‘So I noticed,’ I said drily.
In a mellow moment Tony lit a candle for me and we found ourselves part of a small procession which wound its medieval way across the court. The candle flame flickered in the wind; I had to shield it with my hand. When we entered the Great Hall, the illusion of antiquity was complete. The feeble flames were overpowered by the vast darkness of the room. They woke a dim reflection in the polished surfaces of helmet and breastplate, giving the armoured shapes an illusion of life and surreptitious movement.
‘I am glad to have company when I cross this room,’ said Schmidt, scampering for the stairs. ‘Brrrr! In candlelight it is too full with atmosphere. I expect to see the countess herself.’
‘The countess?’
‘But yes, have you not heard the legend? The countess walks here, on moonlit nights. Which countess I know not, but she is one of those who has no right to be walking.’
He chuckled. I wasn’t amused. I had a feeling I knew which countess he meant. Nor was I precisely easy in my mind about Herr Schmidt. If ever a name sounded like an alias . . . And he had been decidedly elusive about his occupation.
In the dim light of the candle, my room looked like an apartment in Castle Dracula. I lit the oil lamp beside the bed, lay down, and tried to read. The smoky light made my eyes ache.
It was a warm night, but the room had a clammy chill which the air from the open window didn’t alleviate. I went to the window and looked down into the tangled underbrush beneath. There were no screens in the window; the drop was sheer. To the left was another window – that of Tony’s room, I assumed. It was dark, as were all the other windows I could see.
I looked across the grounds at the bulk of the old keep. The jagged walls made a picturesque outline against the moonlit sky. As I stared, something peculiar happened. For a moment a square of wavering yellow light interrupted the blackness of the tower’s silhouette. Just for a moment; then it was gone.
I gulped, and told myself to be rational. What I had seen was not a ghost light, but a candle, behind one of the windows of the keep. But why would anyone be in the crumbling ruin at this time of night?
A possible answer wasn’t hard to find.
Frowning, I turned from the window and met the enigmatic eyes of the Countess Konstanze.
I lifted the lamp from the table and held it up so that its light fell full on the painted face. It was not one of the world’s great portraits. Though the physical features seemed to be accurately represented, the painter had failed to capture a personality. He had been more successful with the pose – the shape of the head and shoulders, the arrogant tilt of the chin suggested a strength of character not implicit in the expressionless face. The resemblance of the sixteenth-century countess to her downtrodden descendant was probably not one of character; but feature by feature the resemblance was uncannily exact.
‘If you could only talk,’ I muttered – and then made a quick, instinctive gesture of denial. The Gothic atmosphere was thick enough already. A talking portrait would send me screaming out into the night.
I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. The old
Talk about dark. I hadn’t seen anything like it since the old days on the farm. The faint moonlight from the window didn’t help much, and when I closed the door of my room behind me the corridor was pitch-black. I didn’t want to use the flashlight until it was necessary, so I stood waiting for my eyes to adjust.
A hand touched my shoulder.
I thought of screaming, but my vocal cords didn’t cooperate. Before I could get them into operation I heard a voice.
‘Hi,’ it whispered.
‘Tony,’ I whispered back. ‘You rat.’
‘Scare you?’
‘Scared? Me?’
‘I figured you’d be prowling tonight. Couldn’t let you go alone. Who knows, you might be nervous.’
‘Sssh!’
‘Come on, let’s get away from all these doors.’
He found my hand and I let him lead me until a turn in the corridor brought light – the sickly sheen on the moon filtering through the leaded panes of a window set high above an ascending stair. Tony stopped.
‘Those are the tower stairs.’
‘I was heading for the Great Hall.’
‘Down this way.’
As we shuffled along the dark passageways, my pulse was uncomfortably quick. The castle was too quiet. There weren’t even the creaks and squeaks of settling timber. This place had settled centuries ago.
Finally we stepped onto the balcony over the Great Hall. I put one hand on the balustrade and moved back in alarm as it gave slightly. The
Below, in the Hall, the armoured shapes were dim in the grey moonlight. The shadows of tree branches swaying in the night wind slid back and forth across the polished floor . . .
My scalp prickled. That motion was no swaying shadow. There was something moving at the far end of the Hall – something pale and slim, like a column of foggy light.
The thing came out into the moonlight. I forgot my qualms about the shaky banister, and clutched it with straining fingers.
The figure below had the face of the woman in the portrait. I could see it distinctly in the light from the windows, even to its expression. The eyes were set and staring; the face was as blank as the face on the painted canvas.
The apparition wore a long, light robe, with flowing sleeves. The feet – if it had feet – were hidden by the folds of the garment, so that it seemed to float instead of walk. Slowly it glided across the floor, the staring eyes raised, the lips slightly parted.
There was a sound behind us. Tony, who had been equally dumbfounded by the apparition, swore out loud when he recognized the man who had joined us on the gallery. Personally, I was glad to see George. The bigger the crowd, the better, so far as I was concerned.
‘Did you see it?’ Tony demanded. ‘Or am I crazy?’
‘I did see her,’ George said coolly. ‘She’s gone now.’
I turned. The Hall was empty.
Tony ran towards the stairs.
‘Go slow,’ George said, catching his arm. ‘If you wake people like that too suddenly, it can be dangerous.’
‘She – she’s – sleepwalking, isn’t she?’ Tony asked.
‘What else?’
I didn’t say anything. George was right, of course. But I sympathized with Tony. George hadn’t seen that infernal portrait.
Then it hit me, and it was my turn to swear. Maybe George hadn’t seen the portrait, but Tony had; unless he knew of the uncanny resemblance between the two women, one living and one long dead, he wouldn’t have reacted so neurotically to what was – obviously! – a simple case of somnambulism. Tony hadn’t told me about all his research, then. I wondered how many other potentially useful facts he was hoarding.
I followed my two heroes down into the Hall.
‘I think she went this way,’ George said, starting towards the east end of the Hall. ‘You don’t happen to have a flashlight, do you, Lawrence?’
Tony did. The light moved around the room, spotlighting the suits of armour and the black mouth of the fireplace.
‘Wait a minute,’ George said. ‘She couldn’t get out this way. The door is locked.’ He demonstrated, rattling the knob.
‘You said she came this way.’
