‘Where have you been, Mr Hillier?’ he asked. His tone was almost accusing.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
After another look at me his manner softened a trifle and he said, ‘Have you been sleepwalking?’
‘I don’t know that either. I found myself in a room I’ve no memory of entering. Perhaps I did sleepwalk.’
‘What sort of room?’ he asked gently.
‘It was empty.’
‘Completely empty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Now I mustn’t keep you standing here on this chilly floor. The countess sends you her apologies.’
‘Apologies?’ I said. ‘What for?’ I dare say I sounded rather stupid; it was how I felt.
‘She received a message to say that her old nurse was dying and was asking to see her, and so she hurried off. As she would. It’s a fair drive, nearly to the border of the province. I’d expect her back some time in the afternoon. And now I must speed you on your way before you catch your death of cold. Down to the end there, Mr Hillier, turn left, and your room’s in front of you. I hope to see you later if you feel well enough.’ And he turned his back and went.
After a couple of hours in a warm bed, a comfortable bath and a large breakfast of scrambled eggs with strips of smoked mutton, hot rolls with quince jam and scalding coffee, I felt — well, still puzzled and wary, but I had got over the painful bewilderment that had gripped me earlier. I had another look at that picture of the funeral, and was more than ever sure I had seen what it portrayed, had not in any sense been dreaming. Next, a visit to the library, high-ceilinged and of ecclesiastical atmosphere, Macneil the complete professional in leather cap and taped-on cuffs, and informative. Much of interest, a few surprises, selective list enclosed. He (Macneil) was very proud, and with reason, of their Codex Palatine, which it seems no less a person than Dietrich Dittersdorf came all the way from Budapest some months ago to consult. I should have loved to hear more of all this, but you’ll understand I had a more pressing concern. When I had duly admired the Codex, I broached the matter.
‘Tell me, Mr Macneil,’ I said, ‘it was in 1891, was it not, that Baron Aleku was buried?’
‘Indeed,’ he replied; ‘25th February 1891, Ash Wednesday.’
‘It seems to have stuck in your mind.’
‘Odd how these things do.’ He was smiling that smile of his. ‘I was there, of course.’
I won’t pretend I showed I was ready for that. I must have gaped. ‘Were you, by George!’ I said before I knew it. ‘I hadn’t quite realized you’d been in these parts for so long’ — though you remember I had heard about it from Lukretia. ‘Perhaps you can tell me which members of the family were also present. Out of interest.’
He was grinning now. ‘You’ve been looking at that painting in the countess’s sitting-room, haven’t you, Mr Hillier?’
‘Yes, a fascinating piece.’
‘Oh, do you think so? I’ve always found it rather ordinary. However. Yes, there was the countess dowager and her sister, Count Zoltan and Countess Elizabeth, their three sons, of whom the eldest was to be the present countess’s father, Baron… Baron Horvath on the dowager’s side and Baroness… it’s gone, and the Rumanian cousins, those were the…’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ I realized I had had a fat chance from the beginning. ‘I must have been mistaken. I mean you’re right, it isn’t a very good painting.’
‘If you want to know more about Aleku, I could show you the mausoleum after luncheon — you know, where he’s buried or is at rest.’
I thanked him and accepted, though I hardly expected there would be much to see, and he picked up a shallow pile of grey folders that evidently held what he considered most likely to be of interest to me. I thanked him again for his trouble; he said that as a result of years of diligent subject-indexing it had been no trouble at all. (Librarians are much the same everywhere, eh, old boy?) Then, opening one of the folders, he muttered a question about the state of my Hungarian, and I saw fit to call it rusty, which I hope you’ll take as a pardonable exaggeration, or rather as whatever the opposite of that is. (Understatement. I must pull my brains together.) Accordingly, Macneil had the kindness to run over the main points of what had been an address given before the inner college of St Ladislas’ at Peks by a certain Dr Bela Hadik in 1913.
The speaker’s main theme is apparently that the powers of the vampire and also its weaknesses, its limitations, can be rationally explained. On this view, the vampire is not in any sense dead, rather it has entered upon another kind of life, its activity confined to the hours of darkness but itself made potentially immortal and ageless. We are to remember that the victim of a vampire’s attack loses very little blood, and yet soon afterwards, perhaps after a second attack, perhaps not, is dead. Of what malady? Later he rises from the dead and functions once more — walks, talks, thinks, is capable of great physical exertion. In his turn the victim becomes the predator and himself imbibes blood, not much, and not often. For what purpose? Hardly for nutriment; no corporeal frame of that size could possibly subsist on such a meagre diet. Day-to-day sustenance must be provided by more conventional food.
The postulate is that somehow, perhaps through the vampire’s saliva, a peculiar element reaches the victim’s bloodstream and multiplies within it. During the period of supposed death, actually suspended animation, a number of changes take place which curtail freedom of movement but confer enhanced strength and capability of self-repair and, it has been said, certain abnormal powers of the mind, such as the ability to detect malign forces at a distance.
At this point, just to contribute something of my own, however obvious, I put in, ‘At any rate, the physical changes permit the creature to survive injuries that would kill an ordinary mortal and therefore, if he is to be destroyed, he must be damaged in ways no living being could withstand — impalement, decapitation, burning.’
‘Indeed,’ said Macneil, ‘and just as the vampire transforms normal blood, so he needs something from it. Whatever that something is, it tends to overheat the body, so that during the warmer, daylight hours there must be not only rest but refrigeration.’
‘For which purpose,’ I said, ‘a stone coffin packed with earth and laid in an underground vault would be as good as anything science could come up with till just the other day.’
He smiled at me again, but more pleasantly this time, like a schoolmaster at a pupil who has got it right for once. ‘Exactly, Mr Hillier. Well, I think you have the heart of it there.’
I said with a show of detachment, ‘Do you really believe any of this vampire stuff yourself?’
‘Yes,’ he said straight away.
‘Have you seen any of it?’
Now he hesitated before saying firmly, ‘No.’
‘Do you believe any of this?’ I tapped the folder.
‘Maybe.’
‘Oh, it’s rather rot, don’t you think? I mean it leaves out so much. You said last night that exposure to the light of the sun was the most effective means of destroying a vampire — widely believed to be so, that is. Is that accounted for here?’