P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 03, page 7
"Did Miss Francher know of this?"
"I saw no need to trouble her with my personal problems. I told her Maureen was an old friend dropping by for a visit and she was content with that."
It sounded as though Emily Francher had been remarkably accommodating for one who demanded such privacy, and I speculated that he might have influenced her into her contentment. "How long did Maureen stay?"
"She didn't. I invited her to remain as long as she liked until they found Gaylen, and she accepted. With a place this big, there are any number of rooms she'd be safe and comfortable in, especially my own, which is well locked and fireproofed. The servants have standing orders never to go inside and they are paid enough not to be overly curious."
"Convenient." Again, I figured he'd have insured himself by slipping them some quiet suggestions on the side.
"Indeed. Maureen turned down the offer and picked another room. I saw that she was settled, did some work of my own, and stopped by to say good night and to see if she needed anything. She did not, so I went to bed."
"You saw her?"
"I called through the door and she answered."
That struck us both as odd and he knew it.
"She didn't really want to see me," he admitted.
"Why's that?" I asked.
"We had a disagreement, more of a quiet fight, really. She didn't approve of my job and I told her it was none of her business how I chose to live. Things rapidly deteriorated from there."
"And she still accepted your invitation to stay the day?"
"By then it was too late for her to go elsewhere; the time had gotten away from us. She stayed, but left right after sunset the next night. By the time I was up and about, she was gone."
"Without a good-bye?"
"Or even a thank-you. She must have been very angry with me, but then I was hardly feeling like a good Christian toward her myself."
"How did she leave?"
"Same as she came; by taxi."
"Do you know where she went?"
"No."
"Anyone else see her leave?"
"Mayfair—that's the gardener—had to let them in and out. You may ask him if you like, though I warn you he's got a brain like a block of Swiss cheese."
"And you never tried to contact her?"
"I called her flat a few times, but she was never home. Later on when I called, someone else had rented the place. She never called or wrote, I expect she never wanted to see me again." He'd drifted away, as though he were talking to himself. I wasn't the only one Maureen had hurt.
"Did you ever think that Gaylen might have found her?"
"Not seriously, no. Once Maureen had a little time to get over her upset, I knew she'd be able to take care of herself."
"Was your disagreement serious enough for her to cut you off just like that?"
"I suppose it was, from her point of view. No woman likes to see herself supplanted by another in a man's heart, even a man she's long ago discarded."
"Are you referring to your employer?" asked Escott in that carefully neutral tone of his, which meant he thought his question was important.
Barrett fastened him with a cold eye. "As I told Maureen, that is none of your business."
Escott dropped the subject for another. "What about the phone call for Maureen you received the next night?"
"Call?"
"From her friend. Maureen gave her the number of this house as though she expected to be here for a time."
"Oh, that. I remember."
"You gave this person the impression Maureen was still here."
"I think I offered to take a message and I wanted to know who was calling. I was curious and I thought she might be involved with Gaylen in some way. Who was it?"
"She was not involved with Gaylen and she asked that we not mention her name."
He shrugged, uninterested.
"Are you not curious about Maureen and what happened to her?"
"Of course I am, why d'ye think I got the two of you in here to start with? A lot of good it's done me since you've no news of her—or have you?"
"Regrettably, we do not."
"That's no surprise." He turned his attention to me. "How well did you know her?"
"Very well."
"That's evident, laddie. You must have been something special to her altogether. So why hasn't she tried to contact you, eh? Had a fight with her, too?"
"She left to protect me from Gaylen, that's all I know."
"And you said you met Gaylen?"
"She met me."
"What about her? Did the asylum finally catch up with her? You said she was caught?"
I glanced at Escott. He left it up to me. "I said she was no longer a threat. She's dead."
He thought it over for a time, reading more off my face than I felt comfortable about. "How, then, did it happen? How did she come to find you?"
"It doesn't matter, she just did. She thought I might know where Maureen was, but I couldn't help her."
"Perhaps not to find Maureen, maybe she wanted your help in other ways—and don't look so dark, laddie, I knew her, too, and far better. I knew what she wanted and how badly she wanted it, and if you turned her down, I shan't think ill of you. I said she was sick. Sometimes death is the best cure for her kind of misery. You did turn her down? She really is dead?"
"She is," confirmed Escott. "Heart failure."
I felt my face twisting in reaction. Maybe not all of the nightmare had left; something perverse inside me wanted to laugh. I got up and walked to the French windows instead. The pool lights were out and the blond swimmer was long gone. The water was still and smooth.
"Death is the best cure sometimes," Barrett repeated. "It keeps her from passing her sickness on to others and making them miserable in turn. One can hope for as much at least."
Some distance beyond the pool was a bare, fenced yard with a few trees in it and the dark, rounded shapes of horses dozing on their feet. No doubt they were part of Barrett's food supply. It was very convenient and comfortable for him to have such an obliging patroness.
I could understand Maureen's reaction to it all. In her day she had been well off and certainly attractive. Then Barrett came into her life, offering her love and a possibility of eternal youth in exchange for her money and protection. It could have been that way, an old story with a new twist that Barrett apparently repeated if he had the same arrangement with Emily Francher. No wonder Maureen had been upset, but I didn't think she'd have simply gone off without a final word to him. She had manners as well, she would have surely left him some kind of a note.
I turned back into the room. They were both looking at me; Escott alert and Barrett… watchful. I focused my full attention on him, freezing hard onto his brilliant eyes, reaching into his mind.
"Where is Maureen? Tell me."
Escott held his breath. There was total silence except for his heart thudding a little faster than normal.
"You know how to find her," I said. "Where is she?"
Barrett looked slightly surprised, not blank, as I'd expected.
"Tell me."
His face darkened.
"Where is she?"
He stood up to face me square on: a tall man, well built, wearing modern, elegant clothes. Hard, primitive fury flooded and marred his features. I'd done exactly the wrong thing by trying to influence an answer from him.
His hands had worked into fists. He made an effort to keep his voice steady.
"I have already told you I do not know where she is." He was shaking from his anger, but holding himself carefully in check. "And remember this, Fleming, no one has ever called me a liar and lived… Keep that in mind before you say aught else."
Something moved out in the hall, a light footstep as someone passed the door. Escott started breathing again, but his heart was still thumping very fast. It was just distracting enough, so I did think twice about my next words and it was damned difficult to get them out.
"If… if you should ever see her again—" I paused, but he held back, listening "—tell her Gaylen is dead. Tell her I only want to know that she's all right." My mouth was very dry. "If she doesn't want to see me again, I'll respect her decision."
Barrett was a perceptive man; he could see what it had cost me to say that. His expression softened and he gave a slight nod. "And you'll do the same for me?"
"Yes."
He nodded again. "If I should ever see her again, I will tell her that for you. If…"
And he left that last word hanging in the air between us with all its attendant uncertainty and doubt.
Our car rumbled slowly down the drive, gravel spreading and crunching under the tires as we followed the gardener's truck to the front gate.
"What do you think?" I asked Escott.
He replied with a shake of the head.
Fair enough, I felt about the same. "I can't believe the trail stops here."
We rounded the turn at the side of the non-ruins of the old house and rolled gently downhill at a slightly faster speed. The truck was now nearly up to ten miles an hour.
"Got any questions for Johnny Appleseed up ahead?"
"If you mean the gardener, yes, I have. As for Barrett, he said much that agreed with what we heard from Gaylen—the manner of Maureen's death, her separation from Barrett—on those points we can assume he was being truthful."
"And of Maureen coming here and leaving?"
"I don't know. Her abrupt departure is just odd enough as a story to be true. He could just as easily have told us something more plausible. Having never met her, I do not know if such behavior is something you'd expect from her. Is it?"
"She left me, didn't she?" Like a spectator standing apart, I noticed the bitter tone in my voice. Escott remained mercifully silent.
The gardener got out to open the front gate for us. Escott followed him and cornered the man. His wife appeared on the porch of the gatehouse and glared at them both, but Escott had anticipated her and carefully maneuvered the man so he was unaware of her presence.
Escott talked and got some mumbled replies along with head scratching, head shaking, and shrugs until the fellow caught sight of his better half and decided it was past time to go inside. Escott shook hands with him briefly. From the look that passed between them I knew he'd given him a private tip for his help, such as it was.
We drove out. Escott waved at him and got a guarded half wave in return.
"What'd he say?"
"A moment," he said, and a quarter-mile later pulled the car onto the road shoulder and cut the motor. "Lord, but that place was oppressive."
"And I thought it was just me."
My answer had to wait more than a moment as he got out his pipe, tobacco pouch, and matches. Soon he was successfully drawing smoke into his lungs and filling the car up with the aromatic exhaust. The excess floated out the windows into the cool night air of the woods around us.
He looked at the pale gray swirl without really seeing it. "Mr. Mayfair confirmed Barrett's story. It was a memorable spring because of the fire and death of Mrs. Francher, but things were more or less back to normal by summer. Unlike her mother. Miss Francher did not encourage visitors, and after her views were made quite clear to her various relatives, they ceased to call. Young Laura was the only one she'd have anything to do with. Again, he confirmed Barrett's statement that Emily took over the girl's guardianship." 'Did he remember Maureen?"
"Not by name, but he did recall admitting a young woman on Barrett's authority that summer. The circumstances were similar enough to our own arrival to bring the incident readily to mind. She arrived in a Green Light cab one night and departed the next, also by cab; a local called out from the nearest town."
"Green Light is based in Manhattan."
"Mr. Mayfair was aware of that at the time, which was another unusual detail for him to remember. He'd spent some thought on speculating how high the fare had been." 'Great. What else?"
"Nothing more to concern us, I'm afraid. Aside from the expected traffic of tradesmen, the only other visitors of note were the demolition men charged with the task of tearing down the burned shell of the old house." 'Can we try tracing the local cab?"
"I'll have a go at it first thing tomorrow," he promised. "Now about tonight…"
"What about it?"
"Our interview was fascinating, but I felt a bit shortchanged on actual facts about the household. I want to ask if you would mind returning to the house tonight."
"What? Pull a peeping-tom act?"
"Engage in further investigation," he corrected mildly. "I also cannot believe the trail stops here and would like to know more about the place and the people in it. I'm interested in the cars they possess and who actually owns them. How many servants do they employ? Do any of them actually live in the house? Barrett mentioned he had a secure resting place; where is it?"
"Oh, is that all?"
He chose to overlook the touch of sarcasm. "Any piece of information, no matter how trivial, may be of value."
"And if Barrett catches me?"
"See that he doesn't."
Chapter Five
IT WAS EASY for him to say, he didn't have to go over the brick wall up the road and bumble through the woods to reach the house—not that that was too much trouble. Most of the time I was incorporeal, and passed over the terrain the way Escott's pipe smoke drifted out the car window. In a bodiless state the wall was no problem, and my clothes were spared the rigors of a hike through the wilderness. I just didn't like my errand or anything to do with it; I was looking for things to complain about.
I had to pause and re-form often to get my bearings, but I made good speed, swiftly flowing between the solid bulk of the tree trunks until I was within spitting distance of the garage. After that I took my time. Barrett's night vision was equal to my own, and unlike normal humans he could spot me in my invisible state.
Creeping into the garage, I checked each of the cars: an early Ford on blocks, a Rolls, a Caddy, and a brand-new white Studebaker. I dutifully wrote their plate numbers in my notebook and looked over their paperwork. All of them were owned by Emily Francher.
The floor above the garage was occupied by two women, both comfortably asleep. They had separate rooms, but shared a bath and had black uniforms hanging in the closets that identified them as regular staff. I picked gingerly through their purses to get their names, and ghosted outside again without disturbing them. As a vampire hell-bent on finding slumbering maidens to drain into terminal anemia, I was a total washout.
The stables were next, and were just as quiet. The horses may have been used to late-night visits. Two stood in stalls and six more wandered loose in the adjoining corral. None of them did more than cock an interested ear in my direction.
Upstairs, a section had been converted to living quarters, and I found a young man happily snoring away in his bed. His place was cluttered with horsey-smelling clothes, riding boots in both English and Western styles, and other related junk. He had a modest collection of Zane Grey novels on a shelf and below them was a pile of magazines whose pictured contents were anything but modest. Again, I quietly raided a wallet for identification.
The easy stuff out of the way, I oozed through the back door of the main house and solidified in the kitchen. A small light over one of the electric stoves kept it from being totally dark. Various doors opened to a hall, the dining room, pantry, and the basement. I picked the basement, changed to a semi-transparent state for silence and speed, and sailed down the stairs.
The walls were very solid concrete and the massive house above was well supported by a forest of thick pillars. I went solid for a moment and listened, but caught only the irregular drip of water from the laundry room. A slightly musty smell hung in the still air, coming from some odd pieces of old furniture stacked against a brick wall opposite the stairs. It was only a basement and a waste of my time.
I was halfway back to the kitchen when it hit me: the place was much too small. I went down again and checked the brickwork. Not being an expert, I couldn't tell if it was part of the original building or not, but my curiosity was up. I disappeared and pushed forward through the bricks.
It was slow work, like walking through sticky oatmeal. I didn't like the feeling at all and the wall was nearly a foot thick. It seemed like forever before I tumbled into free and open space again, to re-form for a look around.
On this side the bricks were hidden by fine oak paneling, and the utilitarian presence of the support pillars had been softened by similar decoration. Some of them had been converted into four-sided bookshelves, each loaded with hundreds of titles. A thick rug covered most of the parquet flooring and several lamps held back the darkness. The chairs and sofas looked comfortable and the air was fresh.
Barrett had done very well for himself.
He'd said his room was fireproof and secure, qualities which struck me as wise precautions. It was no wonder vampires had a reputation for hanging around graveyards; few things are more fireproof or private than a stone mausoleum. But this basement location was a real luxury and far better than anything I might have planned for myself. I was frankly envious.
The entrance to his sanctum was a heavy industrial-type metal door covered in more wood paneling. It led to a carpeted hall and a flight of steps going up to a door with access to the ground floor. Both were locked, which was sensible. I went back down again and got nosy.
His quarters consisted of a large living area, bedroom, bath, and a good-sized closet. The bed was unusually large, with a fancy embroidered canopy. It was for use, not for show, since the nightstand held some personal clutter. His carpet slippers lay jumbled on the floor next to it.
I cautiously looked under the brocaded blue bedspread and plain white sheets and found a doubled thickness of oilcloth stretched over the mattress. It was sewn shut at the edges, but I could tell by the weight and feel that it contained his home earth. It was a very neat arrangement, one that I intended to adapt for myself, now that I had the idea.
Beyond the bedroom was a spotless white-tiled bath, supplied with the usual appointments, except that the cabinet over the sink lacked a mirror. It was an easily understandable omission.
