Image of the Beast and Blown (12 page)

host but made it clear that he intended to allow his guest
to remain only an hour. He asked Childe a few questions
about his work and the magazine he represented. Childe
gave him glib answers; he was prepared for more inter-
rogation than he got.

Glam had disappeared somewhere. Igescu immediately
took Childe on a guided tour. This lasted about five
minutes and was confined to a few rooms on the first
floor. Childe could not get much idea of the layout of the
house. They returned to a large room off the central hall
where Igescu asked Childe to sit down. This was also
fitted with Spanish-type furniture and a grand piano.
There was a fireplace, above the mantel of which was a
large oil painting. Childe, sipping on an excellent brandy,
listened to his host but studied the portrait. The subject
was a beautiful young woman dressed in Spanish costume
and holding a large ivory-yellowish fan. She had unusually
heavy eyebrows and extremely dark eyes, as if the
painter had invented a paint able to concentrate black-
ness. There was a faint smile about the lips—not Mona
Lisa-ish, however—the smile seemed to indicate a deter-
mination to—what? Studying the lips, Childe thought
that there was something nasty about the smile, as if there
were a deep hatred there and a desire to get revenge.
Perhaps the brandy and his surroundings made him think
that, or perhaps the artist was the nasty and hateful one
and he had projected onto the innocent blankness of the
subject his own feelings. Whatever the truth, the artist
had talent. He had given the painting the authenticity
of more than life.

He interrupted Igescu to ask him about the painting.
Igescu did not seem annoyed.

"The artist's name was Krebens," he said. "If you get
close to the painting, you'll see it in miniscule letters at
the left-hand corner. I have a fairly good knowledge of
art history and local history, but I have never seen an-
other painting by him. The painting came with the house;
it is said to be of Dolores del Osorojo. I am convinced
that it is, since I have seen the subject."

He smiled. Childe felt cold again. He said, "Just after
I came in, I saw a woman going around the corner down
the hall. She was dressed in old-fashioned Spanish clothes.
Could that be … ?"

Igescu said, "Only three women live in this house. My
secretary, my great-grandmother, and a house guest.
None of them wear the clothing you describe."

"The ghost seems to have been seen by quite a few
people," Childe said. "You don't seem to be upset, how-
ever."

Igescu shrugged and said, "Three of us, Holyani, Glam,
and I, have seen Dolores many times, although always
at a distance and fleetingly. She is no illusion or delu-
sion. But she seems harmless, and I find it easier to put
up with her than with many flesh and blood people."

"I wish you had permitted me to bring a camera. This
house is very colorful, and if I could have caught her on
film ... or have you tried that and found out she doesn't
photograph?"

"She didn't when I first moved in," Igescu said. "But I
did shoot her and the developed films show her quite
clearly. The furniture behind her showed dimly, but
she's much more opaque than she used to be. Given
time, and enough people to feed off …"

He waved his hand as if that would complete the sen-
tence. Childe wondered if Igescu were putting him on.
He said, "Could I see that photo?"

"Certainly," Igescu said. "But it won't prove any-
thing, of course. There is very little that can't be faked."

He spoke into an intercom disguised as a cigar
humidor in a language Childe did not recognize. It cer-
tainly did not sound Latin, although, unacquainted with
Rumanian, he had no way of identifying it. He doubted
that Rumanian would have such back-of-the-throat
sounds.

He heard the click of billiard balls and turned to look
down into the next room. Two youths were playing.
They were both blond, of medium height, well built,
and clothed in tight-fitting white sweaters, tight-fitting
white jeans, and black sandals. They looked as if they
could be brother and sister. Their eyebrows were high
and arched and the eye sockets were deep. Their lips
were peculiar. The upper lip was so thin it looked like
the edge of a bloody knife; the lower lip was so swol-
len that it looked as if it had been cut and infected by
the upper.

Igescu called to them. They raised their heads with

such a lupine air that Childe could not help thinking of
the wolves he had glimpsed on the way up. They nodded
at Childe when Igescu introduced them as Vasili Chorn-
kin and Mrs. Krautschner but they did not smile or say
anything. They seemed eager to get back to their game.
Igescu did not explain what their status was but Childe
thought that the girl must be the house guest he had
mentioned.

Glam appeared suddenly and noiselessly, as if he slid
spaces around him instead of moving himself. He
gave a manila envelope to Igescu. Childe glanced at
Igescu as he removed the photo from the envelope, then
he looked up. Glam had gone as swiftly and silently as
he had entered.

The photo was taken from about forty feet during
the daytime. Light flooding in from the large window
showed everything in detail. There was Dolores del
Osorojo just about to leave the hall through a doorway.
The edge of the doorway and part of a chair nearby
could be faintly made out through her. She was look-
ing back at the camera with the same faint smile as in
her painting.

"I'll have to have it back," Igescu said.

10

"As you say, a photo proves nothing," Childe said. He
looked at his wristwatch. A half hour left. He opened
his mouth to ask about the car accident and the morgue
incident but Magda Holyani entered.

She was a tall, slim, small-breasted woman of about
thirty with beautiful although disproportioned features
and thick pale-yellow hair. She walked as if her bones
were flexible or as if her flesh encased ten thousand
delicate intricately articulated bones. The bones of her
head seemed to be thin; her cheekbones were high, and
her eyes were tilted. The mouth was too thin. There was
something indefinably reptilian about her, or, to be
more exact, snakish. This was not repulsive. After all,
many snakes are beautiful.

Her eyes were so light he thought at first they were
colorless, but, closer, they became a very light gray. Her
skin was very white, as if she shunned not only the sun
but the day. It was, however, flawless. She had no makeup
whatever. The lips would have looked pale if she had
been standing next to a woman with rouged lips, but set
against her own white skin they seemed dark and bright.

She wore a tight-fitting black dress with a deep
square-cut bodice and almost no back. Her stockings were
black nylon, and the high-heeled shoes were black. She
sat down after being introduced, revealing beautiful,
but seemingly boneless, legs from the mid-thigh down.
She took over the conversation from Igescu, who lit up
an expensive cigar and seemed to become lost in gazing
into the smoke.

Childe tried to keep the conversation to a question-
and-answer interview, but she replied briefly and un-
satisfactorily and followed with a question each time
about himself or his work. He felt that
he
was being in-
terviewed.

He was becoming desperate. This would be his only
chance to find out anything, and he was not even get-
ting a "feel" of lightness or wrongness about this place

and its tenants. They were a little odd, but this meant
nothing, especially in Southern California.

He noticed that Glam was busying himself nearby
with emptying the Baron's and Magda's ash trays, refilling
the glasses, and at the same time managing to keep his
eyes on the woman. Once, he touched her, and she
snapped her head back and glared at him. Igescu was
aware that Childe was taking this in, but he only smiled.

Finally, Childe ignored her to ask Igescu directly if
he would care to comment on the much-publicized "vam-
pire" incident. After all, it was this that had brought
him out here. And so far he had not learned much.
The article would be spare, if indeed he had enough
data to make an article.

"Frankly, Mr. Wellston," Igescu said, "I permitted this
interview because I wanted to kill people's curiosity about
this once and for all. Essentially, I am a man who likes
privacy; I am wealthy but I leave the conduct of my
business to others and enjoy myself. You have seen my
library. It is very extensive and expensive and contains
many first editions. It covers a wide variety of subjects.
I can say without bragging that I am an extremely well-
read man in many languages. Ten shelves are filled with
books on my hobby: precious stones. But you may also
have observed several shelves filled with books on
such subjects as witchcraft, vampirism, lycanthropy, and
so on. I am somewhat interested in these, but not, Mr.
Wellston, because I take a professional interest."

He smiled over his cigar and said, "No, it is not be-
cause I am a vampire, Mr. Wellston, that I have read in
these subjects. I took no interest in them until after the
incident that caused you to come here. I thought that if
I were to be accused of being a vampire, I had better
find out just what a vampire was. I knew something
about them, of course, because after all, I do come
from an area in which the peasants believe more in
vampires and the devil than they do in God. But my
tutors never went much into folk-lore, and my contacts
with the local non-nobility were not intimate.

"I decided to give you this interview so that, once
and for all, this nonsense about my vampirism could be
quelled. And also, to divert attention from me toward
the only truly supernatural feature of this house: Dolores

del Osorojo. I have changed my mind about photo-
graphs for your article. I will have Magda send you a
number. These will show some of the rooms in the
house and various photos of the ghost. I will do this on
the condition that you make it clear-in your article that
I am a man who likes privacy and a quiet life and that
the vampire talk is nonsense. After getting that out of the
way, you may stress the ghost as much as you like. But
you must also make it clear that there will be no other
interviews with anybody and that I do not like to be dis-
turbed by curiosity-seekers, spiritualists, or journalists.
Agreed?"

"Certainly, Mr. Igescu. You have my word. And of
course, as agreed, you will edit the article before it's
published."

Childe felt a little dizzy. He wished that he had not
accepted the brandy. It had been four years since he
had drunk anything, and he would not have broken
his rule now, except that Igescu had praised the brandy
as being so rare that he had been tempted to try it. And
he had also not wanted to offend his host in any way
if he could help it. He had, however, not had more
than one tumbler. The stuff was either very potent or he
was vulnerable after the long dry period.

Igescu turned his head to look at the tall dark grand-
father clock. "Your time is about up, Mr. Wellston."

Childe wondered why the baron was so concerned
with time, when, by his own admission, he seldom went
any place or did anything particularly pressing. But
he did not ask. The baron would have regarded such
a question as too impertinent to answer with anything
but cold silence.

Igescu stood up. Childe rose also. Magda Holyani fin-
ished her drink and got up from the chair. Glam ap-
peared in the doorway, but Igescu said, "Miss Holyani
will drive Mr. Wellston to the gate, Glam. I need you
for another duty."

Glam opened his mouth as if he meant to object but
shut it immediately. He said, "Very well, sir," and
wheeled around and walked away.

Igescu said, "If you'd like some more material for your
article, Mr. Wellston, you might look up Michel Le
Garrault in the UCLA library. I have copies of two of

his works, first editions, by the way. The old Belgian
had some very interesting and original theories about
vampires, werewolves, and other so-called supernatural
phenomena. His theory of
psychic imprinting
is fascinat-
ing. Have you read him? Can you read French?"

"Never heard of him," Childe said, wondering if he
would have fallen into a trap if he had professed famil-
iarity. "I do read French."

"There are many so-called authorities on the occult
and supernatural who have not heard of Le Garrault or
had no chance to read him. I recommend that you go to
the rare book section of the UCLA library and ask
for
Les Murs écroulés.
Translations of the original
Latin were made in French and, curiously, in Bohemian,
and these are very rare indeed. There are, as far as I
know, only ten Latin copies in the world. The Vatican
has one; a Swedish monastery has two; I, of course,
have one; the Kaiser of Germany had one but it was
lost or, probably, stolen after he died at Doom; and the
other five are in state libraries at Moscow, Paris, Wash-
ington, London, and Edinburgh."

"I'll look him up," Childe said. "Thanks very much
for the information."

He turned to follow Igescu out and saw the woman in
Spanish dress, high comb stuck in her black hair, just
stepping into a doorway at the end of the hall. She
turned her head and smiled and then was gone.

Igescu said, calmly, "Did you see her, too?"

"Yes, I did. But I couldn't see through her," Childe
said.

"I did," Magda Holyani said. Her voice shook a
little. Childe looked at her. She seemed to be angry, not
frightened.

"As I said, she has been getting more and more
opaque," Igescu said. "The solidifying is so subtle, that
it's only noticeable if you compare what she was six
months ago with what she now is. The process has been
very slow but steady. When I first moved in here, she
was almost invisible."

Childe shook his head. Was he really discussing a
ghost as if it existed? And why was Magda so upset?
She had stopped and was staring at the doorway as if
she were resisting the impulse to chase after the thing.

"Many people, more people than care to admit, have
seen ghostly phenomena—something weird and unexplain-
able, anyway—but neither the phenomenon doesn't repeat
itself or else the people 'visited' ignore it and it goes away.
But Dolores, ah, there is another story! Dolores is ignored
by me, except for an occasional picture-taking. Magda
used to ignore her but now she seems to be getting on her
nerves. Dolores is gaining substance from somewhere,
perhaps from someone in this house."

Certainly, the story of Dolores was gaining substance.
If a photo of her was no evidence that she existed,
neither was the fact that he had seen her. For some
reason, Igescu might have planned this whole thing, and
if he, Childe, were to run after Dolores and try to seize
her, what would his hands close on? He had a feeling
that he would grip solid flesh and that the young woman
would turn out to have come into existence about twenty
years ago, not one hundred and fifty.

At the door, he shook hands with Igescu, thanked
him, and promised to send him a carbon of the article
for editing. He followed Magda to the car and turned
once before getting in to look back. Igescu was gone,
but a blind had been half-raised and Glam's bulldog face
and batwing ears were plainly visible.

He got into the front seat with Magda at her invita-
tion. She said, "My job pays very well, you know. It
has to. It's the only thing that would make it endurable.
I almost never get a chance to go to town and the only
ones I can talk to, ever, are my boss and a few servants
and occasionally a guest."

"Is it hard work?" Childe asked, wondering why
she was telling him this. Perhaps she had to unburden
herself to someone.

"No. I take care of his few social obligations, make ap-
pointments, act as middle man between him and his busi-
ness managers, do some typing on the book he's writing
on jewels, and spend more time than I care to staying
away from that monster, Glam."

"He did nothing definite, but I got the idea that he's
quite attached to you," Childe said.

The beams swept across trees as the car went around
a corner. The moon was up now, and he could see
more distinctly. He could be wrong, but it seemed to him