“‘Come, now,’ Hugh said soothingly. ‘They’ve had vampires here before, as we know.’ But his face was white and he stared around him, gripping the umbrella.

“‘Blast it!’ I beat the side of the building with my fist.

“‘You’ve got to keep a close eye out,’ Hugh said soberly. ‘Is Miss Rossi back?’

“‘Helen!’ I hadn’t thought of her at once, and Hugh seemed on the verge of a smile at my exclamation. ‘I’ll go back now and check. I’m going to call Professor Bora, too. Look, Hugh-you keep a close eye out, too. Be careful, all right? He saw you with me, and that doesn’t seem to be good luck for anyone these days.’

“‘Don’t worry about me.’ Hugh was looking thoughtfully at the umbrella in his hand. ‘How much did you pay that clerk?’

“I laughed in spite of my breathlessness. ‘Yes, keep it on you.’ We shook hands heartily, and Hugh vanished up the street in the direction of his hotel, which wasn’t far. I didn’t like his going on his own, but there were people in the street now, strolling and talking. In any case, I knew he’d always go his own way; he was that sort of man.

“Back in the hotel lobby, there was no sign of the terrified clerk. Perhaps it was only that his shift had ended, for a clean-shaven young man had taken his place behind the counter. He showed me that the key to Helen’s new room was on its hook, so I knew she must still be with her aunt. The young man let me use the phone, after a careful arrangement for the cost, and then it took me a couple of tries to make Turgut’s number ring. It galled me to call from the hotel phone, which I knew could be bugged, but it was the only possibility at this hour. I would have to hope our conversation would be too peculiar to be understood. At last I heard a clicking on the line, and then Turgut’s voice, far away but jovial, answering in Turkish.

“‘Professor Bora!’ I shouted. ‘Turgut, it’s Paul, calling from Budapest.’

“‘Paul, my dear man!’ I thought I’d never heard anything sweeter than that rumbling, distant voice. ‘There’s some problem on the line-give me your number there in case we are cut asunder.’

“I got it from the hotel clerk and shouted it to him. He shouted back. ‘How are you? Have you found him?’

“‘No!’ I shouted. ‘We are fine, and I’ve learned a little more, but something awful has happened.’

“‘What is that?’ I could hear his consternation, faintly, over the line. ‘Have you been hurt? Miss Rossi?’

“‘No-we’re fine, but the librarian has followed us here.’ I heard a swell of words that could have been some Shakespearean curse but was impossible to distinguish from the static. ‘What do you think we should do?’

“‘I don’t know yet.’ Turgut’s voice was a little clearer now. ‘Do you carry all the time the kit I gave you?’

“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I can’t get close enough to this ghoul to do anything with it. I think he searched my room today while we were at the conference, and apparently someone helped him.’ Perhaps the police were listening in at this very moment. Who knew what they would make of all this anyway?

“‘Be very careful, Professor.’ Turgut sounded worried. ‘I do not have any wise advice for you, but I shall have some news soon, maybe even before you return to Istanbul. I am glad you called tonight. Mr. Aksoy and I have found a new document, one neither one of us has ever seen before. He found it in the archive of Mehmed. This document was written by a monk of the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1477, and it must be translated.’

“There was static on the line again, and I had to shout. ‘Did you say 1477? What language is it in?’

“‘I cannot hear you, dear boy!’ Turgut bellowed, far away. ‘There was a rainstorm here. I will call you tomorrow night.’ A Babel of voices-I couldn’t tell whether they were Hungarian or Turkish-broke in on us and swallowed his next words. More clicking followed, and then the line went dead. I hung up slowly, wondering if I should call back, but the clerk was already taking the phone from me with a worried expression and adding up my bill on a scrap of paper. I paid glumly and stood there for a moment, not liking to go up to my bare new room, to which I’d been allowed to take only my shaving instruments and a clean shirt. My spirits were sinking rapidly-it had already been a very long day, after all, and the clock in the lobby said nearly eleven.

“They would have sunk lower still if a taxi hadn’t pulled up at that moment. Helen got out and paid the driver, then came through the great door. She hadn’t noticed me by the desk yet, and her face was grave and reticent, with the melancholy intensity I’d sometimes noticed in it. She had wrapped herself in a shawl of downy black-and-red wool that I had never seen before, perhaps a gift from her aunt. It muted the harsh lines of her suit and shoulders and made her skin glow white and luminous even under the crude lighting of the lobby. She looked like a princess, and I stared unabashedly at her for a moment before she saw me. It was not only her beauty, thrown into relief by the soft wool and the regal angle of her chin, that kept me riveted. I was remembering again, with an uneasy quiver inside, the portrait in Turgut’s room-the proud head, the long straight nose, the great dark eyes with their heavy, hooded lids above and below. Perhaps I was just very tired, I told myself, and when Helen saw me and smiled, the image vanished again from my inner sight.”

Chapter 43

If I hadn’t shaken Barley awake, or if he had been alone, he would have passed in slumber across the border into Spain, I think, to be rudely awakened by the Spanish customs officers. As it was, he stumbled onto the platform at Perpignan half asleep, so that I was the one who asked the way to the bus station. The blue-coated conductor frowned, as if he thought we should be at home in the nursery by this hour, but he was kind enough to find our orphaned bags behind the station counter. Where were we going? I told him we wanted a bus to Les Bains, and he shook his head. For that we would have to wait till morning-didn’t I know it was almost midnight? There was a clean hotel up the street where I and my-“Brother,” I supplied quickly-could find a room. The conductor looked us over, observing my darkness and extreme youth, I supposed, and Barley’s lanky blondness, but he only made a clicking sound with his tongue and walked on.

“The next morning dawned even fairer and more beautiful than the one before, and when I met Helen in the hotel dining room for breakfast, my forebodings of the previous night were already a distant dream. Sun came through the dusty windows and lit the white tablecloths and heavy coffee cups. Helen was making some notes in a little notebook at the table. ‘Good morning,’ she said affably as I sat down and poured myself coffee. ‘Are you ready to meet my mother?’

“‘I haven’t thought about anything else since we reached Budapest,’ I confessed. ‘How are we going to get there?’

“‘Her village is on a bus route that is north of the city. There is only one bus there on Sunday mornings, so we must be sure we do not miss it. The ride is about an hour through very boring suburbs.’

“I doubted anything about this excursion could bore me, but I held my peace. One thing still troubled me, however. ‘Helen, are you sure you want me to come along? You could go talk with her alone. Maybe that would be less embarrassing to her than your showing up with a total stranger-an American, to boot. And what if my presence got her in trouble?’

“‘It is exactly your presence that will make it easier for her to talk,’ Helen said firmly. ‘She is very reserved around me, you know. You will charm her.’

“‘Well, I’ve certainly never been accused of being charming before.’ I helped myself to three slices of bread and a plate of butter.

“‘Don’t worry-you are not.’ Helen gave me her most sardonic smile, but I thought I saw a glint of affection in her eyes. ‘It is just that my mother is easy to charm.’