Brood of the Witch-Queen by Sax Rohmer (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📕

answered simply. “He has assured me that you are the greatest living authority upon such matters.”

Dr. Cairn turned his head aside.

“Ah!” he said grimly.

“And I want to ask you a question,” continued Lady Lashmore. “Have you any idea, any idea at all respecting the cause of the wounds upon my husband’s throat? Do you think them due to⁠—something supernatural?”

Her voice shook, and her slight foreign accent became more marked.

“Nothing is supernatural,” replied Dr. Cairn; “but I think they are due to something supernormal. I would suggest that possibly you have suffered from evil dreams recently?”

Lady Lashmore started wildly, and her eyes opened with a sort of sudden horror.

“How can you know?” she whispered. “How can you know! Oh, Dr. Cairn!” She laid her hand upon his arm⁠—“if you can prevent those dreams; if you can assure me that I shall never dream them again⁠—!”

It was a plea and a confession. This was what had lain behind her coldness⁠—this horror which she had not dared to confide in another.

“Tell me,” he said gently. “You have dreamt these dreams twice?”

She nodded, wide-eyed with wonder for his knowledge.

“On the occasions of your husband’s illnesses?”

“Yes, yes!”

“What did you dream?”

“Oh! can I, dare I tell you!⁠—”

“You must.”

There was pity in his voice.

“I dreamt that I lay in some very dark cavern. I could hear the sea booming, apparently over my head. But above all the noise a voice was audible, calling to me⁠—not by name; I cannot explain in what way; but calling, calling imperatively. I seemed to be clothed but scantily, in some kind of ragged garments; and upon my knees I crawled toward the voice, through a place where there were other living things that crawled also⁠—things with many legs and clammy bodies.⁠ ⁠…”

She shuddered and choked down an hysterical sob that was half a laugh.

“My hair hung dishevelled about me and in some inexplicable way⁠—oh! am I going mad!⁠—my head seemed to be detached from my living body! I was filled with a kind of unholy anger which I cannot describe. Also, I was consumed with thirst, and this thirst.⁠ ⁠…”

“I think I understand,” said Dr. Cairn quietly. “What followed?”

“An interval⁠—quite blank⁠—after which I dreamt again. Dr. Cairn, I cannot tell you of the dreadful, the blasphemous and foul thoughts, that then possessed me! I found myself resisting⁠—resisting⁠—something, some power that was dragging me back to that foul cavern with my thirst unslaked! I was frenzied; I dare not name, I tremble to think, of the ideas which filled my mind. Then, again came a blank, and I awoke.”

She sat trembling. Dr. Cairn noted that she avoided his gaze.

“You awoke,” he said, “on the first occasion, to find that your husband had met with a strange and dangerous accident?”

“There was⁠—something else.”

Lady Lashmore’s voice had become a tremulous whisper.

“Tell me; don’t be afraid.”

She looked up; her magnificent eyes were wild with horror.

“I believe you know!” she breathed. “Do you?”

Dr. Cairn nodded.

“And on the second occasion,” he said, “you awoke earlier?”

Lady Lashmore slightly moved her head.

“The dream was identical?”

“Yes.”

“Excepting these two occasions, you never dreamt it before?”

“I dreamt part of it on several other occasions; or only remembered part of it on waking.”

“Which part?”

“The first; that awful cavern⁠—”

“And now, Lady Lashmore⁠—you have recently been present at a spiritualistic séance.”

She was past wondering at his power of inductive reasoning, and merely nodded.

“I suggest⁠—I do not know⁠—that the séance was held under the auspices of Mr. Antony Ferrara, ostensibly for amusement.”

Another affirmative nod answered him.

“You proved to be mediumistic?”

It was admitted.

“And now, Lady Lashmore”⁠—Dr. Cairn’s face was very stern⁠—“I will trouble you no further.”

He prepared to depart; when⁠—

“Dr. Cairn!” whispered Lady Lashmore, tremulously, “some dreadful thing, something that I cannot comprehend but that I fear and loathe with all my soul, has come to me. Oh⁠—for pity’s sake, give me a word of hope! Save for you, I am alone with a horror I cannot name. Tell me⁠—”

At the door, he turned.

“Be brave,” he said⁠—and went out.

Lady Lashmore sat still as one who had looked upon Gorgon, her beautiful eyes yet widely opened and her face pale as death; for he had not even told her to hope.

Robert Cairn was sitting smoking in the library, a bunch of notes before him, when Dr. Cairn returned to Half-Moon Street. His face, habitually fresh coloured, was so pale that his son leapt up in alarm. But Dr. Cairn waved him away with a characteristic gesture of the hand.

“Sit down, Rob,” he said, quietly; “I shall be all right in a moment. But I have just left a woman⁠—a young woman and a beautiful woman⁠—whom a fiend of hell has condemned to that which my mind refuses to contemplate.”

Robert Cairn sat down again, watching his father.

“Make out a report of the following facts,” continued the latter, beginning to pace up and down the room.

He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly.

“And now,” said the doctor, “for our conclusions. Mirza, the Polish Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life and became, after death, a ghoul⁠—one who sustained an unholy existence by unholy means⁠—a vampire.”

“But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle Ages!”

“Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Krakow in Poland where there are⁠—certain relics, which would forever settle your doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional, and effective, manner. Him we may neglect.

“It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease, from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some