stranger gave him a little of that mysterious powder with which he,
too, performed the experiment successfully; and he again had no
personal axe to grind,'
'There are plenty of other cases as well,' remarked the Duke;
'Raymond Lully made gold for King Edward III of England, and George
Ripley gave ?100,000 of alchemical gold to the Knights of Rhodes.
The Emperor Augustus of Saxony left 17,000,000 Rix dollars and Pope
John XXII of Avignon 25,000,000 florins, sums which were positively
gigantic for those days. Both were poor men with slender revenues
which could not have accounted in a hundred years for such fortunes.
But both were alchemists, and transmutation is the only possible
explanation of the almost fabulous treasure which was actually found
in their coffers after their deaths.'
Simon nodded. 'I know. And if one rejects the sworn evidence of
men like Spinoza and Van Helmont, why should one believe the people
who say they can measure the distance to the stars, or the
scientists of the last century who produced electrical phenomena?'
The difference is that the mass mind will not accept scientific
truths unless they can be demonstrated freely and harnessed to the
public good. Everyone accepts the miracle that sulphur can be
converted into fire because they see it happen twenty times a day
and we all carry a box of matches in our pockets, but if it had been
kept as a jealously guarded secret by a small number of initiates,
the public would still regard it as impossible. And that, you see,
is precisely the position of the alchemist.
'He stands apart from the world and is indifferent to it. To
succeed in the Great Work he must be absolutely pure, and to such
men gold is dross. In most cases he makes only sufficient to supply
his modest needs and refuses to pass on his secret to the profane;
but that does not necessarily mean that he is a fraud and a liar.
The theory that all matter is composed of atoms, molecules and
electrons in varying states is generally accepted now. Milk can be
made as hard as concrete by the new scientific process, glass into
women's dresses, wood and human flesh decay into a very similar
dust, iron turns to rust, and crystals are known to grow although
they are a type of stone. Even diamonds can be made synthetically.'
'Of course,' Simon agreed, with his old eagerness, so absorbed
now in the discussion as to be apparently oblivious of his
surroundings. 'And as far as metals are concerned, they are all
composed of sulphur and mercury and can be condensed or materialised
by means of a salt. Only the varying proportions of those three
Principals account for the difference between them. Metals are the
fruits of mineral nature, and the baser ones are still unripe
because the sulphur and mercury had no time to combine in the right
proportions before they solidified. This powder, or the
Philosophers' Stone as they call it, is a ferment that forces on the
original process of Nature and ripens the base metals into gold.'
'That is so. But do you mean to tell me that you have been
experimenting yourself?'
'Ner,' Simon shook his narrow head. 'I soon found out that to do
so would mean a lifetime of restheticism and then perhaps failure
after all. It is hardly in my line to become a "Puffer." Besides
it's obvious that transmutation in its higher sense is the supreme
mystery of turning Matter into Light. Metals are like men, the baser
corresponding to the once born, and both gradually become
purified-metals by geological upheavals- men by successive
reincarnations, and the part piayed by the secret agent which
hurries lead to gold is the counterpart of esoteric initiation which
lifts the spirit towards light.'
'Was that your aim then?'
To some extent. You know how one thing leads to another. I
discovered that the whole business is bound up with the Quabalah so,
being a Jew, I began to study the esoteric doctrine of my own
people.'
De Richleau nodded. 'And very interesting you found it. I don't
doubt.'
'Yes, it took a bit of getting into, but after I'd tackled a
certain amount of the profane literature to get a grounding, I read
the Sepher Ha Zoher, the Sepher Jetyirah and some of the Midraschim.
Then I began to see a Little daylight.'
'In fact you began to believe, lake most people who have really
read considerably and had a wide experience of life, that our
western scientists have only been advancing in one direction and
that we have even lost the knowledge of many things with which the
wise men of ancient times were well acquainted.'
'That's so,' Simon smiled again. 'I've always been a complete
sceptic. But once I began to burrow beneath the surface I found such
a mass of evidence that I could no longer doubt the existence of
strange hidden forces which can be chained and untilised if one only
knows the way.'
'Yes. And plenty of people still interest themselves in these
questions and use the Quabalah to promote their own well-being and
the general good. But where does Mocata come into all this?'
Simon shuddered slightly at the name and drew the car rug more
closely about his shoulders. 'I met him in Paris,' he said, 'at the
house of a French banker with whom I've sometimes done business.'
'Castelnau!' exclaimed the Duke. 'The man with the jagged ear. I
knew last night that I had seen that ear somewhere before, but for
the life of me I couldn't recall where.'
Simon nodded quickly. That's right-Castelnau. Well, I met Mocata
at his place, and I don't quite know how it started, but the
conversation drifted round to the Quabalah and, as I had been
soaking myself in it at the time, I was naturally in- terested. He
said he had a lot of books upon it and suggested that I might like
to visit the house where he was staying and have a look through
them. Of course I did. Then he told me that he was conducting an
experiment in Magic the following night, and asked if I would care
to be present.'
'I see. That's how the trouble started.'
'Yes. The experiment was quite a harmless affair. He made certain
ritual conjurations with the four elements, Fire, Air, Water and
Earth, then told me to look into a mirror with him. It was an old
Venetian piece, a bit spotted at the back but otherwise quite
ordinary you know. As I watched, it clouded over with a sort of
mist, then when it cleared again I could no longer see my reflection
in it, but a sheet of newspaper instead. It was the financial page
of Le Temps giving all the quotations of the Paris Bourse, which
sounds pretty prosaic I suppose, but the queer part is that this
issue was dated three days ahead.'
De Richleau stroked his lean face with his slender fingers. 'I
saw a similar demonstration in Cairo once,' he commented gravely.
'But on that occasion it was the name of the new Commander-in-Chief,
who had only been appointed by the War Office in London that
afternoon, which appeared in the mirror. You took a note of some of
the Bourse quotations I suppose?'
'Urn. The list wasn't visible for more than ten seconds then the
mirror clouded over again and went back to its normal state, but
that was quite long enough for me to memorise the stocks I was
interested in, and when I checked up afterwards they were right to a
fraction.'
'What happened then?'
'Mocata offered to instruct me in the attainment of the knowledge
and conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel as the first step on the
road to obtaining similar powers myself.'
'My poor Simon!' The Duke made an unhappy grimace. 'You are not
the first to be trapped by a Brother of the Left Hand Path who is
recruiting for the Devil by such a promise. If you had known more of
Magic you would have realised that it is proper to pass through the
six stages of Probationer, Neophyte, Zelator, Practicus, Philosophus
and Dominus Liminis before, as an Adeptus Inferior after many years
of study and experience, you would be qualified to take the risk of
attempting to pass the Abyss. Besides, there are no precise rules
for attaining the knowledge and conversation of one's Holy Guardian
Angel. It is a thing which each man must work out for himself and no
other can help one to it. Mocata invoked your Evil Angel, of course,
to act a blasphemous impersonation while your Holy Guardian wept
impotent tears to see the terrible danger into which you were being
drawn.'
'I suppose so, although, of course, I couldn't know that at the
time. Anyhow, I had to go back to London a few days later, and I was
so impressed by that time that I asked Mocata to let me know
directly he arrived, because he spoke of coming over. He turned up a
fortnight later and rang me up at once to urge me to unload a lot of
stock that he knew I was carrying. I had faith in it myself but in
view of what I'd seen in his mirror I took his tip and saved myself
quite a packet, because the market broke almost immediately after.'
'Was that when you asked him to go and live with you?' inquired
the Duke.
'Yes. I suggested that he should stay with me while he was in
London because he had no suitable place in which to practise his
evocations at his hotel. He moved over to St. John's Wood then and
after that we used to sit up together in the observatory pretty well
every night. That's why I saw so little of you during that time. But
the results were extraordinary-utterly amazing.'
'He gave you more information which governed your financial
transactions, I suppose.'
'Yes, but more than that. He foretold the whole of the Stravinsky
scandal. I'm not a poor man as you know, but if I hadn't been
forewarned about that, it would have darn nearly broken me. As it
was, I cleared every single share in the dud companies before the
storm broke and got out with an immense profit.'
'By that time you had begun to dabble in Black Magic I imagine?'
Simon's dark eyes flickered away from the Duke's for a moment,
then he nodded. 'Just a bit. He asked me to recite the Lord's Prayer
backwards one night, and I was a bit unhappy about it but . . .
well, I did. He said that since I wasn't a Christian anyhow no harm
could come to me from it.'
'It is horribly potent all the same,' the Duke commented.
'Perhaps,' agreed Simon miserably. 'But Mocata is so
devilish glib and according to him there is no such thing as Black
Magic anyhow. The harnessing of supernatural powers to one's will is
just Magic-neither black nor white, and that's all there is to it.'
'Tell me about this man.'
'Oh, he's about fifty, I suppose, bald-headed, with curious light
blue eyes and a paunch that would rival Dorn Goren-fiot's.'
'I know,' agreed the Duke impatiently. 'I've seen him. But I
meant his personality, not his appearance.'
'Of course, I forgot,' Simon apologised. 'You know for weeks now
I hardly know what I've been doing. It's almost as though I had been
dreaming the whole time. But about Mocata: he possesses
extraordinary force of character, and he can be the most charming
person when he likes. He's clever of course-amazingly so, and seems
to have read pretty well every book that one can think of. It's
extraordinary, too, what a fascination he can exercise over women. I
know half a dozen who are simply "bats" about him.'
'What can you tell me of his history?'
'Not much, I'm afraid. His Christian name is Damien and he is a
Frenchman by nationality, but his mother was Irish. He was educated
for the Church. In fact, he actually took Orders, but finding the
life of a priest did not suit him, he chucked it up.'
De Richleau nodded. 'I thought as much. Only an ordained priest
can practise the Black Mass, and since he is so powerful an adept of
the Left Hand Path, it was pretty certain that he was a renegade
priest of the Roman Church. But what more can you tell me? Every
scrap of information which you have may help us in our fight,
because you must remember, Simon, that you have only achieved a very
temporary security. The battle will begin again when he exercises
his dominance over you to call you back.'
Simon shifted his position on the stones and then replied
thoughtfully. 'He does the most lovely needlework, petit point and
that sort of thing you know, and he's terribly fastidious about
keeping his plump little hands scrupulously clean. As a companion he
is delightful to be with except that he will smother himself in
expensive perfumes and is as greedy as a schoolboy about sweets. He
had huge boxes of fondants, crystallised fruits, and marzipan sent
over from Paris twice a week when he was at St. John's Wood.
'Ordinarily he was perfectly normal and his manners were
charming, but now and again he used to get irritable fits. They came
on about once a month and after he had been boiling up for twenty-
four hours, he use to clear out for a couple of days and nights. I
don't know where he used to go to at those times, but I ran into him
one morning early, when he had just returned from one of these
bouts, and he was in a shocking state: filthy dirty, a two days'
growth of beard on his chin, his clothes all torn and absolutely
stinking of drink. It looked to me as if he hadn't been to bed at
all the whole time but had been wallowing in every sort of
debauchery down in the slums of the East End.
'He is quite an exceptional hypnotist, of course, and keeps
himself in touch with what is going on in Paris, Berlin, New York
and a dozen other places by throwing various women, who used to come
and visit him regularly, into a trance. One of them was a girl
called Tanith, a perfectly lovely creature. You may have seen her at
the party, and he says she is by far the best medium he's ever had.
He can use her almost like a telephone and plug in right away to
whatever he wants to know about. Whereas with the others there are
very often hitches and delays.'
'You let him hypnotise you, too, of course?'
'Yes, hi order to get these financial results.'
'I thought as much,' De Richleau nodded. 'And after you had
allowed him to do it willingly for some little time he was able to
block out your own mentality entirely and govern your every thought.
That's why you've failed to realise what's been going on. It is just
as though he'd been keeping you drugged the whole time.'
'Um,' Simon agreed miserably. 'It makes me positively sick to
think of it, but I suppose he has been gradually preparing me for
this Ritual to Saturn which he meant to perform two nights ago and
...' He broke off suddenly as Rex appeared between two of the great
monoliths.
Grinning from ear to ear, Rex displayed his purchases for their
inspection. A pair of grey flannel shorts, a khaki shirt, black and
white check worsted stockings, a gaudy tie of revolting magenta hue,
a pair of waders, a cricket cap quartered in alternate triangular
sections of orange and mauve, and a short, dark blue bicyclist's
cape.
'Only things I could get,' he volunteered cheerfully. 'The
people who run the local Co-op don't live on the premises, so I
had to knock up a sports outfitter.'
De Richleau sat back and roared with laughter while Simon
fingered the queer assortment of garments doubtfully. 'You're joking
Rex,' he protested with a sheepish grin. 'I can't return to London
in this get-up.'
'We're not going to London,' the Duke announced. 'But to
Cardinals Folly.'
'What-to Marie Lou's?' Rex looked at him sharply. 'How did you
come to get that idea ...'
'Something that Simon said just after you left us.'
Simon shook his head jerkily. 'I don't like it-not a little bit.
I'd never forgive myself if I brought danger into their home.'
'You will do as you're told my friend,' De Richleau's voice
brooked no further argument. 'Richard and Marie Lou are the most
mentally healthy couple that I know. The atmosphere of their sane
and happy household will be the very best protection we could find
for you and all of us are certain of a warm welcome. No harm will
come to them if we exercise reasonable precautions, and the help of
their right-thinking minds will give us the extra strength we need.
Besides, they are about the only people to whom we can explain the
whole situation without being taken for madmen. Now hurry up and
array yourself like the champion of next year's Olympic games.'
With a shrug of his narrow shoulders Simon disappeared behind the
stones while Rex added: 'That's right. I ordered ham and eggs to be
got ready at the local inn and I'm mighty anxious to start in on
them.'
'Eggs and fruit,' cut in the Duke, 'but no ham for any of us. It
is essential that we should avoid meat for the moment. If we are to
retain our astral strength our physical bodies must undergo a semi-
fast at least.'
Rex groaned. 'Why, oh, why dear Simon, did you ever go hunting
Talisman and let your friends in for this? When I went to Russia
after the Shulimoff jewels and you came to get me out of trouble, at
least it didn't prevent your feeding decently when you had the
chance.'
'That reminds me,' De Richleau threw over his shoulder in the
direction where Simon was struggling into his queer garments. 'What
is this Talisman? Rex mentioned it last night.'
'It's the reason why Mocata is certain to make every effort to
get possession of me again,' Simon's voice came back. 'It is buried
somewhere, and adepts of the Left Hand Path have been seeking it for
centuries. It conveys almost limitless powers upon its possessor and
Mocata has discovered that its whereabouts will be revealed if he
can practise the ritual to Saturn in conjunction with Mars with
someone who was born in a certain year at the hour of the
conjunction. There can't be many such, but for my sins I happen to
be one, and even if he can find others they might not be suitable
for various reasons.'
'Yes, I realise that. But what is the Talisman?'
'I don't really know. Except for conducting my business on the
lines suggested by Mocata, I don't think my brain has been
functioning at all in the last two months. But it's called the
Talisman of Set.'
'What!' The Duke sprang to his feet as Simon appeared grotesquely
attired in his incongruous new clothes, his long knees protruding
beneath the shorts, the absurd cricket cap set at a rakish angle on
his head, and the cycling cloak flapping about his shoulders.
Rex dissolved into tears of laughter, but the Duke's grim face
quickly sobered his mirth.
'The Talisman of Set,' De Richleau repeated almost in a whisper.
'Yes, it has something to do with four horsemen I think- but what
on earth's the matter?' Simon's big mouth fell open in dismay at the
sight of the Duke's horror-stricken eyes.
'It has indeed! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,' De Richleau
grated out. 'War, Plague, Famine and Death. We all know what
happened the last time those four terrible entities were unleashed
to cloud the brains of statesmen and rulers.'
'You're referring to the Great War I take it.' Rex said soberly.
'Of course, and every adept knows that it started because one of
the most terrible Satanists who ever lived found one of the secret
gateways through which to release the four horsemen.'
'I thought the Germans got a bit above themselves,' Rex hazarded,
'although it seems that lots of other folks were pretty well as much
to blame.'
'You fool!' De Richleau suddenly swung upon him. 'Germany did not
make the War. It came out of Russia. It was Russia who instigated
the murder at Sarajevo, Russia who backed Serbia to resist Austria's
demands, Russia who mobilised first and Russia who invaded Germany.
The monk Rasputin was the Evil genius behind it all. He was the
greatest Black Magician that the world has known for centuries. It
was he who found one of the gateways through which to let forth the
four horsemen that they might wallow in blood and destruction-and I
know the Talisman of Set to be another. Europe is ripe now for any
trouble and if they are loosened again, it will be final Armageddon.
This is no longer a personal matter of protecting Simon. We've got
to kill Mocata before he can secure the Talisman and prevent his
plunging the world into another war.'
21
Cardinals Folly
Richard Eaton read the telegram a second time:
'Eat no lunch this vitally important Simon ill Rex and I bringing
him down to you this afternoon Marie Lou must stop eating too kiss
Fleur love all.-De Richleau,'
He passed one hand over the smooth brown hair which grew from his
broad forehead in an attractive widow's peak, and handed the wire to
his wife with a puzzled smile.
'This is from the Duke. Do you think he has gone crazy- or what?'
'What, darling,' said Marie Lou promptly. 'Definitely what. If he
stood on his handsome head in Piccadilly and the whole world told me
he was crazy I should still maintain that dear old Greyeyes was
quite sane.'
'But really,' Richard protested. 'No lunch-and you told me that
the shrimps from Morecambe Bay came in this morning. I was looking
forward ...'
'My sweet!' Marie Lou gave a delicious gurgle of laughter as she
flung one arm round his neck and drew him down on to the sofa beside
her. 'What a glutton you are. You simply live for your tummy.'
He nuzzled his head against her thick chestnut curls. 'I don't. I
eat only in order to maintain sufficient strength to deal with you.'
'Liar,' she pushed him away suddenly. 'There must be some reason
for this extraordinary wire, and poor Simon ill tool What can it
mean?'
'God knows! Anyhow it seems that virtuous and upright wife orders
preparations of rooms for guests while miserable worm husband goes
down into dark, dirty cellar to select liquid sustenance for same.'
Richard paused for a moment. A wicked little smile hovered round his
lips as he looked at Marie Lou curled up on the sofa with her slim
legs tucked under her like a very lovely Persian kitten, then he
added thoughtfully: 'I think tonight perhaps we might give them a
Little of the Chateau Lafite '99.'
'Don't you dare,' she cried, springing to her feet. 'You know
that it's my favourit.,'
'Got you-got you,' chanted Richard merrily. 'Who's a glutton
now?'
'You beast,' she pouted deliciously, and for the thousandth time
since he had brought her out of Russia her husband felt himself go a
little giddy as his eyes rested on the perfection of her heart-
shaped face, the delicately flushed cheeks and the heavy-lidded blue
eyes, With a sudden movement, he jerked her to him and swinging her
off her feet, picked her up in his arms.
'Richard-put me down-stop.' Her slightly husky voice rose to a
higher note in a breathless gasp of protest.
'Not until you kiss me.'
'All right.'
He let her slide down to her feet, and although he was not a tall
man, she was so diminutive that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach
her arms round his neck.
'There,' she declared, a trifle breathlessly, after he had
crushed her soft lips under his. 'Now go and play with your bottles,
but spare the Lafite, beloved. That's our own special wine, and you
mustn't even give it to our dearest friends- unless it's for Simon
and he's really ill.
'I won't,' he promised. 'But whatever I give them, we shall all
be tight if we're not to be allowed to eat anything. I wish to
goodness I knew what De Richleau is driving at.'
'Something it is worth our while to take notice of, you may be
certain. Greyeyes never does anything without a purpose. He's a wily
old fox if ever there was one in this world.'
'Yes-wily's the word,' Richard agreed. 'But it's nearly lunch-
time now, and I'm hungry. Surely we're not going to take serious
notice of this absurd telegram?'
'Richard!' Marie Lou had curled herself up on the sofa again. But
now she sat forward suddenly, almost closing her big eyes with their
long curved lashes. 'I do think we ought to do as he says, but I was
looking round the strawberry house this morning.'
'Oh were you!' He suppressed a smile. 'And picking a few just'to
see how they were getting on, I don't mind betting.'
'Three,' she answered gravely. 'And they are ripening
beautifully. Now if we took a little cream and a little sugar, it
wouldn't be cheating really to go and have another look at them
instead of having lunch-would it?'
'No,' said Richard with equal gravity. 'But we have an ancient
custom in England when a girl takes a man to pick the first
strawberries,'
'But, darling, you have so many ancient customs and they nearly
always end in kissing.'
'Do you dislike them on that account?'
'No.' She smiled, extending a small, strong hand by which he
pulled her to her feet. 'I think that is one of the reasons why I
enjoy so much having become an Englishwoman.'
They left Marie Lou's comfortable little sitting-room and,
pausing for a moment for her to pull on a pair of gum-boots which
came almost up to her knees while Richard gave orders cancelling
their luncheon, went out into the garden through the great octagonal
Library.
The house was a rambling old mansion, parts of which dated back
to the thirteenth century, and the Library, being one of the oldest
portions of it, was sunk into the ground so that they had to go up
half a dozen steps from its french windows on to the long terrace
which ran the whole length of the
southern side of the house.
A grey stone balustrade patched with moss and lichens separated
the terrace from the garden, and from the former two sets of steps
led down to a broad, velvety lawn. An ancient cedar graced the
greensward towards the east end of the mansion where the kitchen
quarters lay, hiding the roofs of the glass-houses and the walled
garden with its espaliered peach and nectarine trees.
At the bottom of the lawn tall yew hedges shut in the outer
circle of the maze, beyond which lay the rose garden and the
swimming-pool. To the right, just visible from the library windows,
a gravel walk separated the lawn from a gently sloping bank, called
the Botticelli Garden. It was so named because in spring it had all
the beauty of the Italian master's paintings. Dwarf trees of apple,
plum, and cherry, standing no more than six feet high and separated
by ten yards or more from each other, stood covered with white and
pink blossom while, rising from the grass up the shelving bank,
clumps of polyanthus, pheasant's-eye narcissus, forget-me-nots and
daffodils were planted one to the square yard.
This spring garden was in full bloom now and the effect of the
bright colours against the delicate green of the young grass was
almost incredibly lovely. To walk up and down that two hundred yard
stretch of green starred by its rnany-hued clumps of flowers with
Richard beside her was, Marie Lou thought -sometimes with a little
feeling of anxiety that her present happiness was too great to
last-as near to Heaven as she would ever get. Yet she spent even
more time in the long walk that lay beyond it, for that was her own,
in which the head gardener was never allowed to interfere. It
consisted of two glorious herbaceous borders rising to steep hedges
on either side, and ending at an old sun-dial beyond which lay the
pond garden, modelled from that at Hampton Court, sinking in
rectangular stages to a pool where, later in the year, blue lotus
flowers and white water-lilies floated serenely in the sunshine.
As they came out on to the terrace, there were shrieks of
'Mummy-Mummy,' and a diminutive copy of Marie Lou, dressed in a
Russian peasant costume with wide puffed sleeves of lawn and a
slashed vest of colourful embroidery threaded with gold, came
hurtling across the grass. Her mother and father went down the steps
of the terrace to meet her, and as she arrived like a small
whirlwind Richard swung her up shoulder high in his arms.
'What is it Fleur d'amour?' he asked, with simulated concern,
calling her by the nick-name that he had invented for her. 'Have you
crashed the scooter again or is it that Nanny's been a wicked girl
today?'
'No-no,' the child cried, her blue eyes, seeming enormous in that
tiny face, opened wide with concern. 'Jim's hurted his-self.'
'Has he?' Richard put her down. 'Poor Jim. We must see about
this.
'He's hurted bad,' Fleur went on, tugging impulsively at her
mother's skirt. 'He's cutted hisself on his magic sword.'
'Dear me,' Marie Lou ran her ringers through Fleur's dark curls.
She knew that by 'magic sword' Fleur meant the gardener's scythe,
for Richard always insisted that the lawn at Cardinals Folly was too
old and too fine to be ruined by a mowing machine, and maintained
the ancient practice of having it scythe-cut. 'Where is he now, my
sweet?'
'Nanny binded him up and I helped a lot. Then he went wound to
the kitchen.'
'And you weren't frightened of the blood?' Richard asked with
interest.
Fleur shook her curly head. 'No. Fleur's not to be frightened of
anyfink, Mummy says. Why would I be frightened of theblug?'
'Silly people are sometimes,' her father replied. 'But not people
who know things like Mummy and you and I.'
At that moment Fleur's nurse joined them. She had heard the last
part of the conversation. 'It's nothing serious, madam,' she assured
Marie Lou. 'Jim was sharpening his scythe and the hone slipped, but
he only cut his finger.'
'But fink if he can't work,' Fleur interjected in a high treble.
'Why?' asked her father gravely.
'He's poor,' announced the child after a solemn interval for deep
thought. 'He-has-to-work-to-keep-his-children. So if he can't work,
he'll be in a muddle-won't he?'
Richard and Marie Lou exchanged a smiling glance as Simon's
expression for any sort of trouble came so glibly to the child's
lips.
'Yes, that's a serious matter,' her father agreed gravely. 'What
are we going to do about it?'
'We mus' all give him somefink,' Fleur announced breathlessly.
'Well, say I give him half-a-crown,' Richard suggested. 'How much
do you think you can afford?'
Til give half-a-cwown too.' Fleur was nothing if not generous.
'But have you got it, Batuskha?' inquired her mother?
Fleur thought for a bit, and then said doubtfully: 'P'r'aps I
haven't. So I'll give him a ha'-penny instead.'
'That's splendid, darling, and I'll contribute a shilling,' Marie
Lou declared. That makes three shillings and sixpence halfpenny
altogether, doesn't it?'
'But Nanny must give somefink,' declared Fleur suddenly turning
on her nurse, who smiling said that she thought she could manage
fourpence.
'There,' laughed Richard. 'Three and tenpence halfpenny! He'll be
a rich man for life, won't he? Now you had better toddle in to
lunch.'
This domestic crisis having been satisfactorily settled, Richard
and Marie Lou strolled along beneath the balustraded terrace, past
the low branches of the old cedar, and so to the hot-houses. Their
butler, Malin, had just arrived with sugar and fresh cream, and for
half an hour they made a merry meal of the early strawberries.
They had hardly finished when, to their surprise, since it was
barely two o'clock, Malin returned to announce the arrival of their
guests. So they hurried back to the house.
'There they are,' cried Marie Lou as the three friends came out
from the tall windows of the drawing-room on to the terrace. 'But,
darling, look at Simon-they have gone mad.'
Well might the Batons think so from Simon's grotesque appearance
in shorts, cycling cape and the absurd mauve and orange cricketing
cap. Hurried greetings were soon exchanged and the whole party went
back into the drawing-room.
'Greyeyes, darling,' Marie Lou exclaimed as she stood on tiptoe
again to kiss De Richleau's lean cheek. 'We had your telegram and we
are dying to know what it's all about. Have our servants conspired
to poison us or what?'
'What,' smiled De Richleau. 'Definitely what, Princess. We have a
very strange story to tell you, and I was most anxious you should
avoid eating any meat for today at all events.'
Richard moved towards the bell. 'Well, we're not debarred from a
glass of your favourite sherry, I trust.'
The Duke held up a restraining hand. 'I'm afraid we are. None of
us must touch alcohol under any circumstances at present.'
'Good God!' Richard exclaimed. 'You don't mean that- you can't.
You have gone crazy!'
'I do,' the Duke assured him with a smile. 'Quite seriously.'
'We're in a muddle-a nasty muddle,' Simon added with a twisted
grin.
'So it appears,' Richard laughed, a trifle uneasily. He was quite
staggered by the strange appearance of his friends, the tense
electric atmosphere which they had brought into the house with them,
and the unnatural way in which they stood about-speaking only in
short jerky, sentences.
He glanced at Rex, usually so full of gaiety, standing huge,
gloomy and silent near the door, then he turned suddenly back to the
Duke and demanded: 'What is Simon doing in that absurd get-up? If it
was the right season for it I should imagine that he was competing
for the fool's prize at the Three Arts' Ball.'
'I can quite understand your amazement,' the Duke replied
quietly, 'but the truth is that Simon has been very seriously
bewitched.'
'It is obvious that something's happened to him,' agreed Richard
curtly. 'But don't you think it would be better to stop fooling and
tell us just what all this nonsense is about?'
'I mean it,' the Duke insisted. 'He was sufficiently ill advised
to start dabbling in Black Magic a few months ago, and it's only by
the mercy of Providence that Rex and I were enabled to step in at a
critical juncture with some hope of arresting the evil effects.'
Richard's brown eyes held the Duke's grey ones steadily. 'Look
here,' he said, 'I am far too fond of you ever to be rude
intentionally, but hasn't this joke gone far enough? To talk about
magic in the twentieth century is absurd.'
'All right. Call it natural science then.' De Richleau leaned a
little wearily against the mantelpiece. 'Magic is only a name for
the sciences of causing change to occur in conformity with will.'
'Or by setting natural laws in action quite inadvertently,' added
Marie Lou, to everyone's surprise.
'Certainly,' the Duke agreed after a moment, 'and Richard has
practised that type of magic himself.'
'What on earth are you talking about?' Richard exclaimed.
De Richleau shrugged. 'Didn't you tell me that you got a Diviner
down from London when you were so terribly short of water here last
summer, and that when you took his hazel twig from him you found out
quite by accident that you could locate an underground spring in the
garden without his help?'
'Yes,' Richard hesitated. That's true, and as a matter of fact,
I've been successful in finding places where people could sink wells
on several estates in the neighbourhood since. But surely that has
something to do with electricity? It's not magic.'
'If you were to say vibrations, you would be nearer the mark,' De
Richleau replied seriously. 'It is an attunement of certain little-
understood vibrations between the water under the ground and
something in yourself which makes the forked hazel twig suddenly
begin to jump and revolve in your hands when you walk over a hidden
spring. That is undoubtedly a demonstration of the lesser kind of
magic.'
'The miracle of Moses striking the rock in the desert from which
the waters gushed forth is only another example of the same thing,'
Simon cut in.
Marie Lou was watching the Duke's face with grave interest.
'Everyone knows there is such a thing as magic,' she declared, 'and
witchcraft. During those years that I lived in a little village on
the borders of the Siberian Forest I saw many strange things, and
the peasants went in fear and trembling of one old woman who lived
in a cottage ail alone outside the village. But what do you mean by
lesser magic?'
'There are two kinds,' De Richleau informed her. 'The lesser is
performing certain operations which you believe will bring about a
certain result without knowing why it should be so. If you chalk a
line on the floor and take an ordinary hen, hold its beak down for a
little time on to the line and then release it, the hen will remain
there motionless with its head bent down to the floor. The
assumption is that, being such a stupid creature, it believes that
it has been tied down to the line and it is therefore useless to
endeavour to escape. But nobody knows for certain. All we do know is
that it happens. That is a fair example of an operation in minor
magic. The great majority of the lesser witches and wizards in the
part had no conception as to why their spells worked, but had
learned from their predecessors that if they performed a given
operation a certain result was almost sure to follow it.'
Rex looked up suddenly and spoke for the first time. 'I'd say
they were pretty expert at playing on the belief of the credulous by
peddling a sort of inverted Christian Science, faith healing,
Coueism and all that as well.'
'Of course,' De Richleau smiled faintly. 'But they were far too
clever to tell a customer straight out that if he concentrated
sufficiently on his objective he would probably achieve it- even if
they realised that themselves. Instead, they followed the old
formulas which compelled him to develop his will power. If a man is
in love with a girl and is told that he will get her if he rises
from his bed at seven minutes past two every night for a month,
gathers half a dozen flowers from a new-made grave in the local
churchyard and places them in a spot where the girl will walk over
them the following day, he does not get much chance to slacken in
his desire and we all know that persistence can often work wonders.'
'Perhaps,' Richard agreed with mild cynicism. 'But would you have
us believe that Simon is seeking the favour of a lady by wandering
about in this lunatic get-up?'
'No, there is also the greater magic which is only practised by
learned students of the Art who go through long courses of
preparation and initiation, after which they understand not only
that certain apparently inexplicable results are brought about by a
given series of actions, but the actual reason why this should be
so. Such people are powerful and dangerous in the extreme, and it is
into the hands of one of these that our poor friend has fallen.'
Richard nodded, realising at last that the Duke was perfectly
serious in his statement. 'This seems a most extraordinary affair,'
he commented. 'I think you'd better start from the beginning and
give us the whole story.'
'All right. Let's sit down. If you doubt any of the statements
that I am about to make, Rex will guarantee the facts and vouch for
my sanity.'
'I certainly will,' Rex agreed with a sombre smile.
De Richleau then told the Batons all that had taken place in the
last forty-eight hours, and asked quite solemnly if they were
prepared to receive Simon, Rex and himself under their roof in spite
of the fact that it might involve some risk to themselves.
'Of course,' Marie Lou said at once. 'We would not dream of your
going away. You must stay just as long as you like and until you are
quite certain that Simon is absolutely out of danger.'
Richard, sceptical still, but devoted to his friends whatever
their apparent folly, nodded his agreement as he slipped an arm
through his wife's. 'Certainly you must stay. And,' he added
generously without the shadow of a smile, 'tell us exactly how we
can help you best.'
'It's awfully decent of you,' Simon hazarded with a ghostly
flicker of his old wide-mouthed grin. 'But I'll never forgive myself
if any harm comes to you from it.'
'Don't let's have that all over again,' Rex begged. 'We argued it
long enough in the car on the way here, and De Rich-leau's assured
you time and again that no harm will come to Richard and Marie Lou
providing we take reasonable precautions.'
'That is so,' the Duke nodded. 'And your help will be invaluable.
You see, Simon's resistance is practically nill owing to his having
been under Mocata's influence for so long, and Rex and I are at a
pretty low ebb after last night. We need every atom of vitality
which we can get to protect him, and your coming fresh into the
battle should turn the scale in our favour. What we should have done
if you had thrown us out I can't think, because I know of no one
else who wouldn't have considered us all to be raving lunatics.'
Richard laughed. 'My dear fellow, how can you even suggest such a
thing? You would still be welcome here if you'd committed murder.'
!I may have to before long,' De Richleau commented soberly. 'The
risk to myself is a bagatelle compared to the horrors which may
overwhelm the world if Mocata succeeds in getting possession of the
Talisman-but I won't involve you in that of course.'
This Sabbat you saw ...' Richard hazarded after a moment. 'Don't
think I'm doubting your account of it, but isn't it just possible
that your eyes deceived you in the darkness? I mean about the
Satanic part. Everyone knows that Sabbats took place all over
England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But it is
generally accepted now that they were only an excuse for a bit of a
blind and a sexual orgy. Country people had no motor bikes and buses
to take them in to local cinemas then, and the Church frowned on all
but the mildest forms of amusement, so the bad hats of the community
used to sneak off to some quiet spot every now and again to give
their repressed complexes an airing. Are you sure that it was not a
revival of that sort of thing staged by a group of wealthy
decadents?'
'Not on your life,' Rex declared with a sudden shiver. 'I've
never been scared all that bad before and, believe you me, it was
the real business.'
'What do you wish us to do, Greyeyes dear?' Marie Lou asked the
Duke.
He hoisted himself slowly out of the chair into which he had
sunk. 'I must drive to Oxford. An old Catholic priest whom I know
lives there and I am going to try and persuade him to entrust me
with a portion of the Blessed Host. If he will, that is the most
perfect of all protections which we could have to keep with us
through the night. In the meantime, I want the rest of you to look
after Simon.' He smiled affectionately in Simon's direction. 'You
must forgive me treating you like a child for the moment, my dear
boy, but I don't want the others to let you out of their sight until
I return.'
'That's all right,' Simon agreed cheerfully. 'But are you certain
that I'm not-er-carrying harmful things about with me still?'
'Absolutely. The purification ceremonies which I practised on you
last night have banished all traces of the evil. Our business now is
to keep you free of it and get on Mocata's trail as quickly as we
can.'
'Then I think I'll rest for a bit.' Simon glanced at Richard as
he followed the Duke towards the door. The nap we had at the hotel
in Amesbury after breakfast wasn't long enough to put me right-and
afterwards perhaps you could lend me a decent suit of clothes?'
'Of course,' Richard smiled, 'Let's see Greyeyes off, then I'll
make you comfortable upstairs.'
The whole party filed into the hall and, crowding about the low
nail-studded oaken door, watched De Richleau, who promised to be
back before dark, drive off. Then Richard, taking Simon by the arm,
led him up the broad Jacobean stairway, while Marie Lou turned to
Rex.
'What do you really think of all this?' she asked gravely, the
usual merriment of her deep blue eyes clouded by a foreboding of
coming trouble.
He stared down at her upturned heart-shaped face from his great
height and answered soberly. 'We've struck a gateway of Hell all
right, my dear, and I'm just worried out of my wits. De Richleau
didn't give you the whole story. There's a girl in this that
I'm-well-that I'm crazy about.'
'Rex!' Marie Lou laid her small strong hand on his arm. 'How
awful for you. Come into my room and tell me everything.'
He followed her to her sitting-room and for half an hour poured
into her sympathetic ears the strange tale of his three glimpses of
Tanith at different times abroad, and then his unexpected meeting
with her at Simon's party. Afterwards he related with more detail
than the Duke had done their terrible experiences on Salisbury Plain
and was just beginning his anxious speculation as to what could have
happened to Tanith when Malin, the butler, softly opened the door.
'Someone is asking for you on the telephone, Mr. Van Ryn, sir.'
'For me!' Rex stood up and, excusing himself to Marie Lou,
hurried out, wondering who in the world it could be since no one
too, performed the experiment successfully; and he again had no
personal axe to grind,'
'There are plenty of other cases as well,' remarked the Duke;
'Raymond Lully made gold for King Edward III of England, and George
Ripley gave ?100,000 of alchemical gold to the Knights of Rhodes.
The Emperor Augustus of Saxony left 17,000,000 Rix dollars and Pope
John XXII of Avignon 25,000,000 florins, sums which were positively
gigantic for those days. Both were poor men with slender revenues
which could not have accounted in a hundred years for such fortunes.
But both were alchemists, and transmutation is the only possible
explanation of the almost fabulous treasure which was actually found
in their coffers after their deaths.'
Simon nodded. 'I know. And if one rejects the sworn evidence of
men like Spinoza and Van Helmont, why should one believe the people
who say they can measure the distance to the stars, or the
scientists of the last century who produced electrical phenomena?'
The difference is that the mass mind will not accept scientific
truths unless they can be demonstrated freely and harnessed to the
public good. Everyone accepts the miracle that sulphur can be
converted into fire because they see it happen twenty times a day
and we all carry a box of matches in our pockets, but if it had been
kept as a jealously guarded secret by a small number of initiates,
the public would still regard it as impossible. And that, you see,
is precisely the position of the alchemist.
'He stands apart from the world and is indifferent to it. To
succeed in the Great Work he must be absolutely pure, and to such
men gold is dross. In most cases he makes only sufficient to supply
his modest needs and refuses to pass on his secret to the profane;
but that does not necessarily mean that he is a fraud and a liar.
The theory that all matter is composed of atoms, molecules and
electrons in varying states is generally accepted now. Milk can be
made as hard as concrete by the new scientific process, glass into
women's dresses, wood and human flesh decay into a very similar
dust, iron turns to rust, and crystals are known to grow although
they are a type of stone. Even diamonds can be made synthetically.'
'Of course,' Simon agreed, with his old eagerness, so absorbed
now in the discussion as to be apparently oblivious of his
surroundings. 'And as far as metals are concerned, they are all
composed of sulphur and mercury and can be condensed or materialised
by means of a salt. Only the varying proportions of those three
Principals account for the difference between them. Metals are the
fruits of mineral nature, and the baser ones are still unripe
because the sulphur and mercury had no time to combine in the right
proportions before they solidified. This powder, or the
Philosophers' Stone as they call it, is a ferment that forces on the
original process of Nature and ripens the base metals into gold.'
'That is so. But do you mean to tell me that you have been
experimenting yourself?'
'Ner,' Simon shook his narrow head. 'I soon found out that to do
so would mean a lifetime of restheticism and then perhaps failure
after all. It is hardly in my line to become a "Puffer." Besides
it's obvious that transmutation in its higher sense is the supreme
mystery of turning Matter into Light. Metals are like men, the baser
corresponding to the once born, and both gradually become
purified-metals by geological upheavals- men by successive
reincarnations, and the part piayed by the secret agent which
hurries lead to gold is the counterpart of esoteric initiation which
lifts the spirit towards light.'
'Was that your aim then?'
To some extent. You know how one thing leads to another. I
discovered that the whole business is bound up with the Quabalah so,
being a Jew, I began to study the esoteric doctrine of my own
people.'
De Richleau nodded. 'And very interesting you found it. I don't
doubt.'
'Yes, it took a bit of getting into, but after I'd tackled a
certain amount of the profane literature to get a grounding, I read
the Sepher Ha Zoher, the Sepher Jetyirah and some of the Midraschim.
Then I began to see a Little daylight.'
'In fact you began to believe, lake most people who have really
read considerably and had a wide experience of life, that our
western scientists have only been advancing in one direction and
that we have even lost the knowledge of many things with which the
wise men of ancient times were well acquainted.'
'That's so,' Simon smiled again. 'I've always been a complete
sceptic. But once I began to burrow beneath the surface I found such
a mass of evidence that I could no longer doubt the existence of
strange hidden forces which can be chained and untilised if one only
knows the way.'
'Yes. And plenty of people still interest themselves in these
questions and use the Quabalah to promote their own well-being and
the general good. But where does Mocata come into all this?'
Simon shuddered slightly at the name and drew the car rug more
closely about his shoulders. 'I met him in Paris,' he said, 'at the
house of a French banker with whom I've sometimes done business.'
'Castelnau!' exclaimed the Duke. 'The man with the jagged ear. I
knew last night that I had seen that ear somewhere before, but for
the life of me I couldn't recall where.'
Simon nodded quickly. That's right-Castelnau. Well, I met Mocata
at his place, and I don't quite know how it started, but the
conversation drifted round to the Quabalah and, as I had been
soaking myself in it at the time, I was naturally in- terested. He
said he had a lot of books upon it and suggested that I might like
to visit the house where he was staying and have a look through
them. Of course I did. Then he told me that he was conducting an
experiment in Magic the following night, and asked if I would care
to be present.'
'I see. That's how the trouble started.'
'Yes. The experiment was quite a harmless affair. He made certain
ritual conjurations with the four elements, Fire, Air, Water and
Earth, then told me to look into a mirror with him. It was an old
Venetian piece, a bit spotted at the back but otherwise quite
ordinary you know. As I watched, it clouded over with a sort of
mist, then when it cleared again I could no longer see my reflection
in it, but a sheet of newspaper instead. It was the financial page
of Le Temps giving all the quotations of the Paris Bourse, which
sounds pretty prosaic I suppose, but the queer part is that this
issue was dated three days ahead.'
De Richleau stroked his lean face with his slender fingers. 'I
saw a similar demonstration in Cairo once,' he commented gravely.
'But on that occasion it was the name of the new Commander-in-Chief,
who had only been appointed by the War Office in London that
afternoon, which appeared in the mirror. You took a note of some of
the Bourse quotations I suppose?'
'Urn. The list wasn't visible for more than ten seconds then the
mirror clouded over again and went back to its normal state, but
that was quite long enough for me to memorise the stocks I was
interested in, and when I checked up afterwards they were right to a
fraction.'
'What happened then?'
'Mocata offered to instruct me in the attainment of the knowledge
and conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel as the first step on the
road to obtaining similar powers myself.'
'My poor Simon!' The Duke made an unhappy grimace. 'You are not
the first to be trapped by a Brother of the Left Hand Path who is
recruiting for the Devil by such a promise. If you had known more of
Magic you would have realised that it is proper to pass through the
six stages of Probationer, Neophyte, Zelator, Practicus, Philosophus
and Dominus Liminis before, as an Adeptus Inferior after many years
of study and experience, you would be qualified to take the risk of
attempting to pass the Abyss. Besides, there are no precise rules
for attaining the knowledge and conversation of one's Holy Guardian
Angel. It is a thing which each man must work out for himself and no
other can help one to it. Mocata invoked your Evil Angel, of course,
to act a blasphemous impersonation while your Holy Guardian wept
impotent tears to see the terrible danger into which you were being
drawn.'
'I suppose so, although, of course, I couldn't know that at the
time. Anyhow, I had to go back to London a few days later, and I was
so impressed by that time that I asked Mocata to let me know
directly he arrived, because he spoke of coming over. He turned up a
fortnight later and rang me up at once to urge me to unload a lot of
stock that he knew I was carrying. I had faith in it myself but in
view of what I'd seen in his mirror I took his tip and saved myself
quite a packet, because the market broke almost immediately after.'
'Was that when you asked him to go and live with you?' inquired
the Duke.
'Yes. I suggested that he should stay with me while he was in
London because he had no suitable place in which to practise his
evocations at his hotel. He moved over to St. John's Wood then and
after that we used to sit up together in the observatory pretty well
every night. That's why I saw so little of you during that time. But
the results were extraordinary-utterly amazing.'
'He gave you more information which governed your financial
transactions, I suppose.'
'Yes, but more than that. He foretold the whole of the Stravinsky
scandal. I'm not a poor man as you know, but if I hadn't been
forewarned about that, it would have darn nearly broken me. As it
was, I cleared every single share in the dud companies before the
storm broke and got out with an immense profit.'
'By that time you had begun to dabble in Black Magic I imagine?'
Simon's dark eyes flickered away from the Duke's for a moment,
then he nodded. 'Just a bit. He asked me to recite the Lord's Prayer
backwards one night, and I was a bit unhappy about it but . . .
well, I did. He said that since I wasn't a Christian anyhow no harm
could come to me from it.'
'It is horribly potent all the same,' the Duke commented.
'Perhaps,' agreed Simon miserably. 'But Mocata is so
devilish glib and according to him there is no such thing as Black
Magic anyhow. The harnessing of supernatural powers to one's will is
just Magic-neither black nor white, and that's all there is to it.'
'Tell me about this man.'
'Oh, he's about fifty, I suppose, bald-headed, with curious light
blue eyes and a paunch that would rival Dorn Goren-fiot's.'
'I know,' agreed the Duke impatiently. 'I've seen him. But I
meant his personality, not his appearance.'
'Of course, I forgot,' Simon apologised. 'You know for weeks now
I hardly know what I've been doing. It's almost as though I had been
dreaming the whole time. But about Mocata: he possesses
extraordinary force of character, and he can be the most charming
person when he likes. He's clever of course-amazingly so, and seems
to have read pretty well every book that one can think of. It's
extraordinary, too, what a fascination he can exercise over women. I
know half a dozen who are simply "bats" about him.'
'What can you tell me of his history?'
'Not much, I'm afraid. His Christian name is Damien and he is a
Frenchman by nationality, but his mother was Irish. He was educated
for the Church. In fact, he actually took Orders, but finding the
life of a priest did not suit him, he chucked it up.'
De Richleau nodded. 'I thought as much. Only an ordained priest
can practise the Black Mass, and since he is so powerful an adept of
the Left Hand Path, it was pretty certain that he was a renegade
priest of the Roman Church. But what more can you tell me? Every
scrap of information which you have may help us in our fight,
because you must remember, Simon, that you have only achieved a very
temporary security. The battle will begin again when he exercises
his dominance over you to call you back.'
Simon shifted his position on the stones and then replied
thoughtfully. 'He does the most lovely needlework, petit point and
that sort of thing you know, and he's terribly fastidious about
keeping his plump little hands scrupulously clean. As a companion he
is delightful to be with except that he will smother himself in
expensive perfumes and is as greedy as a schoolboy about sweets. He
had huge boxes of fondants, crystallised fruits, and marzipan sent
over from Paris twice a week when he was at St. John's Wood.
'Ordinarily he was perfectly normal and his manners were
charming, but now and again he used to get irritable fits. They came
on about once a month and after he had been boiling up for twenty-
four hours, he use to clear out for a couple of days and nights. I
don't know where he used to go to at those times, but I ran into him
one morning early, when he had just returned from one of these
bouts, and he was in a shocking state: filthy dirty, a two days'
growth of beard on his chin, his clothes all torn and absolutely
stinking of drink. It looked to me as if he hadn't been to bed at
all the whole time but had been wallowing in every sort of
debauchery down in the slums of the East End.
'He is quite an exceptional hypnotist, of course, and keeps
himself in touch with what is going on in Paris, Berlin, New York
and a dozen other places by throwing various women, who used to come
and visit him regularly, into a trance. One of them was a girl
called Tanith, a perfectly lovely creature. You may have seen her at
the party, and he says she is by far the best medium he's ever had.
He can use her almost like a telephone and plug in right away to
whatever he wants to know about. Whereas with the others there are
very often hitches and delays.'
'You let him hypnotise you, too, of course?'
'Yes, hi order to get these financial results.'
'I thought as much,' De Richleau nodded. 'And after you had
allowed him to do it willingly for some little time he was able to
block out your own mentality entirely and govern your every thought.
That's why you've failed to realise what's been going on. It is just
as though he'd been keeping you drugged the whole time.'
'Um,' Simon agreed miserably. 'It makes me positively sick to
think of it, but I suppose he has been gradually preparing me for
this Ritual to Saturn which he meant to perform two nights ago and
...' He broke off suddenly as Rex appeared between two of the great
monoliths.
Grinning from ear to ear, Rex displayed his purchases for their
inspection. A pair of grey flannel shorts, a khaki shirt, black and
white check worsted stockings, a gaudy tie of revolting magenta hue,
a pair of waders, a cricket cap quartered in alternate triangular
sections of orange and mauve, and a short, dark blue bicyclist's
cape.
'Only things I could get,' he volunteered cheerfully. 'The
people who run the local Co-op don't live on the premises, so I
had to knock up a sports outfitter.'
De Richleau sat back and roared with laughter while Simon
fingered the queer assortment of garments doubtfully. 'You're joking
Rex,' he protested with a sheepish grin. 'I can't return to London
in this get-up.'
'We're not going to London,' the Duke announced. 'But to
Cardinals Folly.'
'What-to Marie Lou's?' Rex looked at him sharply. 'How did you
come to get that idea ...'
'Something that Simon said just after you left us.'
Simon shook his head jerkily. 'I don't like it-not a little bit.
I'd never forgive myself if I brought danger into their home.'
'You will do as you're told my friend,' De Richleau's voice
brooked no further argument. 'Richard and Marie Lou are the most
mentally healthy couple that I know. The atmosphere of their sane
and happy household will be the very best protection we could find
for you and all of us are certain of a warm welcome. No harm will
come to them if we exercise reasonable precautions, and the help of
their right-thinking minds will give us the extra strength we need.
Besides, they are about the only people to whom we can explain the
whole situation without being taken for madmen. Now hurry up and
array yourself like the champion of next year's Olympic games.'
With a shrug of his narrow shoulders Simon disappeared behind the
stones while Rex added: 'That's right. I ordered ham and eggs to be
got ready at the local inn and I'm mighty anxious to start in on
them.'
'Eggs and fruit,' cut in the Duke, 'but no ham for any of us. It
is essential that we should avoid meat for the moment. If we are to
retain our astral strength our physical bodies must undergo a semi-
fast at least.'
Rex groaned. 'Why, oh, why dear Simon, did you ever go hunting
Talisman and let your friends in for this? When I went to Russia
after the Shulimoff jewels and you came to get me out of trouble, at
least it didn't prevent your feeding decently when you had the
chance.'
'That reminds me,' De Richleau threw over his shoulder in the
direction where Simon was struggling into his queer garments. 'What
is this Talisman? Rex mentioned it last night.'
'It's the reason why Mocata is certain to make every effort to
get possession of me again,' Simon's voice came back. 'It is buried
somewhere, and adepts of the Left Hand Path have been seeking it for
centuries. It conveys almost limitless powers upon its possessor and
Mocata has discovered that its whereabouts will be revealed if he
can practise the ritual to Saturn in conjunction with Mars with
someone who was born in a certain year at the hour of the
conjunction. There can't be many such, but for my sins I happen to
be one, and even if he can find others they might not be suitable
for various reasons.'
'Yes, I realise that. But what is the Talisman?'
'I don't really know. Except for conducting my business on the
lines suggested by Mocata, I don't think my brain has been
functioning at all in the last two months. But it's called the
Talisman of Set.'
'What!' The Duke sprang to his feet as Simon appeared grotesquely
attired in his incongruous new clothes, his long knees protruding
beneath the shorts, the absurd cricket cap set at a rakish angle on
his head, and the cycling cloak flapping about his shoulders.
Rex dissolved into tears of laughter, but the Duke's grim face
quickly sobered his mirth.
'The Talisman of Set,' De Richleau repeated almost in a whisper.
'Yes, it has something to do with four horsemen I think- but what
on earth's the matter?' Simon's big mouth fell open in dismay at the
sight of the Duke's horror-stricken eyes.
'It has indeed! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,' De Richleau
grated out. 'War, Plague, Famine and Death. We all know what
happened the last time those four terrible entities were unleashed
to cloud the brains of statesmen and rulers.'
'You're referring to the Great War I take it.' Rex said soberly.
'Of course, and every adept knows that it started because one of
the most terrible Satanists who ever lived found one of the secret
gateways through which to release the four horsemen.'
'I thought the Germans got a bit above themselves,' Rex hazarded,
'although it seems that lots of other folks were pretty well as much
to blame.'
'You fool!' De Richleau suddenly swung upon him. 'Germany did not
make the War. It came out of Russia. It was Russia who instigated
the murder at Sarajevo, Russia who backed Serbia to resist Austria's
demands, Russia who mobilised first and Russia who invaded Germany.
The monk Rasputin was the Evil genius behind it all. He was the
greatest Black Magician that the world has known for centuries. It
was he who found one of the gateways through which to let forth the
four horsemen that they might wallow in blood and destruction-and I
know the Talisman of Set to be another. Europe is ripe now for any
trouble and if they are loosened again, it will be final Armageddon.
This is no longer a personal matter of protecting Simon. We've got
to kill Mocata before he can secure the Talisman and prevent his
plunging the world into another war.'
21
Cardinals Folly
Richard Eaton read the telegram a second time:
'Eat no lunch this vitally important Simon ill Rex and I bringing
him down to you this afternoon Marie Lou must stop eating too kiss
Fleur love all.-De Richleau,'
He passed one hand over the smooth brown hair which grew from his
broad forehead in an attractive widow's peak, and handed the wire to
his wife with a puzzled smile.
'This is from the Duke. Do you think he has gone crazy- or what?'
'What, darling,' said Marie Lou promptly. 'Definitely what. If he
stood on his handsome head in Piccadilly and the whole world told me
he was crazy I should still maintain that dear old Greyeyes was
quite sane.'
'But really,' Richard protested. 'No lunch-and you told me that
the shrimps from Morecambe Bay came in this morning. I was looking
forward ...'
'My sweet!' Marie Lou gave a delicious gurgle of laughter as she
flung one arm round his neck and drew him down on to the sofa beside
her. 'What a glutton you are. You simply live for your tummy.'
He nuzzled his head against her thick chestnut curls. 'I don't. I
eat only in order to maintain sufficient strength to deal with you.'
'Liar,' she pushed him away suddenly. 'There must be some reason
for this extraordinary wire, and poor Simon ill tool What can it
mean?'
'God knows! Anyhow it seems that virtuous and upright wife orders
preparations of rooms for guests while miserable worm husband goes
down into dark, dirty cellar to select liquid sustenance for same.'
Richard paused for a moment. A wicked little smile hovered round his
lips as he looked at Marie Lou curled up on the sofa with her slim
legs tucked under her like a very lovely Persian kitten, then he
added thoughtfully: 'I think tonight perhaps we might give them a
Little of the Chateau Lafite '99.'
'Don't you dare,' she cried, springing to her feet. 'You know
that it's my favourit.,'
'Got you-got you,' chanted Richard merrily. 'Who's a glutton
now?'
'You beast,' she pouted deliciously, and for the thousandth time
since he had brought her out of Russia her husband felt himself go a
little giddy as his eyes rested on the perfection of her heart-
shaped face, the delicately flushed cheeks and the heavy-lidded blue
eyes, With a sudden movement, he jerked her to him and swinging her
off her feet, picked her up in his arms.
'Richard-put me down-stop.' Her slightly husky voice rose to a
higher note in a breathless gasp of protest.
'Not until you kiss me.'
'All right.'
He let her slide down to her feet, and although he was not a tall
man, she was so diminutive that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach
her arms round his neck.
'There,' she declared, a trifle breathlessly, after he had
crushed her soft lips under his. 'Now go and play with your bottles,
but spare the Lafite, beloved. That's our own special wine, and you
mustn't even give it to our dearest friends- unless it's for Simon
and he's really ill.
'I won't,' he promised. 'But whatever I give them, we shall all
be tight if we're not to be allowed to eat anything. I wish to
goodness I knew what De Richleau is driving at.'
'Something it is worth our while to take notice of, you may be
certain. Greyeyes never does anything without a purpose. He's a wily
old fox if ever there was one in this world.'
'Yes-wily's the word,' Richard agreed. 'But it's nearly lunch-
time now, and I'm hungry. Surely we're not going to take serious
notice of this absurd telegram?'
'Richard!' Marie Lou had curled herself up on the sofa again. But
now she sat forward suddenly, almost closing her big eyes with their
long curved lashes. 'I do think we ought to do as he says, but I was
looking round the strawberry house this morning.'
'Oh were you!' He suppressed a smile. 'And picking a few just'to
see how they were getting on, I don't mind betting.'
'Three,' she answered gravely. 'And they are ripening
beautifully. Now if we took a little cream and a little sugar, it
wouldn't be cheating really to go and have another look at them
instead of having lunch-would it?'
'No,' said Richard with equal gravity. 'But we have an ancient
custom in England when a girl takes a man to pick the first
strawberries,'
'But, darling, you have so many ancient customs and they nearly
always end in kissing.'
'Do you dislike them on that account?'
'No.' She smiled, extending a small, strong hand by which he
pulled her to her feet. 'I think that is one of the reasons why I
enjoy so much having become an Englishwoman.'
They left Marie Lou's comfortable little sitting-room and,
pausing for a moment for her to pull on a pair of gum-boots which
came almost up to her knees while Richard gave orders cancelling
their luncheon, went out into the garden through the great octagonal
Library.
The house was a rambling old mansion, parts of which dated back
to the thirteenth century, and the Library, being one of the oldest
portions of it, was sunk into the ground so that they had to go up
half a dozen steps from its french windows on to the long terrace
which ran the whole length of the
southern side of the house.
A grey stone balustrade patched with moss and lichens separated
the terrace from the garden, and from the former two sets of steps
led down to a broad, velvety lawn. An ancient cedar graced the
greensward towards the east end of the mansion where the kitchen
quarters lay, hiding the roofs of the glass-houses and the walled
garden with its espaliered peach and nectarine trees.
At the bottom of the lawn tall yew hedges shut in the outer
circle of the maze, beyond which lay the rose garden and the
swimming-pool. To the right, just visible from the library windows,
a gravel walk separated the lawn from a gently sloping bank, called
the Botticelli Garden. It was so named because in spring it had all
the beauty of the Italian master's paintings. Dwarf trees of apple,
plum, and cherry, standing no more than six feet high and separated
by ten yards or more from each other, stood covered with white and
pink blossom while, rising from the grass up the shelving bank,
clumps of polyanthus, pheasant's-eye narcissus, forget-me-nots and
daffodils were planted one to the square yard.
This spring garden was in full bloom now and the effect of the
bright colours against the delicate green of the young grass was
almost incredibly lovely. To walk up and down that two hundred yard
stretch of green starred by its rnany-hued clumps of flowers with
Richard beside her was, Marie Lou thought -sometimes with a little
feeling of anxiety that her present happiness was too great to
last-as near to Heaven as she would ever get. Yet she spent even
more time in the long walk that lay beyond it, for that was her own,
in which the head gardener was never allowed to interfere. It
consisted of two glorious herbaceous borders rising to steep hedges
on either side, and ending at an old sun-dial beyond which lay the
pond garden, modelled from that at Hampton Court, sinking in
rectangular stages to a pool where, later in the year, blue lotus
flowers and white water-lilies floated serenely in the sunshine.
As they came out on to the terrace, there were shrieks of
'Mummy-Mummy,' and a diminutive copy of Marie Lou, dressed in a
Russian peasant costume with wide puffed sleeves of lawn and a
slashed vest of colourful embroidery threaded with gold, came
hurtling across the grass. Her mother and father went down the steps
of the terrace to meet her, and as she arrived like a small
whirlwind Richard swung her up shoulder high in his arms.
'What is it Fleur d'amour?' he asked, with simulated concern,
calling her by the nick-name that he had invented for her. 'Have you
crashed the scooter again or is it that Nanny's been a wicked girl
today?'
'No-no,' the child cried, her blue eyes, seeming enormous in that
tiny face, opened wide with concern. 'Jim's hurted his-self.'
'Has he?' Richard put her down. 'Poor Jim. We must see about
this.
'He's hurted bad,' Fleur went on, tugging impulsively at her
mother's skirt. 'He's cutted hisself on his magic sword.'
'Dear me,' Marie Lou ran her ringers through Fleur's dark curls.
She knew that by 'magic sword' Fleur meant the gardener's scythe,
for Richard always insisted that the lawn at Cardinals Folly was too
old and too fine to be ruined by a mowing machine, and maintained
the ancient practice of having it scythe-cut. 'Where is he now, my
sweet?'
'Nanny binded him up and I helped a lot. Then he went wound to
the kitchen.'
'And you weren't frightened of the blood?' Richard asked with
interest.
Fleur shook her curly head. 'No. Fleur's not to be frightened of
anyfink, Mummy says. Why would I be frightened of theblug?'
'Silly people are sometimes,' her father replied. 'But not people
who know things like Mummy and you and I.'
At that moment Fleur's nurse joined them. She had heard the last
part of the conversation. 'It's nothing serious, madam,' she assured
Marie Lou. 'Jim was sharpening his scythe and the hone slipped, but
he only cut his finger.'
'But fink if he can't work,' Fleur interjected in a high treble.
'Why?' asked her father gravely.
'He's poor,' announced the child after a solemn interval for deep
thought. 'He-has-to-work-to-keep-his-children. So if he can't work,
he'll be in a muddle-won't he?'
Richard and Marie Lou exchanged a smiling glance as Simon's
expression for any sort of trouble came so glibly to the child's
lips.
'Yes, that's a serious matter,' her father agreed gravely. 'What
are we going to do about it?'
'We mus' all give him somefink,' Fleur announced breathlessly.
'Well, say I give him half-a-crown,' Richard suggested. 'How much
do you think you can afford?'
Til give half-a-cwown too.' Fleur was nothing if not generous.
'But have you got it, Batuskha?' inquired her mother?
Fleur thought for a bit, and then said doubtfully: 'P'r'aps I
haven't. So I'll give him a ha'-penny instead.'
'That's splendid, darling, and I'll contribute a shilling,' Marie
Lou declared. That makes three shillings and sixpence halfpenny
altogether, doesn't it?'
'But Nanny must give somefink,' declared Fleur suddenly turning
on her nurse, who smiling said that she thought she could manage
fourpence.
'There,' laughed Richard. 'Three and tenpence halfpenny! He'll be
a rich man for life, won't he? Now you had better toddle in to
lunch.'
This domestic crisis having been satisfactorily settled, Richard
and Marie Lou strolled along beneath the balustraded terrace, past
the low branches of the old cedar, and so to the hot-houses. Their
butler, Malin, had just arrived with sugar and fresh cream, and for
half an hour they made a merry meal of the early strawberries.
They had hardly finished when, to their surprise, since it was
barely two o'clock, Malin returned to announce the arrival of their
guests. So they hurried back to the house.
'There they are,' cried Marie Lou as the three friends came out
from the tall windows of the drawing-room on to the terrace. 'But,
darling, look at Simon-they have gone mad.'
Well might the Batons think so from Simon's grotesque appearance
in shorts, cycling cape and the absurd mauve and orange cricketing
cap. Hurried greetings were soon exchanged and the whole party went
back into the drawing-room.
'Greyeyes, darling,' Marie Lou exclaimed as she stood on tiptoe
again to kiss De Richleau's lean cheek. 'We had your telegram and we
are dying to know what it's all about. Have our servants conspired
to poison us or what?'
'What,' smiled De Richleau. 'Definitely what, Princess. We have a
very strange story to tell you, and I was most anxious you should
avoid eating any meat for today at all events.'
Richard moved towards the bell. 'Well, we're not debarred from a
glass of your favourite sherry, I trust.'
The Duke held up a restraining hand. 'I'm afraid we are. None of
us must touch alcohol under any circumstances at present.'
'Good God!' Richard exclaimed. 'You don't mean that- you can't.
You have gone crazy!'
'I do,' the Duke assured him with a smile. 'Quite seriously.'
'We're in a muddle-a nasty muddle,' Simon added with a twisted
grin.
'So it appears,' Richard laughed, a trifle uneasily. He was quite
staggered by the strange appearance of his friends, the tense
electric atmosphere which they had brought into the house with them,
and the unnatural way in which they stood about-speaking only in
short jerky, sentences.
He glanced at Rex, usually so full of gaiety, standing huge,
gloomy and silent near the door, then he turned suddenly back to the
Duke and demanded: 'What is Simon doing in that absurd get-up? If it
was the right season for it I should imagine that he was competing
for the fool's prize at the Three Arts' Ball.'
'I can quite understand your amazement,' the Duke replied
quietly, 'but the truth is that Simon has been very seriously
bewitched.'
'It is obvious that something's happened to him,' agreed Richard
curtly. 'But don't you think it would be better to stop fooling and
tell us just what all this nonsense is about?'
'I mean it,' the Duke insisted. 'He was sufficiently ill advised
to start dabbling in Black Magic a few months ago, and it's only by
the mercy of Providence that Rex and I were enabled to step in at a
critical juncture with some hope of arresting the evil effects.'
Richard's brown eyes held the Duke's grey ones steadily. 'Look
here,' he said, 'I am far too fond of you ever to be rude
intentionally, but hasn't this joke gone far enough? To talk about
magic in the twentieth century is absurd.'
'All right. Call it natural science then.' De Richleau leaned a
little wearily against the mantelpiece. 'Magic is only a name for
the sciences of causing change to occur in conformity with will.'
'Or by setting natural laws in action quite inadvertently,' added
Marie Lou, to everyone's surprise.
'Certainly,' the Duke agreed after a moment, 'and Richard has
practised that type of magic himself.'
'What on earth are you talking about?' Richard exclaimed.
De Richleau shrugged. 'Didn't you tell me that you got a Diviner
down from London when you were so terribly short of water here last
summer, and that when you took his hazel twig from him you found out
quite by accident that you could locate an underground spring in the
garden without his help?'
'Yes,' Richard hesitated. That's true, and as a matter of fact,
I've been successful in finding places where people could sink wells
on several estates in the neighbourhood since. But surely that has
something to do with electricity? It's not magic.'
'If you were to say vibrations, you would be nearer the mark,' De
Richleau replied seriously. 'It is an attunement of certain little-
understood vibrations between the water under the ground and
something in yourself which makes the forked hazel twig suddenly
begin to jump and revolve in your hands when you walk over a hidden
spring. That is undoubtedly a demonstration of the lesser kind of
magic.'
'The miracle of Moses striking the rock in the desert from which
the waters gushed forth is only another example of the same thing,'
Simon cut in.
Marie Lou was watching the Duke's face with grave interest.
'Everyone knows there is such a thing as magic,' she declared, 'and
witchcraft. During those years that I lived in a little village on
the borders of the Siberian Forest I saw many strange things, and
the peasants went in fear and trembling of one old woman who lived
in a cottage ail alone outside the village. But what do you mean by
lesser magic?'
'There are two kinds,' De Richleau informed her. 'The lesser is
performing certain operations which you believe will bring about a
certain result without knowing why it should be so. If you chalk a
line on the floor and take an ordinary hen, hold its beak down for a
little time on to the line and then release it, the hen will remain
there motionless with its head bent down to the floor. The
assumption is that, being such a stupid creature, it believes that
it has been tied down to the line and it is therefore useless to
endeavour to escape. But nobody knows for certain. All we do know is
that it happens. That is a fair example of an operation in minor
magic. The great majority of the lesser witches and wizards in the
part had no conception as to why their spells worked, but had
learned from their predecessors that if they performed a given
operation a certain result was almost sure to follow it.'
Rex looked up suddenly and spoke for the first time. 'I'd say
they were pretty expert at playing on the belief of the credulous by
peddling a sort of inverted Christian Science, faith healing,
Coueism and all that as well.'
'Of course,' De Richleau smiled faintly. 'But they were far too
clever to tell a customer straight out that if he concentrated
sufficiently on his objective he would probably achieve it- even if
they realised that themselves. Instead, they followed the old
formulas which compelled him to develop his will power. If a man is
in love with a girl and is told that he will get her if he rises
from his bed at seven minutes past two every night for a month,
gathers half a dozen flowers from a new-made grave in the local
churchyard and places them in a spot where the girl will walk over
them the following day, he does not get much chance to slacken in
his desire and we all know that persistence can often work wonders.'
'Perhaps,' Richard agreed with mild cynicism. 'But would you have
us believe that Simon is seeking the favour of a lady by wandering
about in this lunatic get-up?'
'No, there is also the greater magic which is only practised by
learned students of the Art who go through long courses of
preparation and initiation, after which they understand not only
that certain apparently inexplicable results are brought about by a
given series of actions, but the actual reason why this should be
so. Such people are powerful and dangerous in the extreme, and it is
into the hands of one of these that our poor friend has fallen.'
Richard nodded, realising at last that the Duke was perfectly
serious in his statement. 'This seems a most extraordinary affair,'
he commented. 'I think you'd better start from the beginning and
give us the whole story.'
'All right. Let's sit down. If you doubt any of the statements
that I am about to make, Rex will guarantee the facts and vouch for
my sanity.'
'I certainly will,' Rex agreed with a sombre smile.
De Richleau then told the Batons all that had taken place in the
last forty-eight hours, and asked quite solemnly if they were
prepared to receive Simon, Rex and himself under their roof in spite
of the fact that it might involve some risk to themselves.
'Of course,' Marie Lou said at once. 'We would not dream of your
going away. You must stay just as long as you like and until you are
quite certain that Simon is absolutely out of danger.'
Richard, sceptical still, but devoted to his friends whatever
their apparent folly, nodded his agreement as he slipped an arm
through his wife's. 'Certainly you must stay. And,' he added
generously without the shadow of a smile, 'tell us exactly how we
can help you best.'
'It's awfully decent of you,' Simon hazarded with a ghostly
flicker of his old wide-mouthed grin. 'But I'll never forgive myself
if any harm comes to you from it.'
'Don't let's have that all over again,' Rex begged. 'We argued it
long enough in the car on the way here, and De Rich-leau's assured
you time and again that no harm will come to Richard and Marie Lou
providing we take reasonable precautions.'
'That is so,' the Duke nodded. 'And your help will be invaluable.
You see, Simon's resistance is practically nill owing to his having
been under Mocata's influence for so long, and Rex and I are at a
pretty low ebb after last night. We need every atom of vitality
which we can get to protect him, and your coming fresh into the
battle should turn the scale in our favour. What we should have done
if you had thrown us out I can't think, because I know of no one
else who wouldn't have considered us all to be raving lunatics.'
Richard laughed. 'My dear fellow, how can you even suggest such a
thing? You would still be welcome here if you'd committed murder.'
!I may have to before long,' De Richleau commented soberly. 'The
risk to myself is a bagatelle compared to the horrors which may
overwhelm the world if Mocata succeeds in getting possession of the
Talisman-but I won't involve you in that of course.'
This Sabbat you saw ...' Richard hazarded after a moment. 'Don't
think I'm doubting your account of it, but isn't it just possible
that your eyes deceived you in the darkness? I mean about the
Satanic part. Everyone knows that Sabbats took place all over
England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But it is
generally accepted now that they were only an excuse for a bit of a
blind and a sexual orgy. Country people had no motor bikes and buses
to take them in to local cinemas then, and the Church frowned on all
but the mildest forms of amusement, so the bad hats of the community
used to sneak off to some quiet spot every now and again to give
their repressed complexes an airing. Are you sure that it was not a
revival of that sort of thing staged by a group of wealthy
decadents?'
'Not on your life,' Rex declared with a sudden shiver. 'I've
never been scared all that bad before and, believe you me, it was
the real business.'
'What do you wish us to do, Greyeyes dear?' Marie Lou asked the
Duke.
He hoisted himself slowly out of the chair into which he had
sunk. 'I must drive to Oxford. An old Catholic priest whom I know
lives there and I am going to try and persuade him to entrust me
with a portion of the Blessed Host. If he will, that is the most
perfect of all protections which we could have to keep with us
through the night. In the meantime, I want the rest of you to look
after Simon.' He smiled affectionately in Simon's direction. 'You
must forgive me treating you like a child for the moment, my dear
boy, but I don't want the others to let you out of their sight until
I return.'
'That's all right,' Simon agreed cheerfully. 'But are you certain
that I'm not-er-carrying harmful things about with me still?'
'Absolutely. The purification ceremonies which I practised on you
last night have banished all traces of the evil. Our business now is
to keep you free of it and get on Mocata's trail as quickly as we
can.'
'Then I think I'll rest for a bit.' Simon glanced at Richard as
he followed the Duke towards the door. The nap we had at the hotel
in Amesbury after breakfast wasn't long enough to put me right-and
afterwards perhaps you could lend me a decent suit of clothes?'
'Of course,' Richard smiled, 'Let's see Greyeyes off, then I'll
make you comfortable upstairs.'
The whole party filed into the hall and, crowding about the low
nail-studded oaken door, watched De Richleau, who promised to be
back before dark, drive off. Then Richard, taking Simon by the arm,
led him up the broad Jacobean stairway, while Marie Lou turned to
Rex.
'What do you really think of all this?' she asked gravely, the
usual merriment of her deep blue eyes clouded by a foreboding of
coming trouble.
He stared down at her upturned heart-shaped face from his great
height and answered soberly. 'We've struck a gateway of Hell all
right, my dear, and I'm just worried out of my wits. De Richleau
didn't give you the whole story. There's a girl in this that
I'm-well-that I'm crazy about.'
'Rex!' Marie Lou laid her small strong hand on his arm. 'How
awful for you. Come into my room and tell me everything.'
He followed her to her sitting-room and for half an hour poured
into her sympathetic ears the strange tale of his three glimpses of
Tanith at different times abroad, and then his unexpected meeting
with her at Simon's party. Afterwards he related with more detail
than the Duke had done their terrible experiences on Salisbury Plain
and was just beginning his anxious speculation as to what could have
happened to Tanith when Malin, the butler, softly opened the door.
'Someone is asking for you on the telephone, Mr. Van Ryn, sir.'
'For me!' Rex stood up and, excusing himself to Marie Lou,
hurried out, wondering who in the world it could be since no one