Anno Dracula 1918 - The Bloody Red Baron (6 page)

An old man scuttled through the waiting room, dragging a wheelbarrow piled with bulging string-tied bundles of yellow paper. He was warm but smelled bloodless and dry. The clerk ignored Poe and disappeared through a side door into a labyrinth of records. The tribunal hall of the Commission was a castle of forgotten fact, an Alexandrian Library of the irrelevant.

Even with the 'prophecies' of
The Battle of St Petersburg
scorned by those who had once hailed them as a model to be matched, Poe believed his vision truer than that of the front-line correspondents. His was the world that should have been; not the muddy, entrenched, life-devouring stalemate that existed across Europe. The British should have stayed neutral or ranged themselves against their hereditary enemy, the French. Truly, what did a Briton care for snivelling little Belgium? Zeppelins would now sail majestically over the enslaved hordes of the steppe. The great empires would purge themselves of impurities and govern the destiny of the planet.

Edgar Poe would be the prophet of the age. It was said no vampire could produce a work of lasting aesthetic or intellectual merit. He hungered to disprove the saw. But the world of glory that seemed about to be born was turned to a nightmare of boredom and starvation.

The cuffs of his trousers were frayed and he wore a celluloid collar that had to be cleaned with an India rubber. It was a mercy Virginia had not lived to see her Eddy reduced to this miserable condition.

An official entered. He wore a floor-length apron and an oversized cap with a green eyeshade. He held up a small bell, which he tinkled. The tintinnabulation assaulted Poe's ears.

'Herr Poe, if you will come,' the official said in formal German.

The meeting was held not in an office but in a high-ceilinged corridor. Thin windows allowed dusty light in. Attendants trundled trolleys by. Poe had to flatten himself against the wall to let them past.

Poe had dealt before with Kafka, a sharp Jew with queer batwing ears and a penetrating gaze. The clerk seemed to find the idea of an American in the ghetto disturbing and gave the impression of a genuine eagerness to help resolve the case. Thus far his efforts had yielded only a creeping plague of contradictory memoranda from higher-ups. Withal, he had almost taken to Franz Kafka. The only soul in Prague who had heard of Poe for anything other than
The Battle of St Petersburg
and 'The Raven', he had once asked him to inscribe a cheap edition of
Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
Kafka mentioned he was himself an occasional writer, but Poe had not wished to encourage further intimacy with the Jew and made a pointed display of indifference.

Poe was summoned to meet one Hanns Heinz Ewers. A vampire, of course, he was well-dressed and thought himself distinguished in several fields. Unusually for a German, he wore a suit rather than a uniform.

'It is ironic, Herr Poe.' Ewers said. 'We are truly doubles, mirror images,
doppelgänger.
When the war began, I was in your country, in New York City ...'

'I have ceased to regard Federal America as
my
country, sir. I lost my nationality at Appomattox.'

'As you wish. I too was frustrated, as you must be now. I too was a poet, an essayist, a visionary, a novelist of sensation, a philosopher. I have conquered new fields of art, including the kinematograph. Employed by my Kaiser as a lobbyist, my efforts were insufficient to prevent the misunderstanding that exists between the New World and the Old. I was interned in and deported. I have long wanted to meet you, Herr Poe.'

Poe fixed Ewers's eye and found something lacking. He was a half-formed imitation, exaggerated to compensate for inner deficiencies.

'I once considered instituting a lawsuit against you, Herr Ewers,' Poe said, plainly. '
The Student of Prague
, a photoplay which you signed, is an arrant plagiarism of my tale "William Wilson".'

Ewers was slapped by the accusation but recovered in an eyeblink. 'No more, surely, than your "William Wilson" is plagiarism of E.T.A. Hoffmann.'

'There is no comparison,' Poe said coldly.

Ewers smiled. Poe was struck by the man's detestability. His manner was as contrived, ungainly and fraudulent as his fictions. It was entirely fitting that he should work in motion pictures. There was a vulgarity about the stuttering, posturing, face-pulling foolery of the kinema that stuck to Ewers like mud.

'The case of Edgar Poe is under review,' Kafka reminded Ewers, holding up a thick folder of papers.

'No,' Ewers said, gripping the folder's edge with undead strength. 'As far as you are concerned, the case of Edgar Poe is concluded. Germany has need of him, and Prague will surrender him to me, as representative of Kaiser and court.'

Kafka's eyes wavered. Poe was unsure but it seemed the clerk was wavering out of concern for him.

A one-legged man, face hooded, stumped by, a basket slung upon his back like a peasant's pannier, half full of stopped watches.

'Herr Poe,' Ewers said. 'It has been decided you are just the man for a certain task of great national importance ...'

'A tune has been changed, Herr Ewers. I've a distinguished military record in my former country, including study at West Point Academy, but my attempts to volunteer for the armies of the Empires were ungraciously rebuffed. Though I am an internationally recognised authority on the conduct of modern warfare, my many letters of suggestion to Generals von Moltke, von Falkenhayn, Ludendorff and von Hindenburg have gone unacknowledged ...'

'In the name of the Kaiser and the Graf von Dracula, I extend the apologies of a nation,' Ewers announced, sticking out his hand as if offering a benediction.

Kafka's eyes darted between Poe and Ewers. Poe's impression was that the Jew shared his opinion of the German but had more empirical evidence to justify his dislike.

'What do you wait for?' Ewers snapped at Kafka. 'Herr Poe is an important man. Give him travel papers. We are expected in Berlin tomorrow.'

Kafka opened his folder and handed over a document.

'You won't need this any more,' Ewers said, clawing at Poe's sleeve, ripping away his armband. 'From now on, you are as safe in the Empires as if you were a pure-blood German.'

At a stroke, Poe felt himself transformed again.

The prisoner had welcomed Beauregard's request that he be allowed to see her. Even were he not continuing the Malinbois investigation, he would have been inclined to pay a call. He had given evidence at her trial but they had never been introduced.

To step out of the staff car on to the parade ground was to set foot in a cemetery. The condemned woman was held in a barracks near Paris, long out of regular use, tenants gone to feed the war. The uncurtained windows of the long halls were dusty. Only one dormitory was inhabited. Eight men, pulled from the front to serve as a firing squad, slept in peace and comfort. To them, this must be a relief.

The night was black as ink. Like a warm convict, the prisoner was to be shot at dawn. Sunset would be a more appropriate execution hour for a vampire.

A lone light burned in an office. Beauregard rapped on a door. Lantier, a veteran with half a face, opened up and invited him in. Without a hint of insubordination, the turnkey made it clear he resented having his night disturbed by visitors pandering to the whims of an enemy of France.

Lantier looked over Beauregard's authorisation papers, clucking at each distinguished signature. At length, he decided in Beauregard's favour and ordered that the Englishman be allowed into the cell. A lecture was delivered in rapid French about the degree of intercourse allowed with the woman. There was to be no physical contact, no object was to be passed from one to the other.

The vampire's reputation was bound to outlive her. This fuss fed the greatly exaggerated stories they were telling. It was in the interests of the lady's 'victims' that she be considered irresistible, lest it be decided they had a degree of culpability in her feats of espionage. Surely, no ordinary woman could extract secrets from so many of the great and good. This was an extreme case of the brand of fascination vampires were popularly supposed to be able to exert over their helpless prey.

Of the officers whose names had come up in testimony at her closed trial, most who still lived remained on active service. Only a few insignificant lieutenants had been swept down with her. Even now, the odious General Mireau planned his next offensive.

It had been seriously suggested that the soldiers assigned to this detail be maimed veterans unmanned by the war. Following Lantier's slow progress to the cells, he wondered if the crackpot notion had been implemented. If so, it displayed an alarming ignorance of the physical act of vampirism.

Lantier opened a stout door and stood aside, allowing him into the cell. It was an unpainted room with barely the atmosphere of a cupboard.

The prisoner sat by a small window, looking at the last of the moon. With her hair roughly cropped and in a shapeless cotton dress, she did not resemble the jewelled seductress who had carried all Paris with her.

She turned to look at him and was indeed beautiful. She claimed to be half-Javanese, but Beauregard knew she was the daughter of a Dutch hatter and his provincial wife. After turning, her eyes had changed. She had slit pupils like a cat. The effect was enormously striking.

'Madame Zelle?' he enquired, politely but without need.

She stood graciously and acknowledged him. 'Mr Beauregard.'

He considered her extended, pale hand and shrugged.

'Regulations,' he explained, weakly.

The prisoner attempted a smile. 'Of course. Touch me and you would be my slave. You would overpower the guards and fight to the death to aid my escape.'

'Something like that.'

'How silly.'

A chair was brought for him by the turnkey. She resumed her own chair and he sat down.

'So you are the clever Englishman who caught me?'

'I am afraid so.'

'Why afraid? Did you not do your duty?'

Before the war, he had seen her famous Javanese Dance of Death. She was no Isadora and whoever schooled her was no Diaghilev, but the powerful effect she had on an audience, whether general or private, General or Private, could not be denied.

'You are an honourable English patriot and I am an unprincipled Dutch adventuress. Is that not true?'

'It is not for me to say, Madame.'

Her eyes were growing larger. There was cold, undirected anger in them. But also something else.

'You are a warm man?'

Had she expected him to be a vampire like her? Some
nosferatu
believed only their own kind could match them for brain-power.

'How old are you, Mr Beauregard?'

That was an unusual question. 'I am sixty-four.'

'I would have thought younger. By five or ten years. Some vampire taint has crept into you, retarding the processes of aging. It does not matter. It is not too late for you to turn. You might live forever, grow young again.'

'Is that such a pleasant prospect?'

She smiled genuinely, not for effect. A tiny, shining fang peeped between her red lips.

'Not, I confess, at this immediate moment. I am immortal and you are not, but you shall see tomorrow's sunset.'

He tried to look at his wrist-watch without being too obvious. The dawn was two hours away.

'There may yet be a reprieve.'

'Thank you for considering that possibility, Englishman. I am given to understand you personally pleaded for my life. You could only do that at risk to your own reputation.'

Unless she really could suck secrets from a mind with a single glance, she could not possibly know he had recommended lenience.

Her fang became more prominent as her smile broadened. 'I still have sources of information. Secrets are not hard to come by.'

'As you have proved.'

'And so have you. My poor secrets have been yours as many men's were mine. Simply by sitting in a room and thinking, you saw through my veils and schemes. I admire that.'

He tried not to feel flattered. It was one of her greatest weapons. Elderly officers had been her favoured prey.

'I have had fine tutors in the whole art of detection,' Beauregard admitted.

'You are a senior member of the Ruling Cabal of the Diogenes Club, the second or third most important man in the British Secret Service.'

She knew even more than was determined at her trial.

'Do not worry, Charles. I shall take to my poor grave those few of your secrets to which I am a party.'

Suddenly, she was using his Christian name.

I am sincerely sorry, Gertrud,' he replied in kind.

'Gertrud?' she said, rolling the unfamiliar name around her pointed tongue. 'Gertrud,' she confessed, at last. Her slim shoulders slumped with disappointment. 'So ugly, so sad, so dumpy. Almost
German.
But it is the name I was born with, the name I shall die under.'

'But not the name of your immortality,' he said.

She dramatically framed her pretty face with long fingers, fluttering her nails in moonlight. 'No, I shall eternally be
Mata Hari:

She was parodying the American, Theda Bara. If they made a film about Mata Hari (certainly, they would make many) then Theda Bara, a professional vampire whose name was an anagram of 'Arab Death', was the only actress for the role. She was of a bloodline which took to photography. Many vampires showed up on film as a species of blurry smudge.

'They will remember me, won't they?' she asked, suddenly vulnerable. 'My reputation will not melt like snow in the sun, surpassed by some new temptress.'

It was possible this woman had acted all her life; underneath the veils, there was perhaps no reality. Or maybe there was a secret self she would take with her into true death.

'There will be no pardon, Charles. No mercy at the last moment. This is true? They will kill me?'

'I'm afraid a certain person has insisted,' he admitted, sadly.

'General Mireau,' she spat. 'His blood was thin, you know. Like English soup. I mean no offence. Do you know how many men died through his actions? He was more lethal to his troops on his own than under my influence.'