By Christmas he had done for three dozen evildoers, for he sought out murder-conclaves as diligently as the peddler who goes to every fair to sell pictures of the holy saints. Come Easter, his score stood at ninety-nine. On the thirtieth of April, when we burn witches, half a dozen fresh women were sent to hell by Hans Trollhand, thanks to the inspector’s reports. A week later he even betrayed a werewolf, the first to be captured in H— for nearly a century. For a good while he continued to be surprised by the cavalier ignorance with which all these creatures fell into his snares, but presently he simply lowered his opinion of Satan’s followers.
On Midsummer’s Eve a troll whom he knew but slightly came loping up to him and said: What a fine dark escape we’ve had just now! You wouldn’t believe how close that priest came to catching us! We were enjoying a little boy; I did for the mother last year — what a treat she was! — and there’s only the girl left, who frankly smells anemic to me. Anyhow, I had my fangs in the boy, and Kobold here was just about to open his belly when the priest came running, cocking his cross at us! So I called on Satan, who sent me a nice little fart of an earthquake, but Kobold never got any food! That’s why he looks so green—
Father Hauser and the executioner rose up just then from behind the Margrave’s vault and fired off a load of silver bullets. Kobold escaped, but the troll died screeching. The inspector sank rapidly into his grave. The next morning, taking up his golden pentacle and medallion, he slipped into the church to complain. — Excuse me, Father, but you’ve put me at great risk by not consulting me beforehand. If anyone saw you and me—
Inspector, you have your work and we have ours. Richter von Lochner is pleased with your accomplishments, but he expects much more from all of us. Don’t get self-important. God bless you, and go away; you stink up my church.
Kobold had indeed expressed his suspicions about the inspector, and so in a certain nitrous vault, where witches, ghouls and vampires sat assembled, their officials presently marched in with many a tooth-clack, dressed far more presentably than he ever would have imagined. Up in the realm of the living, our judges wear the black of mourning and the red of blood when they are condemning people. Here the magisterial colors are green and blue, and whether they represented the daylight fields and rivers so inimical to churchyard monsters, or simply two different varieties of mold, the inspector had to admit that they were pretty. Their boots were greased with the fat from unbaptized infants, and they were armed (as death’s heads ought to be) with scythes. Their eyeballs burned greenly or redly from deep within their skulls.
And though it was sore grief to us to hear such things of you, inspector, declaimed an old ghoul, yet justice compels us to investigate the matter, to examine the witnesses and to summon and question you on oath, proceeding in each and every way as we are bidden by our satanic institutions. First, to the complainant. Now, troll, what’s your name?
They call me Snow White, said the ugly fellow, and the assembly screeched with laughter; the inspector had to admit that they were all very jolly.
Sir, may I put a question? he said. As a new fellow here, I can’t help but wonder if you’re related to Hans Trollhand, who’s burned so many of us.
The troll, of course, flew into a rage at that insinuation, and came rushing at him with his claws out, but the old ghoul tapped on the lectern with a coffin-nail, and the assembly returned to order. Meanwhile the inspector had scored a point, for several witches who had been smiling fondly at the troll before now overwatched him with tight grimaces of suspicion, as so many of their neighbors had been lately destroyed, thanks to the inspector’s efforts, that nobody underground felt safe.
Snow White, tell the court what you know.
All I can say is that when the priest did for poor Gulper, who was my second cousin, I was hiding behind a tombstone, as Kobold will bear out, and I saw the priest and that inspector exchange a look.
Is that so, Kobold?
That’s right, and who else do we have to suspect but this fellow who was on the right side until he insinuated himself down here?
Search him, trolls.
In a twinkling, the poor inspector was stripped. But he had wisely left his two charms behind, so nothing could be said against him.
Accused, what do you have to say?
Well, said the inspector, already getting delighted with himself, let me just say that if I only had hold of Saint Mary by her pretty paps…
At this, they all positively screeched with glee, so that the vault rocked and the citizens of H—, shaken out of sleep, crossed themselves and prayed not to be devoured by earthquakes.
Thus, for the moment at least, he was acquitted by acclamation, which he considered his greatest triumph, for nothing had ever struck him as more difficult than that night in the vault full of ghouls and vampire judges. But when he departed the court, explaining that he had some mischief to attend to, he could not but remark the silence with which the others regarded him, as if he smelled alive or worse.
In time he made up with them, and they loved him when he persuaded Father Hauser to lend him his cassock, which he pretended he had stolen; and the witches all took turns trying it on while they had sexual congress with broomsticks. It was a merry night, to be sure; by then they were all twenty glasses of blood the better. After that, the inspector could not help but laugh when the vampires voted to dig up the dry old grave of a Christian and play dice with the vertebrae. Back when he was a soldier in the war, the boys in his regiment used to play similar pranks.
In each of them he descried the will to bury his own shame and foulness, hate and greed, not to mention death itself; so that’s good, this vampiric tendency, he said to himself; for such things truly ought to be kept out of sight!
Because they knew so much about the depths of the earth, they were well acquainted with gems and hoards of gold. So, because they were fond of him, they soon taught him where the richest lodes were, and he felt even more important. But how could he forget what it means to be alone?
Just like children gathering fallen pears and nuts, they ranged about, murdering whomever they could. To them, living human flesh was nearly as delicious as a Sunday roast of castrated goat.
The next night they frightened their arch-enemy Hans Trollhand, popping up outside his window, dressed in their shrouds as when they attended the Hangman’s Meal. The inspector declined to attend, not wishing to observe his friend’s discomfiture. This stirred the mercurial vampires against him. All the same, he bravely set forth to ensnare more of the undead.
Now he fell in with a less jolly crew. The dead vagrant branded on his forehead with the Lord’s Mark, the prostitute whose right ear had been sliced off after the second time she was caught in the act, the embezzler whose wicked fingers got nicely hacked off before he was decapitated, these were all ordinary criminals, justly convicted by their own confessions and executed in accordance with the law, so I fail to see what they had to complain about. And yet, strange to say, they all acted quite bitter. Bertha the murderess, whose breasts had been nipped off with red-hot tongs, was especially foul in her expressions of fury, even though she had repented in tears (a pretense, no doubt) just before they broke her on the wheel. Here’s a good one to keep away from, thought the inspector. He did not really need to deceive them, although sometimes, like Richter von Lochner himself (who was famous for his tricky promises to the accused), he did so for his own pleasure. His duty was but to recognize them and withdraw before they thought to suspect him. Since Father Hauser had so fine a great memory for names and crimes, all the inspector had to do next was unearth his golden pentacle, pull on his mendicant’s cloak and creep over to the church in the daytime, while his comrades slept, and then describe them to the priest, who would take notes, only occasionally asking a clarificatory question or consulting the graveyard register. That very afternoon, the sexton would come with Hans Trollhand, to dig up and dispose of them while they were helpless.