The House of the Wolf by Basil Copper

and their transient affairs.
    Then his practical side reasserted itself. He bent down toward the heaped ice and snow, trying to make sense of the blurred impressions produced by many passing feet. He soon saw that there was something apart from footprints and the ruts of a wheeled cart: a series of slotlike indentations in the frozen upper crust of the muddied snow made by some large animal. He followed them back, lips pursed grimly. The traces died out on a large sheet of ice. They went in the general direction of the door in the wall leading to the pillared arcade.
    The girl had seen the tracks too, and she came to join him, her breasts rising and falling beneath her thick fur coat with the quick breathing engendered by her emotion.
    ‘An animal, Professor,’ she said ironically.
    ‘A large dog, perhaps,’ Coleridge answered. ‘From your father’s household.’
    The girl shook her head, strands of golden hair escaped from her fur hat falling across her eyes.
    ‘I think not, Professor,’ she said slowly. ‘I know a wolf-track well enough when I see one.’
    Before he could answer, Coleridge became aware that someone was watching them.

CHAPTER 10: FROZEN FALLS
    The count came out from behind the buttress which had concealed his approach. He looked searchingly at his daughter and her companion, but his voice was bland and unconcerned.
    ‘Ah, there you are, Nadia. And you, Professor. We had wondered at your absence. I saw you from the window and took the liberty of coming to fetch you.’
    ‘I am sorry, Father,’ the girl said quickly, shooting Coleridge a warning glance. ‘I was showing the professor some of the more interesting parts of the Castle.’
    ‘So I see,’ Homolky muttered drily.
    He turned to Coleridge, his manner suddenly brisker, and the three started to walk toward the door in the wall which led back to the colonnade flanking the inner courtyard.
    ‘Hot coffee and brandy await us, Professor.’
    He gave his guest a somewhat wolfish smile, the latter thought.
    ‘It will fortify us for the excursion before us.’
    He looked at Coleridge anxiously.
    ‘Unless you find the conditions too severe this morning . . .”
    Coleridge experienced faint confusion again, though there was no reason he should not have been walking the boundary walls with his host’s daughter. He wondered if the Count had noticed the tracks in the snow. Coleridge knew Homolky wanted to keep all worries about the wolf-pack and the deaths in the village from his family. He felt he might have inadvertently breached the host’s conception of good manners in a guest and was anxious to make amends.
    But he need not have worried, for it was shortly obvious that the Count was in good spirits when he smilingly commenced a dissertation on the history of his ancestral home. Emboldened by this, Coleridge felt encouraged to ask him something which had been on his mind for the past hour or so.
    ‘It is a remarkable place,’ he said in answer to a proffered remark by the tall man with the white hair, making a startling contrast to his black fur hat.
    ‘I was interested to learn that the village people called it The House of the Wolf. And I noticed the wolf-motif in the firedogs. I presume it is also in your family coat of arms.’
    The Count smiled politely, and once again Coleridge noticed the sharpness of his teeth.
    ‘That really relates to an ancestor of mine,’ he said. ‘The armorial bearings originated from his exploits.’
    He shot an amused glance at his daughter as they regained the door in the wall. Coleridge waited for his host to precede him but was ushered firmly in to the darkness of the colonnade.
    ‘It is a longish story, and I will reserve it for this evening, with your permission.’
    Coleridge felt a quickening of interest, and he mentally decided that he would return to the subject if Homolky showed no inclination to do so. In the meantime he had the girl’s problem and the fragments of fur and flesh in the