“Who was Rappourt’s other little helper?” The Inspector scowled suspiciously at Burt, who, having dropped his handkerchief on the ground just behind his heels, was employing a somewhat roundabout, though quite efficient method of retrieving it. He leaned backward in a complete circle and picked it up with his teeth. I got a kink in my back watching him. Sandor, more cheerful now, grinned and did a back flip.
“I suspect Brooke was the other half of the acrobatic team,” Merlini answered. “He’s not as young as he once was, though younger than he pretends; and he has the build and the acrobat’s same springy walk. Right, Burt?”
“Yes.” Burt unfolded himself. “Svoboda says he used to play the carnival circuit. With the Colonel Barnes outfit in ’15. I’d like to get a look at him. I was the Colonel’s star grindshow attraction that season, but I don’t remember any acrobat named. Brooke unless he was the guy who left the show in Willard, Ohio, one jump ahead of the cops, because he’d gone in for cat burglary on the side.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” Gavigan said. “What sort of story did you get out of this whirling dervish? After it had been clawed out of Hungarian.”
Burt clicked his heels. “Operative Q94 reporting,” he said. “Brooke picked him up yesterday afternoon off 42nd Street. He had a motorboat. Svoboda—”
“Time?” Gavigan broke in.
“Two o’clock. Svoboda faked a sprained back after Thursday night’s show as an excuse to skip school next day. Rappourt had promised him a hundred bucks. They came to the island, parked the motorboat here under the house, and Brooke went out to the houseboat in a row-boat. He picked up Rappourt and they came back here and put on a dress rehearsal.”
“And in that top room because the ceilings are all too high in the others,” Merlini added.
“They knocked a few boards off the window,” Burt went on, “so Svoboda could crawl out. He was going to finish the act at the séance that way. Disappear out the window at the top, lights up quick, footprints on the ceiling, applause. They were here from 3 to 5:30, practiced the ceiling walk, and got their cues set for the evening performance. Then Rappourt and Brooke went back to the house by way of the houseboat, where they were supposed to be all the time. Svoboda was to sit tight until dark and then come down to the house ready to sneak in on cue. But at 8:15 Brooke came hurrying out, got into the motorboat, and headed for town. Brooke doesn’t speak Hungarian, and he gave Svoboda a note Rappourt had written telling him Brooke had received a phone call and had to go into town, but would be back in time for the séance. He doesn’t know what Brooke went in for.
“Just an hour after Brooke left, Svoboda heard someone making a hell of a racket at the front door. Smashing it in. Then, footsteps up the stairs. Slow, heavy ones. Sandor didn’t like it. He comes from the part of Hungary where they still have werewolves and vampires. He swung out the window on to the eaves in double-quick time. The vampire came straight up to the third-floor room. Seeing that it had a flashlight, Sandor figured he might not be one of the ‘undead’ after all, and he took a look. Almost fell off the roof. Saw a tall, white-faced guy carrying a stiff over his shoulders — a lady stiff. Flashlight or not he knew it was a vampire then. You should see the gestures when he tells it.”
I looked at Gavigan. Arnold’s story seemed to be getting a generous helping of corroboration.
“Never mind the gestures,” Gavigan said, “go on.”
“The vampire was only there a few minutes; and, as soon as it had gone, Svoboda laid plans to get the hell out. He swung in the window and started for the door, stopping just long enough to get one eyeful of corpse. He had reached the second-floor hallway when the front door opened again. Maybe you know if it’s on the up and up. Sounds to me like he’s seen too much Frankenstein in the movies. Anyway, since all the doors on that floor were locked, he had to scoot back upstairs again. He oozed out his window again just in time and stayed quiet like a mouse. The guy was in the room for nearly 10 minutes this time, walking back and forth nervous as hell. Finally, he went out in a big hurry. Svoboda sat tight waiting for the front door to creak again. But it didn’t. He waited 10 minutes by his watch; and he finally heard the guy leave by the cellar door, the one he and Rappourt and Brooke had come in by.”
“One of them have a key?” Gavigan asked.
Burt nodded. “Merlini told me to ask that. Yes. Brooke.”
“Go on.”
“Wait, Burt,” Merlini cut in. “Did you add up those times, Inspector?”
“Yeah. I don’t think the Hungarian can count. Brooke left at 8:45. Arnold shows half an hour later, at 9:15. Which checks with the story he gave us; but he couldn’t have come back, spent 10 minutes pacing up and down that room and then another 10 in the cellar — fixing the lighter. That makes it 9:35 when he cleared out, and Arnold has witnesses to say he was back at the other house a good 15 minutes before that.”
“That’s what I had in mind, Inspector. Did he notice the scarf, Burt?”
“Yes. He waited on the roof another five minutes to be sure the coast was clear and then, when he came in the window he took another look at the body, wondering what Dracula had been up to. He noticed the scarf had been ripped off the dress. And you should hear him describe the teethmarks he thinks he saw on her neck.”
“It must have been his light we saw,” I suggested.
“It was. He heard your boat coming. He thought it was Brooke and a chance to get off the blasted island. But as it pulls in under the house, he sees there are three men in it. Then he’s afraid it’s Brooke with cops and that he’s been decoyed out there to be put on the spot for a killing. He starts down the stairs again, with a real case of jitters now, and just as he reaches the top of the main stairway Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi pop out of the cellar.” Burt grinned at Merlini. “You and Ross. You barged into the lower hallway and he nearly had heart failure. He flattened out on the floor to duck your flashlights. Then you met another guy at the front door — Colonel Watrous, to judge from his description — and you all went into a big room at the foot of the stairs. Svoboda is just about to ease up off the floor and start back for his window when — I still think he’s seen too many movies — a big spider starts to crawl across his face. He doesn’t like ’em — not even baby ones. He started batting at it and let go his flash. It rolled down the stairs. He was halfway up the second flight before it hit bottom. He was perching on his roof again, when you found the body and discovered the fire. Close enough, he said, to bite off Harte’s ear when he poked his head out the window.”
I felt a cold chill skid down my back as I realized how near I’d come to getting conked if I had happened to look up instead of down. Svoboda obviously packed a hefty wallop, and he must have been on the scared edge of running amok.
“When you all dashed down to see about the fire,” Burt continued, “he finally did get out of the house. He was scared pink now, and all he wanted to do was to get off the island. But Brooke, as far as he knew, hadn’t come back with the motorboat. So he went down to the other house to try and contact Rappourt. He got there just as the lights went out. He prowled around waiting for the séance to fold because he hadn’t shown up to do his act. About 10 minutes later, as he’s sneaking across the terrace, impatiently trying to get a look in at a window, the lights suddenly came on, and he heard Harte’s voice inside. Just as he ducked into the shrubbery, another guy hurried up from the direction of the boathouse. The French window opened, and the white-faced vampire came out and took him in.”