The House of the Wolf (8 page)

CHAPTER 9: THE BREAK IN THE WALL

Coleridge ignored the injured expression in the other’s eyes. He got up carefully, still holding the tweezers, and put the fragment of wood and fur into a small brown paper envelope he took from an inner pocket.

He sealed the envelope and wrote something on it with a silver pen, aware all the time of the looks the two young people were exchanging. If the situation amused him, he was too skilled a diplomatist to let anything of this show on his face.

‘I think I may have some news for you a little later,’ he told the girl tactfully, giving his colleague a friendly glance.

The latter cleared his throat, a baffled look in his eyes as he stared first at Coleridge and then at the young woman. The former thought it might be a good time to take his leave, but Nadia Homolky had not yet finished.

She ignored Raglan and fell into step with the professor as he started back down the corridor.

Coleridge half-turned. Raglan had taken a step after them as though he meant to follow but was halted in his tracks by the peremptory, almost savage, gesture the girl made with her right hand, which she kept behind her back. Coleridge was left with the image of Raglan’s face, half-angry, half-baffled. He felt uneasy; he did not wish to get between this charming but apparently fiery-tempered girl and a young colleague who was obviously interested in her.

‘I did ask you a question, Professor,’ the girl said to him gently.

The brown eyes, so clear and candid, had an appealing expression in them now. The professor, who could be inflexible when the occasion warranted, knew when to bend with the wind.

‘I am sorry,’ he said by way of being placatory. ‘My mind was much occupied with what you have just shown me.’

‘Then you do think an animal was outside my room,’ the girl persisted.

‘I did not say so,’ said Coleridge cautiously.

He went on, forestalling any interruption.

‘It is possible. But we are far from knowing it was a wolf.’

‘When will you know?’ the girl asked.

Coleridge admired her tenacity while at the same time deploring the way in which she was continually pressing him for an answer.

‘In a little while, perhaps,’ he said. ‘When I have had this material analysed. One of my colleagues is an expert in these matters. If he has his microscope with him . . .’

‘Oh, there is no problem about that,’ Nadia Homolky broke in. ‘Father has a well-equipped laboratory at the top of the Castle. You will find everything you need there.’

Coleridge was about to smile at the girl’s earnestness, but another look at her face convinced him of her deadly seriousness. He put his hand on her arm in a consolatory gesture.

‘Do not distress yourself further, Miss Homolky. I know how gravely you regard this matter.’

They were back at the stairhead now, and they paused again. Coleridge fixed his gaze absently on the glaring, glassy eyes of a wild boar’s head which hung on the panelling of the staircase. The Castle, he now understood, was full of such barbaric mementoes of the chase.

He heard, too, the faint footfalls on the parquet along the angle of the corridor. Raglan had followed them, then. He realised the doctor would have to, of course, because the corridor was a cul-de-sac. Nevertheless, the young man’s proximity gave him an uneasy feeling; he felt there might be a scene between him and the girl, and he had no wish to be party to it. He took his hand off her arm. He was relieved, therefore, when she led the way down the staircase at a fast pace.

‘Natural or unnatural,’ he added, ‘we ought to examine the place in the Castle walls where the beast could have gained ingress.’

‘I am just going to show you,’ she said over her shoulder.

‘I shall need my boots if we are going outside,’ Coleridge rejoined with his native practicality.

The girl laughed musically.

‘Nonsense!’ she said. ‘We can see well enough from the inner courtyard. And there is plenty of thick clothing in the entrance hall, which Father keeps there for the use of guests.’

Coleridge shrugged. He was content to leave things to this rather extraordinary girl who, although obviously well educated and gently brought up, had a swift decisiveness about her that cut through the veneer of conventionalised ideas.

They passed down the staircase to the great black-and-white tiled hall the visitor recognised from the previous night. The majordomo appeared from one of the side-doors as though he had been summoned by some inaudible bell.

The guest realised then that the girl had, in fact, pressed a button set beneath an enormous oil painting at the bottom of the stairs. She spoke to the majordomo in her own language, and the grey-haired military-looking man immediately withdrew.

‘Perhaps you would like some coffee before we go out,’ the girl said. ‘I understand that is your custom in your own country.’

The humour was back in her eyes now, but Coleridge ignored it. He was completely absorbed in the problems which were currently presenting themselves to his mind.

‘When we return,’ he said. ‘Then I really must rejoin my colleagues. I believe your father has some sort of itinerary planned for us today. Everyone will wonder where we are.’

Nadia Homolky raised her elegant eyebrows, the humour still in her expression.

‘I think not, Professor,’ she said softly.

Coleridge raised his glance to the gloom at the stairhead. He could now see the vaguely questioning form of Raglan hovering there. He felt uneasy and was glad when the unhurried footsteps of the majordomo were again heard on the parquet.

He shrugged on the heavy fur coat the man presented, followed by the enormous flapped cap, and accompanied the girl across to the main entrance of the Castle.

Their breath came reeking from their mouths as they crossed the courtyard, their feet gritting on the frozen granules of snow in the interstices of the cobbles. The going was tricky indeed, and more than once Coleridge felt his footing slip from beneath him, saving himself by clutching his golden-haired companion’s arm.

On each occasion she smiled at him mischievously before the savant realised that her heavy boots were evidently fitted with special cleats, because they made a sharp grating noise from time to time.

He wished he had worn boots also, but it was too late now. They were off the courtyard and under an arched colonnade which followed the ancient walls round. It was warmer and dry in here, and Coleridge stamped his feet, getting rid of crusted fragments of snow. The girl kept hold of his arm as though she were either concerned with his balance or anxious about something.

Coleridge came to the latter conclusion after glancing at her because she stared from side to side as they went on down the gloomy cloisterlike arcade. There was no-one about, and it was almost as dark as night beneath the shelter of the wall. They walked on for a few moments in silence before the girl stopped before a massive iron-bound door set into the heavy masonry.

It was unlocked and opened easily to her touch. There was a glare of snow after the darkness of the inner court, and Coleridge blinked, closing his eyes against the suddenness of the light. As they stepped forward into the crispness of the humped and frozen whiteness, he realised they had left the main Castle buildings behind. This was some sort of outer courtyard whose walls were in a sorry state of repair, which he had already glimpsed from his bedroom window.

Looking back, the professor could see that the bulk of Castle Homolky and the entrance area which faced the moat and the road was behind them and to their right. The vast demesne also continued to their left until it was masked by a curtain wall which ran out to join the sprawling curve of a ruined battlement which lay in front of them.

Beyond it, Coleridge could see sloping ground which debouched from the far edge of Lugos. There was a frozen stream which lay in a fold of ground and, beyond, the sinister stillness of dark pine forest, looking like a crayon sketch by some mediaeval artist. The smoke from a few chimneys hung in the sky like the vague scribblings on a child’s slate.

There was a confusion of footprints in the trampled snow leading to and from the jagged gap in the tumbled walls. They were much closer now, and Coleridge bent to examine the muddled impression of many feet. He turned to the girl, who was watching him with grave anxiety.

‘A great many people pass in and out this way.’

Nadia Homolky nodded.

‘The Castle staff mostly. They come and go to collect wood and on various errands. It saves them a long journey round by the Castle entrance and the main road. Father frowns on the practice, but there is great practicality in it for the people concerned, so he does not insist.’

Coleridge stroked his chin with a hand which was rapidly becoming numb. He thrust it deep in the capacious pocket of the fur coat he had borrowed.

‘Your wolf could have come this way. And if that side-door had been unlocked. . .’

The girl said nothing, but her downward-cast eyes showed her companion brief glimpses of her disbelief. He did not labour the point. It would be best to find out more before coming to any definite conclusions. He walked over to where the great jumbled blocks of masonry lay about the breach in the wall.

‘How long ago was this done?’

The girl shrugged.

‘Centuries, perhaps. In some ancient siege, I believe. Father has the details if you are interested.’

The visitor noted that there was a well-defined pathway between the blocks which led to a sort of plateau, probably of heaped earth, where it would be easy to get through. From the other side of the wall another readily apparent path led down to the meadows beyond.

Even with the thick coating of snow Coleridge could make out the heavy indentation where thousands of feet must have trod over the years. And there were deep ruts made by carts passing and repassing, probably with firewood and the implements of forestry. He was silent for a few moments, the weight of centuries suddenly pressing on his mind, mingled with a sense of the impermanence of human beings and their transient affairs.

Then his practical side reasserted itself. He bent down toward the heaped ice and snow, trying to make sense of the blurred impressions produced by many passing feet. He soon saw that there was something apart from footprints and the ruts of a wheeled cart: a series of slotlike indentations in the frozen upper crust of the muddied snow made by some large animal. He followed them back, lips pursed grimly. The traces died out on a large sheet of ice. They went in the general direction of the door in the wall leading to the pillared arcade.

The girl had seen the tracks too, and she came to join him, her breasts rising and falling beneath her thick fur coat with the quick breathing engendered by her emotion.

‘An animal, Professor,’ she said ironically.

‘A large dog, perhaps,’ Coleridge answered. ‘From your father’s household.’

The girl shook her head, strands of golden hair escaped from her fur hat falling across her eyes.

‘I think not, Professor,’ she said slowly. ‘I know a wolf-track well enough when I see one.’

Before he could answer, Coleridge became aware that someone was watching them.

CHAPTER 10: FROZEN FALLS

The count came out from behind the buttress which had concealed his approach. He looked searchingly at his daughter and her companion, but his voice was bland and unconcerned.

‘Ah, there you are, Nadia. And you, Professor. We had wondered at your absence. I saw you from the window and took the liberty of coming to fetch you.’

‘I am sorry, Father,’ the girl said quickly, shooting Coleridge a warning glance. ‘I was showing the professor some of the more interesting parts of the Castle.’

‘So I see,’ Homolky muttered drily.

He turned to Coleridge, his manner suddenly brisker, and the three started to walk toward the door in the wall which led back to the colonnade flanking the inner courtyard.

‘Hot coffee and brandy await us, Professor.’

He gave his guest a somewhat wolfish smile, the latter thought.

‘It will fortify us for the excursion before us.’

He looked at Coleridge anxiously.

‘Unless you find the conditions too severe this morning . . .”

Coleridge experienced faint confusion again, though there was no reason he should not have been walking the boundary walls with his host’s daughter. He wondered if the Count had noticed the tracks in the snow. Coleridge knew Homolky wanted to keep all worries about the wolf-pack and the deaths in the village from his family. He felt he might have inadvertently breached the host’s conception of good manners in a guest and was anxious to make amends.

But he need not have worried, for it was shortly obvious that the Count was in good spirits when he smilingly commenced a dissertation on the history of his ancestral home. Emboldened by this, Coleridge felt encouraged to ask him something which had been on his mind for the past hour or so.

‘It is a remarkable place,’ he said in answer to a proffered remark by the tall man with the white hair, making a startling contrast to his black fur hat.

‘I was interested to learn that the village people called it The House of the Wolf. And I noticed the wolf-motif in the firedogs. I presume it is also in your family coat of arms.’

The Count smiled politely, and once again Coleridge noticed the sharpness of his teeth.

‘That really relates to an ancestor of mine,’ he said. ‘The armorial bearings originated from his exploits.’

He shot an amused glance at his daughter as they regained the door in the wall. Coleridge waited for his host to precede him but was ushered firmly in to the darkness of the colonnade.

‘It is a longish story, and I will reserve it for this evening, with your permission.’

Coleridge felt a quickening of interest, and he mentally decided that he would return to the subject if Homolky showed no inclination to do so. In the meantime he had the girl’s problem and the fragments of fur and flesh in the envelope in his pocket. He must have a discreet word with Menlow; perhaps there would be an opportunity on their walk.

They were halfway along the shadowy arcade now, and it was somewhat warmer in here, sheltered from the wind. Coleridge had lagged behind, and he hurried to catch up with his companions, his footsteps echoing sepulchrally on the flagstones.

‘Have you made arrangements about the wolf-hunt, Father,’ the girl was saying.

‘There has been no time,’ said Homolky somewhat curtly. ‘But I hope to have a word with Colonel Anton later in the day.’

He turned back to Coleridge.

‘Our local Chief of Police,’ he explained over his shoulder. ‘It is not strictly a police matter, but he likes to be kept informed of all that goes on in the area.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Coleridge blandly, his mind elsewhere for the moment.

They had regained the house now, and Homolky led the way with quick, nervous steps to the hall where the same mute majordomo took their outdoor clothing. Coleridge moved over to the fire, aware that his fingers were frozen to the bone. He held them out to the healing warmth, conscious of the Count’s somewhat mocking expression.

Too late, he realised he had left the gloves in the pockets of the coat. He should have worn them, of course; it was dangerous in this climate. There was always a distinct possibility of frostbite if one did not take extreme care.

The girl moved over near Coleridge; her eyes spelt out a mute warning to him. Coleridge found the message difficult to read. He was not sure whether she was asking his discretion regarding their conversation over the supposed wolf outside her room, or whether she was trying to alert him about something else.

A few moments later the tall form of Dr. Raglan moved into view. There was a puzzled, resentful look on his face, and Coleridge edged toward him, offering a reassuring smile.

‘I am sorry about that just now,’ he said in a low voice that the Count could not possibly have heard. ‘Miss Homolky was rather concerned about something. I am sure she will tell you all about it in due course.’

Raglan’s face assumed its normal frank, open expression, and he smiled too, all the tension and restraint dropping away from him.

‘I did not mean to intrude, Professor, but I was anxious to discuss something with Miss Homolky. I was rather surprised to find you there.’

‘It was a surprise to myself,’ Coleridge assured him. ‘However, you will no doubt have ample time to discuss these matters at coffee.’

The Count was standing rather impatiently, and as the two men and his daughter joined him he led the way back at a fast pace to the Armoury, where his wife presided at a silver coffee urn and a black-bearded servant dispensed glasses of spirits.

The room was full of brightness and conversation from the people gathered there, and Coleridge’s spirits lightened as he and the other members of the small group hurried forward to join them.

The air burned like fire as Coleridge took it deeply into his lungs, and his boots crunched with brittle punctuations in the icy snow as he followed the black crocodile of figures down the forest trail between the pine trees. They had come through the village in a procession of horse-drawn vehicles which were now returning to the Castle, the hoofbeats sending back reverberating echoes from the house-fronts.

He looked idly at the slim figure of the girl, in her stout boots and fur garments, who walked lithely ahead in the middle of the procession. She was now deep in conversation with Raglan, and her light laughter, metallic in the rising wind, was flung back fragmentarily toward him. Engrossed as she seemed in the young man’s banter, he knew she was absorbed in the problems they had earlier been discussing, and he thought again of the samples of flesh and fur reposing in the envelope in his inner pocket.

He hoped to find a moment to confer with his colleague, but the man he wanted was far ahead at the moment, walking with their host. The Count’s wife was also present, her tall, graceful figure the absolute mould of her daughter’s as she strode at the side of her husband. Coleridge was content to remain in the background for the time being, absorbing the strange atmosphere of this extraordinary land and quietly observing his companions.

He was conscious too that the gathering should have been truly an international one, but two French savants whom he had invited had to decline for personal reasons and a distinguished Hungarian folklorist, whose name was a household word in his native land, had had to return to his remote province because of a family illness.

Therefore, as he had already noted, the English-speaking community which had gathered at Castle Homolky was not strictly the party he had wished for, and one or two of its members were unknown quantities so far as their personalities and the depth of their scholarship were concerned.

It did not really matter, though, because the colleagues Coleridge could personally vouch for and whose work was known to him represented a quality that would make the private Congress due to start in the morning well worthwhile.

His thoughts were proceeding in this mundane fashion when they were interrupted by a harsh roaring noise, and his eye was drawn to the ridge above them on which the village stood and from which drifted great clouds of smoke billowing above the rooftops. He glanced inquiringly at a black-bearded man, almost abreast of him, who appeared to be one of the senior house-servants from the Castle. He broke into a flood of harsh, guttural sentences, which Coleridge could not make out. The tall, emaciated Englishman called Shaw, who was walking just ahead on the path, had dropped back, and now he listened attentively.

‘He says that the gypsies are encamped in the village, Professor,’ he explained in a soft voice. ‘They are preparing for their Winter Fair.’

Coleridge was surprised, though he tried to keep it out of his voice.

‘You speak Hungarian, Shaw? I did not know you were so gifted.’

The silver-haired man shrugged, his teeth gleaming beneath the drooping moustache.

‘It is nothing, Professor. I am able to pick out phrases here and there.’

He laughed shortly.

‘But friends who know such things tell me my accent is abominable when I try to speak.’

They were proceeding lower now, and even the rooftops of the village had sunk beneath the darkness of the trees, as though the last of civilisation was being submerged in their savage and barbaric surroundings.

The image of the great bear he had seen in the wooden slatted cage as they passed the gypsies on their way to the Castle the previous night floated unsummoned into the professor’s mind and somehow filled him with sadness. He had said nothing to his host of his feelings on the matter, but he abhorred the shooting of animals and birds except on matters exclusively concerned with food-gathering or survival.

But he had lived in remote parts of the world from time to time where expertise at firearms as a protection against humans as well as animals would appear to be prudent, and so he had taken pains to ensure that he was expert at their use.

Most of his shooting had been, in fact, at nothing more vulnerable than targets, but he was certainly an expert shot and he knew he could give a good account of himself against a man-eating wolf on open snowy ground, conditions under which both trained huntsmen and the troops of Rakosi’s detachment had failed.

Shaw had gone ahead again now, slipping and slithering on the icy path, and Coleridge turned aside, walking on the ridges of frozen snow where the footing was more secure. The village had abruptly disappeared from sight as though it had never been, and it was again borne in on the American that a few yards off the path in this country could mean long hours of fruitless wandering and an agonising death for a so-called civilised European.

Even the peasants were better equipped for life here, and he resolved to remember that and take his host’s advice in all things related to this rugged country into which they had hardly begun to penetrate. He turned to look back for an instant: only the farthest pinnacle of the Castle was now visible, and a second later it too had disappeared beneath the green-and-white ice-covered foliage of the topmost tree-branches.

The savage roaring again came loud and clear from the direction of Lugos; Coleridge was not startled now. He knew it was probably the bear he had seen on the gypsy cart; possibly the poor brute was signalling for its midday meal or perhaps being prepared unwillingly for some rustic circus turn.

Walking at the side of the path at a faster pace, he had already overtaken some of the party and was now somewhere toward the middle of the column. The Count was up at the head, but almost at once Coleridge found himself behind the gaunt figure of Dr. Menlow. He was deep in conversation with the Count’s wife, and once again Coleridge admired the heavy voluptuousness of her figure moving beneath her thick fur garments. He kept a yard or two behind, and after a little while longer she excused herself and went off at a faster pace down the path, moving with quick, lithe movements to rejoin her husband.

Menlow had glanced around and, noticing Coleridge, waited for him to come up, stepping aside to join his colleague on the rough snow at the side of the track. This was the man Coleridge wanted to see without arousing any attention from the others, and he could not have planned it better. Menlow stared at him with red eyes from pinched features. He glanced around with a shiver.

‘This is a wild place, Coleridge. I shall be glad to get back indoors again.’

The professor shrugged.

‘I don’t know. It gives one an appetite for lunch.’

Menlow grinned wryly, falling into step with his colleague as they crunched slowly along.

‘You are better covered than I,’ he murmured. ‘And I fancy my blood is thinner than yours.’

They had come down into a steep valley, and the trees were falling away; a stream debouched at their right in long, curving sweeps that bisected the whiteness of the snow. It was completely frozen and gleamed like gun-metal in the clear light. Below them, almost in the centre of the valley, was a spectacular waterfall where the stream fell about eighty feet to a pool; it too was frozen and descended in a series of stalagmites that sparkled like some bizarre confectionery in a patisserie window.

The Count had obviously brought his guests to admire this extraordinary place, and already there were polite murmurs of astonishment from guests and household staff as they went in single file down toward a heavy wooden bridge which spanned the pool at the foot of the petrified fall.

Coleridge was alone with Menlow now beneath the shadows of the trees.

‘I have something I would like you to analyse, Doctor,’ he said softly, looking sharply about him. ‘I would prefer no-one to know about it but we two.’

Menlow raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Coleridge thought he could rely on his discretion if his reputation was anything to go by.

‘I have only simple apparatus . . .’ the other began, but the professor stopped him.

He took out the envelope from his inner pocket and passed it over.

‘It is a very mundane matter. Merely a sample of hair and skin. I would be grateful if you could let me have your valued opinion by this evening.’

Menlow nodded slowly, his sandy moustache looking as though it were carved from ice, so cold did he appear. He took the small brown envelope in his gloved hand and put it into his pocket.