THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED
SAX ROHMER
He had three days--in
which to save the world!
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. 1930 PUBLISHED FOR
THE CRIME CLUB, INC.
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
[COPYRIGHT]
COPYRIGHT, 1929
BY P.F. COLLIER & SONS CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1930
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION
CONTENTS
I. I AM GIVEN THREE DAYS
II. MME. YBURG
III. FELSENWEIR
IV. THE DEVIL’S ELBOW
V. FROM THAT WHICH IS WRITTEN
VI. MR. JOHN LONERGAN
VII. GASTON MAX’S STORY
VIII. THE LAST WARNING
IX. LONERGAN DESERTS
X. TWO TURKISH LADIES
XI. THE GATES OF HELL
XII. BARRAGE
XIII. “WAKE--AND FORGET”
XIV. THE CASTLE GUARDS
XV. THE WILL OF ANUBIS
XVI. “ALL WE SAY IS HEARD…”
XVII. THE CHIEF CHEMIST
XVIII. SLAVES OF FELSENWEIR
XIX. FREEDOM OF FELSENWEIR
XX. MARUSA
XXI. GASTON MAX EXPLAINS
XXII. MAX’S EXPLANATION CONCLUDED
XXIII. ANUBIS SLEEPS
XXIV. THE DAY
XXV. THE HOUR
THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED
CHAPTER I.
I AM GIVEN THREE DAYS
1
“Brian Woodville!” I sat up in bed with a start. Pitch darkness
prevailed in my apartment. But, staring intently out of the alcove in
the direction of the half-shuttered windows, I could just discern a
faint difference in the gloom. Beyond was the balcony; beyond that the
gardens.
I reached up for a hanging switch and lighted my bedside lamp.
The room was empty. No sound was audible except a distant rippling
from the little stream at the foot of the gardens and the intimate
ticking of my wrist watch.
I raised my pajama sleeve and glanced at the dial. Just three o’clock.
Silence--emptiness… yet, a cold, commanding voice had called me by
name! Or had I dreamed--dreamed vividly?
“_Brian Woodville!_”
This time I was _not_ dreaming! I leaped out of bed in a flash, my
heart beating rapidly. With concrete things I can cope moderately
well; but this voice--_the voice of one not a yard removed_--was
frankly, starkly something of another world!
My mode of life had trained me to action. And, conscious of a
sensation which I can only suppose presaged hysteria, I did what
anybody else would have done. Knowing it to be useless, beside the
point, I searched everywhere--feverishly. I tried the door. It was
locked. I ran to the French windows, raised the shutters fully, and
looked out on a deserted balcony.
Not a soul was in sight. But, as I reëntered:
“Brian Woodville,” said the cold inexorable voice--apparently at my
elbow!--“you have three days. You will leave Baden-Baden within that
time. This is the first warning. _You have three days._”
The voice ceased. I dropped into an armchair beside the writing table.
Perhaps this unfamiliar tension in my head had meant that I wanted to
scream. Frankly, I think now, that it did.
Either I was at last face to face with what is loosely termed “the
supernatural” or I was going mad!
Action, of some sort, I have found to be the only antidote to
panic--of _any_ sort. There was a bottle of whisky and some soda water
on the table. I brewed a drink--with exaggerated care and coolness. I
filled and lighted my pipe.
I had three days.…
For five--ten--fifteen minutes, I sat there considering the mystery
from every conceivable angle. One thing was certain. Either it had
been the product of some form of hypnotism with which I was not
acquainted, or it had been produced by means of apparatus concealed in
my apartment.
I began an examination of the floors, walls, and furniture in search
of: (a) a speaking tube; (b) a radio fitting.
But I found nothing.
Dawn was stealing wanly through the slats of my shutters when at last
I gave up.
What did it mean? How the “warning” had been conveyed to me I simply
could not imagine. But that it was associated with my mission, equally
I could not doubt; that mission which I had undertaken so lightly! I
had counted my Brazil expedition, in quest of a white race said to
survive far up a tributary of the Rio Negro, perilous enough, God
knows. For although at long last I had got back, it was more by good
luck than good management.
Then there was the Sahara trek, fairly risky, but successful; and now…
When the _Daily World_ had invited me to go to the Black Forest,
professional zest and personal inclination both urged acceptance.
There was no danger attached to a holiday in these fruitful valleys.
(To-night I had been disillusioned!) I badly needed a rest. (This was
true.) And the subject came within my province. In short, said the
powers behind the _Daily World_, this was clearly indicated as my job.
I had undertaken it. And--I had three days.…
That most gruesome of all superstitions known to man--vampires--had
reappeared in Germany! The details were few and conflicting. A peasant
had been found dead in the Forest, exhibiting extraordinary symptoms
of emaciation. Animals, also, and even birds. A number of witnesses
spoke of a giant bat seen hovering over the trees. The locale it had
proved impossible to trace more exactly than that it was “in the Black
Forest.”
Armed with all the known facts, I had set out, and now found myself
living (hitherto, very pleasantly) in the charming garden of
Baden-Baden.
Thus far I had made little or no headway. There seemed to be a
damnable conspiracy of silence among the people most likely to be of
help. Few denied having heard the stories, but none seemed prepared to
enlarge upon them. Several persons whom I spoke to crossed themselves
and abruptly changed the subject!
Was everybody who knew anything afraid to speak? If so, why? I had
asked myself that question so recently as the previous evening. The
voice in the night perhaps had answered it.
“You have three days.…”
2
A waiter I had not seen before brought my breakfast. In the scented
beauty and the sunshine it was hard to recapture that horror of the
night. As he stepped out on the balcony, shouldering a laden tray:
“Good-morning, sir,” he greeted me cheerfully.
“Good-morning,” I returned, and watched him deftly arranging my light
repast upon the white cloth.
During the restless hours which had intervened between the coming of
that bodiless voice and sunrise, I had been thinking hard. I had
bidden good-bye to the amused carelessness with which, thus far, I had
regarded my Black Forest mission. Brazil had nearly put “paid” to my
account, and I had stood fairly near the edge of beyond in the Sahara;
but here, in a modern, fashionable town, I was up against something
worse than fever, cataracts, and poisoned arrows; something harder to
dodge than Arab bullets: something very insidious--its worst element
being that I didn’t know my enemies.
“I’m hoping,” I went on casually, “for a glimpse of one of the giant
bats which I hear have been seen in this neighbourhood.”
Those words had an electrical effect. The man perceptibly paused in
his labours. But, quickly recovering himself, he set down the coffee
pot, and resting his hands on the table looked into my eyes.
“If you took my advice, sir,” he said earnestly, “you would leave
those things alone.”
“Why?” I challenged.
He stood upright, bowed, and:
“It is just my advice, sir,” he said, smiled, bowed again, and went
out.
“Extraordinary fellow!” I muttered.
This constant evasion was getting on my nerves. Hitherto it had merely
provoked me. But, after the inexplicable episode of the night, it
began to assume a more sinister character.
I felt lonely. And it was a different kind of loneliness from any
loneliness I had known before.
My plans for the day were vague. Where should I start? Whom could I
question? One definite change I made, when I presently set out for
Hohen-Baden; I had a well-tried Colt repeater on my hip. It seemed
absurd, in that pleasure valley under smiling skies. I had roamed the
byways of Fez at midnight, I had returned to my quarters in Timbuctoo
under a setting moon--unarmed. Yet here I was, with merry German
holiday makers about me, carrying a cargo of live shells!
However, I had no occasion to use them.
Feeling rather a fool, and asking myself again and again, “Could the
‘warning’ have been an unusually vivid dream?” I returned late in the
afternoon to the Regal.
I had seen nothing, and I had learned nothing.
One lunches early but dines late in Baden-Baden. To-night I was one of
the latest. But the head waiter had my table reserved.
Having fared well but sparingly, I found him at my elbow.
“Everything satisfactory, sir?” he asked.
I looked up; and his blue eyes met my inquiring stare unflinchingly. I
had questioned Fritz--and had met with the usual evasions.
“Quite,” I replied.
The long, softly lighted dining room was nearly deserted. In a near-by
lounge, the hotel orchestra played a Slovak dance. Fritz was of
Prague--a great commercial centre to-day but of old the capital of the
witch country. Bohemia still cherishes vampires. And I thought I knew
why Fritz was reticent.
But I did not know why his gaze wandered so strangely.
I stared out of the window, as he was staring. Beautiful gardens,
unreally lovely in the dusk, backed by magically shadowed woodlands,
lay before me. I could hear the laughing song of that tiny stream,
crossed by a floral bridge almost directly in front of the window in
which my table was set, from which those famous blue trout are brought
fresh to the diner.
Then, I saw the tall, sinuous figure.
Fritz was watching Mme. Yburg.
Certainly she was worthy of inspection. For my own part, I like a
woman to be slender; but there is a point at which the slender becomes
definitely the lean. My vision may lack those nuances which endow a
Jacob Epstein, but I must confess that I looked upon Mme. Yburg as
lean. She was svelte to a degree. And if good taste is beauty, she was
beautiful. She was graceful, white-skinned, had thin but very red
lips, and perfect teeth. Her eyes certainly were magnificent.
As she went along the path toward the bridge, trailing a
flame-coloured scarf with incomparable indolence, she glanced aside,
saw me, and waved her hand. We were slightly acquainted. Her raised
arm, gleaming in the moonlight, seemed to possess separate volition,
to be individual: I thought of an ivory serpent.
Turning, I trapped Fritz in the act of recomposing his expression.
“No,” I said, smiling up at him, “that is not the kind of vampire I
mean!”
He started, then shrugged his shoulders and poured out what remained
of a bottle of _Liebfraumilch_. The willowy, swaying figure had
disappeared.
“You never know, sir,” he replied enigmatically.
“Who is she?”
“I cannot say. She often comes here. And she spends much money. She is
very attractive.”
He sighed. I looked at the blond Bavarian, and I knew that Mme.
Yburg’s dark, lithe womanhood represented his ideal.
“Yes,” I murmured reflectively, “I suppose she is.”
I lost myself for awhile in meditation. And when I returned to
realities, Fritz had left me.
3
“_Very_ quiet to-night,” said I, glancing around the deserted bar.
“Yes.” The barman set my liqueur before me. “There is a dance at the
Casino.”
“Ah, is that it?”
I studied George interestedly. Here was a possible source of
information hitherto untapped. Barmen are students of humanity and
reliquaries of strange secrets. For the cocktail breaks down reticence
and makes the dumb speak.
“Nothing but dancing nowadays,” he went on. “I like dancing myself;
but it’s bad for business.”
“Really? You surprise me. I should have thought it promoted thirst.”
“Bah!” George’s expressive features registered scorn. “They drink soft
drinks, the dancing men. If it wasn’t for the women my trade would be
finished!”
I invited him to join me and broached the subject uppermost in my
mind--tactfully. The effect was extraordinary.
The man paused, siphon in hand, thumb on the lever, and stared at me
in a way which I can only describe as reproachful. Then he glanced
about the empty bar fearfully. At last:
“I shouldn’t go in for that sort of thing, sir,” he said, and squirted
soda so nervously that some of his whisky was lost--“not if you’re on
a holiday.”
“Why? What is there to be afraid of?”
Craning over the counter to assure himself that no eavesdropper was
near:
“Have you asked anybody else?” said he.
“Yes,” I replied irritably--“a dozen at least!”
“Then, sorry as I shall be to see you go, sir,” was George’s
astonishing remark, “take the Rheingold Express to-morrow!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
George beckoned me closer, and:
“Have you seen the cemetery above the town?” he asked with apparent
irrelevance, and gestured to indicate its direction.
“I have not.”
“It’s full of new graves,” said George. “_Good-evening, sir!_”
I started, turned--and found a man seated on the next stool to my own!
“Good-evening. Beer,” the newcomer responded.
He nodded, as our glances met.
“Very warm,” he observed.
He was Mr. Aldous P. Kluster. The presence of the middle initial
indicates the American generation to which he belonged. He was lean,
clean-shaven, ax-faced, and sallow. He wore a perpetual cigar which
was rarely alight. He had a perfect mane of well-brushed gray hair and
he dressed carefully but badly.
“Very,” I agreed.
I was taciturn to the point of rudeness; and for two reasons. I
strongly suspected him of having spied upon me in my conversation with
George. And, as our eyes had met, his habitually languid expression
had been assumed too late.
Mr. Aldous P. Kluster had a regard like a gimlet. He was interested in
me. Why?
As I lighted a cigarette:
“Not dancing to-night?” said he.
And, as he spoke, a possible explanation of his odd behaviour occurred
to me. On the previous evening I had danced once or twice with Mme.
Yburg. Kluster and Madame were apparently old friends. The theory
presented itself that he was her lover--and a very jealous lover.
I recalled his almost open rudeness to a good-looking and debonair
Frenchman who had succeeded me as Madame’s partner and who had
monopolized her throughout the rest of the evening.
“I dance very rarely,” I said.
“The French acrobat makes up for you.”
“M. Paul? Yes. He dances almost too well.”
My theory, I considered, had received confirmation. Kluster disliked
any man who approached his charming friend. I glanced at him
curiously, as he set down his glass and replaced a stub of cigar in
his thin, flexible mouth. He made an odd figure of a lover. Given a
goatee and a high beaver hat with a stars-and-stripes band, he would
have taken first prize at any carnival as Uncle Sam.
I registered a sincere prayer that, at Mr. Kluster’s age, the tender
passion might no longer disturb my peace. Conversation languished, and
I stepped down to go.
“Good-night,” I said.
“Good-night, sir,” George called.
“Good-night,” said Kluster, adding, as I left the bar, “Beer.”
Outside, I turned right and walked along to the gardens. I followed
the private path beside the little dancing trout stream. Along the
parallel public path on the other bank of the Oos, Baden-Baden took
the air. Here were family groups, courting pairs, and isolated
strollers. Distinguished strangers taking the waters, and townsfolk to
whom the beauty of the enchanted valley was a commonplace.
On my left, half hidden by flowers, were many lighted windows on the
ground floor of the Regal. In one might be glimpsed an intimate party,
in another some solitary figure unable or disinclined to join the
promenaders.
Through the trees ahead came odd strains from the dance band in the
Casino, and now I could see many twinkling fairy lights and detect
moving figures.
A crescent moon hung in a sky dark and starry as that of Egypt. A
delicious sense of coolness was conveyed by the laughing chatter of
the tiny stream. And, when a slight breeze stirred, the fragrance of
a million pines was borne down from the embracing forest.
“You have three days…”
I opened the communicating gate and strolled up to the Casino.
One of my three days was nearing its close.
The scene presented great animation and considerable elegance. Smart
people from three continents were here. A maharajah famous for his
racing stud, his family jewels, and his generosity to his lady friends
was holding informal court at one table. At another presided a New
York hostess whose Park Avenue parties were no less celebrated than
the dances she gave in Bruton Street, and to whom Baden-Baden came as
a rest from Juan les Pins.
There were a fair number of dancers, but very few of them either young
or attractive. Mme. Yburg was not present. And a premonition that I
should find her there in the company of the dazzling M. Paul--which
would have accounted for Kluster’s solitary beer drinking--was proved
to have been misleading.
I looked on for awhile, but could see no friend or acquaintance
anywhere. The nearly ceaseless moaning of the saxophones began to
depress me.
Oddly, perhaps, I find in the music of this instrument something
eerie. It does not stimulate in me a desire to dance or make love; it
rather speaks of orgiastic rites beneath an African moon. I found
myself thinking of George’s words:
“Have you seen the cemetery above the town?… It’s full of new
graves.…”
I left the Casino, not by way of the gardens, but by the door opening
on to Schiller Strasse.
A big car passed, going toward the Regal. Its only occupant stared
hard in my direction. If he saw me, recognized me, it was impossible
to say. But his expression, as he peered out, affected me most
unpleasantly.
It was the Frenchman, M. Paul.
An apprehension of being _hunted_ formed the main factor in this
strange expression which so deeply impressed me. His was a fugitive
look.
“Three days…”
4
_Steep_ paths, tree-shadowed, led me upward. At one point I could look
down upon many roofs of Baden-Baden flooded with the blue amber of the
moon rays. At another, I walked through a tunnel, rarely and
irregularly patched with dim light.
Ere long, the human element--jazz and laughter--was left behind. I
approached the frowning buttresses of the Forest. I met never a soul
from the moment I turned aside off the main road. My right hand rested
on the butt of the Colt.
Several villas I passed, perched fascinatingly above the paths upon
rocky foundations. But in none did any light show.
I wondered if this was the road by which M. Paul had come.
Once, some time before I reached the long, low wall of the cemetery, I
paused to light my pipe. In the act of striking a match I hesitated…
and listened.
An echo, I told myself.
Stock still I stood for thirty seconds or more. Then I determined that
unhealthy memories had been responsible for the idea that someone was
following me.
At last I reached my goal. I could see the guardian trees. A strain of
deathless but deathful music, Poe’s “Through an alley Titanic of
cypress,” swept eerily across my brain. Beyond a low wall, below me
lay the white tenements, pure in moonlight; some stately as perhaps
befitted their occupants, others simple, but of equal dignity. The
whole quiet acre was mantled lovingly in those gay flowers which make
this valley a poet’s garden.
By the gate I paused.
It was locked. But it offered no barrier to an active man.
I was on the point of climbing over--for in this nocturnal expedition
I had a definite plan--when I observed, plainly visible in the
moonlight, a cigarette lying at my feet.
Perhaps the fact may seem insignificant. Nevertheless I picked it up.
It was a common French _caporal_, and it had not been lighted. Again,
perhaps not extraordinary. Such cigarettes could be bought in the
town. I slipped it into the pocket of my dinner jacket.
Resting my hands on the gate, I was again about to scale it, when a
second circumstance arrested me.
From high above my head, out of the deep blue, came a rhythmic
whirring; not that of a flight of birds nor that of an airplane
propeller: rather the amplified hum of a mosquito.
I stood still, and stared upward.
For a long time I could detect nothing. The sound had ceased,
abruptly. Then… I saw it.
Descending with a hawklike motion was _a gigantic bat!_
Literally, horror froze me to the spot. Yard by yard the thing swooped
down, silently, effortlessly.
It had a sort of vague luminosity. The incredibly long body as well as
the extended wings were of a gleaming purplish-gray colour: I can only
liken it to that of a meat fly or common “bluebottle.”
The wing span, I was prepared to swear, was no less than four yards;
the legless body of the thing, which, as it descended, resembled less
a bat than a monstrous dragon fly, was close upon six feet!
Somewhere among the tombs it settled. I heard, or thought I heard, a
dim, muffled rumbling.…
I removed my hands from the gate. I had been clutching it grimly. My
palms were clammy.
“Merciful heaven!” I whispered. “What does it all mean?”