The Avenger 33 - The Blood Countess (12 page)

“I see,” said Elizabeth. “And meanwhile Erika and Mrs. Andrade were subtly—if you can call things like smearing blood on my clothes subtle—trying to make me believe I was doing those killings.”

“From what you’ve told me, I imagine Erika may have been using hypnosis on you, once your drugged milk or coffee had put you under,” he said. “She could plant the suggestion in your mind, suggest images of killing, details supplied by Mrs. Andrade, possibly. When I was killed, you’d have been blamed. Framed, actually. They might even have considered having you commit suicide in remorse over your crimes.”

The girl shivered. “Thoughtful Erika and nice cozy Mrs. Andrade. It’s horrible . . . the things plain, ordinary people can do.”

“In this case, we stopped some of it.”

“What about the murder of Mr. Rodney? He was working for them, too, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, for extra money.”

“Then, why was he killed?”

“Apparently Mrs. Andrade didn’t trust him,” the Avenger said. “Once they knew I was walking into their trap it was decided, mostly by the old woman, that Rodney was more of a liability than an asset.”

Nodding, the girl said, “I can understand that, but what about the earlier murders? They seem completely senseless.”

“The victims were picked at random, another idea of Mrs. Andrade’s. To establish the fact that there was a crazed killer around, you must kill more than once.”

“Picked at random,” said the girl. Her grip on his hand tightened. “What was she . . . Mrs. Andrade? That night, before Cole Wilson came to my rescue . . . she talked as though she were really a vampire.”

“I’m sure she believed she was,” Benson said. “Mrs. Andrade had been insane for quite some time, but insane in a way that made her useful to the cause. Even some of those who worked for her were afraid of her.”

“Yes, I know about that sort,” said the girl. “They work in the camps, belong to the Gestapo . . . there are a great many of them. Sadists, compulsive killers . . . all glorying in having an official okay to kill and torture.”

“It will end,” the Avenger said, “soon.”

“But that it could have started at all, Dick, that’s what’s so frightening and unsettling,” the girl said. “I don’t know . . . it seems such a different world from what it was only a few years ago. All those autumn afternoons and walking across that safe and secure campus. The world will never be like that again.”

“Not for us, no.”

She sighed. “I remember now, everything they tried to make me forget,” she said. “They’ve set up several escape routes, one of which involves Panazuela. For all their ranting and boasting, there are a great many in Germany today who don’t believe they’ll win this war. The things they’ve done . . . they know that when trials are held, they will be convicted and executed. For some of them, like poor Erika, suicide is the surest escape. A good many others want to live, to make use of the loot they’ve accumulated. That means new identities, new papers and passports. In all the dislocations and resettlements that will follow the end of the war, it will be difficult to check and recheck every document.” She paused and took a deep breath. “They have a counterfeiting plant in Germany, near Munich. It’s been turning out very acceptable forged passports and fake identification papers. Several shipments of documents have been smuggled into this country, to help establish false local identities when the time comes.”

“Do you know the names of the key men behind this end of the operation?”

“Yes, I can give you a dozen names,” she replied. “Some of them are living here under false identities; others have taken over the identities of men who’ve been quietly killed. Some of this has been going on for several years.”

She recited the twelve names.

One of them the Avenger recognized.

“The soup isn’t very good,” apologized McClurg to the others in the consulate dining room.

“It ain’t so bad,” Smitty said. He was enjoying his second bowl.

“Thank you,
senhor,”
said Escabar, who was serving the dinner.

“That will be enough,” McClurg told him. “I hadn’t intended a native menu, but he—”

“Cast aside your qualms,” said Cole, “the meal has been excellent so far.”

“Wait until the
empada
arives,” said Escabar with a smack of his lips.

“You can go to the kitchen until the next course is ready.”

“Sim.”
He bowed out of the dining room.

McClurg waited until the white door had closed on him. “Has Miss Bentin been able to remember anything?”

“Yes, I have all the information she was entrusted with in Europe.”

“Was it worth all this fuss?” asked the temporary consul after trying another spoonful of soup.

“Colonel Heberden will have to decide that,” answered Benson. “I sent him the information in a coded wire this afternoon.”

Pushing his dish away, McClurg said, “Things are just about cleared up here, then. I’ll have to see about getting transferred. I really don’t like Mostarda much.”

“Why, mon, ’tis nae a bad town,” MacMurdie told him. “Not as brisk and lively as New York City, but ever’ city can no be New York.”

“New York,” said McClurg, pushing the soup dish even farther from him. “I haven’t been there since before the war. I knew a girl who lived in Gramercy—well, that’s neither here nor there.” From the breast pocket of his light suit he took several sheets of folded paper. “Let me get to the business I have to discuss with you before you leave. You’re departing . . . when?”

“Tomorrow,” said Benson.

“I wish I could say the same.” He spread the papers out in front of him. “Let me see now . . . sometimes I can’t even read my own writing. Our agents and the local police have gathered in ten people who were working with this Bulcão and Ensolardo. From what you told us, that’s the entire lot in this area.”

Smitty reached for the soup tureen and ladled himself a third helping.

“Now,” continued McClurg, “I have some material pertaining to Mrs. Andrade. Her fingerprints don’t match those on Amelia Andrade’s working papers. That’s as far as we’ve taken it so far. The FBI in Washington, or possibly OSS, may come up with more on who she really was. A very ruthless woman, whoever she was. What she did to poor Rodney—”

“Ye forget the lad was in cahoots with them,” reminded the Scot. “He gave them information which mot have gotten Richard killed.”

“Yes, I realize that,” said McClurg. “It’s just that sometimes a brutal crime like . . . well, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Let me see . . . what else do I have to pass on? Oh, yes, the President of the United States has sent you all his congratulations.”

“Very thoughtful of him,” said Cole.

McClurg leaned back. “That about does it . . . Oh, there is one thing, Benson,” he said, turning to the bottom sheet of paper. “Before all the unpleasantness, you asked me to find out about a Professor Antonio Bouchey.”

“Yes, that’s right, I did.”

“Probably of no earthly use to you now, this information. But anyway, he’s got a clean bill of health. Been with the University of Barafunda for decades. Has a spotless reputation. A bit quirky, but most of these college people are.” He glanced across at Benson. “I thought you still might want to know.”

“Yes, I’m glad to learn that about the professor,” said the Avenger.

Laughing, Elizabeth said, “I’ve still got them, you’ll notice.”

Across the train station the heavy-footed American agent Weiner was pretending to read a Panazuelan news magazine.

“It’s almost over,” Dick Benson said to her. “By the time you leave for the United States, you won’t need guards any more.”

“I thought they’d all been rounded up.”

“Almost all.”

“Okay,” she said, taking hold of his hand, “I’ll be patient.”

“Your information has pretty well shut down this particular escape route for the Nazis,” he told her.

“Not my information, really, I was only a messenger. A lot of people, much tougher and braver than me, were the ones who gathered it.”

“Even so, you did your part pretty well, Elizabeth.”

She nodded her head, glancing over at her guard again. “I think I’ll be up to leaving Panazuela by next month sometime,” she said. “The family still has a house in Connecticut, near Norwich. I think, after all this tropical climate, I’d like to see snow again.”

“By next month in Connecticut, you’ll get it.”

“I know you’re going to be involved with a lot of other things, Dick,” she said. “But if you can . . . I’d like to see you once in a while.”

“You will,” he promised.

“You’d better get aboard. Your train’s about ready to pull out. Good-bye, Dick.” She stretched up and kissed him. Then she moved back, turned away, and walked toward her guard.

Benson watched her for a moment.

“Glory be!” said Cole Wilson when Benson climbed onto the train. “Did that young lady kiss you, Richard, or am I suffering from indoor mirages again?”

“Lots of people kiss each other good-bye in train stations,” said Benson as he walked down the corridor toward his compartment, “especially in wartime.”

Following, looking for his own compartment number, Cole said, “This is not, I frankly admit, my idea of a happy conclusion to a case. Here I risk life and limb to save the girl, and it’s you she kisses.”

Benson stepped into his compartment. “She did send you her best wishes,” he said.

“So does my Aunt Kathleen every Christmas,” said Cole.

Smitty ambled by the open compartment door. “He’s up in the club car,” he said out of the side of his mouth. He wandered on through the swaying car.

Richard Benson got up and left his room. The train was passing over the same trestle bridge where the gunmen had stopped the train he’d arrived on.

He walked casually through another sleeping car, then a chair car. The club car was crowded. A stocky waiter was struggling from chair to chair with a tray of drinks.

There was a place to stand next to the chair of the man the Avenger was seeking. He crossed to it. “Good afternoon, Dr. Bouchey.”

The old man looked up, “Ah, it is
senhor
Benson,” he said. “Once again chance brings us together.”

“You’re leaving Mostarda already?”

“Yes, reluctantly, I must return to the university,” said Bouchey. “A pity, since there was yet much information to be gathered. The poor unfortunate woman who was apparently the vampire killer. I would like to have had time to study her case, her background.”

“The theory you had about Elizabeth Bentin being Elizabeth Bathory . . . you’ve abandoned it?”

Bouchey shook his head. “I must admit I was over-zealous there,
senhor.
The thing seemed so very plausible. That is the danger of riding one’s hobbyhorse too hard.”

“But it all fitted in with the overall plan,” said the Avenger in a level voice.

“Beg pardon,
senhor?
I have lost the drift.”

“The plan to put the blame for the murders onto Elizabeth Bentin. That plan.”

The professor spread his hands wide. “I am afraid I do not understand you.”

Leaning closer to him, the Avenger said, “She remembered.”

“Eh, what do you mean?”

“Elizabeth remembered all the names, the names Erika Mowler had tried so hard to keep locked inside her head. She remembered the names of the men here in Panazuela who are part of the Nazi escape route plan.”

Bouchey folded his hands around his cocktail glass. “I see,” he said finally.

“You couldn’t be sure if she would ever remember, so you thought it best to leave,” Benson told him. “No one else knew who you were, no one except the woman calling herself Mrs. Andrade. And you knew she was dead. So you were safe . . . until Elizabeth remembered.”

“You should be grateful to me,
senhor,”
said Bouchey. “I could have secured my safety by killing the girl at once. Instead, I gambled.”

“You had no choice, doctor. Your organization in Mostarda is smashed. And you’re not the kind of man who takes any direct action himself. Are you,
Herr
Verlag?”

The old man lowered his head, watching his folded hands. “It has been a long while since I heard that name. I have been Dr. Bouchey since . . . my, it must be since 1926. A good long time.”