steel-grey eyes fastened without a flicker upon those of the
unwilling Satanist.
Time passed, and every now and then De Richleau's voice broke
the silence of the quiet, dimly-lit room. 'You are tired now,
you will sleep. I command you.' But all his efforts were
unavailing. The Satanist sat there rigid and determined not to
succumb.
The ormolu clock upon the mantelpiece ticked with a steady,
monotonous note, until Rex was filled with the mad desire to
throw something at it. The hands crawled round the white
enamelled dial; its silvery chime rang out, marking the hours
eleven, twelve, one. Still the Frenchman endured De Richleau's
steady gaze. He knew that they were expecting Mocata to arrive
at his apartment. Mocata was immensely powerful. If only he
could hold out until then the whole position might be saved.
With a fixed determination not to give in, his eyelids held back
by Rex's forefingers, he stared blankly at De Richleau's chin.
Outside, on the sofa of Cordova leather, Richard and Marie Lou
sat side by side. It seemed to her again that she must be
dreaming. The whole fantastic business of this flight to Paris
and their dinner at the Vert Galant had been utterly unreal. It
could not be real now that Mocata was somewhere in this city
preparing to kill her darling Fleur in some ungodly rite, while
she sat there with Richard in that strange, silent apartment and
the night hours laboured on.
She thought that she slept a little, but she was not certain.
Ever since she had fainted in the pentacle and come to with the
sensation that she was above Cardinals Folly, floating in the
soundless ether, all her movements had been automatic and her
vision of their doings distorted, so that whole sections of time
were blotted out from her mind, and only these glimpses of
strange places and faces seemed to register.
The black-coated servant appeared once at the far end of the
corridor, but seeing them still there, disappeared again.
Almost the whole of that long wait Richard sat with his eyes
glued to the front door, his hand clasped ready on the pistol in
his pocket, expecting the ring that would announce Mocata's
arrival.
He too felt that somehow this person, grown desperate from an
unbearable injury and lusting with the desire to kill, re
gardless of laws and consequences, could not possibly be
himself. With every movement that he made he expected to wake
and find himself safely in bed at Cardinals Foily, with Marie
Lou snuggled down close against him and Fleur peacefully asleep
only a few doors away.
Had he wholly believed that Fleur had been taken from him and
that he was never to see her again, he could not possibly have
endured those dreary hours of enforced idleness while the Duke
battled with Castelnau. He would have been forced to interrupt
them or at least leave his post to watch their proceedings, for
his inactivity would have become unbearable.
In the richly furnished salon, Rex and the Duke continued
their long-sustained effort without a second's intermission. The
clock struck two, and as Rex stood behind the Frenchman's chair,
shifting his weight from foot to foot now and then, he seemed at
times to drop off into a sort of half-sleep where he stood.
At last, a little after two, he was roused to a fresh
attention by a sudden sob breaking from the dry lips of the
banker.
'I will not let you, I will not,' he cried hysterically, and
then began to struggle violently with the curtain cords that
tied him to the chair.
'You will,' De Richleau told him firmly, the pupils of his
grey eyes now distended and gleaming with an unnatural light.
Castelnau suddenly ceased to struggle; a cold sweat broke out
on his bony forehead, and his head sagged on his neck, but Rex
held it firmly and continued to press back his eyelids so that
it was impossible for him to escape the Duke's relentless stare.
He began to sob then, like a child who is being beaten, and at
last De Richleau knew that he had broken the Frenchman's will.
In another ten minutes Rex was able to remove his fingers from
the banker's eyelids for he no longer had the power to close
them, but sat there gazing at De Richleau with an imbecile
glare.
In a low voice the Duke began to question him and, after one
last feeble effort at resistance, it all came out. The meeting
place was in a cellar below a deserted warehouse on the banks of
the Seme at Ashieres. They secured full directions as to the way
to reach it and how to get into it when they arrived.
As Castelnau answered the last question, De Richleau glanced
at the clock. Three and a quarter hours,' he said with a sigh of
weariness. 'Still, it might well have taken longer in a case
like this.'
'What'll we do with him?' Rex motioned towards the Frenchman
who, with his head fallen forward on his chest, was now sound
asleep.
'Leave him there,' answered the Duke abruptly. The servants
will find him in the morning, and he's so exhausted that he will
sleep until then. But stuff your handkerchief in his mouth just
in case he wakes and tries to make any trouble for us. Be
quick!'
Castelnau did not even blink an eyelid as Rex gagged him. They
left him there and hurried out to the others.
'Come on!' cried the Duke.
'What about Mocata?' Richard asked. 'If we leave here we
may miss him.' 'We must chance that.' De Richleau pulled open
the door and
made for the stairs.
As they dashed down the long flights he flung over his
shoulder: Tanith may have been wrong. Messages from the astral
plane are often unreliable about time. As it does not exist
there, they have difficulty in judging it. She may have seen him
here a week hence or in the past even. It's so late now that I
doubt if he will turn up tonight. Anyhow, we got out of
Castelnau the place where he's most likely to be-and God knows
what he may be doing if he is there. We've got to hurry!' They
fled after him out of the silent building.
Round the corner they managed to pick up a taxi and, at the
promise of a big tip, the man got every ounce out of his engine
as he whirled the four harassed-looking people away through the
murky streets up towards the Boulevard de Clichy. Topping the
hill, they descended again towards the Seine, crossed the river
and entered Asnieres.
In that outlying slum of Paris with its wharves and ware
houses, narrow, sordid-looking streets and dimly-lit passages,
there was little movement at that hour of the morning. They paid
off the taxi outside a closed cafe which faced upon a dirty-
looking square. A market wagon rumbled past with its driver
huddled on the seat above the horses, his cape drawn close to
protect him from the damp mist rising from the river. The
bedraggled figure of a woman was huddled upon the steps of a
shop with Tabac' in faded blue letters above it, but otherwise
there was no sign of life.
Turning up the collars of their coats and shivering afresh
from the damp chill of the drifting fog, they followed the
Duke's lead along an evil-looking street of tumbledown dwelling
houses. Then, between two high walls, along a narrow passage
where the rays of a solitary lamp, struggling through grimy
glass, were barely sufficient to dispel a small circle of gloom
in its own area. When they had passed it the rest was darkness,
foul smells, greasy mud squishing from beneath their feet, and
wisps of mist curling cold about their faces.
At the end of that long dark alley-way they came out upon a
deserted wharf. De Richleau turned to the left and the others
followed. To one side of them the steep face of a tall brick
building, from which chains and pulleys hung in slack festoons,
towered up into the darkness. On the other, a few feet away, the
river surged, oily, turgid, yellow and horrible as it hurried to
the sea.
As if in a fresh phase of their nightmare, they stumbled
forward over planks, hawsers and pieces of old iron, the
neglected debris of the riverside, until fifty yards farther on
De Richleau halted.
'This is it,' he announced, fumbling with a rusty padlock.
'Castelnau hadn't got a key and so we'll have to break this
thing. Hunt around, and see if you can find a piece of iron that
we can use as a jemmy. The longer the better. It will give us
more purchase.'
They rummaged round in the semi-darkness, broken only by a
riverside light some distance away along the wharf and the
masthead lanterns of a few long barges anchored out on the
swiftly flowing waters.
This do?' Richard pulled a rusty lever from a winch and,
grabbing it from him, the Duke thrust the narrow end into the
hoop of the padlock.
'Now then,' he said, as he gripped the cold, moist iron,
'steady pressure isn't any good. It needs a violent jerk, so
when I say "go!" we must all throw our weight on the bar
together. Ready? Go!'
They heaved downwards. There was a sudden snap. The tongue of
the padlock had been wrenched out of the lock. De Richleau
removed it from the chain and in another moment they had the
tall wooden door open.
Once inside, De Richleau struck a match, and while he shaded
it with his hands the others looked about them. From what little
they could see, the place appeared to be empty. They moved
quickly forward, striking more matches as they went, in the
direction where Castelnau had told them they would find a trap-
door leading to the cellars.
In a far corner they halted. 'Stand back all of you.' whis
pered Rex, and while the Duke held up a light he pulled at the
second in a row of upright iron girders, apparently built in to
strengthen the wall. As Castelnau had said in his trance, it was
a secret lever to operate the trap. The girder came forward and
a large square of flooring lifted noiselessly on well-oiled
hinges.
De Richleau blew out his match and produced the small
automatic which he had taken from the banker. 'I will go first,'
he said, 'and you, Rex, follow me. Richard, you have the other
gun so you had better come last. You can look after Marie Lou
and protect our rear. No noise now, because if we're lucky our
man is here.'
Feeling about with his foot he ascertained that a flight of
stairs led downwards. His shoes made no noise, and it was
evident .that they were covered with a thick carpet. Swiftly but
cautiously he began to descend the flight and the others fol
lowed him down into the pitchy darkness.
At the bottom of the stairs they groped their way along a
tunnel until the Duke was brought up sharply by a wooden
partition at which it seemed to end. He fumbled for the handle,
thinking that it was a door. The sides were as smooth and
polished as the centre, yet it moved gently under his touch, and
after a moment he found it to be a sliding panel. With the
faintest click of ball bearings it slid back on its runners.
Straining their eyes they peered into the great apartment upon
which it opened. A hundred feet long at least and thirty wide,
it stretched out before them. Two lines of thick pillars, acting
as supporters to the roof above, and rows of chairs divided in
the centre by an aisle which led up to a distant altar, gave it
the appearance of a big private chapel. It was lit by one
solitary lamp which hung suspended before the altar, and that
distant beacon did not penetrate to the shadows in which they
stood.
On tiptoe and with their weapons ready they moved forward
along the wail. De Richleau peered from side to side as he
advanced, his pistol levelled. Rex crept along beside him, the
iron winch lever which they had used to smash the padlock
gripped tight in his big fist. At any moment they expected their
presence to be discovered.
As they crept nearer to the hanging lamp, they saw that the
place had been furnished with the utmost luxury and elegance for
those unholy meetings. It was, indeed, a superbly equipped
temple for the worship of the Devil. Above the altar a great and
horrible representation of the Goat of Mendes, worked in the
loveliest coloured silks, leered down at them; its eyes were two
red stones which had been inset in the tapestry. They flickered
with dull malevolence in the dim light of the solitary lamp.
On the side walls were pictures of men, women and beasts
practising obscenities only possible of conception in the brain
of a rnad artist. Below the enormous central figure, which had
hideous, distorted, human faces protruding from its elbows,
knees and belly, was a great altar of glistening red stone,
worked and inlaid with other coloured metals in the Italian
fashion. Upon it reposed the ancient 'devil's bibles' containing
all liturgies of hell; broken crucifixes and desecrated chalices
stolen from churches and profaned here at the meetings of the
Satanists.
Luxurious armchairs upholstered in red velvet and gold with
eleborate canopies of Jace above, such as High Prelates use in
cathedrals when assisting at important ceremonies, flanked the
altar on either side. Below the steps to the short chancel, on a
level with where they stood, were arranged rows and rows of
cushioned prie-dieux for the accommodation of the worshippers.
No sound or movement disturbed the stillness of the heavy
incense laden air and with a sinking of the heart De Richleau
knew that they had lost their man. He had gambled blindly upon
Tanith's message and she had proved wrong as to time. Mocata
might not be in Paris for days to come; perhaps he had divined
their journey and, knowing that he would be unmolested while
they were abroad, returned to Simon's house where, even now, he
might be foully murdering poor little Fleur. It seemed that
their last hope had gone.
Then as they stepped from the side aisle they suddenly saw a
thing that had been hidden from them by the rows of chair
backs-a body, clad in a long white robe with mystic signs
embroidered on it in black and red, lay spreadeagled, face
downwards on the floor, at the bottom of the chancel steps,
'It's Simon!' breathed the Duke.
'Oh, hell, they've killed him!' Rex ran forward and knelt
beside the body of their friend. They turned him over and felt
his heart. It was beating slowly but rhythmically. The Duke
pulled out of his waistcoat pocket a little bottle, without
which he never travelled, and held it beneath Simon's nose. He
shuddered suddenly and his eyes opened, staring up at them.
'Simon, darling, Simon. It's us-we're here.' Marie Lou grasped
his limp hands between her own.
He shuddered again and struggled into a sitting position.
'What-what's happened?' he murmured, but his voice was normal.
'You left us, you dear, pig-headed ass!' exclaimed Richard.
'Gave yourself up and ruined our whole plan of campaign. What's
happened to you! That's what we want to know.'
'Well, I met him.' Simon gave the ghost of a smile. 'And he
took me to Paris in his plane. Then to some place down on the
riverside.' He gazed round and added quickly: 'But this is it.
How did you get here?'
'Never mind that,' De Richleau urged him. 'Have you seen
Fleur?'
'Yes. He sent a car for me, and when I reached the plane she
was already in it. We had an argument and he swore he'd keep his
word unless I went through with this.'
The ritual to Saturn?' asked De Richleau.
'Um. He said that if I'd do it without making any fuss he'd
let me take Fleur out of here immediately afterwards and back to
England.'
'He's double-crossed you, as we thought he. would,' Rex
grunted. 'There's not a soul in this place. He's quit, and taken
Fleur with him. Can't you say where he'll be likely to make
for?'
'Ner.' Simon shook his head. 'Directly we started on the
ritual he put me under. I let him, but of course he would have
done that anyway. The last I saw of Fleur' she was sound asleep
in that armchair and the next thing I knew you were all staring
down at me just now.'
'If you completed the ritual, Mocata knows now where the
Talisman is,' De Richleau said abruptly.
'Yes,' Simon nodded.
'Then he will have gone to wherever it is-from here.'
'Of course,' Richard cut in. 'That's his main objective. He
wouldn't lose a second.'
Then Simon must know the place to which he's gone.'
'How's that? I don't quite get you.' Rex looked at the Duke
with a puzzled frown.
'In his subconscious, I mean. Our only hope now is for me to
put Simon under again and make him repeat every word that he
said when the ritual was performed. That will give us the hiding-
place of the Talisman and the place to which I'll stake my life
Mocata is heading at the present moment. Are you game, Simon?'
'Yes, of course. You know that I would do anything to help.'
'Right.' The Duke took him by the arm and pushed him gently.
'Sit down in that chair to the right of the altar and we'll go
ahead.'
Simon settled himself and leaned back on the comfortable
cushions, his white robe with its esoteric designs in black and
red settling about his feet like the long skirts of a woman. De
Richleau made a few swift passes. 'Sleep, Simon,' he commanded.
Simon's eyelids trembled and closed. After a moment he began
to breathe deeply and regularly. The Duke went on: 'You are in
this temple with Mocata. The ritual to Saturn is about to begin.
Repeat the words that he made you speak then.'
Dreamily but easily, Simon spoke the words of power which were
utterly meaningless to Richard, -Rex and Marie Lou, who stood, a
tensely anxious audience, at the bottom of the chancel steps.
'On,' commanded De Richleau. 'Jump a quarter of an hour.'
Simon spoke again, more sentences incomprehensible to the
uninitiate.
'On again,' commanded De Richleau. 'Another quarter of an hour
has passed.'
'--was built above the place where the Talisman is buried,'
said Simon. 'It will be found in the earth beneath the right
hand stone of the altar.'
'Go back one minute,' ordered De Richleau, and Simon spoke
once more.
'--Attila's death the Greek secreted it and took it to his own
country. In the city of Yanina, upon his return, he became
possessed of devils and was handed over to the brethren at the
monastery above Metsovo, which stands in the mountains twenty
miles east of the city. They failed to cast out the spirits
which inhabited his body and so imprisoned him in an underground
cell and there, before he died, he buried the Talisman. Seven
years later the dungeons were demolished and the crypt built in
their place on the same site, with the great church above it.
The Talisman remained undisturbed in its original hiding place.
Its power gradually pervaded the whole of the Brotherhood,
filling it with lechery and greed, so that it disintegrated and
was finally disbanded before the invasion by the Turks-. The
chapel to the left in the crypt was built above the place where
the Talisman is buried.'
'Stop,' ordered the Duke. 'Awake now.'
'By Jove, we've got it!' exclaimed Rex. But as he spoke a
slight noise behind them made him swing upon his heel.
Four figures stood there in the shadows. The tallest suddenly
stepped forward.
Richard's hand leapt to his gun but the tall man snapped:
'Stand still, man vieux, I have you covered,' and they saw that
he held an automatic.
The other two strangers came forward. The fourth was
Castelnau.
The leader of the party turned to a little old man, who stood
beside him wearing an out-of-date bowler hat that came almost
down to his ears, then nodded towards the Duke.
'Is that De Richleau, Verrier? You should be able to recognise
him, since he was in your time.'
'Oui monsieur,' declared the little old man. 'That is the
famous Royalist who caused us so much trouble when I was young.
I would know his face again anywhere.'
'Son! All this is very interesting.' The tall, hard-eyed man
glanced from the obscene pictures on the walls to the mag
nificent appurtenances of Satanic worship upon the altar, and
went on in a silky tone: 'I have had an idea for some time that
a secret society has been practising devil worship in Paris and
is responsible for certain disappearances, but I could never lay
my hands on them before. Now I have got five of you red-handed.'
He paused for a moment then gave a jerky little bow. 'Madame
et Messieurs, permit me to introduce myself. I am le Chef de la
Surete, Daudet. Monsieur le Due, I arrest you as an enemy of the
Government upon the old charge. The rest of you I shall hold
with him, as persons suspected of kidnapping and the murder of
young children at the practice of infamous rites.'
32
The Gateway of the Pit
For ten seconds the friends stood there staring at the de
tective. Castelnau's presence gave them the key to this grotes
que but highly dangerous situation. Mocata must have left the
warehouse at almost the same time they had left the banker's
apartment. Perhaps their taxis had even passed within a few feet
of each other, racing in opposite directions. Tanith had proved
right after all when she had told them that she could see Mocata
talking with Castelnau that night in his flat.
Mocata had found the banker there, released and revived him,
and then listened to his story; realising at once that, since it
was possible for De Richleau to hypnotise Castelnau against his
will, it would be easy for him to do the same to Simon, learn
the hiding place of the Talisman, and follow him to it.
Now that they had discovered the secret Satanic temple which
was his headquarters in Paris, the place would be useless to him
and only a source of danger. Unmentionable crimes had been
committed there, and it would be far too great a risk for him,
ever to visit it again. Then the brilliant decision that, since
the place had to be abandoned, he could at least use it to
destroy his enemies.
The whole thing flashed through De Richleau's brain in those
few seconds. Mocata's first idea that, if only he could get the
police to the warehouse before they left it, he would have
involved them in all the crimes associated with such a place and
thrown them off his trail for good. Next, the vital question,
how to get the police there in time. Would they act at once if
Castelnau were sent to tell them a tale about Satanic orgies or
only laugh at him? What practical crime could his enemies be
charged with? Then the perfect inspiration. If the authorities
were told that De Richleau, the Royalist exile, was a party to
the business they would not lose a second, but seize on it as a
heaven-sent opportunity to throw discredit upon their political
opponents. What a magnificent scandal for the Government Press
to handle. 'Secret Royalist Society practises Black
Art'-'Satanic Temple raided at Asnieres'- 'Notorious exile
arrested while performing Blasphemous Rites.' The Duke could see
the scurrilous headlines and hear the newsboy's cry.
And the trick had worked. They had actually been discovered in
that house of hell with Simon in the tell-tale robes, seated
before the altar, while he performed what must certainly have
appeared to the police as some evil ceremony and the other three
had stood there, forming a small congregation.
How could they possibly hope to persuade the tall, suspicious-
eyed Monsier le Chef de la Surete Daudet of their innocence,
much less get him to agree to their immediate release? Yet, as
they stood there, Mocata was on his way to the place where he
kept his special plane, if not already aboard it. Night flying
would have no terrors for him who, if he wished, could invoke
the elements to his aid. Fleur would be with him and he meant to
murder her as certainly as they stood there. His determination
to secure the return of Tanith made the sacrifice of a baptised
child imperative, and before another twenty-four hours had gone
he would be in possession of the Talisman of Set, bringing upon
the world God alone knew what horrors of war, famine,
disablement and death.
De Richleau knew that there was only one thing for it-even if
he was shot down there and then-he sprang like a panther at the
Chef de la Surete's throat.
The detective fired from his hip. Flame stabbed the semi-
darkness of the vault. The crash hit their eardrums like the
explosion of a slab of gelignite. The bullet seared through the
Duke's left arm, but his attack hurled the Police-Chief to the
ground.
Simon and Marie Lou flung themselves simultaneously upon the
old detective Verrier. The thoughts which had passed through De
Richleau's mind in those breathless seconds had also raced
through hers. If they submitted to arrest their last hope would
be gone of saving her beloved Fleur.
Richard had no chance to pull his gun. The third man had
grabbed him round the body but Rex rapped the policeman on the
back of the head with his iron bar. The man grunted and toppled
on the the chancel steps.
Rex leapt over the body straight for Castelnau. Quick as a
flash, the banker turned and ran, his long legs flicking past
each other as he bounded down the empty aisle, but Rex's legs
were even longer. He caught the Satanist at the entrance of the
passage and grabbed him by the back of the neck. Castelnau tore
himself away and stood panting for a second, half crouching with
bared teeth, his back against the wall. Then for the second time
that night Rex's leg-of-mutton fist took him on the chin and he
slid to the ground like a pole-axed ox.
De Richleau, his wounded arm hanging limp and useless, writhed
beneath the Chef de la Surete who had one hand on his throat and
with the other was groping for his fallen gun.
His fingers closed upon it. He jerked it up and fired at
Richard, who was dashing to De Richleau's help. The shot went
thudding into the belly of the Satanic Goat above the altar.
Next second the heavy prie-dieu which Richard had swung aloft
came crashing down upon the Police-Chief's head.
Rex only paused to see that the banker was completely knocked
out, then rushed back to the struggling mass of bodies below the
altar steps.
Simon and Marie Lou had managed the little man between them.
Almost insane with worry for her child, her thumb nails were dug
into his neck and, while he screeched with pain, Simon was
lashing his hands behind his back.
Richard was pulling the Duke out from beneath the unconscious
Chef de la Surete's body. Rex lent a ready hand and then,
panting with their exertions, they surveyed the scene of their
short but desperate encounter.
'Holy smoke! That's done me a whole heap of good,' Rex grinned
at Richard. 'I'm almost feeling like my normal self again.'
'The odds were with us but we owe our escape to Greyeyes'
pluck.' Richard looked swiftly at the Duke. 'Let's see that
wound, old chap. I hope to God the bullet didn't smash the
bone.'
'I don't think so-grazed it though, and the muscle's badly
torn.' De Richleau closed his eyes and his face twisted at a
stab of pain as they lifted his arm to cut the coat sleeve away.
'I know what you must be feeling,' Simon sympathised. Til
never forget the pain of the wound I got that night we dis
covered the secret of the Forbidden Territory.'
'Don't fuss round me,' muttered the Duke, 'but get that damned
priest's robe off. If these people don't return to the Surete
more police will come to look for them. We've got to get out of
here-quick.'
In frantic haste Marie Lou bandaged the wound while Richard
made a sling and the other two wrenched off the clothes of the
detective that Rex had knocked out. Simon scrambled into them
and, as he snatched up the man's overcoat, the others were
already hurrying towards the entrance to the passage at the far
end'of the temple.
Richard rushed Marie Lou along the dark corridor and they
tumbled up the flight of steps. Everything seemed to fade again
after those awful moments when they had been so near arrest. She
felt the cold air of the wharf-side damp upon her cheeks-they
were running down the narrow passage between the high brick
walls-back in the gloomy square where the old woman still sat
crouched upon the steps near the squalid cafe. Rex had taken her
other arm and, her feet treading the pavements automatically,
they were hastening through endless, sordid, fog-bound streets.
They crossed the bridge over the Seine and, at last, under the
railway arches at Courcel-les, found a taxi. When next she was
conscious of her surroundings they were in a little room at the
airport and the four men were poring over maps. Snatches of the
conversation came to her vaguely.
Twelve hundred miles-more. Northern Greece. You cannot cross
the Alps-make for Vienna, then south to Trieste- no, Vienna-
Agram-Fiume. From Agram we can fly down the valley of the River
Save; otherwise we should have to cross the Dolomites. That's
right! Then follow the coastline of the Adriatic for five
hundred miles south-east to Corfu. Yanina is about fifty miles
inland from there. You can follow the course of the river
Kalamans through the mountains-Shall we be able to land at
Yanina, though-yes, look, the map shows that it's on a big lake.
The circuit of the shore must be fifteen miles at least. It
can't all be precipitous-certain to be sandy stretches along it
somewhere-how far do you make it to Metsovo from there?-twenty
miles as the crow flies. That means thirty at least in such a
mountainous district. The monastery is a few miles beyond, on
Mount Peristeri-pretty useful mountain-look. The map gives it as
seven thousand five hundred feet-we must abandon the plane at
Yanina. If we're lucky we'll get a car as far as Metsova-God
knows what the roads will be like-after that we'll have to use
horses in any case. How soon do you reckon you can make it,
Richard?'
'Fourteen hundred miles. We should be in Vienna by midday.
Fiume, say, half-past two. I ought to make Vanina by eight
o'clock with Rex taking turn and turn about flying the plane.
After that it depends on what fresh transport we can get.'
Next, they were in the plane again-lifting out of fog-bound
Paris to a marvellous dawn, which gilded the edges of the clouds
and streaked the sky with rose and purple and lemon.
Richard was flying the plane in a kind of trance, yet never
for a moment losing sight of important landmarks or the dials by
which he adjusted his controls. The others slept.
When Marie Lou roused, the plane was at rest near a long line
of hangars dimly glimpsed through another ghostly fog. Someone
said 'Stuttgart' and then she saw Simon standing on the ground
below her, conversing in German with an airport official.
'A big, grey, private plane,' he was saying urgently. 'The
pilot is a short, square-shouldered fellow; the passengers a
big, fat, baldheaded man and a little girl.'
Marie Lou leaned forward eagerly but she did not catch the
airport man's reply. A moment later Simon was climbing into the
plane and saying to the Duke:
'He must be taking the same route, but he's an hour and a half
ahead of us. I expect he had his own car in Paris. That would
have saved him time while we were hunting for that wretched
taxi.'
Rex had taken over the controls and they were in the air once
more. Richard was sitting next to Marie Lou, sound asleep. For
an endless time they seemed to soar through a cloudless sky of
pale, translucent blue. She, too, must have dropped off again,
for sl.e was not conscious of their landing at Vienna, only when
she woke in the early afternoon that the pilots had changed over
and Richard was back at the controls.
'Yet, in some curious way, although she had not actually been
aware of their landing, fragments of their conversation must
have penetrated her sleep at the time. She knew that there had
also been fog at Vienna, and that Mocata had left the airport
there only an hour before them, so in the journey from Paris
they had managed to gain half an hour on him.
The engine droned on, its deep note soothing their frayed
nerves. Richard hardly knew that he was flying, although he used
all the skill at his command. It seemed as though some other
force was driving the aeroplane on and that he was standing
outside it as a spectator. All his faculties were numbed and his
anxiety for Fleur deadened by an intense absorption with the
question of speed-speed-speed.
At Fiume there was no trace of fog. Glorious sunshine, warm
and lifegiving, flooded the aerodrome, making the hangars
shimmer in the distance. The Duke crawled out from the couch of
rugs and cushions that had been made up in the back of the cabin
to accommodate a fifth passenger, and chosen by him as more
comfortable for his wounded arm. He questioned the landing-
ground officials in fluent Italian, but without success.
'From Vienna Mocata must have taken another route,' he told
Richard as he climbed back. 'Perhaps a short cut over the
Dinarie Alps or by way of Sarajevo. If so he will have more than
made up his half hour lead again. I feared as much when I saw
that there was no fog here. I can't explain it but I have an
idea that he is able to surround us with it, yet only when we
follow him to places where he has been quite recently himself.'
Rex took over for the long lap down the Dalmatian coast above
the countless islands that fringe the Yugoslavian mainland and
lay beneath them in the sparkling Adriatic Sea.
They slept again, all except Rex who, a crack pilot, was now
handling the machine with superb skill.
As he flew the plane half his thoughts were centred about
Tanith. He could see her there, lying cold and dead, in the
library a thousand miles away at Cardinals Folly. That dream of
happiness had been so brief. Never again would he see the sudden
smile break out like sunshine rising over mountains on that
beautiful, calm face. Never again hear the husky, melodious
voice whispering terms of endearment. Never again -never again!
But he was on the trail of her murderer and if he died for it he
meant to make that inhuman monster pay.
The Adriatic merged Into the Ionian Sea. The endless rugged
coastline rushed past below them on their left; its mountains
rising steeply to the interior of Albania, and its vales
breaking them here and there to run down to little white fishing
villages on the seashore. Villages that in Roman times had been
great centres of population through the constant passage of mer
chandise, soldiers, scholars, travellers between Brindisi, upon
the heel of Italy, and the Peninsula of Greece.
Then they were over Corfu. Banking steeply, he headed for the
mainland and picked up the northern mouth of the River Kalamas.
The deep blue of the sea flecked by its tiny white crests
vanished behind them. Twisting and turning, the plane drove
upwards above desolate valleys where the river trickled, a
streak of silver in the evening light. The sun sank behind them
into the distant sea. They were heading for the huge chain of
mountains, which forms the backbone of Greece.
A mist was rising which obscured the long, empty patches and
rare cultivated fields below. The Sight faded, its last rays lit
a great distant snow-capped crest which crowned the watershed.
A lake lay below them, placid and calm in the evening light
but glimpsed only through the banks of fog. At its south-western
end the white buildings of a town were vaguely discernible now
and then as Rex circled slowly, searching for a landing-place.
Suddenly, through a gap in the billowing whitish-grey, his eye
caught a big plane standing in a level field.
'That's Mocata's machine,' yelled Simon who was in the cockpit
beside him.
Rex banked again and, coming into the wind, brought them to
earth within fifty yards of it. The others roused and scrambled
out.
The mist which Rex had first perceived, a quarter of an hour
before, from his great altitude, now hemmed them in on every
side.
A man came forward from a low, solitary hangar as the plane
landed. De Richleau saw him, a vague figure, half obscured by
the tenuous veils of mist; went over to him and said, when he
rejoined them:
'That fellow is a French mechanic. He tells me Mocata landed
only half an hour ago. He came in from Monastir but had trouble
in the mountains, which delayed him; nobody but a maniac or a
superman would try and get through that way at all. This fellow
thinks that he cah get us a car; he runs the airport, such as it
is, and we're darned lucky to find any facilities here at all.'
Richard had just woken from a long sleep. Before he knew what
was happening he found that they were all packed into an ancient
open Ford with a tattered hood. Simon was on one side of him and
Marie Lou on the other. Rex squatted on the floor of the car at
their feet and De Richleau was in front beside the driver.
They could not see more than twenty yards ahead. The lamps
made little impression upon the gloom before them. The road was
a sandy track, fringed at the sides with coarse grass and
boulders. No houses, cottages or white-walled gardens broke the
monotony of the way as they rattled and bumped, mounting
continuously up long, curved gradients.
De Richleau peered ahead into the murk. Occasional rifts gave
him glimpses of the rocky mountains round which they climbed or,
upon the other side, a cliff edge falling sheer to a mist-filled
valley.
He, too, could only remember episodes from that wild journey;
an unendurable weariness had pressed upon him once they had
boarded the plane and left Paris. Even his powers of endurance
had failed at last and he had slept during the greater part of
their fourteen hundred mile flight. He was still sleepy now and
only half awake as that unknown demon driver, who had hurried
them with few words into the rickety Ford, crouched over his
wheel and pressed the car, rocketing from hairpin bend to
hairpin bend, onwards and upwards.
The last light had been shut out by the lower ranges of
mountains behind them as they wound their way through the
valleys to the greater peaks which, unseen in the mist and
darkness, they knew lay towering to the skies towards the east.
Deep ruts in the track, where mountain torrents cut it in the
winter cascading downwards to the lower levels, made the way
hideously uneven. The car jolted and bounded, skidding violently
from time to time, loose shale and pebbles rocketing from its
back tyres as it took the dangerous bends.
In the back Richard, Marie Lou and Simon lurched, swayed, and
bumped each other as they crouched in silent misery, their teeth
chattering with the cold of the chill night that was now about
them in those lofty regions...
They were in a room, a strange, low-ceilinged, eastern room,
with a great, heavy, wooden door, under which they could see the
fog wreathing upwards in the light of a solitary oil lamp set
upon a rough-hewn table. Bunches of onions and strips of dried
meat hung from the low rafters. The earthen floor of the place
was cold underfoot. On a deep window recess in a thick wall
stood a crude earthenware jug, and a platter with a loaf of
coarse bread upon it, which was covered by a bead-edged piece of
muslin.
Marie Lou roused to find herself drinking coarse, red wine out
of a thick, glass tumbler. She saw Rex sitting on a wooden bench
against the wall, staring before him with unseeing eyes at the
grimy window. The others stood talking round the lopsided table.
A peasant woman, with a scarf about her head, whose face she
could not see, appeared to be arguing with them. Marie Lou had
an idea that it was about money, since De Richleau held a small
pile of notes in his hand. Then the peasant woman was gone and
the others were talking together again. She caught a few words
here and there,
'I thought it was a ruin . . . inhabited still . . . they beg
us not to go there . . . not of an official order or anything to
do with the Greek Church. They look on them as heathens here . .
. associates of Mocata's?-- No, more like a community of outlaws
who have taken refuge there under the disguise of a religious
brotherhood . . . Talisman has affected them, perhaps. Forty or
fifty of them. The people here shun the place even in the
daytime, and at night none of them would venture near it at any
price. . . . You managed to get a driver?-- Yes, of a kind--
What's wrong with him?-- I don't know. The woman didn't seem to
trust him, but I had great difficulty in understanding her at
all-- Sort of bad man of the village, eh? . . . Have to trust
him if no one else will take us.'
De Richleau passed his hand across his eyes. What was it that
they had been talking about? He was so tired, so terribly tired.
There had been a peasant woman, with whom he had talked of the
ruined monastery up in the mountains. She seemed to be filled
with horror of the place and had implored him again and again
not to go. He began to wonder how they had conversed. He could
make himself understood in most European languages, but he had
very little knowledge of modern Greek; but that did not matter
they must get on- get on...
The others were standing round him like a lot of ghosts in the
narrow, fog-filled village street. A little hunchback with
bright, sharp eyes was peering at him. The fellow wore a dark
sombrero, and a black cloak, covering his malformed body,
dangled to his feet; the light from the semi-circular window of
the inn was just sufficient to illuminate his face. A great, old-
fashioned carriage, with two lean, ill-matched horses harnessed
to it, stood waiting.
They piled into it. The musty smell of the straw-filled
cushions came strongly to their nostrils. The hunchback gave
them one curious, cunning look from his bright eyes, and climbed
upon the box. The lumberiag vehicle began to rock from side to
side. The one-storeyed, flat-topped houses in the village
disappeared behind them and were swallowed up in the mist.
They forded a swift but shallow river outside the village,
then the roadway gave place to a stony track. Ghostlike and
silent, walls of rock loomed up on either side. The horses
ceased trotting and fell into a steady, laboured walk, hauling
the great, unwieldy barouche from bend to bend up the rock-
strewn way into the fastness of the mountains.
Simon's teeth were chattering. That damp, clinging greyness
seemed to enter into his very bones. He tried to remember what
day it was and at what hour they had left Paris. Was it last
night or the night before or the night before that? He could not
remember and gave it up.
The way seemed interminable. No one spoke. The carriage jolted
on, the hunchback crouched upon his seat, the lean horses
pulling gallantly. The curve of the road ahead was always hidden
from them and no sooner had they passed it than they lost sight
of the curve behind.
At last the carriage halted. The driver climbed down off his
box and pointed upwards, as they stumbled out on the track. De
Richleau was thrusting money into his hand. He and his aged
vehicle disappeared in the shadows. Richard looked back to catch
a last glimpse of it and it suddenly struck him then how queer
it was that the carriage had no lamps.
The rest were pressing on, stumbling and slithering as they
followed the way which had now become no more than a footpath
leading upwards between the huge rocks.
After a little, the gloom seemed to lighten and they perceived
stars above their heads. Then, Founding a rugged promontory,
they saw the age-old monastery standing out against the night
sky upon the mountain slope above.
It was huge and dark and silent, with steep walls rising on
two sides from a precipice. A great dome, like an inverted bowl,
rose in its centre, but a portion of it had fallen in and the
jagged edges showed plainly against the deep blue of the starlit
night beyond.
With renewed courage they staggered on up the steep rise
toward the great semi-circular arch of the entrance. The gates
stood open wide, rotted and fallen from their hinges. No sign of
life greeted their appearance as they passed through the
spacious courtyard.
Instinctively they made for the main building above which
curved the broken arc of the ruined Byzantine dome. That must be
the Church, and the crypt would lie below it.
They crossed the broken pavements of the forecourt, the Duke
leaning heavily on Rex's arm. He nodded towards a few faint
lights which came from a row of outbuildings. Rex followed his
glance in silence and they hurried on. That was evidently the
best-preserved portion of the ruin, in which these so-called
monks resided. A gross laugh, followed by the sound of smashing
glass and then a hoarse voice cursing, came from that direction,
confirming their thought.
unwilling Satanist.
Time passed, and every now and then De Richleau's voice broke
the silence of the quiet, dimly-lit room. 'You are tired now,
you will sleep. I command you.' But all his efforts were
unavailing. The Satanist sat there rigid and determined not to
succumb.
The ormolu clock upon the mantelpiece ticked with a steady,
monotonous note, until Rex was filled with the mad desire to
throw something at it. The hands crawled round the white
enamelled dial; its silvery chime rang out, marking the hours
eleven, twelve, one. Still the Frenchman endured De Richleau's
steady gaze. He knew that they were expecting Mocata to arrive
at his apartment. Mocata was immensely powerful. If only he
could hold out until then the whole position might be saved.
With a fixed determination not to give in, his eyelids held back
by Rex's forefingers, he stared blankly at De Richleau's chin.
Outside, on the sofa of Cordova leather, Richard and Marie Lou
sat side by side. It seemed to her again that she must be
dreaming. The whole fantastic business of this flight to Paris
and their dinner at the Vert Galant had been utterly unreal. It
could not be real now that Mocata was somewhere in this city
preparing to kill her darling Fleur in some ungodly rite, while
she sat there with Richard in that strange, silent apartment and
the night hours laboured on.
She thought that she slept a little, but she was not certain.
Ever since she had fainted in the pentacle and come to with the
sensation that she was above Cardinals Folly, floating in the
soundless ether, all her movements had been automatic and her
vision of their doings distorted, so that whole sections of time
were blotted out from her mind, and only these glimpses of
strange places and faces seemed to register.
The black-coated servant appeared once at the far end of the
corridor, but seeing them still there, disappeared again.
Almost the whole of that long wait Richard sat with his eyes
glued to the front door, his hand clasped ready on the pistol in
his pocket, expecting the ring that would announce Mocata's
arrival.
He too felt that somehow this person, grown desperate from an
unbearable injury and lusting with the desire to kill, re
gardless of laws and consequences, could not possibly be
himself. With every movement that he made he expected to wake
and find himself safely in bed at Cardinals Foily, with Marie
Lou snuggled down close against him and Fleur peacefully asleep
only a few doors away.
Had he wholly believed that Fleur had been taken from him and
that he was never to see her again, he could not possibly have
endured those dreary hours of enforced idleness while the Duke
battled with Castelnau. He would have been forced to interrupt
them or at least leave his post to watch their proceedings, for
his inactivity would have become unbearable.
In the richly furnished salon, Rex and the Duke continued
their long-sustained effort without a second's intermission. The
clock struck two, and as Rex stood behind the Frenchman's chair,
shifting his weight from foot to foot now and then, he seemed at
times to drop off into a sort of half-sleep where he stood.
At last, a little after two, he was roused to a fresh
attention by a sudden sob breaking from the dry lips of the
banker.
'I will not let you, I will not,' he cried hysterically, and
then began to struggle violently with the curtain cords that
tied him to the chair.
'You will,' De Richleau told him firmly, the pupils of his
grey eyes now distended and gleaming with an unnatural light.
Castelnau suddenly ceased to struggle; a cold sweat broke out
on his bony forehead, and his head sagged on his neck, but Rex
held it firmly and continued to press back his eyelids so that
it was impossible for him to escape the Duke's relentless stare.
He began to sob then, like a child who is being beaten, and at
last De Richleau knew that he had broken the Frenchman's will.
In another ten minutes Rex was able to remove his fingers from
the banker's eyelids for he no longer had the power to close
them, but sat there gazing at De Richleau with an imbecile
glare.
In a low voice the Duke began to question him and, after one
last feeble effort at resistance, it all came out. The meeting
place was in a cellar below a deserted warehouse on the banks of
the Seme at Ashieres. They secured full directions as to the way
to reach it and how to get into it when they arrived.
As Castelnau answered the last question, De Richleau glanced
at the clock. Three and a quarter hours,' he said with a sigh of
weariness. 'Still, it might well have taken longer in a case
like this.'
'What'll we do with him?' Rex motioned towards the Frenchman
who, with his head fallen forward on his chest, was now sound
asleep.
'Leave him there,' answered the Duke abruptly. The servants
will find him in the morning, and he's so exhausted that he will
sleep until then. But stuff your handkerchief in his mouth just
in case he wakes and tries to make any trouble for us. Be
quick!'
Castelnau did not even blink an eyelid as Rex gagged him. They
left him there and hurried out to the others.
'Come on!' cried the Duke.
'What about Mocata?' Richard asked. 'If we leave here we
may miss him.' 'We must chance that.' De Richleau pulled open
the door and
made for the stairs.
As they dashed down the long flights he flung over his
shoulder: Tanith may have been wrong. Messages from the astral
plane are often unreliable about time. As it does not exist
there, they have difficulty in judging it. She may have seen him
here a week hence or in the past even. It's so late now that I
doubt if he will turn up tonight. Anyhow, we got out of
Castelnau the place where he's most likely to be-and God knows
what he may be doing if he is there. We've got to hurry!' They
fled after him out of the silent building.
Round the corner they managed to pick up a taxi and, at the
promise of a big tip, the man got every ounce out of his engine
as he whirled the four harassed-looking people away through the
murky streets up towards the Boulevard de Clichy. Topping the
hill, they descended again towards the Seine, crossed the river
and entered Asnieres.
In that outlying slum of Paris with its wharves and ware
houses, narrow, sordid-looking streets and dimly-lit passages,
there was little movement at that hour of the morning. They paid
off the taxi outside a closed cafe which faced upon a dirty-
looking square. A market wagon rumbled past with its driver
huddled on the seat above the horses, his cape drawn close to
protect him from the damp mist rising from the river. The
bedraggled figure of a woman was huddled upon the steps of a
shop with Tabac' in faded blue letters above it, but otherwise
there was no sign of life.
Turning up the collars of their coats and shivering afresh
from the damp chill of the drifting fog, they followed the
Duke's lead along an evil-looking street of tumbledown dwelling
houses. Then, between two high walls, along a narrow passage
where the rays of a solitary lamp, struggling through grimy
glass, were barely sufficient to dispel a small circle of gloom
in its own area. When they had passed it the rest was darkness,
foul smells, greasy mud squishing from beneath their feet, and
wisps of mist curling cold about their faces.
At the end of that long dark alley-way they came out upon a
deserted wharf. De Richleau turned to the left and the others
followed. To one side of them the steep face of a tall brick
building, from which chains and pulleys hung in slack festoons,
towered up into the darkness. On the other, a few feet away, the
river surged, oily, turgid, yellow and horrible as it hurried to
the sea.
As if in a fresh phase of their nightmare, they stumbled
forward over planks, hawsers and pieces of old iron, the
neglected debris of the riverside, until fifty yards farther on
De Richleau halted.
'This is it,' he announced, fumbling with a rusty padlock.
'Castelnau hadn't got a key and so we'll have to break this
thing. Hunt around, and see if you can find a piece of iron that
we can use as a jemmy. The longer the better. It will give us
more purchase.'
They rummaged round in the semi-darkness, broken only by a
riverside light some distance away along the wharf and the
masthead lanterns of a few long barges anchored out on the
swiftly flowing waters.
This do?' Richard pulled a rusty lever from a winch and,
grabbing it from him, the Duke thrust the narrow end into the
hoop of the padlock.
'Now then,' he said, as he gripped the cold, moist iron,
'steady pressure isn't any good. It needs a violent jerk, so
when I say "go!" we must all throw our weight on the bar
together. Ready? Go!'
They heaved downwards. There was a sudden snap. The tongue of
the padlock had been wrenched out of the lock. De Richleau
removed it from the chain and in another moment they had the
tall wooden door open.
Once inside, De Richleau struck a match, and while he shaded
it with his hands the others looked about them. From what little
they could see, the place appeared to be empty. They moved
quickly forward, striking more matches as they went, in the
direction where Castelnau had told them they would find a trap-
door leading to the cellars.
In a far corner they halted. 'Stand back all of you.' whis
pered Rex, and while the Duke held up a light he pulled at the
second in a row of upright iron girders, apparently built in to
strengthen the wall. As Castelnau had said in his trance, it was
a secret lever to operate the trap. The girder came forward and
a large square of flooring lifted noiselessly on well-oiled
hinges.
De Richleau blew out his match and produced the small
automatic which he had taken from the banker. 'I will go first,'
he said, 'and you, Rex, follow me. Richard, you have the other
gun so you had better come last. You can look after Marie Lou
and protect our rear. No noise now, because if we're lucky our
man is here.'
Feeling about with his foot he ascertained that a flight of
stairs led downwards. His shoes made no noise, and it was
evident .that they were covered with a thick carpet. Swiftly but
cautiously he began to descend the flight and the others fol
lowed him down into the pitchy darkness.
At the bottom of the stairs they groped their way along a
tunnel until the Duke was brought up sharply by a wooden
partition at which it seemed to end. He fumbled for the handle,
thinking that it was a door. The sides were as smooth and
polished as the centre, yet it moved gently under his touch, and
after a moment he found it to be a sliding panel. With the
faintest click of ball bearings it slid back on its runners.
Straining their eyes they peered into the great apartment upon
which it opened. A hundred feet long at least and thirty wide,
it stretched out before them. Two lines of thick pillars, acting
as supporters to the roof above, and rows of chairs divided in
the centre by an aisle which led up to a distant altar, gave it
the appearance of a big private chapel. It was lit by one
solitary lamp which hung suspended before the altar, and that
distant beacon did not penetrate to the shadows in which they
stood.
On tiptoe and with their weapons ready they moved forward
along the wail. De Richleau peered from side to side as he
advanced, his pistol levelled. Rex crept along beside him, the
iron winch lever which they had used to smash the padlock
gripped tight in his big fist. At any moment they expected their
presence to be discovered.
As they crept nearer to the hanging lamp, they saw that the
place had been furnished with the utmost luxury and elegance for
those unholy meetings. It was, indeed, a superbly equipped
temple for the worship of the Devil. Above the altar a great and
horrible representation of the Goat of Mendes, worked in the
loveliest coloured silks, leered down at them; its eyes were two
red stones which had been inset in the tapestry. They flickered
with dull malevolence in the dim light of the solitary lamp.
On the side walls were pictures of men, women and beasts
practising obscenities only possible of conception in the brain
of a rnad artist. Below the enormous central figure, which had
hideous, distorted, human faces protruding from its elbows,
knees and belly, was a great altar of glistening red stone,
worked and inlaid with other coloured metals in the Italian
fashion. Upon it reposed the ancient 'devil's bibles' containing
all liturgies of hell; broken crucifixes and desecrated chalices
stolen from churches and profaned here at the meetings of the
Satanists.
Luxurious armchairs upholstered in red velvet and gold with
eleborate canopies of Jace above, such as High Prelates use in
cathedrals when assisting at important ceremonies, flanked the
altar on either side. Below the steps to the short chancel, on a
level with where they stood, were arranged rows and rows of
cushioned prie-dieux for the accommodation of the worshippers.
No sound or movement disturbed the stillness of the heavy
incense laden air and with a sinking of the heart De Richleau
knew that they had lost their man. He had gambled blindly upon
Tanith's message and she had proved wrong as to time. Mocata
might not be in Paris for days to come; perhaps he had divined
their journey and, knowing that he would be unmolested while
they were abroad, returned to Simon's house where, even now, he
might be foully murdering poor little Fleur. It seemed that
their last hope had gone.
Then as they stepped from the side aisle they suddenly saw a
thing that had been hidden from them by the rows of chair
backs-a body, clad in a long white robe with mystic signs
embroidered on it in black and red, lay spreadeagled, face
downwards on the floor, at the bottom of the chancel steps,
'It's Simon!' breathed the Duke.
'Oh, hell, they've killed him!' Rex ran forward and knelt
beside the body of their friend. They turned him over and felt
his heart. It was beating slowly but rhythmically. The Duke
pulled out of his waistcoat pocket a little bottle, without
which he never travelled, and held it beneath Simon's nose. He
shuddered suddenly and his eyes opened, staring up at them.
'Simon, darling, Simon. It's us-we're here.' Marie Lou grasped
his limp hands between her own.
He shuddered again and struggled into a sitting position.
'What-what's happened?' he murmured, but his voice was normal.
'You left us, you dear, pig-headed ass!' exclaimed Richard.
'Gave yourself up and ruined our whole plan of campaign. What's
happened to you! That's what we want to know.'
'Well, I met him.' Simon gave the ghost of a smile. 'And he
took me to Paris in his plane. Then to some place down on the
riverside.' He gazed round and added quickly: 'But this is it.
How did you get here?'
'Never mind that,' De Richleau urged him. 'Have you seen
Fleur?'
'Yes. He sent a car for me, and when I reached the plane she
was already in it. We had an argument and he swore he'd keep his
word unless I went through with this.'
The ritual to Saturn?' asked De Richleau.
'Um. He said that if I'd do it without making any fuss he'd
let me take Fleur out of here immediately afterwards and back to
England.'
'He's double-crossed you, as we thought he. would,' Rex
grunted. 'There's not a soul in this place. He's quit, and taken
Fleur with him. Can't you say where he'll be likely to make
for?'
'Ner.' Simon shook his head. 'Directly we started on the
ritual he put me under. I let him, but of course he would have
done that anyway. The last I saw of Fleur' she was sound asleep
in that armchair and the next thing I knew you were all staring
down at me just now.'
'If you completed the ritual, Mocata knows now where the
Talisman is,' De Richleau said abruptly.
'Yes,' Simon nodded.
'Then he will have gone to wherever it is-from here.'
'Of course,' Richard cut in. 'That's his main objective. He
wouldn't lose a second.'
Then Simon must know the place to which he's gone.'
'How's that? I don't quite get you.' Rex looked at the Duke
with a puzzled frown.
'In his subconscious, I mean. Our only hope now is for me to
put Simon under again and make him repeat every word that he
said when the ritual was performed. That will give us the hiding-
place of the Talisman and the place to which I'll stake my life
Mocata is heading at the present moment. Are you game, Simon?'
'Yes, of course. You know that I would do anything to help.'
'Right.' The Duke took him by the arm and pushed him gently.
'Sit down in that chair to the right of the altar and we'll go
ahead.'
Simon settled himself and leaned back on the comfortable
cushions, his white robe with its esoteric designs in black and
red settling about his feet like the long skirts of a woman. De
Richleau made a few swift passes. 'Sleep, Simon,' he commanded.
Simon's eyelids trembled and closed. After a moment he began
to breathe deeply and regularly. The Duke went on: 'You are in
this temple with Mocata. The ritual to Saturn is about to begin.
Repeat the words that he made you speak then.'
Dreamily but easily, Simon spoke the words of power which were
utterly meaningless to Richard, -Rex and Marie Lou, who stood, a
tensely anxious audience, at the bottom of the chancel steps.
'On,' commanded De Richleau. 'Jump a quarter of an hour.'
Simon spoke again, more sentences incomprehensible to the
uninitiate.
'On again,' commanded De Richleau. 'Another quarter of an hour
has passed.'
'--was built above the place where the Talisman is buried,'
said Simon. 'It will be found in the earth beneath the right
hand stone of the altar.'
'Go back one minute,' ordered De Richleau, and Simon spoke
once more.
'--Attila's death the Greek secreted it and took it to his own
country. In the city of Yanina, upon his return, he became
possessed of devils and was handed over to the brethren at the
monastery above Metsovo, which stands in the mountains twenty
miles east of the city. They failed to cast out the spirits
which inhabited his body and so imprisoned him in an underground
cell and there, before he died, he buried the Talisman. Seven
years later the dungeons were demolished and the crypt built in
their place on the same site, with the great church above it.
The Talisman remained undisturbed in its original hiding place.
Its power gradually pervaded the whole of the Brotherhood,
filling it with lechery and greed, so that it disintegrated and
was finally disbanded before the invasion by the Turks-. The
chapel to the left in the crypt was built above the place where
the Talisman is buried.'
'Stop,' ordered the Duke. 'Awake now.'
'By Jove, we've got it!' exclaimed Rex. But as he spoke a
slight noise behind them made him swing upon his heel.
Four figures stood there in the shadows. The tallest suddenly
stepped forward.
Richard's hand leapt to his gun but the tall man snapped:
'Stand still, man vieux, I have you covered,' and they saw that
he held an automatic.
The other two strangers came forward. The fourth was
Castelnau.
The leader of the party turned to a little old man, who stood
beside him wearing an out-of-date bowler hat that came almost
down to his ears, then nodded towards the Duke.
'Is that De Richleau, Verrier? You should be able to recognise
him, since he was in your time.'
'Oui monsieur,' declared the little old man. 'That is the
famous Royalist who caused us so much trouble when I was young.
I would know his face again anywhere.'
'Son! All this is very interesting.' The tall, hard-eyed man
glanced from the obscene pictures on the walls to the mag
nificent appurtenances of Satanic worship upon the altar, and
went on in a silky tone: 'I have had an idea for some time that
a secret society has been practising devil worship in Paris and
is responsible for certain disappearances, but I could never lay
my hands on them before. Now I have got five of you red-handed.'
He paused for a moment then gave a jerky little bow. 'Madame
et Messieurs, permit me to introduce myself. I am le Chef de la
Surete, Daudet. Monsieur le Due, I arrest you as an enemy of the
Government upon the old charge. The rest of you I shall hold
with him, as persons suspected of kidnapping and the murder of
young children at the practice of infamous rites.'
32
The Gateway of the Pit
For ten seconds the friends stood there staring at the de
tective. Castelnau's presence gave them the key to this grotes
que but highly dangerous situation. Mocata must have left the
warehouse at almost the same time they had left the banker's
apartment. Perhaps their taxis had even passed within a few feet
of each other, racing in opposite directions. Tanith had proved
right after all when she had told them that she could see Mocata
talking with Castelnau that night in his flat.
Mocata had found the banker there, released and revived him,
and then listened to his story; realising at once that, since it
was possible for De Richleau to hypnotise Castelnau against his
will, it would be easy for him to do the same to Simon, learn
the hiding place of the Talisman, and follow him to it.
Now that they had discovered the secret Satanic temple which
was his headquarters in Paris, the place would be useless to him
and only a source of danger. Unmentionable crimes had been
committed there, and it would be far too great a risk for him,
ever to visit it again. Then the brilliant decision that, since
the place had to be abandoned, he could at least use it to
destroy his enemies.
The whole thing flashed through De Richleau's brain in those
few seconds. Mocata's first idea that, if only he could get the
police to the warehouse before they left it, he would have
involved them in all the crimes associated with such a place and
thrown them off his trail for good. Next, the vital question,
how to get the police there in time. Would they act at once if
Castelnau were sent to tell them a tale about Satanic orgies or
only laugh at him? What practical crime could his enemies be
charged with? Then the perfect inspiration. If the authorities
were told that De Richleau, the Royalist exile, was a party to
the business they would not lose a second, but seize on it as a
heaven-sent opportunity to throw discredit upon their political
opponents. What a magnificent scandal for the Government Press
to handle. 'Secret Royalist Society practises Black
Art'-'Satanic Temple raided at Asnieres'- 'Notorious exile
arrested while performing Blasphemous Rites.' The Duke could see
the scurrilous headlines and hear the newsboy's cry.
And the trick had worked. They had actually been discovered in
that house of hell with Simon in the tell-tale robes, seated
before the altar, while he performed what must certainly have
appeared to the police as some evil ceremony and the other three
had stood there, forming a small congregation.
How could they possibly hope to persuade the tall, suspicious-
eyed Monsier le Chef de la Surete Daudet of their innocence,
much less get him to agree to their immediate release? Yet, as
they stood there, Mocata was on his way to the place where he
kept his special plane, if not already aboard it. Night flying
would have no terrors for him who, if he wished, could invoke
the elements to his aid. Fleur would be with him and he meant to
murder her as certainly as they stood there. His determination
to secure the return of Tanith made the sacrifice of a baptised
child imperative, and before another twenty-four hours had gone
he would be in possession of the Talisman of Set, bringing upon
the world God alone knew what horrors of war, famine,
disablement and death.
De Richleau knew that there was only one thing for it-even if
he was shot down there and then-he sprang like a panther at the
Chef de la Surete's throat.
The detective fired from his hip. Flame stabbed the semi-
darkness of the vault. The crash hit their eardrums like the
explosion of a slab of gelignite. The bullet seared through the
Duke's left arm, but his attack hurled the Police-Chief to the
ground.
Simon and Marie Lou flung themselves simultaneously upon the
old detective Verrier. The thoughts which had passed through De
Richleau's mind in those breathless seconds had also raced
through hers. If they submitted to arrest their last hope would
be gone of saving her beloved Fleur.
Richard had no chance to pull his gun. The third man had
grabbed him round the body but Rex rapped the policeman on the
back of the head with his iron bar. The man grunted and toppled
on the the chancel steps.
Rex leapt over the body straight for Castelnau. Quick as a
flash, the banker turned and ran, his long legs flicking past
each other as he bounded down the empty aisle, but Rex's legs
were even longer. He caught the Satanist at the entrance of the
passage and grabbed him by the back of the neck. Castelnau tore
himself away and stood panting for a second, half crouching with
bared teeth, his back against the wall. Then for the second time
that night Rex's leg-of-mutton fist took him on the chin and he
slid to the ground like a pole-axed ox.
De Richleau, his wounded arm hanging limp and useless, writhed
beneath the Chef de la Surete who had one hand on his throat and
with the other was groping for his fallen gun.
His fingers closed upon it. He jerked it up and fired at
Richard, who was dashing to De Richleau's help. The shot went
thudding into the belly of the Satanic Goat above the altar.
Next second the heavy prie-dieu which Richard had swung aloft
came crashing down upon the Police-Chief's head.
Rex only paused to see that the banker was completely knocked
out, then rushed back to the struggling mass of bodies below the
altar steps.
Simon and Marie Lou had managed the little man between them.
Almost insane with worry for her child, her thumb nails were dug
into his neck and, while he screeched with pain, Simon was
lashing his hands behind his back.
Richard was pulling the Duke out from beneath the unconscious
Chef de la Surete's body. Rex lent a ready hand and then,
panting with their exertions, they surveyed the scene of their
short but desperate encounter.
'Holy smoke! That's done me a whole heap of good,' Rex grinned
at Richard. 'I'm almost feeling like my normal self again.'
'The odds were with us but we owe our escape to Greyeyes'
pluck.' Richard looked swiftly at the Duke. 'Let's see that
wound, old chap. I hope to God the bullet didn't smash the
bone.'
'I don't think so-grazed it though, and the muscle's badly
torn.' De Richleau closed his eyes and his face twisted at a
stab of pain as they lifted his arm to cut the coat sleeve away.
'I know what you must be feeling,' Simon sympathised. Til
never forget the pain of the wound I got that night we dis
covered the secret of the Forbidden Territory.'
'Don't fuss round me,' muttered the Duke, 'but get that damned
priest's robe off. If these people don't return to the Surete
more police will come to look for them. We've got to get out of
here-quick.'
In frantic haste Marie Lou bandaged the wound while Richard
made a sling and the other two wrenched off the clothes of the
detective that Rex had knocked out. Simon scrambled into them
and, as he snatched up the man's overcoat, the others were
already hurrying towards the entrance to the passage at the far
end'of the temple.
Richard rushed Marie Lou along the dark corridor and they
tumbled up the flight of steps. Everything seemed to fade again
after those awful moments when they had been so near arrest. She
felt the cold air of the wharf-side damp upon her cheeks-they
were running down the narrow passage between the high brick
walls-back in the gloomy square where the old woman still sat
crouched upon the steps near the squalid cafe. Rex had taken her
other arm and, her feet treading the pavements automatically,
they were hastening through endless, sordid, fog-bound streets.
They crossed the bridge over the Seine and, at last, under the
railway arches at Courcel-les, found a taxi. When next she was
conscious of her surroundings they were in a little room at the
airport and the four men were poring over maps. Snatches of the
conversation came to her vaguely.
Twelve hundred miles-more. Northern Greece. You cannot cross
the Alps-make for Vienna, then south to Trieste- no, Vienna-
Agram-Fiume. From Agram we can fly down the valley of the River
Save; otherwise we should have to cross the Dolomites. That's
right! Then follow the coastline of the Adriatic for five
hundred miles south-east to Corfu. Yanina is about fifty miles
inland from there. You can follow the course of the river
Kalamans through the mountains-Shall we be able to land at
Yanina, though-yes, look, the map shows that it's on a big lake.
The circuit of the shore must be fifteen miles at least. It
can't all be precipitous-certain to be sandy stretches along it
somewhere-how far do you make it to Metsovo from there?-twenty
miles as the crow flies. That means thirty at least in such a
mountainous district. The monastery is a few miles beyond, on
Mount Peristeri-pretty useful mountain-look. The map gives it as
seven thousand five hundred feet-we must abandon the plane at
Yanina. If we're lucky we'll get a car as far as Metsova-God
knows what the roads will be like-after that we'll have to use
horses in any case. How soon do you reckon you can make it,
Richard?'
'Fourteen hundred miles. We should be in Vienna by midday.
Fiume, say, half-past two. I ought to make Vanina by eight
o'clock with Rex taking turn and turn about flying the plane.
After that it depends on what fresh transport we can get.'
Next, they were in the plane again-lifting out of fog-bound
Paris to a marvellous dawn, which gilded the edges of the clouds
and streaked the sky with rose and purple and lemon.
Richard was flying the plane in a kind of trance, yet never
for a moment losing sight of important landmarks or the dials by
which he adjusted his controls. The others slept.
When Marie Lou roused, the plane was at rest near a long line
of hangars dimly glimpsed through another ghostly fog. Someone
said 'Stuttgart' and then she saw Simon standing on the ground
below her, conversing in German with an airport official.
'A big, grey, private plane,' he was saying urgently. 'The
pilot is a short, square-shouldered fellow; the passengers a
big, fat, baldheaded man and a little girl.'
Marie Lou leaned forward eagerly but she did not catch the
airport man's reply. A moment later Simon was climbing into the
plane and saying to the Duke:
'He must be taking the same route, but he's an hour and a half
ahead of us. I expect he had his own car in Paris. That would
have saved him time while we were hunting for that wretched
taxi.'
Rex had taken over the controls and they were in the air once
more. Richard was sitting next to Marie Lou, sound asleep. For
an endless time they seemed to soar through a cloudless sky of
pale, translucent blue. She, too, must have dropped off again,
for sl.e was not conscious of their landing at Vienna, only when
she woke in the early afternoon that the pilots had changed over
and Richard was back at the controls.
'Yet, in some curious way, although she had not actually been
aware of their landing, fragments of their conversation must
have penetrated her sleep at the time. She knew that there had
also been fog at Vienna, and that Mocata had left the airport
there only an hour before them, so in the journey from Paris
they had managed to gain half an hour on him.
The engine droned on, its deep note soothing their frayed
nerves. Richard hardly knew that he was flying, although he used
all the skill at his command. It seemed as though some other
force was driving the aeroplane on and that he was standing
outside it as a spectator. All his faculties were numbed and his
anxiety for Fleur deadened by an intense absorption with the
question of speed-speed-speed.
At Fiume there was no trace of fog. Glorious sunshine, warm
and lifegiving, flooded the aerodrome, making the hangars
shimmer in the distance. The Duke crawled out from the couch of
rugs and cushions that had been made up in the back of the cabin
to accommodate a fifth passenger, and chosen by him as more
comfortable for his wounded arm. He questioned the landing-
ground officials in fluent Italian, but without success.
'From Vienna Mocata must have taken another route,' he told
Richard as he climbed back. 'Perhaps a short cut over the
Dinarie Alps or by way of Sarajevo. If so he will have more than
made up his half hour lead again. I feared as much when I saw
that there was no fog here. I can't explain it but I have an
idea that he is able to surround us with it, yet only when we
follow him to places where he has been quite recently himself.'
Rex took over for the long lap down the Dalmatian coast above
the countless islands that fringe the Yugoslavian mainland and
lay beneath them in the sparkling Adriatic Sea.
They slept again, all except Rex who, a crack pilot, was now
handling the machine with superb skill.
As he flew the plane half his thoughts were centred about
Tanith. He could see her there, lying cold and dead, in the
library a thousand miles away at Cardinals Folly. That dream of
happiness had been so brief. Never again would he see the sudden
smile break out like sunshine rising over mountains on that
beautiful, calm face. Never again hear the husky, melodious
voice whispering terms of endearment. Never again -never again!
But he was on the trail of her murderer and if he died for it he
meant to make that inhuman monster pay.
The Adriatic merged Into the Ionian Sea. The endless rugged
coastline rushed past below them on their left; its mountains
rising steeply to the interior of Albania, and its vales
breaking them here and there to run down to little white fishing
villages on the seashore. Villages that in Roman times had been
great centres of population through the constant passage of mer
chandise, soldiers, scholars, travellers between Brindisi, upon
the heel of Italy, and the Peninsula of Greece.
Then they were over Corfu. Banking steeply, he headed for the
mainland and picked up the northern mouth of the River Kalamas.
The deep blue of the sea flecked by its tiny white crests
vanished behind them. Twisting and turning, the plane drove
upwards above desolate valleys where the river trickled, a
streak of silver in the evening light. The sun sank behind them
into the distant sea. They were heading for the huge chain of
mountains, which forms the backbone of Greece.
A mist was rising which obscured the long, empty patches and
rare cultivated fields below. The Sight faded, its last rays lit
a great distant snow-capped crest which crowned the watershed.
A lake lay below them, placid and calm in the evening light
but glimpsed only through the banks of fog. At its south-western
end the white buildings of a town were vaguely discernible now
and then as Rex circled slowly, searching for a landing-place.
Suddenly, through a gap in the billowing whitish-grey, his eye
caught a big plane standing in a level field.
'That's Mocata's machine,' yelled Simon who was in the cockpit
beside him.
Rex banked again and, coming into the wind, brought them to
earth within fifty yards of it. The others roused and scrambled
out.
The mist which Rex had first perceived, a quarter of an hour
before, from his great altitude, now hemmed them in on every
side.
A man came forward from a low, solitary hangar as the plane
landed. De Richleau saw him, a vague figure, half obscured by
the tenuous veils of mist; went over to him and said, when he
rejoined them:
'That fellow is a French mechanic. He tells me Mocata landed
only half an hour ago. He came in from Monastir but had trouble
in the mountains, which delayed him; nobody but a maniac or a
superman would try and get through that way at all. This fellow
thinks that he cah get us a car; he runs the airport, such as it
is, and we're darned lucky to find any facilities here at all.'
Richard had just woken from a long sleep. Before he knew what
was happening he found that they were all packed into an ancient
open Ford with a tattered hood. Simon was on one side of him and
Marie Lou on the other. Rex squatted on the floor of the car at
their feet and De Richleau was in front beside the driver.
They could not see more than twenty yards ahead. The lamps
made little impression upon the gloom before them. The road was
a sandy track, fringed at the sides with coarse grass and
boulders. No houses, cottages or white-walled gardens broke the
monotony of the way as they rattled and bumped, mounting
continuously up long, curved gradients.
De Richleau peered ahead into the murk. Occasional rifts gave
him glimpses of the rocky mountains round which they climbed or,
upon the other side, a cliff edge falling sheer to a mist-filled
valley.
He, too, could only remember episodes from that wild journey;
an unendurable weariness had pressed upon him once they had
boarded the plane and left Paris. Even his powers of endurance
had failed at last and he had slept during the greater part of
their fourteen hundred mile flight. He was still sleepy now and
only half awake as that unknown demon driver, who had hurried
them with few words into the rickety Ford, crouched over his
wheel and pressed the car, rocketing from hairpin bend to
hairpin bend, onwards and upwards.
The last light had been shut out by the lower ranges of
mountains behind them as they wound their way through the
valleys to the greater peaks which, unseen in the mist and
darkness, they knew lay towering to the skies towards the east.
Deep ruts in the track, where mountain torrents cut it in the
winter cascading downwards to the lower levels, made the way
hideously uneven. The car jolted and bounded, skidding violently
from time to time, loose shale and pebbles rocketing from its
back tyres as it took the dangerous bends.
In the back Richard, Marie Lou and Simon lurched, swayed, and
bumped each other as they crouched in silent misery, their teeth
chattering with the cold of the chill night that was now about
them in those lofty regions...
They were in a room, a strange, low-ceilinged, eastern room,
with a great, heavy, wooden door, under which they could see the
fog wreathing upwards in the light of a solitary oil lamp set
upon a rough-hewn table. Bunches of onions and strips of dried
meat hung from the low rafters. The earthen floor of the place
was cold underfoot. On a deep window recess in a thick wall
stood a crude earthenware jug, and a platter with a loaf of
coarse bread upon it, which was covered by a bead-edged piece of
muslin.
Marie Lou roused to find herself drinking coarse, red wine out
of a thick, glass tumbler. She saw Rex sitting on a wooden bench
against the wall, staring before him with unseeing eyes at the
grimy window. The others stood talking round the lopsided table.
A peasant woman, with a scarf about her head, whose face she
could not see, appeared to be arguing with them. Marie Lou had
an idea that it was about money, since De Richleau held a small
pile of notes in his hand. Then the peasant woman was gone and
the others were talking together again. She caught a few words
here and there,
'I thought it was a ruin . . . inhabited still . . . they beg
us not to go there . . . not of an official order or anything to
do with the Greek Church. They look on them as heathens here . .
. associates of Mocata's?-- No, more like a community of outlaws
who have taken refuge there under the disguise of a religious
brotherhood . . . Talisman has affected them, perhaps. Forty or
fifty of them. The people here shun the place even in the
daytime, and at night none of them would venture near it at any
price. . . . You managed to get a driver?-- Yes, of a kind--
What's wrong with him?-- I don't know. The woman didn't seem to
trust him, but I had great difficulty in understanding her at
all-- Sort of bad man of the village, eh? . . . Have to trust
him if no one else will take us.'
De Richleau passed his hand across his eyes. What was it that
they had been talking about? He was so tired, so terribly tired.
There had been a peasant woman, with whom he had talked of the
ruined monastery up in the mountains. She seemed to be filled
with horror of the place and had implored him again and again
not to go. He began to wonder how they had conversed. He could
make himself understood in most European languages, but he had
very little knowledge of modern Greek; but that did not matter
they must get on- get on...
The others were standing round him like a lot of ghosts in the
narrow, fog-filled village street. A little hunchback with
bright, sharp eyes was peering at him. The fellow wore a dark
sombrero, and a black cloak, covering his malformed body,
dangled to his feet; the light from the semi-circular window of
the inn was just sufficient to illuminate his face. A great, old-
fashioned carriage, with two lean, ill-matched horses harnessed
to it, stood waiting.
They piled into it. The musty smell of the straw-filled
cushions came strongly to their nostrils. The hunchback gave
them one curious, cunning look from his bright eyes, and climbed
upon the box. The lumberiag vehicle began to rock from side to
side. The one-storeyed, flat-topped houses in the village
disappeared behind them and were swallowed up in the mist.
They forded a swift but shallow river outside the village,
then the roadway gave place to a stony track. Ghostlike and
silent, walls of rock loomed up on either side. The horses
ceased trotting and fell into a steady, laboured walk, hauling
the great, unwieldy barouche from bend to bend up the rock-
strewn way into the fastness of the mountains.
Simon's teeth were chattering. That damp, clinging greyness
seemed to enter into his very bones. He tried to remember what
day it was and at what hour they had left Paris. Was it last
night or the night before or the night before that? He could not
remember and gave it up.
The way seemed interminable. No one spoke. The carriage jolted
on, the hunchback crouched upon his seat, the lean horses
pulling gallantly. The curve of the road ahead was always hidden
from them and no sooner had they passed it than they lost sight
of the curve behind.
At last the carriage halted. The driver climbed down off his
box and pointed upwards, as they stumbled out on the track. De
Richleau was thrusting money into his hand. He and his aged
vehicle disappeared in the shadows. Richard looked back to catch
a last glimpse of it and it suddenly struck him then how queer
it was that the carriage had no lamps.
The rest were pressing on, stumbling and slithering as they
followed the way which had now become no more than a footpath
leading upwards between the huge rocks.
After a little, the gloom seemed to lighten and they perceived
stars above their heads. Then, Founding a rugged promontory,
they saw the age-old monastery standing out against the night
sky upon the mountain slope above.
It was huge and dark and silent, with steep walls rising on
two sides from a precipice. A great dome, like an inverted bowl,
rose in its centre, but a portion of it had fallen in and the
jagged edges showed plainly against the deep blue of the starlit
night beyond.
With renewed courage they staggered on up the steep rise
toward the great semi-circular arch of the entrance. The gates
stood open wide, rotted and fallen from their hinges. No sign of
life greeted their appearance as they passed through the
spacious courtyard.
Instinctively they made for the main building above which
curved the broken arc of the ruined Byzantine dome. That must be
the Church, and the crypt would lie below it.
They crossed the broken pavements of the forecourt, the Duke
leaning heavily on Rex's arm. He nodded towards a few faint
lights which came from a row of outbuildings. Rex followed his
glance in silence and they hurried on. That was evidently the
best-preserved portion of the ruin, in which these so-called
monks resided. A gross laugh, followed by the sound of smashing
glass and then a hoarse voice cursing, came from that direction,
confirming their thought.