Borrower of the Night

breastplate. Behind it, the corridor ended in a wall of wood. In its surface was an ordinary door handle, made of iron, and a closed bolt. I pushed the bolt back. It moved sweetly, without the usual screech of rusted metal. When I looked at my fingertips I saw why. They were covered with a thin coating of oil.

I turned the door handle and stepped out into the Great Hall.

The western windows were dull grey squares, but the rosy light of dawn was beginning to show in the east. The room didn’t look haunted or eerie now; it was only melancholy in its faded grandeur. Pale light lay like dust on the scarred panelling; silence filled the space which had once rung with the songs of the minnesingers and the Latin of a vanished nobillty.

As I had anticipated, the door was located in the area under the stairs, where Tony had been attacked. I didn’t let the door close; I had locked my own door from the inside, so I would have to return by the secret passage.

I examined the outside of the door. There was no latch or hinge visible. The panel fitted so closely against the others that only someone who knew it was there could have found it. Finally I found a carved flower that yielded to pressure and then turned on a pivot. As it moved, so did the inner handle. I played with the flower till I was sure I knew how to operate it, and then turned reluctantly back into the hot, airless passageway.

My tablemates were all in their places when I went down for breakfast next morning. Blankenhagen looked as if he hadn’t slept.

‘How is Herr Schmidt?’ I asked.

‘Still critical.’ The doctor looked from me to George to Tony, and it was obvious he wouldn’t have given ten Pfennige for the lot of us. ‘There will be no visitors. None.’

‘Then you ought to take yourself off the case,’ said George, answering the implication rather than the words.

Blankenhagen thought it over.

‘You are right. It is correct. I will give orders that I may not be admitted.’

I couldn’t help laughing.

‘Cut it out,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Schmidt is safe from you.’

Blankenhagen eyed me with moderate approval. Apparently he took my comment as a personal compliment, which was not how I meant it. I meant he was too smart to harm Schmidt under such carefully guarded conditions when he was already under suspicion. However, seeing the doctor’s rare and attractive smile, I decided not to explain myself.

‘He hasn’t said anything?’ George asked carelessly.

‘He cannot be questioned. The criminal – if there is a criminal – is safe for the time being.’

‘Aren’t you being rather melodramatic?’ I asked. ‘With an attack so severe, Schmidt must have experienced great pain. He might well scream, or cry out. Everything indicates he was alone in the room.’

My reasoning did not convince anyone. George laughed and Tony shook his head. Blankenhagen’s face assumed its normal scowl.

‘I would accept that idea willingly were it not for the other strange events which have happened here. Have you heard of what transpired at the church last night? It is all over the town this morning.’

‘No, what?’ I asked, spilling coffee into Tony’s lap. It was still fairly hot; anguish replaced the guilt written on Tony’s ingenuous countenance. I handed him my napkin and said to Blankenhagen, ‘Something happened at the church?’

‘Hurrumph,’ said Blankenhagen, eyeing Tony suspiciously. ‘In the churchyard, to be precise. Desecration of graves.’

‘Graves?’ said Tony.

I was out of coffee, so I interrupted him before he could go on to explain that he thought only one grave had been damaged.

‘What do you mean, desecrated? Dirty words written on the tombstones?’

‘That, yes. Stones and crosses overturned, one grave opened.’ He gave us a critical stare, but by now we were all registering proper shock and surprise. ‘Interesting, is it not, that the opened grave should be that of the steward?’

He left the table, stamping a little. George looked from me to Tony and started to speak. Tony stood up.

‘Let’s go for a walk.’

‘It’s raining,’ said George.

‘I didn’t mean you.’

Rothenburg looked thoroughly medieval in the rain. There were few pedestrians, and the old gabled houses leaned together like gossipy ladies. I knew Tony wanted to get away so we could talk freely, but his first remark took me by surprise.

‘The blanket,’ he said, groaning.

‘The what? Oh, that. It wasn’t marked. Just an ordinary cheap blanket.’

Tony looked relieved.

‘Smart,’ he said.

‘Your conversation is very oblique today,’ I complained. ‘You are now referring to the Black Man? Yes, it was smart of him to attack several graves. The town authorities will be looking for an ordinary sickle. He didn’t fool Blankenhagen, though.’

‘Blankenhagen is too damned bright for his own good.’

‘You are suggesting that he did the desecrating himself?’

‘He could have.’

‘The man we saw was too tall. And don’t tell me we were misled by the costume and the general air of brimstone. I think Blankenhagen is okay.’

‘You would.’

‘George is tall enough, but he has an alibi, if you believe the Grafin.’

‘Nobody has a good-enough alibi for anything,’ Tony said sweepingly – but I could see his point. ‘Remember what is at stake, in terms of cold hard cash. The value of the shrine is literally incalculable – a hundred thousand, two hundred, maybe half a million bucks. That’s a lot of dough, even for a man who considers African safaris and original Rembrandts among the necessities of life. I know Nolan is rich – so he says. How do I know how much he’s got and how much more he may fancy he needs? The day after he suggested an alliance I got stabbed. Not seriously, just badly enough to make me require help. No, I don’t accept the Grafin’s word, or anybody else’s.’

‘Tony . . . Are you sure any person is behind all this?’

‘Don’t tell me you, of all people, are going over to the spiritualists.’

‘A scholar is supposed to keep an open mind. All our instincts are against a supernormal explanation, but instincts aren’t logic. How do we know?’

‘Well.’ Tony brushed raindrops off his face and thought. ‘For one thing, this business is too corny to be supernatural.’

‘Corny?’

‘So far we have had a seance, with spirit possession, a White Lady walking by night, a perambulating suit of armour, a diabolical character in a black cloak, and even a semi-dead man with a look of stark staring horror. It isn’t even good horror fiction; it’s straight out of The Mysteries of Udolpho. By some straining of the brain I could believe in ghosts; but I can’t believe in a ghost that acts like Terror Comics.’

Thanks. I just wanted someone to talk me out of it. It is corny. Do you suppose that’s a clue – to the way the criminal’s mind works?’

‘No. The obvious interpretation is that the criminal is as corny as his plot – a retarded adolescent who is naive enough to believe people will be intimidated by his pulp-fiction ghosts. But he may be just the opposite – a sophisticate with a sardonic sense of humour, who is smart enough to know that people are intimidated by pulp- fiction ghosts. Or he may have practical down-to-earth motives for all the things he’s done, motives that escape us now, but that – ’

A large raindrop tobogganed off his nose and fell straight down his throat. Cut off in full eloquence, Tony