Night Creatures Page 9

  She had been beautiful—and disturbing—in death as in life. She did not look dead when he came for her—she looked merely tired, and sad. Lying in her great four-poster bed, with silk sheets pulled up to her throat and her hands at rest upon the counterpane, there was no look of death about her, no half-closed, glassy-staring eyes, no fallen jaw, no flaccid, sagging muscles. It was simply as if she were grieving for herself, sorrowing at being cut off from the world she loved, yet not too sorrowful at leaving it. Her cheeks were hollow and her red lips had a tragic downward curve; yet somehow her calm countenance reminded him of a mask, aloof and serene, yet curiously, even frighteningly, watchful . . . as though she looked from beneath lowered lids and saw all that occurred.

  He carried out instructions to the final letter and the last small comma. Acting on the suggestion of the doctor he took her body to his funeral home and had services in his chapel. There were no relatives nor any intimate friends, for Steadman and his wife had lived almost entirely to themselves, but some of Steadman’s business associates and their wives came to the funeral and viewed the pale and lovely corpse with something of the emotions the living woman inspired.

  In the course of long experience Gordon Ranleigh had become an expert in embalming. None knew better than he how to simulate the look of life upon the dead, but this case needed little help from him. It was incredible how beautiful and how life-like she appeared. Couched on the écru satin of the casket lining, clothed in the long and closely clinging robe of Nile green, she lay with her head turned a little to the side, and soft black lashes swept her flawless cheeks so naturally it seemed that any moment they would rise and show the gleaming emerald of her eyes. One hand lay loosely on her breast, the fingers slightly curved as if in quiet sleep; the other rested by her side, and in it, by Musya’s directions, she held a purple orchid with a scarlet center. In the flickering gleam of candelabra placed at the casket’s head and foot, it seemed as if her bosom rose and fell in light slumber. When the services were finished and the time for final leave-taking arrived, they stood and stared at her, those bankers, lawyers, merchants, and their women, as if they could not believe it was a dead woman they saw. Those slim-red-tipped white fingers, those tiny satin-encased feet . . . it seemed impossible that they were now forever quiet with the quietness of death.

  They buried her in Oakdale Park, opening a grave in Steadman’s family plot, but they put no tombstone over her. Time enough for that when he came back from Mexico. Old Musya pottered round the place for several days, planting a wild rose bush at the grave head, sowing little spiny seeds in the fresh turf. Then she disappeared and it was not until they found her hanging by her scrawny neck from an oak tree in Mortmain Manor park that people realized how great her grief for her dead mistress was.

  She had no relatives, no friends, no money. Steadman’s friends refused to pledge his credit or assume responsibility for her funeral. ‘Let the county bury her. That’s what we pay taxes for.’ But Ranleigh took the poor old twisted body to his place, embalmed it, dressed it in a decent robe, put it in a cheap—but not a pauper’s—casket, and buried it in a grave which he bought with his own funds.

  Now his thought swung back to Steadman. What prompted him to buy a casket? What possible use could he have for—— A red light swinging in the darkening roadway called him from the profitless task of attempting to rationalize the irrational. Behind the warning lantern was a wooden barrier striped vividly in black and white diagonals and supporting a stenciled announcement:

  BRIDGE OUT AHEAD

  Detour by Way of Roylston Road

  Jammed in the highway by the barricade were two vehicles, one from Maison Blanche, the fashionable women’s outfitters, the other from the Murray Laboratories. Gears ground protestingly as drivers backed and reversed, stopped to twist steering-wheels with savage force, then edged their cars across the macadam and back again, jockeying for turning-room in the narrow road.

  ‘Where you goin’, buddy?’ called the Maison Blanche chauffeur as he brought his vehicle about and rested for a moment with his clutch in neutral.

  ‘Out to Mortmain, fifteen miles th’ other side o’ Gawd knows where,’ the laboratory driver answered. ‘This would have to happen to me with a date tonight at eight, an’ orders to git this blood out there before th’ sun goes down. Before sundown, hell! I know that Roylston Road. Be lucky if I git out there by nine o’clock. My girl frien’ll think I stood her up, sure as shootin’, and——’

  ‘You’re tellin’ me!’ the other interrupted. ‘My supper’ll be as cold as a dead baby’s nose, time I git home, an’ my old woman’ll give me hell. Can you beat it? This here now Steadman blows inter th’ place ’bout three o’clock an’ orders enough stuff for a glammer girl’s debutt, sayin’ it’s all gotta be delivered to his house before sunset. It wuz amost four by th’ time they gits it boxed an’ through th’ shippin’-room an’ tags me wid it. “Git it out there before sunset,” they tells me—an’ th’ sun goes down by five o’clock these days. I coulda made it, at that, if this dam’ bridge wuzn’t out.’

  Ranleigh drew his funeral car to the extreme edge of the road, making passage room for the other two, then, backing skillfully, brought his vehicle about and started toward the detour. No longer blue, but dark-green in the fading light, a wave-like barrier of hills obscured the horizon. It was through them his road led, almost ten miles of steady climb, with curves and switch-backs which increased the distance almost half. Much of it would have to be negotiated in second gear and the possibility of reaching Mortmain by sunset was nil. But to a practised driver like him the work was purely mechanical, like walking. This left his thoughts free—to race helter-skelter back and forth, like rats chased by a terrier.

  Almost desperately he fumbled with the facts, trying to reduce them to coherent design. He had a feeling the solution was in reach of his brain if he could only find the key; somewhere in all this jumble of irrationality was the missing integer, the jigsaw-puzzle piece which would give relevancy to the rebus. With increasing perplexity he rehearsed the clues: Albert Steadman, widower, buys a casket, selecting from a roomful of exhibits one almost identical to that in which his wife had been buried. Next day he orders lady’s clothing in sufficient quantity and variety for, as the chauffeur put it, ‘a glammer gal’s debutt’. Both orders must be delivered before sundown. Aside from the requirement of immediate delivery, such divergent purchases are enough to excite wonder, but there is the added mystery of the order from the Murray Laboratories. Largest dealers in biologicals in the city, they are often sought in emergency by hospitals whose blood banks have run low or when blood donors cannot be found immediately. With them he places a rush order for blood, and it, like the casket and the clothes, must be brought to his house by sundown.

  Blood—casket—clothing. Casket—clothing—blood, the absurdly ill-assorted combination rang and echoed through his puzzled mind as he breasted the long climb through the hills. Where was there—where could there be—a connection between these things? And why must all be delivered before the sun went down?

  Mortmain Manor stood upon a hilltop, four-square to the elements, sound and sturdy as it had been on the day Colonial artizans laid their saws and hammers by and repaired to the great hall to receive their final pay and drink the health of His Majesty George II. Sixty feet from earth to eaves its brick walls reared, stained and mellowed with the rains of two hundred summers, scarred and bitten with the snows and frosts of a bicentenary of winters. Against the bricks tall pilasters of gray stone mounted to the support of a crenellated cornice; the roof was tiled with scales of sheet-lead; the door was wide and high enough to let a coach-and-four through.

  A high wall fenced the front yard, green with lichen; broken flagstones made a path to the low porch before the massive iron-strapped and spike-knobbed door. As Ranleigh turned into the gateway he heard the grinding of gears and a quartet of sharp beams stabbed through the darkness as the drivers of the two delivery wagons flashed
their headlights on, lashing out at the gloom that seemed gathering like a pool inside the walled garden. They slid past him down the graveled drive and he drew up at the doorway, backing till his hearse doors overhung the low porch, then jumping down to set his casket truck in place and easing the long burial case along the rollers in the hearse floor till with a light bump it rested on the wheeled conveyor. Everything in readiness, he turned and drew the verdigris-stained knocker back and hammered on the door.

  Steadman answered his summons, so quickly that it seemed he must have been waiting by the door. ‘I know the bridge is out,’ he forestalled Ranleigh’s apology. ‘Never mind, I dare say you came as quickly as you could. Wheel it this way, please.’ It was characteristic of him that he made no tender of assistance.

  Time-stained wainscot rose three floors to a beamed ceiling in the entrance hall, a wide stair curved up at the rear, letting out on balconies with heavy balustrades of carved oak at second and third storey levels. The red glow from a massive fireplace flowed across the tiles of a wide hearth, and from antique chandeliers of cut glass gas flames flared, for Mortmain Manor lacked both electricity and telephone, and trusted to its carbide gas plant for cooking-fuel and lighting. But if the lighting-plant were late Victorian, the furnishings were elegantly Georgian. Deep mahogany bookshelves hoarded rows of calf and morocco bindings; a grand piano flashed back highlights from the chandeliers; underfoot were rugs from China, India, and Persia; from small cabinets came the muted glow of purple, blue, and mulberry Ming porcelain. Only wealth could have such things; only wealth assisted by good taste would choose them.

  Following in his host’s steps, Ranleigh wheeled the casket to a curtained doorway, paused a moment while the other drew the hangings back, then with an effort forced the wheeled bier across the doorsill. It was a large, beautiful room. The rosewood-paneled walls were rubbed with oil until they gleamed like satin; the brightly waxed oak floor was spread with Isphahan prayer rugs so precious that to walk on them seemed desecration. Between twin cut-glass gas brackets a Sheraton lowboy was placed, and on it had been put a set of toilet accessories, little crystal flacons of perfume, small porcelain pots of rouge, face powders with their lamb’s wool puffs in silver-topped containers of etched glass, nail polish, combs of tortoise-shell and brushes with rich silver backs. A Récamier chaise-longue upholstered in Nile-green satin brocade was flanked by two low chairs of gilded applewood. It was a lady’s boudoir, elegant and lovely as a jewel case waiting for the gem it should enfold, a dainty, tasteful apartment, feminine as a ruffle or a hairpin; yet somehow, somewhere, Ranleigh’s instinct told him, was a note of discord—something only very little out of harmony, like dark lipstick on a blonde, or a soprano who sang slightly flat, yet which spoiled the perfection of the ensemble. What was it, something lacking . . . something just a little overdone? He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there.

  ‘Put it right here, please,’ Steadman’s order broke his rumination. Then, as he wheeled the casket into place—‘where the bed should be,’ he thought—his host gave way to an annoyed ejaculation. ‘The devil! I should have thought of that!’

  ‘What is it?’ Ranleigh countered. ‘Something missing?’

  ‘Yes, I forgot to get a stand for it. Too heavy to stand on a table or chairs; don’t want it on the floor—see here, sell me that wheeled bier of yours, will you?’

  Ranleigh considered. He had several church trucks, and a replacement could be obtained in a few days. This one had cost him forty dollars. Figuring the inconvenience he might be put to while he waited for a new one, a fair price would be——

  ‘Sixty dollars cover it? Of course, I don’t know anything about your prices, but if that’s not enough——’ Steadman paused and raised his brows interrogatively.

  ‘Yes, I’ll take that for it,’ responded Ranleigh. He was beginning to be nettled. People came to him in trouble, and he prided himself on ability to soothe their hurts, make the pain of bereavement less heart-rending. Steadman had been brusk from first to last, barking orders at him, treating him almost as if he were a menial. Now he seemed intent on hurrying him away; there would have been no more compulsion in a physical push than there was in his urgent, impatient manner.

  Again his thought was interrupted by the other’s fretful, eager voice. ‘Have to give you a check. That all right?’

  ‘That will be quite satisfactory, Mr Steadman,’ Ranleigh answered, annoyance whetting a slight edge on his voice.

  Steadman crossed the hall and sat down at a kneehole desk that must have been an heirloom when Washington and Jefferson were lads, rummaging through the drawer a moment for his checkbook. Ranleigh dropped into a chair and bent his head in thought. Odd, Steadman’s answering the door; when he’d been there before there’d been a houseman and a chambermaid-cook. Where were they now? It was out of character for Steadman to serve himself. . . . That room where he had left the casket . . . what was wrong with it? Something in its composition jarred his sense of propriety, but what? By George! Involuntarily, he snapped his fingers softly. Cataloging the furniture in his mind he’d stumbled on the key. There were no mirrors—not even a hand-glass—in the place. What sort of boudoir was it that lacked mirrors? What woman ever made her toilet without benefit of looking-glass? Odd oversight, that. Or was it an oversight?

  Pondering, he glanced across the rug-set floor, and leaned forward with a smile. Stepping soundlessly on dainty feet came a blue-point Siamese cat toward him. He liked cats. Comfortable, homey brutes. There were seldom less than four or five around his house, for Lady Jane, his Maltese tabby, was unalterably opposed to race suicide. ‘Here, puss!’ he whispered in the voice he reserved for his special pets. ‘Pretty pussy!’

  The cat dropped to its belly eight or ten feet from him, ears pricked alertly forward, green eyes fixed in a stare. Yet they did not stare at him. As far as he was concerned, they seemed to notice nothing, but to be fixed levelly upon some object just behind him. He became aware of a slight irritation just above his collar, as if the short hair on his neck were rising. It was uncanny, eerie, this being stared through by an animal.

  For a moment he sat at a loss, then stretched a hand in invitation to the cat. ‘Nice kitty—pretty puss!’ he wheedled. The hard eyes gleamed in the gaslight, unrecognizing, unseeing; then the beast rose to its padded feet and turned toward the room where the casket stood, stalking off with the light graceful gait of its tribe and never a backward look.

  ‘Here you are,’ he heard Steadman say, and turned with something like a start to see the freshly blotted check extended toward him. There was no breeze, no air that stirred sufficiently to make the gas flames waver, but the check was quivering as if a strong wind ruffled it. Steadman’s hand was trembling as with palsy, and around his lips there was a tightening of the muscles that spelled but one thing—fear. The man was bordering on panic, almost hysterical with haste and wild desire to be rid of him.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ranleigh murmured as he rose to put the folded check into his pocket. ‘I’m sorry I was delayed by——’ His partially expressed apology faded on his lips as if his voice had come through a radio and the dial had been abruptly turned.

  For the curtains at the boudoir doorway parted, and framed between their iridescent folds a woman stood. Her gown of Nile-green silken tissue hung loosely from her lissome form, no more concealing the perfection of her ivory body than a passing wisp of cumulus cloud hides the disk of the full moon. The rich luxuriance of her burnished-copper hair, unbound and smoothly parted in the middle, swept like a cloven cascade down her high white forehead and swirled like sun-flecked flowing water round her bare white shoulders. About her incredibly slender waist was clasped a girdle fashioned like a golden snake which held its tail in its mouth and from whose head flashed the glint of emerald eyes. Halted in the act of advancing, one long, slim, high-arched foot, shod in a gilded sandal buckled with an emerald clasp, was like a spot of moonlight on the deep red of the rug that brought its blue-v
eined white perfection into startling definition. As her gaze met Ranleigh’s startled eyes she paused with a sibilant intake of breath, and her right hand, from which the loose sleeve of her gown fell back, clutched at the silk curtain as if for support.

  Her half-gasp found an echo in the panting exclamation of surprise which he gave. His heart gave a cold, nauseating lurch, and he dropped back in his chair, weak with sudden sickening weakness. He knew that slender, perfect body, that pale exquisite face. Once he’d seen them living; later . . . She raised a hand as if to put back the fine misty rose-gold hair that flowed across her brow, the sleeve of her gown was attached to the shoulder at the top, but had no seams, being really two silk gores connected by a series of short lengths of gilded cord, and her gesture bared the junction of her under-arm and shoulder. Across the milk-white skin of her armpit there showed an inch-long wound—he remembered—he had made it with his bistoury when he raised her axillary vein and artery to inject embalming fluid.

  A chill as of a breath of icy wind ran through him. His reason told him not to be afraid. Who knows better than the embalmer that never till the Day of Judgment shall the dead walk in their mortal flesh again? But reason plays no part when outraged instinct runs amok. Terror, blind, insensate, irresistible, spread on his mind like moss on sodden ground.

  Steadman was as white as any corpse. His lips moved slowly, laboredly, as if they had been numbed with cold. ‘Natacha!’ he called in the thin tone of hysteria, then followed the name with a spate of pouring words which seemed to be all consonants.