The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (16 page)

“Well, of course—” I began, but then a strange sensation crept over me. I thought I was sure. But as Cletus stood there holding me down with his tigerish gaze, I became uncertain. It was true I hadn’t seen Ursula since well before my blowup with Niccolo, but I couldn’t fathom she would go against my word. “Come and I’ll show you,” I said as I opened the huge walnut doors.

As I gripped the balustrade on my way up the stairs I realized my pace was unconsciously quickening. There was even a trace of sweat on my palms. Cletus hobbled behind me. When we reached the boudoir I tapped loudly on the door. No answer.

“Ursula,” I called, and there was still no reply.

I flung the door open and a gust of wind caused the heavy rose velvet curtains to billow on either side of the window. The room was empty. As I glanced about madly at the mahogany bureau and the black lacquer chairs I became aware of something else. It was then that I noticed the broken vial and the small glass rod on the table of fretted teak. The air was redolent with the smell of lily and palm.

“No!” I cried as I pushed Cletus aside and raced down the stairs. I ran headlong into Cook.

“Ursula,” I exclaimed, “have you seen Ursula?”

“She went out,” Cook gasped in surprise. “Well, my goodness, it’s the May Eve—” She swung around in addled confusion as I ran by her and out the door.

Outside, the street was a swarming mass of shouting and frenzied people. Some were brightly dressed with garlands and scepters of ribbons and flowers. Others were shifty and ragged. Many of them carried cattails soaked in paraffin and set aflame. The multitude of little fires cast grotesque shadows on the looming buildings.

“
Through the rowan and through the keep,
” they chorused and a cry rose from the mob as one young doxy was hefted upon the shoulders of several rowdy men. As I burst through the crowd a horse reared, and I realized I had blundered directly into the path of a shiny black barouche filled with fashionably dressed people. A monocled gentleman shouted something at me but his voice became lost in the din of the celebration. I became dimly aware that Cletus was struggling to follow me, but I soon lost him in the turmoil of the crowd.

I ran and ran and here and there people oblivious to my panic tried to catch me up in their circles as they laughed and danced. “
Spare the horse and spare the sheep!
” I pulled away from them madly as I tried to discern the flow, the inexorable ebb of the crowd as it swirled and eddied through the streets and slowly made its way to the bonfire.

At last I saw the conflagration, a swirling pillar of yellow and vermilion engulfing an abatis of trees and broken chairs as the swirling, sooty mass twisted up into the inky blackness of the night. The bonfire crackled and roared and all the faces of the crowd were lit in the flickering yellow light. “
Spare the fox and spare the hen, but throw the woman in!
” they shrilled as they flung the crumpled straw body of a witch into the flames. “
Aye, and throw the woman in!
”

I turned about in a frenzy and then at last I saw. Standing amid the Doric columns and white portico of a Georgian mansion across the square was Ursula. She wore a long white dress and the garland of hawthorn was slightly askew upon her head. In the bright circle of light from the inferno I could tell that her expression was silent and dazed and she peered into space with a glassy stare.

“Ursula!” I screamed as I rushed to her side and sharply turned her shoulders about. “Where’s Niccolo?”

She remained blank for a few seconds as if she hadn’t even heard the words, and then suddenly her expression crumpled and she burst into tears. “He’s gone,” she sobbed. “Oh, Father, I knew he was a vampire. He asked me to meet him here and I begged him to make me a vampire, too, but he refused. He just said good-bye and then he left.” She buried her face in my chest and continued to cry. I hugged her tightly and led her through the crowd.

On the way back to Bond Street I was so swept up with relief and the emotions of the situation I didn’t even stop to wonder why Niccolo had to call Ursula out into the celebration to say good-bye, or why he erroneously left the vial of aromatic oil in her boudoir. When we arrived home Cook came running out to greet us and I noticed that she, too, was frantic and crying.

“Oh, Dr. Gladstone,” she gushed, “they came while you were gone.”

“Who?” I asked with a puzzled expression.

“Mr. Cavalanti and another gentleman, a little older, with the most penetrating and frightening eyes. It was ’orrible.” She shook her head madly. “Simply ’orrible. They rode in a ’earse, of all things, a Neapolitan ’earse, windowed in black plate glass with black-plumed stallions!” She flung herself at me as if making some pitiful gesture for mercy.

“Why, Cook, what is it?”

“They took hex;” she gasped and gazed up at me with her china-blue eyes. “I tried to stop them, but they took little Camille.”

Hespeth

My world had crumbled. The only thing I had ever touched without ruin was gone. Why had they taken her? I could not imagine Niccolo hurting Camille, hurting a child, but the image of that tender face sucking the life out of the rabbit was still vivid in my mind. Would they hurt her? It did not make sense. Why would they go to such lengths for such a small and innocent creature? I did not know. That was the agony, the unknowing.

The days that followed the abduction brought a relentless barrage of outsiders into our home and lives. Not a morning passed that Scotland Yard wasn’t knocking at our door. I told them everything it was safe to tell about Niccolo Cavalanti and Lodovico—about the carriage accident and Niccolo’s stay in my home, about my interest in his ‘rare medical condition,’ and how I knew nothing of his immediate past, his family, or where he lived. I judiciously recognized that the authorities were far from being able to consider seriously the supernatural in their investigations. Even the mentioning of Niccolo’s immunity to paraldehyde and the Neapolitan hearse brought raised eyebrows from Scotland Yard. I cautioned myself not to put too much hope in their investigations. Still, it hurt when they uncovered nothing.

Camille’s abduction made front-page headlines in the city’s newspapers, and not a day passed that some reporter wasn’t snooping around our door. In my first encounters with the press I was cordial and issued brief statements about my remorse over what had happened. They also kindly printed a public plea for anyone having any information that might help us, and to my surprise hundreds of letters poured in. At first I greeted these letters with excitement. Some even blamed the vampire. Once again my hopes were crushed. After I examined, them I realized they were only from crackpots. I suppose it was the Neapolitan hearse that inspired the wretches. The theories that blamed the vampire for the kidnapping were as puerile and uninformed as those that blamed Jack the Ripper, the Whigs or the Tories, and even Prince Edward. After their initial sympathy the newspapers soon realized it was the lurid details of the case that sold copy.
The Times
ran headlines like “Prominent Physician’s Daughter Taken by Body Snatchers,” and
The Illustrated London News
ran hideous lithographs of every possible atrocity that might be performed upon little Camille. They were stories for the “penny dreadfuls” and they made life nearly unbearable.

As for Cletus, the only bright spot in those dark days was the fact that he was visibly shaken by the event. Although he had come to warn me about Niccolo I don’t think Cletus ever really believed any of his theories or concerns. Now that something had actually happened, he had taken on an entirely different attitude. He was very quiet and ill at ease when I saw him in the corridors of Redgewood.

It was one week after the incident that two inspectors from the Yard, a Captain McClough and an Inspector Inglethorpe, came to tell me of their first break in the case. Both had visited my home several times previously. Captain McClough was the chief officer of our local precinct. He was a large man with caterpillar eyebrows and a full gray mustache. His demeanor was more apologetic than proficient. It was clear from the first he was one of those typical and very traditional English gentlemen known as “a good ol’ boy.” Inspector Inglethorpe was a younger gentleman, of medium height, polite and good-looking, with black hair and a black mustache.

The maid brought, them to my study.

“Dr. Gladstone,” Captain McClough greeted.

“Yes.”

“We wonder if your cook is at home.”

“Yes,” I returned, wondering what possible need they had of her. Three different groups of inspectors had already asked her every imaginable question twenty times. It seemed cruel to go through the list once again.

“Is your schedule very busy today?”

“Is there some news?”

“We think we’ve located this Neapolitan hearse of yours,” Captain McClough said with obvious pride over his revelation.

“In London!”

His face fell. “I’m afraid not, sir. It’s in Dover.”

“And Camille?”

Once again he lowered his eyes disconsolately. “I’m afraid there’s no luck in that either, Dr. Gladstone, sir. The hearse was discovered abandoned. There was no sign of the blokes who took your daughter.”

I sighed and stroked my forehead as both Captain McClough and Inspector Inglethorpe shifted their weight uneasily.

“We were wondering,” the younger man continued, “would today be a convenient day for you and your cook to accompany us to Dover so that a positive identification could be made?”

“Yes, we can go with you,” I said.

After explaining the situation to Cook we made our way to Victoria Station. The train ride to Dover was uneventful. Once there we were led to a rundown storage lot in the waterfront area, near the piers where the passenger ferries leave to cross the Channel to France. The storage lot was filled with numerous large crates and piles of metal pipes, all covered with huge tarpaulins. As the police wagon approached the lot I noticed a number of policemen standing around one of the rows of crates. It was only after we came to a stop that I noticed the hearse. It was large and elegant, with gilt inlay on the huge spoked wheels. The carriage housing was black and shiny with decorative carved knobs at each of the four upper corners. The plate glass was blackened from the inside and as shiny as a sheet of obsidian.

Cook, prim and dignified in her black woolen shawl and cap with a bit of netting hanging from it, began to shift about excitedly, trying to get a better view.

“Glory,” she said, “but if that isn’t it!”

We stepped down from the police wagon and approached the abandoned hearse.

“Can you be absolutely certain?” Captain McClough asked. Cook began to cluck and shake her head as she touched a small handkerchief to her eye.

“Oh, yes, Constable. I’m quite certain of that, I am. The image of them taking the little mistress away—it ’as been burnt in my mind.” She dejectedly turned toward me. “I’m so sorry, sir. I—”

“It’s all right,” I hushed and put my hand upon her shoulder. The wind from the Channel swept around us. I looked at Captain McClough. “So what has happened to them? Did anyone see them leave the hearse here?” Captain McClough began to bluster something when suddenly Inspector Inglethorpe stepped forward and cleared his throat. “In answer to your questions, I’d say it’s pretty obvious they went to France. They apparently abandoned the hearse so as not to attract attention on the ferry. We’re trying to trace the hearse and the horses, but we don’t think that’s going to result in much. Unfortunately, we have very little to go on. There’s no record of Mr. Cavalanti buying a ticket, but that doesn’t mean anything. They most assuredly traveled under assumed names.

“In answer to your second question, yes, someone did see them. We did a lot of legwork and asked a lot of people up and down the piers if they saw anything. We’ve come up with a dockworker named Herg who remembers two men and a little blind girl answering their description.” He motioned toward a group of policemen standing a little ways away from the hearse and for the first time I noticed a large man, crudely dressed, with his sleeves rolled up over his powerful arms. He was young, with short brown hair, a large red nose, and clear blue eyes. He seemed very humble and willing to please and held his cap in front of him in his hands.

I felt a pang of hope.

“Dr. Gladstone, may I introduce you to Mr. Herg.”

The man nodded and meekly came forward. “Dr Gladstone,” he said, continuing to nod.

“Mr. Herg,” I returned. “They tell me you have seen my daughter?”

“The lil’ blind girl wi’ brown ’air an’ large green eyes?”

“And wearing a plain white smock with black knee stockings?”

“Aye, I belie’ so, Dr. Gladstone, suh. An’ t’other men as well; a red-heidit young boy wi’ curly hair, an’ the aulder man. I saw ’em drive up into the yard, and belie’ me, suh, I began to watch. I wondered who would be comin’ in a ’earse. An’ lo’, these two blokes get out wi’ the lil’ girl.”

“Were they mistreating her?”

“Noo, suh. They seemed most kind. An’ the lil’ girl, she was as happy as could be, playin’ wi’... well, yew know...

“Playing with what, Mr. Herg?”

Herg glanced around nervously. “That awful object, suh. The sever’d ’and. The ’and made o’ stone, wi’ the scar across its back.” He gripped his cap diffidently as Inspector Inglethorpe stepped forward.

“Do you know anything about that, Dr. Gladstone?”

“No, nothing,” I said, wondering if they knew anything about Niccolc’s vandalism.

Inspector Inglethorpe continued. “Well, this is a strange case, an abduction in a hearse and giving a little girl a marble severed hand to play with.” He looked uneasily at old Captain McClough, who was busily straightening his tie.

“Oh, yes. Quite, quite,” he said.

Inglethorpe turned once again to the dockworker. “Was there anything else of note that you should mention to Dr. Gladstone?”

“Jes’ that I am sorry. I ’ave a daughter o’ my own, an’ I know ’ow it must be.” He glanced at me sympathetically.

I nodded.