The Devil Rides Out

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

BY

DENNIS WHEATLEY

Copyright 1935

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I desire to state that I, personally, have never assisted at, or participated in, any ceremony connected with Magic — Black or White.

The literature of occultism is so immense that any conscientious writer can obtain from it abundant material for the background of a romance such as this.

In the present case I have spared no pains to secure accuracy of detail from existing accounts when describing magical rites or formulas for protection against evil, and these have been verified in conversation with certain persons, sought out for that purpose, who are actual practitioners of the Art.

All the characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary but, in the inquiry necessary to the writing of it, I found ample evidence that Black Magic is still practised in London, and other cities, at the present day.

Should any of my readers incline to a serious study of the subject, and thus come into contact with a man or woman of Power, I feel that it is only right to urge them, most strongly, to refrain from being drawn into the practice of the Secret Art in any way. My own observations have led me to an absolute conviction that to do so would bring them into dangers of a very real and concrete nature.

Dennis Wheatley

CHAPTER I

THE INCOMPLETE REUNION

The Duke de Richleau and Rex Van Ryn had gone into dinner at eight o’clock, but coffee was not served till after ten.

An appetite in keeping with his mighty frame had enabled Van Ryn to do ample justice to each well-chosen course and, as was his custom each time the young American arrived in England, the Duke had produced his finest wines for this, their reunion dinner at his flat.

A casual observer might well have considered it a strange friendship, but despite their difference in age and race, appearance and tradition, a real devotion existed between the two.

Some few years earlier Rex’s foolhardiness had landed him in a Soviet prison, and the elderly French exile had put aside his peaceful existence as art connoisseur and dilettante to search for him in Russia. Together they had learned the dangerous secret of ‘The Forbidden Territory’ and travelled many thousand verts pursued by the merciless agents of the Ogpu.

There had been others too in that strange adventure; young Richard Eaton, and the little Princess Marie Lou whom he had brought out of Russia as his bride; but as Rex accepted a long Hoyo de Monterrey from the cedar cabinet which the Duke’s man presented to him his thoughts were not of the Eatons, living now so happily with their little daughter Fleur in their lovely old country home near Kidderminster. He was thinking of that third companion whose subtle brain and shy, nervous courage had proved so great an aid when they were hunted like hares through the length and breadth of Russia, the frail narrow-shouldered English Jew—Simon Aron.

‘What could possibly have kept Simon from being with them tonight,’ Rex was wondering. He had never failed before to make a third at these reunion dinners, and why had the Duke brushed aside his inquiries about him in such an off-hand manner. There was something queer behind De Richleau’s reticence, and Rex had a feeling that for all his host’s easy charm and bland, witty conversation something had gone seriously wrong.

He slowly revolved some of the Duke’s wonderful old brandy in a bowl-shaped glass, while he watched the servant preparing to leave the room. Then, as the door closed, he set it down and addressed De Richleau almost abruptly.

‘Well, I’m thinking it’s about time for you to spill the beans.’

The Duke inhaled the first cloud of fragrant smoke from another of those long Hoyos which were his special pride, and answered guardedly. ‘Had you not better tell me Rex, to what particular beans you refer?’

‘Simon of course! For years now the three of us have dined together on my first night, each time I’ve come across, and you were too mighty casual to be natural when I asked about him before dinner. Why isn’t he here?’

‘Why, indeed, my friend?’ the Duke repeated, running the tips of his fingers down his lean handsome face. ‘I asked him, and told him that your ship had docked this morning, but he declined to honour us tonight.’

‘Is he ill then?’

‘No, as far as I know he’s perfectly well—at all events he was at his office today.’

‘He must have had a date then that he couldn’t scrap, or some mighty urgent work. Nothing less could induce him to let us down on one of these occasions. They’ve become—well, in a way, almost sacred to our friendship.’

‘On the contrary he is at home alone tonight. He made his apologies of course, something about resting for a Bridge Tournament that starts–’

‘Bridge Tournament my foot!’ exclaimed Rex angrily. ‘He’d never let that interfere between us three—it sounds mighty fishy to me. When did you see him last?’

‘About three months ago.’

‘What! But that’s incredible. Now look here!’ Rex thrust the onyx ash-tray from in front of him, and leaned across the table. ‘You haven’t quarrelled—have you?’

De Richleau shook his head. ‘If you were my age, Rex, and had no children, then met two younger men who gave you their affection, and had all the attributes you could wish for in your sons, how would it be possible for you to quarrel with either of them ?’

‘That’s so, but three months is a whale of a while for friends who are accustomed to meet two or three times a week. I just don’t get this thing at all, and you’re being a sight too reticent about it. Come on now—what do you know?’

The grey eyes of almost piercing brilliance which gave such character to De Richleau’s face lit up. ‘That,’ he said suddenly, ‘is just the trouble. I don’t know anything.’

‘But you fear that, to use his own phrase, Simon’s “in a muddle —a really nasty muddle,” eh? And you’re a little hurt that he hasn’t brought his worry to you.’

‘To whom else should he turn if not to one of us—and you were in the States.’

‘Richard maybe, he’s an even older friend of Simon’s than we are.’

‘No. I spent last week-end at Cardinals Folly and neither Richard nor Marie Lou could tell me anything. They haven’t seen him since he went down to stay last Christmas and arrived with a dozen crates of toys for Fleur.’

‘How like him!’ Rex’s gargantuan laugh rang suddenly through the room. ‘I might have known the trunkful I brought over would be small fry if you and Simon have been busy on that child.’

‘Well I can only conclude that poor Simon is “in a muddle” as you say, or he would never treat us all like this.’

‘But what sort of muddle?’ Rex brought his leg-of-mutton fist crashing down on the table angrily. ‘I can’t think of a thing where he wouldn’t turn to us.’

‘Money,’ suggested the Duke, ‘is the one thing that with his queer sensitive nature he might not care to discuss with even his closest friends.’

‘I doubt it being that. My old man has a wonderful opinion of Simon’s financial ability and he handles a big portion of our interests on this side. I’m pretty sure we’d be wise to it if he’d burned his fingers on the market. It sounds as if he’d gone bats about some woman to me.’

De Richleau’s face was lit by his faintly cynical smile for a moment. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘A man in love turns naturally to his friends for congratulation or sympathy as his fortune with a woman proves good or ill. It can’t be that.’

For a little the two friends sat staring at each other in silence across the low jade bowl with its trailing sprays of orchids: Rex, giant-shouldered, virile and powerful, his ugly, attractive, humorous young face clouded with anxiety, the Duke, a slim, delicate-looking man, somewhat about middle height, with slender, fragile hands and greying hair, but with no trace of weakness in his fine, distinguished face. His aquiline nose, broad forehead and grey ‘devil’s’ eyebrows might well have replaced those of the cavalier in the Van Dyck that gazed down from the opposite wall. Instead of the conventional black, he wore a claret-coloured vicuna smoking suit, with silk lapels and braided fastenings; this touch of colour increased his likeness to the portrait. He broke the silence suddenly.

‘Have you by any chance ever heard of a Mr. Mocata, Rex?’

‘Nope. Who is he anyway?’

‘A new friend of Simon’s who has been staying with him these last few months.’

‘What — at his Club?’

‘No—no, Simon no longer lives at his Club. I thought you knew. He bought a house last February, a big, rambling old place tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac off one of those quiet residential streets in St. John’s Wood.’

‘Why, that’s right out past Regent’s Park—isn’t it? What’s he want with a place out there when there are any number of nice little houses to let here in Mayfair?’

‘Another mystery, my friend.’ The Duke’s thin lips creased into a smile. ‘He said he wanted a garden, that’s all I can tell you.’

‘Simon! A garden!’ Rex chuckled. ‘That’s a good story I’ll say. Simon doesn’t know a geranium from a fuchsia. His botany is limited to an outsized florist’s bill for bunching his women friends from shops, and why should a bachelor like Simon start running a big house at all?’

‘Perhaps Mr. Mocata could tell you,’ murmured De Richleau mildly, ‘or the queer servant that he has imported.’

‘Have you ever seen this bird—Mocata I mean?’

‘Yes, I called one evening about six weeks ago. Simon was out so Mocata received me.’

‘And what did you make of him?’

‘I disliked him intensely. He’s a pot-bellied, bald-headed person of about sixty, with large, protuberant, fishy eyes, limp hands, and a most unattractive lisp. He reminded me of a large white slug.’

‘What about this servant that you mention?’

‘I only saw him for a moment when he crossed the hall, but he reminded me in a most unpleasant way of the Bogey Man with whom I used to be threatened in my infancy.’

‘Why, is he a black?’

‘Yes. A Malagasy I should think’

Rex frowned. ‘Now what in heck is that?’

‘A native of Madagascar. They are a curious people, half-Negro and half-Polynesian. This great brute stands about six foot eight, and the one glimpse I had of his eyes made me want to shoot him on sight. He’s a “bad black” if ever I saw one, and I’ve travelled, as you know, in my time.’

‘Do you know any more about these people?’ asked Rex grimly.

‘Not a thing.’

‘Well, I’m not given to worry, but I’ve heard quite enough to get me scared for Simon. He’s in some jam or he’d never be housing people like that.’

The Duke gently laid the long, blue-grey ash of his cigar in the onyx ash-tray. ‘There is not a doubt,’ he said slowly, ‘that Simon is involved in some very queer business, but I have been stifling my anxiety until your arrival. You see I wanted to hear your views before taking the very exceptional step of—yes butting in—is the expression, on the private affairs of even so intimate a friend. The question is now—what are we to do?’

‘Do!’ Rex thrust back his chair and drew himself up to his full magnificent height. ‘We’re going up to that house to have a little heart-to-heart talk with Simon—right now!’

‘I’m glad,’ said De Richleau quietly, ‘you feel like that, because I ordered the car for half past ten. Shall we go?’

CHAPTER II

THE CURIOUS GUESTS OF MR. SIMON ARON

As De Richleau’s Hispano drew up at the dead end of the dark cul-de-sac in St. John’s Wood, Rex slipped out of the car and looked about him. They were shut in by the high walls of neighbouring gardens and, above a blank expanse of brick in which a single, narrow door was visible, the upper stories of Simon’s house showed vague and mysterious among whispering trees.

‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed with a little shudder as a few drops splashed upon his face from the dark branches overhead. ‘What a dismal hole—we might be in a graveyard.’

The Duke pressed the bell, and turning up the sable collar of his coat against a slight drizzle which made the April night seem chill and friendless, stepped back to get a better view of the premises. ‘Hello! Simon’s got an observatory here,’ he remarked. ‘I didn’t notice that on my previous visit.’

‘So he has.’ Rex followed De Richleau’s glance to a dome that crowned the house, but at that moment an electric globe suddenly flared into life about their heads, and the door in the wall swung open disclosing a sallow-faced manservant in dark livery.

‘Mr. Simon Aron?’ inquired De Richleau, but the man was already motioning them to enter, so they followed him up a short, covered path and the door in the wall clanged to behind them.

The vestibule of the house was dimly lit, but Rex, who never wore a coat or hat in the evening, noticed that two sets of outdoor apparel lay, neatly folded, on a long console table as the silent footman relieved De Richleau of his wraps. Evidently friend Simon had other visitors.

‘Maybe Mr. Aron’s in conference and won’t want to be disturbed,’ he said to the sallow-faced servant with a sudden feeling of guilt at their intrusion. Perhaps, after all, their fears for Simon were quite groundless and his neglect only due to a prolonged period of intense activity on the markets, but the man only bowed and led them across the hall.

‘The fellow’s a mute,’ whispered the Duke. ‘Deaf and dumb, I’m certain.’ As he spoke the servant flung open a couple of large double doors and stood waiting for them to enter.

A long, narrow room, opening into a wide salon, stretched before them. Both were decorated in the lavish magnificence of the Louis Seize period, but for the moment the dazzling brilliance of the lighting prevented them taking in the details of the parquet floors, the crystal mirrors, the gilded furniture and beautifully wrought tapestries.

Rex was the first to recover and with a quick intake of breath he clutched De Richleau’s arm. ‘By Jove she’s here!’ he muttered almost inaudibly, his eyes riveted on a tall, graceful girl who stood some yards away at the entrance of the salon talking to Simon.

Three times in the last eighteen months he had chanced upon that strange, wise, beautiful face, with the deep eyes beneath heavy lids that seemed so full of secrets and gave the lovely face a curiously ageless look—so that despite her apparent youth she was as old as—‘Yes, as old as sin,’ Rex caught himself thinking.

He had seen her first in a restaurant in Budapest; months later again, in a traffic jam when his car was wedged beside hers in New York, and then, strangely enough, riding along a road with three men, in the country ten miles outside Buenos Ayres. How extraordinary that he should find her here—and what luck. He smiled quickly at the thought that Simon could not fail to introduce him.

De Richleau’s glance was riveted upon their friend. With an abrupt movement Simon turned towards them. For a second he seemed completely at a loss, his full, sensual mouth hung open to twice its normal extent and his receding jaw almost disappeared behind his white tie, while his dark eyes were filled with amazement and something suspiciously like fear, but he recovered almost instantly and his old smile flashed out as he came forward to greet them.

‘My dear Simon,’ the Duke’s voice was a silken purr. ‘How can we apologise for breaking in on you like this?’

‘Sure, we hadn’t a notion you were throwing a party,’ boomed Rex, his glance following the girl who had moved off to join another woman and three men who were talking together in the inner room.

‘But I’m delighted,’ murmured Simon genially. ‘Delighted to see you both—only got a few friends—-meeting of a little society I belong to—that’s all’

‘Then we couldn’t dream of interrupting you, could we Rex?’ De Richleau demurred with well-assumed innocence.

‘Why, certainly not, we wouldn’t even have come in if that servant of yours hadn’t taken us for some other folks you’re expecting.’ But despite their apparent unwillingness to intrude, neither of the two made any gesture of withdrawal and, mentally, De Richleau gave Simon full marks for the way in which he accepted their obviously unwelcome presence.

‘I’m most terribly sorry about dinner tonight,’ ha was proclaiming earnestly. ‘Meant to rest for my bridge, I simply have to these days, to be any good—even forgot till six o’clock that I had these people coming.’

‘How fortunate for you Simon that your larder is so well stocked.’ The Duke could not resist the gentle dig as his glance fell on a long buffet spread with a collation which would have rivalled the cold table in any great hotel.

‘I phoned Ferraro,’ parried Simon glibly. ‘The Berkeley never lets me down. Would have asked you to drop in, but er — with this meeting on I felt you’d be bored.’

‘Bored! Not a bit, but we are keeping you from your other guests.’ With an airy gesture De Richleau waved his hand in the direction of the inner room.

‘Sure,’ agreed Rex heartily, as he laid a large hand on Simon’s arm and gently propelled him towards the salon. ‘Don’t you worry about us; we’ll just take a glass of wine off you and fade away.’ His eyes were fixed again on the pale oval face of the girl.

Simon’s glance flickered swiftly towards the Duke, who ignored, with a guileless smile, his obvious reluctance for them to meet his other friends, and noted with amusement that he avoided any proper introduction.

‘Er — er — two very old friends of mine,’ he said, with his little nervous cough as he interchanged a swift look with a fleshy, moon-faced man whom De Richleau knew to be Mocata.

‘Well, well, how nice,’ the bald man lisped with unsmiling eyes. ‘It is a pleasure always to welcome any friends of Simon’s.’

De Richleau gave him a frigid bow and thought of reminding him coldly that Simon’s welcome was sufficient in his own house, but for the moment it was policy to hide his antagonism so he replied politely that Mocata was most kind, then, with the ease which characterised all his movements, he turned his attention to an elderly lady who was seated near by.

She was a woman of advanced age but fine presence, richly dressed and almost weighed down with heavy jewellery. Between her fingers she held the stub of a fat cigar at which she was puffing vigorously.

‘Madame.’ The Duke drew a case containing the long Hoyos from his pocket and bent towards her. ‘Your cigar is almost finished, permit me to offer you one of mine.’

She regarded him for a moment with piercingly bright eyes, then stretched out a fat, beringed hand. ‘Sank you, Monsieur, I see you are a connoisseur.’ With her beaked, parrot nose she sniffed at the cigar appreciatively. ‘But I ‘ave not seen you at our other meetings, what ees your name?’

‘De Richleau, Madame, and yours?’

‘Ah ! De Richleau ! a maestro indeed.’ She nodded heavily. ‘Je suis Madame D’Urfe, you will ‘ave heard of me.’

‘But certainly.’ The Duke bowed again. ‘Do you think we shall have a good meeting tonight?’

‘If the sky clears we should learn much,’ answered the old lady cryptically.

‘Ho! Ho!’ thought the Duke. ‘We are about to make use of Simon’s observatory it seems. Good, let us learn more.’ But before he could pump the elderly Frenchwoman further, Simon deftly interrupted the conversation and drew him away.

‘So you have taken up the study of the stars, my friend,’ remarked the Duke as his host led him to the buffet.

‘Oh, er — yes. Find astronomy very interesting, you know. Have some caviare?’ Simon’s eyes flickered anxiously towards Rex, who was deeply in conversation with the girl.

As he admired her burnished hair and slumbrous eyes, for a moment the Duke was reminded of a Botticelli painting. She had, he thought, that angel look with nothing Christian in it peculiar to women born out of their time, the golden virgin to the outward eye whose veins were filled with unlit fire. A rare cinquecento type who should have lived in the Italy of the Borgais. Then he turned again to Simon. ‘It was because of the observatory then that you acquired this house, I suppose?’

‘Yes. You must come up one night and we’ll watch a few stars together.’ Something of the old warmth had crept into Simon’s tone and he was obviously in earnest as he offered the invitation, but the Duke was not deceived into believing that he was welcome on the present occasion.

‘Thank you, I should enjoy that,’ he said promptly, while over Simon’s shoulder he studied the other two men who made up the party. One, a tall, fair fellow, stood talking to Mocata. His thin, flaxen hair brushed flatly back, and whose queer, light eyes proclaimed him an Albino; the other, a stout man dressed in green plaid and ginger kilt, was walking softly up and down with his hands clasped behind his back, muttering to himself inaudibly. His wild, flowing white hair and curious costume suggested an Irish bard.

‘Altogether a most unprepossessing lot,’ thought the Duke, and his opinion was not improved by three new arrivals. A grave-faced Chinaman wearing the robes of a Mandarin, whose slit eyes betrayed a cold, merciless nature: a Eurasian with only one arm, the left, and a tall, thin woman with a scraggy throat and beetling eyebrows which met across the bridge of her nose.

Mocata received them as though he were the host, but as the tall woman bore down on Simon he promptly left the Duke, who guessed that the move was to get out of earshot. However, the lady’s greeting in a high-pitched Middle Western accent came clearly to him.

‘Waal, Simon, all excitement about what we’ll learn tonight? It should help a heap, this being your natal conjunction.’

‘Ha ! Ha !’ said De Richleau to himself. ‘Now I begin to understand a little and I like this party even less.’ Then, with the idea of trying to verify his surmise, he turned towards the one-armed Eurasian, but Simon—apparently guessing his intention—quickly excused himself to the American woman, and cut off the Duke’s advance.

‘So, my young friend,’ thought De Richleau, ‘you mean to prevent me from obtaining any further information about this strange gathering, do you? All right! I’ll twist your tail a little,’ and he remarked sweetly:

‘Did you say that you were interested in Astronomy or Astrology, Simon. There is a distinct difference you know?’

‘Oh, Astronomy, of course.’ Simon ran a finger down his long, beak-like nose. ‘It is nice to see you again—have some more champagne?’

‘Thank you, no, later perhaps,’ The Duke smothered a smile as he caught Mocata, who had overheard him, exchange a quick look with Simon.

‘Wish this were an ordinary meeting,’ Simon said, a moment later, with an uneasy frown. ‘Then I’d ask you to stay, but we’re going through the Society’s annual balance-sheet tonight—and you and Rex not being members you know… .’

‘Quite, quite, my dear fellow, of course,’ De Richleau agreed amicably, while to himself he thought: ‘That’s a nasty fence young sly-boots has put up to me, but I’ll be damned if I go before I find out for certain what I came for.’ Then he added in a cheerful whisper : ‘I should have gone before but Rex seems so interested in the young woman in green, I want to give him as long as possible.’

‘My dear chap,’ Simon protested, ‘I feel horribly embarrassed at having to ask you to go at all.’

A fat, oily-looking Babu in a salmon-pink turban and gown had just arrived and was shaking hands with Mocata; behind him came a red-faced Teuton, who suffered the deformity of a hare lip.

Simon stepped quickly forward again as the two advanced, but De Richleau once more caught the first words which were snuffled out by the hare-lipped man.

‘Well, Abraham, wie geht es?’ Then there came the fulsome chuckle of the fleshy Indian. ‘You must not call him that, it is unlucky to do so before the great night.’

‘The devil it is!’ muttered the Duke to himself, but Simon had left the other two with almost indecent haste in order to rejoin him, so he said with a smile: ‘I gather you are about to execute Deed Poll, my friend?’

‘Eh!’ Simon exclaimed with a slight start.

‘To change your name,’ De Richleau supplemented.

‘Ner.’ He shook his head rapidly as he uttered the curious negative that he often used. It came of his saying ‘No’ without troubling to close the lips of his full mouth. ‘Ner—that’s only a sort of joke we have between us—a sort of initiation ceremony— I’m not a full member yet.’

‘I see, then you have ceremonies in your Astronomical Society —how interesting!’

As he spoke De Richleau, out of the corner of his eye, saw Mocata make a quick sign to Simon and then glance at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece; so to save his host the awkwardness of having actually to request his departure, he exclaimed : ‘Dear me ! Twenty past eleven, I had no idea it was so late. I must drag Rex away from that lovely lady after all, I fear.’

‘Well, if you must go.’ Simon looked embarrassed and worried, but catching Mocata’s eye again, he promptly led the way over to his other unwelcome guest.

Rex gave a happy grin as they came up. ‘This is marvellous Simon. I’ve been getting glimpses of this lady in different continents these two years past, and she seems to recall having seen me too. It’s just great that we should become acquainted at last through you.’ Then he smiled quickly at the girl: ‘May I present my friend De Richleau? Duke, this is Miss Tanith.’

De Richleau bent over her long, almost transparent hand and raised it to his lips. ‘How unfortunate I am,’ he said with old-fashioned gallantry, ‘to be presented to you only in time to say good-bye, and perhaps gain your displeasure by taking your new friend with me as well.’

‘But,’ she regarded him steadily out of large, clear, amber eyes. ‘Surely you do not depart before the ceremony?’

‘I fear we must. We are not members of your er — Circle you see, only old friends of Simon’s.’

A strange look of annoyance and uncertainty crept into her glance, and the Duke guessed that she was searching her mind for any indiscretions she might have committed in her conversation with Rex. Then she shrugged lightly and, with a brief inclination of the head which dismissed them both, turned coldly away.

The Duke took Simon’s arm affectionately, as the three friends left the salon. ‘I wonder,’ he said persuasively, ‘ if you could spare me just two minutes before we go—no more I promise you.’

‘Rather, of course.’ Simon seemed now to have regained his old joviality. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for missing your dinner tonight—this wretched meeting—and I’ve seen nothing of you for weeks. Now Rex is over we must throw a party together.’

‘We will, we will,’ De Richleau agreed heartily, ‘but listen; is not Mars in conjunction with Venus tonight?’

‘Ner,’ Simon replied promptly. ‘With Saturn, that’s what they’ve all come to see.’

‘Ah, Saturn! My Astronomy is so rusty, but I saw some mention of it in the paper yesterday, and at one time I was a keen student of the Stars. Would it be asking too much my dear fellow, to have just one peep at it through your telescope? We should hardly delay your meeting for five minutes.’

Simon’s hesitation was barely perceptible before he nodded his bird-like head with vigorous assent. ‘Urn, that’s all right—they haven’t all arrived yet—let’s go up.’ Then, with his hands thrust deep in the trouser pockets of his exceedingly well-cut dress suit, he led them hurriedly through the hall and up three flights of stairs.

De Richleau followed more slowly. Stairs were the one thing which ruffled his otherwise equable temper and he had no desire to lose it now. By the time he arrived in the lofty chamber, with Rex behind him, Simon had all the lights switched on.

‘Well you’ve certainly gone in for it properly,’ Rex remarked as he surveyed the powerful telescope slanting to the roof and a whole arsenal of sextants, spheres and other astrological impedimenta ranged about the room.

‘It’s rather an exact science you see,’ Simon volunteered.

‘Quite,’ agreed the Duke briefly. ‘But I wonder, a little, that you should consider charts of the Macrocosm necessary to your studies.’

‘Oh, those!’ Simon shrugged his narrow shoulders as he glanced around the walls. ‘They’re only for fun—relics of the Alchemistic nonsense in the Middle Ages, but quite suitable for decoration.’

‘How clever of you to carry out your scheme of decoration on the floor as well’ The Duke was thoughtfully regarding a five-pointed star enclosed within two circles between which numerous mystic characters in Greek and Hebrew had been carefully drawn.

‘Yes, good idea, wasn’t it?’ Simon tittered into his hand. It was the familiar gesture which both his friends knew so well, yet somehow the chuckle had not quite its usual ring.

The silence that followed was a little awkward and in it, all three plainly heard a muffled scratching noise that seemed to come from a large wicker basket placed against the wall.

‘You’ve got mice here, Simon,’ said Rex casually, but De Richleau had stiffened where he stood. Then, before Simon could bar his way, he leapt towards the hamper and ripped open the lid.

‘Stop that!’ cried Simon angrily, and dashing forward he forced it shut again, but too late, for within the basket the Duke had seen two living pinioned fowls—a black cock and a white hen.

With a sudden access of bitter fury he turned on Simon, and seizing him by his silk lapels, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. ‘You fool,’ he thundered. ‘I’d rather see you dead than monkeying with Black Magic’

CHAPTER III

THE ESOTERIC DOCTRINE

Take—take your hands off me,’ Simon gasped.

His dark eyes blazed in a face that had gone deathly white and only a superhuman effort enabled him to keep his clenched fist pressed to his sides.

In another second he would have hit the Duke, but Rex, a head taller than either of them, laid a mighty hand on the shoulder of each and forced them apart.

‘Have a heart now, just what is all this?’ His quiet, familiar voice with its faint American intonation sobered the others immediately and De Richleau, swinging on his heel, strode to the other side of the observatory, where he stood for a moment, with his back towards them, regaining control of his emotions.

Simon, panting a little, gave a quick, nervous wriggle of his bird-like head and smoothed out the lapels of his evening coat.

‘Now—I’ll tell you,’ he said jerkily. ‘I never asked either of you to come here tonight, and even my oldest friends have no right to butt in on my private affairs. I think you’d better go.’

The Duke turned, passing one hand over his greying hair. All trace of his astonishing outburst had disappeared and he was once more the handsome, distinguished figure that they knew so well.

‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ he said gravely. ‘But I felt as a father might who sees his child trying to pick live coals out of the fire.’

‘I’m not a child,’ muttered Simon, sullenly.

‘No, but I could not have more affection for you if you were actually my son, and it is useless now to deny that you are playing the most dangerous game which has ever been known to mankind throughout the ages.’

‘Oh, come,’ a quick smile spread over Rex’s ugly, attractive face. ‘That’s a gross exaggeration. What’s the harm if Simon wants to try out a few old parlour games?’

‘Parlour games!’ De Richleau took him up sharply. ‘My dear Rex, I fear your prowess in aeroplanes and racing cars hardly qualifies you to judge the soul-destroying powers of these ancient cults.’

‘Thanks. I’m not quite a half-wit, and plenty of spiritualistic seances take place in the States, but I’ve never heard of anyone as sane as Simon going bats because of them yet.’

Simon nodded his narrow head slowly up and down. ‘Of course —Rex is right, and you’re only making a mountain out of a molehill.’

‘As you like,’ De Richleau shrugged. ‘In that case will you permit us to stay and participate in your operations tonight?’

‘Ner—I’m sorry, but you’re not members of our Circle.’

‘No matter. We have already met most of your friends downstairs, surely they will not object to our presence on just this one occasion?’

‘Ner.’ Simon shook his head again. ‘Our number is made up.’

‘I see, you are already thirteen, is that it? Now listen, Simon.’ The Duke laid his hands gently on the young Jew’s shoulders. ‘One of the reasons why my friendship with Rex and yourself has developed into such a splendid intimacy, is because I have always refrained from stressing my age and greater experience, but tonight I break the rule. My conscious life, since we both left our schools, has been nearly three times as long as yours and, in addition, although I have never told you of it, I made a deep study of these esoteric doctrines years ago when I lived in the East. I beg of you, as I have never begged for anything in my life before, that you should give up whatever quest you are engaged upon and leave this house with us immediately.’

For a moment Simon seemed to waver. All his faith in De Richleau’s judgment, knowledge, and love for him, urged him to agree, but at that moment Mocata’s musical lisping voice cut in upon the silence, calling from the landing just below :

‘Simon, the others have come. It is time.’

‘Coming,’ called Simon, then he looked at the two friends with whom he had risked his life in the ‘Forbidden Territory’. ‘I can’t,’ he said with an effort. ‘You heard—it’s too late to back out now.’

‘Then let us remain—please,’ begged the Duke.

‘No, I’m sorry.’ A new firmness had crept into Simon’s tone, ‘But I must ask you to go now.’

‘Very well.’

De Richleau stepped forward as though to shake hands then, with almost incredible swiftness, his arm flew back and next second his fist caught Simon a smashing blow full beneath the jaw.

The action was so sudden, so unexpected, that Simon was caught completely off his guard. For a fraction of time he was lifted from his feet, then he crashed senseless on his back and slid spread-eagled across the polished floor.

‘Have you gone crazy?’ ejaculated Rex.

‘No—we’ve got to get him out of here—save him from himself —don’t argue! Quick!’ Already De Richleau was kneeling by the crumpled body of his friend.

Rex needed no further urging. He had been in too many tight corners with the Duke to doubt the wisdom of his decisions however strange his actions might appear. In one quick heave he dragged Simon’s limp form across his shoulders and started for the stairs.

‘Steady!’ ordered the Duke. ‘I’ll go first and tackle anyone who tries to stop us. You get him to the car—Understand?’

‘What if they raise the house? You’ll never be able to tackle the whole bunch on your own?’

‘In that case drop him, I’ll get him out somehow, while you protect my rear. Come on!’

With De Richleau leading they crept down the first flight of stairs. On the landing he paused and peered cautiously over the banisters. No sound came from below. ‘Rex,’ he whispered.

‘Yep.’

‘If that black servant I told you of appears, for God’s sake don’t look at his eyes. Watch his hands and hit him in the belly.’

‘O.K.’

A moment later they were down the second flight. The hall was empty and only a vague murmur of conversation came to them from behind the double doors that led to the salon.

‘Quick!’ urged the Duke. ‘Mocata may come out to look for him any moment.’

‘Right.’ Rex, bent double beneath his burden, plunged down the last stairs, and De Richleau was already halfway across the hall when the dumb servant suddenly appeared from the vestibule.

For a second he stood there, his sallow face a mask of blank surprise then, side-stepping the Duke with the agility of a rugby forward, he lowered his bullet head and charged Rex with silent animal ferocity.

‘Got you,’ snapped De Richleau, for although the man had dodged with lightning speed he had caught his wrist in passing. Then flinging his whole weight upon it as he turned, he jerked the fellow clean off his feet and sent him spinning head foremost against the wall.

As his head hit the panelling the mute gave an uncouth grunt, and rolled over on the floor, but he staggered up again and dashed towards the salon. Rex and the Duke were already pounding down the tiled path and in another second they had flung themselves into the lane through the entrance in the garden wall.

‘Thank God,’ gasped the Duke as he wrenched open the door of the Hispano. ‘I believe that hellish crew would have killed us rather than let us get Simon out of there alive.’

‘Well, I suppose you do know what you’re at,’ Rex muttered as he propped Simon up on the back seat of the car. ‘But I’m not certain you’re safe to be with.’

‘Home,’ ordered De Richleau curtly to the footman, who was hiding his astonishment at their sudden exit by hastily tucking the rug over their knees. Then he smiled at Rex a trifle grimly. ‘I suppose I do seem a little mad to you, but you can’t possibly be expected to appreciate what a horribly serious business this is. I’ll explain later.’

In a few moments they had left the gloom of the quiet streets behind and were once more running through well-lit ways towards Mayfair, but Simon was still unconscious when they pulled up in Curzon Street before Errol House.

‘I’ll take him,’ volunteered Rex. ‘The less the servants have to do with this the better,’ and picking up Simon in his strong arms as though he had been a baby, he carried him straight upstairs to the first floor where De Richleau’s flat was situated.

‘Put him in the library,’ said the Duke, who had paused to murmur something about a sudden illness to the porter, when he arrived on the landing a moment later. ‘I’ll get something to bring him round from the bathroom.’

Rex nodded obediently, and carried Simon into that room in the Curzon Street flat which was so memorable for those who had been privileged to visit it, not so much on account of its size and decorations, but for the unique collection of rare and beautiful objects which it contained. A Tibetan Buddha seated upon the Lotus; bronze figurines from ancient Greece; beautifully chased rapiers of Toledo steel, and Moorish pistols inlaid with turquoise and gold; ikons from Holy Russia set with semi-precious stones and curiously carved ivories from the East.

As Rex laid Simon upon the wide sofa he glanced around him with an interest unappeased by a hundred visits, at the walls lined shoulder high with beautifully bound books, and at the lovely old colour prints, interspersed with priceless historical documents and maps, which hung above them.

De Richleau, when he joined him, produced a small crystal bottle which he held beneath Simon’s beak-like nose. ‘No good trying to talk to him tonight,’ he remarked, ‘but I want to bring him round sufficiently to put him to sleep again.’

Rex grunted. ‘That sounds like double-dutch to me.’

‘No. I mean to fight these devils with their own weapons, as you will see.’

Simon groaned a little, and as his eye flickered open the Duke took a small round mirror from his pocket. ‘Simon,’ he said softly, moving the lamp a little nearer, ‘look upward at my hand.’

As he spoke De Richleau held the mirror about eighteen inches from Simon’s forehead and a little above the level of his eyes so that it caught and reflected the light of the lamp on to his lids.

‘Hold it lower,’ suggested Rex. ‘He’ll strain his eyes turning them upward like that.’

‘Quiet,’ said the Duke sharply. ‘Simon, look up and listen to me. You have been hurt and have a troubled mind, but your friends are with you and you have no need to worry any more.’

Simon opened his eyes again and turned them upward to the mirror, where they remained fixed.

‘I am going to send you to sleep, Simon,’ De Richleau went on softly. ‘You need rest and you will awake free from pain. In a moment your eyes will close and then your head will feel better.’

For another half-minute he held the mirror steadily reflecting the light upon Simon’s retina, then he placed the first and second fingers of his free hand upon the glass with his palm turned outwards and made a slow pass from it towards the staring eyes, which closed at once before he touched them.

‘You will sleep now,’ he continued quietly, ‘and you will not wake until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Directly you awake you will come straight to me either here or in my bedroom and you will speak to no one, nor will you open any letter or message which may be brought to you, until you have seen me.’

De Richleau paused for a moment, put down the mirror and lifted one of Simon’s arms until it stood straight above his head. When he released it the arm did not drop but remained stiff and rigid in the air.

‘Most satisfactory,’ he murmured cheerfully to Rex. ‘He is in the second stage of hypnosis already and will do exactly what he is told. The induction was amazingly easy, but of course, his half-conscious state simplified it a lot.’

Rex shook his head in disapproval. ‘I don’t like to see you monkey with him like this. I wouldn’t allow it if it was anyone but you.’

‘A prejudice based upon lack of understanding, my friend. Hypnotism in proper hands is the greatest healing power in the world.’ With a quick shrug the Duke moved over to his desk and, unlocking one of the lower drawers, took something from it, then he returned to Simon and addressed him in the same low voice.

‘Open your eyes now and sit up.’

Simon obeyed at once and Rex was surprised to see that he looked quite wide awake and normal. Only a certain blankness about the face betrayed his abnormal state, and he displayed no aversion as De Richleau extended the thing he had taken from the drawer. It was a small golden swastika set with precious stones and threaded on a silken ribbon.

‘Simon Aron,’ the Duke spoke again. ‘With this symbol I am about to place you under the protection of the power of Light. No being or force of Earth, of Air, of Fire, or Water can harm you while you wear it.’

With quick fingers he knotted the talisman round Simon’s neck and went on evenly : ‘Now you will go to the spare bedroom. Ring for my man Max and tell him that you are staying here tonight. He will provide you with everything you need and, if your throat is parched from your recent coma, ask him for any soft drink you wish, but no alcohol remember. Peace be upon you and about you. Now go.’

Simon stood up at once and looked from one to the other of them. ‘Good night,’ he said cheerfully, with his quick natural smile. ‘See you both in the morning,’ then he promptly walked out of the room.

‘He—he’s not really asleep is he?’ asked Rex, looking a little scared.

‘Certainly, but he will remember everything that has taken place tomorrow because he is not in the deep somnambulistic state where I could order him to forget. To achieve that usually takes a little practice with a new subject.’

‘Then he’ll be pretty livid I’ll promise you. Fancy hanging a Nazi swastika round the neck of a professing Jew.’

‘My dear Rex! Do try and broaden your outlook a little. The swastika is the oldest symbol of wisdom and right thinking in the world. It has been used by every race and in every country at some time or other. You might just as well regard the Gross as purely Christian, when we all know it was venerated in early Egypt, thousands of years before the birth of Christ. The Nazis have only adopted the swastika because it is supposed to be of Aryan origin and part of their programme aims at welding together a large section of the Aryan race. The vast majority of them have no conception of its esoteric significance and even if they bring discredit upon it, as the Spanish Inquisition did upon the Cross, that could have no effect upon its true meaning.’

‘Yes, I get that, though I doubt if it’ll make any difference to Simon’s resentment when he finds it round his neck tomorrow. Still, that’s a minor point. What worries me is this whole box of tricks this evening. I’ve got the feeling you ought to be locked up as downright insane, unless it’s me.’

De Richleau smiled. ‘A strange business to be happening in modern London, isn’t it? But let’s mix a drink and talk it over quietly.’

‘Strange! Why, if it were true it would be utterly fantastic, but it’s not. All this hooha about Black Magic and talking hocus-pocus while you hang silly charms round Simon’s neck is utter bunk.’

‘Is it?’ The Duke smiled again as he tipped a lump of ice into Rex’s glass and handed it to him. ‘Well, let’s hear your explanation of Simon’s queer behaviour. I suppose you do consider it is queer by the way?’

‘Of course, but nothing like as queer as you’re trying to make out. As I see it Simon’s taken up spiritualism or something of the kind and plenty or normal earnest people believe in that, but you know what he is when he gets keen on a thing, everything else goes to the wall and that’s why he has neglected you a bit.

‘Then this evening he was probably sick as mud to miss our dinner, but had a seance all fixed that he couldn’t shelve at the last moment. We butt in on his party, and naturally he doesn’t care to admit what he’s up to entertaining all those queer, odd-looking women and men, so he spins a yarn about it being an astronomical society. So you—who’ve read a sight too many books—and seemed to have stored up all the old wives’ tales your nurse told you in your cradle—get a bee in your bonnet and slog the poor mut under the jaw.’

De Richleau nodded. ‘I can hardly expect you to see it any other way at the moment, but let’s start at the beginning. Do you agree that after knocking him out I called into play a supernormal power in order to send him cheerfully off to bed without a single protest?’

‘Yes, even the doctors admit hypnotic influence now, and Simon would never have stood for you tying that swastika under his chin if he’d been conscious.’

‘Good. Then at least we are at one on the fact that certain forces can be called into play which the average person does not understand. Now, if instead of practising that comparatively simple exercise in front of you, I had done it before ignorant natives, who had never heard of hypnotism, they would term it magic, would they not?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then to go a step further. If, by a great exertion of the same power, I levitated, that is to say, lifted myself to a height of several inches from this floor, you might not use the word magic but you would class that feat in the same category as the ignorant native would place the easier one, because it is something which you have always thought impossible.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Well, I am not sufficient of an adept to perform the feat, but will you accept my assurances that I’ve seen it done, not once, but a number of times?’

‘If you say so, but from all I’ve heard about such things, the fellows you saw didn’t leave the ground at all. It is just mass hypnotism exercised upon the whole audience—like the rope trick.’

‘As you wish, but that explanation does not rob me of my point. If you admit that I can tap an unknown power to make Simon obey my will, and that an Eastern mystic can tap that power to the far greater extent of making a hundred people’s eyes deceive them into believing that he is standing on thin air, you admit that there is power and that it can be tapped in greater degrees according to the knowledge and proficiency of the man who uses it.’

‘Yes, within limits.’

‘Why within limits? You apparently consider levitation impossible, but wouldn’t you have considered wireless impossible if you had been living fifty years ago and somebody had endeavoured to convince you of it?’

‘Maybe.’ Rex sat forward suddenly. ‘But I don’t get what you’re driving at. Hypnotism is only a demonstration of the power of the human will.’

‘Ah! There you have it. The will to good and the will to evil. That is the whole matter in a nutshell. The human will is like a wireless set and properly adjusted—trained that is—it can tune in with the invisible which is all about us.’

‘The Invisible Influence. I’ve certainly heard that phrase somewhere before.’

‘No doubt. A very eminent mental specialist who holds a high position in our asylums wrote a book with that title and I have not yet asked you to believe one tenth of what he vouches for.’

‘Then I wonder they haven’t locked him up.’

‘Rex! Rex!’ De Richleau smiled a little sadly. ‘Try and open your mind, my friend. Do you believe in the miracles performed by Jesus Christ?’

‘Yes.’

‘And of His Disciples and certain of the Saints?’

‘Sure, but they had some special power granted to them from on high.’

‘Exactly! Some Special Power. But I suppose you would deny that Gautama Buddha and his disciples performed miracles of a similar nature?’

‘Not at all. Most people agree now that Buddha was a sort of Indian Christ, a Holy Man, and no doubt he had some sort of power granted to him too.’

The Duke sat back with a heavy sigh. ‘At last my friend we seem to be getting somewhere. If you admit that miracles, as you call them although you object to the word magic, have been performed by two men living in different countries hundreds of years apart, and that even their disciples were able to tap a similar power through their holiness, you cannot reasonably deny that other mystics have also performed similar acts in many portions of the globe—and therefore, that there is a power existing outside us which is not peculiar to any religion, but can be utilised if one can get into communication with it.’

Rex laughed. ‘That’s so, I can’t deny it.’

‘Thank God! Let’s mix ourselves another drink shall we, I need it.’

‘Don’t move, I’ll fix it.’ Rex good-naturedly scrambled to his feet. ‘All the same,’ he added slowly, ‘it doesn’t follow that because a number of good men have been granted supernatural powers that there is anything in Black Magic’

‘Then you do not believe in Witchcraft?’

‘Of course not, nobody does in these days.’

‘Really! How long do you think it is since the last trial for Witchcraft took place?’

‘I’ll say it was all of a hundred and fifty years ago.’

‘No, it was in January, 1926, at Melun near Paris.’

‘Oh! You’re fooling!’ Rex exclaimed angrily.

‘I’m not,’ De Richleau assured him solemnly. ‘The records of the court will prove my statement, so you see you are hardly accurate when you say that nobody believes in Witchcraft in these days, and many many thousands still believe in a personal devil.’

‘Yes, simple folk maybe, but not educated people.’

‘Possibly not, yet every thinking man must admit that there is still such a thing as the power of Evil.’

‘Why?’

‘My dear fellow, all qualities have their opposites, like love and hate, pleasure and pain, generosity and avarice. How could we recognise the goodness of Jesus Christ, Lao Tze, Ashoka, Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi, Florence Nightingale and a thousand others if it were not for the evil lives of Herod, Caesar Borgia, Rasputin, Landru, Ivan Kreuger and the rest?’

‘That’s true,’ Rex admitted slowly.

‘Then if an intensive cultivation of good can beget strange powers is there any reason why an intensive cultivation of evil should not beget them also?’

‘I think I begin to get what you’re driving at.’

‘Good! Now listen, Rex.’ The Duke leaned forward earnestly. ‘And I will try and expound what little I know of the Esoteric Doctrine which has come down to us through the ages. You will have heard of the Persian myth of Ozamund and Ahriman, the eternal powers of Light and Darkness, said to be co-equal and warring without cessation for the good or ill of mankind. All ancient sun and nature worship—festivals of spring and so on, were only an outward expression of that myth, for Light typifies Health and Wisdom, Growth and Life; while Darkness means Disease and Ignorance, Decay and Death.

‘In its highest sense Light symbolises the growth of the Spirit towards that perfection in which it can throw off the body and become light itself; but the road to perfection is long and arduous, too much to hope for in one short human life, hence the widespread belief in reincarnation; that we are born again and again until we begin to despise the pleasures of the flesh. This doctrine is so old that no man can trace its origin, yet it is the inner core of truth common to all religions at their inception. Consider the teaching of Jesus Christ with that in mind and you will be amazed that you have not realised before the true purport of His message. Did He not say that the “Kingdom of God was within us”, and when He walked upon the waters declared: “These things that I do ye shall do also; and greater things than these shall ye do, for I go unto my Father which is in Heaven”, meaning most certainly that He had achieved perfection but that others had the same power within each one of them to do likewise.’

De Richleau paused for a moment and then went on more slowly. ‘Unfortunately the hours of the night are still equal to the hours of the day, and so the power of Darkness is no less active than when the world was young, and no sooner does a fresh Master appear to reveal the light than ignorance, greed, and lust for power cloud the minds of his followers. The message becomes distorted and the simplicity of the truth submerged and forgotten in the pomp of ceremonies and the meticulous performance of rituals which have lost their meaning. Yet the real truth is never entirely lost, and through the centuries new Masters are continually arising either to proclaim it or, if the time is not propitious, to pass it on in secret to the chosen few.

‘Apollonius of Tyana learned it in the East. The so-called Heretics whom we know as the Albigenses preached it in the twelfth century throughout Southern France until they were exterminated. Christian Rosenkreutz had it in the Middle Ages. It was the innermost secret of the Order of the Templars who were suppressed because of it by the Church of Rome. The Alchemists, too, searched for and practised it. Only the ignorant take literally their struggle to find the Elixir of Life. Behind such phrases, designed to protect them from the persecution of their enemies, they sought Eternal Life, and their efforts to transmute base metals into gold were only symbolical of their transfusion of matter into light. And still today while the night life of London goes on about us there are mystics and adepts who are seeking the Eightfold Way to perfection in many corners of the Earth.’

‘You really believe that?’ asked Rex seriously.

‘I do.’ De Richleau’s answer held no trace of doubt. ‘I give you my word Rex, that I have talked with men whose sanity you would never question, an Englishman, an Italian, and a Hindu, all three of whom have been taken by guides sent to fetch them to the hidden valley in the uplands of Tibet, where some of the Lamas have reached such a high degree of enlightenment that they can prolong their lives at will, and perform today all the miracles which you have read of in the Bible. It is there that the sacred fire of truth has been preserved for centuries, safe from that brutal mercenary folly of our modern world.’

‘That sounds a pretty tall story to me, but granted there are mystics who have achieved such amazing powers through their holiness I still don’t see where your Black Magic comes in?’

‘Let’s not talk of Black Magic, which is associated with the preposterous in our day, but of the order of the Left Hand Path. That, too, has its adepts and, just as the Yoga of Tibet are the preservers of the Way of Light, the Way of Darkness is exemplified in the horrible Voodoo cult which had its origin in Madagascar and has held Africa in its grip for centuries, spreading even with the slave trade to the West Indies and your own country.’

‘Yes, I know quite a piece about that, the Negroes monkey with it still back home in the Southern States, despite their apparent Christianity. Still I can’t think that an educated man like Simon would take serious notice of that Mumbo Jumbo stuff.’

‘Not in its crude form perhaps, but others have cultivated the power of Evil, and among whites it is generally the wealthy and intellectual, who are avaricious for greater riches or power, to whom it appeals. In the Paris of Louis XIV, long after the Middle Ages were forgotten, it was still particularly rampant. The poisoner, La Voisin, was proved to have procured over fifteen hundred children for the infamous Abbe Guibourg to sacrifice at Black Masses. He used to cut their throats, drain the blood into a chalice, and then pour it over the naked body of the inquirer who lay stretched upon the altar. I speak of actual history, Rex, and you can read the records of the trial that followed in which two hundred and forty-six men and women were indicted for these hellish practises.’

‘Maybe. It sounds ghastly enough but that’s a mighty long time ago.’

‘Then, if you need more modern evidence of its continuance hidden in our midst there is the well authenticated case of Prince Borghese. He let his Venetian Palazzo on a long lease, expiring as late as 1895. The tenants had not realised that the lease had run out until he notified them of his intention to resume possession. They protested, but Borghese’s agents forced an entry. What do you think they found?’

‘Lord knows.’ Rex shook his head.

‘That the principal salon had been redecorated at enormous cost and converted into a Satanic Temple. The walls were hung from ceiling to floor with heavy curtains of silk damask, scarlet and black to exclude the light; at the farther end there stretched a large tapestry upon which was woven a colossal figure of Lucifer dominating the whole. Beneath, an altar had been built and amply furnished with the whole liturgy of Hell; black candles, vessels, rituals, nothing was lacking. Cushioned prie-dieus and luxurious chairs, crimson and gold, were set in order for the assistants, and the chamber lit with electricity fantastically arranged so that it should glare through an enormous human eye.’

De Richleau hammered the desk with his clenched fist. ‘These are facts I’m giving you Rex—facts, d’you hear, things I can prove by eye-witnesses still living. Despite our electricity, our aeroplanes, our modern scepticism, the power of Darkness is still a living force, worshipped by depraved human beings for their unholy ends in the great cities of Europe and America to this very day.’

Rex’s face had suddenly paled under its tan. ‘And you really think poor Simon has got mixed up in this beastliness?’

‘I know it man! Could you have been so intrigued with the girl that you did not notice the rest of that foul crew? The Albino, the man with the hare-lip, the Eurasian who only possessed a left arm. They’re Devil Worshippers all of them.’

‘Not the girl! Not Tanith!’ cried Rex, springing to his feet. ‘She must have been drawn into it like Simon.’

‘Perhaps, but the final proof lay in that basket. They were about to practise the age-old sacrifice to their infernal master just as your Voodoo-ridden Negroes do. The slaughter of a black cock and a white hen–— Yes. What is it?’ Richleau swung round as a soft knock came to the door.

‘Excellency.’ His man Max stood bowing in the doorway. ‘I thought I had better bring this to you.’ In his open palm he displayed the jewelled swastika.

With one panther-like spring the Duke thrust him aside and bounded from the room. ‘Simon,’ he shouted as he dashed down the corridor. ‘Simon! I command you to stay still.’ But when he reached the bedroom the only signs that Simon had ever occupied it were the tumbled bed and his underclothes left scattered on the floor.

CHAPTER IV

THE SILENT HOUSE

DE Richleau strode back into the sitting-room. His grey eyes glittered dangerously but his voice was gentle as he picked the jewelled swastika from his servant’s palm. ‘How did you come by this Max?’

‘I removed it from Mr. Aron’s neck, Excellency.’

‘What!’

‘He rang for me Excellency and said that he would like a cup of bouillon and when I returned with it he was sleeping, but so strangely that I was alarmed. His tongue was protruding from between his teeth and his face was nearly black; then I saw that his neck was terribly swollen and that a ribbon was cutting deeply into his flesh. I cut the ribbon, fearing that he would choke—the jewel dropped off, so I brought it straight to you.’

‘All right you may go—and it is unnecessary to wait up—I may be late.’ As the door closed the Duke swung round towards Rex. ‘Simon must have woken the moment Max’s back was turned, pulled on a few clothes, then slipped out of the window and down the fire-escape.’

‘Sure,’ Rex agreed. ‘He’s well on his way back to St. John’s Wood by now.’

‘Come on—we’ll follow. We’ve got to save him from those devils somehow. I don’t know what they’re after but there must be something pretty big and very nasty behind all this. It can’t have been easy to involve a man like Simon to the extent they obviously have, and they would never have gone to all that trouble to recruit an ordinary dabbler in the occult. They are after really big stakes of some kind, and they need him as a pawn in their devilish game.’

‘Think we can beat him to it?’ Rex asked as they ran down the staircase of the block and out into Curzon Street.

‘I doubt it. … Hi, taxi!’ De Richleau waved an arm.

‘He can’t have more than five minutes start.’

‘Too much in a fifteen minutes’ run.’ The Duke’s voice was grim as they climbed into the cab.

‘What d’you figure went amiss?’

‘I don’t know for certain, but there is no doubt that our poor friend is completely under Mocata’s influence—has been for months I expect. In such a case Mocata’s power over him would be far stronger than my own which was only exercised, in the hope of protecting him, for the first time tonight. It was because I feared that Mocata might countermand my orders, even from a distance, and compel Simon to return that I placed the symbol of Light round his neck.’

‘And when Max took it off Mocata got busy on him eh?’

‘I think Mocata was at work before that. He probably witnessed everything that took place in a crystal or through a medium and exerted all his powers to cause Simon’s neck to swell the moment he got into bed, hoping to break the ribbon that held the charm.’

Rex had not yet quite recovered from the shock of learning that so sane a man as De Richleau could seriously believe in all this gibberish about the Occult. He was very far from being convinced himself, but he refrained from airing his scepticism and instead, as the taxi rattled north through Baker Street, he began to consider the practical side of their expedition. There had been eight men at least in Simon’s house when they left it. He glanced towards the Duke. ‘Are you carrying a gun?’

‘No, and if I were it would be useless.’

‘Holy Smoke! You are bats or else I am.’ Rex shrugged his broad shoulders and began to wonder if he was not living through some particularly vivid and horrible dream. Soon he would wake perhaps; sweating a little from the nightmare picture which De Richleau had drawn for him of age-old evil, tireless and vigilant, cloaked from the masses by modern scepticism yet still a potent force stalking the dark ways of the night, conjured into new life by strange delvers into ancient secrets for their unhallowed ends; but wake he must, to the bright, clear day and Simon’s chuckle— over a tankard of Pim’s cup at luncheon—that such fantastic nonsense should centre about him even in a dream. Yet there was Tanith, so strange and wise and beautiful, looking as though she had just stepped out of a painting by some great master of the Italian Renaissance. It was no dream that he had at last actually met and spoken with her that evening at Simon’s house, among all those queer people whom the Duke declared so positively to be Satan worshippers; and if she was flesh and blood they must be too.

On the north side of Lord’s cricket ground, De Richleau stopped the taxi. ‘Better walk the rest of the way,’ he murmured as he paid off the man. ‘Simon’s arrived by now and it would be foolish to warn them of our coming.’

‘Thought you said Mocata was overlooking us with the evil eye?’ Rex replied as they hurried along Circus Road.

‘He may be. I can’t say, but possibly he thinks we would never dare risk a second visit to the house tonight. If we exercise every precaution we may catch him off his guard. He’s just as vulnerable as any other human being except when he is actually employing his special powers.’

Side by side they passed through two streets where the low roofs of the old-fashioned houses were only faintly visible above the walls that kept them immune from the eyes of the curious, each set, silent and vaguely mysterious, among its whispering trees; then they entered the narrow, unlit cul-de-sac.

Treading carefully now, they covered the two hundred yards to its end and halted, gazing up at the darkened mass of the upper stories which loomed above the high wall. Not a chink of light betrayed that the house was tenanted, although they knew that, apart from the servants, thirteen people had congregated there to perform some strange midnight ceremony little over an hour before.

‘Think they’ve cleared out?’ Rex whispered.

‘I doubt it.’ The Duke stepped forward and tried the narrow door. It was fast locked.

‘Can’t we call the police in to raid the place?’

De Richleau shrugged impatiently. ‘What could we charge them with that a modern station-sergeant would understand?’

‘Kidnapping!’ Rex urged below his breath. ‘If I were back home I’d have the strong arm squad here in under half an hour. Get the whole bunch pinched and gaoled pending trial. They’d be out of the way then for a bit, even if I had to pay up heavy damages afterwards—an’ meantime we’d pop Simon in a mental home till he got his wits back.’

‘Rex! Rex!’ The Duke gave a low, delighted chuckle. ‘It’s an enchanting idea, and if we were in the States I really believe we might pull it off—but here it’s impossible.’

‘What do you figure to do then?’

‘Go in and see if Simon has returned.’

‘I’m game, but the odds are pretty heavy.’

‘If we’re caught we must run for it.’

‘O.K., but if we fail to make our getaway they’ll call the police and have us gaoled for housebreaking.’

‘No—no,’ De Richleau muttered. ‘They won’t want to draw the attention of the police to their activities, and the one thing that matters is to get Simon out of here.’

‘All right.’ Rex placed his hands on his knees, and stooping his great shoulders, leaned his head against the wall. ‘Up you go.’ The Duke bent towards him. ‘Listen!’ he whispered. ‘Once we’re inside we’ve got to stick together whatever happens. God knows what they’ve used this house of Simon’s for, but the whole place reeks of evil.’

‘Oh shucks!’ Rex muttered contemptuously. ‘I mean it,’ De Richleau insisted. ‘If you take that attitude I’d rather go in alone. This is the most dangerous business I’ve ever been up against, and if it wasn’t for the thought of Simon nothing on earth would tempt me to go over this wall in the middle of the night.’

‘Oh—all right. Have it your own way.’ ‘You’ll obey me implicitly—every word I say?’

‘Yes, don’t fret yourself––’

‘Good, and remember you are to bolt for it the instant I give the word, because the little knowledge that I possess may only protect us for a very fleeting space of time.’ The Duke clambered on to Rex’s shoulders and heaved himself up on to the coping. Rex stepped back a few yards and took a flying leap; next second he had scrambled up beside De Richleau. For a moment they both sat astride the wall peering down into the shadows of the garden, then they dropped silently into a flower-border on the other side.

‘The first thing is to find a good line of retreat in case we have to get out in a hurry,’ breathed the Duke.

‘What about this?’ Rex whispered back, slapping the trunk of a well-grown laburnum tree.

De Richleau nodded silently. One glance had assured him that with the aid of the lower branches two springs would bring them to the top of the wall. Then he moved at a quick, stealthy run across a small open space of lawn to the shelter of some bushes that ran round the side of the house.

From their new cover Rex surveyed the side windows. No glimmer of light broke the expanse of the rambling old mansion. As the Duke moved on, he followed, until the bushes ended at the entrance of a back yard, evidently giving on to the kitchen quarters.

‘Have a care,’ he whispered, jerking De Richleau’s sleeve. ‘They may have a dog.’

‘They couldn’t,’ replied the Duke positively. ‘Dogs are simple, friendly creatures but highly psychic. The vibrations in a place where Black Magic was practised would cause any dog to bolt for a certainty.’ With light, quick, padding steps he crossed the yard and came out into the garden on the far side of the house.

Here too every window was shrouded in darkness and an uncanny stillness brooded over the place.

‘I don’t like it,’ whispered De Richleau. ‘Simon can’t have been back more than a quarter of an hour at the outside—so there ought still to be lights in the upper rooms. Anyhow, it looks as if the others have gone home, which is something—we must chance an ambush.’

He pointed to a narrow, ground floor window. ‘That’s probably the lavatory, and most people forget to close their lavatory windows—come on !’

Silently Rex followed him across the grass, then gripping him by the knees, heaved him up until he was well above the level of the sill.

The sash creaked, the upper half of the window slid down, and the Duke’s head and shoulders disappeared inside.

For a moment Rex watched his wriggling legs, heard a bump, followed by a muffled oath, and then clambered up on to the sill.

‘Hurt yourself?’ he whispered, as De Richleau’s face appeared, a pale blot in the darkness.

‘Not much—though this sort of thing is not amusing for a man of my age. The door here is unlocked, thank goodness.’

Immediately Rex was inside, the Duke squatted down on the floor. ‘Take off your shoes,’ he ordered. ‘And your socks.’

‘Shoes if you like, though we’ll hurt our feet if we have to run—but why the socks?’

‘Don’t argue — we waste time.’

‘Well — what now?’ Rex muttered after a moment.

‘Put your shoes on again and the socks over them—then you can run as fast as you like.’ As Rex obeyed the Duke went on in a low voice. ‘Not a sound now. I really believe the others have gone, and if Mocata is not lying in wait for us, we may be able to get hold of Simon. If we come up against that black servant, for God’s sake remember not to look at his eyes.’

With infinite care he opened the door and peered out into the darkened hall. A faint light from an upper window showed the double doors that led to the salon standing wide open. He listened intently for a moment, then slipping out stood aside for Rex to follow, and gently closed the door behind him.

Their footsteps, now muffled by the socks, were barely audible as they stole across the stretch of parquet. When they reached the salon De Richleau carefully drew aside a blind. The dim starlight was just sufficient to show the outlines of the gilded furniture, and they could make out the plates and glasses left scattered upon the buhl and marquetry tables.

Rex picked up a goblet two-thirds full of champagne and held it so that the Duke could see the wine still in it.

De Richleau nodded. The Irish Bard, the Albino, the one-armed Eurasian, the hare-lipped man and the rest of that devilish company must have taken fright when he and Rex had forcibly abducted Simon, and fled, abandoning their unholy operations for the night. He gently replaced the blind and they crept back into the hall.

One other door opened off it besides those to the servants’ quarters and the vestibule. De Richleau slowly turned the knob and pressed. The room was a small library, and at the far end a pair of uncurtained french windows showed the garden, ghostly and mysterious in the starlight. Leaving Rex by the door, the Duke tiptoed across the room, drew the bolts, opened the windows and propped them wide. From where he stood he could just make out the laburnum by the wall. A clear retreat was open to them now. He turned, then halted with a sharp intake of breath. Rex had disappeared.

‘Rex!’ he hissed in a loud whisper, gripped by a sudden nameless fear. ‘Rex!’ But there was no reply.

CHAPTER V

EMBODIED EVIL

De Richleau had been involved in so many strange adventures in his long and chequered career, that instinctively his hand flew to the pocket where he kept his automatic at such times, but it was flat—and in a fraction of time it had come back to him that this was no affair of shootings and escapes, but a grim struggle against the Power of Darkness—in which their only protection must be an utter faith in the ultimate triumph of good, and the use of such little power as he possessed to bring into play the great forces of the Power of Light.

In two strides he had reached the door, grabbed the electric switch, and pressed it as he cried in ringing tones : ‘Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis!’

‘What the hell!’ exclaimed Rex as the light flashed on. He was at the far side of the hall, carefully constructing a booby trap of chairs and china in front of the door that led to the servants’ quarters.

‘You’ve done it now,’ he added, with his eyes riveted upon the upper landing, but nothing stirred and the pall of silence descended upon the place again until they could hear each other’s quickened breathing.

‘The house is empty,’ Rex declared after a moment. ‘If there were anyone here they’d have been bound to hear you about. It echoed from the cellars to the attics.’

De Richleau was regarding him with an angry stare. ‘You madman,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you understand what we’re up against? We must not separate for an instant in this unholy place—even now that the lights are on.’

Rex smiled. He had always considered the Duke as the most fearless man he knew, and to see him in such a state of nerves was a revelation. ‘I’m not scared of bogeys, but I am of being shot up from behind,’ he said simply. ‘I was fixing this so we’d hear the servants if there was trouble upstairs and they came up to help Mocata.’

‘Yes, but honestly, Rex, it is imperative that we should keep as near each other as possible every second we remain in this ghastly house. It may sound childish, but I ought to have told you before that if anything queer does happen we must actually hold hands. That will quadruple our resistance to evil by attuning our vibrations towards good. Now let’s go upstairs and see if they have really gone — though I can hardly doubt it.’

Rex followed marvelling. This man who was frightened of shadows and talked of holding hands at a time of danger was so utterly different to the De Richleau that he knew. Yet as he watched the Duke mounting the stairs in swift, panther-like, noiseless strides, he felt that since he was so scared, this midnight visitation was a fresh demonstration of his courage.

On the floor above they made a quick examination of the bedrooms, but all of them were unoccupied and none of the beds had been slept in.

‘Mocata must have sent the rest of them away and been waiting here with a car to whisk Simon off immediately he got back,’ De Richleau declared as they came out of the last room.

‘That’s about it, so we may as well clear out.’ Rex shivered slightly as he added: ‘It’s beastly cold up here.’

‘I was wondering whether you’d notice that, but we’re not going home yet. This is a God-given opportunity to search the house at our leisure. We may discover all sorts of interesting things. Leave all the lights on here, the more the better, and come downstairs.’

In the salon the great buffet table still lay spread with the excellent collation which they had seen there on their first visit. The Duke walked over to it and poured himself a glass of wine. ‘I see Simon has taken to Cliquot again,’ he observed. ‘He alternates between that and Bollinger with remarkable consistency, though in certain years I prefer Pol Roger to either when it has a little age on it.’

As Rex spooned a slab of Duck a la Montmorency on to a plate, helping himself liberally to the foie gras mousse and cherries, he wondered if De Richleau had really recovered from the extraordinary agitation that he had displayed a quarter of an hour before, or if he was talking so casually to cover his secret apprehensions. He hated to admit it even to himself, but there, was something queer about the house, a chill seemed to be spreading up his legs from beneath the heavily-laden table, and the silence was strangely oppressive. Anxious to get on with the business and out of the place now, he said quickly, ‘I don’t give two hoots what he drinks, but where has Mocata gone—and why?’

‘The last question is simple.’ De Richleau set down his glass and drew out the case containing the famous Hoyo de Monterrey’s. ‘There are virtually no laws against the practice of Black Magic in this country now. Only that of 1842, called the Rogues and Vagabonds Act, under which a person may be prosecuted for “pretending or professing to tell Fortunes, by using any subtle Graft, Means or Device!” But since the practitioners of it are universally evil, the Drug Traffic, Blackmail. Criminal Assault and even Murder are often mixed up with it, and for one of those reasons Mocata, having learnt that we were on our way here through his occult powers, feared a brawl might attract the attention of the police to his activities. Evidently he considered discretion the better part of valour on this occasion and temporarily abandoned the place to us—taking Simon with him.’

‘Not very logical—are you?’ Rex commented. ‘One moment it’s you who’re scared that he may do all sorts of strange things to us, and the next you tell me that he’s bolted for fear of being slogged under the jaw.’

‘My dear fellow, I can only theorise. I’m completely in the dark myself. Some of these followers of the Left Hand Path are mere neophytes who can do little more than wish evil in minor matters on people they dislike. Others are adepts and can set in .motion the most violent destructive forces which are not yet even suspected by our modern scientists.

‘If Mocata only occupies a low place in the hierarchy we can deal with him as we would any other crook with little risk of any serious danger to ourselves, but if he is a Master he may be able to strike us blind or dead. Unfortunately I know little enough of this horrible business, only the minor rituals of the Right Hand Path, or White Magic as people call it, which may protect us in an emergency. If only I knew more I might be able to find out where he has taken Simon.’

‘Cheer up—we’ll find him.’ Rex laughed as he set down his plate, but the sound echoed eerily through the deserted house, causing him to glance swiftly over his shoulder in the direction of the still darkened inner room. ‘What’s the next move?’ he asked more soberly.

‘We’ve got to try and find Simon’s papers. If we can, we may be able to get the real names and addresses of some of those people who were here tonight. Let’s try the library first—bring the bottle with you. I’ll take the glasses.’

‘What d’you mean — real names?’ Rex questioned as he followed De Richleau across the hall.

‘Why, you don’t suppose that incredible old woman with the parrot beak was really called Madame D’Urfe—do you? That’s only a nom-du-Diable, taken when she was re-baptised, and adopted from the Countess of that name, who was a notorious witch in Louis XV’s time. All the others are the same. Didn’t you realise the meaning of the name your lovely lady calls herself by— Tanith?’

‘No.’ Rex hesitated. ‘I thought she was just foreigner— that’s all.’

‘Dear me! Well, Tanith was the Moon Goddess of the Carthaginians. Thousands of years earlier the Egyptians called her Isis, and in the intervening stage she was known to the Phoenicians as the Lady Astoroth. They worshipped her in sacred groves where doves were sacrificed and unmentionable scenes of licentiousness took place. The God Adonis was her lover, and the people wept for his mythical death each year, believing upon him as a Redeemer of Mankind. As they went in processions to her shrines they wrought themselves into the wildest frenzy, and to slake the thwarted passion of the widowed goddess, gashed themselves with knives. Sir George Frazer’s “Golden Bough” will tell you all about it, but the blood that was shed still lives, Rex, and she has been thirsty through these Christian centuries for more. Eleven words of power, each having eleven letters, twice pronounced in a fitting time and place after due preparation, and she would stand before you, terrible in her beauty, demanding a new sacrifice.’

Even Rex’s gay modernity was not proof against that sinister declaration. De Richleau’s voice held no trace of the gentle cynicism which was so characteristic of him, but seemed to ring with the positiveness of some horrible secret truth. He shuddered slightly as the Duke began to pull open the drawers of Simon’s desk.

All except one, which was locked, held letter files, and a brief examination of these showed that they contained nothing but accounts, receipts, and correspondence of a normal nature. Rex forced the remaining drawer with a heavy steel paper knife, but it only held cheque book counterfoils and bundles of dividend warrants, so they turned their attention to the long shelves of books. It was possible that Simon might have concealed certain private papers behind his treasured collection of modern first editions, but after ten minutes’ careful search they assured themselves that nothing of interest was hidden at the back of the neat rows of volumes.

Having drawn a blank in the library, they proceeded to the other downstairs rooms, going systematically through every drawer and cabinet, but without result. Then they moved upstairs and tried the bedrooms, yet here again they could discover nothing which might not have been found in any normal house, nor was there any safe in which important documents might have been placed.

During the search De Richleau kept Rex constantly beside him, and Rex was not altogether sorry. Little by little the atmosphere of the place was getting him down, and more than once he had the unpleasant sensation that somebody was watching him covertly from behind, although he told himself that it was pure imagination, due entirely to De Richleau’s evident belief in the supernatural, of which they had been talking all the evening.

‘These people must have left traces of their doings in this house somewhere,’ declared the Duke angrily as they came out of the last bedroom on to the landing, ‘and I’m determined to find them.’

‘We haven’t done the Observatory yet, and I’d say that’s the most likely spot of all,’ Rex suggested.

‘Yes—let’s do that next.’ De Richleau turned towards the upper flight of stairs.

The great domed room was just as they had left it a few hours before. The big telescope pointing in the same direction, the astrolabes and sextants still in the same places. The five-pointed pentacle enclosed in the double circle with its Cabalistic figures stood out white and clear on the polished floor in the glare of the electric lights. Evidently no ceremony had taken place after their departure. To verify his impression the Duke threw up the lid of the wicker hamper that stood beside the wall.

A scraping sound came from the basket, and he nodded. ‘See Rex! The Black Cock and the White Hen destined for sacrifice, but we spoilt their game for tonight at all events. We’ll take them down and free them in the garden when we go.’

‘What did they really mean to do—d’you think?’ Rex asked gravely.

‘Utilise the conjunction of certain stars which occurred at Simon’s birth, and again tonight, to work some invocation through him. To raise some dark familiar perhaps, an elemental or an earthbound spirit—or even some terrible intelligence from what we know as Hell, in order to obtain certain information they require from it.’

‘Oh, nuts!’ Rex exclaimed impatiently. ‘I don’t believe such things. Simon’s been got hold of by a gang of blackmailing kidnappers and hypnotised if you like. They’ve probably used this Black Magic stuff to impose on him just as it imposes on you— but in every other way it’s sheer, preposterous nonsense.’

‘I only hope that you may continue to think so, Rex, but I fear you may have reason to altar your views before we’re through. Let’s continue our search—shall we?’

‘Fine — though I’ve a hunch it’s a pity we didn’t call in the cops at the beginning.’

They examined the instruments, but all of them were beyond suspicion of any secret purpose, and then a square revolving bookcase, but it held only trigonometry tables and charts of the heavens.

‘Damn it, there must be something in this place!’ De Richleau muttered. ‘Swords or cups or devils’ bibles. They couldn’t perform their ritual without them.’

‘Maybe they took their impedimenta with them when they quit.’

‘Perhaps, but I’d like even to see the place in which they kept it. You never know what they may have left behind. Try tapping all round the walls, Rex, and I’ll do the floor. There’s almost certain to be a secret cache somewhere.’

For some minutes they pursued their search in silence, only their repeated knockings breaking the stillness of the empty house. Then Rex gave a sudden joyful shout.

‘Here, quick—it’s hollow under here!’

Together they pulled aside an early seventeenth-century chart of the Macrocosm by Robert Fludd, and after fumbling for a moment found the secret spring. The panel slid back with a click.

In a recess some four feet deep reposed a strange collection of articles : a wand of hazelwood, a crystal set in gold, a torch with a pointed end so that it could be stuck upright in the ground, candlesticks, a short sword, two great books, a dagger with a blade curved like a sickle moon, a ring, a chalice and an old bronze lamp, formed out of twisted human figures, which had nine wicks. All had pentacles, planetary signs, and other strange symbols engraved upon them, and each had the polish which is a sign of great age coupled with frequent usage.

‘Got them!’ snapped the Duke. ‘By Jove, I’m glad we stayed, Rex! These things are incredibly rare, and each a power in itself through association with past mysteries. It is a thousand to one against their having others, and without them their claws will be clipped from working any serious evil against us.’ As he spoke De Richleau lifted out the two ancient volumes. One had a binding of worked copper on which were chased designs and characters. Its leaves, which were made from the bark of young trees, were covered with very clear writing done with an iron point. The text of the other was painted on vellum yellowed by time, and its binding supported by great scrolled silver clasps.

‘Wonderful copies,’ the Duke murmured, with all the enthusiasm of a bibliophile. ‘The Clavicule of Solomon and The Grimoire of Pope Honorius. They are not the muddled recast versions of the seventeenth century either, but far, far older. This Clavicule on cork may be of almost any age, and is to the Black Art what the Codex Sinaiticus and such early versions are to Christianity.’

‘Well, maybe Mocata didn’t figure we’d stay to search this place when we found Simon wasn’t here, but it doesn’t say much for all his clairvoyant powers you make such a song about for him to let us get away with his whole magician’s box of tricks. Say! where’s that draught coming from?’ Rex suddenly clapped a hand on the back of his neck.

The Duke thrust the two books back and swung round as if he had been stung. He had felt it at the same instant—a sudden chill wind which increased to a rushing icy blast, so cold that it stung his hands and face like burning fire. The electric lights flickered and went dim, so that only the faint red glow of the wires showed in the globes. The great room was plunged in shadow and a violet mist began to rise out of the middle of the pentacle, swirling with incredible rapidity like some dust devil of the desert. It gathered height and bulk, spread and took form.

The lights flickered again and then went out, but the violet mist had a queer phosphorescent glow of its own. By it they could see the cabalistic characters between the circles that ringed the pentacle, and the revolving bookcase, like a dark shadow beyond it, through the luminous mist. An awful stench of decay which yet had something sweet and cloying about it, filled their nostrils as they gazed, sick and almost retching with repulsion, at a grey face that was taking shape about seven feet from the floor. The eyes were fixed upon them, malicious and intent. The eyeballs whitened but the face went dark. Under it the mist was gathering into shoulders, torso, hips.

Before they could choke for breath the materialisation had completed. Clad in flowing robes of white, Mocata’s black servant towered above them. His astral body was just as the Duke had seen in the flesh, from tip to toe a full six foot eight, and the eyes, slanting inward, burned upon them like live coals of fire.

CHAPTER VI

THE SECRET ART

Rex was not frightened in the ordinary meaning of the word. He was past the state in which he could have ducked, or screamed, or run. He stood there rigid, numbed by the icy chill that radiated from the figure in the pentagram, a tiny pulse throbbed in his forehead, and his knees seemed to grow weak beneath him. A clear, silvery voice beat in his ears: ‘Do not look at his eyes!— do not look at his eyes!—do not look at his eyes!’ — An urgent repetition of De Richleau’s warning to him, but try as he would, he could not drag his gaze from the malignant yellow pupils which burned in the black face.

Unable to stir hand or foot, he watched the ab-human figure grow in breadth and height, its white draperies billowing with a strange silent motion as they rose from the violet mist that obscured the feet, until overflowed the circles that ringed the pentagram and seemed to fill the lofty chamber like a veritable Djin. The room reeked with the sickly, cloying stench which he had heard of but never thought to know—the abominable effluvium of embodied evil.

Suddenly red rays began to glint from the baleful slanting eyes, and Rex found himself quivering from head to foot. He tried desperately to pray : ‘Our Father which art in Heaven— hallowed—hallowed—hallowed …’ but the words which he had not used for so long would not come; the vibrations, surging through his body, as though he were holding the terminals of a powerful electric battery, seemed to cut them off. His left knee began to jerk. His foot lifted. He strove to raise his arms to cover his face, but they remained fixed to his sides as though held by invisible steel bands. He tried to cry out, to throw himself backwards, but, despite every atom of will which he could muster, a relentless force was drawing him towards the silent, menacing figure. Almost before he realised it he had taken a pace forward.

Through the timeless intervals of seconds, days or weeks, after the violet mist first appeared, De Richleau stood within a foot of Rex, his eyes riveted upon the ground. He would not even allow himself to ascertain in what form the apparition had taken shape. The sudden deathly cold, the flicker of the lights as the room was plunged in darkness, the noisome odour, were enough to tell him that an entity of supreme evil was abroad.

With racing thoughts, he cursed his foolhardiness in ever entering the accursed house without doing all things proper for their protection. It was so many years since he had had any dealings with the occult that his acute anxiety for Simon had caused him to minimise the appalling risk they would run. What folly could have possessed him, he wondered miserably, to allow Rex, whose ignorance and scepticism would make him doubly vulnerable, to accompany him. Despite his advancing age, the Duke would have given five precious years of his life for an assurance that Rex was staring at the parquet floor, momentarily riveted by fear perhaps, yet still free from the malevolent influence which was steaming in pulsing waves from the circle; but Rex was not—instinctively De Richleau knew that his eyes were fixed on the Thing—and a ghastly dread caused little beads of icy perspiration to break out on his forehead.

Then he felt, rather than saw, Rex move. Next second he heard his footfall and knew that he was walking towards the pentagram. Persian, Greek and Hebrew, dimly remembered from his studies of the past—calling—calling—urgently—imperatively, upon the Power of Light for guidance and protection. Almost instantly the memory that he had slipped the jewelled Swastika into his waistcoat pocket when Max returned it, flashed into his mind— and he knew that his prayer was answered. His fingers closed on the jewel. His arms shot out. It glittered for a second in the violet light, then came to rest in the centre of the circle.

A piercing scream, desperate with anger, fear, and pain, like that of a beast seared with a white-hot iron, blasted the silence. The lights flickered again so that the wires showed red—came on —went out—and flickered once more, as though two mighty forces were struggling for possession of the current.

The chill wind died so suddenly that it seemed as if a blanket of warm air had descended on their faces—but even while that hideous screech was still ringing through the chamber De Richleau grabbed Rex by the arm and dragged him towards the door. Next second the control of both had snapped and they were plunging down the stairs with an utter recklessness born of sheer terror.

Rex slipped on the lower landing and sprawled down the last flight on his back. The Duke came bounding after, six stairs at a time, and fell beside him. Together they scrambled to their feet —dashed through the library—out of the french windows—and across the lawn.

With the agility of lemurs they swung up the branches of the laburnum—on to the wall—and dropped to the far side. Then they pelted down the lane as fast as their legs could carry them, and on until a full street away they paused, breathless and panting, to face each other under the friendly glow of a street lamp.

De Richleau’s breath came in choking gasps. It was years since he had subjected himself to such physical exertion, and his face was grey from the strain which it had put upon him. Rex found his evening collar limp from the sweat which had steamed from him in his terror, but his lungs were easing rapidly, and he was the first to recover.

‘God! We’re mighty lucky to be out of that!’

The Duke nodded, still unable to speak.

‘I take back every word I said,’ Rex went on hurriedly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been real scared of anything in my life before— but that was hellish!’

‘I panicked too—towards the end—couldn’t help it, but I should never have taken you into that place—never,’ De Richleau muttered repentantly as they set off down the street.

‘Since we’ve got out safe it’s all to the good. I’ve a real idea what we’re up against now.’

The Duke drew Rex’s arm through his own with a friendly gesture. Far from desiring to say “I told you so!” he was regretting that he had been so impatient with Rex’s previous unbelief. Most people he knew regarded devil worship and the cultivation of mystic powers as sheer superstitions due to the ignorance of the Middle Ages. It had been too much to expect Rex to accept his contention that their sane and sober friend Simon was mixed up in such practices, but now he had actually witnessed a true instance of Saiitii De Richleau felt that his co-operation would be ten times as valuable as before.

In the St. John’s Wood Road they picked up a belated taxi, and on the way to Curzon Street he questioned Rex carefully as to the form the Thing had taken. When he had heard the description he nodded. ‘It was Mocata’s black servant, undoubtedly.’

‘What did you say he was?’

‘A Malagasy. They are a strange people. Half-Negro and half-Polynesian. A great migration took place many centuries ago from the South Seas to the East African Coast by way of the Malay Peninsula and Ceylon. Incredible though it may seem, they covered fifteen thousand miles of open ocean in their canoes, and most of them settled in Madagascar, where they intermarried with the aborigines and produced this half-breed type, which often has the worst characteristics of both races.’

‘And Madagascar is the home of Voodoo—isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Perhaps he is a Witch doctor himself … and yet I wonder… .’ The Duke broke off as the taxi drew up before Errol House.

As they entered the big library Rex glanced at the clock and saw that it was a little after three. Not a particularly late hour for him, since he often danced until the night clubs emptied, nor for De Richleau, who believed that the one time when men opened their minds and conversation became really interesting was in the quiet hours before the dawn. Yet both were so exhausted by their ordeal that they felt as though a month had passed since they sat down to dinner.

Rex remade the remnants of the fire while the Duke mixed the drinks and uncovered the sandwiches which Max always left for him. Then they both sank into armchairs and renewed the discussion, for despite their weariness, neither had any thought of bed. The peril in which Simon stood was far too urgent.

‘You were postulating that he might be a Madagascar Witch doctor,’ Rex began. ‘But I’ve a hunch I’ve read some place that such fellows have no power over whites, and surely that is so, else how could settlers in Africa and places keep the blacks under?’

‘Broadly speaking, you are right, and the explanation is simple. What we call Magic—Black or White—is the Science and Art of Causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. Any required Change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner and through the proper medium. Naturally, for causing any Change it is requisite to have the practical ability to set the necessary Forces in right motion, but it is even more important to have a thorough qualitative and quantitative understanding of the conditions. Very few white men can really get inside a Negro’s mind and know exactly what he is thinking—and even fewer blacks can appreciate a white’s mentality. In consequence, it is infinitely harder for the Wills of either to work on the other than on men of their own kind.

‘Another factor which adds to the difficulty of a Negroid or Mongolian Sorcerer working his spells upon a European is the question of vibrations. Their variation in human beings is governed largely by the part of the earth’s surface in which birth took place. To use a simple analogy, some races have long wave lengths and others short—and the greater the variation the more difficult it is for a malignant will to influence that of an intended victim. Were it otherwise, you may be certain that the white races, who have neglected spiritual growth for material achievement, would never have come to dominate the world as they do today.’

‘Yet that devil of Mocata’s got me down all right. Ugh!’ Rex shuddered slightly at the recollection.

‘True—but I was only speaking generally. There are exceptions, and in the highest grades—the Ipsissimus, the Magus and the Magister Templi—those who have passed the Abyss, colour and race no longer remain a bar, so such Masters can work their will upon any lesser human unless he is protected by a power of equal strength. This associate of Mocata’s may be one of the great Adepts of the Left Hand Path. However, what I was really wondering was—is he a human being at all?’

‘But you said you saw him yourself—when you paid a call on Simon weeks back.’

‘I thought I saw him—so at first I assumed that the Thing you saw tonight was his astral body, sent by Mocata to prevent our removing his collection of Devil’s baubles; but perhaps what we both saw was a disembodied entity, an actual Satanic power which is not governed by Mocata, but has gained entry to our world from the other side through his evil practices.’

‘Oh Lord!’ Rex groaned. ‘All this stuff is so new, so fantastic, so utterly impossible to me—I just can’t grasp it; though don’t think I’m doubting now. Whether it was an astral body or what you say, I saw it all right, and it wasn’t a case of any stupid parlour tricks—I’ll swear to that. It was so evil that my bones just turned to water on me in sheer blue funk—and there’s poor Simon all mixed up in this. Say, now—what the hell are we to do?’

De Richleau sat forward suddenly. ‘I wish to God I knew what was at the bottom of this business. I am certain that it is something pretty foul for them to have gone to the lengths of getting hold of a normal man like Simon but, if it is the last thing we ever do, we’ve got to find him and get him away from these people.’

‘But how?’ Rex flung wide his arms. ‘Where can we even start in on the hope of picking up the trail ? Simon’s a lone wolf— always has been. He’s got no father; his mother lives abroad; unlike so many Jews, he hasn’t even got a heap of relatives who we can dig out and question?’

‘Yes that is the trouble. Of course he is almost certain to be with Mocata, but I don’t see how we are to set about finding somebody who knows Mocata either. If only we had the address of any of those people who were there this evening we might––’

‘I’ve got it!’ cried Rex, leaping to his feet. ‘We’ll trace him through Tanith.’

CHAPTER VII

DE RICHLEAU PLANS A CAMPAIGN

‘Tanith,’ the Duke repeated; ‘but you don’t know where she is, do you?’

‘Sure.’ Rex laughed, for the first time in several hours. ‘Having got acquainted with her after all this while, I wouldn’t be such a fool as to quit that party without nailing her address.’

‘I must confess that I’m surprised she gave it to you.’

‘She hadn’t fallen to it that I wasn’t one of their bunch—then! She’s staying at Claridges.’

‘Do you think you can get hold of her?’

‘Don’t you worry—I meant to, anyhow.’

‘You must be careful, Rex. This woman is very lovely, I know —but she’s probably damnably dangerous.’

‘I’ve never been scared of a female yet, and surely these people can’t do me much harm in broad daylight?’

‘No, except for ordinary human trickery, they are almost powerless between sunrise and sunset.’

‘Fine. Then I’ll go right round to Claridges as soon as she is likely to be awake tomorrow—today, rather.’

‘You don’t know her real name though, do you?’

‘I should worry. There aren’t two girls like her staying at Claridges—there aren’t two like her in all London.’

De Richleau stood up and began to pace the floor like some huge cat. ‘What do you intend to say to her?’ he asked at length.

‘Why, that we’re just worried stiff about Simon—and that it’s absolutely imperative that she should help us out. I’ll give her a frank undertaking not to do anything against Mocata or any of her pals if she’ll come clean with me—though Heaven knows I can’t think she’s got any real friends in a crowd like that.’

‘Rex! Rex!’ The Duke smiled affectionately down into the honest, attractive, ugly face of the young giant stretched in the armchair. ‘And what, may I ask, do you intend to do should this lovely lady refuse to tell you anything?’

‘I can threaten to call in the cops, I suppose, though I’d just hate to do anything like that to her.’

De Richleau gave his eloquent expressive shrug. ‘My dear fellow, unless we can get some actual evidence of ordinary criminal activities against Mocata and his friends, the police are absolutely ruled out of this affair—and she would know it.’

‘I don’t see why,’ Rex protested stubbornly. ‘These people have kidnapped Simon, that’s what it boils down to, and that’s as much a crime as running a dope joint or white slaving.’

‘Perhaps, and if they had hit him on the head our problem would be easy. The difficulty is that to all outward appearances he has joined them willingly and in his right mind. Only we know that he is acting under some powerful and evil influence which has been brought to bear on him, and how in the world are you going to charge anyone with raising the devil—or its equivalent —in a modern police court?’

‘Well, what do you suggest?’

‘Listen.’ The Duke perched himself on the arm of Rex’s chair. ‘Even if this girl is an innocent party, like Simon, she will not tell you anything willingly—she will be too frightened. As a matter of fact, now that she knows you are not a member of their infernal circle it is doubtful if she will even see you, but if she does—well, you’ve got to get hold of her somehow.’

‘I’ll certainly have a try—-but it’s not all that easy to kidnap people in a city like London.’

‘I don’t mean that exactly, but rather that you should induce her, by fair means or foul, to accompany you to some place where I can talk to her at my leisure. If she is only a neophyte I know enough of this dangerous business to frighten her out of her wits. If she is something more there will be a mental tussle, and I may learn something from the cards which she is forced to throw on the table.’

‘O.K. I’ll pull every gun I know to persuade her into coming here with me for a cocktail.’

De Richleau shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid that won’t do. Immediately she realised the reason she had been brought here she would insist on leaving, and we couldn’t stop her. If we tried she would break a window and yell Murder ! We have got to get her to a place where she will see at once the futility of trying to call for outside help. I have it! Do you think you could get her down to Pangbourne?’

‘What? To that river place of yours?’

‘Yes; I haven’t been down there yet this year, but I can send Max down first thing in the morning to open it up and give it an airing.’

‘You talk as though it were like falling off a log to get a girl to come boating on the Thames at what’s practically a first meeting — can’t you weigh in and lend a hand yourself?’

‘No. I shall be at the British Museum most of the day. It is so many years since I studied the occult that there are a thousand things I have forgotten. It is absolutely imperative that I should immerse myself in some of the old key works for a few hours and rub up my knowledge of protective measures. I must leave you to handle the girl, Rex, and remember, Simon’s safety will depend almost wholly on your success. Get her there somehow, and I’ll join you in the late afternoon—say about six.’

Rex grinned. ‘It’s about as stiff a proposition as sending me in your place to study the Cabbala, but I’ll do my best.’

‘Of course you will.’ The Duke began to pace hurriedly up and down again. ‘But go gently with her—I beg you. Avoid any questions about this horrible business as you would the plague. Play the lover. Be just the nice young man who has fallen in love with a beautiful girl. If she asks you about our having abducted Simon from the party, say you were completely in the dark about it. That you have known me for years—and that I sprung some story on you about his having fallen into the hands of a gang of blackmailers, so you just blindly followed my lead without a second thought. Not a word to her about the supernatural—you know nothing of that. You must be as incredulous as you were with me when I first talked to you of it. And, above all, if you can get her to Pangbourne, don’t let her know that I am coming down.’

‘Surely—I get the line you want me to play all right.’

‘Good. You see, if I can only squeeze some information out of her which will enable us to find out where Mocata is living, we will go down and keep the place under observation for a day or two. He is almost certain to have Simon with him. We will note the times that Mocata leaves the house and plan our raid accordingly. If we can get Simon into our hands again I swear Mocata shan’t get him back a second time.’

‘That’s certainly the idea.’

‘There is only one thing I am really frightened of.’

‘What’s that?’

De Richleau paused opposite Rex’s chair. ‘What I heard this evening of Simon’s approaching change of name—to Abraham, you remember. That, of course, would be after Abraham the Jew, a very famous and learned mystic of the early centuries. He wrote

a book which is said to be the most informative ever compiled concerning the Great Work. It was lost sight of for several hundred years, but early in the fifteenth century came into the possession of a Parisian bookseller named Nicolas Flamel who, by its aid, performed many curious rites. Flamel was buried in some magnificence, and a few years later certain persons who were anxious to obtain his secrets opened his grave to find the book which was supposed to have been buried with him. Neither Flamel nor the book was there, and there is even some evidence to show that he was still living a hundred years later in Turkey, which is by no means unbelievable to those who have any real knowledge of the strange powers acquired by the true initiate such as those in the higher orders of the Yoga sects. That is the last we know of the Book of Abraham the Jew, but it seems that Simon is about to take his name in the service of the Invisible.’

‘Well—what’ll happen then?’

‘That he will be given over entirely to the Power of Evil, because he will renounce “his early teaching and receive his re-baptism at the hands of a high adept of the Left Hand Path. Until that is done we can still save him, because all the invisible powers of Good will be fighting on our side, but after—they will withdraw, and what we call the Soul of Simon Aron will be dragged down into the Pit.’

‘Are you sure of that? Baptism into the Christian Faith doesn’t ensure one going to Heaven, why should this other sprinkling be a guarantee of anyone going to Hell?’

‘It’s such a big question, Rex, but briefly it is like this. Heaven and Hell are only symbolical of growth to Light or disintegration to Darkness. By Christian—or any other true religious baptism, we renounce the Devil and all his Works, thereby erecting a barrier which it is difficult for Evil forces to surmount, but anyone who accepts Satanic baptism does exactly the reverse. They wilfully destroy the barrier of astral Light which is our natural protection and offer themselves as a medium through which the powers of Darkness may operate on mankind.

‘They are tempted to it, of course, by the belief that it will give them supernatural powers over their fellow-men, but few of them realise the appalling danger. There is no such person as the Devil, but there are vast numbers of Earthbound spirits, Elementals, and Evil Intelligences of the Outer Circle floating in our midst. Nobody who has even the most elementary knowledge of the Occult can doubt that. They are blind and ignorant, and except for the last, under comparatively rare circumstances, not in the least dangerous to any normal man or woman who leads a reasonably upright life, but they never cease to search in a fumbling way for some gateway back into existence as we know it. The surrender of one’s own volition gives it to them, and, if you need an example, you only have to think of the many terrible crimes which are perpetuated when reason and will are entirely absent owing to excess of alcohol. An Elemental seizes upon the unresisting intelligence of the human and forces them to some appalling deed which is utterly against their natural instincts.

‘That, then, is the danger. While apparently only passing through an ancient, barbarous and disgusting ritual, the Satanist, by accepting baptism, surrenders his will to the domination of powers which he believes he will be able to use for his own ends, but in actual fact he becomes the spiritual slave of an Elemental, and for ever after is nothing but the instrument of its evil purposes.’

‘When do you figure they’ll try to do this thing?’

‘Not for a week or so, I trust. It is essential that it should take place at a real Sabbat, when at least one Coven of thirteen is present, and after our having broken up their gathering tonight I hardly think they will risk meeting again for some little time, unless there is some extraordinary reason why they should.’

‘That gives us a breathing space then; but what’s worrying me is that it’s so early in the year to ask a young woman to go picnicking on the river.’

‘Why? The sunshine for the last few days has been magnificent.’

‘Still, it’s only April 29th—the 30th, I mean.’

‘What!’ De Richleau stood there with a new and terrible anxiety burning in his eyes. ‘Good God! I never realised!’

‘What’s the trouble?’

‘Why, that was only one Coven we saw tonight, and there are probably a dozen scattered over England. The whole pack are probably on their way by now to the great annual gathering. It’s a certainty they will take Simon with them. They’d never miss the chance of giving him his devil’s Christening at the Grand Sabbat of the year.’

‘What in the world are you talking about?’ Rex hoisted himself swiftly out of his chair.

‘Don’t you understand, man?’ De Richleau gripped him by the shoulder. ‘On the last night of April every peasant in Europe still double-locks his doors. Every latent force of Evil in the world is abroad. We’ve got to get hold of Simon in the next twenty hours. This coming night—April 30th—is Saint Walburga’s Eve.’

CHAPTER VIII

REX VAN RYN OPENS THE ATTACK

Six hours later, Rex, still drowsy with sleep, lowered himself into the Duke’s sunken bath. It was a very handsome bathroom some fifteen feet by twelve; black glass, crystal mirrors, and chromium-plated fittings made up the scheme of decoration.

Some people might have considered it a little too striking to be in perfect taste, but De Richleau did not subscribe to the canon which has branded ostentation as vulgarity in the last few generations, and robbed nobility of any glamour which it may have possessed in more spacious days.

His forbears had ridden with thirty-two footmen before them, and it caused him considerable regret that modern conditions made it impossible for him to drive in his Hispano with no more than one seated beside his chauffeur on the box. Fortunately his resources were considerable and his brain sufficiently astute to make good, in most years, the inroads which the tax gatherers made upon them. ‘After him,’ of course ‘the Deluge’ as he very fully recognised, but with reasonable good fortune he considered that private ownership would last out his time, at least in England where he had made his home; and so he continued to do all things on a scale suitable to a De Richleau, with the additional lavishness of one who had had a Russian mother, as far as the restrictions of twentieth-century democracy would allow.

Rex, however, had used the Duke’s Ł1,000 bathroom a number of times before, and his only concern at the moment was to wonder vaguely what he was doing there on this occasion and why he had such an appalling hangover. Never, since he had been given two glasses of bad liquor in the old days when his country laboured under prohibition, had he felt so desperately ill.

A giant sponge placed on the top of his curly head brought him temporary relief and full consciousness of the events which had taken place the night before. Of course it was that ghastly experience he had been through in Simon’s empty house that had sapped him of his vitality and left him in this wretched state. He remembered that he had kept up all right until they got back to Curzon Street, and even after, during a long conversation with the Duke; then, he supposed, he must have petered out from sheer nervous exhaustion.

He lay back in the warm, faintly scented water, and gave himself a mental shaking. The thought that he must have fainted shocked him profoundly. He had driven racing cars at 200 miles an hour, had his colours for the Cresta run, had flown a plane 1,500 miles, right out of the Forbidden Territory down to Kiev in one hop. He had shot men and been shot at in return both in Russia and in Cuba, where he had found himself mixed up with the Revolution, but never before had he been in a real funk about anything, much less collapsed like a spineless fool.

He recalled with sickening vividness that loathsome, striking manifestation of embodied evil that had come upon them—and his thoughts flew to Simon. How could their shy, nervous, charming friend have got himself mixed up in all this devilry. For Rex had no doubts now that, incredible as it might seem, the Duke was right, and Satan worship still a living force in modern cities, just as the infernal Voodoo cult was still secretly practised by the Negroes in the Southern States of his own country. He thought again of their first visit to Simon’s house as unwelcome guests at that strange party. Of the Albino, the old Countess D’Urfe, the sinister Chinaman, and then of Tanith, except for Simon the only normal person present, and felt convinced that, but for the intervention of De Richleau some abominable ceremony would certainly have taken place, although he had laughed at the suggestion at the time.

Sitting up he began to soap himself vigorously while he restated the situation briefly in his mind. One: Mocata was an adept of what De Richleau called the Left Hand Path, and for some reason unknown he had gained control over Simon. Two: owing to their intervention the Satanists had abandoned Simon’s house —taking him with them. Three: Simon was shortly to be baptised into the Black Brotherhood, after which, according to the Duke, he would be past all help. Four: today was May Day Eve when, again according to the Duke, the Grand Sabbat of the year took place. Five: following from four, it was almost a certainty that Mocata would seize this opportunity of the Walpurgis Nacht celebrations to have Simon re-christened. Six: in the next twelve hours therefore, Mocata had to be traced and Simon taken from him. Seven : the only possibility of getting on Mocata’s trail lay in obtaining information by prayers, cajolery, or threats from Tanith.

Rex stopped soaping and groaned aloud at the thought that the one woman he had been wanting to meet for years should be mixed up in this revolting business. He loathed deception in any form and resented intensely the necessity for practising it on her, but De Richleau’s last instructions to him were still clear in his mind, and the one thing which stood out above all others, was the fact of his old and dear friend being in some intangible but terrible peril.

Feeling slightly better by the time he had shaved and dressed, he noted from the windows of the flat that at least they had been blessed with a glorious day. Summer was in the air and there seemed a promise of that lovely fortnight which sometimes graces England in early May.

To his surprise he found that De Richleau, who habitually was not visible before twelve, had left the flat at half-past eight. Evidently he meant to put in a long day among the ancient manuscripts at the British Museum, rubbing up his knowledge of strange cults and protective measures against what he termed the Ab-human monsters of the Outer Circle.

Max proffered breakfast, but Rex declined it until, with a hurt expression, the servant produced his favourite omelette.

‘The chef will be so disappointed, sir,’ he said.

Reluctantly Rex sat down to eat while Max, busy with the coffee-pot, permitted himself a hidden smile. He had had orders from the Duke, and His Excellency was a wily man. None knew that better than his personal servitor, the faithful Max.

Noting that Rex had finished, he produced a wine-glass full of some frothy mixture on a salver. ‘His Excellency said, sir,’ he stated blandly, ‘that he finds this uncommon good for his neuralgia. I was distressed to hear that you are sometimes a sufferer too, and if you’d try it the taste is, if I may say so, not unpleasant—somewhat resembling that of granadillas I believe.’

With a suspicious look Rex drank the quite palatable potion while Max added suavely: ‘Some gentlemen prefer prairie-oysters I am told, but I’ve a feeling, sir, that His Excellency knows best.’

‘You old humbug.’ Rex grinned as he replaced the glass. ‘Anyhow last night wasn’t the sort of party you think—I wish to God it had been.’

‘No, sir! Well, that’s most regrettable I’m sure, but I had a feeling that Mr. Aron was not quite in his usual form, if I may so express it—when he—er—joined us after dinner.’

‘Yes—of course you put Simon to bed—I’d forgotten that.’

Max quietly lowered his eyes. He was quite certain that his innocent action the night before had been connected in some way with Simon Aron’s sudden disappearance from the bedroom later, and felt that for once he had done the wrong thing, so he deftly turned the conversation. ‘His Excellency instructed me to tell you, sir, that the touring Rolls is entirely at your disposal and the second chauffeur if you wish to use him.’

‘No — I’ll drive myself; have it brought round right away — will you?’

‘Very good, sir, and now if you will excuse me I must leave at once in order to get down to Pangbourne and prepare the house for your reception.’

‘O.K., Max… . See-yer-later—I hope.’ Rex picked up a cigarette. He was feeling better already. ‘A whole heap better,’ he thought, as he wondered what potent corpse-reviver lay hidden in the creamy depths of De Richleau’s so-called neuralgia tonic. Then he sat down to plan out his line of attack on the lady at Claridges.

If he could only talk to her he felt that he would be able to intrigue her into a friendly attitude. He could, of course, easily find out her real name from the bureau of the hotel, but the snag was that if he sent up his name and asked to see her the chances were all against her granting him an interview. After all, by kidnapping Simon, he and the Duke had wrecked the meeting of her Circle the night before, and if she was at all intimately associated with Mocata, she probably regarded him with considerable hostility. Only personal contact could overcome that, so he must not risk any rebuff through the medium of bell-hops, but accept it only if given by her after he had managed to see her face to face.

His plan, therefore, eventually boiled down to marching on Claridges, planting himself in a comfortable chair within view of the lifts and sitting there until Tanith made her appearance. He admitted to himself that his proposed campaign was conspicuously lacking in brilliance but, he argued, few women staying in a London hotel would remain in their rooms all day, so if he sat there long enough it was almost certain that an opportunity would occur for him to tackle her direct. If she did turn him down —well, De Richleau wasn’t the only person in the world who had ideas—and Rex flattered himself that he would think of something.

Immediately the Rolls was reported at the door, he left the flat and drove round to Claridges in it. A short conversation with a friendly commissionaire ensured that there would be no trouble if the car was left parked outside, even for a considerable time, for Rex thought it necessary to have it close at hand since he might need it at any moment.

As he entered the hotel from the Davies Street entrance he noted with relief that it was only a little after ten. It was unlikely that Tanith would have gone out for the day so early, and he settled himself to wait for an indefinite period with cheerful optimism in the almost empty lounge. After a moment it occurred to him that somebody might come up to him and inquire his business if he was forced to stay there for any length of time, but an underporter, passing at the moment, gave him a swift smile and little bow of recognition, so he trusted that having been identified as an occasional client of the place he would not be unduly molested.

He began to consider what words he should use if, and when, Tanith did step out of the lifts, and had just decided on a formula which contained the requisite proportions of respect, subtle admiration, and gaiety when a small boy in buttons came marching with a carefree swing down the corridor.

‘Mister Vine Rine—Mister Vine Rine,’ he chanted in a monotonous treble.

Rex looked at the boy suspiciously. The sound had a queer resemblance to the parody of his own name as he had often heard it shrilled out by bell-hops in clubs and hotel lounges. Yet no one could possibly be aware of his presence at Claridges that morning—except, of course, the Duke. At the thought that De Richleau might be endeavouring to get in touch with him for some urgent reason he turned, and at the same moment the page side-tracked towards him.

‘Mr. Van Ryn, sir?’ he inquired, dropping into normal speech.

‘Yes,’ Rex nodded.

Then to his utter astonishment the boy announced : ‘The lady you’ve called to see sent down to say she’s sorry to keep you waiting, but she’ll join you in about fifteen minutes.’

With his mouth slightly open Rex stared stupidly at the page until that infant turned and strutted away. He did not doubt that the message came from Tanith—who else could have sent it, yet how the deuce did she know that he was there ? Perhaps she had seen him drive up from her window—that seemed the only reasonable explanation. Anyhow that ‘she was sorry to keep him waiting’ sounded almost too good to be true.

Recovering a little he stood up, marched out into Brook Street and purchased a great sheaf of lilac from a florist’s a few doors down. Returning with it to the hotel he suddenly realised that he still did not know Tanith’s real name, but catching sight of the boy who had paged him, he beckoned him over.

‘Here boy—take these up to the lady’s room with Mr. Van Ryn’s compliments.’ Then he resumed his seat near the lift with happy confidence.

Five minutes later the lift gates opened. An elderly woman leaning upon a tall ebony cane stepped out. At the first glance Rex recognised the parrot-beaked nose, the nut-cracker chin and the piercing black eyes of the old Countess D’Urfe. Before he had time to collect his wits she had advanced upon him and extended a plump, beringed hand.

‘Monsieur Van Ryn,’ she croaked. ‘It is charming that you should call upon me—sank you a thousand times for those lovely flowers.’

CHAPTER IX

THE COUNTESS D’URFE TALKS OF MANY CURIOUS THINGS

‘Ha! Ha!—not a bit of it—it’s great to see you again.’

Rex gave a weak imitation of a laugh. He had only spoken to the old crone for two minutes on the previous evening and that, when he had first arrived at Simon’s party, for the purpose of detaching Tanith from her. Even if she had seen him drive up to Claridges what in the world could have made her imagine that he had come to visit her. If only he hadn’t sent up that lilac he might have politely excused himself—but he could hardly tell her now that he had meant it for someone else.

‘And how is Monsieur le Duc this morning?’ the old lady inquired, sinking into a chair he placed for her.

‘He asked me to present his homage, Madame,’ Rex lied quickly, instinctively picking a phrase which De Richleau might have used himself.

‘Ca, e’est tres gentille. ‘E is a charming man—charming an’ ‘is cigars they are superb.’ The Countess D’Urfe produced a square case from her bag and drew out a fat, dark Havana. As Rex applied a match she went on slowly : ‘But it ees not right that one Circle should make interference with the operations of another. What ‘ave you to say of your be’aviour lars’ night my young frien’?’

‘My hat,’ thought Rex, ‘the old beldame fancies we’re an opposing faction in the same line of business—‘I’ll have to use this if I can’; so he answered slowly : ‘We are mighty sorry to have to do what we did, but we needed Simon Aron for our own purposes.’

‘So!—you also make a search for the Talisman then?’

‘Sure—that is, the Duke’s taking a big interest in it.’

‘Which of us are not—and ‘oo but le petit Juif shall lead us to it.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Ave you yet attempted the Rite to Saturn?’

‘Yes, but things didn’t pan out quite as we thought they would,’ Rex replied cautiously, not having the faintest idea what they were talking about.

‘You ‘ave satisfy yourselves that the aloes and mastic were fresh, eh?’ The wicked old eyes bored into his.

‘Yes, I’m certain of that,’ he assured her.

‘You choose a time when the planet was in the ‘ouse of Capricorn, of course?’

‘Oh, surely!’

‘An’ you ‘ave not neglect to make Libation to Our Lady Babalon before ‘and?’

‘Oh, no, we wouldn’t do that!’

‘Then per’aps your periods of silence were not long enough?’

‘Maybe that’s so,’ he admitted hurriedly, hoping to close this madhatter’s conversation before he completely put his foot into it.

Countess D’Urfe nodded, then after drawing thoughtfully at her cigar she looked at him intently. ‘Silence,’ she murmured. ‘Silence, that ees always essential in the Ritual of Saturn—but you ‘ave much courage to thwart Mocata—‘e is powerful, that one.’

‘Oh, we’re not afraid of him,’ Rex declared and, recalling the highest grade of operator from his conversation with De Richleau, he added: ‘You see the Duke knows all about this thing—he’s an Ipsissimus.’

The old lady’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets at this announcement, and Rex feared that he had gone too far, but she leaned forward and placed one of her jewelled claws upon his arm. ‘An Ipsissimus!—an’ I ‘ave studied the Great Work for forty years, yet I ‘ave reached only the degree of Practicus. But no, ‘e cannot be, or ‘ow could ‘e fail with the Rite to Saturn?’

‘I only said that it didn’t pan out quite as we expected,’ Rex hastened to remind her, ‘and for the full dress business he’d need Simon Aron anyway.’

‘Of course,’ she nodded again and continued in an awestruck whisper, ‘an’ De Richleau is then a real Master. You must be far advanced for one so young—that ‘e allow you to work with ‘im.’

He flicked the ash off his cigarette but maintained a cautious silence.

‘I am not—‘ow you say—associated with Mocata long— since I ‘ave arrive only recently in England, but De Richleau will cast ‘im down into the Abyss—for ‘ow shall ‘e prevail against one who is of ten circles and a single square?’

Rex nodded gravely.

59

‘Could I not’— her dark eyes filled with a new eagerness — ‘would it not be possible for me to prostrate myself before your frien’. If you spoke for me also, per’aps ‘e would allow that I should occupy a minor place when ‘e proceeds again to the invocation?’

‘Ho! Ho!’ said Rex to himself, ‘so the old rat wants to scuttle from the sinking ship, does she? I ought to be able to turn this to our advantage,’ while aloud he said with a lordly air: ‘All things are possible—but there would be certain conditions.’

‘Tell me,’ she muttered swiftly.

‘Well, there is this question of Simon Aron.’

‘What question?—Now that you ‘ave ‘im with you—you can do with ‘im as you will.’

Rex quickly averted his gaze from the piercing black eyes. Evidently Mocata had turned the whole party out after they had got away with Simon. The old witch obviously had no idea that Mocata had regained possession of him later. In another second he would have given away their whole position by demanding Simon’s whereabouts. Instead—searching his mind desperately for the right bits of gibberish he said : ‘When De Richleau again proceeds to the invocation it is necessary that the vibrations of all present should be attuned to those of Simon Aron.’

‘No matter—willingly I will place myself in your ‘ands for preparation.’

‘Then I’ll put it up to him, but first I must obey his order and say a word to the lady who was with you at Aron’s house last night—Tanith.’ Having at last manoeuvred the conversation to this critical point, Rex mentally crossed his thumbs and offered up a prayer that he was right in assuming that they were staying at the hotel together.

She smiled, showing two rows of white false teeth. ‘I know it, and you must pardon, I beg, that we ‘ave our little joke with you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ he shrugged, wondering anxiously to what new mystery she was alluding, but to his relief she hurried on.

‘Each morning we look into the crystal an’ when she sees you walk into the ‘otel she exclaim, “It is for me ‘e comes—the tall American,” and we ‘ave no knowledge that you are more than a Neophyte or a Zelator at the most, so when you send up the flowers she say to me, “You shall go down to ‘im instead an’ after we will laugh at the discomfiture of this would-be lover.” ‘

The smile broadened on Rex’s full mouth as he listened to the explanation of much that had been troubling him in the last hour, but it faded suddenly as he realised that, natural as it seemed compared to all this meaningless drivel which he had been exchanging with the old woman, it was in reality one more demonstration of the occult. These two women had actually seen him walk into the hotel lounge when they were sitting upstairs in their room peering into a piece of glass.

‘In some ways I suffer the disappointment,’ said the old Countess suddenly, and Rex found her studying him with a strange, disconcerting look. ‘I know well that promiscuity gives a greater power for all ‘oo follow the Path an’ that ‘uman love ‘inders our development, but nevair ‘ave I been able to free myself from a so stupid sentimentality—an’ you would, I think, ‘ave made a good lover for ‘er.’

Rex stared in astonished silence, then looked quickly away, as she added: ‘No matter—the other ees of real importance. I will send for ‘er that you may give your message.’

With a little jerk she stood up and gripping her ebony cane stumped across to the hall porter’s desk while he relaxed, unutterably glad that this extraordinary interview was over.

However, he felt a glow of satisfaction in the thought that he had duped her into the belief that De Richleau and himself were even more powerful adepts than Mocata, and at having played his cards sufficiently well to secure a meeting with Tanith under such favourable circumstances. If only he could get her into his car, he was determined to inveigle her into giving him any information she possessed which might lead to the discovery of Simon’s whereabouts, although, since Madame D’Urfe was ignorant of the fact that he was no longer with the Duke, it was hardly likely that Tanith would actually be able to take them to him.

With new anxiety Rex realised the gravity of the check. They had practically counted on Tanith having the knowledge, if only they could get it out of her, and even if he could persuade her to talk about Mocata the man might have a dozen haunts. If so it would be no easy task to visit them all before sundown and the urgency of the Duke’s instructions still rang in his ears.

Today was May Day Eve. The Great Sabbat of the year would be held tonight. It was absolutely imperative that they should trace and secure Simon before dusk or else, under the evil influence which now dominated his mentality, he would be taken to participate in those unholy rites and jeopardise for ever the flame of goodness, wisdom and right thinking which men term the soul.

After a moment Madame D’Urfe rejoined him. ‘For tonight at least,’ she whispered, ‘things in dispute between the followers of the Path will be in abeyance—is it not?—for all must make their ‘omage to the One.’

He nodded and she bent towards him, lowering her voice still further: ‘If I could but see De Richleau for one moment — as Ipsissimus ‘e must possess the unguent?’

‘That’s so,’ Rex agreed, but he was horribly uncertain of his ground again as he added cryptically: ‘But what of the Moon?’

‘Ah, fatality,’ she sighed. ‘I ‘ad forgotten that we are in the dark quarter.’

He blessed the providence which had guided his tongue as she went on sadly: ‘I ‘ave try so often but nevair yet ‘ave I succeeded. I know all things necessary to its preparation, an’ ‘ave gathered every ‘erb at the right period. I ‘ave even rendered down the fat, but they must ‘ave cheated me. It was from a mortuary per’aps—but not from a graveyard as it should ‘ave been.’

Rex felt the hair bristle on the back of his neck and his whole body stiffened as he heard this gruesome confession. Surely it was inconceivable that people still practised these medieval barbarities—yet he recalled the terrible manifestation that he had witnessed with the Duke on the previous night. After that he could no longer employ modern standards of belief or unbelief to the possibilities which might result from the strange and horrible doings of these people who had given themselves over to ancient cults.

The old Countess was regarding him again with that queer disconcerting look. ‘It matters not,’ she murmured. ‘We shall get there just the same, Tanith and I —an’ it should be interesting — for nevair before ‘as she attended the Great Sabbat.’

The lift gates clicked at that moment and Tanith stepped out into the corridor. For a fleeting instant Rex caught a glimpse of her wise, beautiful face, over the old woman’s shoulder, but the Countess was speaking again in a husky whisper, so he was forced to look back at her.

‘Nevair before,’ she repeated with unholy glee, ‘and after the One ‘as done that which there is to do, ‘oo knows but you may be the next—if you are quick.’

Forcing himself out of his chair Rex shut his ears to the infernal implication. His general reading had been enough for him to be aware that in the old days the most incredible orgies took place as the climax to every Sabbat, and his whole body crept at the thought of Tanith being subjected to such abominations. His impulse was to seize this iniquitous old woman by the throat and choke the bestial life out of her fat body, but with a supreme effort he schooled himself to remain outwardly normal.

As Tanith approached, and taking his hand smiled into his eyes, he knew that she, as well as Simon, must be saved before nightfall from—yes, the old biblical quotation leapt to his mind — ‘The Power of the Dog’, that was strong upon them.

CHAPTER X

TANITH PROVES STUBBORN

After the muttering of the old Comtess and her veiled allusions to unspeakable depravities Rex felt that even the air had grown stale and heavy, as though charged with some subtle quality of evil, but on the coming of Tanith the atmosphere seemed to lighten. The morning sunshine was lending a pale golden glow to the street outside and in her hand she held one of the sprays of lilac which he had sent up to her. She lifted it to her face as he returned the smile.

‘So!’ she said in a low clear voice, her eyes mocking him above the fragrant bloom. ‘You insisted then that Madame should let you see me?’

‘I’d have sat around this place all day if she hadn’t,’ Rex confessed frankly, ‘because now we’ve met at last I’m hoping you’ll let me see something of you.’

‘Perhaps—but not today. I have many things to do and already I am late for the dressmaker.’

Rex thanked his stars that the old woman had unwittingly given him a lever in assuming the Duke to be an Adept of great power, and himself his envoy. ‘It’s mighty important that I should see you today,’ he insisted. ‘There are certain things we’ve just got to talk about.’

‘Got to!’ A quick frown clouded Tanith’s face. ‘I do not understand!’

‘Ma petite, it is you ‘oo do not understan’,’ Madame D’Urfe broke in hastily. Then she launched into a torrent of low speech in some foreign language, but Rex caught De Richleau’s name and the word Ipsissimus, so he guessed that she was giving Tanith some version of the events which had taken place the night before, based on his own misleading statements, and wondered miserably how long he would be able to keep up the impersonation which had been thrust upon him.

Tanith nodded several times and studied him with a new interest as she nibbled a small piece of the lilac blossom between her teeth. Then she said with charming frankness: ‘You must forgive me—I had no idea you were such an important member of the Order.’

‘Forget it please,’ he begged, ‘but if you’re free I’d be glad if you could join me for lunch.’

‘That puts me in a difficulty because I am supposed to be lunching with the wife of the Roumanian Minister.’

‘How about this afternoon then?’

Her eyes showed quick surprise. ‘But we shall have to leave here by four o’clock if we are to get down by dusk—and I have my packing to do yet.’

He realised that she was referring to the meeting and covered his blunder swiftly. ‘Of course—I’m forgetting that these twisting English roads don’t permit of the fast driving I’m used to back home. How would it be if I run you along to your dress place now and then we took a turn round the Park after?’

‘Yes—if you will have lots of patience with me, because I take an almost idiotic interest in my clothes.’

‘You’re telling me!’ he murmured to himself as he admired the slim graceful lines of her figure clad so unostentatiously and yet so suitably for the sunshine of the bright spring day. He picked up his hat and beamed at her. ‘Let’s go—shall we?’

To his amazement he found himself taking leave of the old Countess just as though she were a nice, normal, elderly lady who was chaperoning some young woman to whom he had been formally introduced at a highly respectable dance. And indeed, as they departed, her dark eyes had precisely the same look which had often scared him in mothers who possessed marriageable daughters. Had he not known that such thoughts were anathema to her creed he would have sworn that she was praying that they would be quick about it, so that she could book a day before the end of the season at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and was already listing in her mind the guests who should be asked to the reception.

‘Where does the great artist hang out?’ he asked as he helped Tanith into the car.

‘I have two,’ she told him. ‘Schiaparelli just across the square, where I shall be for some twenty minutes, and after I have also to visit Artelle in Knightsbridge… . Are you sure that you do not mind waiting for me?’

‘Why, no! We’ve a whole heap of time before us.’

‘And tonight as well,’ she added slowly. ‘I am glad that you will be there because I am just a little nervous.’

‘You needn’t be!’ he said with a sudden tightening of his mouth, but she seemed satisfied with his assurance and had no inkling of his real meaning.

As she alighted in Upper Grosvenor Street he called gaily after her: ‘Twenty minutes mind, and not one fraction over,’ then he drove across the road and pulled up at the International Sportsman’s Club of which he was a member.

The telephone exchange put him through to the British Museum quickly enough, but the operator there nearly drove him frantic. It seemed that it was not part of the Museum staff’s duties to search for visitors in the Reading Room, but after urgent prayers about imaginary dead and dying they at last consented to have the Duke hunted out. The wait that followed seemed interminable but at last De Richleau came to the line.

‘I’ve got the girl,’ Rex told him hurriedly, ‘but how long I’ll be able to keep her I don’t know. I’ve had a long talk, too, with that incredible old woman who smokes cigars—you know the one—Madame D’Urfe. They’re staying at Claridges together and both of them are going to the party you spoke of tonight. Where it is to be held I don’t know, but they’re leaving London by car at four o’clock and hope to make the place by nightfall. I’ve spun them a yarn that you’re the high and mighty Hoodoo in the you-know-what—a far bigger bug than Mocata ever was— so the old lady’s all for giving him the go-by and sitting in round about your feet, but neither of them knows where Simon is—I’m certain. In fact they’ve no idea that he made a getaway last night after we got him to your flat—so what’s the drill now?’

‘I see—well, in that case you must …’ But Rex never learnt what De Richleau intended him to do for at that moment they were cut off. When he got through to the Museum again it was to break in on a learned conversation about South American antiquities which was being conducted on another line and, realising that he had already exceeded his twenty minutes, he had no option but to hang up the receiver and dash out into the street.

Tanith was just coming down the steps of Schiaparelli’s as he turned the car to meet her. ‘Where now?’ he asked when she had settled herself beside him.

‘To Artelle. It is just opposite the barracks in Knightsbridge. I will not be more than five minutes this time, but she has a new idea for me. She is really a very clever woman, so I am anxious to hear what she has thought of.’

It was the longest speech he had so far heard her make, as their conversation the night before had been brief and frequently interrupted by Mocata. Her idiom was perfect, but the way in which she selected her words and the care with which she pronounced them made him ask suddenly: ‘You’re not English— are you!’

‘Yes,’ she smiled as they turned into Hyde Park, ‘but my mother was Hungarian and I have lived abroad nearly all my life. Is my accent very noticeable?’

‘Well—in a way, but it sounds just marvellous to me. Your voice has got that deep caressing note about it which reminds me of—well, if you want the truth, it’s like Marlene Dietrich on the talkies.’

She threw back her head and gave a low laugh. ‘If I believed that I should be tempted to keep it, and as it is I have been working so hard to get rid of it ever since I have been in England. It is absurd that I should not be able to speak my own language perfectly—yet I have talked English so little, except to foreign governesses when I was a young girl.’

‘And how old are you now, or is that a piece of rudeness?’

‘How old do you think?’

‘From your eyes you might be any age, but I’ve a feeling that you’re not much over twenty-two.’

‘If I were to live I should be twenty-four next January.’

‘Come now,’ he protested, laughingly, ‘what a way to put it, that’s only a matter of nine months and no one could say you don’t look healthy.’

‘I am,’ she assured him gravely, ‘but let us not talk of death. Look at the colour of those rhododendrons. They are so lovely.’

‘Yes, they’ve jerked this Park up no end since I first saw it as a boy.’ As the traffic opened he turned the car into Knightsbridge and two minutes later Tanith got out at the discreet door of her French dressmaker.

While she was inside Rex considered the position afresh, and endeavoured to concoct some cryptic message purporting to come from the Duke, to the effect that she was not to attend the Sabbat but to remain in his care until it was over. Yet he felt that she would never believe him. It was quite evident that she meant to be present at this unholy Walpurgis-Nacht gathering and from what the old woman had said all Satanists regarded it with such importance that even warring factions among them sank their differences—for this one night of the year—in order to attend.

Obviously she could have no conception of what she was letting herself in for, but the very idea of her being mishandled by that ungodly crew made his big biceps tighten with the desire to lash out at someone. He had got to keep her with him somehow, that was clear—but how?

He racked his mind in vain for a plausible story but, to his dismay, she rejoined him almost immediately and he had thought of nothing by the time they had turned into the Park again.

‘Well—tell me,’ she said softly.

‘Tell you what?’ he fenced, ‘that I think you’re very lovely.’

‘No, no. It is nice that you should have troubled to make pretty speeches about my accent and Marlene Dietrich, but it is time for you to tell me now of the real reason that brought you to Claridges this morning.’

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘No.’

‘I wanted to take you out to lunch.’

‘Oh, please! Be serious — you have a message for me.’

‘Maybe, but even if I hadn’t, I’d have been right on the mat at your hotel just the same.’

She frowned slightly. ‘I don’t understand. Neither of us is free to give our time to that sort of thing.’

‘I’ve reached a stage where I’m the best judge of that,’ he announced, with the idea of trying to recover some of the prestige which seemed to be slipping from him.

‘Have you then crowned yourself with the Dispersion of Choronzon already?’

Rex suppressed a groan. Here they were off on the Mumbo Jumbo stuff again. He felt that he would never be able to keep it up, so instead of answering he turned the car with sudden determination out into the Kensington Road and headed towards Hammersmith.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked quickly.

‘To lunch with De Richleau,’ he lied. ‘I’ve got no message for you but the Duke sent me to fetch you because he wants to talk to you himself.’ It was the only story he could think of which just might get over.

‘I see—where is he?’

‘At Pangbourne.’

‘Where is that?’

‘Little place down the Thames—just past Reading.’

‘But that is miles away!’

‘Only about fifty.’

‘Surely he could have seen me before he left London.’

He caught her eyes, quick with suspicion, on his face, so he answered boldly : ‘I know nothing of that, but he sent me to fetch you—and what the Duke says goes.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘Stop this car at once! — I am going to get out.’

CHAPTER XI

THE TRUTH WILL ALWAYS OUT

For a second Rex thought of ignoring her protest and jamming ‘his foot on the accelerator, but the traffic in Kensington High Street was thick, and to try to abduct her in broad daylight would be sheer madness. She could signal a policeman and have him stopped before he’d gone two hundred yards.

Reluctantly he drew in to the side of the road, but he stretched his long arm in front of her and gripped the door of the car so that she could not force it open.

Tanith stared at him with angry eyes: ‘You are lying to me — I will not go with you.’

‘Wait a moment.’ He thrust out his chin pugnaciously while he mustered all his resources to reason with her. If he once let her leave the car the chances were all against his having another opportunity to prevent her reaching the secret rendezvous where those horrible Walpurgis ceremonies would take place in the coming night. His determination to prevent her participating in those barbaric rites, of which he was certain she could not know the real nature, quickened his brain to an unusual cunning : ‘You know what happened to Simon Aron?’ he said.

‘Yes, you kidnapped him from his home last night.’

‘That’s so—but do you know why?’

‘Madame D’Urfe said that it was because the Duke is also seeking for the Talisman of Set. You needed him for your own invocation.’

‘Exactly.’ Rex paused for a moment to wonder what the Talisman could be. This was the second time he had heard it mentioned. Then he went on slowly: ‘It’s him being born under certain stars makes his presence essential. We’d hunt for years before we found anyone else who’s suitable to do the business and born in the same hour of the same day and year. Well, we need you too.’

‘But my number is not eight!’

‘That doesn’t matter—you’re under the Moon, aren’t you?’

He risked the shot on what he remembered of De Richleau’s words about her name.

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But what has that to do with it?’

‘A whole heap—believe you me. But naturally you’d know nothing of that. Even Mocata doesn’t realise the importance of the Moon in this thing and that’s why he’s failed to make much headway up to date.’

‘Mocata would be furious if I left his Circle—you see I am his favourite medium—so attuned to his vibrations that he would have the greatest difficulty in replacing me. Perhaps—perhaps he would punish me in some terrible manner.’ Tanith’s face had gone white and her eyes were staring slightly at the thought of some nameless evil which might befall her.

‘Don’t worry. De Richleau will protect you—and he’s an Ipsissimus remember. If you don’t come right along, now he wants to see you, maybe he’ll do something to you that’ll be far worse.’ As Rex lied and threatened he hated himself for it, but the girl had just got to be saved from herself and this form of blackmail was the only line that offered.

‘How am I to know? How am I to know?’ she repeated quickly. You may be lying. Think what might happen to me if Mocata proved the stronger.’

You had the proof last night. We got Simon Aron away from under his very nose—didn’t we?’

‘Yes, but will you be able to keep him?’

‘Sure,’ Rex declared firmly, but he felt sick with misery as he remembered that by Mocata’s power Simon had been taken from them under the hour. And where was Simon now? The day was passing, their hope of Tanith being able to put them on his track had proved a failure. How would they find him in time to save him too from the abominations of the coming night.

‘Oh, what shall I do?’ Tanith gave a little nervous sob. ‘It is the first time I have heard of any feud in our Order. I thought that if I only followed the Path I should acquire power and now this hideously dangerous decision is thrust on me.’

Rex saw that she was weakening so he pressed the self-starter. ‘You’re coming with me and you’re not going to be frightened of anything. Get that now—I mean it.’

She nodded: ‘All right. I will trust you then,’ and the car slid into motion.

For a few moments they sat in silence, then as the car entered Hammersmith Broadway he turned and smiled at her. ‘Now let’s cut out all talk about this business till we see the Duke and just be normal — shall we?’

‘If you wish—tell me about yourself?’

He smothered a sigh of relief at her acquiescence. At least he would be free for an hour or so from the agonising necessity of skating on the thin ice of grim parables which had no meaning for him. With all his natural gaiety restored he launched into an account of his life at home in the States, his frequent journeys abroad, and his love of speed in cars and boats and planes and bob-sleighs.

As they sped through Brentford and on to Slough he got her to talk a little about herself. Her English father had died when she was still a baby and the Hungarian mother had brought her up. All her childhood had been spent in an old manor house, dignified by the name of Castle, in a remote village on the southern slopes of the Carpathians, shut in so completely from the world by steep mountains on every side that even the War had passed it by almost unnoticed. After the peace and the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire their lands had become part of the new state of Jugo-Slavia, but her life had gone on much the same for, although the War had cost them a portion of their fortune, the bulk of it had been left safe by her father in English Trustee securities. Her mother had died three years before and it was then, having no personal ties and ample money, that she had decided to travel.

‘Isn’t it just marvellous that I should have seen you in such different places about the world,’ he laughed.

‘The first time that you speak of in Budapest I do not remember,’ she replied, ‘but I recall the day outside Buenos Ayres well. You were in a long red car and I was riding a roan mare. As you drew into the side of the track to let us pass I wondered why I knew your face, and then I remembered quite clearly that our cars had been locked side by side in a traffic jam, months before, in New York.’

‘Seems as if we were just fated to meet some time — doesn’t it?’

‘We both know that there is no such thing as Chance,’ she said slowly. ‘I believe you have a wax image of me somewhere and have worked upon it to bring today about.’

The day before he would have instantly assumed her to be joking, despite her apparent seriousness, but now, he realised with a little shock, he no longer considered it beyond the bounds of possibility that actual results might be procured by doing certain curious things to a little waxen doll, so greatly had his recent experiences altered his outlook. He hesitated, unable to confess his ignorance of such practices, and unwilling to admit that he had not done his best to bring about a meeting, but he was saved from the necessity of a reply by Tanith suddenly exclaiming:

‘I had forgotten!—luncheon—I shall never be back in time.’

‘Easy, put through a call and say you’ve suddenly been called out of Town,’ he told her, and a few miles further on he pulled up at Skindles Hotel in Maidenhead.

While Tanith was telephoning he stood contemplating the river. Although it was early in the year a period of drought had already checked the spate of the current sufficiently to make boating pleasurable, and he noted that in the gardens of the Hungaria River Club, on the opposite bank, they were setting out their gay paraphernalia preparatory to opening for the Season. Immediately Tanith rejoined him they set off again.

The straggling suburbs of Greater London had already been left behind them before Slough and now, after Maidenhead, the scattered clusters of red-roofed dwellings on the new building estates, which have spread so far afield, also disappeared, giving place to the real country. On certain portions of the road, the fresh green of the beech trees formed a spring canopy overhead and between their trunks, dappled with sunlight, patches of bluebells gave glory to the silent woods; at others they ran between meadows where lazy cattle nibbled the new grass, or fields where the young corn, strong with life, stretched its vivid green shoots upwards to the sun.

The sight and smell of the countryside, unmarred by man or carefully tended in his interests, windswept and clean, gave Rex fresh confidence. He banished his anxiety about Simon for the moment and, thrusting from his mind all thoughts of this gruesome business into which he had been drawn, began to talk all the gay nonsense to Tanith which he would have aired to any other girl whom he had induced to steal a day out of London in which to see the country preparing its May Day garb.

Before they reached Reading he had her laughing, and by the time they entered the little riverside village of Pangbourne, her pale face was flushed with colour and her eyes dancing with new light.

They crossed to the Whitchurch side where the Duke’s house stood, some way back from the river, its lawns sloping gently to the water’s edge.

Max received them, and while a maid took Tanith upstairs to wash, Rex had a chance to whisper quick instructions to him.

When she entered the low, old-fashioned lounge with its wide windows looking out over the tulip beds to the trees on the farther bank she found Rex whistling gaily. He was shooting varying proportions of liquor out of different bottles into a cocktail shaker. Max stood beside him holding a bowl of ice.

‘Where is the Duke?’ she asked, with a new soberness in her voice.

He had been waiting for the question and keeping his face averted answered cheerfully : ‘He’s not made it yet—what time are you expecting him, Max?’

‘I should have told you before, sir. His Excellency telephoned that I was to present his excuses to the lady, and ask you, sir, to act as host in his stead. He has been unavoidably detained, but hopes to be able to join you for tea.’

‘Well, now, if that isn’t real bad luck!’ Rex exclaimed feelingly. ‘Never mind we’ll go right into lunch the moment it’s ready.’ He tasted the concoction which he had been beating up with a large spoon and added: ‘My! That’s good!’

‘Yes, sir—in about five minutes, sir,’ Max bowed gravely and withdrew.

Rex knew that there was trouble coming but he presented a glass of the frothing liquid with a steady hand. ‘Never give a girl a large cocktail,’ he cried gaily, ‘but plenty of ‘em. Make ‘em strong and drink ‘em quick—come on now! It takes a fourth to make an appetite…. Here’s to crime!’

But Tanith set down the glass untasted. All the merriment had died out of her eyes and her voice was full of fresh anxiety as she said urgently: ‘I can’t stay here till tea-time—don’t you realise that I must leave London by four o’clock?’

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, ‘Where is this place you’re going to?’ but he caught himself in time and substituted, ‘Why not go from here direct?’ then he prayed silently that the secret meeting place might not be on the other side of London.

Her face lightened for a moment. ‘Of course, I forgot that you were going yourself, and the journey must be so much shorter from here, if you could take me it seems stupid to go all the way back to London—but what of Madame D’Urfe—she expects me to motor down with her—and I must have my clothes.’

‘Why not call her on the phone. Ask her to have your stuff packed up and say we’ll meet her there. You’ve got to see the Duke, and whatever happens he’ll turn up here because he and I are going down together.’

She nodded. ‘If I am to place myself under his protection it is vital that I should see him before the meeting, for Mocata has eyes in the ether and will know that I am here by now.’

‘Come on then!’ He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘We’ll get through to Claridges right away.’

Tanith allowed him to lead her out into the hall and when he had got the number he left her at the telephone. Then he returned to the lounge, poured himself another cocktail and began to do a gay little dance to celebrate his victory. He felt that he had got her now, safe for the day, until the Duke turned up. Then trust De Richleau to get something out of her which would enable them to get on Simon’s track after all.

At his sixth pirouette he stopped suddenly. Tanith was standing in the doorway her face ashen, her big eyes blazing with a mixture of anger and fear.

‘You have lied to me,’ she stammered out, ‘Mocata is with the Countess at this moment—he got Simon Aron away from you last night. You and your precious Duke are impostors—charlatans. You haven’t even the power to protect yourselves, and for this Mocata may tie me to the Wheel of Ptah–– Oh, I must get back!’ Before he could stop her she had turned and fled out of the house.

CHAPTER XII

THE GRIM PROPHECY

In one spring Rex was across the room, another and he had reached the garden. Against those long legs of his Tanith had no chance. Before she had covered twenty yards he caught her arm and jerked her round to face him.

‘Let me go!’ she panted. ‘Haven’t you endangered me enough with your lies and interference.’

He smiled down into her frightened face but made no mention to release her. ‘I’m awfully sorry I had to tell you all those tarradiddles to get you to this place—but now you’re here you’re going to stay– Understand?’

‘It is you who don’t understand,’ she flashed. ‘You and your friend, the Duke, are like a couple of children playing with a dynamite bomb. You haven’t a chance against Mocata. He will loose a power on you that will simply blot you out.’

‘I wouldn’t be too certain of that. Maybe I know nothing of this occult business myself and if anyone had suggested to me that there were practising Satanists wandering around London this time last week, I’d have said they had bats in the belfry. But the Duke’s different—and, believe you me, he’s a holy terror when he once gets his teeth into a thing. Best save your pity for Mocata —he’ll need it before De Richleau’s through with him.’

‘Is he—is he really an Ipsissimus then?’ she hesitated.

‘Lord knows—I don’t. That’s just a word I picked out of some jargon he was talking last night that I thought might impress you.’ Rex grinned broadly. All the lying and trickery which he had been forced to practise during the morning had taxed him to the utmost, but now that he was able to face the situation openly he felt at the top of his form again.

‘I daren’t stay then—I daren’t!’ She tried to wrench herself free. ‘Don’t you see that if he is only some sort of dabbler he will never be able to protect me?’

‘Don’t fret your sweet self. No one shall lay a finger on you as long as I’m around.’

‘But, you great fool, you don’t understand,’ she wailed miserably. ‘The Power of Darkness cannot be turned aside by bruisers or iron bars. If I don’t appear at the meeting tonight the moment I fall asleep Mocata will set the Ab-humans on to me. In the morning I may be dead or possessed—a raving lunatic’

Rex did not laugh. He knew that she was genuinely terrified of an appalling possibility. Instead he turned her towards the house and said gently: ‘Now please don’t worry so. De Richleau does understand just how dangerous monkeying with this business is. He spent half the night trying to convince me of it, and like a fool I wouldn’t believe him until I saw a thing I don’t care to talk about, but I’m dead certain he’d never allow you to run any risk like that.’

‘Then let me go back to London!’

‘No. He asked me to get you here so as he could have a word with you—and I’ve done it. We’ll have a quiet little lunch together now and talk this thing over when the Duke turns up. He’ll either guarantee to protect you or let you go.’

‘He can’t protect me I tell you— and in any case I wish to attend this meeting tonight.’

‘You wish to!’ he echoed with a shake of the head. ‘Well, that gets me beat, but you can’t even guess what you’d be letting yourself in for. Anyhow I don’t mean to let you—so now you know.’

‘You mean to keep me here against my will?’

‘Yes!’

‘What is to stop me screaming for help?’

‘Nix, but since the Duke’s not here the servants know I’m in charge, so they won’t bat an eyelid if you start to yell the house down—and there’s no one else about’

Tanith glanced swiftly down the drive. Except at the white gates tall banks of rhododendrons, heavy with bloom, obscured the lane. No rumble of passing traffic broke the stillness that brooded upon the well-kept garden. The house lay silent in the early summer sunshine. The inhabitants of the village were busy over the midday meal.

She was caught and knew it. Only her wits could get her out of this, and her fear of Mocata was so great that she was determined to use any chance that offered to free herself from this nice, meddling fool.

‘You’ll not try to prevent me leaving if De Richleau says I may when he arrives?’ she asked.

‘No. I’ll abide by his decision,’ he agreed.

‘Then for the time being I will do as you wish.’

‘Fine—come on.’ He led her back to the house and rang for Max, who appeared immediately from the doorway of the dining-room.

‘We’ve decided to lunch on the river,’ Rex told him. ‘Make up a basket and have it put in the electric canoe.’ He had made the prompt decision directly he sensed that Tanith meant to escape if she could. Once she was alone in a boat with him he felt that, unless she was prepared to jump out and swim for it, he could hold her without any risk of a scene just as long as he wanted to.

‘Very good, sir—I’ll see to it at once.’ Max disappeared into the domain of which he was lord and master, while Rex shepherded Tanith back to the neglected cocktails.

He refreshed the shaker while she sat on the sofa eyeing him curiously, but he persuaded her to have one, and when he pressed her she had another. Then Max appeared to announce that his orders had been carried out.

‘Let’s go—shall we?’ Rex held open the french windows and together they crossed the sunlit lawn, gay with its beds of tulips, polyanthus, wallflowers and forget-me-knots. At the river’s edge, upon a neat, white painted landing-stage, a boatman held the long electric canoe ready for them.

Tanith settled herself on the cushions and Rex took the small perpendicular wheel. In a few moments they were chugging out into midstream and up the river towards Goring, but he preferred not to give her the opportunity of appealing to the lock-keeper, so he turned the boat and headed it towards a small backwater below the weir.

Having tied up beneath some willows, he began passing packages and parcels out of the stern. ‘Come on,’ he admonished her. ‘It’s the girl’s job to see to the commissariat. Just forget yourself a moment an’ see what they’ve given us to eat.’

She smiled a little ruefully. ‘If I really thought you realised what you were doing I should look on you as the bravest man I’ve ever known.’

He turned suddenly, still kneeling at the end of the boat. ‘Go on—say it again. I love the sound of your voice.’

‘You fool!’ She coloured, laughing as she unwrapped the napkins. ‘There’s some cheese here—and ham and tongue—and brown bread—and salad—and a lobster. We shall never be able to eat all this and—oh, look,’ she held out a small wicker basket, ‘fraises des bois.’

‘Marvellous. I haven’t tasted a wood strawberry since I last lunched at Fontainebleau. Anyhow, it’s said the British Army fights on its stomach, so I’m electing myself an honorary member of it for the day. Fling me that corkscrew—will you, and I’ll deal with this bottle of Moselle.’

Soon they were seated face to face propped against the cushions, a little sticky about the mouth, but enjoying themselves just as any nice normal couple would in such circumstances; but when the meal was finished he felt that, much as he would have liked to laze away the afternoon, he ought, now the cards were upon the table, to learn what he could of this grim business without waiting for the coming of the Duke. He unwrapped another packet which he had found in the stern of the boat, and passing it over asked half humorously:

‘Tell me, does a witch ever finish up her lunch with chocolates? I’d be interested to know on scientific grounds.’

‘Oh, why did you bring me back—I have been enjoying myself so much,’ her face was drawn and miserable as she buried it in her hands.

‘I’m sorry!’ He put down the chocolates and bent towards her. ‘But we’re both in this thing, so we’ve got to talk of it, haven’t we, and though you don’t look the part, you’re just as much a witch as any old woman who ever soured the neighbour’s cream —else you’d never have seen me in that crystal this morning as I sat in the lounge of your hotel.’

‘Of course I am if you care to use such a stupid old-fashioned term.’ She drew her hands away and tossed back her fair hair as she stared at him defiantly. ‘That was only child’s play—just to keep my hand in—a discipline to make me fit to wield a higher power.’

‘For good?’ he questioned laconically.

‘It is necessary to pass through many stages before having to choose whether one will take the Right or Left Hand Path.’

‘So I gather. But how about this unholy business in which you’ve a wish to take part tonight?’

‘If I submit to the ordeal I shall pass the Abyss.’ The low, caressing voice lifted to a higher note, and the wise eyes suddenly took on a fanatic gleam.

‘You can’t have a notion what they mean to do to you or you’d never even dream of it,’ he insisted.

‘I have, but you know nothing of these things so naturally you consider me utterly shameless or completely mad. You are used to nice English and American girls who haven’t a thought in their heads except to get you to marry them — if you have any money — which apparently you have, but that sort of thing does not interest me. I have worked and studied to gain power—real power over other people’s lives and destinies—and I know now that the only way to acquire it is by complete surrender of self. I don’t expect you to understand my motives but that is why I mean to go tonight.’

He studied her curiously for a moment, still convinced that she could not be fully aware of the abominations that would take place at the Sabbat. Then he broke out: ‘How long is it since you became involved in this sort of thing?’

‘I was psychic even as a child,’ she told him slowly. ‘My mother encouraged me to use my gifts. Then when she died I joined a society in Budapest. I loved her. I wanted to keep in touch with her still.’

‘What proof have you got it was her?’ he demanded with a sudden renewal of scepticism as he recalled the many newspaper exposures of spiritualistic seances.

‘I had very little then, but since, I have been convinced of it beyond all doubt.’

‘And is she—your own mother, still—yes, your guide—I suppose you’d call it?’

Tanith shook her head. ‘No, she has gone on, and it was not for me to seek to detain her, but others have followed, and every day my knowledge of the worlds which lie beyond this grows greater.’

‘But it’s extraordinary that a young girl like you should devote yourself to this sort of thing. You ought to be dancing, dining, playing golf, going places—you’re so lovely you could take your pick among the men.’

She shrugged a little disdainfully. ‘Such a life is dull— ordinary—after a year I tired of it, and few women can climb mountains or shoot big game, but the conquest of the unknown offers the greatest adventure of all.’

Again her voice altered suddenly, and the inscrutable eyes which gave her a strange, serious beauty, so fitting for a lady of the Italian Renaissance, gleamed as before.

‘Religions and moralities are man-made, fleeing and local; a scandalous lapse from virtue in London may be a matter for the highest praise in Hong Kong, and the present Archbishop of Paris would be shocked beyond measure if it was suggested that he had anything in common, beyond his religious office, with a Medieval Cardinal. One thing and one thing only remains constant and unchanging, the secret doctrine of the way of power. That is a thing to work for, and if need be cast aside all inherent scruples for—as I shall tonight.’

‘Aren’t you—just a bit afraid?’ he stared at her solemnly.

‘No, provided I follow the path which is set, no harm can come to me.’

‘But it is an evil path,’ he insisted, marvelling at the change which had come over her. It almost seemed as if it were a different woman speaking or one who repeated a recitation, learned in a foreign language, with all the appropriate expression yet not understanding its true meaning, as she replied with a cynical little smile.

‘Unfortunately the followers of the Right Hand Path obsess themselves only with the well-being of the Universe as a whole, whereas those of the Left exercise their power upon living humans. To bend people to your will, to cause them to fall or rise, to place unaccountable obstacles in their path at every turn or smooth their way to a glorious success—that is more than riches, more than fame—the supreme pinnacle to which any man or woman can rise, and I wish to reach it before I die.’

‘Maybe—maybe.’ Rex shook his head with a worried frown. ‘But you’re young and beautiful—just breaking in on all the fun of life—why not think it over for a year or two. It’s horrible to hear you talk as though you were a disillusioned old woman.’

Her mouth tightened still further. ‘In a way I am—and for me, waiting is impossible because, although in your ignorance I do not expect you to believe it, as surely as the sun will set tonight I shall be dead before the year is out.’

CHAPTER XIII

THE DEFEAT OF REX VAN RYN

For a moment they sat in silence. The river flowed gently on; the sun still dappled the lower branches of the willows and flecked the water with points of light.

Gradually the fire died out of Tanith’s eyes and she sank back against the cushions of the canoe as Rex stared at her incredulously. It seemed utterly impossible that there could be any real foundation for her grim prophecy, yet her voice had held such fatal certainty.

‘It isn’t true!’ Rex seized her hand and gripped it as though, by his own vitality, he would imbue her with continued life. ‘You’re good for fifty years to come. That’s only some criminal nonsense this devil Mocata’s got you to swallow.’

‘Oh, you dear fool!’ She took his other hand and pressed it while, for a moment, it seemed as if tears were starting to her eyes. ‘If things were different I think I might like you enormously, but I knew the number of my days long before I ever met Mocata, and there is nothing which can be done to lengthen them by a single hour.’

‘Show me your hand,’ he said suddenly. It was the only thing even remotely connected with the occult of which Rex had any knowledge. The year before he had ricked an ankle, while after Grizzly in the Rockies, and had had to lie up for a week in a tiny inn where the library consisted of less than a dozen battered volumes. A book on Palmistry, which he had discovered among them, had proved a real windfall and the study of it had whiled away many hours of his enforced idleness.

As Tanith held out her hand he saw at once that it was of the unusual psychic type. Very long, narrow and fragile, the wrist small, the fingers smooth and tapering, ending in long, almond-shaped nails. The length of the first, second and third fingers exceeded that of the palm by nearly an inch, giving the whole a beautiful but useless appearance. The top phalange of the thumb, he noted, was slim and pointed, another sign of lack of desire to grapple with material things.

‘You see?’ she turned it over showing him the palm. ‘The Arabs say that “the fate of every man is bound about his brow” and mine is written here, for all who can, to read.’

Rex’s knowledge of the subject was too limited for him to do much but read character and general tendencies by the various shapes of hands, but even he was startled by the unusual markings on the narrow palm.

On the cushion of the hand the Mount of the Moon stood out firm and strong, seeming to spread over and dominate the rest, a clear sign of an exceedingly strong imagination, refinement and love of beauty; but it was tinged with that rare symbol, the Line of Intuition, giving, in connection with such a hand, great psychic powers and a leaning towards mysticism of a highly dangerous kind. A small star below the second finger, upon the Mount of Saturn, caused him additional uneasiness and he looked in vain for squares which might indicate preservation at a critical period. Yet worst of all the Line of Life, more clearly marked than he would have expected, stopped short with a horrifying suddenness at only a little over a third of the way from its commencement, where it was tied to the Line of Head.

He stared at it in silence, not knowing what to say to such sinister portents, but she smiled lightly as she withdrew her hand.

‘Don’t worry please, but there is no appeal from the verdict of the Stars and you will understand now why marriage—children— a lovely home—all things connected with the future just mean nothing to me.’

‘So that’s the reason you let yourself get mixed up in this horrible business?’

‘Yes. Since I am to die so soon no ordinary emotion can stir me any more. I look on life as though I were already a great way from it, and what happens to my physical body matters to me not at all. Ten months ago I began seriously to cultivate my psychic sense under real instruction, and the voyages which I can make now into the immensity of the void are the only things left to me which still have power to thrill.’

‘But, why in heaven’s name involve yourself with Black Magic when you might practise White?’

‘Have I not told you? The adepts of the Right Hand Path concern themselves only with the Great Work; the blending of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm; a vague philosophic entity in which one can witness no tangible results. Whereas, those of the Left practise their Art upon human beings and can actually watch the working of their spells.’

‘I can’t get over your wanting to attend this Satanic festival tonight all the same.’

‘It should be an extraordinary experience.’

‘Any normal person would be terrified at what might happen.’

‘Well, if you like, I will admit that I am just a little frightened but that is only because it is my first participation. By surrendering myself I shall only suffer or enjoy, as most other women do, under slightly different circumstances at some period of their life.’

‘Slightly different!’ he exclaimed, noting again the sudden change of eyes and voice, as though she were possessed by some sinister dual personality which appeared every time she spoke of these horrible mysteries, and blotted out the frank, charming individuality which was natural to her. ‘This thing seems worlds apart to me from picking a man you like and taking a sporting chance about the rest.’

‘No, in ancient Egypt every woman surrendered herself at the temple before she married, in order that she might acquire virtue, and sacred prostitution is still practised in many parts of the world—for that is what this amounts to. Regarded from the personal point of view, of course, it is loathsome. If I thought of it that way I should never be able to go through with it at all, but I have trained myself not to, and only think of it now as a ritual which has to be gone through in order to acquire fresh powers.’

‘It’s mighty difficult for any ordinary person to see it that way—though I suppose the human brain can shut out certain aspects of a thing.’ Rex paused, frowning : ‘Still I was really speaking of the hideous danger you will incur from placing yourself in the hands of—well, the Devil if you like.’

She smiled. ‘The Devil is only a bogey invented by the Early Church to scare fools.’

‘Let’s say the Power of Darkness then.’

‘You mean by receiving re-Baptism?’

‘By attending Sabbat at all. I imagined from your strange name you had received re-Baptism already.’

‘No, Tanith is the name by which I was christened. It was my mother’s choice.’

Rex sat forward suddenly. ‘Then you haven’t—er—given yourself over completely yet?’

‘No, but I shall tonight, for if De Richleau has a tenth of the knowledge which you say he has he will realise the appalling danger to which I should be exposed if he detained me here, so he will let me go immediately he arrives—and remember, you have promised not to interfere with my freedom once he has seen me.’

‘But listen,’ he caught her hands again. ‘It was bad enough that you should have been going to take part in this abominable business as a graduate—it’s a thousand times worse that you should do it while there’s still time to back out.’

‘Mocata would not allow me to now, even if I had the inclination, but you are so nice it really distresses me that you should worry so. The Satanic Baptism is only an old-fashioned and rather barbarous ritual, but it will give me real status among adepts, and no possible harm can come to me as long as I do not deviate from the Path which must be followed by all members of the Order.’

‘You’re wrong—wrong—wrong.’ Rex insisted boldly. ‘De Richleau was explaining the real horror of this thing to me last night. This promise of strange powers is only a filthy trap. At your first Christening your Godparents revoked the Devil and all his Works. Once you willingly rescind that protection, as you’ll have to do, something awful will take possession of you and force you into doing its will, an Earthbound Spirit or an Elemental I think he called it.’

She shrugged. ‘There are ways of dealing with Elementals.’

‘Aw, hell. Why can’t I make you understand!’ He wrung his hands together desperately. ‘It’s easy to see they haven’t called on you to do any real devilry yet. They’ve just led you on by a few demonstrations and encouraging your crystal gazing, but they will—once you’re a full member—and then you’ll be more scared than ever to refuse, or find it’s just impossible under the influence of this thing that will get hold of you.’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. It is I who will make use of them — not they of me, and quite obviously you don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘The Duke does,’ he insisted, ‘and he says that you can still get free as long as you haven’t been actually re-baptised, but after that all holy protection is taken from you. Why else d’you think we took a chance of breaking up that party last night—if not to try and save Simon from the self-same thing.’

A queer light came into Tanith’s eyes. ‘Yet Mocata willed him to return so he will receive his non-du-Diable after all tonight.’

‘Don’t you be too certain. I’ve a hunch we’ll save him yet.’ Rex spoke with a confidence he was very far from feeling.

‘And how do you propose to set about it?’ she asked with a quick intuition that by some means she might utilise this factor to facilitate her own escape.

‘Ah! that’s just the rub,’ he admitted. ‘You see we thought maybe you’d know his whereabouts and I’ll be frank about it. That’s the reason I went round to Claridges this morning, to see if I could get you down here some way so as De Richleau could question you, although I should have called on you anyway for a very different reason. Still you didn’t even know Mocata had taken Simon off us till you spoke to the old woman on the wire, so it’s pretty obvious that you don’t know where he is. I believe you could give us a line on Mocata though—if you choose to.’

‘I was under the impression that it was at his house that the party where we met was given.’

‘No, that was Simon’s place, though I gather Mocata’s been living there with him for some little time. He must have a hideout of his own somewhere though and that’s what we want to get at.’

‘I know nothing of his ordinary life, and if I did, I do not think I should be inclined to tell you of it, but why are you so interested in this Mr. Aron ? That was a lie you told me about your needing him because you are also searching for the Talisman of Set.’

‘He’s my very greatest friend, and more than that he risked his life to come out to Soviet Russia and look for me, when I was gaoled for poking my nose into the “Forbidden Territory”, a few years back. The Duke came too, and he looks on Simon almost as a son.’

‘That does not give you any right to interfere if, like myself, he elects to devote himself to the occult.’

‘Maybe, as long as he confines himself to the harmless side, but De Richleau says the game that you and he are playing is the most hideously dangerous that’s ever been known to mankind, and after what I saw last night I certainly believed him.’

‘Simon Aron did not strike me as a fool. He must be aware of the risks which he is running and prepared to face them for the attainment of his desires.’

‘I doubt it—I doubt if you do either. Anyhow, for the moment, we’re regarding him as a person who’s not quite all there, and nothing you can name is going to stop the Duke and me from saving him from himself if we get half a chance.’

Tanith felt that now was the time to show the bait in the trap which she had been preparing. So she leant forward and said, slowly : ‘If you really are so mad as to wish for a chance to pit yourselves against Mocata, I think I could give it to you.’

‘Could you? ‘Rex jerked himself upright and the water gurgled a little at the sides of the canoe.

‘Yes, I don’t know if he has a house of his own anywhere, but I do know where he will be this evening—and your friend Simon will be with him.’