Hammond King
4. Vampire’s Teeth
As the cab driver grumbled about the long haul, I told Lorna what I thought was wise.
I was too groggy to think clearly. Lenehan thought I was drunk, I’d jumped arrest, I’d eavesdropped, and impersonated, and messed up a murder. And it looked like an even busier day tomorrow unless I could straighten this tangle out tonight.
That’s my only excuse, I guess. I was a punch-drunk fool to take Lorna to that house, with only a crazy hunch to guide us, and armed with nothing but my suspicions.
But I did it. We rolled up to the black, forbidding portals of the Petroff place. We walked up the porch of the Petroff mansion and the cab waited in the driveway. I didn’t see Hammond King’s car, and I was glad we had arrived first.
He was wrong, I thought. Petroff was not here. And if he wasn’t, we could find that staircase, take a look into the vault, and see for ourselves whether Irene Colby Petroff walked or slept forever.
Never mind the details. The garlic odor choked us in the creaky hall. It flooded the parlor as I lit the lamp, tapped bookcases, and found the button that opened a section of the wall. Lorna shivered at my side. The setup looked like something out of “The Cat and the Canary”.
I kept listening for sounds. All quiet on the Western Front. With the light streaming from the parlor behind us, we took the secret staircase in stride. Down below was another panel in the wall. I switched on the light and walked down a long corridor. It was damp. King had said the private vaults of the family were out under the hillside.
We rounded a turn and came to the iron grille barring the hall. A perpetual light burned behind it. I tried the door. It was open. It squeaked as I pushed.
The squeak was drowned in a scream.
I turned.
Something black scuttled around the corner of the passageway. Something swooped down on Lorna, engulfed her in a sable cloud. I saw glaring eyes, red lips – Igor Petroff was here!
I made a dive for him. Petroff didn’t dodge. He stood there, and as I came on, his arm lashed out. The blow caught me off balance and as I wavered, his hand moved out. Something flashed down, and then I fell.
There was a blurred impression of movement, screaming, and scuffling. Petroff had dragged Lorna through the grille, down into the vaults.
I lurched to my feet as another figure raced around the bend. More blamed traffic down here, I thought, dazedly.
It was Hammond King.
He didn’t see me. He stared, glassy-eyed, as he ran past into the gloom of the corridor beyond. He was carrying a gun. Silver bullets!
I dashed after him. As we took another flight of stairs, I gazed over his shoulder at the family vaults beyond.
Lorna stood in a corner, crouching against a wall. The cloaked figure of Igor Petroff glided towards her, and I thought of Dracula, and of childhood terrors, and of nightmares men still whisper about.
Hammond King didn’t think. He began pumping shots from his gun, firing in maniac fury.
Petroff turned, across the room. And then, he smiled. He didn’t fall down. He smiled. He smiled, and started to run toward Hammond King with his arms extended, and Hammond King gave a little choking gurgle and fell down.
I didn’t fall. As Petroff advanced, I ran to meet him. This time I was not off balance. I let him have one right on the point of his white chin. He grunted, but his arms swept up and then I felt the cold embrace as he clawed at me. I hammered into his ribs, but he was hard, rigid. Rigor mortis is like that, I thought madly.
He smelled of dampness and mold and ancient earth. His arms were strong and he was squeezing me. I dropped to the floor and he began to reach for my throat. He chuckled, then, deep in his throat, an animal growl. A growl of hunger, the growl of a carnivore that scents blood.
He had me by the neck, and I reached out with one hand and scrabbled frantically against the floor until I felt the cold steel of the gun Hammond King had dropped.
Petroff wrenched my arm back, trying to tear the gun from my fingers. I wanted to fight him off, but his other hand was at my neck, squeezing. I felt myself falling back, and I pulled my arm free and brought the gun-butt up against his head, once, twice, three times.
Igor Petroff wobbled like a rundown mechanical doll and dropped with a dull thud.
I got up and slapped Lorna’s face. She came out of her trance, crying. Then I went over to Hammond King and slapped him around. Just a one-man rescue squad.
“Go upstairs, you two,” I said. “The cab driver’s waiting outside. Tell him to go into Centerville and bring back Sheriff Shea. I’ll meet you in a moment.”
They left.
I went through the vault until I came to what I wanted to find. When I was quite finished with my inspection I went back upstairs.
Lorna and Hammond King were waiting in the parlor. She had fixed her hair again, and he looked well enough to smoke a cigarette.
“The police should be here in five minutes,” King said.
“Good.”
“Perhaps I’d better look outside,” he suggested. “I’m expecting Dr Kelring.”
“Kelring isn’t coming,” I said, gently. “He’s dead.”
“But I talked to him over the phone.”
I told him who he’d talked to. And then I decided to tell him a few other things.
“You should have gone to the police the night you saw Mrs Petroff here,” I said. “Then all this wouldn’t have happened.”
“But I saw her. She was alive.”
“Right. But she wasn’t a vampire. Too bad you believed that crazy story Petroff concocted. When you stumbled onto her existence, he had to think of something and the vampire story just popped out. After you half swallowed it, he planned the rest. He had to convince you completely, and he was good at planning.”
“What do you mean?”
“It all started, I think, when Petroff and Dr Kelring decided to fake Mrs Petroff’s death. They were in on it together, to split the inheritance. They didn’t have the nerve to kill her outright but drugged her, held a private funeral, and faked the death certificate. Then Petroff kept her a prisoner down here in the vaults. That’s why he had dogs and a guard. She was alive until about three days ago.”
“How do you know?”
“I just found her body in the vault,” I explained. “And I’ve seen her living quarters – a room beyond. She’s dead now, all right, and I’d say she died of starvation.”
“I don’t understand,” Lorna sighed.
“Simple. When her fake death was accepted, Petroff and Dr Kelring were all set to divide the spoils. But there were no spoils – not for a year, according to the terms of her will. They hadn’t counted on that. So Petroff was trying to get King, here, to advance money against the inheritance.
“King, being a smart attorney, would do no such thing. But after he saw Mrs Petroff alive and heard this vampire line, he began to weaken. Petroff took advantage of it, showing him books on demonology, and telling wild stories about secret cults.”
Hammond King nodded miserably. “He was wearing me down,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t release any money. I couldn’t, legally.”
I took over again. “Then, three days ago, Mrs Petroff actually died. Perhaps he deliberately starved her, perhaps not. In any event, she was dead, and his extortion plot and fake death was now actually murder. He wanted that money at once, needed it desperately.
“So he phoned you, King, and asked you to come out today, planning to show himself lying on the floor as the victim of a vampire attack. He had it figured that you’d be too shocked to call the police at once. Then, after dark, he would call upon you as a supposed vampire, threaten you with his bite, and get you to advance personal funds against the estate.”