‘I take your point, Professor, but I did not mean that, I can assure you.’
She became more serious after a moment or two, glancing around as though uneasy that they might be overheard.
‘There was something else you wished to tell me, wasn’t there?’ Coleridge went on, trying to put his companion at ease. He sensed all sorts of questions in her eyes.
She bit her lip and turned away from him, her gaze again seeking the flames, as though she could see things there that were hidden from him. The dancing reflections of the firelight glanced on the iron eye-sockets of the two heraldic wolves on the firedogs, making them momentarily alive.
‘There was something, Professor,’ she continued after a moment. ‘But it is almost too fantastic for belief.’
Coleridge felt a quick stirring of interest.
‘Is it something to do with this house? Or the subject of our Congress?’
The girl sat stiffly now, her face turned away, all her concentration seemingly on the molten mass at the heart of the fire.
‘The locals call this The House of the Wolf,’ Coleridge went on. ‘It seemed a strange conceit to me until I saw the heraldic devices in this room.’
The girl was facing him again. Her eyes were troubled, and her breasts rose and fell with her agitated breathing beneath the open-necked shirt.
‘Yes, it is to do with this house, Professor. And with the Congress, if you like.’
She got up and came forward impulsively to put her hand on the savant’s arm.
‘What would you say, Professor, if I told you something that seems utterly, wildly impossible?’
Coleridge’s smile died on his lips as he looked into Nadia Homolky’s agitated features.
‘I should probably say there was some logical explanation and that you should not distress yourself.’
The grip of the girl’s hand tightened on Coleridge’s sleeve.
‘Late last night, Professor, I was reading in my room. Someone tried the door-handle. I saw it move as clearly as I see you now. It turned several times, and then the door itself was violently shaken.’
She bit her lip again, her eyes haunted by the recollection of something her listener was unable to fathom.
‘I am rather nervous, and this Castle has a strange atmosphere at night. I called out, and the noise stopped. I got out of bed and went over to the door and was actually going to open it . . .’ She broke off, pulling her hand violently away from Coleridge’s restraining grip. Her eyes were wild and her face ashen now.
‘Professor, I am as certain in my mind as I am that we are here that as I put my hand on the key I heard the snarling of a wolf not a foot from where I was standing, and the click of a wild animal’s paws on the floor of the corridor!’
CHAPTER 8: THE THING IN THE CORRIDOR
‘You astonish me!’
Coleridge’s bewilderment and momentary inadequacy were all too palpable on his face. The girl’s features had a little more colour, but her expression was still grim as she stared at her companion.
‘I intended to, Professor. Can you imagine my situation, late at night and to all purposes alone and undefended? I cried out, and then I heard the thing running down the corridor outside. After that I must have fainted because I awoke on the floor of my room deathly cold and found by my bedside clock that almost an hour had passed.’
The girl came closer again, looking at her companion with a mixture of terror and apprehension.
‘You do believe me, Professor? I can assure you of my sanity.’
Coleridge took the small, chill hand she held out and rose from his seat.
‘I believe you, Miss Homolky. But there must be some logical explanation. Could a wild beast have gained access to the Castle? I noticed earlier today that there is a break in the ancient perimeter wall where it gives on to the open countryside. You can see it from the window here.’
He led her toward it, more with the hope of distracting her from her distressing memories than of providing a rational explanation of what she had told him. She followed his pointing finger downward through the misty air.
‘It is possible,’ she said slowly. ‘But not likely. How would such an animal have got through all the locked and closed doors between the inner courtyard and my room? Besides, you are forgetting that the thing tried the door-handle.’
There was a trace of hysteria in her tones, and Coleridge ushered her swiftly to a great side-buffet where bottles and glasses glittered. He poured her a small glass of the local spirit, her teeth catching on the rim of the crystal. When she was calmer, the colour fully restored to her cheeks, Coleridge led her back to the fire.
‘You have not told your family of this?’
Nadia Homolky shook her head vigorously.
‘It did not seem appropriate. They have many worries, you see. I do not wish them to know.’
Coleridge ventured another approach.
‘Is it not possible that a servant first tried your door and, being unable to gain entrance, went on down the corridor? And then this beast passed along a few moments later.’
The girl’s burning eyes were holding Coleridge’s own.
‘Possible, but not likely, Professor. I know what I heard.’
She gulped at the raw spirit again.
‘And no-one else saw or heard this creature? It was not mentioned at breakfast.’
The girl put her small hands together round the rim of her glass. Again she looked very vulnerable and frail at that moment.
‘That was one of the reasons I decided to say nothing.’
Coleridge read her glance correctly.
‘And you would like me to investigate this incident for you? As discreetly and quietly as possible.’
The girl was smiling again now. For a moment Coleridge almost wished he were Dr. Raglan.
‘If only you would, Professor. I would be tremendously grateful. You are such an authority. And if anyone can assign a mundane explanation for this weird happening, it would be you.’
Coleridge put his hands together in his lap and frowningly examined his nails.
‘You flatter me,’ he said.
And after a moment of sombre silence between them: ‘Why do you keep your bedroom door locked?’
Nadia Homolky shrugged, her fingers still firm round the glass.
‘I am happy here. This is my home. But the Castle is a strange and gloomy place at night, as I have said. Since I have been an adult my parents have encouraged us to lock our doors at night.’
Coleridge raised his eyebrows.
‘Us?’
‘I am referring to the family and the household staff, Professor. Those that sleep within the Castle itself, in the residential wing here. It seems a reasonable thing to do. If you have lived in this country . . . It is remote and savage, as you have seen. And we have wild animals that are unknown in places like France and England.’
‘You have made your point,’ Coleridge conceded. ‘But it could be awkward if someone were taken ill and unable to summon help.’
The girl raised her glass to her lips.
‘Father holds master keys in case of emergencies,’ she said.
She again smiled briefly.
‘You are not suggesting that one of these superintelligent wolves is clever enough to use one of the master keys to gain access to the Castle?’
Coleridge was constrained to smile too.
‘I hardly think so, Miss Homolky. But let us just take a look at this room of yours, and perhaps I may be able to set your mind at rest.’
The girl led the way back up the curved staircase so swiftly that Coleridge was hard put to it to keep pace with her. Their footsteps echoed from the beamed ceiling and seemed to stir reverberations that hung in the air long after they should have dispersed, or so the guest felt as he hurried in the girl’s wake.
He paused as she turned to a small octagonal table in a dark corner and picked up a silver-banded oil lamp which had already been lit.
‘It is so dark in some of the corridors we are reduced to this,’ she said. ‘I have been pestering Father for a long while to extend the electric lighting to our bedrooms, but he prefers to augment his income by diverting it all to the guests and staff of The Golden Crown.’
Coleridge thought it politic to say nothing and wrenched his features into a blank expression. Nadia Homolky saw through him immediately and seemed amused. She turned up the wick of the lamp, throwing a golden glow onto the ancient panelling and the sombre-visaged oil portraits that hung in gilt frames on the balcony on which they found themselves, and opened a small, low door set into a stone buttress.
Coleridge was amazed at the proportions of the wall, which made a short corridor to a connecting door. It must have been almost eight feet thick and aroused his antiquarian interest, as this sort of thickness was usually reserved for outside defence.
He glanced at his silver-cased watch as the girl opened the far door. It was still short of eleven o’clock in the morning, but it might have been midnight for all the light that penetrated here.
The girl led him down another very short stair with beautifully carved balusters. Coleridge perceived that this was modern work and guessed it might be one of his host’s own improvements, for private use by the family. So it proved a few moments later, for Coleridge realised with faint surprise that he was again back in the corridor leading to his bedroom and down which he had walked to the main staircase on his way to breakfast.
The girl put the lamp upon a table they passed and left it burning. They were at the main stairhead now, and she ushered the professor up another staircase to the right which evidently led to the private apartments of the family, for here were more intimate touches: flowers carefully arranged in pale blue porcelain vases on occasional tables and the bright light of the snow shining through great vaulted windows at their left, which had gaily coloured scenes of some ancient battle with knights in armour, all carried out in stained glass of particularly rich shades of green, gold, and red.
They cast a bizarre patina on the faces of Coleridge and the girl, and she gave a delighted laugh as she glanced at him sideways as they hurried on down the corridor. They were passing a section where gold-coloured glass depicted the sky, and as Coleridge caught the girl’s eye he saw for one indescribable moment all the beauty of her face transformed into bronze, as though she were herself some Arcadian nymph cast by a master sculptor.
Coleridge was amazed at the ramifications and elaboration of the Count’s life-style. To produce the flowers he must have hothouses somewhere within the Castle, and he had probably provided the incongruous blooms he had already noted at the inn in Lugos. Incongruous, only in the sense that they were wildly unlikely not only in this savage corner of Hungary but in the existing weather conditions.
Coleridge realised the whole atmosphere of the Castle led one into a world of fantasy; it was an ideal setting for the scholarly purposes on which they were gathered here, but he did not at all care for it as a background to the somewhat more sinister incidents which appeared to be unfolding at the moment.
The girl again glanced at Coleridge from beneath her long-lashed eyes.
‘A strange place, is it not, Professor? You must suppose we are all tainted with this bizarre atmosphere.’
‘Not at all,’ Coleridge said in disavowal but felt constrained to add: ‘That is, I would find it a wonderful atmosphere for a family like yours. But it makes a sombre setting for such an incident as you have described.’
The girl nodded.
‘Precisely,’ she said crisply.
They were almost at their destination now, for the corridor turned at right-angles and the guest saw that they were in a cul-de-sac; the passage, which had doors leading off both sides, being lit by one large window at the end through which the harsh glare of the light off the snow struck dull reflections from the polished parquet underfoot.
The girl paused and stood for a moment or two as though in thought.
‘Tell me, Professor, why was it Father, with his intense interest in folklore, did not attend your Congress in the city?’
Coleridge glanced down toward the glare from the far window.
‘A fair question, Miss Homolky. The Congress was reserved for professional scholars, historians, and folklorists only. Your father is a gifted amateur, and I mean that in no pejorative sense.’
The girl made a little shrugging motion of her shoulders.
‘So you arranged your own Congress here in which Father could take part and hear the distinguished professionals pontificate on their own pet fields.’
Coleridge smiled faintly.
‘Something of that sort,’ he admitted. ‘It might be expressed in that manner, though whether my colleagues would find your description pleasing is another matter.’
The girl put her head on one side and looked at him with such a grave expression that it seemed for one moment as though she were a person of advanced years. Coleridge had seen such a look many times on the faces of elderly scholars who were scandalised by or opposed to his views, and it inwardly amused him, though nothing of this showed on his face.
The girl had moved on now, and she threw open an elaborately carved door to the left. It was obviously her bedroom, as Coleridge could see a large bed with a pink counterpane beyond and a glass case in which were beautifully carved dolls dressed in colourful folk costumes. But he had little time for them; he had bent to his knees, his professional instincts reasserting themselves, and was minutely examining the bottom panel of the half-open door.
The detail was readily visible by the light spilling in from the windows of the bedroom, and he gave a low exhalation of breath which the girl immediately seized on.
‘You have found something?’
‘Look at this.’
Coleridge moved over, and the girl knelt at his side; again he was uneasily aware of the faint, elusive perfume she used, and he drew back slightly, disturbed by her closeness. Miss Homolky was oblivious of this, being completely absorbed by the panelling in front of them. Her hair hung down in a cloud of gold about her face, and she moved closer to take in the deep scratches indicated by the professor’s pointing finger.
‘Were these here before?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I thought not.’
Coleridge could not keep a slight trembling resonance from his speech. He had produced a small pair of metal tweezers from somewhere, and he delicately picked out a large splinter of wood from the detailed carving, leaving a clearly incised groove. There was something adhering to the splinter; the girl made it out to be wool or fur and perhaps a fragment of skin.
‘What is that?’
Her own voice was somewhat unsteady to her ears.
‘We shall know a little better when I have analysed it,’ said Coleridge crisply.
He got up and carefully dusted the knees of his trousers.
‘In the meantime, not a word about this to anyone.’
He had already moved back along the corridor and was examining the parquet with the eye of a trained observer, according it the same minute scrutiny he had already given the door. A moment later the girl, who had quickly joined him, noticed the mark which had drawn his own attention. It was another clearly incised groove in the smooth waxen surface of one of the blocks; a cut that could have been made by a sharp metal tool or perhaps by the claw of a large animal.
Nadia Homolky gave an audible shudder, her eyes very bright as she stared at Coleridge.
‘Well, Professor?’
The pair were still in a crouching posture when the lean form of Dr. Raglan came noiselessly round the angle in the corridor and discovered them motionless on all fours.