodily functions.”

“Like unconsciousness?” Peter suggested.

“Something more than that. Unconsciousness alone does not prevent bodily vibrations being given off, just as an unconscious person still breathes. No, I mean something more. Let us say—suspended ani­mation. A state wherein the body seems to be dead, but is not.”

Peter got to his feet again and paced around the room slowly, thumb and finger to his eyes.

“Too confusing for me, Singh,” he said finally. “Just what are you getting at?”

“I am wondering,” Singh mused, “if I have really foreseen death, or something else. Your wife's existence is certainly going to pass through an eclipse—that is inevitable—but I know she will reappear alive, as a vampire—after she has been buried. There is something about it all which is not—absolute.” Singh moved worriedly.

“Death should bring finality. Her change into a vampire should not become
apparent
to me because a vampire is outside the realm of human vibrations. Yet I see it….”

Peter came to a stop, a thought turning over in his mind. Before he could utter it a shout from the top of the stairs sent him hurrying into the hall. Meadows was at the stair top.

“Better come, Peter,” he said anxiously.

Forgetting all about Singh—and everything else—Peter dived for the staircase and sped up it. At the summit Meadows caught his arm.

“Just a minute, son,” he murmured. “I'm afraid—it's all over. She died a few minutes ago.”

Peter stood motionless for a moment, the col­our leaving his face; then he turned round and raced up to the bedroom. He did not stop hurrying until he reached the bedside, then he caught Elsie's limp hand. It was still warm—but lifeless. Through eyes blurring with tears he gazed at her dead face. It was smiling a little. Wisps of her blonde hair were moving gently in the breeze from the window, which Dr. Meadows had opened.

“Nothing I could do, Peter,” he said. “She just passed away without regaining consciousness. I wish you'd been here—”

“I was talking to Singh,” Peter said mechan­ically, and Meadows gave a start of surprise.

“You mean the mystic? What on earth's he doing here?”

“Didn't you hear Mrs. Dawlish call his name from the hall?” Peter turned weary eyes. “No—I suppose you wouldn't.”

He looked up as Rawnee Singh himself appeared in the doorway. He hesitated for a moment and then came forward. Impassively he looked at the lifeless girl.

“What do you want here?” Meadows demanded. “Don't you realize that this is—”

“The living may look upon the dead, doctor,” Singh replied, with a direct stare of his oblique eyes. “Just as the living may look upon—the living.”

“What are you talking about?” Meadows snapped.

“Death takes many forms,” Singh answered ambig­uously. Then he looked at Peter. “My sincere condolences, Mr. Malden, in your present ordeal. I feel though that the end is not yet. To material eyes—yes. It is the end. The world will say it is death. As for me…” He did not finish. Instead he held out his dark hand. “For the time
being, Mr. Malden, farewell. We shall meet again in the not too distant future. That, too, is pre­-destined.”

Peter shook hands mechanically and watched the mystic leave the room silently. Dr. Meadows gazed after him and then looked back at Peter.

“What did he want here?” he demanded.

“He came to tell me of two things, Doc. That Elsie would die today, and that she will become a vampire.”

Meadows' face clouded. “So George's ambition is to be fulfilled? His attack upon her succeeded, though it has taken some time for her to pass away. If she becomes a vampire, Peter, we have only one course…to drive a stake through her heart at her first appearance from the grave.”

Peter said nothing. He drew the sheet over the dead face of the girl and left the room.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE TERRIBLE CORPSES

At two o'clock Sir Gerald Montrose, the specialist in heart and blood disorders, arrived in his gleam­ing Buick. He was a small, pink-faced man with flawless manners and hands like a woman's. Since he had arrived too late to help Elsie he could only make a post-mortem examination and pool his diag­nosis with that of Dr. Meadows.

Peter, at the end of making funeral arrangements and feeling too stunned to care whether he lived or died, studied the two medicos as they ran him to earth in the drawing room.

“Because of the unusual circumstances surround­ing Elsie's death, there'll probably be an inquest,” Dr. Meadows said. “At any rate I have informed the Local coroner of her death. In the meantime, Sir Gerald and I are both of the same opinion regarding her demise. It was caused by pernicious anaemia—”

“It was caused by a vampire,” Peter interrupted stonily. “The vampire that was George Timperley. He bit Elsie, sucked away a lot of her blood, and poisoned that which was left.”

“That may be the truth,” Sir Gerald agreed, “but we have to convince a jury which deals only in facts. A coroner's jury would not accept the vamp­ire angle. Hence we have to state a medical reason for your wife's unhappy death.”

“Do what you like,” Peter muttered, gazing dully in front of him. “I just don't care what happens any more.”

But the movement of events did not allow Peter to sink into himself. He had to attend the coron­er's inquest and the death of Elsie was debated in detail. Rawnee Singh also gave evidence, and Chief-inspector Rushton. The other-world atmosphere of the whole business, however, made it impossible for the hearing to be brought to a logical conclusion, so finally the coroner was compelled to accept the joint opinions of Sir Gerald Montrose and Dr
.
Meadows....

For Peter, the rest was a nightmare, rendered all the more horrifying by Singh's forecast that, once buried, Elsie would become a vampire. He be­came haunted by the thought that he would have to join the villagers in a constant watch on Elsie's grave to make sure that, when she did appear, she was slain by a stake through her heart. He began to wonder whether life was worth living at all, whether he might not end it and—

No, that would never do. Besides, he still had the memory of Singh's words. The mystic, for some reason best known to himself, was not entirely convinced by the happenings. It gave Peter the dim hope that somehow, somewhere, there might be an answer to all the frightful things that had happen­ed—an answer in which he, and others, could be­lieve.

The day of the funeral came. Four pall­bearers entered the house. Peter watched from the hall. He was dressed in sombre black, his face white and serious. He saw them come downstairs, carrying the coffin—then they took it out to the hearse and slid it gently into position. After that there was some ten minutes of wreath-laying.

Dr. Meadows arrived before the funeral cortege started off. He said but little. There was sor­row deep in his eyes, but it had not the naked hurt expressed in Peter's features.... Mrs. Dawlish was present too, in sombre clothes. The remainder of the mourners were chiefly those few from the village who had ignored malicious gossip and liked Elsie for herself.

So the forlorn journey to the cemetery began. The weather had turned unseasonable. There was a cutting wind and a light, saturating rain. The vicar seemed to mumble the burial service. At the back of the church sat Rawnee Singh, utterly unemotional, listening intently. He was also present at the graveside and watched Peter hurl a handful of earth down into the grave on top of the coffin. Then it was all over and Elsie had been laid to rest—at least so far as human endeavour could plan it. What might happen later nobody, except maybe Singh, knew.

Peter, for his part, had come now to the task he had been fearing the most. He had to make arrangements for a watch to be kept over Elsie's grave. He would probably have shirked it alto­gether, only Dr. Meadows did not allow him to.

He insisted that a meeting should be held that evening in the main lounge of the village inn—and Peter had to be there whether he liked it or not.

He found the room fairly crowded with villagers, both men and women, when he arrived towards eight o'clock. He waited until Dr. Meadows came, and then explained the situation.

“This, for me, is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted,” he said, with a serious glance at the faces turned towards him. “I am having to ask for volunteers to strike down my wife—by driving a stake through her heart—­if she is seen to leave her grave. We all know that she died because of a vampire attack by her former husband, George Timperley, which makes it inevitable that she will become a vampire in turn. We have already experienced the horror of a vamp­ire in our midst: unless we can take prompt action we are liable to have yet another vampire…my wife.”

“It does not follow that she will actually be seen leaving her
grave
,” Dr. Meadows pointed out. “She will have the power of any spirit to pass through solids and might also have the gift of invisibility until she is about to strike; then invisibility will be useless to her. By this I mean that she may appear anywhere, anytime, either in some part of the cemetery or outside it. It will be by night, not day. We shall have to be always on the alert.”

“Otherwise there'll be more murders?” somebody asked.

“That is inevitable,” Meadows agreed. “Remember that Mrs. Malden had no reason during life to be friendly towards you villagers. You pilloried her because she married so soon after her first hus­band's death. Since then you have heard, chiefly at the inquest, how brutally her first husband treated her. You also know how he avenged him­self: by destroying her—albeit slowly—and leaving the mark of the vampire upon her.”

“George Timperley—the vampire, that is—hasn't been seen for some time,” a woman remarked. “What do you suppose has happened to him, doctor?”

For a moment or two Meadows considered this; then he replied:

“It is possible that his only aim in rising from the grave as a vampire was to find his former wife and leave his mark upon her. With that acc­omplished his foul mission was, perhaps, completed. There is only one way to make sure.”

“Open his grave?” Peter asked.

“Exactly. I think we should do that—tonight if possible. Scotland Yard do not seem to be gett­ing anywhere, and since we in this village are the most likely potential victims for future attack we might as well see how we stand.”

“We can do that when we're in the cemetery to­night,” Peter said. “I want volunteers who'll agree to keep watch in the cemetery—maybe every night for a month, or until such time as we are satisfied as to what is happening.”

There was no lack of response to his request. Several hands went up, mostly from dour-looking farmers in whom superstition was deep-rooted.

“A dozen,” Peter said, nodding as he counted the hands. “That's fine. Say six each alternate night. That should be enough. I too will stay on watch alternate nights, commencing tonight.”

“Might I join too?” asked a quiet voice, and Peter looked quickly towards the doorway where a man had just come in. He was wearing a mackintosh and a turban.

“You still around this district, Singh?” Meadows asked him bluntly. “What do you hope to accomplish now the worst has happened?”

“I have yet to be assured, my dear doctor, that the worst
has
happened....” The mystic came forward with his catlike tread and paused a few feet away from where Peter and Meadows were standing.

“You don't regard the death of my wife as the worst?” Peter demanded bitterly.

“No.” Singh gave him a direct look from his dark eyes. “I shall consider the worst has happ­ened when your wife reappears as a vampire...as she will. I am anxious to see that happen.”

“Why?” Meadows asked.

“Chiefly to satisfy myself that I have read the future aright.”

Singh turned as a burly farmer tapped him on the arm.

“Look here, mister, I don't quite understand where you fit into this business. D'you mean you actually read the future?”

“It is my profession.” Singh agreed, with his inscrutable smile. “I am able to use my poor gifts to read destiny.... I knew Mrs. Malden would die. I also know she will reappear as a vampire.”

“Oh, you do!” Grim suspicion crossed the farmer's face. “You seem to know the hell of a lot! Maybe the police would like a word with you.”

“They've already had one,” Peter said. “Mr. Singh is a mystic—so he says—and so far every­thing he has foreseen has come true. Some of you may remember him at the Christmas fair.”

The farmer snapped his fingers. “
That's
where I've seen you! You told Sam Jenkins that his haystack would catch fire on the night of January 10th, didn't you?”

“I hardly remember.... Naturally, it
did
catch fire?”

“Yes. We never found out how. Come to think of it, you could have fired it yourself to make a prophecy come true—”

Singh held up his hand. “Gentlemen, I beg of you not to anger the powers that be by discredit­ing them. That can only bring disaster on all of us.”

“I think,” Meadows said deliberately, “you are going to cause a great deal of trouble amongst us, Singh, if you stay in this district.”

“Perhaps I am not alone in that,” he responded. “In any case I intend to remain. I have a friend just outside the village with whom I'm staying. This business of Mrs. Malden interests me tremend­ously. Anything with an other-world flavour commands my attention.”

Obviously he was not to be shaken off, so neither Meadows nor Peter took any further notice of him. He joined the party of six who went to the cemetery towards eleven o'clock to keep the first night's vigil. The dismal dreariness of the day had been carried on into the night and drizzle was still descending from a black sky as the party, hurricane lamps swinging, made its way to the new grave where Elsie lay buried. For a moment or two, when the grave had been reached, Peter stood looking at the headstone and the still fresh wreaths: then he turned to Meadows.

“I'll stay here with three men, Doc,” he said. “You'd better take the opportunity to open up George's grave and see how things are.”

Meadows nodded, signalled to the remaining three men who were carrying shovels and tools, then they went off into the murk. Peter watched them go, then he looked back at the villagers in their rain-soaked mackintoshes. Singh was there too, immobile in the light of the hurricane lamps.

“You don't want to satisfy yourself about George Timperley, then?” Peter asked him.

“My interest is in your wife, Mr. Malden.”

“You mean my
late
wife…”

“As you wish. For myself I have still to be satisfied on that point.”

“What do you mean by that?” Peter demanded. “Can't you see that we're all of us under strain enough—myself in particular—without you making all kinds of enigmatic remarks?”

“I ask your forgiveness,” Singh murmured, with a slight obeisance. “I was merely thinking it would be more sensible to open your wife's grave than George Timperley's, since it is she with whom we're concerned.”

Peter hesitated and the men with him glanced at each other.

“It is so obvious a course,” Singh added, spreading his hands. “If her coffin is empty we know that we have to be on the alert. If she still lies there, then—for the time being at least—we have nothing more to guard against.”

“I'll ask the Doc when he comes back,” Peter decided.

“He may be a long time,” Singh remarked, with a glance at the distant spots of light where the hurricane lamps stood by George Timperley's grave. “I would advise you to dig now. There are tools here—and shovels. I am not averse to doing my share.”

“He may be right, Mr. Malden,” one of the men said. “It's up to you, though. She's
your
wife—or was.”

Peter spent a further moment or two trying to make up his mind, then before he could do so a scream from the lane which ran past the cemetery made him glance up sharply. Singh, and the three other men, swung round and stared through the drizzle.

The scream came again, choking off into a ghastly shriek.

“Trouble!” Peter snapped. “Come on—!” He whipped up a shovel as a weapon and started racing along the shale pathway. Meadows and the men working with him had also heard the cries and were heading towards the gap in the cemetery railings when Peter and his party caught up.

In a moment or two the entire group was in the lane, the hurricane lamps swinging, heading to­wards the lights of the doctor's car from where the scream had seemed to emanate.

They came upon the cause of the trouble abrupt­ly—too abruptly for the good of their nerves. Two men were lying face down in the lane, arms and legs sprawled as grotesquely as though they were rag dolls.

“Sergeant Blair and Constable Hawkins!” Meadows gasped. “The pair of them!”

He hurried forward, hurricane lamp in hand. Putting it down in the roadway he turned both men over, frowning as he felt how flaccid their bodies were. Peter and the rest of the men, Rawnee Singh in the background, looked down in silent horror on two bodies from which every scrap of blood had apparently been drained. The corpses were dehy­drated in some extraordinary way, leaving folds of flesh clinging to the bone structure. And on the throats of both men were deep, vividly stained punctures.

“Well, do I have to explain this?” Meadows ask­ed, looking up at the grim faces in the lamplight. “Our two stalwart guardians of the law have ob­viously been attacked and slain by a vampire—either George Timperley, or….”

“Go on, say it!” Peter snapped. “Or Elsie!”

“I'd sooner you said it for me,” Meadows re­sponded. “Evidently these two poor devils were set upon as they patrolled the lane out here: They promised they would do, remember, when we told them of our plans for tonight. The point is,
which
vampire caused this ghastly business? Not a drop of blood is left in either man!”