To The Devil A Daughter

C. B. got out and rang the front door bell. He could hear it ringing, but no one came to answer it; so, after waiting a few minutes, he rang again. Still there was no reply and there was no sound of movement within the house.

John left the car, went over to join him and said, `I remember Christina telling us that the only servants were a couple named the Jutsons, and that they lived over the garage, in the flat where she was born. Let's go round there and see if they are about.'

At the back of the house they saw lights in two first floor windows of the outbuildings and, locating a narrow door next to the big ones of the garage, C. B. rang the bell beside it. Footsteps sounded on the stairs and the door was opened by a thin faced, rather sour looking middle aged woman. To C.B.’s enquiry she replied

'No: Mr. Beddows is away. I'm afraid I can't help You.'

C. B. clinked some silver in his pocket. `We're very anxious to get in touch with him; perhaps you could suggest someway. ..'

A man's voice cut him short by calling, `Who's that, Mary?'

There came more clumping of feet, then Jutson appeared and pushed past his wife. He was a small man with grey hair close cropped at the sides; his face was careworn and tight lipped. He was in shirt sleeves and wearing an unbuttoned waistcoat, but no collar. A wireless was reeling off sporting news upstairs, and evidently he was annoyed at being disturbed, as he gave his callers a most unfriendly stare while C. B. repeated his request.

`No.' He shook his bullet head. `The guv'ner's from home. Has been for near a fortnight, an' we dunno when 'e'll be back.'

`Can't you possibly think of someone who might be able to help us?' John asked persuasively. `We are friends of Miss Chris ... Miss Ellen Beddows.'

`That don't make no difference. I tell you 'e ain't 'ere, an' we dunno where 'e is neither. 'Tain't none of our business; an' it's no good you fiddlin' with your note case neither. G'night.'

With that Jutson slammed the door and they were left standing in the rain. As they walked back to the car John said miserably, `What appalling luck! Everything depends on our getting hold of him. How else can we hope to free Christina from this beastly thing that gets into her at night? There must be some way we can trace him.'

`I'll get on to a pal of mine at Scotland Yard tomorrow. They will do more for me than for most people without asking any questions.' C. B. made the promise in the hope of cheering John up, but he was by no means optimistic of getting results, as it now seemed certain that Beddows was still abroad.

Climbing into the car again, they took the road back to Little Bentford. Half a mile before they reached it, on the corner of a lane opposite the church, there was a pillar box, and the car lights showed a man just posting a letter in it. His back was turned to them, but they could see that he was elderly, as a rim of silvery hair caught the light between the collar of a dark cloak and the clerical hat he was wearing. As they passed him John said in an excited whisper

`I'll swear that was Canon Copely Syle. Christina said that he lives in the village at a house called The Priory; so it must have been.'

C. B. turned quickly in his seat and looked back. He saw that the elderly clergyman was now crossing the road diagonally towards the pseudo Gothic house. `Pull up, John,' he called, as they entered the long bend that led to the village green. `I think I've got the germ of an idea.'

John brought the car to a standstill, and they sat in it for some minutes in silence, while C. B. smoked a cigarette. As he stubbed the end out he said, `Turn round and drive back a little way, so that you can park in the shadow of that belt of trees. I'm going to pay the old boy a visit. Maybe it will come to nothing, but with a little luck I might find out a lot.'

When John had driven the car in under the trees, C. B. murmured in his most conspiratorial voice, `Now listen, partner. This bird may be dangerous. If he catches me out all sorts of unpleasant things might happen to yours truly. I don't want you to start anything prematurely, because if matters go well I may be with him for a considerable time. But if I am not out of his house by midnight you are to go along to the village, telephone the police, then come in to get me.'

14

The Black Art

The rain was still falling in a steady downpour, and now that the light was failing the little turrets surmounting the steep gables roofing the house presented only a blurred outline. As C. B. squelched his way up the garden path the coppice twenty yards away on his right was already pitch dark, but to his left the tall, ancient yews of the churchyard still stood out, like sombre sentinels guarding the dead, against the heavy grey sky that presaged a night of inky blackness.

Under the Gothic porch there lingered enough light for him to make out a scrolled iron bell pull beside an arched front door of solid oak and studded with massive nailheads making a curious pattern. He jerked it vigorously and heard the bell clang hollowly in a distant part of the house. No approaching footsteps told him that anyone was on the way to answer it, but after a moment the door swung silently open on well oiled hinges.

Framed against the dim light from a Moorish lantern that hung in the centre of a small square hall stood a manservant of a type that one would hardly have expected to find in an Essex village. He wore a red fez and was robed in a white burnoose. His skin was very dark, but only his thick lips suggested Negro blood; and C. B. put him down at once as an Egyptian. Crossing his black hands on his chest he made a deep bow, then waited silently until C. B. asked

`Is Canon Copely Syle in?'

The man salaamed again and replied in excellent English, a slight lisp alone betraying his foreign origin, `My master has just settled down to his writing, and at such times he is averse to being disturbed. But if you will give me your name, sir, I will enquire if he is willing to receive you.'

`My name is Verney; but that won't convey anything to him. Just say that I arrived from Nice this afternoon.'

As C. B. spoke he stepped into the hall and the Egyptian closed the door. His felt slippers making no sound on the tiled floor and his white robe billowing out behind him, he seemed almost to float away down the corridor. Two minutes later he returned; his white teeth flashed in a smile, he bowed and murmured, `Allow me, sir,, to take your things. Then if you will follow me ...'

Having divested himself of his wet coat, C. B. was led to the back of the house and shown into a room that, unlike the appearance of the house itself and the Egyptian servant, had nothing even suggestive of the sinister about it. In fact it might well have been the workroom of a wealthy but unimaginative clergyman. Wealthy, because of the great array of valuable books that covered all its walls from floor to ceiling: unimaginative, because its owner was evidently content to have left unchanged its Victorian decor and hideous furnishings of elaborately carved light oak. Nevertheless, it had an air of solid comfort. It was a large room, but the fact that it was not very lofty made it cozier than it would otherwise have been. The light from three standard lamps shone warmly on the gilding of the books and a big log fire blazed on an open hearth. In front of it stood the Canon.

C. B. thought John's description of him good. He was shortish and plump both in face and figure. His cheeks were rosy but tended to sag a little; the rest of his skin had such a childlike pinkness that it was difficult to visualize him ever having the need to shave. His forehead was broad and smooth; his long silver hair swept back from it to fall in curls on the nape of his neck, but gave no impression of untidiness, suggesting rather the elegance of a Georgian parson. His eyes were hazel, but very pale, and his expression benign. His features were well cut, the only thing unpleasant about them being an exceptionally thick and out jutting lower lip. He was dressed in a black frock coat, ribbed satin vest, clerical collar, breeches, gaiters and black shoes with silver buckles; all of which added to the impression that he was a divine of a past generation.

Stepping forward, he smiled and extended a plump hand as he said, `I take it you have news for me, Mr. er Verney. It was good of you to come here in such shocking weather.'

His smile detracted from the pleasantness of his expression, as it revealed a lower row of blackened, uneven teeth. His hand was slightly damp and so soft as to seem almost boneless. C. B. found its touch so repulsive that he had to restrain himself from withdrawing his own unduly quickly, as he replied

`Yes, it's a horrid night, isn't it? But our mutual friend, de Grasse, had an urgent message for you, and knowing that I was returning to England to day he asked me to come here this evening.'

The Canon pushed a big horsehair covered armchair a little nearer to the fire and murmured, `Sit down, Mr. Verney. Sit down and warm yourself.' Then he bustled over to a table on which stood an array of drinks, and added, `A whisky and soda now? You must need it after your chilly journey.'

C. B. would have preferred to accept neither food nor drink while in that house, but as his object was to win Copely Syle’s confidence he accepted, and, producing his pipe, said, `D'you mind if I smoke?'

`No, no. Please do.' The Canon carried over two whiskies, handed one to his caller, and went on, `I trust you have not come to tell me that de Grasse has bungled this affair. It is to me of the utmost importance.'

`I gathered that.' C. B. began to fill his pipe. `So I'm afraid you won't be very pleased to hear what I have to say. Mind, it's through no fault of de Grasse that things have gone wrong, but on account of the interference of that infernal young man, John Fountain.'

The Canon made an impatient gesture. `Then de Grasse has bungled the affair! How utterly infuriating. With his resources he should never have allowed a boy like Fountain to get the best of him. That is no excuse. No excuse whatever! But tell me what happened.'

In his usual leisurely manner C. B. then related all that had taken place, from Jules de Grasse luring Ellen as he now called her away the previous evening, to her escape that morning; except that he refrained from making any mention of his own participation in these events. When he had done, the Canon said petulantly

`Really ! To think that a man like de Grasse should allow two children to set him at defiance. But he is not the type to lie down under such treatment. No doubt he means to teach that young man a lesson; and even if he has to use force will get the girl back again from Mrs. Fountain to night.'

`I don't somehow think he'll be able to get her to night,' said C. B. slowly.

`Why not? His wound may incapacitate him personally, but it should not prevent his sending Jules and some of his people to carry her off.'

C. B. felt confident that next morning's post would bring the Canon an airmail letter from de Grasse with full particulars of the latest situation; so there being no point in concealing it overnight, he replied, `It's not quite as simple as that. The girl is no longer with Mrs. Fountain. She is in prison.'

`What!' Copely Syle's drink slopped over, and he jumped to his feet. `What's that you say? In prison! Surely de Grasse has not been idiot enough to bring a charge against her for shooting him?'

`No, it's not that.'

`What then?'

`We don't know ourselves. At least de Grasse didn't know when I left him. All we know is that soon after she landed this morning she was taken into custody. Perhaps she thinks she killed de Grasse, so gave herself up pending enquiries. Or, as she has been living under a false name, it may be something to do with her passport.'

`But this is calamitous!' The Canon's heavy under lip trembled and his babyish face screwed up, so that for a moment C. B. thought he was about to burst into tears. An instant later it became apparent that the contortion of his features was due to rage. Abandoning all control, he began to stamp up and down the room, flinging wide his arms and reviling de Grasse in the most filthy language for his incompetence. Then, turning about, he screamed curses at C. B. for having brought him such unwelcome tidings.

C. B. watched the performance with detached interest, pulled on his pipe, and said with a suggestion of a smile, `It's no good swearing at me; and cursing de Grasse can do your case nothing but harm.'

At his quiet words the Canon's fury subsided as swiftly as it had arisen. He took a gulp of his drink and muttered, `You are right. This is no fault of yours, and curses should be used only with solemn intent.'

`Exactly; so if you are hoping that de Grasse may yet pull the chestnuts out of the fire for you, it's silly to hamper his efforts with even the most casual vibrations of ill wishing.'

Copely Syle gave him a half furtive glance, and asked, `What do you know of such matters?'

`Oh, quite a bit.' C. B. shrugged the question aside. Having sown the seed, and feeling that enough had now passed between them for him to begin his probe without arousing suspicion, he said, `I can understand your being annoyed at young Fountain having thrown a spanner in the works; but surely the girl being temporarily in prison scarcely justifies your getting into such a tizzy? The odds are that she'll be out before the end of the week; then de Grasse's boys should have little trouble in collecting her for you.'

`The end of the week!' Copely Syle threw up his plump hands and the little veins in the whites of his eyes became suffused with blood from the intensity of his annoyance. `That's no good! No earthly good! This matter is one of the utmost urgency. Surely I cannot have failed to make that plain to de Grasse?'

C. B. felt that he was getting warm, and nodded with becoming solemnness. `Yes, I feel sure you did. That must be why he was so upset this morning. Of course, I'm not in on this thing, except as an old friend whom he knew he could trust to bring you an account of what has happened to date. I know only the bare outline of the affair merely that you are anxious to get this young woman back to England. But why the frantic haste?'

`Because to day is the 4th. I must have her here by the 6th.'

`Can't you possibly rearrange your plans so that a few days' delay won't make any difference?'

`You might as well suggest that I should attempt to stop the stars in their courses,' snapped the Canon. `The 6th of March is her birthday. At nine forty five that evening she comes of age. If she is not under my control by then the hopes that I have cherished for years will be dashed.'

`Oh, I see; this is a family affair and a case of a young woman having kicked over the traces,' remarked C. B., deliberately misunderstanding. `Naturally, then, you are anxious to have her back in time to bury the hatchet on her twenty first birthday. May I ask what relationship she bears you?'

`None; but I have known her since birth, and am, in a sense, her guardian.'

`Has she given you this sort of trouble before, or behaved like a flighty type generally?'

`On the contrary. She has lived a very retired life, and shown no inclination to do otherwise.'

The quiet indifference of C.B.’s tone when he made his next remark did much to lessen its impertinence. `Then, as she didn't run away with a man, there's some hope of her still being a virgin?'

The Canon's pale eyes narrowed a trifle and he said quickly, `What leads you to speculate on that?'

`The thought automatically came into my mind that a combination of three times seven years and virginity have immense mystical significance. In fact, there is no state which even approaches its tremendous potence for good or evil; and that if ... But no, this is your affair and nothing to do with me.'

`If what?’ the Canon insisted.

`Why, that if the hesitant manner in which you admit your guardianship of this young woman is due to your status being unofficial; er like, shall we say, one who prefers to remain in shadow. ..'

Copely Syle had slowly risen to his feet. As he did so he seemed to increase in stature. His plump face lost all trace of babyishness. It looked old now, but extraordinarily strong and menacing. Suddenly he burst out harshly:

`You have said either too much or too little. Explain yourself, or it will be the worse for you.'

C.B.’s work brought him into touch with all types of tough customers; so, although he knew that he was on exceptionally dangerous ground, he remained outwardly imperturbable, and even smiled slightly as he replied

`Hold your horses, Canon. There's nothing to get excited about. I thought I had made it clear that I'm not one of de Grasse's thugs, and that our association is simply that of two people who have been of use to one another from time to time. You have no need to fear that he suspects the reason for your interest in the girl and may start trying to blackmail you. I shouldn't have suspected it myself but for what you've just told me and the fact that, although you may not remember it, we've met before.'

`Have we? Where?'

`I can't remember exactly, but I know it was with Aleister Crowley.'

`That charlatan! I hardly knew him.'

With the object of passing himself off as a brother initiate in the Black Art, C. B. had risked a shot in the dark. He had felt confident that anyone of Copely Syle's age and interests must have come into contact with the infamous Crowley at one time or another, and, although the Canon's reactions were disappointing, he could not now go back on his statement. To get on firmer ground, he began to reminisce about the dead magician.

`If you had known Aleister as well as I did, you certainly wouldn't dub him a charlatan. Of course in his later years he couldn't have harmed a rabbit; everyone knew that. The poor old boy degenerated into a rather pathetic figure, and was reduced to sponging on all and sundry in order to keep body and soul together. But when he was a young man it was a very different story. He unquestionably had power, and there were very few things of this world that he could not get with it. Even as an undergraduate he showed how far advanced he was along the Left Hand Path. You must have heard about the Master of John's refusing to let him put on a bawdy Greek play, and how he revenged himself. He made a wax image of the master and took it out to a meadow one night with some friends when the moon was at the full. They formed the usual circle and Crowley recited the incantation. He was holding the needle and meant to jab it into the place that was the equivalent of the image's liver, but at the critical moment one of his pals got the wind up and broke the circle. Crowley's hand was deflected and the needle pierced the image's left ankle. That was a bit of luck for the master of John's. Instead of dying of a tumor on the liver, he only slipped and broke his left ankle when coming down the college steps next day. Up to then Crowley's friends had regarded the whole business as a joke spiced with a vague sort of wickedness; but afterwards they were scared stiff of him, and naturally they were much too impressed to keep their mouths shut; so the facts are known beyond any shadow of doubt.'

Copely Syle shrugged slightly. `Of course, it's perfectly possible, ,and I do remember hearing about it now. But the story can be no more than hearsay as far as you are concerned. You are much too young to have been up at Cambridge with Crowley.'

`Oh yes. I didn't meet him till years later, when he was in middle life and at the height of his powers.' After pausing for a moment C. B. added the glib lie, `I was initiated by him at the Abbaye de Thelema.'

`Really? I was under the impression that Crowley did no more than use his reputation as a mystic to lure young neurotics there, and kept the place going as a private brothel for his own enjoyment.'

`Most of its inmates were young people, and as the whole of his teaching was summed up in “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” a state of general promiscuity naturally followed from it. New brothers and sisters soon lost their shyness, and after that he had little difficulty in persuading them to participate in sexual orgies when the stars were propitious for the performance of special rites. But you can take it from me that he knew his stuff, and that the perversions practised under his auspices were only a means to an end. You must know as well as I do that certain types of Satanic entity feed upon the emanations given out by humans while engaged in the baser forms of eroticism. As far as Crowley was concerned the orgies were simply the bait that lured such entities to the Abbaye and enabled him to gain power over them.'

The Canon had sat down again. He now appeared deeply interested as he said, `You are really convinced that he conducted Satanic rituals with intent, and not merely performed some mumbo jumbo as an excuse to possess a series of young women?'

`Each of his rituals was performed with a definite intention. Of that I am certain, and I know that many of them produced the desired result. He always insisted on everyone present behaving with the greatest solemnity, and when celebrating pagan rites he was most impressive.

He could even render the receiving of the osculam in fame

a gesture of some dignity, and his memory was prodigious; so he experienced no difficulty at all in reciting the lines of the Roman communion backwards.'

`In Christian countries there are few ceremonies more potent than the Black Mass; but from my memory of him I am much surprised to learn from you that he ever proved capable of celebrating that mystery.'

`I have never seen it better done,' C. B. averred seriously. `Although, of course, he was not able to fulfill the technical requirements in their entirety.'

`You mean that among the women neophytes there was never a virgin who could be used as an altar?'

`No, I didn't mean that. It's true that on most occasions he had to make do with young women who had already been seduced, but twice while I was there he managed to get hold of a virgin. And naturally there was no difficulty about holy wafers for desecration and that sort of thing. I was simply referring to the fact that to be one hundred per cent potent the celebrant should have been a Roman Catholic priest, and Crowley had never been ordained.'

`Quite, quite. That was a pity, but would be overlooked if suitable propitiation were made to the Prince by way of blood offerings. Did Crowley er ever achieve the apotheosis in that direction?'

`I can't say for certain. In mediaeval times life was held so cheap that adepts such as Gilles de Rais could decimate a dozen parishes for the furtherance of their magical operations, and no one powerful enough to interfere felt sufficiently strongly about it to do so. But in these days matters are very different. The Italian police must have had a pretty shrewd idea of the sort of thing that went on at the Abbaye; but they were a tolerant lot and were well bribed to keep their ideas to themselves, so they never gave us any trouble. I'm sure they would have, though, had they the least grounds to suppose that we were offering up human sacrifices. Usually Crowley used cats or goats, and once I was present when a monkey was crucified upside down. After I had left I heard rumours that one or two children had disappeared from villages round about; but I'm inclined to suppose that was simply malicious gossip put about by Crowley's enemies.'

The pale eyes of Copely Syle had a faraway look as he murmured thoughtfully, `Ah, for the culminating act in such rituals there is nothing so effacious as the warm blood of an unweaned child.'

C. B. had to bite hard on the stem of his pipe to repress a shudder; but he felt that he was now well on the way to achieving his object in going there, which was to establish such an apparent community of interests with the Canon that the latter would voluntarily give himself away. For a few moments they both sat staring silently into the fire, then the Canon said

`From all you say, Crowley must have reached at least the degree of Magus, if not Ipsissimus. What I cannot understand is how by the middle nineteen thirties, when I met him, he should have degenerated into an impotent windbag, incapable of impressing anyone except a handful of credulous old women.'

`That is easily explained. It was that unfortunate affair in Paris towards the end of the nineteen twenties. You are right in supposing that before that he ranked as an Ipsissimus, but that night he was cast right back across the Abyss. In fact, he was stripped of all his powers and afterwards the most callow neophyte could have bested him in an astral conflict.'

`What an awful thing to happen to an adept,' said the Canon a shade uneasily. `Did he then recant and offer to make a full confession in exchange for being accepted back into the Church? I imagine no other act deserving of such terrible punishment.'

`Oh no, it was nothing like that. It was simply that his ambition was so great that he over reached himself. If he could have bent Pan to his will he would have been the most powerful being on earth. With Pan's pipes playing as he directed he could have made even governments dance to his tune. He attempted to master Pan, but he wasn't quite strong enough; so he paid the price of failure: that's all.'

`I find this most interesting,' said Copely Syle in a low voice. `Do you happen to know any details of what took place?'

`Yes. As a matter of fact I was still one of his disciples, so with him at the time.' C. B. was on safer ground now, as he had actually had a first hand account of this grim affair from one of Crowley's young men, and he went on

`The attempt took place in Paris. Crowley made up a coven, so including himself there were thirteen of us; and in this instance we were naturally all males. We were staying at an hotel on the Left Bank. The proprietor was an initiate, and it was quite a small place; so we took the whole premises for the night, and all the servants were got rid of from mid day to mid day. There was a big room at the top of the house which seemed just the thing for the purpose. In the afternoon we moved out every scrap of furniture and cleaned it with the utmost thoroughness. Then in the evening all of us assisted at the purificatory rites; but fortunately as it turned out, Crowley had decided that only his senior disciple, a chap who had taken the name of McAleister, should assist him at the actual evocation.

`At ten o'clock the rest of us robed them, then left them there, and Crowley locked the door behind us. He had already issued strict injunctions that whatever sounds we might hear coming from the room, even if they were cries for help, we were in no circumstances to attempt to enter it; as such cries might be a trick of Pan's made in an endeavour to evade him, and any interruption of the ritual would render the spell abortive. We had fasted all day, so our associate, the landlord, had prepared an excellent cold buffet for us downstairs in the dining room. It wasn't a very gay meal, as all of us were aware of the magnitude of the task the Master Therion had set himself. We had great confidence in his powers, but it was probably several centuries since any adept had had the audacity to attempt to summon the horned God in person, so we were naturally a bit nervy.

`It was just on midnight when we heard the first noises upstairs. There were thumping’s and shouts, then all Hell seemed to break loose. Piercing screams were mingled with what sounded like sacks of potatoes being flung about. We had the impression that the whole building was rocking. In fact it was, as the chandelier above us began to swing, the glasses jingled on the sideboard and a picture fell from the wall with a loud crash. It was like being in the middle of an earthquake, and the room in which we were sitting had suddenly become icy cold.

`We had all been inmates of the Abbaye at one time or another and had passed pretty severe tests in standing up to Satanic manifestations, so we were by no means a chicken hearted lot. But on this occasion we were seized by abject terror, and none of us made the least effort to hide it. We just sat there, white to the gills and paralyzed by the thought that at any second the terrible Being up above might descend on us.

`After a few moments the pandemonium subsided, and we tried to pull ourselves together. With our teeth chattering from the cold, we debated whether we had better not ignore Crowley's orders and go up to find out what had happened. But the room began to get warm again and that, together with the continued silence, led us to hope that Crowley had won his battle and succeeded in binding Pan. If so, for us to have gone in then might still have ruined everything, and Crowley's rage would have been beyond all reckoning. Knowing his powers, none of us felt inclined to risk the sort of punishment he might have inflicted on us for disobeying him; so we decided to let matters be, and I for one was not sorry about that.

`We were all too scared to face the solitude of going to bed, and started to drink in an attempt to keep our spirits up; but that didn't work. Somehow we couldn't even get tight, and we sat on hour after hour, hardly speaking.

`At last that miserable night ended. Dawn came and we began to hope that Crowley would soon come down, his fat face beaming with triumph, to make our fears seem ridiculous; but he didn't. We waited till seven o'clock. There was still not a sound from the top of the house, so by then we felt that we were no longer justified in evading the issue. All the same, we didn't exactly run upstairs, as by that time we were feeling pretty apprehensive about what we might find when we got there. For a moment or two all eleven of us stood huddled on top of the landing, listening; but with the early morning noises coming up from the street we could not definitely make out any sound coming from the room. Someone suggested that after their exhausting ordeal Crowley and McAleister might still be sleeping, and the idea gave us fresh hope for the moment; but another fellow knocked hard on the door, and there was no reply. That left us with no alternative but to break down the door.'

15

Chamber of Horrors

Like the good raconteur that he was, C. B. paused to knock out his pipe. Copely Syle jerked his head forward and exclaimed in a breathless whisper, `Go on, man! Go on! What did you find?'

C. B. looked him straight in the eyes, and, certain of his facts on this final point, said quietly, 'McAleister was dead. He was stretched out on his back with his arms flung wide, absolutely rigid, just as though he had been electrocuted, and with an appalling look of stark horror on his face such as I never wish to see again. Crowley's pontifical robes were scattered in ribbons about the floor. It looked as if they had been ripped from his body by some ferocious animal. He was crouching in a corner naked. He didn't know any of us. He had become a gibbering idiot.'

The Canon took a quick gulp at his drink and muttered, `Horrible, horrible! Have you any idea what went wrong?'

`No; none of us had. We could only suppose that McAleister had been unable to take it, and cracked at the critical moment. Crowley was in a private asylum outside Paris for six months. He was very lucky to recover his sanity, and afterwards he would never speak of the affair. In fact, I doubt very much if he had any definite memory of what had happened. But you'll understand now why from that time on he seemed like a washed out rag, and why when you met him he entirely failed to impress you.'

`Yes,' the Canon nodded, `I was not introduced to him

until the early 'thirties, and what you have told me explains

the disappointment I felt at the time. But we have not yet recalled where it was that I met you.'

Again C. B. was on dangerous ground, but he knew that Crowley had spent much of the 'thirties in London, and that the better off mystics preferred the privacy of houses to living in flats; so he punted for that area of the capital which then had a greater number of moderate sized private houses than any other, and said, `For the life of me I can't recall the occasion definitely, but I have the impression that it was at a party held out Regent's Park way, or in St. John's Wood.'

'Ah!' said the Canon. .'Then it must have been at Mocata's house: at least at a house just behind Lord's that he made his headquarters for a while; although I believe it was actually owned by a wealthy young Jew who had become a disciple of his.'

This was the acid test. C. B. was acutely aware that, if Copely Syle entertained any suspicions of his bona fides, in the question of where they might have met before lay the perfect opportunity to set a trap. He had only to suggest a place in which he had never been and, if his visitor accepted it, unmask him as a fraud. But C. B. felt it reasonable to hope that their talk of Aleister Crowley had gone a long way to still any early doubts about himself that the Canon might have held, and that his suggestion was free from guile. Gambling boldly on that, and using his excellent knowledge of London even to gild the lily a little, he replied

`Of course that must have been it. And unless my memory's failing me again the house was in Medina Place.'

`That is so,' the Canon nodded. `I went there on a number of occasions and on none of them were there less than twenty people present. That is why I failed to recall you at first sight. There was an observatory at the top of the house, and it proved most useful for the performance of certain rituals.'

`It was Crowley who took me there, but only once.' C. B. hedged cautiously to avoid being questioned on how well he knew this Mr. Mocata; but his host went on reminiscently

`Poor Mocata; he too fell by the wayside through attempting too much. That must have been shortly after we met, as the house at St. John's Wood was his last address. He was engaged in a search for the Talisman of Set, but he came into conflict with a White Magician of greater power than himself, and was found dead one morning outside a house called Cardinal's Folly, in Worcestershire. The coroner's jury brought it in as heart, of course; but I've no doubt at all that it was the rebound of an unsuccessful curse sent out by himself that killed him.'

`I trust,' said C. B., `that the work you are engaged upon is not of such a dangerous nature.'

Copely Syle's light hazel eyes lit up again, and now held a fanatical gleam. `There is always danger in great magical operations; but I should have no fear whatever of the outcome if only this accursed girl had not eluded me. Whatever it costs, whatever risks are run, she must be in my hands by the evening of the 6th.'

`You have less than forty eight hours left to work in; and as long as the French authorities keep her in prison I don't see how de Grasse can get hold of her for you.'

Standing up, the Canon began to walk agitatedly up and down. `You are right. De Grasse can do nothing now except under my direction. I must handle this myself.'

`How do you propose to set about it?'

`I shall fly out to France to morrow. Some of de Grasse's thugs will at least be able to help from their knowledge of the prisons and the warders.'

`In so short a time it is not going to be easy to plan an escape or rather, the even more difficult job of an abduction as it is unlikely now that she would be willing to leave prison with any of de Grasse's people. It may take days of cautious enquiry before one or more jailers who are susceptible to bribery can be seduced, and then one would have to wait until it was their turn to go on night duty.'

`No, no!' The Canon's voice was sharp with impatience. `This is a case for the use of occult weapons; only so can the time factor be overcome. I shall telephone de Grasse to find out the names of the jailers who will be on duty tomorrow night. Then he must get me some things belonging to them. Nail clippings or hair are too much to hope for at such short notice, but it should not be difficult to steal some of their soiled linen; unwashed pants or pyjamas would serve quite well. With those to work on I could easily bemuse their minds and make them temporarily my servants. As for the girl, after sunset she is ruled by Asmodeus, so will do as she is directed.'

Having let the Canon know that Christina was in prison, a few hours before he would otherwise have learned it, had enabled C. B. to fish very skilfully for the steps her pursuer would take in consequence. Now that he knew them he was able to make a bid to counter them in advance; and, being no mean psychologist, he put a price on the bait in the trap he was laying so that the Canon would be less likely to suspect it to be one. With a thoughtful air, he remarked

`I came back from the South this morning only on account of some urgent personal business I had to attend to in London. I tackled that before coming down here, and I am flying out again to morrow. I have quite enough experience to perform the minor magic’s you have in mind, so could save you the trip if you cared to make it worth my while.'

The fat little Canon halted in front of him. `That certainly is an idea, as de Grasse would give you the same co operation as he would me. But are you absolutely certain you could do that which is necessary? Remember, should you fail there will be no second chance; for if we do not get her out of prison by to morrow night there will be no time left to transport her to England before her birthday is over. No! I dare not risk it. Much as I dislike air travel, I must fly down to morrow and cast these spells myself.'

`Just as you like.' C. B. shrugged with apparent indifference. `But I performed just the type of operation you have in mind successfully several times during the war. During the latter part of it I was working in France for the Gestapo, and I managed to get several of their agents out of the clutches of the de Gaullists by such means.'

`What grade do you hold?' asked the Canon uncertainly. `I have eight circles and three squares.'

`Really ! Then you are past the Abyss.'

`Yes. I passed it on Walpurgis Night, 1946.'

`As a Magister Templi you could hardly fail. But what did you mean by “making it worth your while” to act for me? With such powers you surely cannot be short of money?'

C. B. shook his head. `It is not that, and it will cost you nothing. What I had in mind was this. Virgins of three times seven years are never particularly easy to come by, and to procure one far use on the night of her twenty first birthday, when nearly every girl is given a party of some sort, makes the success of such a quest a matter of extreme difficulty. That such a combination is essential to the completion of your work tells me that you must be engaged on a magical operation of quite exceptional importance. As an initiate of twenty five years' standing I am naturally interested now only in the most advanced types of conjuration; but in those I am very interested indeed. Would it be too much to ask you to tell me the end towards which you are working and, perhaps, when we have got the girl, allow me to act as your assistant in the final transubstantiation?'

Copely Syle thought for a moment, then he replied, `Were you still below the Abyss I would not consider it fitting to disclose to you such formula as I must use; neither would I risk allowing you to make one in a coven for such a ceremony were I not an Ipsissimus, and free to choose my associates within certain limits. But since you are an Adept of the S.S. with only two circles to gain and two squares to lose before reaching the highest plane of the Order, I see nothing against acceding to your request. I should warn you, though, that this is a matter which it would be sheer madness for anyone of a lesser degree than Ipsissimus to attempt, for it is the greatest of all the Great Works.'

`You must refer to the achieving of Oneness with God,' said C. B., stroking back his grey hair.

`Yes. No one would deny that the transmutation of base metals into gold, or the distillation of the Elixir that will renew youth and prolong life indefinitely, are Great Works; but for many years I have devoted myself to a greater. I have now reached a point where only one thing is necessary for me to become the equal of God. On the 6th of March I, Augustus Copely Syle, will also create Life.'

`Homunculi?' murmured C. B., suppressing a start.

The Canon bared his ugly, blackened teeth in a smile. `Yes, homunculi; and one of them at least shall be a creature capable of thought and speech.'

C. B. was swiftly recalling all he could remember about this strange and awe inspiring subject. There were many legends of minor deities having transformed inanimate objects into human beings, and the experts on folklore now recognised that such legends were usually race memories of priest kings and witch doctors who had actually lived in pre historic times. No doubt during many generations of repetition the story teller's art had embellished these legends to such a degree that in their final form they bore little resemblance to the original happenings; but the possibility remained that some of them at least had been based on more than entirely fact less imagination.

From the earliest historical times, through all the great civilizations of antiquity, and in the classic Graeco Roman era, the practice of magic had been not merely widespread, but accepted as the proper occupation for every priesthood, and a natural subject for study by everyone with any pretence to education. In consequence, among the clay tablets of Babylonia, the papyrus of Egypt and the esoteric writings of the great nations of the Mediterranean, ample evidence could be found of attempts to create spontaneous generation, often with claims to varying degrees of success.

The spread of Christianity had driven the old religions underground; but it had never quite succeeded in smothering the knowledge gained by countless generations of Pagan priests, who had based their teachings on their observations of natural laws rather than on blind faith. Much was lost until, after a thousand years, there came the revolt against the Church's power to fetter men's minds, and the age of reason ushered in that of scientific investigation.

Even then, many secrets known to the ancients had not been recovered; yet through the centuries others had been handed down and, not infrequently, put to the test by bold men and women who were prepared to risk being burnt at the stake as the price of acquiring power, riches or wisdom.

Among those who had trafficked in these forbidden mysteries was a Count von Kuffstein, and C. B. remembered reading in an old book of the experiments he had carried out in the year 1775 at his castle in the Tyrol. With the aid of an Italian Abbe named Geloni, the Count had succeeded in producing ten living creatures who resembled small men and women. They had, however, been more in the nature of fish than mammals, as they were incapable of living for long in anything so rarefied as air, and had to be kept in large strong glass jars that were filled with liquid. Once a week the jars were emptied and refilled with pure rain water, to which certain chemicals were added, and human blood on which the homunculi fed. That they had been capable of thought and emotion was instanced by perhaps the strangest of all love stories, for one of the males was said to have escaped from his jar and died from exhaustion while attempting to get into the jar that imprisoned the prettiest of the females.

The evidence for these extraordinary happenings was given unusual weight by the fact that they had not been recorded by the Count himself, but in a secret diary kept by his butler, which had not come to light until long after the events described; also, it was further stated that, among others, such reputable noblemen as Count Max Lemberg and Count Franz Joseph von Thun had visited the castle and vouched for having examined the homunculi themselves.

C. B. also recalled that the great German scientist, Paracelcus von Hohenheim, who had been the first doctor to give his lectures in the vulgar tongue at the University of Basle, had expressed himself as entirely satisfied with his experiments in imbuing inanimate matter with life.

All these thoughts raced through C.B.’s mind in a few seconds as he sat with his long legs stretched out in front of him, staring at the round, excited face of the Canon.

His reading told him that this fantastic thing was just remotely possible, as there was too much evidence for it to be shrugged aside as utter nonsense; yet he considered it much more likely that this evil little man was mad.

`You don't believe me, eh?' Copely Syle's thick under lip was thrust forth in an aggressive grin. `Well, come with me and you shall see.'

Turning abruptly, he led the way out of the room and down a corridor connecting the new with an old part of the house, till they reached a heavy iron door built into a low stone archway that must have been many centuries old. Taking a small key attached to a long gold snake chain from his pocket, he inserted it in a modern Chubb lock, gave a quick turn, pressed, and the weighty door swung silently open.

They were standing at the top of a flight of stone steps, and C. B. found himself looking down into as strange and eerie an apartment as it was possible to imagine. At first sight it appeared to be a chapel, but as its floor was a good six feet below ground level it could, perhaps, be more accurately described as a crypt. A double row of slender pillars supported its roof. At its far end, fifty feet away, three broad shallow steps led up to an altar, now partially hidden by flanking curtains. On it a candle burned before a shadowy something that C. B. could not make out. This solitary candle apart, the place was lit only by the reddish glow coming from a large furnace to the right of the flight of steps, at the top of which they stood.

As the vaguely seen furnishings of the chamber became clearer, C. B. felt as though he had been transported back to the Middle Ages, for before him were spread out all the paraphernalia of an alchemist's laboratory. To his right stood the open furnace with its scalloped canopy, funnel shaped chimney, and iron pull handle for working its bellows : to his left was a great astrolabe and a human skeleton with wired joints such as are used to teach medical students anatomy. In the centre of the chamber were four stout oak refectory tables. On them stood many strange shaped bottles, balances and retorts, and beneath the nearest showed the outline of a mummy case. Behind the pillars, in one side aisle, stood a line of what looked like huge round tea cosies, and in the other, only dimly seen, what appeared to be a number of large hen coops. The only items lacking to complete the traditional picture were a stuffed alligator and other fearsome reptiles hanging from the roof; yet even this type of adjunct to the wizard's art was not entirely lacking, as the scampering of little feet and a faint whimpering, coming from the coops and a row of cages beyond them, told of living things imprisoned there for the magician's use.

C. B. had hardly gathered a general impression of the place, and taken one step down, before the Canon first closed and locked the door behind them, then switched on a row of electric lights.

Now every detail of the interior could be seen, and it instantly became obvious that in addition to being a “puffer's workshop” this ancient half crypt was used as a Satanic Temple. On one of the curtains which partially shut off the semi circular bay containing the altar there was embroidered in rich colours the figure of a rearing goat, on the other the figure of a woman who had seven breasts and a serpent's tail. Between them the altar could now be clearly seen. Against a beautiful backcloth showing Adam and Eve in relation to the Macrocosm, a black and broken crucifix stood out. Nailed to it, head uppermost, which in this instance was the equivalent of upside down, hung a large bat. Upon the altar lay a jeweled sword, a vellum bound book and a gold, gem encrusted chalice The front of the altar was covered with cloth of gold, into which were woven semi precious stones forming the ten signs of the Cabala; but in places the fabric showed brownish stains, suggestive of dried blood. The solitary candle that burned in front of the desecrated crucifix was black.

Feeling that some remark was called for, and knowing that in no circumstances must he show surprise or disgust, C. B. said, `You have splendid quarters here. I don't think that I've ever seen better.'

`I was lucky to find them,' replied the Canon. `It is extremely difficult to acquire a comfortable house which has adjacent to it an altar that was consecrated for many centuries; and, of course, the use of it enormously increases the potency of my operations. I chanced to hear of it shortly after the First World War. For many years it had been lived in only by a succession of caretakers. As it was the abode of quite a number of elementals, I got it for a song.'

While he was speaking he turned to the furnace and began to make it up. It was similar to those used by old fashioned blacksmiths a great open bed of coke in an iron trough nearly five feet square. By a few puffs from the bellows the lower layers of fuel could soon be made white hot, but now they gave out only a reddish glow that shone here and there through cracks in the layers of still black fuel above them. The Canon spread a new layer of coke on top, blotting out the glow entirely, then damped it down for the night by spraying cold water on it.

As soon as he had finished, he led the way over to one of the big tables. Pinned out upon it were what amounted to a number of blue prints, each showing in the greatest detail the structure of various portions of the human body. Beyond them were rows of glass stoppered jars containing pieces of skins, muscles, ligaments, arteries, kidneys, livers and other viscera pickled in spirit. The sight of them told C. B. that whatever element of magic there might be in this horrible process it must be basically, at least, scientific; and a moment later Copely Syle confirmed his thoughts by saying

`To you, as a Magister Templi, I need hardly refer to the fact that magic is no more than the application of natural laws as yet unrecognized by all but a very limited number of people, such as ourselves. In the initial stages of my work I do nothing of which a moderately intelligent biologist is not capable, given the necessary materials and a considerable degree of patience. Even in the more advanced stages there is little that a fully trained scientist would find difficult to follow and imitate. In fact, were I prepared to give my secrets to the world and the masses could be prevented from sabotaging such work on account of their childish prejudices, there is no reason whatever why an unlimited number of homunculi should not be manufactured.'

C. B. suppressed a shudder at the idea of a world in which even a limited proportion of the population were soulless robots, liable at any moment to behave like homicidal maniacs should they escape from the control of their creators. In an attempt to counteract the horror he felt, he remarked lightly

`Wouldn't that lead to virgins of twenty one soon becoming in short supply that is, if the assistance of one is needed for the creation of each homunculus?'

Taking his observation quite seriously, the Canon replied, `To begin with, yes; for, like mules, the early types of homunculi would prove incapable of breeding. But that is a deficiency which science could undoubtedly find a way to make good in due course. In the meantime, a government such as that of Soviet Russia, which is not hampered by the scruples and inhibitions of its people, might consider it well worth its while to segregate for several years large numbers of female children, in order to ensure their retaining their virginity until they reached an age when they could be used for the production of homunculi. You see, for any country bent on making war the process offers a new weapon of inestimable value. As suicide troops these fabricated beings would prove enormously superior to the most patriotic humans, because they would require no food other than the blood from the bodies of their enemies, and under the hypnotic direction of their masters they would carry out their allotted tasks with the same ruthless efficiency as machines.'

The hair on the back of C.B.’s neck prickled as he listened to this ghastly conception. Judged by all standards, moral or divine, he considered Copely Syle to be a criminal lunatic, who should be shot with even less scruple than a mad dog; but that did not alter the fact that he displayed none of the sympathies which made a man certifiable. On the contrary, his conscientious research and logical reasoning showed him to be possessed of an unquestionable, if perverted, sanity. All C. B. could think of to mutter was

`The Atlanteans did as you suggest, didn't they? And to people like ourselves it is common knowledge that it was their magicians producing large numbers of homunculi which led the White Powers to destroy the whole continent of Atlantis by fire and flood.'

`True; but the human race was much younger in those days. In the past century, working through Communism, which openly denies all manifestations of God, Prince Lucifer has secured a far firmer grip upon it than he had then. With the minds of nearly half the population of the world attuned in opposition to the so called Light, I do not think the Brethren of the Right Hand Path would now prove strong enough to bring about another deluge.'

The plump little black clad man paused for a second, then shrugged and went on, `However, it is for the Lord of this World himself to decide when and how we should give battle. For us, it is sufficient that we are working towards His ends, and that our reward will be great. Come now and see my contribution to our Master's business.'

As he spoke he led the way across to the row of huge, conical tea cosies. Each of them stood about four feet high, and as he removed one at the end of the line, C. B. saw that its thick padded material had concealed a great glass jar over two feet in diameter.

Again C.B.’s hackles rose, and, in spite of all that had gone before, he could hardly believe his eyes. In the clear liquid that filled the giant bottle was a naked female monster. She was about the height of a child of eight, yet far broader, having big breasts and thick thighs; but from the crutch downwards her legs were tied, and ended in tiny tapering feet, so that she resembled a squat and hideous mermaid. Her flesh was pink. There were no hairs on any part of her body and she was entirely bald. As he stared at her she slowly opened a pair of red rimmed lash less eyes and blinked at him.

Fighting down his disgust, C. B. uttered the sort of exclamations of astonishment and interest that he knew were expected of him, then he asked, `Will her legs always be tied, or can you perform some operation, magical or otherwise, to separate them?'

The Canon shook his silvery head. `No; about that there is nothing I can do. As you will see, most of the others are also imperfect. I assemble the basic ingredients for the creation of flesh, muscle, bone, blood and glands, but it is impossible to forecast how they will develop. All I can do is to improve my blends by experience, and thus endeavour to control unnatural or extraneous growths. These I keep only in order to record changes in their development and to ascertain how long they will live.' Replacing the cover, he removed those of the other jars in turn.

One male had only stumps where its arms should have been; another was much smaller than the rest, but had an enormous organ of generation. Among them were an hermaphrodite, a female with two heads and another whose head rose grotesquely straight out of her shoulders without the least trace of a neck. Only one other was bald and the males all had sparse beards. The faces of all of them were hideous and their gaze held a stony malevolence. Only the last had no obvious deformity.

Like the first, she was a squat and repulsive looking female. Unlike several of the others, she had grown both hair and nails, but the latter, which protruded from thick, stubby fingers, looked more like talons. Her mouth was very large and she kept opening and shutting it slowly in the same manner as a fish. When the cover was removed from her jar she appeared to be asleep, but almost instantly she woke and became imbued with horrid life, grimacing at them and clawing furiously at the glass as though she would rend and devour them if she could.

Copely Syle stood there smiling at her, obviously immensely proud at having produced this evil travesty of a human being, and after a moment he murmured, `Behold the child of my creation, who is to be the first of our new race. Another forty odd hours and the final mystic rite will render her capable of breathing air as easily as we do; then she will be able to come forth into the world. Although her womb will never bear fruit, she is destined to be the forerunner of many of her kind; so is the Lord Satan's answer to Eve.'

`I count it a great privilege to have seen her still, as it were, in a state of gestation,' replied C. B. `But if she continues in her present mood, aren't you afraid that she will give you great trouble when once she is out of her bottle ?'

`No. In this stage she is still an animal, so it is quite natural that she should display an animal's resentment of confinement; but when she emerges she will be a different creature. You will recall that God blew into the nostrils of Adam to give him Life, but He did not blow into the nostrils of the animals He had made,: so Life in that sense was something quite other than the capacity to move in obedience to instincts. The rite that I shall perform on the 6th is analogous to that final act of creation which differentiated man from beasts, so it will bring about a fundamental change in her. Besides, in Ellen Beddows we are fortunate in having a young woman of mild and pleasant disposition.'

`I see; you are, then, assuming that her personality will exert an influence on the formation of a personality in this creature?'

`I think it is bound to have some effect, as the homunculus will be infused with her spirit.'

C. B. swallowed hard. He had thought it certain that the Canon intended to perform a Black Mass on Christina's body, and that probably she would be subjected to certain physical obscenities afterwards. Unless she was hypnotized and rendered unconscious first, the shock would be appalling and perhaps even result in temporarily unbalancing her mind. That would have been bad enough, but what the Black Magician actually implied was infinitely worse. It was nothing less than the drawing forth of her spirit from her body, and, while it was absent, there was the awful possibility that some elemental might take possession of her permanently, by day as well as by night, turning her into a lunatic. After a moment he asked

`How long will the ceremony take?'

`No great while,' replied the other placidly. `I shall, of course, first celebrate Mass, with the girl's body lying on the altar. After that come the recitation of the formula of the Holy Grail, and that of the Temple of Solomon the King, for the achievement of Unity with the Cosmos and as signifying the completion of the Great Work. The jar containing the homunculus will be placed on the floor on the left of the altar, close up to it, and the young woman's body will be so arranged that her head dangles down off the end of the altar over the open top of the jar. Having uttered the Gnostic Name of the Seven Vowels of Babylon as my witness, it will remain only for me to slit the girl's throat with the sacrificial knife and ensure that her life blood, which will carry her spirit with it, shall flow into the jar.'

Few men had such a wide knowledge of unorthodox crime as C. B. In the course of his work he had broken up secret societies, freed a Cabinet Minister from blackmail, supervised the execution of a spy in the Tower of London, unraveled plots involving a dozen political murders, and, on occasion, when convinced that it was in the best interests of his country to do so, taken life himself without legal warrant. But never had he come across anything so utterly heinous as this project .for the cold blooded murder of an innocent girl. For him it was a new experience to feel faint; yet he did so now as he visualised Christina with her head half severed from her body, and the blood pouring from her neck to feed this loathsome, fiendish monstrosity that, barely a yard away, was still glaring at him with a hatred beyond any of which even the most savage animal was capable.

His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He could no longer think of anything to say. Yet he knew that if he allowed the Canon to sense the horror he felt it would immediately expose him as an impostor. In vain he strove to get a hold over himself so that he might cope with the situation. His brain refused to work. Suitable words of understanding and approval simply would not come. Then, at the very moment that he thought his sick repulsion of the whole frightful business must become obvious, he was given an unexpected chance to conceal it.

A heavy knocking sounded on the iron door. The Canon stepped forward and quickly replaced the cover over the homunculus, turned on his heel, and hurried across to the steps. C. B. took a deep breath and, whipping out his handkerchief, swiftly wiped away the tell tale perspiration that had broken out on his forehead. As Copely Syle opened the door the flutter of a white robe disclosed the presence of his Egyptian servant on the far side of it. The two of them exchanged a few low voiced sentences in Arabic, then the Canon glanced over his shoulder and said, `Excuse me, please. I shall be back quite soon.' Stepping through the door, he locked it behind him, leaving C. B. alone in that chamber of horrors.

Within a few moments he had fully regained his composure and his mind was once more working with its accustomed lucidity. A glance at his wrist watch showed him that it was close on half past ten, so he had been in the house for an hour and a quarter. The time, he felt, had been remarkably well spent, as he had achieved far more than he had hoped to do when he had, on the spur of the moment, decided to make this reconnaissance. He had found out not only that even in prison was no certain sanctuary for Christina, but also the steps the Canon would take to get her out, and by offering himself as their investigator had now ensured that they would not be taken. By the time Copely Syle discovered that his visitor had been an impostor it would be too late for him to make the arrangements necessary to secure Christina's release from prison during the night of the 5th, and if she remained there until the 6th it would then be too late for him to get her back to England on her birthday. More, by his skilful winning of the Black Magician's confidence, C. B. had become privy to the foul and terrible operations in which he was engaged, and had a good prospect of being able to render them abortive.

As he looked again at the row of huge tea cosies he was tempted to smash the jars, and so end the horrid,, unnatural life that squirmed and grimaced within them. But to have done so would have jeopardized his chances of saving Christina, and, by disclosing to their evil creator that he had been discovered, enable him to escape retribution. Feeling that he had the situation well in hand, and now had only to maintain his imposture a little longer in order to clean up the whole revolting business in a satisfactory manner, C. B. quickly decided against precipitate action, and once more began to glance about him.

Now that he was alone his attention was again caught by the shuffling, squeaks and low whining that came from the other side of the crypt. Walking round the big tables, he crossed to the aisle in which stood the row of coops and cages. Behind the pillars the light was dim, but when he got to within a few feet of them he could see that each contained an animal, bird or reptile. There were black cocks and white hens, bats, toads and doves, evidently for use as sacrifices. Then he suddenly became conscious of a new horror.

The birds and reptiles were free, but the animals were not. All of them were crouching or lying in unnatural positions with their limbs pinioned. There were dogs, cats, rabbits, a badger, a mongoose and four monkeys: all were alive, but all had had some operation performed upon them. Many had had their genitals removed, some had had legs amputated, others lacked eyes or had had their claws cut out. From the bandages of several of them small bottles and test tubes protruded, into which was draining the fluid from their wounds.

At this heart rending and nauseating sight C. B. was filled with a furious rage. Again the impulse came to him to take immediate action and put these miserable little creatures out of their agony. But again he fought down his personal feelings from the realisation of how much was at stake and must be forfeited if he disclosed his hand prematurely.

How many minutes he stood staring with a sick feeling at these small martyrs to Evil he could not have said, but a slight sound behind him caused him to swing round. Unheard and unseen by him, the Canon had re entered the crypt and was standing in his rear beside the nearest pillar.

Still the picture of a benign erudite prelate of another

age, Copely Syle was smiling as he said, `I see that you are interested in my pets?'

In spite of his age and silver hair, C. B. itched to pound his smooth face into a jelly; but he stuffed his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and twisted his lips into a semblance of a grin, as the Canon went on blandly

`They are indispensable to my work. Ample quantities of gland secretions are an essential in the production of homunculi. It is regrettable that I should have had to make do with animals, and it is that, of course, which accounts for the ill proportioned lumpishness of my creations. Had I had human beings at my disposal I could have produced men and women fair of face and shapely in form. But the day will come. Oh yes, the day will come when having seen my prototype the people for whom it has been designed will readily supply me with more suitable materials.'

Carefully controlling his voice, C. B. said, `I take it you refer to the people in the Kremlin?'

The Canon nodded. `Who else? For is it not into their hands that the Lord Satan has placed the greatest power to serve him? I have no doubt whatever that they will be most interested when I submit my masterpiece to them.'

For a moment he stood there, his pale eyes glowing with a fanatic light. Then they dimmed a little and he said with a swift change of manner, `But now that I have shown you my great secret we have no more to do here for the moment. It is still pouring with rain, and I do not know what arrangements you have made. If you prefer not to face the elements, I should be happy to offer you a bed here for the night.'

`Thank you.' C. B. shook his head. `It is very kind of you, but I arranged to pick up a taxi in the village, and I've booked a room at the Red Lion in Colchester. I think I had better go back there, as I must catch the first train up to London in the morning.'

`Just as you wish.' Copely Syle turned and took a few paces towards the door; then he halted in his tracks and exclaimed, `Ah ! There is one thing I nearly forgot. Since we are to work together, and you are to do that which there is to do on my behalf down at Nice to morrow night, it is only fitting that before you depart we should pledge one another in the cup of Brotherhood.'

C. B. was most reluctant to participate in any such rite, quite apart from the fact that he expected it to entail his having to swallow at least a few sips of some horrid brew; but he saw no way in which he could evade the proposal without arousing belated suspicion in his host's mind; so, comforting himself with the thought that within a few minutes now he would be out of this den of iniquity, he

agreed with tactful promptness.

Leading the way to the altar, the Canon took the gold chalice from it : then he went to a cabinet nearby, produced a wicker covered bottle and poured about a wineglassful of its contents into the chalice. Returning to the altar he genuflected three times before the crucified bat, elevated the chalice, and in a sonorous voice chanted a few sentences of Abracadabra in what C. B. took to be Hebrew. Putting the chalice to his lips, he tilted back his head, held it so for a moment, lowered it, and wiped the moisture from his mouth with the back of his free hand; then, with a courtly bow, he handed the vessel to C. B.

Having bowed in reply, C. B. lifted it in turn and took a small sip. To his surprise it was no Devil's potion distilled from frogs' testicles and newts' tails, but a rich wine highly flavored with aromatic spices; so he took a small mouthful before lowering the chalice.

As Copely Syle stretched out a hand for the vessel he saw that a good part of the wine remained in it. His eyes seemed to flash with suspicion, and he exclaimed angrily

`You, a Magister Templi, should know better than to leave unconsumed wine that has been offered as a sacrament.'

To cover his blunder C. B. replied swiftly, `I had not intended to leave any. I was taking my time to savour this beautiful concoction.' Then he lifted the vessel again and emptied it.

As he lowered the chalice the second time the Canon began to laugh. It was not a pleasant genial laugh, but a gloating chuckle that rose to a high pitched malicious titter.

Suddenly C. B. was filled with a terrible fear. That evil mirth confirmed an impression of which he had become conscious only a moment earlier. As the liquid he had drunk coursed through his veins he could feel his limbs becoming paralyzed. With extraordinary swiftness his body assumed an intolerable weight. Turning, he took a few faltering steps in the direction of the door; but he knew that he could never reach it. His knees sagged and the Canon gave him a sudden push. Losing his balance, he slumped into a carved ebony elbow chair that stood to one side of the altar steps. That contemptuous push destroyed his last desperate hope that he might be the victim only of some natural seizure. He had been tricked into drinking a powerful drug, and was now at the mercy of the most unscrupulous Satanist he had ever encountered.

16

Dead Men Tell No Tales

The Canon's pale face, no longer a benign mask, but displaying unconcealed the evil in his soul, leered down into C.B.’s. His thick lower lip jutted out aggressively and from between his blackened teeth he spat the words

`You fool! You miserable fool! You would have done better to walk naked into a den of lions than to come here. That you managed to deceive me for an hour shows that you know enough to have some idea of the risk you ran. How could you hope to pit yourself against me an Ipsissimus? In a day or less it was certain that I should have found you out and caught up with you.'

C.B.’s sight, hearing and the faculties of his mind remained unimpaired, but all his limbs had become limp and useless. Concentrating his will, he strove desperately to struggle to his feet. The attempt was futile and resulted only in a slight stiffening of his spine. He could do no more than wriggle feebly where he sat, and by the greatest effort raise one hand a few inches. While he squirmed there helplessly, the Canon went on

`When I left you just now it was because an authentic messenger sent by de Grasse had just arrived from France. From my description of you he identified you at once as Mrs. Fountain's friend who arrived from London yesterday. I know you now, Colonel Verney, for what you are. And you may be sure that I do not mean to allow you to carry away with you the secrets you have learned to night.'

`You damn' well let me go or ... or it'll be the worse for you,' muttered C. B. thickly.

`There is no way in which you can harm me.'

`Not at the moment, perhaps. But ... my friends know that I came here. If ... if I don't rejoin them they will soon be asking you some ... very awkward questions.'

`They will ask none that I shall not be able to answer to their satisfaction. I have already decided how to deal with this situation, and what I shall tell them. You called here at a quarter past nine and left again at about eleven o'clock. In view of the wildness of the weather we decided that you should take the short cut through my garden to the village. My servant will say that he let you out of the back door and described the way you should go. At the bottom of the orchard there is a little gate. Beyond it lies the railway line. The last train from London passes at about eleven five. To morrow morning when your dead body ...'

`My body!' gasped C. B. `You can't mean ...'

`To murder you?' the Canon finished for him. `Yes: why not? But no one will suspect me of having done so. As I was about to say when your mangled body is found it will be assumed that you tripped in the dark, fell, and stunned yourself when crossing the rails.'

C.B.’s mind was still perfectly clear; but he was having great difficulty in keeping his chin from falling forward on his chest, and his tongue felt swollen and clumsy. He had not often been really frightened in his life, but he was frightened now. Jerking back his head, he forced out the words

`You're mad! You can't do this!

'Oh, but I can!' The Canon's voice had become cruelly bantering. `It is only a little after half past ten, so there is ample time to put you on the line before the train passes. Even should someone enquire for you during the next half hour, if they are told that you have already left I do not believe for an instant that they would risk breaking in without some concrete reason for supposing that harm has befallen you. To do so would ruin your own success, had you managed to carry through your imposture; so before taking any action they would certainly go back to the inn to make quite sure you had not returned there. You are as much my creature now as any of the homunculi, and there is no power in the world that can prevent my doing what I like with you.'

`Perhaps. All the same . . . if you do as you say you ... you'll swing for it.'

Copely Syle shook his silvery head and smiled. `Wishful thinking, my poor friend; wishful thinking. There will not be one scrap of evidence against me. Your death will so clearly be an unfortunate accident. “How sad,” people who know you will say. “Colonel Verney was really no age, and such a nice man.” Naturally, although you were a stranger to me, as you met your death soon after leaving my house I shall send a wreath. Have you any preference in flowers? Since it was poking your nose into other people's business while in the South of France that has brought you to this sorry pass, I think carnations and mimosa would be rather suitable.'

`You . . . you'll swing, I tell you!' C. B. croaked. `The people who knew I was coming here knew my suspicions about you. If I'm found dead they'll pull this place to pieces. They'll find what I found. Once they've nailed your motive for getting rid of me, the rope will be as good as round your neck.'

His face suddenly distorted with rage, the Canon took a step forward and began to strike C. B. again and again in the face with his small flabby hands.

`Swine! Swine! Swine!' he cried. `So owing to you there is now a risk that my sanctum here may be desecrated! That clods incapable of apprehending the significance of the most elementary mystery may break in; may destroy my priceless possessions; may ruin the work of a life time. But no! Once you, who have some understanding of these things, are out of the way, I can deal with them.'

Calming down with the same suddenness as he had flown into a passion, he added, `This is England. No one will dare force their way into the house without a search warrant. If I held you prisoner they might apply for one.

But your body is certain to be found soon after it is light; so there will be nothing for which to search here. You did not know about my homunculi before I told you of them; so your friends cannot suspect the work upon which

I am engaged. They can know nothing more than that I planned to have Ellen kidnapped. I shall find no difficulty in fooling anyone who may call here to make enquiries.'

`That will not save you!'

`Yes it will. You are my only danger. Once you are silenced for good I shall have nothing to fear.'

`You are wrong.' C.B.’s voice came hoarsely. It was still an effort to speak, but he knew that he was fighting for his life. `I shall still be a danger to you when I am dead. However cleverly you may lie to my friends, they will still be suspicious at my sudden death. They will insist on a post mortem. My body will be found full of this infernal poison. They'll get you on that.'

The Canon laughed again, his good humour quite restored. `No, no! As with most drugs that paralyze the body while leaving the brain unimpaired, its effects are only temporary, They soon wear off. To keep you as helpless as you are at present I shall have to give you another dose before we carry you out, and yet a third when we leave you on the line. By the time your body is found all traces of the drug will have disappeared.'

This piece of information brought C. B. a glimmer of hope. Perhaps it was no more than the effect of suggestion, but he had the impression that his feet were not quite so dead to all sensation as they had been when he had first endeavoured to struggle up from the chair. If he could keep Copely Syle talking for a while there now seemed a chance that he might recover the use of his limbs at least enough for one violent movement. The Canon obviously lacked both muscle and stamina. If suddenly sprung upon by a much weightier man, it was certain that he would go down under the impact. Once down and grasped by hands that would be growing stronger every moment, it would be long odds against his being able to free himself. C.B.’s fears eased a little. He knew that he was very far from being out of the wood, yet all the same he began to savour the thought of getting his long fingers round that plump neck.

His hopes were short lived. Almost as though the Canon had read his victim's thoughts, he said, `With such a big man as yourself, Colonel Verney, the effects of the drug may be of unusually short duration, and such a hearty specimen of British manhood can hardly be expected to accept calmly the fact that death is waiting for him at the bottom of the garden. There is too much at stake for me to take any chances. Just in case you should recover sufficiently to show a belated resistance to my will, it would be best if I put any temptation to do so beyond your powers.'

As he spoke he went over to the cabinet from which he had taken the bottle containing the drugged wine. From a drawer in the lower part of it he got out a ball of string and a pair of scissors. With deft movements he cut off several pieces of string, each about a yard in length, and proceeded first to lash C.B.’s wrists to the arms of the chair, then his ankles to its front legs. C. B. was still too weak to put up anything but a feeble opposition, and, once the job was done, even had he been in possession of his full strength, he could not have moved without dragging the heavy chair with him like a snail's shell on his back, much less broken free from it.

Again C. B. felt fear closing down like a black cloud on his mind. Yet still a lingering hope sustained him. If his death was to be made to appear an accident, it was clear that they could not leave him bound hand and foot when they laid him on the railway line. Neither would they dare gag him. Although he could speak only with some difficulty, he might be able to cry out loud enough to attract the attention of a passer by. At such an hour and in such weather that hope was an incredibly slender one. But there was another one slightly more substantial. They could not remain with him until the train was actually in sight, from fear of being seen in its headlamps. He would have at least a few minutes unbound and alone. As the effects of the drug wore off so quickly, he might regain just enough strength to squirm clear of the rails.

The thought had hardly come to him when it was shattered by another. Copely Syle would not be such a fool as to give him that last chance, and risk finding himself facing a judge on a charge of attempted murder. He or the Egyptian would knock their victim on the head before they left him. To do so would not add in the least to any chance of his death being traced to them, as his fractured skull would be assumed to be one of the injuries received when the engine made mincemeat of him.

Once more it seemed as if the Canon read his thoughts; but he had other views for ensuring against any last minute escape, for he said smoothly, `No doubt you are hoping that when we leave you on the line you will manage to wriggle off it. Do not deceive yourself. I shall take precautions against that. As you are aware, homunculi must be fed on human blood. Fortunately the modern practice of people giving their blood to hospitals saves me considerable trouble in obtaining supplies. For a sufficient recompense a man in London finds no difficulty in arranging for several bottles to be stolen from the hospitals for me every week; but your visit provides me with an opportunity to save a little money.'

His meaning was clear enough, and a shudder ran through C. B. at the thought that his blood was to be used to sustain the life of those foul creatures in the jars.

`A pint is the usual quantity given by blood donors,' the Canon went on thoughtfully, `but that hardly affects them; so I shall take from you at least a quart. Such a drain on your vitality will more than double the effect of the drug; so for a quarter of an hour or more you will be too weak to lift a finger. And to render you incapable of all movement for ten minutes will be ample for our purpose.'

C.B.’s strength was now fast returning to him. He could move his toes, clench his fingers, and flex the muscles of his arms and legs. Temporarily giving way to the fear that was upon him, he began to shout curses at the Canon and strive violently to free himself. His struggles were in vain; the string cut into his wrists and ankles, but his efforts failed even to loosen it materially.

With a contemptuous smile, the Canon watched his abortive squirming for a few moments; then he said, `Directly I learned that you were an impostor I hurried back here, in case you took it into your head to harm the homunculi during my absence; so I have yet to hear the full report of de Grasse's messenger. It would be a great mistake to put you on the line unnecessarily early, in case

someone stumbled on you. I am, therefore, about to fill in ten minutes by listening to what else the messenger has to say, and putting in a personal call to de Grasse for midnight, so that I may give him fresh instructions. When I return I shall give you your second dose of the drink you found so palatable. They say that when near death one recalls one's childhood. My having to hold your nose while you take your medicine should help you to remember similar episodes when in your nursery. We shall then perform the little operation by which you will donate your blood to such an admirable cause. That should take us up to about five minutes to eleven In the meantime my man, Achmet, will have brought the wheelbarrow round from the gardener's shed. The margin of ten minutes I have left should be just right for me to give you your final dose, and have you transported to the scene of your execution.'

Turning on his heel he walked sedately the length of the crypt with his hands clasped behind his back. As he switched out all the lights except two and left it, locking the door after him, C. B. watched him go with a feeling of sick despair. There seemed such an air of terrible finality about the Satanist's present calmness. That he was apt to fly into rages was evident from the intense anger he had shown at the suggestion that his sanctuary might be invaded; but there was something infinitely more menacing in his general behaviour since he had discovered that C. B. was an impostor. Swiftly, yet carefully, he had made his arrangements to commit a cold blooded murder, and had discussed it in detail with such unruffled composure that it looked as if nothing short of a miracle could prevent his going through with it.

A cold perspiration broke out on C.B.’s forehead as he thought how slender were the chances of such a miracle occurring. He had already dismissed the idea that he might be rescued by John as in the highest degree unlikely. He had told John that if he was not out of the house by midnight he was to telephone the police and come in to find him. But by midnight, if the train was punctual, he would have been dead for fifty five minutes; and John would certainly not attempt to force his way in more than an hour before the time he had been given. For all he knew, matters were going excellently and, as the Canon was certain to recognise him as Ellen's friend, his premature entry, seeking C. B., might have thrown a spanner in the works at their most promising point. Besides, there was no earthly reason why he should ignore his instructions and risk upsetting everything, unless ...

C. B. stiffened in his chair . . . unless John had seen the messenger arrive and recognised him as one of de Grasse's people. If that happened he would know that the odds were on C. B. being caught out. Then, if C. B. did not appear within quite a short while, there would be grounds for assuming that he was in trouble. What would John do in such circumstances? If he enquired at the front door he would be told that C. B. had already left by the back entrance and was taking the short cut to the village. He would not believe that, but he might decide to return to the village to make certain. In any case he would do so, to telephone the police before taking further action. Then what? John would come back and endeavour to get into the house. If he succeeded, and was discovered, he would be one against three. Even if he managed to get in undetected he would not know where to look for C. B. The windows of the crypt had all been bricked up, so there was no chance of his entering it direct from outside; and he could not possibly force its iron door. Only one slender chance remained: he might come upon the Satanists when they were carrying their victim out into the garden.

With frantic anxiety C. B. began to calculate times. De Grasse's messenger had arrived just before half past ten. John would wait at least ten minutes to see if C. B. came out of his own accord, before taking any action. To enquire at the front door would take him from three to five minutes, and it was a good ten minutes' walk to the village. There might be a public call box on the green, but never having been in the place before John would not know where to find it, and the odds were all against his running into it in the darkness. He would have to telephone from the pub, but that would now be closed. To knock it up and get on to Colchester would take him another ten minutes; then he would require ten more minutes to walk back to the house. There was the possibility that he would take the car both ways, but on such a short distance the best to be hoped for from that was that it would reduce the total time from forty five to thirty five minutes. Therefore, at the earliest reasonable moment that John could be expected to begin reconnoitering the house for the easiest place to break into it, the London train would be thundering over C.B.’s body; and even that was on the assumption that he had seen de Grasse's messenger, recognised him, and decided to take prompt action.

At the conclusion of his calculations C. B. let go a gasp rather than a sigh. It was no good. He was caught without hope of rescue. His number was up, and he must face it. He had barely a quarter of an hour of life left.

Fruitlessly, he cursed himself for his foolhardiness in having walked into such danger on an impulse, and without making provision for an adequate life line. He felt that he, of all people, had had experience enough to know better. Yet, on consideration, had he really been so very rash? At worst there had been no reason to anticipate anything more serious than that the Canon might find him out and have him beaten up, then locked in the cellar or attic till the morning. Had he speculated for a week on the possible outcome of such a visit, it would still not have occurred to him that by making it he might lose his life. Neither would there have been the least likelihood of his doing so, had not the success of his imposture led to his being taken into the Canon's confidence so unreservedly and shown things, the existence of which he had not even remotely suspected.

It was his having learned about the homunculi that put the rope around his neck, and it was that which made it futile to hope that Copely Syle was seeking only to frighten him. Having given away his awful secret, no oaths or pledges that the Canon could extract from his prisoner would satisfy him that he might not now be called on to account for his hideous practices. Should he once release C. B. he would lose all power to enforce his silence, whereas in this next half hour he had the chance to close his mouth once and for all. It was this final realisation that the Canon had no option but to kill him that made C.B.’s heart contract with despair and his face sweat with terror.

Yet he was not the man to give in until the last ditch.

For several moments he succeeded in almost banishing his fears, and even reducing a little the furious pace at which his heart was beating, while he cast hither and thither for some means of escape or an argument with which he could induce the Canon to postpone his execution. By the end of that time he had thought of nothing. Again there intruded on his mental vision a picture of himself lying helpless in the dark night across the railway line, and feeling it vibrate as the train hurtled towards him.

He began to pray, but the picture would not go. It became a series of pictures. Himself, half comatose, being wheeled through the garden, his long legs dangling from the barrow. The Canon and the Egyptian arranging his limp body on the line. The train roaring down upon him at sixty miles an hour. His mangled corpse, the head severed from the body, still lying there at dawn. Its discovery by plate layers on their way to work.

It was then an idea came to him. He could not save himself, but he could revenge himself on the Canon. Into his mind there came the vaguely remembered story of a British sergeant who had been taken prisoner by the Japanese and mercilessly tortured by one of their camp guards. It was to the effect that the soldier, having had his tongue cut out, had, with extraordinary fortitude, carved the name of his torturer with a penknife in the flesh of his own stomach; and he had survived long enough for that to lead to the execution of the swinish Japanese.

C. B. was in no position to emulate this act, even had he had the time and courage to do so; but by dragging at his wrists and ankles with all his might he could cause the strings that bound them to cut so deeply into his flesh that the marks would remain visible long after he was dead. Next day, when his body was found, it would be obvious that his hands and feet had been tightly bound, and that would immediately suggest that he had been the victim of foul play. No accusation that John could bring would lead to a prosecution, unless some direct evidence of assault could be brought to support it, but with such evidence Copely Syle's carefully built up picture of an accident would be blown sky high, and he would find himself facing a charge of murder

Gritting his teeth, C. B. set about screwing his wrists back and forth and jerking up his knees with all his force, so that the tight string cut into his ankles. The pain made him wince, but he kept at it till he had drawn blood at both his wrists, then he allowed himself a breather.

As he sat, slumped now in the chair, panting heavily, another thought came to him. For a second he hardly dare consider it as a real possibility; then he saw that it was perfectly logical. With the wounds he had inflicted on himself he might yet save his life. When Copely Syle returned he would show them to him, then dare him to stage his `accident'. The Canon was no fool; and even by the aid of magic it was hardly thinkable that in a few minutes, which were all that would be at his disposal, he would be able to cause bleeding wounds to disappear so that they left no trace. He would know that to carry through his plan would now bring him into acute danger. He might be a criminal lunatic, but he was not mad in that way. He would either devise some other plan for killing and disposing of his victim or, if he could, would perform an involved magical ceremony to heal the wounds, before having him taken out and put on the line to be run over by a night goods train. Whichever course he took it meant a postponement of the execution. And even half an hour might now bring John, and after him the police, upon the scene.

It was at that moment, tense with excitement at this new found hope, that C. B. suddenly realised that something was happening at the far end of the crypt.

He had caught the sound of a faint `plop'. Screwing round his head he stared towards the furnace. From it there was coming a hissing noise. The only lights the Canon had left on were near the altar, so since he had gone from the crypt the whole of its bottom end had been plunged in deep shadow. The bed of the furnace, under its big scalloped canopy, now looked like a black cavern; yet it seemed to C. B. that wisps of steam were rising from it. There came another heavier `plop', then something began to writhe upon the furnace bed among the greyish swirls of steam.

C. B. drew a sharp breath. His heart began to hammer violently. He was seized by a new fear, and one totally different from that which had afflicted him since he had drunk the poison from the chalice. That had been straight physical fear at the realisation that he was in acute danger and within twenty minutes, or less, might find himself face to face with a most painful death. This was a terror of the spirit.

The walls of this ancient stone chamber had witnessed many fearsome rites. Only God and the Devil could know to what abominations Copely Syle had resorted in order to give his homunculi life. That life at present was only fish like, and they were powerless to leave their glass prisons. But the whole place reeked of Evil. For his hellish acts of creation the Canon would have had to compel the aid of those strange potent Spirits that govern the behaviour of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. He would also have had to call up those brutish groping foeti from the Pit; things that lived upon a lower plane, yet were always seeking means to enter this one and, given propitious circumstances, could not only appear to human eyes, but also take hideous form. It was even possible that to complete his devilish work he had had to invoke some chill intelligence of the Outer Circle : an entity beside which even the terror inspired by the loathsome horrors of the Pit would pale; for such Sataii could drive men mad or strike them dead, as had proved the case with Crowley and McAleister.

Fearful of what he might see, C. B. peered with straining eyes into the shadows. Within a few seconds of his having heard the second `plop' he knew that his senses had not deceived him. The bed of the furnace was no longer flat. It seemed to have arched itself up into a hump. Among the smoke and steam some fearsome thing was materializing from it. Swiftly the hump rose, a whitefish blob appeared in its middle and it assumed an irregular outline. C. B. distinctly heard the coke crunch under it. Next moment it heaved itself outward from the furnace bed and landed with a thud upon the floor.

Now it was hidden from C. B. by the tables. His spine seemed to be dissolving into water. Shrinking back, he grasped the arms of the chair, while cold sweat broke out anew on his face. For an instant an intense bitterness surged through his mind at the thought that he should have devised a means of saving himself from the Canon, only to fall a victim to one of the dread Satanic forces that he had made his familiars. He could hear the monster scrabbling on the ground. Dreading intensely what he would see when it emerged from behind the tables, he closed his eyes and began to pray. Urgently, frantically, he called upon the God of Mercy, Peace and Love to help him in his dire extremity.

There came the sound of swift movement across the stone flags of the crypt; then, as a lump rose in his throat that almost choked him, his prayer was answered. Loud, clear, unmistakable, John's voice was calling him by name; and, an instant later, a human hand grasped his shoulder.

As C. B. opened his eyes, John's words came tumbling out. `Thank God I've found you. Twenty minutes ago a taxi drove up. As its passenger was paying off the driver I caught sight of his face. It was Upson, that air pilot of de Grasse's the fellow Christina snatched the gun from. I felt certain that if he ran into you there would be trouble. I padded round the house till I found a bay window with lights showing through the chinks of the curtains. One of the windows was a few inches open. I listened at it and caught the old boy's voice. He was in a screaming passion. I gathered that you were waiting for him in the chapel, and that he was just about to pull a fast one on you. I lost ten minutes trying to find a way in here. As a last resort I climbed up on the roof to see if there was a skylight. There wasn't, but the chimney is a good three feet square inside; so I threw my Mac down first, in case there was a fire going at the bottom, then let myself drop on to it.'

`Well done ! Well done!' breathed C. B. `If you hadn't found me the odds are I' d have been dead before morning. But we haven't a moment to lose. That fiend may be back here any second. Look ! There's a sword on the altar. Use it to cut me free.'

Obediently John snatched up the sword, but as he clasped it he cast a scared glance over his shoulder, and muttered, `This place gives me cold shivers down my spine. What's been going on here?'

`Never mind that now,' C. B. said impatiently. `For God's sake cut these strings.'

The blade of the sacrificial sword was sharp as a razor. Once John set to work the strings parted under it with as little resistance as though they were threads of cotton. Yet even for so short a time C. B. could not keep his eyes on the strokes that were liberating him. A new fear impelled him to keep darting swift glances from side to side into the shadows behind the two rows of pillars. The possibility of the Canon surprising them before they could get away had now taken second place in his mind. It seemed as if some malignant unseen force, already in the crypt, was stirring into evil life with• intent to prevent their leaving it.

As the last string snapped C. B. jerked himself to his feet, and John, his thin face now chalk white, gasped

`Come on! For Christ's sake let's get out of here!'

Side by side, they began to run down the crypt. But their feet felt as though they were weighted with lead. The strength seemed to be ebbing from their limbs as though they had received many wounds and their life blood was draining away with every step they took. Half way along the tables they faltered into a walk. The air ahead of them no longer had the feeling of air. It had become intensely cold and was as though they were endeavouring to force their way through water.

In a half strangled voice, C. B. began to recite the Lord's Prayer aloud. `Our Father which art in Heaven. '

Almost instantly the pressure eased and they found themselves able to stagger forward to the furnace. When jumping from it John had pulled his mackintosh after him. Sooty and scorched, it lay on the ground nearby. As he snatched it up, C. B., still praying aloud, looked hastily round for something else to throw on the bed of coke that would protect their feet from burning. His glance lit on the robes used by the Canon when he officiated as a minister of the Black priesthood. They were of heavy scarlet satin embroidered in black with magical insignia, and hung upon a stand on the far side of the door. While John sprayed the top layer of coke with water, C. B. fetched the vestments and flung them on to the hissing furnace bed; then he cried

`Go on, up you go!'

John hesitated a moment, glancing at C.B.’s bleeding wrists; but the older man pushed him forward, so he scrambled up into the steam filled cavity. His head and shoulders disappeared into the wide funnel made by the chimney, and he quickly began to feel about for handholds inside it. Within a few seconds his searching fingers found the iron rungs that had been used by sweeps' urchins in times gone by. As he began to haul himself up, C. B. followed. Two minutes later, grimy with soot and half choked by coke fumes, they stood side by side on the roof of the chapel.

Yet so powerful was the evil radiating from the gateway to Hell below them that they did not feel safe from pursuit. Scarcely heeding the danger of slipping on the wet roof, or tripping in the darkness, they scrambled down its slope to the nearest gutter, hung by it for a moment, then dropped the eight feet to the ground. Picking themselves up from the soaking grass, by a common impulse they ran round the side of the house, across the garden to the road, and down it for nearly a quarter of a mile before the fresh night air and the rain in their faces restored their sense of security sufficiently for them to pull up.

In their terror they had passed the car; but now they walked back to it, got in and bound up C.B.’s wrists as well as they could with their handkerchiefs. Then they lit cigarettes. After a few puffs they began to feel more like themselves, and C. B. gave John an outline of the hour and a quarter he had spent with the Canon. At the description of the homunculi John was nearly sick, but his nausea turned to fury when he learnt of the fate planned for Christina, and on hearing of the cold blooded murder which would at that moment have been taking place had he not got C. B. away, he wanted to drive off at once to fetch the police.

C. B. laid a restraining hand on his arm. `Easy, partner! It's not quite so simple as all that. You could give evidence that you found me tied to a chair; but that's no proof of intended murder. The old warlock, his Gippy servant and the airman would probably all swear themselves blind that they had caught me breaking into the house; and it is a fact that you broke in later. If they took the line that we had gone to the police first with a cooked up story, because we feared being caught and charged to morrow, it would be only our word against theirs.'

`Yours would be taken. Your people in London would vouch for you.'

`Oh yes. A telephone call to the Department would bring someone down to morrow to identify me and give me a good character. In fact had you fetched the police before coming in to get me, that's what I should have had to do. It would have been worth it, even as an alternative to remaining locked up in. a cellar indefinitely, which was the worst I feared when I went in. All the same, I'm extremely glad that you managed to get me out without calling in the minions of the law. °

`From what you tell me, if I'd spent half an hour collecting them before going in your goose would have been cooked by the time we got there.'

`Yes. That's one reason; and I can never thank you enough, John, for the guts you displayed in coming in on your own when you did, Another reason is that, even when acting officially, I am no more entitled to break into people's houses without a warrant than any other citizen; and in this case I haven't got even the unofficial blessing of the Department; so if Copely Syle had charged me with breaking and entering that would have put me in quite a nasty spot.'

`I see. All the same I think it's monstrous that this criminal lunatic should be allowed to get away with attempted murder and all the other devilry he is up to.'

`We won't let him. But we've got to play our cards carefully if we are to lay him by the heels without burning our own fingers. We've got to get some solid evidence against him before we can make our next move.'

`What about the homunculi? Surely his having those filthy creatures in the house is against the law?'

`I rather doubt it. As far as I know there is no precedent to go on; and since such matters were removed from the jurisdiction of the old ecclesiastical courts prosecution for the practice of witchcraft has dropped into abeyance. Besides, we have not an atom of proof that he intends to harm anyone or is, in fact, engaged in anything which could not be defended as a scientific experiment. All the same, I wish we had remained there long enough to smash the jars and kill the horrible things inside them.'

John shivered. `I don't think I could have done it. I mean, stay on there for a moment longer than I positively had to. I wasn't frightened about going in at least no more than I would have been when breaking into any other place where I might have got a sock in the jaw but once inside I felt as if I was being watched by invisible eyes all the time. It was as though there was something indescribably evil lurking in the shadows behind me: something that had the power to rend and destroy, and that at any second might leap out on to the back of my neck. Then, just before you began to pray, I felt as if I was being suffocated; and I began to fear that I'd never get out at all.'

C. B. nodded. `I felt the same. The explanation is that the place has become the haunt of some very nasty elementals. As the Canon's familiars they would naturally try, in their blind, fumbling way, to prevent our escape. Perhaps if we had lingered they might have materialized. Anyhow, I had the feeling that they might, and I was scared stiff. My one thought was to get away while the going was good, and I wasn't capable of thinking of anything else till we were well down the road.'

Stubbing out his cigarette, John put his foot on the self starter. As it ceased to whirr and the engine began to fire, he said, `Since we've had the luck to get out all right, I'm glad we went in. It enabled you to find out a tremendous lot, and at least we know what we are up against now. I wish we could have made a job of it tonight, and called in the police to haul him off to jail; but since you've ruled that out, the sooner we can grab a hot toddy, get our wet things off, and hop into bed, the better.'

`Not so fast, laddie,' C. B. replied, as the car gathered speed. `I'll gladly dig the barman out to fix us hot toddies, whatever time we get back to Colchester, but I've no intention of returning yet. First, I mean to try to pick up a little evidence against his Satanic Reverence.'

Slowing down the car, John turned and stared at him. `You . . . you don't mean that you're going back into that hellish place?'

`No. I'm not poking my head into that hornets' nest again till the hornets have had a chance to settle down. But we are up to our necks in this thing now, and we've got no time to lose. I hate to think what my chief will have to say should matters go wrong, and you had better keep out of it; but I really do mean to risk finding myself in the dock this time. I intend to break, enter and, I hope, burgle private premises without the least excuse to justify my act if I am caught.'

17

The Mystery of The Grange

John let out a low whistle, then said, `It's not for me to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but d'you really think you ought to take such a risk, C. B.? I mean, of blotting your copy book so badly that even your Department will feel that it must wash its hands of you?'

`Yes. I think so in a case like this, for which no provision is made by our ordinary laws. I don't want to sound stuffy, but there are times when every man must be guided by his own conscience, and this is one of them. We have learnt to night that we are up against not just a dabbler in Black Magic who threatens the well being of one young woman, but a Satanist of the first order, who is striving to perfect and launch upon the world one of the worst horrors that even his master, the Devil, can have conceived. To stop that I am prepared to go to any lengths.'

`Since you put it that way, you are absolutely right; but where is this place you intend to break into?'

`I mean to pay a midnight visit to The Grange.' 'What good will that do us, as Beddows isn't there?' `Probably none. It's just a long shot; but there's a chance that we might find some useful pointers to Beddows' and his tie up with the canon.'

John spoke with a touch of deference. `I don't pretend to be psychic, but I didn't at all like the atmosphere of The Grange when we called there this evening. Perhaps that is because it is such a gloomy old place, but as these two beauties appear to be mixed up together I should think it is quite on the cards that The Grange, too, has got some pretty nasty spooks in it. Haven't you had enough of that sort of thing for one night?'

`To be honest, John, I have,' C. B. replied quietly. `But in the late war, whenever one of the R.A.F. boys was shot down, or made a crash landing, they used to send him up again just as soon as they could. It was an excellent principle. That's the way to keep one's nerve, and if it wasn't for the fact that the Canon and his pals must be on the qui vive I'd make myself go back into that crypt. As such a move would mean sticking my neck out a bit too far, I'm going into the moated Grange at midnight instead.'

`Well, you're the boss.' John tried to make his voice sound flippant. The few minutes he had spent in the crypt had been more than enough for him. He could only guess what C. B. must have been through while bound hand and foot there and expecting to be murdered within the hour; but he knew that to show admiration for the elder man would only embarrass them both, so without further remark he took the car round the village green and drove back the way they had come.

As they were passing the church, C. B. said, `All the same, John, you mustn't get the idea I'm about to risk running into something very nasty, or having to appear in the dock, for no better reason than to test my own nerve. I'm going into The Grange because this matter has become too urgent for me to neglect any chance of getting a new line on these people. We left France with the object of interviewing Beddows, because we felt confident that he would be able to tell us what lay behind Copely Syle's attempts to get hold of Christina. We have found that out from the Canon himself; but what we have learnt to night makes it more important than ever that we should get hold of Beddows with the least possible delay. At the moment we have only half the picture. He must be able to give us the other half. We've got to know why it was Christina that the Canon selected as his potential victim, and why her father left her marooned in the South of France. I have an idea that Copely Syle may be blackmailing him. If so, we'll get something on the enemy that way. If not, he may be able to provide us with some other line by which we can use the normal processes of the law to spike the Canon's guns. But we've got to trace him first, and it seems to me that our best chance of doing that is by raiding his house. With a little luck we may find some papers there which will give us a lead to where he has got to.'

`I hadn't thought of any of those things,' John admitted ruefully, and, angry with himself for having suggested going to bed while the night still held a chance to further elucidate the grim mystery which surrounded Christina, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

Two minutes later he drove the car a little way up a blind turning that he had noticed earlier, barely a hundred yards from the gates of The Grange, brought it to a standstill .and switched out its lights. C. B. produced a big torch from under the seat and went round to the boot. From it he got out several implements that are not usually found in a motor repair outfit, then they walked along the road to the entrance to the drive. As they reached it, C. B. said

`Now this time. ..'

`Sorry C. B.,' John interrupted him before he had a chance to get any further, `I'm much too cold and wet to hang about here. I'm coming in with you.'

`Then if we are caught we may both be jugged for housebreaking.'

`No. You know jolly well that doesn't follow. If we are surprised, the odds are that one of us will have time to get away. I couldn't go in with you before, because the Canon would have recognised me; but this is different. Honestly, we'll both be much safer if we stick together.'

`You won't, because you will be taking a quite unnecessary risk.' C. B. grinned at him in the darkness. `Still, since you insist, I won't deny that I'll be glad to have you with me. Come on, then.'

In single file they walked along the grass verge of the drive until they reached the sweep in front of the house; then C. B. led the way round to its back. The rain had eased a little and in one quarter of the dark heavens the moon was now trying to break through between banks of swiftly drifting cloud. The light it gave was just enough to outline dimly the irregularities of the building, parts of which were four hundred years old, and it glinted faintly on its windows. No light showed in any of them, neither was there now any sound of a wireless; but as it was still only a little after eleven o'clock C. B. feared that the Jutson couple might not yet have gone to sleep; so he continued to move with great caution.

As John peered up at the flat over the stables in which they lived, he whispered

`I wonder if they keep a watchdog.'

`If they do it would be a pretty definite indication that there is nothing worse here. Dogs will always run away rather than stay in a place where there are spooks.'

No growl or whine disturbed the stillness and, having been right round the house, they turned back. Drawing on a pair of rubber gloves, C. B. told John to put on his wash leather ones then he selected a small window in a semi circular two storied turret that jutted out from a main wall, and had evidently been built on at a much later date. Inserting a short jemmy opposite the catch, he pressed down on it: there was a sharp snap, and the window flew open.

Climbing inside he found, as he had expected, that the turret contained a black staircase, added no doubt when the original farm house had been enlarged and become the property of gentry. As he turned to help John in after him he whispered

`Never break in by a room, my lad, unless you know it to be the one room in the house you want to get into. Otherwise the odds are that you will find its door bolted and may have half an hour's hard work before you can get any further. On the other hand, if you come in by the hall or stairs the whole house is your oyster.'

He flashed his torch for a second. It disclosed a short passage ahead ,of them and a Maze door. Tip toeing forward, he reached the door and pushed it gently. Yielding to his touch, it swung silently open. They listened intently for a moment, but no sound came to them. C. B. shone his torch again and kept it on while he swept its beam slowly round, then up and down. The door gave on to the main hall of the house. It was large and lofty, with heavy oak beams. A broad staircase on one side of it led up to the landing of the first floor, and there was a small minstrels' gallery on the other. Opposite the intruders stood the front door, and to either side there were other doors, evidently giving on to the principal rooms of the house. The moving beam was suddenly brought to rest on a large oak chest under the stairs. On it stood a telephone.

Moving softly forward, C. B. shone the light down behind the chest till it showed a square, plastic box that was fixed to the skirting. Producing a pair of clippers from his pocket, he cut the main wire a little beyond the box. John, who had come up behind him, said in a low voice

`In for a penny, in for a pound, eh? We won't be able to laugh off the breaking and entering business now by spinning a yarn that we found a window open and just came in out of the rain.'

`Worth it,' replied C. B, tersely. `On a job like this, cutting the enemy's communications as a first move quadruples one's chance of getting away safely. If it becomes necessary to run for it they can't call out the police cars to scour the roads.

'It's a great comfort to be in the hands of a professional.' John's voice betrayed his amusement.

`That's quite enough from you, young feller. I have to know these things; but my own visits to strangers are nearly always by way of the front door, with a search warrant.'

`I suppose that's why you carry such things as jemmies, wire cutters and rubber gloves in your car kit, and always

John's banter was cut short by a faint noise that seemed to come from the top of the house. It sounded like the muffled clanking of some small pieces of metal. C.B.’s torch flicked out: they stood in silence for a minute; then John whispered a trifle hoarsely:

`What was that? It . . . ghosts don't really ever rattle their chains, do they?'

`Not as far as I know; but it certainly sounded like it,' C. B. whispered back. `Keep dead quiet now, so that next time we'll hear it clearly.'

For three minutes, that seemed like thirty to John, they stood absolutely still in the darkness; but the only sound they could catch was that of one another's breathing. At last, switching on his torch again, C. B. shone it aloft and round about. There was no sign of movement up on the landing or in the minstrels' gallery, and nothing to be seen other than the black oak beams outlined against the white walls and ceiling. Lowering the light, he said

`False alarm, I think. Just one of those noises there is no accounting for that one often hears in old houses at night. Come on! Let's explore.'

Crossing the hall, he opened the door on the right of the entrance. It gave on to a long low ceilinged drawing room. The place had a slightly musty smell, as though it had been shut up and no fire lit in it for a considerable time. The furniture in it was very ordinary: some of it had faded chintz covers; the rest was black, spindly legged stuff. On the walls there were some quite awful pictures, of the `Monarch of the Glen' and `Souls Awakening' type, in gilt frames.

As they advanced into it John caught sight of a photograph of Christina on an occasional table, which must have been taken when she was about seventeen. Picking it up, he stared at it and said

`How fantastic that anything so sweet should be even remotely connected with such ugly surroundings as these.'

C. B, had always preferred small, fair, vivacious women, so he saw nothing particularly attractive in Christina; and, being a realist, it was on the tip of his tongue to reply, `I've known better lookers who were reared in the slums of Paris and Vienna', but it occurred to him that that might be unkind; so he forbore to comment and continued to flash his torch this way and that, until he had decided that the room contained nothing worth closer examination at all events for the time being.

Leaving the drawing room, they crossed the hall to the room opposite. It proved to be the dining room. It also had an air of long disuse and chill dampness owing to lack of regular heating. John followed C. B. in and walked straight over to the bulky Victorian sideboard. At one end of it stood a tarnished silver Tantalus containing the usual three square cut glass decanters. Taking the stopper from one, he smelt it and said

`Good this is brandy. Shine your torch here a moment, C. B., and we'll have a quick one.'

`I see you are becoming quite a professional yourself.' C. B. smiled as he focused the beam.

John found some glasses in one of the sideboard cupboards, poured two stiff tots, then turned and grinned back. `Oh no; I'm only carrying out my role of Christina's fiancé. If I were really Mr. Beddows' prospective son in law, I'm sure he would expect me to play host to you in his absence.'

`You've certainly taken to the role like a duck to water,' C. B. twitted him. `I believe you have become jolly keen on that girl, although you haven't yet known her a week.'

`We've seen a great deal of each other in a short time, and in quite exceptional circumstances,' John replied in a non committal voice. `That makes a big difference; so naturally I've a very personal interest in helping to protect her.'

`Here's to our success in that, then.'

They clinked glasses and drank. The brandy was not of very good quality, but it was nonetheless welcome at the moment. John's shoes were soaked right through from standing about in the mud and wet, while C. B. had had to leave his hat and coat in the Canon's house; so he had since had a steady wetting from the drizzling rain. Both were feeling the chill of the raw night; and, although their behaviour was now light hearted, beneath the surface the nerves of neither of them had yet fully recovered from the shaking they had had in the crypt.

Warmed in body and fortified in mind by the fiery spirit, they put the glasses back and resumed their reconnaissance. While they were drinking, C. B. had already surveyed the dining room, and it contained no piece of furniture in which it seemed likely that papers would be kept; so they went out into the hall and tried a door under the stairs. It led only to a stone flagged passage, which was obviously the way to the kitchen quarters. Closing it quietly, C. B. shot its bolt, so that should Jutson be roused and, entering the house by a back door, seek to come through it, he would find his way blocked. They then tip toed across to the door opposite and, opening it, found themselves in a study, three walls of which were lined shoulder high with books.

'Ah, this looks more promising,' C. B. murmured, as the torch lit up a big roll top desk. `You stay by the door, John, and keep your ears open, just in case the Jutsons are not asleep yet and we have disturbed them. If you hear anyone trying that door across the hall that leads to the kitchen quarters, slip in and warn me. We'll have time then to get back into the drawing room and out of the front windows.'

While he was speaking he walked to the study window and drew its curtains as a precaution against the Jutsons seeing a light in the room, for it looked out on to the backyard. Then, producing a bunch of queer looking keys from his pocket, he set to work on the desk. In less than a minute he had its roll top open.

With swift, practised fingers he went systematically through one pigeon hole after another. When he had done, the owner of the desk would never have guessed that the papers it contained had been examined; but the search had revealed nothing of interest. The pigeon holes and shallow drawers held only Henry Beddows' household accounts, note paper, cheque books, pencils, rubbers and so on. None of the bills or receipts suggested any activity which could be considered unorthodox.

C. B. was just about to reclose the desk top when John stepped back through the door and swiftly swung it nearly shut.

`What is it?' C. B. asked below his breath.

`The clanking of that chain again,' John whispered. He was still holding the door a few inches open. C. B. stepped up to him and, their heads cocked slightly sideways, they listened with straining ears for some moments.

As no further sound reached them, John mumbled rather shamefacedly

`Sorry. I could have sworn I heard a chain being dragged across the floor somewhere at the top of the house; but I must have been mistaken. Nerves, I suppose.'

`The dank, unlived in atmosphere of this place is enough to give anyone the willies,' C. B, said understandingly. `It was probably a fall of soot in one of the chimneys brought down by the rain.'

Returning to the desk, he closed its top, and set about opening the drawers in its two pedestals, most of which were locked. The locked ones he found to contain a number of stamp albums and the impedimenta of a philatelist.

A glance showed him that the albums covered only the British Empire. Quickly he flicked, through a couple of them and saw that they were a fairly valuable collection. Then he noticed a curious thing. The pages for some of the smaller Colonies had on them the remains of a number of stamp hinges but not a single stamp of any denomination. Turning to John he said

`This is interesting. Beddows evidently started a general collection of the British Empire; then, unless I'm right off the mark, he began to specialize in Barbados, Cyprus and perhaps a few other places. Being a rich man, he could afford to buy rarities and his special collections soon grew too valuable for him to leave them with the rest; so he removed his pet Colonies into a separate album.'

`Where does that get us?' asked John, a little mystified.

`Come, come, my dear Watson. Surely you realise that a keen philatelist would never keep the best part of his collection in his office, where he couldn't look at it in the evenings. The fact that it is not here suggests that it is in a safe somewhere in the house. If Christina's papa has a safe, it is there that he would also keep the sort of highly private papers in which we are interested.'

`That sounds logical; but if there is a safe surely it would be a bit beyond you to get it open?'

`Probably but not necessarily. If it is an old type, patience and my skeleton keys might do the trick. Anyhow it would be worth trying.'

Returning the stamp albums to their drawers C. B. relocked them. He had already noticed a door between two sets of bookshelves that stood against the further wall. Walking over, he opened it and looked through. The room beyond was another sitting room. From some fashion magazines, a bowl of pot pourri and a work basket it looked as if it might be Christina's sanctum on the rare

occasions when she was at home. After a quick glance round he left it and they returned to the hall.

Next to the passage leading to the kitchen they found a breakfast room, and beyond it another room that was half pantry, half flower room. Neither contained anything having the remotest resemblance to a safe; so, as they had now explored all the downstairs living rooms without success, it seemed that if there was a safe in the house at all it must be up in Beddows' bedroom.

At the foot of the main staircase they paused, while C. B. shone his torch upward. No movement was to be seen and no sound reached them. Yet the very silence of the damp, chill house seemed to have something vaguely sinister about it; so that, instead of advancing boldly, both of them half held their breath and trod gently as they went upstairs.

They were within two steps of the main landing, and could see across it to a dark rectangle between a pair of oak uprights, through which a narrower flight of stairs led to the top floor of the house, when the clanking came again.

This time it was distinct and unmistakable; a noise of chains being dragged across a wooden floor. The sound was so eerie, so uncanny, in that dark, deserted house that it caused their hearts to leap. The blood seemed to freeze in their veins, and momentarily they were inflicted with a semi paralysis. Yet it was the very terror that caused their throats to close and their muscles to contract that saved C. B. from a broken neck.

He was in the act of planting his right foot on the landing.. Instead of coming down firmly, it was arrested in mid air by the same nervous shock that made his scalp prickle. For a second or so it hovered; then, by no act of will but by the residue of its own momentum, it sank gently on to the carpet.

The carpet gave as though it was a feather bed. There came a faint snap, then a swift slithering noise. A large piece of carpet suddenly flopped downwards from the topmost stair. Its loose end and sides had been secured to the main carpet of the landing only by threads. It now hung straight down between the newel post of the banisters and the wall, leaving a four foot square gulf of blackness.

The square of carpet at the stair head had been cunningly suspended to conceal the fact that the flooring beneath it had been removed. Anyone stepping firmly upon it must have been flung down into the hall fifteen feet below.

C. B. gasped, staggered, and recovered his balance. Then, flashing his torch through the gaping hole that the vanished carpet had left in the nearest corner of the landing he muttered

`My God, that was a near one! It's a modem oubliette. The sort of death trap that the French Kings used to have in their castles for troublesome nobles whom they invited to stay with intent to murder. But this one must have been made quite recently. Look at the torn edges of those boards, where some tool has been used to prise up the ones that have been removed.'

John nodded. `Anyhow, this isn't the work of spooks. It is good solid evidence that friend Beddows keeps something up here, and is so anxious that no one should see it that he doesn't even stick at killing as a method of keeping out intruders.'

As he finished speaking there came the rattling of the chains once more.

It was a horribly unnerving sound. In spite of what had just been said the blood drained from the faces of the two men as they looked quickly at one another.

`I expect it is some mechanical gadget made to scare people,' John said a little dubiously.

`Perhaps.' C. B. hesitated. `On the other hand, if Copely Syle and Beddows are buddies it may be something very different. Still, if you're game to go on, I am.'

The vitality of both was now at a very low ebb, and John would have given a lot for a sound excuse to abandon their investigations there and then; but he hated the idea of losing face with C. B.; so he said in a low voice

`All right. But as we cross the landing I think you had better recite the Lord's Prayer, as you did in the crypt, and I'll join in.'

Handing the torch to John, C. B, grasped the newel

post firmly and swung himself across the gap, carefully testing the firmness of the floor beyond before letting go.

John passed him back the torch and followed. Together, they began to pray aloud. Shining the light downward on to the floor and taking each step cautiously, in case there was another trap, C. B. led the way across the landing. In the archway he paused, put one foot on the lowest stair of the upper flight, tested that, then swiftly raised the beam. The thing it fell upon caused them to break off their prayer. The chain clanked loudly. Simultaneously they jumped back.

For a moment the light had swept across a crouching form and lit up two reddish eyes. A dark hunched thing, with eyeballs that glowed like live coals, was squatting half way up the narrow flight of stairs.

In a choking voice John cried, `For God's sake let's get out of here!' And turned to run.

C.B.’s flesh was creeping and his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Yet, as he swung round to follow, he managed to shout a warning

`Careful ! Look out for the hole!'

John was already half way across the landing. He pulled up so abruptly that C. B. cannoned into him. The torch was knocked from C.B.’s hand, fell to the floor with a crash, and went out.

Total darkness descended upon them like a pall. John had been thrown off his balance. He staggered sideways a few steps. Their collision had robbed him of his sense of direction. He was no longer certain if the gaping chasm in the floorboards was in front of him or to his left. A few steps either way and he might become a whirling mass of arms and legs, hurtling down into the hall.

The chain was now rattling violently. Other sounds mingled with it. There was an irregular thumping, as if a soft, heavy body was flopping about on the upper stairs; and a quick champing noise, like the repeated snapping together of strong teeth.

John felt a cold sweat break out all over him. He was terrified of the Thing behind him, yet was held where he stood from fear of breaking his neck. Meanwhile C. B., cursing furiously, was on his hands and knees, frantically searching for the lost torch.

Within a matter of seconds his right hand knocked against it. Snatching it up, he pressed the switch. To his infinite relief it lit. The bulb had not, as he had feared, been broken. Still on his knees, he swung the beam towards the opening through which lay the upper stairs.

It was barely thirty seconds since he had dropped the torch. He expected to see that hideous Thing framed in the opening and about to spring upon them. There was nothing there nothing whatever. Yet the rattling of the chain and the other noises continued with unabated violence.

As the torch flashed on, John swung half right and grabbed the newel post at the head of the main stairs. Only his sense of loyalty to C. B. restrained him from jumping the hole and dashing down them; but hearing no following footsteps he halted, looked over his shoulder, and shouted

`Come on! What the hell are you waiting for?'

C. B. was still kneeling in the middle of the landing with his torch focused on the archway from which came the din of clanking, banging and champing. Without taking his eyes from it, he called

`Half a minute! Don't go, John! I'm going to have another look.'

`You're crazy!' John shouted back, but he turned towards the landing again. With tightly clenched hands he watched C. B. rise and walk forward, once more reciting the Lord's Prayer. As he reached the opening he made the sign of the Cross in front of his face, then he shone the torch upwards.

Again it fell upon the hunched form and a pair of burning eyes; but this time he kept it there. Round the eyes there was dark shaggy hair; below them a huge mouth, in which two rows of yellowish, gleaming teeth were gnashing. Chattering with fury, the creature began to leap up and down, its long limbs throwing grotesque shadows against the stairs behind it. C.B.’s voice came, no longer sharp from tension, but level and unhurried

`The fact that it didn't come down and attack us made me think that this particular bogy must be chained up; and I was right. Its chain is attached to a post in the wall of the upper landing.'

John moved up beside him. For a moment they both stood staring at the creature on the stairs. It was a big ape; not as large as a baboon, but quite big enough to maul a man and do him serious injury. The chain was attached to a thick leather belt round its waist.

`The presence of this pretty pet in addition to the oubliette makes one thing quite certain,' said C. B. softly. `There is something up at the top of the house that friend Beddows is extraordinarily anxious that no one shall see.'

`Yes. But how the devil are we to get up there?'

`As you know, I've got quite a way with animals; so given an hour or two I don't doubt that I could tame this chap sufficiently for him to let us pass. But we haven't got that time to spare; so we'll have to take stronger measures.'

As C. B. spoke, he turned away towards the nearest of four doors that were ranged round the landing. It opened on to a bedroom. Beside the bed hung an old fashioned bell pull. Getting up on a chair he detached the rope from the wire spring and handed it to John, with the remark

`This is just the thing with which to secure our furry friend. By slipping one end of the rope through the pull ring at the other you'll have a lasso that will run much more smoothly than if you knotted a loop. I want you to throw it over his head when I give the word. Get it well down to his waist, so that it pinions his arms, and tie it as tight as you can. But watch out that he doesn't claw you with his feet.'

Taking the eiderdown from the bed, C. B. led the way back to the stairs and propped his torch up on the lowest one, so that its beam shone full upon the angry, snarling animal. Holding the eiderdown in front of him by two of its corners, he went up a few steps until he was near enough to flick its lower end as a matador does his cape. The enraged ape sprang at him, but was brought up with

a jerk by the chain. C. B. darted forward up two more stairs, threw the eiderdown over the brute and grasped it firmly round the body.

`Quick, John!' he called; and next moment, squeezing past him, John had the rope round the heaving bundle. The strength and fierceness of the ape made it a far from easy matter to truss him securely, but the rope was long enough to take a second turn round his thighs, and after that had been managed the rest was easy. They rolled him up in his own chain till they had him up on the top landing, and there slipped his feet through a half hitch in it.

To secure the creature without injury to themselves had required all their attention as well as their strength, so it was not until the job was done that either of them noticed another surprise that was in store for them. The top landing was quite small and had only two doors leading from it. From under one of them came a ribbon of light.

They would not have noticed it, had it not been almost dark up there, owing to C. B. having left his torch at the bottom of the stairs. It was faint, but quite unmistakable, as its glow was enough to show the outline of the ape's water trough and a tin tray on which were the remains of his last meal. Their attention was caught by the narrow strip of light almost at the same second, and they looked quickly at one another, wondering what this new mystery could portend.

Why should there be a light in a room at the top of the house in the middle of the night, unless the room was occupied? If it was, even if its occupant had dropped asleep with the light still on, he must have been roused by the noise made by his guardian ape and the struggle with it that had ensued. Why, knowing that intruders were in the house, and on their way up to his well protected sanctum, had he shown no sign of life?

Stretching out a hand, C. B. grasped the door handle firmly and turned it. But the door did not yield to his pressure: it was locked. Not a sound came from beyond it. Except for the faint scuffling of the trussed ape, the house was again utterly silent.

John slipped down the stairs, retrieved the torch and shone it on the door. The light revealed nothing to indicate the use to which the room was put. Apart from the black oak beams in the walls and ceiling, the woodwork of this upper landing was painted cream; but it looked as if a dozen years or more had passed since it had received its last coat. About the bare boards of the floor the ape had scattered some of its food; otherwise the landing was reasonably clean, but the door showed the slight griminess and innumerable small scratches that only time can bring. It seemed reasonable to assume that they led either to box rooms or servants' bedrooms.

For a second it flashed into C.B.’s mind that Christina might have been wrong about the Jutson couple being her father's only servants. Perhaps he had some other private retainer; or had taken someone else on since she had left The Grange, and they had their quarters up here. But that seemed unlikely when there was such a good choice of rooms more conveniently situated at the back of the premises. Again, why should they seek to protect themselves with an oubliette and a ferocious ape? If they had sought refuge up in these remote attics, behind such ugly barriers, of what were they afraid? If they were huddled in terrified silence behind the door, what form of menace could it possibly be that they must be expecting to see come through it at any moment now?

C. B, knocked on the door. There was no reply. Again he rapped, louder this time. Still not a sound came from the room. Putting his shoulder to the door, he threw his weight upon it. The upper part gave slightly but the lock held. Taking a few steps back he ran at the door, lifting his right foot so that it landed flat across the key hole with the full force of the kick behind his heel. There was a sound of tearing wood and the door flew open.

The room was much larger than they had expected, and lofty enough for the crossbeams of its roof to be only vaguely discernible by a dim blue light that radiated from the centre of its floor. It was, in fact, a huge attic which must have occupied the full breadth and nearly half the length of the ,'house. In it there was no furniture, carpet or curtains, and its three dormer windows appeared to have been pasted over with thick brown paper. The low walls were naked; the whole place was as empty as a drum but for a single human figure and a number of strange objects in its immediate vicinity.

Of these, the thing that first sprang to the eye was a great five pointed star. It was formed of long glass tubes, all connected together in the same manner as strip lighting designed to show the name over a shop; and through their whole length glowed electric wires that gave off the cold blue light. Five tall white candles were placed in the points of the star; but these were unlit, so evidently there only against an emergency failure of the electric current. Behind them were placed five bright, brand new horseshoes. In the valleys of the star were five little silver cups half full of water and some bunches of herbs. More faintly seen were two thick circles that had been drawn in chalk on the floor. The inner, which was about seven feet across, connected the valleys of the star; the outer, which was very much bigger, connected its points. Between the two were chalked a number of Cabalistic formula and the signs of the Zodiac.

Unmoving, in the very centre of the star sat a man. He was dressed in striped pyjamas and socks, but appeared to have on several layers of underclothes beneath the pyjamas, as their coat was stretched tightly across his chest. He was short, thick set and looked about fifty. His hair was dark, his face broad, and his square, determined jowl so blue with bristles that it looked as if he had not shaved for a week. He was sitting cross legged upon a thick pile of blankets, his back lightly touching a large tea chest, and he was facing the door.

Neither of his uninvited visitors had the least doubt who he was. C. B. took a step into the room and said, `We must apologise for breaking in on you like this, Mr. Beddows; but our business is extremely urgent.'

The man neither moved nor spoke.

`You are Henry Beddows, aren't you?' C. B. asked. Still the man stared through them as though they were not there.

`Come on!' exclaimed John impatiently. `We've come all the way from the South of France to see you. They told us at your office that you had gone abroad; and when we called here the Jutsons lied to us. Now we've run you to earth in spite of them, for goodness' sake stop pretending to be dumb. Your daughter Ellen is in great danger.'

The man's hands began to tremble and he averted his eyes, but he did not speak.

Together John and C. B. advanced into the room. The latter said, `What my friend has told you is quite true, sir. At the moment your daughter is in prison. We are doing our best ...'

`In prison!' exclaimed the man, coming swiftly to his feet. Then his expression changed from one of surprise to disbelief. Suddenly he stretched out his hand, made the sign of the Cross and cried loudly

'Avaunt thee, Satan!'

John stared at him and muttered, `Good Lord! I believe he's mad.'

C. B. shook his head. `No, he's not mad. And he is Beddows all right. His attitude explains the mystery of all we've found in this house. Somebody is after him and he is scared stiff. That is why he has gone into hiding. The oubliette and the ape were to prevent his enemy paying him a visit in person; but there is something which terrifies him much more that that. He is afraid that some frightful monster from one of the lower astral planes may be sent to get his spirit. That’s why he has made this pentacle. He has locked himself up in what amounts to an astral fortress, and he doesn't believe that we are real people at all. He thinks we are evil entities sent to lure him from safety to destruction.'

Suddenly Beddows gave a defiant laugh, then cried, `And so you are ! Your cunning talk does not deceive me ! Get back to him who sent you

'Don't talk like a fool!' John snapped at him. `Surely you can tell real people when you see them? We're real and we're friends. You're the only person who can give us the truth about this whole awful business; and we've got to have it to help us in our fight to save Christina ... to save Ellen.'

`Liar! And spawn of the Father of Lies! Get back whence you came.'

`We are real flesh and blood, I tell you!' cried John angrily. `Since you won't believe me I'll prove it to you.'

As he moved forward to step into the pentacle, C. B. gave a warning shout. 'Stop! The shock may kill him.'

But his cry came too late. In a stride John had crossed the line of blue light, and was stretching out a hand to touch Beddows.

The wretched man's face became transfixed with terror. He threw up his arms, gave a piercing scream, and fell at John's feet as though he had been pole axed.

18

Within the Pentacle

Beddows had fallen flat on his face. His out flung right hand had knocked over one of the small vases that stood in each of the valleys of the pentacle; but his magical fortress had suffered no other damage and the big five pointed star still glowed without a flicker.

C.B.’s mind was racing with visions of an inquest and all sorts of awkward questions which might have to be answered; yet within a moment he had jumped forward to give John a hand. Together they turned over the limp body and got it up into a sitting position.

In the full light of C.B.’s torch the unconscious man's face looked an ugly sight. His head now lolled back over the edge of the tea chest, his mouth hung slackly open a dark cavern in his heavy blue jowl and the whites of his turned up eyes could be seen between half closed lids. John got his victim's pyjama jacket open and tore frantically at the buttons of the three vests beneath it. As he exposed a V of hairy chest, C. B. thrust his free hand into the opening, held it there a moment, then gave a sigh of relief.

`His heart is quite strong, and it doesn't look as if he had a stroke. I think he fainted from sheer terror. He'll probably be quite all right when he comes round.'

`Thank God!' John murmured. `From what you said I thought I'd killed him.'

Ignoring the remark, C. B. swivelled round, set the fallen vase upright, and picking up another poured from it about half its contents into the one that had been knocked over.

`What's the point of doing that?' John asked.

`To repair the breach in this astral defence work, of course.'

`Do you really think that herbs and horseshoes and candles can protect people from evil spirits?'

`Certainly I do; if they are arranged in accordance with the proper formula. There are natural laws which govern everything. These, although scorned and ignored by modern science, are just as potent in achieving their object as a radar screen, or the use of our latest inventions for dispersing fog.'

John glanced round a little nervously. `After the terror I felt in that crypt to night, I'm no longer sceptical about there being all sorts of horrors lurking in such a place as this; so it's a comfort to know you think this bag of tricks will provide an effective protection for us.'

`I'm not quite so worried about ourselves, as about him,' C. B. said, and he began to slap Beddows' face in an attempt to bring him round. As his slaps had no effect, he lowered the body into a more comfortable position and went on, `I don't think we've much to fear at the moment, but the danger to him will be acute as long as he remains unconscious.,

'Why should that be, since he is in the pentacle with us?'

`Because his spirit is temporarily out of his body. That will give his enemies the best possible chance to capture it. If they were quick off the mark when we broke the magic circle by entering it, and the vase was upset, they may have done so already. If not, I think there is a good chance of the restored pentacle protecting him. But I don't know enough about these things to be certain. All I do know is that in his present state he is ten times more vulnerable than we are; so it's obvious that if there are any evil forces in this room it is him they will attempt to destroy.'

`What ... what will happen if they succeed?'

`When he comes round it won't be him. The personality inside him will no longer be Henry Beddows. His body will have been taken possession of by a demon.'

`Just as you say occurs with Christina every night?'

`No. Far worse than that. She still makes sense. He will be permanently demented. Off his chump for good.'

`You are really convinced that evil spirits can drive people mad?'

`I haven't the least doubt about it. Ignore the Bible if you will, and scoff at all the records of such happenings in mediaeval times as based upon ignorant superstition. That gets you nowhere, unless you can account in some other way for certain types of loss of mental control that have afflicted great numbers of people from the earliest times, and still continue to do so. Most cases of lunacy are obviously due to physical causes; but any doctor will tell you that he has met with forms of madness which cannot be explained by any theory so far accepted by science; and most of the honest ones will admit that the symptoms in such cases tally with those described by the priests of all nations who have studied these things, as indications that the victim is “possessed of a devil”.'

John nodded. `I suppose in these days we are far too apt to discount the Bible; and if one believes at all, one can hardly refuse to accept the account of Christ and the Gadarene swine. Still, all that apart, it seems to me that we have good grounds for regarding this chap as a bit round the bend already. No one who wasn't would choose for a costume in which to sit up all night three suits of underclothes and pyjamas, instead of day things and an overcoat or anyway a good warm dressing gown.'

`On the contrary, the clothes he is wearing show that he understands what he is up against.' C. B. flashed his torch round the floor. `Look how thoroughly the whole place has been swept and garnished before the pentacle was laid out. That shows he was aware that elementals are helped to materialise by dirt and filth. Above all they are attracted by the impurities of the human body. When he decided to fortify himself in here he evidently took every possible precaution against bringing in with him anything that might aid the enemy. Soiled clothes of any kind, or cushions and rugs that had been in use, would do so; that is why he made do with such underclothes and bedding as he could take straight from the linen cupboard.'

`From the bristles on his chin it looks as if he has been sitting here for several days; but I suppose he must have left the pentacle now and again in the daytime.'

`Why? Were you thinking about his natural functions?'

`Yes. If you are right about human impurities, his own would form a dangerous focus within the pentacle, and he could not possibly have controlled himself long enough to grow that beard.'

`An Indian fakir could; so could he if he is an expert practitioner of Yoga particularly if he has eaten very little. Each time he left the pentacle he would have to remake it to restore its maximum potency, and seeing the state he was in it is most unlikely he would leave its protection even for a few minutes, unless it was absolutely unavoidable.'

`He must practice Yoga then, otherwise .'

`No. He got round that problem another way.' C. B. was shining his torch down into the tea chest. More than half of it was occupied by a large metal container, and he added, `Look, I'll bet that thing is a form of Elsan specially fitted with an air tight lid.'

The only other things in the chest were two tins of dry biscuits and a dozen bottles, about half of which were still full of water. `I expect you're right,' John conceded. `Anyhow, you are about his not eating much.'

`He wouldn't dare to bring meat, game or fish into the pentacle and after a day or two even fruit might start to go bad.'

`He must have been mighty scared to shut himself up here and go on a prison diet.'

`Yes, scared stiff,' C. B, agreed, switching out his torch to economise its battery. `But what luck to have found him here. If only he is all right when he comes round, and we can get him to talk freely while he is so scared, we shall have solved the riddle of where Christina stands in all this.'

`We know that already. That devilish Canon is after her to feed her blood to his filthy homunculi.

'I mean we'll get to the bottom of the whole business we'll find out how she came under Copely Syle's influence in the first place, and what the tie up is between him and her father. I thought it might be blackmail, but there's more to it than that. Finding him in this pentacle shows that he, too, is an occultist of no mean order. I want to know if he is another Black who has quarreled with the Canon, or a White who has found the odds too much for him; and if either or both of them are associated with other practitioners of the Black Art. We know that the day after to morrow is the peak point of Christina's danger; and we have every hope now of keeping her out of their clutches till it is past; but we've got to think of her future too. Having been mixed up with these people, she is highly liable to get drawn in as a witch unless we can take steps to prevent it. Only by getting at the full truth can we hope to free her from their evil influence once and for all.'

John nodded. `Of course, we've got to do that somehow, or the way in which they are able to dominate her mind at night will continue to make her vulnerable at any time. But what is likely to happen if, when Beddows comes to, we find that he is possessed?'

`Then we are in for something extremely unpleasant,' C. B. replied grimly. `He will probably act like a raving maniac and attempt to kill us.!

'In that case we'll have no alternative but to knock him on the head.!

'If he becomes violent, yes. But he may resort to cunning, and by some plausible story attempt to lead us into danger.'

`What is the drill, then?'

`We'll give him his head for a bit. Fortunately the sort of elementals that get possession of humans are said to be of very low intelligence. They usually give themselves away; so we should be able to tell whether it is really Beddows who is talking to us or some horror that has got into him and is making use of his tongue. Anyhow, if we have any doubts there is one acid test we can apply.!

'What is that?'

`The little vases have Holy water in them. They would be pointless otherwise. I shall take a few drops from one and sprinkle it on him. Demons can't stand Holy water. If he is possessed, he will scream as though he had been scalded.'

Beddows still showed no sign of coming round, so they settled themselves beside him to await events. The glow from the blue ribbon that formed the star was sufficient to make large print readable inside the pentacle, or a few feet from it; but farther off the gloom thickened into almost complete darkness. Even now that they had been there for some minutes without the torch, so that their eyes had had a chance to become accustomed to the faint blue light, they could barely make out by it the dark beams and uprights in the white walls, while above them the great rafters were only vaguely discernible as strips of denser blackness in the black vault overhead.

As soon as they stopped talking they again became conscious of the uncanny silence that gripped the old house. Out on the landing the ape had ceased its scuffling attempts to free itself. C. B. was troubled for a moment by the thought that they might have suffocated the poor brute; but, tightly as its arms were pinioned, he felt sure that enough air would get up between the folds of the eiderdown for it to breathe. The odds were that its struggles had tired it out and it had dropped into a doze.

John tried to keep his thoughts on Christina, but they would slide away from her to the fact that the motionless body at his side was that of her father, and to the fantastic situation in which they had found him. It seemed unbelievable that a twentieth century industrialist should be mixed up with witchcraft and have shut himself up for days on biscuits and water in a pentacle as the only safe refuge from evil spirits. Yet that he had done so was beyond dispute.

From that it was only a step to imagining the sort of things he had feared to see while sitting there day after day and night after night. John closed his eyes, hoping to shut out from his mind the winged and crawling monstrosities that his memory of Breughel's paintings conjured up so vividly. The darkness of closed eyelids proved less conducive to such gruesome imagery than the pale light that hardly reached the walls. Nevertheless, he found that he could not keep his eyes closed for more than a few moments at a time. The urge to open them, to make quite certain that nothing was stirring in the shadows, proved irresistible. Each time he did so his glance wavered swiftly back and forth, probing anew the darkest corners of the room, seeking reassurance that no unclean denizen from the grim world of Eternal Night was forming in any of them.

There came a moment when he could have sworn that at the far end of the room from the door, where it was darkest, a humped thing like a big turtle had taken shape, and that the curve of its back was slowly undulating as it pulsed with malevolent life. Loath as he was to risk making a fool of himself by giving a false alarm, he had just made up his mind to attract C.B.’s attention to it when Beddows gave a loud groan.

It was an eerie sound in the tense stillness that held the lofty room. John, staring into the darkness, had his back turned. His whole body jerked at the unexpectedness of it, and he swivelled round as swiftly as if a glass of cold water had been poured down his spine. C. B. switched on his torch. As he brought it round to level it on Beddows' face, the beam cut the darkness at the far end of the room with a swathe of light. Swift as its passage was, John was in time to glance over his shoulder while it swept the floor. With a gasp of relief he realised that either he must have imagined the humped thing, or the powerful light had caused it instantly to disintegrate.

As the beam came round on Beddows they saw that his eyes were open and that he was licking his dry lips. He groaned again, made a feeble gesture as though trying to push the light away from his face, then struggled into a sitting position. John helped him up and C. B. lowered the torch a little. Neither showed the acute anxiety they felt, but the thought uppermost in the minds of both was how much hung on the next few moments. If Beddows was himself and sane, their journey to England should prove a hundred times worth while, as he must know the truth about the strange relationship between his daughter and the Canon; and, with his help, the tie could be broken for good. On the other hand, he might be possessed and, instead of helpful, highly dangerous.

His opening move on regaining consciousness was by no means reassuring. Thrusting them aside, he got to his knees and cried in a harsh voice

`Who are you? How the hell d'you get here?'

`My name is Verney,' replied C. B. quietly, `and that of my friend is John Fountain. We mean you no harm: on the contrary ...'

`Why should I believe that?' shouted Beddows. `Anyhow, you'll admit now that we are real?' John cut in.

Beddows turned, glared at him and muttered, `I wonder ! I wonder!'

Oh come!' John put a hand on his shoulder; but he shook it off and staggered to his feet with the evident intention of jumping out of the pentacle.

C. B. caught him round the knees in a rugby tackle. Next moment he was sprawling full length on the blankets. As he attempted to rise John joined in, and between them they held him down flat on his back.

He was a powerful man and he struggled violently, but in spite of that they managed to keep him down. The very fact that they were able to do so inclined C. B. to suppose that he was not possessed, but simply a very frightened and angry man. So when Beddows stopped cursing from lack of breath, he said

`Now listen! You have got yourself into an unholy mess, and we are here to help you out of it.'

`I don't believe it!' Beddows panted. `I don't believe it! How did you get up here? Jutson or his wife must have let you in, and told you about the trap and the ape. In spite of all their promises they've sold me out to Copely Syle.'

`Oh no they haven't. We broke in.'

Beddows gave a sudden snarl. `If that's true I'll have the law on you.'

`No you won't. Not unless you are prepared to have a full description of how we found you to night come out in court. How would your shareholders react to that, eh? Can't you imagine the headlines in the papers: “Chairman of Directors found sealed in magic pentacle. Satanic rituals practised in Essex manor house,” and so on?'

`Damn you!' Beddows gave a mighty heave, and nearly succeeded in breaking away.

`Steady!' C. B. shifted his grip and pressed down with his full weight on him again. `Don't be a fool, Beddows. Just now you tried to hurl yourself out of the pentacle. That wouldn't be a very clever thing to do, would it? As long as you are inside it you are safe, but once you leave it all sorts of unpleasant things might succeed in getting hold of you.'

Beddows relaxed. For a moment he lay silent, then he let out something between a sigh and a moan and said, `What the hell do you want of me?'

Sensing that his resistance was lessening, C. B. said firmly, `We want the truth about your association with Canon Copely Syle.'

`That has nothing to do with you.'

`Yes it has. Fountain and I came all the way from the South of France specially to talk to you about it.' `It's none of your business.'

`It is our business. It is the business of every decent person to lend a hand in scotching the sort of devilry that Copely Syle is engaged in. And you've got to help us.'

'No! No! I won't talk about him! I daren’t! The danger I am in from him is bad enough as it is.'

C. B. loosened his hold a little and took a more persuasive tone. `Come! Pull yourself together, man. You're not the only one in danger. How about your daughter Ellen?'

`Ellen!' Beddows repeated miserably. `I . . . I thought I had managed to keep her out of this.'

`Far from it. She has been in very grave danger indeed, and is a long way from being safely out of the wood yet.'

Now that Beddows was no longer actually being held down, he struggled up into a sitting position and demanded, `What has been happening to her?'

`The Canon is after her blood. I mean that literally, and I'll bet any money you know what he would do with her blood if he got it. That's why we came back to England to hunt you out. You've got to tell us everything you know about the Canon.'

'No! I'm not talking!'

`Damn it, man!' John cried. `Think of your daughter! How can you possibly refuse to help us free her from the influence that devil exerts over her?'

`No!' Beddows repeated doggedly. `I did my best for her. I can't do more. She must take her chance now. I'm not talking. It's too dangerous.'

`Yes, you are going to talk,' said C. B. quietly. `Do you know what I mean to do if you persist in your refusal?' `What?' faltered Beddows uneasily? `What will you do?' `I shall smash this pentacle to pieces; then Fountain and I will leave you here alone.'

'No! No ! You can't do that.'

`I can and I will. Either you are going to answer any

questions or I'll make hay of your astral defences.' For a moment Beddows sat there panting heavily, then he muttered, `All right. What do you want to know?' `How long have you known Copely Syle?' `A bit over twenty years.'

`Where did you first meet him?'

`Here.'

C. B. raised his eyebrows. `I thought you bought this place only in 1949?'

`That's so.' Beddows now seemed to have resigned himself to talking freely, and went on in a normal voice, `I'd been wanting to for a long time, but the stiff necked old bitch who owned the place wouldn't sell. Even after the war had reduced her to scraping in order to stay on here she still refused my offers; so I had to wait till she died. Her name was Durnsford the Honourable Mrs. Bertram Durnsford and I was her chauffeur from 1927 to 1931.'

`I see; so it was while you were employed here as chauffeur that you first met the Canon?'

`That's right. When I said I had known him for twenty years, it's really nearer twenty five; but to begin with it was only as a servant knows his mistress's visitors. He was a great chum of the old girl's, and from the time I took the place he was often here.'

`Was she a witch?'

`Yes. There's a lot of it still goes on in Essex. Parts of it are so isolated that modern influences are slower to penetrate than in most other places. She had been mistress here so long that she always thought of herself as one of the gentry; but she wasn't. She started life as daughter of the village witch and, so they say, put a spell on the young squire here to marry her. It's said, too, that as soon as she got tired of him she used a wax image to cause him to sicken and die. After that she acted the high mightiness and ruled the village with a rod of iron. She was over eighty when she died and more or less bedridden for the last few years; so she had lost much of her occult power and with it most of her money; but she still had enough power by such means to keep me from getting her out after she had refused my offers to buy.'

`Why were you so keen to own The Grange?' John asked.

`Sentiment,' came the unexpected reply. `I came here as a young man of twenty three. I er formed an attachment soon after I took the job, and one of the few really decent things I have got out of life are the memories of it. I wanted the place on that account. I suppose, too, the idea of owning the big house in which I had once been a servant appealed to my vanity. But it was wanting to live where she had lived that made me determined to have it.'

`Let's get back to Copely Syle.' said C. B. `How did it happen that you got to know him more intimately than as one of your mistress's visitors?'

Beddows gave a heavy sigh, then shrugged resignedly. `Well, since you insist, I suppose I had better give you the whole story from the beginning.'

19

The Saga of a Satanist

After a moment Beddows started to talk in a flat, low monotone, more as if he were talking to himself than to them. He began

`It can't be news to you that I'm a self made man. I've never sought to conceal it. I was born less than a dozen miles from here as the son of a farm labourer, and I started life myself as a farmer's boy. But for all that I was born ambitious. I soon made up my mind that two ten a week and work in all weathers wasn't good enough. Knowing about machines seemed to me the one way out; so instead of spending my pennies on the pictures and trashy novelettes, I bought the weeklies from which I could learn about the insides of motors. That way I picked up enough to get a job in a garage.

`Later they let me drive one of their hire cars; then one of their customers, who was a doctor, took me on as his private chauffeur. I stayed with Doc for eighteen months, and while I was with him I attended evening classes at the Colchester Technical College. You see, by then I'd made up my mind to become an engineer. I got a lot out of those classes, but nothing like as much as I should have if I'd had more time for home study; and by the nature of things, a doctor's chauffeur is far harder worked than most. That's why I left him and came here. Mrs. Durnsford was already over sixty and didn't go out very much. In fact, sometimes during the winter months a whole week would pass without her using the car at all; so the job offered just the easy hours

I wanted to go in for correspondence courses and study for exams.

`For a year or so I did quite well in that way, then my thoughts were taken right off engineering. I don't propose to go into the details of what happened, but for a long time I never opened one of my books. As I told you just now, I formed an attachment for a certain person, and afterwards . . . well, afterwards I simply hadn't the heart to start work again.

`It was while I was still in that state that I got involved with Hettie Weston. She was the parlourmaid here. Pretty young thing and the flighty type. She asked for trouble and she got it. If it hadn't been me, it would have been the next feller who came along. I didn't give a cuss for her, but she set her cap at me, and if ever a chap needed a warm blooded young woman to take him out of himself, I did. I bought it all right, and the next thing we knew was that the silly young bitch had let herself get in the family way.

`Well, plenty of them do that in these country parts long before there's been any talk of marriage. If the feller is willing they make a go of it and put up the banns. If he's not, there are usually a few tears, but no harm done. The girl picks on another likely lad to go hedging and ditching with on her evenings off, and lands him with the kid. Second or third time lucky, and she usually gets some mug to the altar. That's what would have happened in Hettie's case if it hadn't been for the old woman.

'Hettie spilt the beans to the mistress and I was put on the mat. I suppose I could have told her to go take a running kick at herself. If I had, the worst that could have happened was that I'd have lost my job and had a maintenance order made against me for seven and six a week. But I didn't. I was still in a state of not giving a damn what happened to me, and believing that I had no future worth making a struggle for. You must add to that several other factors, one of which I was certainly not aware of at the time.

`To start with, there was the hereditary angle. Youngsters of my class had allowed themselves to be dictated to for countless generations by old women in Mrs. Durnsford's position, especially when it seemed that moral right was on their side. Next, as a person she was pretty formidable. When those beady black eyes of hers bored into you, it wasn't easy to say “No”. Lastly, although I didn't realise it then, she knew all about me. She knew both how ambitious I had been, and what it was that had caused my ambitions temporarily to take a line that had nothing to do with engineering. It wasn't any high falutin' motive of wanting to see the right thing done by Hettie that made her row in as she did. It was the malice that was in her. From what she knew had gone before, she got a special kick out of getting me married to a parlourmaid and saddled with the sort of liabilities that make it near impossible for a young working man to rise above his station.

`Anyhow, she bullied me into making an honest woman of Hettie and we settled down in the flat above the stables, where the Jutsons are now. It took a bit of time for me to realise what a muck I had made of my life; but in a young man ambition dies hard, and in me it started to stir again after the new experience of being married began to wear off. I somehow couldn't find the energy to take up my correspondence courses again, but I was subconsciously seeking a way out. Then, three nights before Ellen was born, it seemed as if it had been thrust right at me.

`I'd been out doing a bit of poaching, and returned late. The curtains of one of the drawing room windows were not quite drawn, and through the chink I caught sight of a flicker that might have meant the place was on fire. I took a peep in, and what d'you think I saw? The flicker I'd seen was fire all right, as the room was lit only by a pile of logs blazing on the hearth. But all the furniture had been pushed back to the sides of the room, a lot of circles and figures had been drawn on the parquet, and in the middle of them stood my mistress and the Canon. Both of them were stark naked.

`He must have been getting on for forty then, so he was already well past his youth and had a little pot. I found him comic rather than repulsive, but there was nothing the least funny about her. She was twenty years older and the scraggy kind. Her withered shanks and flabby, hanging breasts made her a horrible caricature of what a woman should be. You can imagine how weird they looked against the firelight, and how I stared. But after a minute it was not at them I was looking; it was at the thing that stood between them. I can only describe it as a sort of blacksmith's anvil, and belly up on it they had tied a live cat.

`The cat didn't remain alive for long though. As I watched, the Canon produced a knife and slit its throat. Old Mother Durnsford caught the blood in the sort of chalice you see on the altar of a church. Of course, I know that it must have been stolen from one; but at the time all this made no more sense than if I'd found myself at the Mad Hatter's tea party. Still, this was clearly no tea party, as the next thing they did was to each drink some of the cat's blood.

`The sight turned my stomach, so for a bit I missed seeing what they got up to after that. When I looked again they both had some clothes on. She was rubbing the chalk marks off the floor and he was pushing the furniture back into place. Knowing her reputation as a witch, I suppose I ought to have put two and two together, but somehow I didn't. It was catching them naked that was uppermost in my mind. I thought then that he was a proper clergyman, and that the business with the cat was some sort of sexual perversion, or that drinking cat's blood might be a way of making old people feel young again.

`Anyhow, as far as I was concerned one thing stuck out a mile. Here was my opportunity to break out of the dead end in which I had landed myself. Setting up house with Hettie had cost me the hundred or so I had put by. Since we had been married I'd had little chance to start saving again, and I knew that once the baby arrived I'd have even less. By then I was twenty seven. Ten years had slipped by without my getting very far ten of the best years of my life and I didn't want to remain a chauffeur all my natural. Here was my chance to make a brand new start.

`We may as well call a spade a spade. My mind instantly turned to blackmail. I reckoned that the Canon and the old woman were good for five hundred smackers between them, and that they'd pay that to keep my mouth shut. For a pound a week I could park Hettie and the baby on her parents. Then I'd go to London. Four hundred, eked out by taking night jobs in garages now and then, would see me through two years as a full-​time student at a technical college. Before I was thirty I'd emerge as a qualified engineer, capable of earning good money. It didn't take me long to work that out, or how to set about it.

`They had to dispose of the body of the cat. I reckoned they wouldn't risk the stench that would fill the house if they burnt it on the drawing-​room fire; so all the odds were that the Canon would take it out to the furnace. I nipped round there and hid behind the boiler. Sure enough, a few minutes later in he comes, opens the furnace door, rakes up the coke a bit and pops in the dead pussy. The moment he had gone I fished the animal out. Its fur was a little singed, which showed that an attempt had been made to burn it, and its throat was slit from ear to ear; so it provided the evidence I needed to turn the heat on him.

`Next morning I put it in an oyster-​barrel filled with brine, to preserve it, and hid the barrel in the loft. Then in the evening I cycled over to The Priory to have a little talk with the Canon. But I was told that he had gone to London and was not expected back for about a week. Two days later Hettie had her baby. As it happened I didn't have to call on the Canon after all, as the day he got back he came to see the old woman. Having seen him go into the house, I lay in wait for him in the garden until he came out. As he turned a corner of the shrubbery we came face to face. Nice as pie, he congratulates me on becoming a father and asks me what I would like for the child as a christening present.

`I say, “Five hundred pounds in pound notes to be delivered before the end of the week at a place and time chosen by me.”

`At that he gave a rather twisted grin, thinking it just a cheeky sort of joke. But when I told him what I knew, and how I meant to make the neighborhood too hot to hold him unless he paid up, his grin became even more twisted.

`Of course he tried to bluster, and said that no one would believe me. Even when I told him I had got the body of the cat, he still maintained that proved nothing, as anyone might have killed and partially burnt it. But I was ready for that one. I told him that I had taken the furnace rake to a friend of mine who was a sergeant in the Colchester police, and asked him, just as a matter of interest, to see if he could get any finger prints from it. The prints were there all right and we had photographed them. So if I had to tell my story about the goings on at The Grange and he sued me for defamation of character, he would have to explain how his finger prints had got on the furnace rake in somebody else's back premises on the night in question.

`I was lying about having a friend in the police; but he couldn't know that, and it sank him. He agreed to find the money in exchange for the body of the cat, and he asked me to come to his house that night to arrange when and where the exchange was to be made. I suspected a trap, but he pointed out that as long as I had the cat and the furnace rake, I had the whip hand of him; so I agreed to go.

`That night he received me in his study, and after giving me a drink, asked me what I meant to do with the money when I had it. I saw no reason to conceal my plans; so I told him. When he had heard me out, he said, “You don't mind being separated from your wife and child, then?” and I replied, “Why should I? Hettie was forced on me against my will, and the child means nothing to me.”

`He asked me, then, into what church I intended having the child baptised. The question seemed natural enough coming from a parson, as at that time I took him to be. I had been brought up C. of E, myself, but Hettie was Chapel; and in spite of her flightiness as a single girl she thought a great deal of standing well with her own Chapel folk; so we'd been married Chapel and I took it for granted she'd want her brat christened there. I told the Canon how matters stood and he went on to talk about religion for a bit. Then he said

` “You know, Mr. Beddows, the little scene that you chanced to witness last week had nothing to do with sex. It was a religious ritual a sacrifice to a God far older than Christ, and one who was universally worshipped when the world was a much happier place than it is to day. He still exists, of course, since Gods cannot die; and he is still worshipped in secret by a few of us who understand his mysteries.”

`At that, the local gossip about old Mother Durnsford being the daughter of a witch, and a witch herself, came back to me. It all fitted in, so I said, “I suppose you are talking about the Devil?”

`He nodded; and as I've a first class memory for statements made to me, I can still recall pretty well word for word his reply, which was, “That is a name that was bestowed upon him in fear and opprobrium by the early ascetics, when they were still striving to win the nations over to the worship of the Jewish tyrant God, Jehovah; but he is more fittingly called the Lord of this World. In any case, while the God of the Christians offers nothing to His followers but the meagre possibilities of an austere heaven in a life to come, the God whom I serve rewards those who honour him with wealth and happiness here and now. There may or may not be a hereafter; but everything in this life is his to give. Even the Christian Church admits that; and it is only superstitious fear that prevents people from returning to the old faith. You should give it a trial, Mr. Beddows, for at little cost to yourself you could make an offering to my Master which would ensure his behaving most generously towards you.”

`Naturally I didn't get what he was driving at, then; neither could I make up my mind if he was really in earnest about this old religion. His saying that the cat had been a sacrifice certainly had the ring of truth, and he didn't sound as if he was goofy; but all that about getting riches in this life was a bit too much to swallow. More to see what replies he would make than anything else, I began to question him about it. His answers seemed logical enough, but even so I couldn't bring myself to believe him. Then he asked me if I would like him to reveal my future.

`Well, everyone likes having their fortune told, and I saw no harm in that. When I'd agreed, he took me through to the old part of The Priory and down into the crypt. It had evidently been used as a chapel at some time, but he had turned it into a sort of laboratory. There, he made me sit in front of a mirror. It wasn't made of glass, but of some highly polished metal, and it was pitted round the

edges as though it was very old. He gave me a big brass bowl to hold in my lap and put some cones of incense in it. When he had lit them he said to me as follows

“'Within certain limits all men have free will; therefore their futures are not irrevocably fixed, but depend upon the decisions they take at certain major crossroads in their lives. I am about to give you an idea what your future will be, should you decide to rely upon my guidance and become the servant of Prince Lucifer. Keep your eyes fixed on the mirror and through the smoke you will see pictures form upon it.” Then he began to chant in a sing song voice behind me, and I seemed to become a little drowsy.

`You will remember what it says in the Bible about Satan taking our ... our ... taking J. C. up on to the mountain and showing Him the kingdoms of the Earth. Well, me being just a chauffeur saddled with an unwanted wife and kid, it wasn't far off that. There were quite a number of pictures and afterwards they became a bit confused in my mind. The general impression was of myself, a little older, but not much, dressed in expensive clothes, wining and dining with other rich men, and having necking parties with lovely women in the luxury suites of big hotels. But a few of the scenes I saw remained clear cut. There was one of me walking through a great machine shop where hundreds of people were working, and from the respectful way they all looked up at me as I passed it was clear that I was the boss of the whole outfit. Another confirmed that it was the outside of my plant near Colchester pretty much as it stands to day; and blazoned across its front in letters six feet high were the words “BEDDOWS AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS”. The one that really got me, though, was myself in a check suit, standing in front of a long, low grey car. That car had something that no car in the time of which I am talking had got. Its rake was completely different. It was quite unlike anything that had so far been made and obviously an advance in design. It was something slap out of the future, and I knew that whatever else Copely Syle might have faked up to gull me he couldn't have faked up that.

`When the show was over I told him at once that he had made a convert, and asked what I must do to become the me in the pictures I had seen. He replied, “There is nothing very difficult about it, if you are prepared to forswear the gloomy Christian God and all His works. Prepare yourself for that by reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards every night from now on, and return here at the same hour a week from to day.”

`It wasn't until he was showing me out of the front door, a few minutes later, that I remembered the reason I had come to see him; and with a sudden feeling that somehow he had made a monkey out of me, I said pretty sharply, “We haven't settled anything about that five hundred pounds.”

` “No,” he said, “and if you've any sense we shan't need to. When you come here next week you'd better bring that dead cat with you as a first offering. If you don't I will buy it off you later, as we arranged this morning. But don't imagine that the money will do you any good. By taking it you will decree a very different future for yourself from the one I showed you. The choice is yours.”

`During the week that followed I was torn first one way, then the other. After all, the five hundred smackers was as good as a bird in the hand, and I hated the idea of giving it up; yet I couldn't get the image of that car of the future out of my mind, and as a sort of token payment towards it in advance I wrestled for half an hour each night with the tricky business of getting through the Lord's Prayer backwards. When the week ended I still hadn't made any definite decision; but, all the same, when I called again at The Priory I took the dead cat with me.

`That night Copely Syle took me straight to the crypt, and the first thing he did was to shove the cat into the furnace there. Then he said to me, “Now I propose to call upon Prince Lucifer in order that you may make your bargain with him.”

` “What bargain?” I asked, rather taken aback.

` “Why, the usual one, of course,” he replied a little sharply. “As Lord of this World he will give you every reasonable success, pleasure and gratification in it that you may desire; but for all that he naturally asks something in return. You must sign a pact making yourself over to him body and soul.”

`I didn't much like the idea of doing that, and I said so.

`He laughed then, and gave me a pat on the back. “Don't worry. You must sign it, and in your own blood; but you need never honour it. In your case it will merely be similar to a Life Insurance Policy lodged at a bank as security. You are lucky in having just had a little daughter. All you have to do is to have her baptised into the old faith, and undertake that should she reach the age of twenty one you will produce her here in this crypt on her twenty first birthday. In that way you may redeem your bond and it will be handed back to you.” '

John gave a low exclamation of horror at this frightful revelation, but C. B. who had guessed what was coming from what had gone before grabbed his arm and squeezed it sharply, to check him from bursting into angry words that might have put an abrupt end to Beddows' story; while Beddows, now apparently almost self hypnotized by the recital of his confession, ignored the interruption, and went straight on

`Although I didn't give a damn for the brat, it did not seem right somehow; but what was I to do? By letting him burn the cat I had burnt my own boats. I no longer had anything on him. It had become a choice of my going through with the business and a prospect of getting everything I'd ever wanted, or of walking out of the house worse off than I'd ever been before; because in him I would have made a powerful and unscrupulous enemy, who could have got me the sack and used his influence to chivvy me out of the district.

`Well, I signed the pact, and afterwards he put me through a long ritual that I could not make head nor tail of, except that in symbolical submission to Lucifer he made me kiss his arse; but by that time I felt it was a case of in for a penny, in for a pound; so I made no bones about it. Then he gave me his instructions about the baptism of the child and sent me home.

`By that time I'd tumbled to it that the five hundred didn't mean much to him, and it wasn't either to save it or to get me as a convert that he had gone to quite a lot of trouble. It was the child he was after, and I was still in half a mind to ditch him about that. I think I would have but for the fact that three days after I had signed the pact I learnt that I had won seven hundred and twenty three pounds in a football pool.

`It wasn't a fortune, but it seemed to me a real earnest of Prince Lucifer's good faith. All the same, there was something a bit frightening about getting a sum like that out of the blue so soon after I had abjured the Christian God. It scared me enough to make me decide that I had better not try to wriggle out of taking the baby to be baptised.

`We had fixed on the following Saturday night for that, and I slipped some dope that he had given me into Hettie's evening cup of cocoa. No sooner was she in bed than she was sleeping like a log. I wrapped the child up well and carried her to a field about a mile away from The Grange, where the Canon had told me to meet him. There were a number of other people there, women as well as men, and among them old Mother Durnsford, although I did not know that at the time, as all of them were wearing cloaks and great animal masks that hid their identities. Later, when I was made a regular member of the coven, I got to know them, all; but she would never forgive me for having tried to blackmail Copely Syle, and nothing I could offer would persuade her to sell me this house. But to get back I saw only the beginning of that first Sabbat I attended, as the Canon was very anxious that the child should not take a chill. The actual baptism didn't take long. It was a revolting business; but as soon as it was over he packed me off home with her.

`As you've met Ellen, you will probably have noticed that she is different from other girls. She can't go into a church without being sick, and animals won't go near her. At night, too, she seems to assume a different personality. Naturally, she has never understood why she should be affected as she is, because she knows nothing at all of what I've told you; but it is having been baptised into the Satanic faith which causes these instinctive reactions, and the fact that during the hours when the Powers of Darkness are abroad she becomes readily subject to their influences.

`For many years I had no cause to regret what I had done. Once I had taken the plunge, Copely Syle advised me that I'd be a fool to strive for success the hard way, by going to London and spending two years studying engineering; so I used my win from the football pools to buy a share as a working partner in the business of a secondhand agricultural implement dealer in Colchester. It was only a small concern, but from the day I started there it began to flourish. I found myself imbued with enormous energy, so that I could work eighteen hours a day and enjoy it.

`All sorts of ideas came to me, too. I began to design gadgets that made tractors more efficient and took out patents for them. Soon they were bringing me more money than my regular earnings. My senior partners were an old man and his son. When I'd been with them just on two years the son had a car smash one night coming home from a dance, and died as a result of his injuries. His loss caused the old man to lose all interest in the business, and he let me buy him out for a song. That was in '33, and in '34 I started a little plant of my own to make the first Beddows All purposes Garden Motor. It was an instantaneous success. Another invention to do with decarburizing brought me enough capital to expand without taking in a partner. By 1936 I was employing four hundred hands. In '38 I merged all my interests as Beddows Ltd., with a capital of half a million, and in the same year work was begun on the big factory. It was completed just in time for the war. By the end of it I was rolling in money and a director of half a dozen big firms, in addition to being chairman of my own.

`To begin with I saw quite a lot of Copely Syle and often assisted him in his magical rituals. That is how I learned enough to erect this pentacle myself last week but as my own concerns began to occupy me more and more I lost interest in the higher aspects of the Great Art. Then it gradually got down to my simply paying homage to Prince Lucifer once a year, at the great Sabbat on Walpurgis Night. Apart from round about the time of those annual gatherings I never gave a thought to the real source of my money and success.

`That may sound strange, but it isn't really, because my principles were no better and no worse than those of most

of the other big business men with whom I was constantly mixing, and it seemed to me that my achievements, like theirs, were the natural outcome of ability, shrewdness and hard work.