The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

1. Won’t You Walk into My Parlor?

The gate handle was rusty. I didn’t want to touch it. But that was the only way of getting in, unless I wanted to climb the high walls and leave part of my trousers on the iron spikes studding the top.

I grabbed the handle, pushed the gate open and walked down the flagstone path to the house.

If I were a botanist, I’d have been interested in the weeds growing along that path. As it was, they were only something to stumble over. I ignored them and stared at the mansion ahead.

The Petroff house was not quite as big as a castle and not quite as old as Noah’s Ark. It looked like the kind of a place the Phantom of the Opera would pick for a summer home.

As far as I was concerned, it was something to donate to the next scrap drive.

But that was none of my business. My business was to sneak inside and wangle old Petroff into giving me an interview about his art treasures. The Sunday supplement needed a feature yarn.

I walked up to the big porch, climbed the stairs, and jangled the old-fashioned door pull. Nothing happened, so I did it again. Same result. It looked as though the Butler’s Union had pulled its man off this job.

Just for fun I edged over and turned the doorknob. As I did, I noticed a garland hanging down from the metal projection. It was a wreath of smelly leaves. Not a funeral wreath – just leaves.

That was none of my business, either. I was interested in whether or not the door was unlocked.

It was. So I walked in.

Why not? When Lenehan gave me the assignment, he told me it was a tough one. He had talked to old Petroff over the phone, and Petroff had refused to meet the press or drool over his art treasures.

I expected to be met at the door by a bouncer with a shotgun. But this was easy, and I took advantage of it. It wasn’t polite, but newspaper reporting isn’t a polite occupation.

The door swung shut behind me, and I stood in a long hallway. It was hard to see anything specific in the afternoon twilight, but I got a musty whiff of stale air, mothballs, and just plain age and decay.

It made me cough. I coughed louder, hoping to rouse my host.

No results. I started down the hallway, still coughing from time to time. An open door led into a deserted library. I ignored it, passed a staircase, walked on.

Behind the stairs was another door. I halted there, for a faint light gleamed from underneath it. I groped for the handle and coughed again. Once more the cough was genuine – for hanging on the doorknob was another garland of those leaves.

Inside here the smell was terrific. Like a Bohemian picnic. Suddenly I recognized the odor. Garlic.

According to the stories going around, old Petroff was a bit of a screwball. But it couldn’t be that he had turned the house into a delicatessen.

There was only one way to find out. I opened the door and walked into the parlor where the lamp burned.

It was quiet inside – quiet enough to hear a pin drop. In fact, you could tell which end hit the floor first: the head or the point.

But a pin had not hit the floor in this room. Petroff had.

He looked like his photo, all right. He was tall, thin, with black hair, curled and gray at the temples. A beaked nose and thick lips dominated his face.

He lay there on the floor, his nose pointing up at the ceiling. I got to his side in a hurry, and the floor creaked as I bent over him.

It didn’t matter. The noise wouldn’t bother him. Nothing would ever bother Igor Petroff again.

His hand was icy. His face was paper-white. I looked around for a mirror but didn’t spot any. I pulled my cigarette case out and put it against his lips. The shiny metal clouded slightly. He was still breathing, at any rate.

Probably he’d had a stroke. I lifted his head and stared into his bloodless face. His collar was open. I felt for a pulse in his neck, then took my hand away, quick.

I stared down at his throat, stared down and saw the two tiny punctures in his neck, shook my head and stared again.

They looked like the marks of human teeth!

There was no use asking if there was a doctor in the house. I got up and dashed out into the hall to get to the phone. I got to it. I jiggled the receiver for nearly a minute before I noticed the dangling cord trailing on the floor. Whoever had bitten Petroff had also bitten through the cord.

That was enough for me. I made the two miles back to town in about ten minutes and five hundred gasps. I still had a gasp left in me when I ran into Sheriff Luther Shea’s office at Centerville and knocked his feet off the desk.

“Accident out at the Petroff place!” I wheezed. “Get a doctor, quick!”

Sheriff Luther Shea was a fat little bald-headed man who seemed to enjoy keeping his feet on the desk. He put them right back up and scowled at me over his Number Elevens.

“What’sa big idea of bustin’ in here? Who are you, anyhow?”

I faced my genial quiz-master without a thought of winning the sixty-four-dollar question.

“Can’t you hear?” I yelled. “Call a doctor! Mr Petroff has been injured.”

“Ain’t no doctor in this town,” he told me. “Now state your business, fella.”

I stated it, but loud. He perked up his ears a little when I told him about Petroff, but he didn’t take his feet off the desk until I flashed my press badge. That did it.

“No sense trying to find a doctor – nearest one’s back in LA,” he decided. “I’m pretty handy at first aid. I’ll get the car and we’ll go out and pick him up.”

Sheriff Shea banged the office door behind him, and I grabbed a phone. I got hold of Calloway right away and he promised to send the ambulance out to Centerville. Somehow, after having had a good look at Petroff, I didn’t have much confidence in Sheriff Shea’s “first aid”.

Then I put through a call to the paper.

Lenehan growled at me, and I barked right back.

“Somebody bit his throat? Say, Kirby – you drunk?”

I breathed into the phone. “Smell that,” I said. “I’m cold sober. I found him lying on the floor with two holes in his neck. I’m still not sure he wasn’t dead.”

“Well, find out. Keep on this story and give me all you’ve got. We can hold three hours for the morning edition. Looks like murder, you say?”

“I didn’t say a blamed thing about murder!” I yelled.

“Come on, quit stalling!” Lenehan yelled back. “What’s your angle on this?”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Confidentially,” I said, “my theory is that old Petroff bit himself in the throat just for the publicity.”

Lenehan apparently didn’t believe me, because he launched off into a discussion of my ancestry that was cut short when Sheriff Shea appeared in the doorway. He wore a rancher’s black Stetson and a shoulder holster. On him it didn’t look good.

“Come on, fella,” he said, and I hung up.

His rattletrap Chevvy didn’t deserve a C card, but we made time down Centerville’s single street and chugged out along the highway.

“From the LA papers, huh?” he grunted. “Whatcha doing up at Petroff’s?”

“My editor gave me an assignment to write a feature story about the art treasures of the Irene Colby Petroff estate. Do you know anything about them?”

“Don’t know nothing, fella. When old man Colby was alive, he and the missus would come into town and do a little trading once in a while. Then he died and she married this foreign gigolo, Petroff, and that’s the last we seen of them in town. Then she died, and since then the place has gone to pot. This business don’t surprise me none. Hear some mighty funny gossip about what goes on out at Petroff’s place. All fenced off and locked up tighter’n a drum. Ask me, he’s hiding something.”

“I got in without any trouble.”

“What about the guards? What about the dogs? What about the locks on the gate?” I sat up. “No guards, no dogs, no locks,” I told him. “Just Petroff. Petroff lying there on the floor with the holes in his throat.”

We rounded a bend in the highway and approached the walls of the Petroff estate. The setting sun gleamed on the jagged spikes surmounting the walls. And it gleamed on something else.

“Who’s that?” I yelled, grabbing Sheriff Shea’s arm.

“Don’t do that!” he grunted. “Nearly made me go off the road.”

“Look!” I shouted. “There’s a man climbing up the wall.”

Sheriff Shea glanced across the road and saw the figure at the top of the wall. The car ground to a halt and we went into action. Shea tugged at his shoulder holster.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he bawled.

The man on the wall considered the proposition and rejected it. He turned and jumped. It was a ten-foot drop but he landed catlike and was scuttling across the road by the time we reached the base of the wall.

“After him!” Shea grunted.

The man ran along the other side of the road, making for a clump of trees ahead. I dashed along behind. The fugitive reached the grove a few steps ahead of me and I decided on a little football practice.

It was a rather ragged flying tackle, but it brought him down. We rolled over and over, and on the second roll he got on top. He didn’t waste time. I felt powerful fingers dig into my throat. I tore at his wrists. He growled and twisted his neck. I felt his mouth graze my cheek. He was trying to bite me.

I got his hands loose and aimed a punch at his chin, but he ducked and pressed his thumbs in my eyes. That hurt. I aimed another punch, but that wasn’t good either. By this time he had those hands around my neck again, and things began to turn red. The red turned black. I heard him growling and snarling deep in his throat, and his fingers squeezed and squeezed.

This was no time for Queensbury rules. I kicked him in the tummy. With a grunt of appreciation he slumped back, clutching his solar plexus.

2. They Fly by Night

Sheriff Shea arrived, wheezing, and together we collared our prisoner and dragged him to his feet.

He was not pretty. He wore one of those one-piece overall outfits, and between the spikes on the wall and the tussle, he’d managed to destroy its integrity. Patches of his skin showed through, advertising the need of a bath. His yellow hair was matted and hung down over his eyes, which was just as well. They were as blue as a baby-doll’s – and just as vacant. His lips hung slackly, and he was drooling. A prominent goitre completed the ensemble.

“Why, it’s Tommy!” said the Sheriff. “He’s a little touched,” he whispered, “but harmless.”

He didn’t have to tell me the kid was touched. That I could easily believe. But the “harmless” part I doubted. I rubbed my aching eyes and neck while Shea patted Tommy on the back.

“What were you doing on the wall, Tommy?” he asked.

Tommy lifted a sullen face. “I was looking at the bats.”

“What bats?”

“The bats that fly at twilight. They fly out of the windows and you can hear them squeaking at each other.”

I glanced at Sheriff Shea. He shrugged.

“Ain’t no bats around here except the ones in Tommy’s belfry.”

I took over. “What else were you looking at, Tommy?” I inquired.

He turned away. “I don’t like you. You tried to hurt me. Maybe you’re one of them! One of the bad people.”

“Bad people?”

“Yes. They come here at night. Sometimes they come as men, wearing black cloaks. Sometimes they fly – that’s when they’re bats. They only come at night, because they sleep in the daytime.”

Tommy was in full cry, now. I didn’t try to stop him.

“I know all about it,” he whispered. “They don’t suspect me, and they’d kill me if they thought I knew. Well, I do know. I know why Petroff doesn’t have any mirrors on the walls. I heard Charlie Owens, the butcher, tell about the liver he sends out every day – the raw liver, pounds of it. I know what flies by night.”

“That’s enough,” said Sheriff Shea. “Whatever you know, you can tell us inside.”

“Inside? You aren’t going in there, are you? You can’t take me in there! I won’t let you! You want to give me to him. You’ll let him kill me!”

Again, Shea cut him off. Grasping his arm, he guided the halfwit across the road. I followed. We made straight for the gate.

Shea halted. “Push it open,” I said.

“It’s locked.”

I looked. A shiny new padlock hung from the rusty handle.

“It was open half an hour ago,” I said.

“He always keeps it locked,” Shea told me. “Usually has a man out here, too – a guard. And dogs in the kennels back of the house.” He eyed me suspiciously. “You sure you were up here, Mr Kirby?”

“Listen,” I advised him. “I was up here a little over half an hour ago. The gate was open. I went in and found Petroff on the floor. He had two holes in his throat and I’m not sure whether he was still breathing or not. I’ll give you every explanation you want later, but let’s go inside, quick. He may be dead.”

Shea shrugged. He stood back and drew his revolver. The shot resounded, the lock shattered. I held Tommy tightly and pushed him through the gateway.

After that I took the lead. Up the steps, through the door, down the hall. It was slow going in the gathering twilight. We stumbled along toward the room behind the staircase.

“Here,” I said. “Here’s where I found him.” I opened the door. The light was still on. I pointed to the floor. “Here,” I said.

“Yeah?” grunted Shea. “Where is he?”

The room was empty. The rug was on the floor, but Petroff was not. I stared, and the room began to whirl. I took a deep breath and inhaled fresh air.

It was coming from the open French windows at the end of the room.

Of course! The windows were open. I had made some kind of a mistake. Petroff had been breathing. He had fainted, or something. After I left he recovered, went for a stroll on the porch beyond the open windows, and locked his gate. The holes in his throat. Maybe he’d cut himself while shaving.

I was a fool. A glance at Sheriff Shea confirmed the suspicion. He grinned at me.

But Tommy was not grinning.

“You were here before,” he murmured. “You saw him lying here with holes in his throat.”

“I – I made a mistake,” I mumbled.

“No. When you were here it was still daylight. Now it’s dusk. When you were here he was still asleep. But he comes alive at night.”

“What do you mean? Who comes alive at night?”

“The vampire,” he whispered. “He comes alive. And at night he flies. Look!”

Tommy screamed. His finger stabbed at the dusk beyond the opened windows.

We stared out into the night and saw the black shadow of a bat skimming off into the darkness, a mocking squeak rising from its throat.

In just a little while there was the devil of a lot of activity. The ambulance I had sent for finally arrived, and Shea had to stall them off with a trumped-up excuse about a fainting fit. Then Shea wanted to play detective and go over the place. Personally, I think he was dying to case the joint merely to collect some gossip.

I won’t bother remembering the bawling-out he handed me. I had to take it, too. After all, my story sounded pretty phony now.

Tommy was the only one who believed me. And his support was not much help. A half-wit’s comments on vampires don’t make good testimony.

While Shea handled the ambulance men, Tommy kept talking.

“Look at the garlic wreaths on the doors,” he said. “He must have been trying to keep them out. They can’t bear garlic.”

“Neither can I,” I answered. “And I’m no vampire.”

“Look at the books,” Tommy exclaimed. “Magic.”

I stepped over to the built-in bookshelves. This time Tommy really had something. There were rows of blackbound volumes; musty, crumbling treatises in Latin and German. I read the titles. It was indeed a library of demonology. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

But what did that prove? Occultism isn’t a rare hobby on the Coast. I knew half a hundred crackpots who belonged to “secret cults,” and down Laguna way there was a whole colony of them.

Still, I ran my eyes and fingers along the rows. One of the books on the lower shelf protruded a bit more than was necessary. It offended my sense of neatness. As I reached in to push it back, a card slipped out from between yellowed pages. I palmed it, turned around just as Sheriff Shea re-entered the room.

“Come on,” he sighed. “Let’s get out of here.”

Driving back to town, with Tommy wedged between us on the front seat, Shea gave me another going over. “I don’t understand all this monkey business,” he declared.

“I don’t know what you were doing in that house in the first place. Least I can do is hold you on suspicion of illegal entry. As for Tommy here, he’s liable to get booked on the same charges. I’m gonna see his folks about this. But what I want to know is – where’s Petroff?”

“I shot him.” I grinned. “But the bats flew off with his body.”

“Never mind that,” Shea snapped. “You smart-aleck reporters aren’t tampering with the law down here. I’d like to get the DA in on this, but there’s nothing to go on, yet. Maybe after I hold you on suspicion a few days you’ll be ready to talk. I want to know how you cut those telephone wires, too.”

“Now listen,” I said. “I’ve got work to do. I’m willing to play ball on this thing and help straighten matters out. If Igor Petroff has disappeared and I’m the last man who saw him alive – or dead – that’s important to me, too. The paper’ll want the story. But I’m down here on an assignment. I’ve got to move around.”

“No, you don’t. Case I didn’t mention it, you’re under arrest right now, Mr Kirby.”

“That,” I sighed, “is all I want to know.”

I eased the car door open gently and swiftly. We were going thirty, but I took my chances. I jumped and hit the road.

Shea swore. He brought the rattling Chevvy to a halt, but by that time I was running along the ditch on the other side of the road. It was good and dark.

Shea bawled and waved his revolver, but he couldn’t spot me. Then he turned the car around and zoomed back up the road. I went into the field, kept going. In a few minutes the road was far behind me, and I headed across to the other side of the field and another dirt road running parallel.

Here I found the truck that took me back to LA. I hopped off downtown, found a drugstore, and called Lenehan at the office.

“Where in thunder are you?” he greeted me. “Just had this hick sheriff on the wire. He’s bawling you’re a fugitive from justice. And what’s all this business about a disappearing body? Give.”

I gave. “Hold the yarn,” I pleaded. “I’ve got a new angle.”

“Hold it?” yelled Lenehan. “I’m tearing it up! You and your disappearing Dracula! Petroff was drunk on the floor when you found him and you were drunk on your feet. He had the decency to wander off and sober up, but you’re still drunk!”

I hung up.

Then I fished around in my pocket and pulled out the card I had snatched from the book in Petroff’s library.

It was nicely engraved:

I turned it over. A man’s heavy scrawl spidered across the back read:

The plot was thickening. Hammond King? I knew the name. A downtown boy. Wealthy attorney. What was the connection?

I called Maizie at the office.

“Hammond King,” I said. “Check the morgue.”

She got me the dope. I listened until she came to an item announcing that Hammond King was attorney for the Irene Colby Petroff estate. I stopped her and hung up.

It was eight o’clock. Not likely that Hammond King would still be at his office, but it was a chance worth taking. The phone book got me the number and I deposited my third nickel.

The phone rang for a long time. Perhaps he was going over a tort or something. Then a deep voice came over the wire.

“Hammond King speaking.”

“Mr King – this is Dave Kirby, of the Leader. I’d like to come over there and talk to you.”

“Sorry young man. If you’ll phone my office tomorrow for a more definite appointment—”

“I thought we might have a little chat about vampires.”

“Oh.”

That stopped him.

“I’ll be right over,” I said. “So long.”

He didn’t answer. I whistled my way out of the phone booth, ordered a ham sandwich and a malted milk, disposed of same, and took a cab downtown.

The night elevator brought me to Hammond King’s office. The door was open and I walked into one of those lavish layouts so typical of wealthy attorneys and impecunious booking agents.

I ignored the outer office and made for the big door marked “Private”.

King was examining a bottle of Scotch with phony nonchalance.

My nonchalance was just as phony as I examined him.

He was a short, stocky man of about fifty-five. Gray hair and mustache to match. His eyes slanted behind unusually thick bifocals. He wore an expensive gray suit, and I admired his taste in ties. He looked like a hundred other guys, but he sent books on vampirism to his friends. You never know these days.

“Mr Kirby?” he inquired, getting up and extending his hand. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I told you over the phone,” I said. “I’d like to have a little chat with you about vampires.”

“Oh.”

The phony nonchalance faded away and the hand dropped to his side.

“I’d rather have talked to Mr Petroff about it,” I continued. “Matter of fact, I dropped in on him this afternoon. But he wasn’t there. That is, he was there, and then he wasn’t. You know how vampires get restless about twilight.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, King,” I said. “I just thought I’d warn you. In case anybody tries to bite you in the throat, it’s your old client, Igor Petroff.”

“How’d you know he was my client?”

“I know a lot of things,” I told him, wishing it were true. “And what I don’t know you’d better tell me, but fast. Unless, of course, you want it splashed all over the front page of the Leader.”

“Let’s be reasonable,” Hammond King pleaded. “I’ll be glad to help you all I can. Anything involving my client—”

The phone rang. King reached for the receiver, then drew his hand back.

“Pardon me, please,” he said.

He got up and went into the outer office and shut the door.

3. The Bat’s Kiss

I would have given my left arm to know who King was talking to. But I didn’t have to give my left arm. All I needed to do was reach out with it and gently pick up the receiver. Call it eavesdropping, if you wish. You do a lot of things in this business.

“Mr King?” a girl’s voice came over the wire. “This is Lorna Colby. I’m at the Eastmore Hotel, Room Nine-nineteen . . . No, Igor sent for me. He wanted to talk about a settlement on the will.”

“Have you seen Petroff?” Hammond King barked into the phone at this end.

“No, not yet.”

“Well, I’ll be around in the morning, at ten. We’ve got to work fast, you understand? Something’s happening that I don’t like.”

“What is it?” asked Lorna Colby.

“I can’t talk now. See you tomorrow. Good night.”

He hung up. I hung up. It was my turn to look at the Scotch bottle as he came in.

“Where were we?” he asked.

“You were just going to spill the beans,” I said.

Hammond King smiled. “Was I? Lucky for me I got called away. I’m afraid I can’t talk this matter over with you just at present. That call was from a client in Pasadena. I’ve got to take the train tonight.”

I rose. One of his desk drawers was half opened. I reached in and scooped up a handful of garlic leaves.

“You had these left over from decorating the Petroff house, I presume,” I told him. “Too bad you didn’t think to put these on the French windows.”

I slipped the garlic wreath into his hand and left the room. He stood there with his mouth open, giving a poor imitation of a stuffed moose.

I rode downstairs and walked around the corner and across the block to the Eastmore Hotel. I didn’t bother to send my name up, but rode in person to the ninth floor. Nine-nineteen was down the hall to my left. I found the room and knocked on Lorna Colby’s door.

There was no answer – except a sudden, ear-shattering scream.

I jerked the doorknob. The door opened on a tableau of frozen horror.

A blonde girl lay slumped on the bed. Crouching above her was a shadowy figure out of a nightmare. Its head was bending toward her neck. I saw lean, outstretched fingers claw down, saw the mouth descend – then the shadow straightened, turned, swooped across the room and out through the open window.

Lorna Colby lay there, clutching her throat and staring in wide-eyed terror. I stared, too. For the intruder had been Igor Petroff.

When I reached the window, the fire-escape outside was empty. Perhaps it had never held a figure. Perhaps I’d have done better to look for something flying in the sky.

I turned back to the bed. Lorna Colby was sitting up. There was still fear in her hazel eyes as she looked at me.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

I introduced myself. “Dave Kirby, of the Leader. You’re Lorna Colby, of course?”

She nodded. “Yes. But how did you know? And what made you come here?”

“Hammond King sent me,” I lied.

It was the right hunch.

“Then maybe you can tell me,” she said, “what’s wrong with my uncle? He sent me a wire to come down and talk about the estate. I waited to hear from him tonight. I was getting sleepy and lay down on the bed. When I opened my eyes again, he was in the room.”

“Petroff?”

“Yes. You recognized him, too?”

I nodded.

“He must have come through the window some way. He just crouched over me, staring, and there was something wrong with his face. It was so white, but his eyes glared, and I couldn’t look away. Then I felt his hands come down toward my neck, and I screamed, and then—”

I shook her, not gently. It was fun, but this was no time for amusement.

“Stop it!” I snapped. “Relax.”

She cried a little. Then she sat up and fished around for her make up. I took the opportunity to study her more closely.

Lorna Colby was tall, blonde, and about twenty-two. She had a good face and a better figure. All in all, the kind of a girl worth whistling after.

That noise like a ton of bricks was me, falling. She didn’t notice it. After a while she patted her hair back and smiled.

“Your uncle is – ill,” I said. “That’s what Hammond King asked me to tell you. We’re trying to keep things quiet until we can take him away for a rest.”

“You mean he’s crazy?”

I shrugged.

“I’ve always thought so,” Lorna declared. “Even when Aunt Irene was alive, I knew there was something wrong with him. He led her an awful life.”

She halted, bit her lower lip, and continued.

“After she died, he got worse. He kept dogs at the house, guarding it. He wanted to guard her tomb, he said. I haven’t seen him now for almost a year. Nobody has seen him since the day she died. She had a heart attack, you know. He buried her in the private vaults on the estate. He wouldn’t even let me see her or come to the funeral.

“I knew he hated me, and it came as a surprise when I got his wire yesterday, asking me to come down from Frisco to talk about the will. That didn’t make sense, either. After all, Aunt Irene left him the whole estate, even though he can’t touch the money for a year.”

Something clicked into place. I decided to follow it up.

“By the way, who was your aunt’s physician?” I asked.

“Dr Kelring.”

“I’d like to talk to him,” I told her. “It’s important.”

“You think he might know what’s wrong with Uncle Igor?”

“That’s right.” I nodded. “He must know.”

I looked him up in the book. Dr Roger Kelring. I called his downtown office, not hoping for much of anything. Still, this gang seemed to work late. Hammond King was on the job, and Igor Petroff was a regular night-owl. Or was he? “They fly by night.”

The phone gave off that irritating sound known as a busy signal. That was enough for me.

“Come on, Miss Colby,” I said. “We’re going over to Dr Kelring’s office.”

“But you didn’t talk to him,” she objected.

“Busy signal,” I explained. “On second thought, I’d just as soon not say anything to him in advance.”

“What do you mean? Do you think he’s mixed up in all this?”

“Definitely,” I assured her. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if your uncle was up there with him now.”

Lorna put on her coat and we went downstairs. In the lobby, she halted indecisively.

“Wait a minute, Mr Kirby. Aren’t we going to report seeing Uncle Igor in my room? After all, if he’s sick somebody should be looking after him. He may be—”

“Dangerous? Perhaps. But let’s not start something we can’t finish. It’s my hunch that he’s over at Dr Kelring’s office. Don’t ask me why, but I’ve got reasons. Besides, you don’t want to get mixed up in a lot of cross-questioning, do you?”

She agreed. I was relieved. What could I do if we called some Law? Tell them that a suspected vampire was running around attacking girls in hotel rooms?

Besides, I didn’t think Igor Petroff was “running around”. He might be flying around. Or he might be working according to a plan. Dr Kelring would know the plan.

We took a cab to Kelring’s office, in a building off Pershing Square.

“What’s the doctor like?” I asked Lorna.

“He’s a rich woman’s doctor,” she told me. “You know – smooth, quiet, genial. He’s about fifty, I guess. Bald-headed, with a little goatee. I only saw him once, at Aunt Irene’s, a few months before she died. He was pleasant, but I didn’t like him.”

Lorna’s voice betrayed her inner tension. I understood. It’s not every night that a girl is attacked by a vampire, even if he’s a member of the family.

Partly for that reason and partly for personal pleasure, I held her arm as we took the elevator up to Kelring’s office. A light burned behind the outer door. I opened it and stepped in. I had no gun, but if there was anything doing, I counted on the surprise element.

There was one.

Seated at the desk in the reception room was a man of about fifty, bald-headed, and wearing a small goatee. His hand rested on the telephone as though he were going to pick it up and make another call.

But Dr Kelring would never make another call. He sat there staring off into space, and when I touched his shoulder his neck wobbled off at an angle so that his goatee almost touched the spot between his shoulder-blades. Roger Kelring was quite, was definitely, was unmistakably dead.

I was patting Lorna’s shoulder and making with the reassurance when the phone rang. Its sharp note cut the air, and I jumped. For a moment I stared at Dr Kelring, wondering why his dead hand didn’t lift the receiver and hold it to his ear.

Then I got around the desk, fast, and pried his cold fingers from the receiver.

“Lorna,” I said, “how did – he – talk?”

“You mean Dr Kelring?” She shuddered.

“Yes.”

“Oh, I don’t remember . . . Yes, I think I do. He had a soft voice. Very soft.”

“Good.”

I whipped out my handkerchief and covered the mouthpiece. Just a hunch.

“Hello,” I said lifting the receiver.

“Hello. That you, Kelring?”

I jumped as I recognized the voice. Hammond King!

“What is it?” I said, softly.

“Kelring, I must talk to you.” He sounded frightened. Too frightened to analyze my voice.

“Go ahead. What’s on your mind?”

“Did you ever read ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’?”

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about, Kelring. She’s alive out there. I know it!”

“Who’s alive?”

“Mrs Petroff. Don’t stall me, Kelring. I’m desperate.”

“What makes you think so, man?”

“It happened two months ago. I was out there at the house with Petroff, arguing about the will. You know he’s been trying to get me to turn over the estate before the time stipulated. I won’t bother with details, but I heard a noise. A woman’s voice, coming from behind the wall. It came from the private staircase behind the bookshelves – the one leading down to the family burial vaults in the hillside.”

“Get to the point, King,” I said.

“He tried to hold me off, but I made him take me down there. I don’t know how to tell you this – but beyond the iron grille entrance, in the vaults, I caught a glimpse of Irene Colby Petroff. Alive.”

“But I pronounced her dead of heart failure,” I said, remembering what I’d been told.

“She was alive, I tell you! She ran into one of the passages, but I recognized her face. I tried to get Petroff to open the grille and go in, but he dragged me back upstairs. Then he told me the story.”

“What story?”

“You know, all right, Kelring. That’s why I didn’t call before. I wanted to investigate on my own. Now I need your help.”

“Better tell me all you know, then.”

“I know that she’s a – vampire.”

I held my breath. King didn’t wait for any comment.

“Petroff broke down and confessed. Said he knew it and you knew it. She’d been mixed up in some kind of Black Magic cult in Europe when he met her. And when she died, she didn’t really die. She lived on, after sundown, as a vampire.”

“Preposterous!”

“I wasn’t sure myself, then. I wanted to call in the police. But Petroff pleaded with me. Said he had the guard and the dogs and kept people away. He had her locked up down there, fed her raw liver. Because you were trying to work on a cure. He asked for a little more time. And he explained it all. Gave me books on demonology to read. I didn’t know what to believe, but I promised to wait. Then, three nights ago, he called and told me that she had tried to attack him. He asked me to come out this afternoon and talk things over.

“I went out there about four today. Maybe I was a fool, but I took some garlic with me. The books say garlic wards them off. When I arrived, I found Petroff lying on the floor. There were two holes in his throat – the marks of a vampire’s teeth. So he has become a vampire now!

“I got frightened and ran. I knew he had sent for his niece, Lorna Colby. I wanted to talk to her before I did anything. Then, tonight, a young man called on me. Said he was from the newspapers. He knows something, too.

“Kelring, I’ve made up my mind to act. I won’t call the police. I – I can’t. They’d laugh at me. But there’s a monster loose tonight, and I can’t stand waiting any longer. I’m going out to the Petroff place now.”

“Wait!” I said.

His voice was shrill as he replied. “Do you know what I’ve been doing, Kelring? I’ve been sitting here molding silver bullets. Silver bullets for my gun. And I’m leaving now. I’m going out there to get him!”

“Don’t be a fool!” I yelled, in my natural voice.

But he had hung up.

“Come on,” I snapped at Lorna. “I’ll call the police and report on Kelring now. But we’re getting out before they come.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Petroff’s house,” I answered.

She nodded. I moved around the table. As I did, I saw something on the floor. It was a spectacle-case. I picked it up, turned it over. It was an expensive case, with an engraved name. The silver signature read:

4. Vampire’s Teeth

As the cab driver grumbled about the long haul, I told Lorna what I thought was wise.

I was too groggy to think clearly. Lenehan thought I was drunk, I’d jumped arrest, I’d eavesdropped, and impersonated, and messed up a murder. And it looked like an even busier day tomorrow unless I could straighten this tangle out tonight.

That’s my only excuse, I guess. I was a punch-drunk fool to take Lorna to that house, with only a crazy hunch to guide us, and armed with nothing but my suspicions.

But I did it. We rolled up to the black, forbidding portals of the Petroff place. We walked up the porch of the Petroff mansion and the cab waited in the driveway. I didn’t see Hammond King’s car, and I was glad we had arrived first.

He was wrong, I thought. Petroff was not here. And if he wasn’t, we could find that staircase, take a look into the vault, and see for ourselves whether Irene Colby Petroff walked or slept forever.

Never mind the details. The garlic odor choked us in the creaky hall. It flooded the parlor as I lit the lamp, tapped bookcases, and found the button that opened a section of the wall. Lorna shivered at my side. The setup looked like something out of “The Cat and the Canary”.

I kept listening for sounds. All quiet on the Western Front. With the light streaming from the parlor behind us, we took the secret staircase in stride. Down below was another panel in the wall. I switched on the light and walked down a long corridor. It was damp. King had said the private vaults of the family were out under the hillside.

We rounded a turn and came to the iron grille barring the hall. A perpetual light burned behind it. I tried the door. It was open. It squeaked as I pushed.

The squeak was drowned in a scream.

I turned.

Something black scuttled around the corner of the passageway. Something swooped down on Lorna, engulfed her in a sable cloud. I saw glaring eyes, red lips – Igor Petroff was here!

I made a dive for him. Petroff didn’t dodge. He stood there, and as I came on, his arm lashed out. The blow caught me off balance and as I wavered, his hand moved out. Something flashed down, and then I fell.

There was a blurred impression of movement, screaming, and scuffling. Petroff had dragged Lorna through the grille, down into the vaults.

I lurched to my feet as another figure raced around the bend. More blamed traffic down here, I thought, dazedly.

It was Hammond King.

He didn’t see me. He stared, glassy-eyed, as he ran past into the gloom of the corridor beyond. He was carrying a gun. Silver bullets!

I dashed after him. As we took another flight of stairs, I gazed over his shoulder at the family vaults beyond.

Lorna stood in a corner, crouching against a wall. The cloaked figure of Igor Petroff glided towards her, and I thought of Dracula, and of childhood terrors, and of nightmares men still whisper about.

Hammond King didn’t think. He began pumping shots from his gun, firing in maniac fury.

Petroff turned, across the room. And then, he smiled. He didn’t fall down. He smiled. He smiled, and started to run toward Hammond King with his arms extended, and Hammond King gave a little choking gurgle and fell down.

I didn’t fall. As Petroff advanced, I ran to meet him. This time I was not off balance. I let him have one right on the point of his white chin. He grunted, but his arms swept up and then I felt the cold embrace as he clawed at me. I hammered into his ribs, but he was hard, rigid. Rigor mortis is like that, I thought madly.

He smelled of dampness and mold and ancient earth. His arms were strong and he was squeezing me. I dropped to the floor and he began to reach for my throat. He chuckled, then, deep in his throat, an animal growl. A growl of hunger, the growl of a carnivore that scents blood.

He had me by the neck, and I reached out with one hand and scrabbled frantically against the floor until I felt the cold steel of the gun Hammond King had dropped.

Petroff wrenched my arm back, trying to tear the gun from my fingers. I wanted to fight him off, but his other hand was at my neck, squeezing. I felt myself falling back, and I pulled my arm free and brought the gun-butt up against his head, once, twice, three times.

Igor Petroff wobbled like a rundown mechanical doll and dropped with a dull thud.

I got up and slapped Lorna’s face. She came out of her trance, crying. Then I went over to Hammond King and slapped him around. Just a one-man rescue squad.

“Go upstairs, you two,” I said. “The cab driver’s waiting outside. Tell him to go into Centerville and bring back Sheriff Shea. I’ll meet you in a moment.”

They left.

I went through the vault until I came to what I wanted to find. When I was quite finished with my inspection I went back upstairs.

Lorna and Hammond King were waiting in the parlor. She had fixed her hair again, and he looked well enough to smoke a cigarette.

“The police should be here in five minutes,” King said.

“Good.”

“Perhaps I’d better look outside,” he suggested. “I’m expecting Dr Kelring.”

“Kelring isn’t coming,” I said, gently. “He’s dead.”

“But I talked to him over the phone.”

I told him who he’d talked to. And then I decided to tell him a few other things.

“You should have gone to the police the night you saw Mrs Petroff here,” I said. “Then all this wouldn’t have happened.”

“But I saw her. She was alive.”

“Right. But she wasn’t a vampire. Too bad you believed that crazy story Petroff concocted. When you stumbled onto her existence, he had to think of something and the vampire story just popped out. After you half swallowed it, he planned the rest. He had to convince you completely, and he was good at planning.”

“What do you mean?”

“It all started, I think, when Petroff and Dr Kelring decided to fake Mrs Petroff’s death. They were in on it together, to split the inheritance. They didn’t have the nerve to kill her outright but drugged her, held a private funeral, and faked the death certificate. Then Petroff kept her a prisoner down here in the vaults. That’s why he had dogs and a guard. She was alive until about three days ago.”

“How do you know?”

“I just found her body in the vault,” I explained. “And I’ve seen her living quarters – a room beyond. She’s dead now, all right, and I’d say she died of starvation.”

“I don’t understand,” Lorna sighed.

“Simple. When her fake death was accepted, Petroff and Dr Kelring were all set to divide the spoils. But there were no spoils – not for a year, according to the terms of her will. They hadn’t counted on that. So Petroff was trying to get King, here, to advance money against the inheritance.

“King, being a smart attorney, would do no such thing. But after he saw Mrs Petroff alive and heard this vampire line, he began to weaken. Petroff took advantage of it, showing him books on demonology, and telling wild stories about secret cults.”

Hammond King nodded miserably. “He was wearing me down,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t release any money. I couldn’t, legally.”

I took over again. “Then, three days ago, Mrs Petroff actually died. Perhaps he deliberately starved her, perhaps not. In any event, she was dead, and his extortion plot and fake death was now actually murder. He wanted that money at once, needed it desperately.

“So he phoned you, King, and asked you to come out today, planning to show himself lying on the floor as the victim of a vampire attack. He had it figured that you’d be too shocked to call the police at once. Then, after dark, he would call upon you as a supposed vampire, threaten you with his bite, and get you to advance personal funds against the estate.”

King was looking bewildered.

“But I’d never do that,” he protested. “He must have been mad!”

“He was – and desperate, too.” I grinned. “Here’s where I come into the story. Dave Kirby, the Boy Reporter. I got here today just after you left in the afternoon. I blundered in before Petroff could escape, so he lay there on the floor, hoping to fool me. When I left for the sheriff, he took a powder.

“Now the jig was up, but Petroff decided to carry the plan through. If he worked fast, he might still succeed. He’d called Lorna, asked her to come to town. He had only one idea – to appear before her as a supposed vampire and thus further bolster his story when he saw King and demanded money. This he was doing as I arrived at Lorna’s room. He fled, and undertook his next step in the plan – the murder of Dr Kelring.”

“But why would he murder Kelring?” King asked.

I shrugged. “There were several reasons. The first is the one that led me to the scene. You remember, I came out to the house for an interview on the Petroff estate art treasures, an interview Petroff had already refused to grant.”

“Yes?”

“There was a reason for my coming and a reason for his refusal. You see, my editor had a tip that several valuable vases recognized as part of the Petroff collection had been offered for sale at private auction. Get it?

“Petroff was already raising money by illegally disposing of art treasures belonging to the estate. Kelring must have just discovered this and demanded his cut. Otherwise, he would squeal about the fake death certificate. So Petroff had to kill him. Just as an added touch, he left a little souvenir after strangling him in his office.”

I handed King his spectacle case.

“You nearly had credit for that piece of work,” I said. “I’m sure he would have threatened to turn you in had you refused him money when he demanded it this evening. So it’s lucky I had you on the phone and can support an alibi.”

King blinked.

“After killing Dr Kelring he scooted out here to wait for you. He knew you’d be out to check up. He hadn’t counted on Lorna and me arriving, but when we showed up first, he was ready. After that you dashed in, made your bang-bang with the silver bullets, and passed out. You aren’t a good shot, King. Those bullets are in the walls, not in his body. But it wouldn’t have mattered much. He wore a bullet-proof vest under the cloak. Felt it when I tackled him.”

Lorna looked at me.

“You tackled him,” she whispered. “That was wonderful. Even if he might be a vampire, you took the chance.”

“But he wasn’t a vampire. I knew that.”

“Didn’t you find him with holes in his throat?”

“Right. But he made them himself. Shallow cuts with a paper-knife, no doubt. You see, a vampire’s bite will drain all blood. And there was blood. I know something about superstitions myself, Lorna.”

Sirens punctuated my sentence. The law was arriving in full force.

Suddenly I was very tired and very contented. Lenehan would get a story after all. And I’d get some sleep.

Lorna kissed me.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“For being brave. I don’t care what you say, he might have been a vampire.”

“Not a chance.” I grinned. “I knew that from the beginning. When I looked at him on the floor this afternoon, his mouth was open. That was the tip-off.”

“What do you mean?”

“He couldn’t be a vampire because he couldn’t bite anyone. After all, darling, who ever heard of a big, bad vampire with false teeth?”