“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: