A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (most read book in the world .TXT) 📗

      “You can. You sure as hell can.”

      At first glance the people in the bus looked a little rough, perhaps, but at least none of them were wearing masks. They seemed reassuringly normal after Graves and his companions.

      He got in with a great sensation of relief, slammed the door, looked at the expectant faces around him, and asked to be taken to the nearest phone because he had to call the police. God, have I got a story to tell.”

      “Sorry, we don’t have a phone in the bus. But we’ll take you to a place where you can call.”

      Someone else said: “And we’d sure like to listen to your story.” To emphasize his point, he was gesturing with a very real-looking automatic pistol.

      And only then did Radcliffe notice all the weapons.

Chapter Twenty-Three

      Within a few hours Marie Grosholtz, a woman in her early thirties, well dressed within the bounds of Revolutionary fashion, and attractive in her own way but bearing little personal resemblance to Melanie, appeared at the door of Philip’s cell with a guard for an escort. When the door had been unlocked the guard performed brusque introductions, as of one citizen to another, and in the name of the Revolution thanked Radcliffe for so far repenting his aristocratic crimes as to consent to having his face modeled. The guard, in the manner of one dealing with a frequent visitor, took only a perfunctory look into the container Marie was carrying. She had brought with her, in what looked like a hatbox, the equipment she needed in her work.

      Scarcely an hour before Marie’s arrival, another guard had officially notified Philip that the model-maker was coming to take an impression in plaster of Paris of his living face. Radcliffe had taken care to look as if this coming of a visitor was news to him. No one was suspicious when he immediately expressed his readiness to cooperate. Most prisoners who were given the opportunity did so, because it gave them at least a few hours in which they were secure from a summons to immediate death.

      Secretly, of course, Radcliffe looked forward with desperate eagerness to the chance of holding private communication with Melanie’s cousin.

      The guard soon left prisoner and technician alone. Marie had Philip recline faceup on his bunk, in a position which he could hold comfortably for an hour or so. She then set up a lamp on the small table, and began preparations to give him a close haircut and a shave. At the same time they began to converse in low voices about private matters.

      The first step in the process, Marie informed him, would be the removal of most of the hair on his head, not sparing any beard or mustache. Any hair remaining on a subject’s face would be smoothed down with pomade, to prevent it sticking to the plaster of Paris from which the mold-mask was made.

      Naturally Philip was eager to hear news of Melanie. Marie immediately assured him that her cousin was in good health and seemed to be in no immediate danger of arrest. That was about as much as could be said for almost anyone in Paris. Still, Melanie was lying low as much as possible, so as not to attract the attention of the authorities. As the daughter of an executed man, she would fall automatically under a certain amount of suspicion.

      As the conversation went on, Marie casually revealed that she was now engaged to be married.

      “Allow me to offer my felicitations.”

      Thank you, Citizen Radcliffe.” Apparently that term of address had become habitual with many people, even when engaged in planning some action against the government. Marie, her hands busy, mused briefly in an abstracted voice about her own affairs. “There are certain difficulties, mainly financial, that must be overcome, as is often the case in these matters.” On hearing this, Phil remembered being told by Melanie that Marie’s Uncle Philippe, Dr. Curtius, was in poor health, and that he had declared his niece his only heir. “But if all goes well, next year I will be Madame Tussaud.”

      “Again, Marie, I wish you and your future husband every happiness. What is his occupation?”

      “Francois is a civil engineer.”

      And now the preparations had reached the point where it was necessary for Radcliffe to close his mouth and keep silent while the technician put quills up his nostrils to let him breathe, anointed his face with oil, and then smeared and patted the wet plaster of Paris over his newly lubricated skin.

* * *

      Marie continued talking to her subject as she worked. When a guard seemed to be loitering for a time close outside the cell’s door, which had been left slightly ajar, she spoke of innocent matters, of the famous people whose likenesses she had already molded—some after their beheading.

      What terror and loathing she had experienced the first time, and on several occasions since…

      Marie reminisced about the king’s and queen’s heads, what their faces had looked like when she had worked on them. What the technician’s thoughts had been.

      “Citoyen Louis and Citoyenne Marie, both at peace at last.”

      She explained that by looking closely at one of the molds, you could tell whether it was taken from a living face or a dead one, because those taken from the dead have no breathing-tube holes at the nostrils.

      Radcliffe silently wondered why any of the Revolutionary authorities would want his wax effigy.

      She told Radcliffe also that eventually his image would probably go on display at Curtius’s museum, and reminded him of where the museum was. He grunted an acknowledgment, deep in his unmoving throat.

      As soon as the figure in the corridor had moved away, and there was no guard or other attendant standing by to overhear, Marie passed on to Philip, in secrecy, a further message of encouragement and hope from Melanie, who sent word that she loved him.

      Philip groaned.

      Marie lowered her voice, but spoke with an intensity of feeling. “You are not to abandon hope, M’sieu Radcliffe.”

      Someone else has told