From the Police Record of the Central Alvald District Police
In the Twentieth Year of the Republic of Guntreland,
free, natural, and founded upon Virtue,
on the Twenty-Seventh day of Felinos,
at two Republican hours and ten Republican minutes.
We, Elter Hosen,
Commissioner of Police of the town of Atrolen,
District of Central Alvald, Region of Alvald,
having been informed by a group of citizens,
who came to our dwelling and awakened us,
of the discovery of the corpse of a pupil of the Republican School
upon the Atrolen Bridge over the river Tern,
did immediately transport ourselves to the said bridge,
where we found a large number of various citizens assembled,
and among them, in the middle of the bridge,
the entirely bloodless corpse of a male child,
whom we were at once informed to be the minor citizen
Baver Frenzer, aged thirteen years,
and whom we immediately examined.
Upon the said body we observed
a large wound upon the neck,
bearing clear impressions of bites.
We then put the following question to the assembled citizens:
Who was the first to discover the corpse?
Thereupon stepped forward one Citizen Faulen,
by profession a milkman,
residing at 8 Fallen Patriots’ Road, Marlea,
District of Central Alvald,
who declared that, as on every morning,
he was conveying milk to his customers in Atrolen,
and that upon the very bridge his horses halted of their own accord,
whereupon he perceived before him the corpse of the boy;
and that immediately thereafter he informed
the on-duty guard of the Constitutional Guard,
whom he encountered in the street continuing from the bridge,
as well as several other citizens whom he met
upon his way to the guardhouse.
We then asked the assembled citizens
who among them had known the slain Frenzer.
A great number of citizens raised their hands,
among them his parents,
their neighbours,
the vendors from whom the boy purchased provisions
while living in the parental household,
as well as the educators of the Republican School
and several of his schoolmates,
who had also arrived from the school
upon hearing of his murder.
To all these citizens we put the question
when they had last seen the victim,
for the purpose of determining
who had last seen the slain Frenzer alive.
From their replies it was established
that the last to have seen him alive
was Citizen Zau,
doorkeeper of the Republican School,
who stated that the said Frenzer,
approximately one Republican hour after midnight,
had asked him to allow him to leave the school,
showing him a written message,
and stating that this was the only manner
in which he could meet privately
with his companion, who was a Vampire,
since Frenzer’s parents would otherwise
strongly oppose such an association.
Citizen Zau further stated
that he replied to the slain Frenzer
that in Republicanism all things are public,
and that the law decrees
that anyone who opposes the affections of his child
shall be banished;
to which Frenzer replied
that he knew his parents would surely oppose it,
and that he did not wish them to be banished;
and that Citizen Zau,
taking pity upon the boy,
thereupon allowed him to depart.
During this public declaration of Citizen Zau,
Citizen Frenzer and Citizeness Frenzer,
the parents of the victim,
visibly shaken, exclaimed to the effect
that they had indeed been right
not to approve of such an attachment of their son,
uttering curses and insults
against Citizen Zau.
Citizen Zau further declared
that he believed the matter concerned
a Vampire pupil of the Republican School,
but that she did not pass by him,
he being stationed at the sole exit of the building,
until notice was given of Frenzer’s murder;
whereupon Citizeness Frenzer exclaimed
that “vampires have their own ways of leaving a house if they wish.”
Citizen Zau here affixed his written confirmation
attesting to the truthfulness of his recorded statement.
Zau
Thereupon a carriage arrived upon the bridge,
from which descended Doctor Tomas Bule,
surgeon, member of the Health Committee
of the District of Central Alvald,
residing at 11 Citizen Plasken Street, Atrolen,
who immediately approached the corpse
and conducted its examination,
and who, after a detailed inspection, declared:
That the impressions of teeth upon the neck
and the complete bloodlessness of the body
indicate that the bite was inflicted
by a person of the Vampiric race.
The said Citizen Doctor Bule
signed in our presence,
with effect to affirm the truth of his report.
Bule
I then searched the pockets of the garments of the slain;
and in one of his pockets I found
a small slip of paper,
upon which was written the following:
“I shall wait for thee at three and a half old hours after midnight upon the bridge.
Eliza-Constitutional.”
Citizen Zau, the school doorkeeper,
confirmed that this was the message
which the slain Frenzer had shown him the previous night;
and the present children of the Republican School
stated that they believed this referred to
Eliza-Constitutional Pinter,
a Vampire girl who attended the school
together with them and the slain Frenzer.
Leaving a guard upon the bridge,
we transported ourselves,
in the company of educators of the Republican School,
to the premises of the Republican School
for the purpose of interrogating
the minor citizen Eliza-Constitutional Pinter.
Ronsvald, Pfifer
These persons, being guards,
assumed responsibility for the place
where the corpse was discovered
and for the eyewitnesses
during our absence.
INTERROGATION OF THE MINOR CITIZEN ELIZA-CONSTITUTIONAL PINTER
We, Commissioner Elter Hosen,
on the Twenty-Seventh day of Felinos,
at five old hours and forty old minutes,
within the premises of the Republican School of Central Alvald,
formerly the boarding institution “for noble children and the children of the King’s men, so-called Prince Fridhold”,
situated at 1 South Main Road, Atrolen,
in the presence of Citizen Maring,
Chief Educator of the Republican School of Central Alvald,
did interrogate the minor citizen Eliza-Constitutional Pinter,
a pupil of this School,
aged thirteen years,
of the Vampiric race,
having first admonished her
that Republicans are at all times forbidden to speak falsehoods or to withhold the truth.
— The examinee was asked whether she knew the slain Baver Frenzer.
— The examinee replied that she knew him by name,
having remembered him from the simulation of the People’s Assembly
which all classes attended together;
but that they belonged to different classes
and had never spoken together in private.
— She was asked whether she knew that,
in the pocket of the said Frenzer,
there had been found a message signed with her name,
which name—according to the documents presented to us
by the Chief Educator—
was borne by no other female pupil of the said School.
— She replied that she did not know,
and that she had written no message to the slain Frenzer;
thereupon the said message was shown to her,
and she replied that she had not composed this message,
nor was it written in her hand.
The text of the message was then dictated to her
and she was instructed to write it down;
and by comparison of her handwriting
with that of the discovered message,
it was established
that the two handwritings differed.
— She was asked where she had been during the night.
— She replied that she had spent the entire night
lying in the school dormitory,
and that she hoped that at least one among the great number of children
who slept there
would be able to confirm this.
— She was asked where her parents were,
and whether she knew other Vampires in Alvald.
— She replied that those who had brought her into the world were dead;
and that she had been told at the school
that her parents were now Tailor Pinter of Alvaldstadt and his wife,
who had officially adopted her
because they could not give birth by their own effort;
although she never went to their home,
as she preferred to remain in the school building
and to take pleasure in the beauty of that edifice.
She further stated that she had sought other Vampires,
but had found only two,
who spent the entire day in the Municipal Committee
and never had time to converse with her.
(Note: it is presumed that this refers to Citizens Müller and Fibel,
who are the only Vampires in Alvald
who are members of municipal committees.)
— She was asked how she obtained blood for drinking.
— She replied that she received it exclusively at the school,
from the person of the Chief Educator.
— She was asked whether the quantity of blood
which she received from the Chief Educator
was sufficient for her needs.
— She replied that it was.
We searched the minor citizen Pinter,
and in her pocket we found among her effects
one medallion bearing the likeness of the tyrant;
and we asked her how such an object came into her possession.
— She replied that she had found it
in a bush where she was gathering berries.
— She was asked whether she knew
who was depicted upon it.
— She replied that she knew it was the tyrant,
and that she had heard that all Vampires feared him;
and that she therefore found it amusing
that he did not appear at all frightening in the image,
and that she felt no fear of the image,
nor had anything bad happened to her
as a result of carrying it;
and she stated that this might perhaps have been so
because of her name,
which she had received after the Constitution,
and after a good Citizeness,
the wife of a printer,
who—guided by the books she had read
and by the natural moral sense within herself—
had herself composed and printed a proclamation
which persuaded even the chiefs of police of the district
to pass over to the Republican side
and enabled the then-persecuted institutions
of the Underground Republic
to evade arrest.
— She was asked who had given her that name.
— She replied that Tailor Pinter had given her the name
when he adopted her,
in the castle, before the people;
and that prior to that time
people had merely called her “the little Vampire girl.”
We confiscated this object as prohibited,
and herewith make record thereof;
Citizeness Eliza-Constitutional Pinter confirms in writing, by her signature,
that a medallion bearing the likeness of the Tyrant
was found in her possession
and that it was confiscated from her.
Pinter
This Record of Interrogation
was read aloud and shown to the examined minor citizen Pinter,
who confirmed that the questions and her answers
were truthfully recorded,
and she thereupon signed it.
Pinter
And we, the Commissioner,
hereby officially attest
to the accuracy of all that is written above.
Hosen
