Деннис Уитли. The Devil Rides Out Dennis Wheatley "The Devil Rides Out" ------------------------------------------- OCR by Sergey Gazizyanov, gaz@softoffice.ru ------------------------------------------- ARROW BOOKS ARROW BOOKS LTD 178-202 Great Portland Street, London WI AN IMPRINT OF THE HUTCHINSON GROUP London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Johannesburg Cape Town and agencies throughout the world * First published by Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd 1934 First Arrow edition 1954 Second impression 1958 Third impression 1958 Fourth impression 1959 Fifth impression 1963 Sixth impression 1964 Seventh impression 1965 Eighth impression 1966 Ninth impression 1968 This new edition June 1969 Reprinted November 1969 Reprinted September 1970 This book is published at a net price and supplied subject to the Publishers Association Standard Condition of Sale registered under The Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956 Made and printed in Great Britain by Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd., Aylesbury, Bucks THE DEVIL RIDES OUT * The Devil Rides Out is a Black Magic story by Dennis Wheatley, who writes: 'I, personally, have never assisted at, or participated in, any ceremony connected with Magic-Black or White. Should any of my readers incline to a serious study of the subject and thus come into contact with a man or woman of Power, I feel that it is only right to urge them, most strongly, to refrain from being drawn info the practice of the Secret Art in any way. My own observations have led me to an absolute conviction that to do so would bring them into dangers of a very real and concrete nature.' Contents 1. The Incomplete Reunion 2. The Curious Guests of Mr. Simon Aron 3. The Esoteric Doctrine 4. The Silent House 5. Embodied Evil 6. The Secret Art 7. De Richleau Plans a Campaign 8. Rex Van Ryn Opens the Attack 9. The Countess D'Urfe Talks of Many Curious Things 10. Tanith Proves Stubborn 11. The Truth Will Always Out 12. The Grim Prophecy 13. The Defeat of Rex Van Ryn 14. The Duke de Richleau Takes the Field 15. The Road to the Sabbat 16. The Sabbat 17. Evil Triumphant 18. The Power of Light 19. The Ancient Sanctuary 20. The Four Horsemen 21. Cardinals Folly 22. The Satanist 23. The Pride of Peacocks 24. The Scepticism of Richard Eaton 25. The Talisman of Set 26. Rex Learns of the Undead 27. Within the Pentacle 28. Necromancy 29. Simon Aron Takes a View 30. Out Into the Fog 31. The Man With the Jagged Ear 32. The Gateway of the Pit 33. Death of a Man Unknown, From Natural Causes To my old friend MERVYN BARON of whom, in these days, I see far too little but whose companionship, both in good times and in bad, has been to me a never-failing joy. D.W. Author's Note I desire to state that I, personally, have never assisted at, or participated in, any ceremony connected with Magic-Black or White. The literature of occultism is so immense that any conscientious writer can obtain from it abundant material for the background of a romance such as this. In the present case I have spared no pains to secure accuracy of detail from existing accounts when describing magical rites or formulas for protection against evil, and these have been verified in conversation with certain persons, sought out for that purpose who are actual practitioners of the Art. All the characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary but, in the inquiry necessary to the writing of it, I found ample evidence that Black Magic is still practised in London, and other cities, at the present day. Should any of my readers incline to a serious study of the subject, and thus come into contact with a man or woman of Power, I feel that it is only right to urge them, most strongly, to refrain from being drawn into the practice of the Secret Art in any way. My own observations have led me to an absolute conviction that to do so would bring them into dangers of a very real and concrete nature. Dennis Wheatley 1 The Incomplete Reunion The Duke de Richleau and Rex Van had gone in to dinner at eight o'clock, but coffee was not served tilt after ten. An appetite in keeping with his mighty frame had enabled Van Ryn to do ample justice to each well-chosen course and, as was his custom each time the young American arrived in England, the Duke had produced his finest wines for this, their reunion dinner at his flat. A casual observer might well have considered it a strange friendship, but despite their difference in age and race, appearance and tradition, a real devotion existed between the two. Some few years earlier Rex's foolhardiness had landed him in a Soviet prison, and the elderly French exile had put aside his peaceful existence as art connoisseur and dilettante to search for him in Russia. Together they had learned the dangerous secret of 'The Forbidden Territory' and travelled many thousand verts pursued by the merciless agents of the Ogpu. There had been others too in that strange adventure; young Richard Eaton, and the little Princess Marie Lou whom he had brought out of Russia as his bride; but as Rex accepted a long Hoyo de Monterrey from the cedar cabinet which the Duke's man presented to him his thoughts were not of the Eatons, living now so happily with their little daughter Fleur in their lovely old country home near Kidderminster. He was thinking of that third companion whose subtle brain and shy, nervous courage had proved so great an aid when they were hunted like hares through the length and breadth of Russia, the frail narrow-shouldered English Jew-Simon Aron. 'What could possibly have kept Simon from being with them tonight,' Rex was wondering. He had never failed before to make a third at these reunion dinners, and why had the Duke brushed aside his inquiries about him in such an offhand manner. There was something queer behind De Richleau's reticence, and Rex had a feeling that for all his host's easy charm and bland, witty conversation something had gone seriously wrong. He slowly revolved some of the Duke's wonderful old brandy in a bowl-shaped glass, while he watched the servant preparing to leave the room. Then, as the door closed, he set it down and addressed De Richleau almost abruptly. 'Well, I'm thinking it's about time for you to spill the beans.' The Duke inhaled the first cloud of fragrant smoke from another of those long Hoyos which were his especial pride, and answered guardedly. 'Had you not better tell me Rex, to what particular beans you refer?' 'Simon of course! For years now the three of us have dined together on my first night, each time I've come across, and you were too mighty casual to be natural when I asked about him before dinner. Why isn't he here?' 'Why, indeed, my friend?' the Duke repeated, running the tips of his fingers down his lean handsome face. 'I asked him, and told him that your ship docked this morning, but he declined to honour us tonight.' 'Is he ill then?' 'No, as far as I know he's perfectly well-at all events he was at his office today.' 'He must have had a date then that he couldn't scrap, or some mighty urgent work. Nothing less could induce him to let us down on one of these occasions. They've become-well, in a way, almost sacred to our friendship.' 'On the contrary he is at home alone tonight. He made his apologies of course, something about resting for a Bridge Tournament that starts:' 'Bridge Tournament my foot!' exclaimed Rex angrily. 'He'd never let that interfere between us three-it sounds mighty fishy to me. When did you see him last?' 'About three months ago.' 'What! But that's incredible. Now look here!' Rex thrust the onyx ash-tray from in front of him, and leaned across the table. 'You haven't quarrelled-have you?' De Richleau shook his head. 'If you were my age, Rex, and had no children, then met two younger men who gave you their affection, and had all the attributes you could wish for in your sons, how would it be possible for you to quarrel with either of them?' 'That's so, but three months is a whale of a while for friends who are accustomed to meet two or three times a week. I just don't get this thing at all, and you're being a sight too reticent about it. Come on now-what do you know?' The grey eyes of almost piercing brilliance which gave such character to De Richleau's face, lit up. That,' he said suddenly, 'is just the trouble. I don't know anything.' 'But you fear that, to use his own phrase, Simon's "in a muddle-a really nasty muddle" eh? And you're a little hurt that he hasn't brought his worry to you.' 'To whom else should he turn if not to one of us-and you were in the States.' 'Richard maybe, he's an even older friend of Simon's than we are.' 'No. I spent last week-end at Cardinals Folly and neither Richard nor Marie Lou could tell me anything. They haven't seen him since he went down to stay last Christmas and arrived with a dozen crates of toys for Fleur.' 'How like him!' Rex's gargantuan laugh rang suddenly through the room. 'I might have known the trunkful I brought over would be small fry if you and Simon have been busy on that child.' 'Well I can only conclude that poor Simon is "in a muddle" as you say, or he would never treat us all like this.' 'But what sort of a muddle?' Rex brought his leg-of mutton fist crashing down on the table angrily. 'I can't think of a thing where he wouldn't turn to us.' 'Money,' suggested the Duke, 'is the one thing that with his queer sensitive nature he might not care to discuss with even his closest friends.' 'I doubt it being that. My old man has a wonderful opinion of Simon's financial ability and he handles a big portion of our interests on this side. I'm pretty sure we'd be wise to it if he'd burned his fingers on the market. It sounds as if he'd gone bats about some woman to me.' De Richleau's face was lit by his faintly cynical smile for a moment. 'No,' he said slowly. 'A man in love turns naturally to his friends for congratulation or sympathy as his fortune with a woman proves good or ill. It can't be that.' For a little the two friends sat staring at each other in silence across the low jade bowl with its trailing sprays of orchids: Rex, giant shouldered, virile and powerful, his ugly, attractive, humorous young face clouded with anxiety, the Duke, a slim, delicate- looking man, somewhat about middle height, with slender, fragile hands and greying hair, but with no trace of weakness in his fine, distinguished face. His aquiline nose, broad forehead and grey 'devil's' eyebrows might well have replaced those of the cavalier in the Van Dyck that gazed down from the opposite wall. Instead of the conventional black, he wore a claret coloured vicuna smoking suit, with silk lapels and braided fastenings; this touch of colour increased his likeness to the portrait. He broke the silence suddenly. 'Have you by any chance ever heard of a Mr. Mocata, Rex?' 'Nope. Who is he anyway?' 'A new friend of Simon's who has been staying with him these last few months.' 'What-at his Club?' 'No-no, Simon no longer lives at his Club. I thought you knew. He bought a house last February, a big, rambling old place tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac off one of those quiet residential streets in St. John's Wood.' 'Why, that's right out past Regent's Park-isn't it? What's he want with a place out there when there are any number of nice little houses to let in Mayfair?' 'Another mystery, my friend.' The Duke's thin lips creased into a smile. 'He said he wanted a garden, that's all I can tell you.' 'Simon! A garden!' Rex chuckled. 'That's a good story I'll say. Simon doesn't know a geranium from a fuchsia. His botany is limited to an outsized florist's bill for bunching his women friends from shops, and why should a bachelor like Simon start running a big house at all?' 'Perhaps Mr. Mocata could tell you,' murmured De Richleau mildly, 'or the queer servant that he has imported,' 'Have you ever seen this bird-Mocata I mean?' 'Yes, I called one evening about six weeks ago. Simon was out so Mocata received me.' 'And what did you make of him?' 'I disliked him intensely. He's a pot-bellied, bald-headed person of about sixty, with large, protuberant, fishy eyes, limp hands, and a most unattractive lisp. He reminded me of a large white slug.' 'What about this servant that you mention?' 'I only saw him for a moment when he crossed the hall, but he reminded me in a most unpleasant way of the Bogey Man with whom I used to be threatened in my infancy.' 'Why, is he a black?' 'Yes. A Malagasy I should think.' Rex frowned. 'Now what in heck is that?' 'A native of Madagascar. They are a curious people, half-Negro and half-Polynesian. This great brute stands about six foot eight, and the one glimpse I had of his eyes made me want to shoot him on sight. He's a "bad black" if ever I saw one, and I've travelled, as you know, in my time.' 'Do you know any more about these people?' asked Rex grimly. 'Not a thing.' 'Well, I'm not given to worry, but I've heard quite enough to get me scared for Simon. He's in some jam or he'd never be housing people like that.' The Duke gently laid the long, blue-grey ash of his cigar in the onyx ash-tray. 'There is not a doubt,' he said slowly, 'that Simon is involved in some very queer business, but I have been stifling my anxiety until your arrival. You see I wanted to hear your views before taking the very exceptional step of -yes butting in-is the expression, on the private affairs of even so intimate a friend. The question is now-what are we to do?' 'Do!' Rex thrust back his chair and drew himself up to his full magnificent height. 'We're going up to that house to have a little heart-to-heart talk with Simon-right now!' 'I'm glad,' said De Richleau quietly, 'you feel like that, be cause I ordered the car for half past ten. Shall we go?' 2 The Curious Guests of Mr. Simon Aron As De Richleau's Hispano drew up at the dead end of the dark cul- de-sac in St. John's Wood, Rex slipped out of the car and looked about him. They were shut in by the high walls of neighbouring gardens and, above a blank expanse of brick in which a single, narrow door was visible, the upper stones of Simon's house showed vague and mysterious among whispering trees. 'Ugh!' he exclaimed with a little shudder as a few drops splashed upon his face from the dark branches overhead. 'What a dismal hole-we might be in a graveyard.' The Duke pressed the bell, and turning up the sable collar of his coat against a slight drizzle which made the April night seem chill and friendless, stepped back to get a better view of the premises. 'Hello! Simon's got an observatory here,' he remarked. 'I didn't notice that on my previous visit.' 'So he has.' Rex followed De Richleau's glance to a dome that crowned the house, but at that moment an electric globe suddenly flared into life about their heads, and the door in the wall swung open disclosing a sallow-faced manservant in dark livery. 'Mr. Simon Aron?' inquired De Richleau, but the man was already motioning them to enter, so they followed him up a short covered path and the door in the wall clanged to behind them, The vestibule of the house was dimly lit, but Rex, who never wore a coat or hat in the evening, noticed that two sets of outdoor apparel lay, neatly folded, on a long console table as the silent footman relieved De Richleau of his wraps. Evidently friend Simon had other visitors. 'Maybe Mr. Aron's in conference and won't want to be disturbed,' he said to the sallow-faced servant with a sudden feeling of guilt at their intrusion. Perhaps, after all, their fears for Simon were quite groundless and his neglect only due to a prolonged period of intense activity on the markets, but the man only bowed and led them across the hall. 'The fellow's a mute,' whispered the Duke. 'Deaf and dumb I'm certain,' As he spoke the servant flung open a couple of large double doors and stood waiting for them to enter. A long, narrow room, opening into a wide salon, stretched before them. Both were decorated in the lavish magnificence of the Louis Seize period, but for the moment the dazzling brilliance of the lighting prevented them taking in the details of the parquet floors, the crystal mirrors, the gilded furniture and beautifully wrought tapestries. Rex was the first to recover and with a quick intake of breath he clutched De Richleau's arm. 'By Jove she's here!' he muttered almost inaudibly, his eyes riveted on a tall, graceful girl who stood some yards away at tbe entrance of the salon talking to Simon. Three times in the last eighteen months he had chanced upon that strange, wise, beautiful face, with the deep eyes beneath heavy lids that seemed so full of secrets and gave the lovely face a curiously ageless look-so that despite her apparent youth she was as old as-'Yes, as old as sin,' Rex caught himself thinking. He had seen her first in a restaurant in Budapest; months later again, in a traffic jam when his car was wedged beside hers in New York, and then, strangely enough, riding along a road with three men, in the country ten miles outside Buenos Aires. How extraordinary that he should find her here-and what luck. He smiled quickly at the thought that Simon could not fail to introduce him. De Richleau's glance was riveted upon their friend. With an abrupt movement Simon turned towards them. For a second he seemed completely at a loss, his full, sensual mouth hung open to twice its normal extent and his receding jaw almost disappeared behind his white tie, while his dark eyes were filled with amazement and something suspiciously like fear, but he recovered almost instantly and his old smile flashed out as he came forward to greet them. 'My dear Simon,' the Duke's voice was a silken purr. 'How can we apologise for breaking in on you like this?' 'Sure, we hadn't a notion you were throwing a party,' boomed Rex, his glance following the girl who had moved off to join another woman and three men who were talking together in the inner room. 'But I'm delighted,' murmured Simon genially. 'Delighted to see you both-only got a few friends-meeting of a little society I belong to-that's all.' Then we couldn't dream of interrupting you, could we Rex?' De Richleau demurred with well-assumed innocence. 'Why, certainly not, we wouldn't even have come in if that servant of yours hadn't taken us for some other folks you're expecting.' But despite their apparent unwillingness to intrude, neither of the two made any gesture of withdrawal and, mentally, De Richleau gave Simon full marks for the way in which he accepted their obviously unwelcome presence. 'I'm most terribly sorry about dinner to-night,' he was pro claiming earnestly. 'Meant to rest for my bridge, I simply have to these days, to be any good-even forgot till six o'clock that I had these people coming.' 'How fortunate for you Simon that your larder is so well stocked.' The Duke could not resist the gentle dig as his glance fell on a long buffet spread with a collation which would have rivalled the cold table in any great hotel. 'I 'phoned Ferraro,' parried Simon glibly. "The Berkeley never lets me down. Would have asked you to drop in, but er-with this meeting on I felt you'd be bored.' 'Bored! Not a bit, but we are keeping you from your other guests.' With an airy gesture De Richleau waved his hand in the direction of the inner room. 'Sure,' agreed Rex heartily, as he laid a large hand on Simon's arm and gently propelled him towards the salon. 'Don't you worry about us, we'll just take a glass of wine off you and fade away.' His eyes were fixed again on the pale oval face of the girl. Simon's glance flickered swiftly towards the Duke, who ignored, with a guileless smile, his obvious reluctance for them to meet his other friends, and noted with amusement that he avoided any proper introduction. 'Er-er-two very old friends of mine,' he said, with his little nervous cough as he interchanged a swift look with a fleshy, moon- faced man whom De Richleau knew to be Mocata. 'Well, well, how nice,' the bald man lisped with unsmiling eyes. 'It is a pleasure always to welcome any friends of Simon's.' De Richleau gave him a frigid bow and thought of reminding him coldly that Simon's welcome was sufficient in his own house, but for the moment it was policy to hide his antagonism so he replied politely that Mocata was most kind, then, with the ease which characterised all his movements, he turned his attention to an elderly lady who was seated near by. She was a woman of advanced age but fine presence, richly dressed and almost weighed down with heavy jewellery. Between her fingers she held the stub of a fat cigar at which she was puffing vigorously. 'Madame.' The Duke drew a case containing the long Hoyos from his pocket and bent towards her. 'Your cigar is almost finished, permit me to offer you one of mine.' She regarded him for a moment with piercingly bright eyes, then stretched out a fat, beringed hand. 'Sank you, Monsieur, I see you are a connoisseur.' With her beaked, parrot nose she sniffed at the cigar appreciatively. 'But I have not seen you at our other meetings, what ees your name?' 'De Richleau, Madame, and yours?' 'De Richleau I a maestro indeed.' She nodded heavily. 'Je suis Madame D'Urfe, you will 'ave heard of me.' 'But certainly.' The Duke bowed again. 'Do you think we shall have a good meeting tonight?' 'If the sky clears we should learn much,' answered the old lady cryptically. 'Ho! Ho!' thought the Duke. 'We are about to make use of Simon's observatory it seems. Good, let us learn more.' But before he could pump the elderly Frenchwoman further, Simon deftly interrupted the conversation and drew him away. 'So you have taken up the study of the stars, my friend,' remarked the Duke as his host led him to the buffet. 'Oh, er-yes. Find astronomy very interesting, you know. Have some caviare?' Simon's eyes flickered anxiously towards Rex, who was deep in conversation with the girl. As he admired her burnished hair and slumbrous eyes, for a moment the Duke was reminded of a Botticelli painting. She had, he thought, that angel look with nothing Christian in it peculiar to women born out of their time, the golden virgin to the outward eye whose veins were filled with unlit fire. A rare cinquecento type who should have lived in the Italy of the Borgias. Then he turned again to Simon. 'It was because of the observatory then that you acquired this house, I suppose?' 'Yes. You must come up one night and we'll watch a few stars together.' Something of the old warmth had crept into Simon's tone and he was obviously in earnest as he offered the invitation, but the Duke was not deceived into believing that he was welcome on the present occasion. 'Thank you, I should enjoy that,' he said promptly, while over Simon's shoulder he studied the other two men who made up the party. One, a tall, fair fellow, stood talking to Mocata. His thin, flaxen hair brushed flatly back, and whose queer, light eyes proclaimed him an Albino; the other, a stout man dressed in a green plaid and ginger kilt, was walking softly up and down with his hands clasped behind his back, muttering to himself inaudibly. His wild, flowing white hair and curious costume suggested an Irish bard. 'Altogether a most unprepossessing lot,' thought the Duke, and his opinion was not improved by three new arrivals. A grave-faced Chinaman wearing the robes of a Mandarin, whose slit eyes betrayed a cold, merciless nature: a Eurasian with only one arm, the left, and a tall, thin woman with a scraggy throat and beetling eyebrows which met across the bridge of her nose. Mocata received them as though he were the host, but as the tall woman bore down on Simon he promptly left the Duke, who guessed that the move was to get out of earshot. However, the lady's greeting in a high-pitched Middle Western accent came clearly to him. 'Waal, Simon, all excitement about what we'll learn tonight? It should help a heap, this being your natal conjunction.' 'Ha! Ha!' said De Richleau to himself. 'Now I begin to understand a little and I like this party even less,' Then, with the idea of trying to verify his surmise, he turned towards the one-armed Eurasian, but Simon-apparently guessing his intention-quickly excused himself to the American woman, and cut off the Duke's advance. 'So, my young friend,' thought De Richleau, 'you mean to prevent me from obtaining any further information about this strange gathering, do you? Ail right! I'll twist your tail a little,' and he remarked sweetly: 'Did you say that you were interested in Astronomy or Astrology, Simon? There is a distinct difference you know.' 'Oh, Astronomy, of course.' Simon ran a finger down his long, beak-like nose. 'It is nice to see you again-have some more champagne?' 'Thank you, no, later perhaps.' The Duke smothered a smile as he caught Mocata, who had overheard him, exchange a quick look with Simon. 'Wish this were an ordinary meeting,' Simon said, a moment later, with an uneasy frown. Then I'd ask you to stay, but we're going through the Society's annual balance-sheet tonight -and you and Rex not being members you know . . .' 'Quite, quite, my dear fellow, of course,' De Richleau agreed amicably, while to himself he thought, That's a nasty fence young sly-boots has put up for me, but I'll be damned if I go before I find out for certain what I came for.' Then he added in a cheerful whisper: 'I should have gone before but Rex seems so interested in the young woman in green, I want to give him as long as possible.' 'My dear chap,' Simon protested, 'I feel horribly embarrassed at having to ask you to go at all.' A fat, oily-looking Babu in a salmon-pink turban and gown had just arrived and was shaking hands with Mocata; behind him came a red-faced Teuton, who suffered the deformity of a hare lip. Simon stepped quickly forward again as the two advanced, but De Richleau once more caught the first words which were snuffled out by the hare-lipped man. 'Well, Abraham, wie geht es?' then there came the fulsome chuckle of the fleshy Indian. 'You must not call him that, it is unlucky to do so before the great night.' The devil it is!' muttered the Duke to himself, but Simon had left the other two with almost indecent haste in order to rejoin him, so he said with a smile: 'I gather you are about to execute Deed Poll, my friend?' 'Eh!' Simon exclaimed with a slight start. To change your name,' De Richleau supplemented. 'Ner.' He shook his head rapidly as he uttered the curious negative that he often used. It came of his saying 'No' without troubling to close the lips of his full mouth. 'Ner-that's only a sort of joke we have between us-a sort of initiation ceremony-I'm not a full member yet.' 'I see, then you have ceremonies in your Astronomical Society-how interesting!' As he spoke De Richleau, out of the corner of his eye, saw Mocata make a quick sign to Simon and then glance at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece; so to save his host the awkwardness of having actually to request his departure, he exclaimed: 'Dear mel Twenty past eleven, I had no idea it was so late. I must drag Rex away from that lovely lady after all, I fear.' 'Well, if you must go.' Simon looked embarrassed and worried, but catching Mocata's eye again, he promptly led the way over to his other unwelcome guest. Rex gave a happy grin as they came up. This is marvellous Simon. I've been getting glimpses of this lady in different continents these two years past, and she seems to recall having seen me too. It's just great that we should become acquainted at last through you.' Then he smiled quickly at the girl: 'May I present my friend De Richfeau? Duke, this is Miss Tanith.' De Richleau bent over her long, almost transparent hand and raised it to his lips. 'How unfortunate I am,' he said with old- fashioned gallantry, 'to be presented to you only in time to say good-bye, and perhaps gain your displeasure by taking your new friend with me as well.' 'But,' she regarded him steadily out of large, clear, amber eyes. Surely you do not depart before the ceremony?' 'I fear we must. We are not members of your er-Circle you see, only old friends of Simon's.' A strange look of annoyance and uncertainty crept into her glance, and the Duke guessed that she was searching her mind for any indiscretions she might have committed in her conversation with Rex. Then she shrugged lightly and, with a brief inclination of the head which dismissed them both, turned coldly away. The Duke took Simon's arm affectionately, as the three friends left the salon. 'I wonder,' he said persuasively, 'if you could spare me just two minutes before we go-no more I promise you.' 'Rather, of course.' Simon seemed now to have regained his old joviality. 'I'll never forgive myself for missing your dinner tonight-this wretched meeting-and I've seen nothing of you for weeks. Now Rex is over we must throw a party together.' 'We will, we will,' De Richleau agreed heartily, 'but listen; is not Mars in conjunction with Venus tonight?' 'Ner,' Simon replied promptly. 'With Saturn, that's what they've all come to see.' 'Ah, Saturn! My Astronomy is so rusty, but I saw some mention of it in the paper yesterday, and at one time I was a keen student of the Stars. Would it be asking too much my dear fellow, to have just one peep at it through your telescope? We should hardly delay your meeting for five minutes.' Simon's hesitation was barely perceptible before he nodded his bird-like head with vigorous assent. 'Um, that's all right- they haven't all arrived yet-let's go up.' Then, with his hands thrust deep in the trouser pockets of his exceedingly well-cut dress suit, he led them hurriedly through the hall and up three flights of stairs.' De Richleau followed more slowly. Stairs were the one thing which ruffled his otherwise equable temper and he had no desire to lose it now. By the time he arrived in the lofty chamber, with Rex behind him, Simon had all the lights switched on. 'Well you've certainly gone in for it properly,' Rex remarked as he surveyed the powerful telescope slanting to the roof and a whole arsenal of sextants, spheres and other astrological impedimenta ranged about the room. 'It's rather an exact science you see,' Simon volunteered. 'Quite,' agreed the Duke briefly. 'But I wonder, a little, that you should consider charts of the Macrocosm necessary to your studies. 'Oh, those!' Simon shrugged his narrow shoulders as he glanced around the walls. 'They're only for fun-relics of the Alchemistic nonsense in the Middle Ages, but quite suitable for decoration.' 'How clever of you to carry out your scheme of decoration on the floor as well.' The Duke was thoughtfully regarding a five-pointed star enclosed within two circles between which numerous mystic characters in Greek and Hebrew had been carefully drawn. 'Yes, good idea, wasn't it?' Simon tittered into his hand. It was the familiar gesture which both his friends knew so well, yet somehow his chuckle had not quite its usual ring. The silence that followed was a little awkward and in it, all three plainly heard a muffled scratching noise that seemed to come from a large wicker basket placed against the wall. 'You've got mice here, Simon,' said Rex casually, but De Richleau had stiffened where he stood. Then, before Simon could bar his way, he leapt towards the hamper and ripped open the lid. 'Stop that!' cried Simon angrily, and dashing forward he forced it shut again, but too late, for within the basket the Duke had seen two living pinioned fowls-a black cock and a white hen. With a sudden access of bitter fury he turned on Simon, and seizing him by his silk lapels, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. 'You fool,' he thundered. 'I'd rather see you dead than monkeying with Black Magic.' 3 The Esoteric Doctrine 'Take-take your hands off me,' Simon gasped. His dark eyes blazed in a face that had gone deathly white and only a superhuman effort enabled him to keep his clenched fists pressed to his sides. In another second he would have hit the Duke, but Rex, a head taller than either of them, laid a mighty hand on the shoulder of each and forced them apart. 'Have a heart now, just what is all this?' His quiet, familiar voice, with its faint American intonation, sobered the others immediately and De Richleau, swinging on his heel, strode to the other side of the observatory, where he stood for a moment, with his back towards them, regaining control of his emotions. Simon, panting a little, gave a quick, nervous wriggle of his bird-like head and smoothed out the lapels of his evening coat. 'Now-I'll tell you,' he said jerkily, 'I never asked either of you to come here tonight, and even my oldest friends have no right to butt in on my private-affairs. I think you'd better go.' The Duke turned, passing one hand over his greying hair. All trace of his astonishing outburst had disappeared and he was once more the handsome, distinguished figure that they knew so well. 'I'm sorry, Simon,' he said gravely. 'But I felt as a father might who sees his child trying to pick live coals out of the fire.' 'I'm not a child,' muttered Simon, sullenly. 'No, but I could not have more affection for you if you were actually my son, and it is useless now to deny that you are playing the most dangerous game which has ever been known to mankind throughout the ages.' 'Oh, come,' a quick smile spread over Rex's ugly, attractive face. 'That's a gross exaggeration. What's the harm if Simon wants to try out a few old parlour games?' 'Parlour games!' De Richleau took him up sharply. 'My dear Rex, I fear your prowess in aeroplanes and racing cars hardly qualifies you to judge the soul destroying powers of these ancient cults.' 'Thanks. I'm not quite a half-wit, and plenty of spiritualistic seances take place in the States, but I've never heard of anyone as sane as Simon going bats because of them yet.' Simon nodded his narrow head slowly up and down. 'Of course-Rex is right, and you're only making a mountain out of a molehill.' 'As you like,' De Richleau shrugged. 'In that case will you permit us to stay and participate in your operations tonight?' 'Ner-I'm sorry, but you're not a member of our Circle.' 'No matter. We have already met most of your friends downstairs, surely they will not object to our presence on just this one occasion?' 'Ner.' Simon shook his head again. 'Our number is made up.' 'I see, you are already thirteen, is that it? Now listen, Simon.' The Duke laid his hands gently on the young Jew's shoulders. 'One of the reasons why my friendship with Rex and yourself has developed into such a splendid intimacy, is because I have always refrained from stressing my age and greater experience, but tonight I break the rule. My conscious life, since we both left our schools, has been nearly three times as long as yours and, in addition, although I have never told you of it, I made a deep study of these esoteric doctrines years ago when I lived in the East. I beg of you, as I have never begged for anything in my life before, that you should give up whatever quest you are engaged upon and leave this house with us immediately.' For a moment Simon seemed to waver. All his faith in De Richleau's judgment, knowledge, and love for him, urged him to agree, but at that moment Mocata's musical lisping voice cut in upon the silence, calling from the landing just below: 'Simon, the others have come. It is time.' 'Coming,' called Simon, then he looked at the two friends with whom he had risked his life in the 'Forbidden Territory.' 'I can't,' he said with an effort, 'You heard-it's too late to back out now.' 'Then let us remain-please,' begged the Duke. 'No, I'm sorry.' A new firmness had crept into Simon's tone, 'but I must ask you to go now.' 'Very well.' De Richleau stepped forward as though to shake hands then, with almost incredible swiftness, his arm flew back and next second his fist caught Simon a smashing blow full beneath the jaw. The action was so sudden, so unexpected, that Simon was caught completely off his guard. For a fraction of time he was lifted from his feet, then he crashed senseless on his back and slid spread- eagled across the polished floor. 'Have you gone crazy?' ejaculated Rex. 'No-we've got to get him out of here-save him from himself-don't argue! Quick!' Already De Richleau was kneeling by the crumpled body of his friend. Rex needed no further urging. He had been in too many tight corners with the Duke to doubt the wisdom of his decisions however strange his actions might appear. In one quick heave he dragged Simon's limp form across his shoulders arid started for the stairs. 'Steady!' ordered the Duke. 'I'll go first and tackle anyone who tries to stop us. You get him to the car-Understoood?' 'What if they raise the house? You'll never be able to tackle the whole bunch on your own?' 'In that case drop him, I'll get him out somehow, while you protect my rear. Come on!' With De Richleau leading they crept down the first flight of stairs. On the landing he paused and peered cautiously over the banisters. No sound came from below. 'Rex,' he whispered. 'Yep.' 'If that black servant I told you of appears, for God's sake don't look at his eyes. Watch his hands and hit him in the belly.' 'O.K.' A moment later they were down the second flight. The hall was empty and only a vague murmur of conversation came to them from behind the double doors that led to the salon. 'Quick!' urged the Duke. 'Mocata may come out to look for him any moment,' 'Right.' Rex, bent double beneath his burden, plunged down the last stairs, and De Richleau was already halfway across the half when the dumb servant suddenly appeared from the vestibule. For a second he stood there, his sallow face a mask of blank surprise then, side-stepping the Duke with the agility of a rugby forward, he lowered his bullet head and charged Rex with silent animal ferocity. 'Got you,' snapped De Richleau, for although the man had dodged with lightning speed he had caught his wrist in passing. Then flinging his whole weight upon it as he turned, he jerked the fellow clean off his feet and sent him spinning head foremost against the wall. As his head hit the panelling the mute gave an uncouth grunt, and rolled over on the floor, but he staggered up again and dashed towards the salon. Rex and the Duke were already pounding down the tiled path and in another second they had flung themselves into the lane through the entrance in the garden wall. 'Thank God,' gasped the Duke as he wrenched open the door of the Hispano. 'I believe that hellish crew would have killed us rather than let us get Simon out of there alive.' 'Well, I suppose you do know what you're at,' Rex muttered as he propped Simon up on the back seat of the car. 'But I'm not certain you're safe to be with.' 'Home,' ordered De Richleau curtly to the footman, who was hiding his astonishment at their sudden exit by hastily tucking the rug over their knees. Then he smiled at Rex a trifle grimly. 'I suppose I do seem a little mad to you, but you can't possibly be expected to appreciate what a horribly serious business this is. I'll explain later.' In a few moments they had left the gloom of the quiet streets behind and were once more running through well-lit ways towards Mayfair, but Simon was still unconscious when they pulled up in Curzon Street before Errol House. 'I'll take him,' volunteered Rex. The less the servants have to do with this the better,' and picking up Simon in his strong arms as though he had been a baby, he carried him straight upstairs to the first floor where De Richleau's flat was situated. 'Put him in the library,' said the Duke, who had paused to murmur something about a sudden illness to the porter, when he arrived on the landing a moment later. 'I'll get something to bring him round from the bathroom.' Rex nodded obediently, and carried Simon into that room in the Curzon Street fiat which was so memorable for those who had been privileged to visit it, not so much on account of its size and decorations, but for the unique collection of rare and beautiful objects which it contained. A Tibetan Buddha seated upon the Lotus; bronze figurines from ancient Greece; beautifully chased rapiers of Toledo steel, and Moorish pistols inlaid with turquoise and gold; ikons from Holy Russia set with semi-precious stones and curiously carved ivories from the East. As Rex laid Simon upon the wide sofa he glanced round him with an interest unappeased by a hundred visits, at the walls lined shoulder high with beautifully bound books, and at the lovely old colour prints, interspersed with priceless historical documents and maps, which hung above them. De Richleau, when he joined him, produced a small crystal bottle which he held beneath Simon's beak-like nose. 'No good trying to talk to him tonight,' he remarked, 'but I want to bring him round sufficiently to put him to sleep again. Rex grunted. That sounds like double-dutch to me.' 'No. I mean to fight these devils with their own weapons, as you will see.' Simon groaned a little, and as his eyes flickered open the Duke took a small round mirror from his pocket. 'Simon,' he said softly, moving the lamp a little nearer, 'look upward at my hand.' As he spoke De Richleau held the mirror about eighteen inches from Simon's forehead and a little above the level of his eyes, so that it caught and reflected the light of the lamp on to his lids. 'Hold it lower,' suggested Rex. 'He'll strain his eyes turning them upwards like that.' 'Quiet,' said the Duke sharply. 'Simon, look up and listen to me. You have been hurt and have a troubled mind, but your friends are with you and you have no need to worry any more.' Simon opened his eyes again and turned them upwards to the mirror, where they remained fixed. 'I am going to send you to sleep, Simon,' De Richleau went on softly. 'You need rest and you will awake free from pain. In a moment your eyes will close and then your head will feel better.' For another half-minute he held the mirror steadily reflecting the light upon Simon's retina, then he placed the first and second fingers of his free hand upon the glass with his palm turned outward and made a slow pass from it towards the staring eyes, which closed at once before he touched them. 'You will sleep now,' he continued quietly, 'and you will not wake until ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Directly you awake you will come straight to me either here or in my bedroom and you will speak to no one, nor will you open any letter or message which may be brought to you, until you have seen me.' De Richleau paused for a moment, put down the mirror and lifted one of Simon's arms until it stood straight above his head. When he released it the arm did not drop but remained stiff and rigid in the air. 'Most satisfactory,' he murmured cheerfully to Rex. 'He is in the second stage of hypnosis already and will do exactly what he is told. The induction was amazingly easy, but of course, his half- conscious state simplified it a lot.' Rex shook his head in disapproval. 'I don't like to see you monkey with him like this. I wouldn't allow it if it was anyone but you.' 'A prejudice based upon lack of understanding, my friend. Hypnotism in proper hands is the greatest healing power in the world.' With a quick shrug the Duke moved over to his desk and, unlocking one of the lower drawers, took something from it, then he returned to Simon and addressed him in the same low voice. 'Open your eyes now and sit up.' Simon obeyed at once and Rex was surprised to see that he looked quite wide awake and normal. Only a certain blankness about the face betrayed his abnormal state, and he displayed no aversion as De Richleau extended the thing he had taken from the drawer. It was a small golden swastika set with precious stones and threaded on a silken ribbon. 'Simon Aron,' the Duke spoke again. 'With this symbol I am about to place you under the protection of the power of Light. No being or force of Earth, or Air, of Fire, or Water can harm you while you wear it.' With quick fingers he knotted the talisman round Simon's neck and went on evenly: 'Now you will go to the spare bedroom. Ring for my man Max and tell him that you are staying here tonight. He will provide you with everything you need and, if your throat is parched from your recent coma, ask him for any soft drink you wish, but no alcohol remember' Peace be upon you and about you. Now go.' Simon stood up at once and looked from one to the other of them. 'Good night,' he said cheerfully, with his quick natural smile. 'See you both in the morning,' then he promptly walked out of the room. 'He-he's not really asleep is he?' asked Rex, looking a little scared. 'Certainly, but he will remember everything that has taken place tomorrow because he is not in the deep somnambulistic state where I could order him to forget. To achieve that usually takes a little practice with a new subject.' 'Then he'll be pretty livid I'll promise you. Fancy hanging a Nazi swastika round the neck of a professing Jew.' 'My dear Rex! Do please try and broaden your outlook a little. The swastika is the oldest symbol of wisdom and right thinking in the world. It has been used by every race and in every country at some time or other. You might just as well regard the Cross as purely Christian, when we all know it was venerated in early Egypt, thousands of years before the birth of Christ. The Nazis have only adopted the swastika because it is supposed to be of Aryan origin and part of their programme aims at welding together a large section of the Aryan race. The vast majority of them have no conception of its esoteric significance and even if they bring discredit upon it, as the Spanish Inquisition did upon the Cross, that could have no effect upon its true meaning.' 'Yes, I get that, though I doubt if it'll make any difference to Simon's resentment when he finds it round his neck tomorrow. Still, that's a minor point. What worries me is this whole box of tricks this evening. I've got a feeling you ought to be locked up as downright insane, unless it's me.' De Richleau smiled. 'A strange business to be happening in modern London, isn't it? But let's mix a drink and talk it over quietly.' 'Strange! Why, if it were true it would be utterly fantastic, but it's not. All this hooha about Black Magic and talking hocus-pocus while you hang silly charms round Simon's neck is utter bunk.' 'It is?' The Duke smiled again as he tipped a lump of ice into Rex's glass and handed it to him. 'Well, let's hear your explanation of Simon's queer behaviour. I suppose you do consider that it is queer by the way?' 'Of course, but nothing like as queer as you're trying to make out. As I see it Simon's taken up spiritualism or something of the kind and plenty of normal earnest people believe in that, but you know what he is when he gets keen on a thing, everything else goes to,, the wall and that's why he has neglected you a bit. 'Then this evening he was probably sick as mud to miss our dinner, but had a seance all fixed that he couldn't shelve at the last moment. We butt in on his party, and naturally he doesn't care to admit what he's up to entertaining all those queer, odd-looking women and men, so he spins a yarn about it being an astronomical society. So you-who've read a sight too many books-and seem to have stored up all the old wives' tales your nurse told you in your cradle-get a bee in your bonnet and slog the poor mut under the jaw.' De Richleau nodded. 'I can hardly expect you to see it any other way at the moment, but let's start at the beginning. Do you agree that after knocking him out I called into play a supernormal power in order to send him cheerfully off to bed without a single protest?' 'Yes, even the doctors admit hypnotic influence now, and Simon would never have stood for you tying that swastika under his chin if he'd been conscious.' 'Good. Then at least we are at one on the fact that certain forces can be called into play which the average person does not understand. Now, if instead of practising that comparatively simple exercise in front of you, I had done it before ignorant natives, who had never heard of hypnotism, they would terra it magic, would they not?' 'Sure.' Then to go a step further. If, by a greater exertion of the same power, I levitated, that is to say, lifted myself to a height of several inches from this floor, you might not use the word magic but you would class that feat in the same category as the ignorant native would place the easier one, because it is something which you have always thought impossible.' That's true.' 'Well, I am not sufficient of an adept to perform the feat, but will you accept my assurances that I've seen it done, not once, but a number of times?' 'If you say so, but from all I've heard about such things, the fellows you saw didn't leave the ground at all. It is just mass hypnotism exercised upon the whole audience-like the rope trick.' 'As you wish, but that explanation does not rob me of my point. If you admit that I can tap an unknown power to make Simon obey my will, and that an Eastern mystic can tap that power to the far greater extent of making a hundred people's eyes deceive them into believing that he is standing on thin air, you admit that there is a power and that it can be tapped in greater degrees according to the knowledge and proficiency of the man who uses it.' 'Yes, within limits.' 'Why within limits? You apparently consider levitation im possible, but wouldn't you have considered wireless impossible if you had been living fifty years ago and somebody had endeavoured to convince you of it?' 'Maybe.' Rex sat forward suddenly. 'But I don't get what you're driving at. Hypnotism is only a demonstration of the power of the human will.' 'Ah! There you have it. The will to good and the will to evil. That is the whole matter in a nutshell. The human will is like a wireless set and properly adjusted-trained that is-it can tune in with the invisible influence which is all about us.' 'The Invisible Influence. I've certainly heard that phrase somewhere before.' 'No doubt. A very eminent mental specialist who holds a high position in our asylums wrote a book with that title and I have not yet asked you to believe one tenth of what he vouches for.' 'Then I wonder they haven't locked him up.' 'Rex! Rex!' De Richleau smiled a little sadly. Try and open your mind, my friend. Do you believe in the miracles performed by Jesus Christ?' 'Yes.' 'And of His Disciples and certain of the Saints?' 'Sure, but they had some special power granted to them from on high.' 'Exactly! Some Special Power. But I suppose you would deny that Gautama Buddha and his disciples performed miracles of a similar nature?' 'Not at all. Most people agree now that Buddha was a sort of Indian Christ, a Holy Man, and no doubt he had some sort of power granted to him too.' The Duke sat back with a heavy sigh. 'At last my friend we seem to be getting somewhere. If you admit that miracles, as you call them although you object to the word magic, have been performed by two men living in different countries hundreds of years apart, and that even their disciples were able to tap a similar power through their holiness, you cannot reasonably deny that other mystics have also performed similar acts in many portions of the globe-and therefore, that there is a power existing outside us which is not peculiar to any religion, but can be utilised if one can get into communication with it,' Rex laughed. That's so, I can't deny it.' 'Thank God! Let's mix ourselves another drink shall we, I need it?' 'Don't move, I'll fix it.' Rex good-naturedly scrambled to his feet. 'All the same,' he added slowly, 'it doesn't follow that because a number of good men have been granted supernatural powers that there is anything in Black Magic.' 'Then you do not believe in Witchcraft?' 'Of course not, nobody does in these days.' 'Really! How long do you think it is since the last trial for Witchcraft took place?' 'I'll say it was all of a hundred and fifty years ago.' 'No, it was in January, 1926, at Melun near Paris.' 'Oh! You're fooling!' Rex exclaimed angrily. 'I'm not,' De Richleau assured him solemnly. The records of the court will prove my statement, so you see you are hardly accurate when you say that nobody believes in Witchcraft in these days, and many many thousands still believe in a personal devil.' 'Yes, simple folk maybe, but not educated people.' 'Possibly not, yet every thinking man must admit that there is still such a thing as the power of Evil.' 'Why?' 'My dear fellow, all qualities have their opposites, like love and hate, pleasure and pain, generosity and avarice. How could we recognise the goodness of Jesus Christ, Lao Tze, Ashoka, Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi, Florence Nightingale and a thousand others if it were not for the evil lives of Herod, Caesar Borgia, Rasputin, Landru, Ivan Kreuger and the rest?' That's true,' Rex admitted slowly. 'Then if an intensive cultivation of good can beget strange powers is there any reason why an intensive cultivation of evil should not beget them also?' 'I think I begin to get what you're driving at.' 'Good! Now listen, Rex.' The Duke leaned forward earnestly. 'And I will try and expound what little I know of the Esoteric Doctrine which has come down to us through the ages. You will have heard of the Persian myth of Ozamund and Ahriman, the eternal powers of Light and Darkness, said to be co-equal and warring without cessation for the good or ill of mankind. All ancient sun and nature worship-festivals of spring and so on, were only an outward expression of that myth, for Light typifies Health and Wisdom, Growth and Life; while Darkness means Disease and Ignorance, Decay and Death. 'In its highest sense Light symbolises the growth of the Spirit towards that perfection in which it can throw off the body and become light itself; but the road to perfection is long and arduous, too much to hope for in one short human life, hence the widespread belief in re-incarnation; that we are born again and again until we begin to despise the pleasures of the flesh. This doctrine is so old that no man can trace its origin, yet it is the inner core of truth common to all religions at their inception. Consider the teaching of Jesus Christ with that in mind and you will be amazed that you have not realised before the true purport of His message. Did He not say that the 'Kingdom of God was within us,' and, when He walked upon the waters declared: 'These things that I do ye shall do also; and greater things than these shall ye do, for I go unto my Father which is in Heaven,' meaning most certainly that He had achieved perfection but that others had the same power within each one of them to do likewise.' De Richleau paused for a moment and then went on more slowly. 'Unfortunately the hours of the night are still equal to the hours of the day, and so the power of Darkness is no less active than when the world was young, and no sooner does a fresh Master appear to reveal the light than ignorance, greed, and lust for power cloud the minds of his followers. The message becomes distorted and the simplicity of the truth submerged and forgotten in the pomp of ceremonies and the meticulous performance of rituals which have lost their meaning. Yet the real truth is never entirely lost, and through the centuries new Masters are continually arising either to proclaim it or, if the time is not propitious, to pass it on in secret to the chosen few. 'Apollonius of Tyana learned it in the East. The so-called Heretics whom we know as the Albigenses preached it in the twelfth century through Southern France until they were exterminated. Christian Rosenkreutz had it in the Middle Ages. It was the innermost secret of the Order of the Templars who were suppressed because of it by the Church of Rome. The Alchemists, too, searched for and practised it. Only the ignorant take literally their struggle to find the Elixir of Life. Behind such phrases, designed to protect them from the persecution of their enemies, they sought Eternal Life, and their efforts to transmute base metals into gold were only symbolical of their transfusion of matter into light. And still to-day while the night life of London goes on about us there are mystics and adepts who are seeking the Eightfold Way to perfection in many corners of the Earth.' 'You really believe that?' asked Rex seriously. 'I do.' De Richleau's answer held no trace of doubt. 'I give you my word Rex, that I have talked with men whose sanity you would never question, an Englishman, an Italian, and a Hindu, all three of whom have been taken by guides sent to fetch them to the hidden valley in the uplands of Tibet, where some of the Lamas have reached such a high degree of enlightenment that they can prolong their lives at will, and perform today all the miracles which you have read of in the Bible. It is there that the sacred fire of truth has been preserved for centuries, safe from the brutal mercenary folly of our modern world.' That sounds a pretty tall story to me, but granted there are mystics who have achieved such amazing powers through their holiness I still don't see where your Black Magic comes in?' 'Let's not talk of Black Magic, which is associated with the preposterous in our day, but of the order of the Left Hand Path. That, too, has its adepts and, just as the Yoga of Tibet are the preservers of the Way of Light, the Way of Darkness is exemplified in the horrible Voodoo cult which had its origin in Madagascar and has held Africa in its grip for centuries, spreading even with the slave trade to the West Indies and your own country.' 'Yes, I know quite a piece about that, the Negroes monkey with it still back home in the Southern States, despite their apparent Christianity. Still I can't think that an educated man like Simon would take serious notice of that Mumbo Jumbo stuff.' 'Not in its crude form perhaps, but others have cultivated the power of Evil, and among whites it is generally the wealthy and intellectual, who are avaricious for greater riches or power, to whom it appeals. In the Paris of Louis XIV, long after the Middle Ages were forgotten, it was still particularly rampant. The poisoner, La Voisin, was proved to have procured over fifteen hundred children for the infamous Abbe Guibourg to sacrifice at Black Masses. He used to cut their throats, drain the blood into a chalice, and then pour it over the naked body of the inquirer who lay stretched upon the altar. I speak of actual history, Rex, and you can read the records of the trial that followed in which two hundred and forty-six men and women were indicted for these hellish practices.' 'Maybe. It sounds ghastly enough but that's a mighty long time ago.' 'Then, if you need more modern evidence of its continuance hidden in our midst there is the well authenticated case of Prince Borghese. He let his Venetian Palazzo on a long lease, expiring as late as 1895. The tenants had not realised that the lease had run out until he notified them of his intention to resume possession. They protested, but Borghese's agents forced an entry. What do you think they found?' 'Lord knows.' Rex shook his head. 'That the principal salon had been redecorated at enormous cost and converted into a Satanic Temple. The walls were hung from ceiling to floor with heavy curtains of silk damask, scarlet and black to exclude the light; at the farther end there stretched a large tapestry upon which was woven a colossal figure of Lucifer dominating the whole. Beneath, an altar had been built and amply furnished with the whole liturgy of Hell; black candles, vessels, rituals, nothing was lacking. Cushioned prie-dieus and luxurious chairs, crimson and gold, were set in order for the assistants, and the chamber lit with electricity fantastically arranged so that it should glare through an enormous human eye.' De Richleau hammered the desk with his clenched fist. 'These are facts I'm giving you Rex-facts, d'you hear, things I can prove by eye-witnesses still living. Despite our electricity, our aeroplanes, our modern scepticism, the power of Darkness is still a living force, worshipped by depraved human beings for their unholy ends in the great cities of Europe and America to this very day.' Rex's face had suddenly paled under its tan. 'And you really think poor Simon has got mixed up in this beastliness?' 'I know it man! Could you have been so intrigued with the girl that you did not notice the rest of that foul crew? The Albino, the man with the hare-lip, the Eurasian who only possessed a left arm. They're Devil Worshippers all of them.' 'Not the girl! Not Tanith!' cried Rex, springing to his feet. 'She must have been drawn into it like Simon.' 'Perhaps, but the final proof lay in that basket. They were about to practise the age-old sacrifice to their infernal master just as your Voodoo-ridden Negroes do. The slaughter of a black cock and a white hen-Yes. What is it?' De Richleau swung round as a soft knock came on the door. 'Excellency.' His man Max stood bowing in the doorway, 'I thought I had better bring this to you.' In his open palm he displayed the jewelled swastika. With one panther-like spring the Duke thrust him aside and bounded from the room. 'Simon,' he shouted as he dashed down the corridor. 'Simon! I command you to stay still.' But when he reached the bedroom the only signs that Simon had ever occupied it were the tumbled bed and his underclothes left scattered on the floor. 4 The Silent House De Richleau strode back into the sitting-room. His grey eyes glittered dangerously but his voice was gentle as he picked the jewelled swastika from his servant's palm. 'How did you come by this Max?' 'I removed it from Mr. Aron's neck Excellency.' 'What!' 'He rang for me Excellency and said that he would like a cup of bouillon and when I returned with it he was sleeping, but so strangely that I was alarmed. His tongue was protruding from between his teeth and his face was nearly black; then I saw that his neck was terribly swollen and that a ribbon was cutting deeply into his flesh. I cut the ribbon, fearing that he would choke-the jewel dropped off, so I brought it straight to you.' 'All right! you may go-and it is unnecessary to wait up- I may be late.' As the door closed the Duke swung round towards Rex. 'Simon must have woken the moment Max's back was turned, pulled on a few clothes, then slipped out of the window and down the fire-escape. 'Sure,' Rex agreed. 'He's well on his way back to St. John's Wood by now.; 'Come on-we'll follow. We've got to save him from those devils somehow. I don't know what they're after but there must be something pretty big and very nasty behind all this. It can't have been easy to involve a man like Simon to the extent they obviously have, and they would never have gone to all that trouble to recruit an ordinary dabbler in the occult. They are after really big stakes of some kind, and they need him as a pawn in their devilish game.' 'Think we can beat him to it?' Rex asked as they ran down the staircase of the block and out into Curzon Street. 'I doubt it-Hi, taxi!' De Richleau waved an arm. 'He can't have more than five minutes' start.' 'Too much in a fifteen minutes' run.' The Duke's voice was grim as they climbed into the cab. 'What d'you figure went amiss?' 'I don't know for certain, but there is no doubt that our poor friend is completely under Mocata's influence-has been for months I expect. In such a case Mocata's power over him would be far stronger than my own which was only exercised, in the hope of protecting him, for the first time tonight. It was because I feared that Mocata might countermand my orders, even from a distance, and compel Simon to return that I placed the symbol of Light round his neck.' 'And when Max took it off Mocata got busy on him eh?' 'I think Mocata was at work before that. He probably witnessed everything that took place in a crystal or through a medium and exerted all his powers to cause Simon's neck to swell the moment he got into bed, hoping to break the ribbon that held the charm.' Rex had not yet quite recovered from the shock of learning that so sane a man as De Richleau could seriously believe in all this gibberish about the Occult. He was very far from being convinced himself, but he refrained from airing his scepticism and instead, as the taxi rattled north through Baker Street, he began to consider the practical side of their expedition. There had been eight men at least in Simon's house when they left it. He glanced towards the Duke. 'Are you carrying a gun?' 'No, and if I were it would be useless.' 'Holy Smoke! You are bats or else I am.' Rex shrugged his broad shoulders and began to wonder if he was not living through some particularly vivid and horrible dream. Soon he would wake perhaps; sweating a little from the nightmare picture which De Richleau had drawn for him of age-old evil, tireless and vigilant, cloaked from the masses by modern scepticism yet still a potent force stalking the dark ways of the night, conjured into new life by strange delvers into ancient secrets for their unhallowed ends; but wake he must, to the bright, clear day and Simon's chuckle-over a tankard of Pim's cup at luncheon-that such fantastic nonsense should centre about him even in a dream. Yet there was Tanith, so strange and wise and beautiful, looking as though she had just stepped out of a painting by some great master of the Italian Renaissance. It was no dream that he had at last actually met and spoken with her that evening at Simon's house, among all those queer people whom the Duke declared so positively to be Satan worshippers; and if she was flesh and blood they must be too. On the north side of Lord's cricket ground, De Richleau stopped the taxi. 'Better walk the rest of the way,' he murmured as he paid off the man. 'Simon's arrived by now and it would be foolish to warn them of our coming.' 'Thought you said Mocata was overlooking us with the evil eye?' Rex replied as they hurried along Circus Road. 'He may be. I can't say, but possibly he thinks we would never dare risk a second visit to the house tonight. If we exercise every precaution we may catch him off his guard. He's just as vulnerable as any other human being except when he is actually employing his special powers.' Side by side they passed through two streets where the low roofs of the old-fashioned houses were only faintly visible above the walls that kept them immune from the eyes of the curious, each set, silent and vaguely mysterious, among its whispering trees; then they entered the narrow, unlit cul-de-sac. Treading carefully now, they covered the two hundred yards to its end and halted, gazing up at the darkened mass of the upper stories which loomed above the high wall. Not a chink of light betrayed that the house was tenanted, although they knew that, apart from the servants, thirteen people had congregated there to perform some strange midnight ceremony little over an hour before. 'Think they've cleared out?' Rex whispered. 'I doubt it.' The Duke stepped forward and tried the narrow door. It was fast locked. 'Can't we call the police in to raid the place?' De Richleau shrugged impatiently. 'What could we charge them with that a modem station-sergeant would understand?' 'Kidnapping! ' Rex urged below his breath, 'If I were back home I'd have the strong arm squad here in under half an hour. Get the whole bunch pinched and gaoled pending trial. They'd be out of the way then for a bit, even if I had to pay up heavy damages afterwards-and meantime we'd pop Simon in a mental home till he got his wits back.' 'Rex! Rex!' The Duke gave a low, delighted chuckle. 'It's an enchanting idea, and if we were in the States I really believe we might pull it off-but here it's impossible.' 'What do you figure to do then?' 'Go in and see if Simon has returned.' 'I'm game, but the odds are pretty heavy.' 'If we're caught we must run for it.' 'O.K., but if we fail to make our get-away they'll call the police and have us gaoled for housebreaking.' 'No-no,' De Richleau muttered. They won't want to draw the attention of the police to then- activities, and the one thing that matters is to get Simon out of here.' 'All right.' Rex placed his hands on his knees, and stooping his great shoulders, leaned his head against the wall. 'Up you go.' The Duke bent towards him. 'Listen!' he whispered. 'Once we're inside we've got to stick together whatever happens. God knows what they've used this house of Simon's for, but the whole place reeks of evil.' 'Oh shucks!' Rex muttered contemptuously. 'I mean it,' De Richleau insisted. 'If you take that attitude I'd rather go in alone. This is the most dangerous business I've ever been up against, and if it wasn't for the thought of Simon nothing on earth would tempt me to go over this wall in the middle of the night.' 'Oh-all right. Have it your own way.' 'You'll obey me implicitly-every word I say?' 'Yes, don't fret yourself ...' 'Good, and remember you are to bolt for it the instant I give the word, because the little knowledge that I possess may only protect us for a very fleeting space of time.' The Duke clambered on to Rex's shoulders and heaved himself up on to the coping. Rex stepped back a few yards and took a flying leap; next second he had scrambled up beside De Richleau. For a moment they both sat astride the wall peering down into the shadows of the garden, then they dropped silently into a flower-border on the other side. 'The first thing is to find a good line of retreat in case we have to get out in a hurry,' breathed the Duke. 'What about this?' Rex whispered back, slapping the trunk of a well-grown laburnum tree. De Richleau nodded silently. One glance assured him that with the aid of the lower branches two springs would bring them to the top of the wall. Then he moved at a quick, stealthy run across a small open space of lawn to the shelter of some bushes that ran round the side of the house. From their new cover Rex surveyed the side windows. No glimmer of light broke the expanse of the rambling old mansion. As the Duke moved on, he followed, until the bushes ended at the entrance of a back yard, evidently giving on to the kitchen quarters. 'Have a care,' he whispered, jerking De Richleau's sleeve. 'They may have a dog.' 'They couldn't,' replied the Duke positively. 'Dogs are simple, friendly creatures but highly psychic. The vibrations in a place where Black Magic was practised would cause any dog to bolt for a certainty.' With light, quick, padding steps he crossed the yard and came 'out into the garden on the far side of the house. Here too every window was shrouded in darkness and an uncanny stillness brooded over the place. 'I don't like it,' whispered De Richleau. 'Simon can't have been back more than a quarter of an hour at the outside-so there ought still to be lights in the upper rooms. Anyhow, it looks at if the others have gone home, which is something- we must chance an ambush.' He pointed to a narrow, ground floor window. 'That's probably the lavatory, and most people forget to close their lavatory windows-come on!' Silently Rex followed him across the grass, then gripping him by the knees, heaved him up until he was well above the level of the sill. The sash creaked, the upper half of the window slid down, and the Duke's head and shoulders disappeared inside. For a moment Rex watched his wriggling legs, heard a bump, followed by a muffled oath, and then clambered up on to the sill. 'Hurt yourself?' he whispered, as De Richleau's face appeared, a pale blot in the darkness. 'Not much-though this sort of thing is not amusing for a man of my age. The door here is unlocked, thank goodness.' Immediately Rex was inside, the Duke squatted down on the floor. Take off your shoes,' he ordered. 'And your socks.' 'Shoes if you like, though we'll hurt our feet if we have to run-but why the socks?' 'Don't argue-we waste time.' 'Well-what now?' Rex muttered after a moment. 'Put your shoes on again and the socks over them-then you can run as fast as you like.' As Rex obeyed the Duke went on in a low voice. 'Not a sound now. I really believe the others have gone, and if Mocata is not lying in wait for us, we may be able to get hold of Simon. If we come up against that black servant, for God's sake remember not to look at his eyes.' With infinite care he opened the door and peered out into the darkened hall. A faint light from an upper window showed the double doors that led to the salon standing wide open. He listened intently for a moment, then slipping out stood aside for Rex to follow, and gently closed the door behind them. Their footsteps, now muffled by the socks, were barely audible as they stole across the stretch of parquet. When they reached the salon De Richleau carefully drew aside a blind. The dim starlight was just sufficient to show the outlines of the gilded furniture, and they could make out plates and glasses left scattered upon the buhl and marquetry tables. Rex picked up a goblet two-thirds full of champagne and held it so that the Duke could see the wine still in it. De Richleau nodded. The Irish Bard, the Albino, the one-armed Eurasian, the hare-lipped man and the rest of that devilish company must have taken fright when he and Rex had forcibly abducted Simon, and fled, abandoning their unholy operations for the night. He gently replaced the blind and they crept back into the hall. One other door opened off it besides those to the servants' quarters and the vestibule. De Richleau slowly turned the knob and pressed. The room was a small library, and at the far end a pair of uncurtained french-windows showed the garden, ghostly and mysterious in the starlight. Leaving Rex by the door, the Duke tiptoed across the room, drew the bolts, opened the windows and propped them wide. >From where he stood he could just make out the laburnum by the wall. A clear retreat was open to them now. He turned, then halted with a sharp intake of breath. Rex had disappeared. 'Rex!' he hissed in a loud whisper, gripped by a sudden nameless fear. 'Rex!' But there was no reply. 5 Embodied Evil De Richleau had been involved in so many strange adventures in his long and chequered career, that instinctively his hand flew to the pocket where he kept his automatic at such times, but it was flat-and in a fraction of time it had come back to him that this was no affair of shootings and escapes, but a grim struggle against the Power of Darkness-in which their only protection must be an utter faith in the ultimate triumph of good, and the use of such little power as he possessed to bring into play the great forces of the Power of Light. In two strides he had reached the door, grabbed the electric switch, and pressed it as he cried in ringing tones: 'Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis!' 'What the hell!' exclaimed Rex as the light flashed on. He was at the far side of the hall, carefully constructing a booby trap of chairs and china in front of the door that led to the servants' quarters. 'You've done it now,' he added, with his eyes riveted upon the upper landing, but nothing stirred and the pall of silence descended upon the place again until they could hear each other's quickened breathing. 'The house is empty,' Rex declared after a moment. 'If there were anyone here they'd have been bound to hear you about. It echoed from the cellars to the attics.' De Richleau was regarding him with an angry stare. 'You madman,' he snapped. 'Don't you understand what we're up against? We must not separate for an instant in this unholy place-even now that the lights are on.' Rex smiled. He had always considered the Duke as the most fearless man he knew, and to see him in such a state of nerves was a revelation. 'I'm not scared of bogeys, but I am of being shot up from behind,' he said simply. 'I was fixing this so we'd hear the servants if there was trouble upstairs and they came up to help Mocata.' 'Yes, but honestly, Rex, it is imperative that we should keep as near each other as possible every second we remain in this ghastly house. It may sound childish, but I ought to have told you before that if anything queer does happen we must actually hold hands. That will quadruple our resistance to evil by attuning our vibrations towards good. Now let's go upstairs and see if they have really gone-though I can hardly doubt it.' Rex followed marvelling. This man who was frightened of shadows and talked of holding hands at a time of danger was so utterly different to the De Richleau that he knew. Yet as he watched the Duke mounting the stairs in swift, panther-like, noiseless strides he felt that since he was so scared this midnight visitation was a fresh demonstration of his courage. On the floor above they made a quick examination of the bedrooms, but all of them were unoccupied and none of the beds had been slept in. 'Mocata must have sent the rest of them away and been waiting here with a car to whisk Simon off immediately he got back,' De Richleau declared as they came out of the last room. 'That's about it, so we may as well clear out.' Rex shivered slightly as he added: 'It's beastly cold up here.' 'I was wondering whether you'd notice that, but we're not going home yet. This is a God-given opportunity to search the house at our leisure. We may discover all sorts of interesting things. Leave all the lights on here, the more the better, and come downstairs.' In the salon the great buffet table still lay spread with the excellent collation which they had seen there on their first visit. The Duke walked over to it and poured himself a glass of wine. 'I see Simon has taken to Cliquot again,' he observed. 'He alternates between that and Bollinger with remarkable consistency, though in certain years I prefer Pol Roger to either when it has a little age on it.' As Rex spooned a slab of Duck & la Montmorency on to a plate, helping himself liberally in the foie gras mousse and cherries, he wondered if De Richleau had really recovered from the extraordinary agitation that he had displayed a quarter of an hour before, or if he was talking so casually to cover his secret apprehensions. He hated to admit it even to himself, but there was something queer about the house, a chill seemed to be spreading up his legs from beneath the heavily-laden table, and the silence was strangely oppressive. Anxious to get on with the business and out of the place now, he said quickly. 'I don't give two hoots what he drinks, but where has Mocata gone-and why?' 'The last question is simple.' De Richleau set down his glass and drew out the case containing the famous Hoyo de Monterrey's. 'There are virtually no laws against the practice of Black Magic in this country now. Only that of 1842, called the Rogues and Vagabonds Act, under which a person may be prosecuted for 'pretending or professing to tell Fortunes, by using any subtle Craft, Means or Device!" But since the practitioners of it are universally evil, the Drug Traffic, Blackmail, Criminal Assault and even Murder are often mixed up with it, and for one of those reasons Mocata, having learnt that we were on our way here through his occult powers, feared a brawl might attract the attention of the police to his activities. Evidently he considered discretion the better part of valour on this occasion and temporarily abandoned the place to us- taking Simon with him.' 'Not very logical-are you?' Rex commented. 'One moment it's you who're scared that he may do all sorts of strange things to us, and the next you tell me that he's bolted for fear of being slogged under the jaw.' 'My dear fellow, I can only theorise. I'm completely in the dark myself. Some of these followers of the Left Hand Path are mere neophytes who can do little more than wish evil in minor matters on people they dislike. Others are adepts and can set in motion the most violent destructive forces which are not yet even suspected by our modern scientists. 'If Mocata only occupies a low place in the hierarchy we can deal with him as we would any other crook with little risk of any serious danger to ourselves, but if he is a Master he may be able to strike us blind or dead. Unfortunately I know little enough of this horrible business, only the minor rituals of the Right Hand Path, or White Magic as people call it, which may protect us hi an emergency. If only I knew more I might be able to find out where he has taken Simon.' 'Cheer up-we'll find him.' Rex laughed as he set down his plate, but the sound echoed eerily through the deserted house, causing him to glance swiftly over his shoulder in the direction of the still darkened inner room. 'What's the next move?' he asked more soberly. 'We've got to try and find Simon's papers. If we can, we may be able to get the real names and addresses of some of those people who were here tonight. Let's try the Library first-bring the bottle with you. I'll take the glasses.' 'What d'you mean-real names?' Rex questioned as he followed De Richleau across the hall. 'Why, you don't suppose that incredible old woman with the parrot beak was really called Madame D'Urfe-do you? That's only a nom-du- Diable, taken when she was re-baptised, and adopted from the Countess of that name, who was a notorious witch in Louis XV's time. All the others are the same. Didn't you realise the meaning of the name your lovely lady calls herself by-Tanith?' 'No.' Rex hesitated. 'I thought she was just a foreigner- that's all.' 'Dear me. Well, Tanith was the Moon Goddess of the Carthaginians. Thousands of years earlier the Egyptians called her Isis, and in the intervening stage she was known to the Phoenicians as the Lady Astoroth. They worshipped her in sacred groves where doves were sacrificed and unmentionable scenes of licentiousness took place. The God Adonis was her lover, and the people wept for his mythical death each year, believing upon him as a Redeemer of Mankind. As they went in processions to her shrines they wrought themselves into the wildest frenzy, and to slake the thwarted passion of the widowed goddess, gashed themselves with knives. Sir George Frazer's Golden Bough will tell you all about it, but the blood that was shed still lives, Rex, and she has been thirsty through these Christian centuries for more. Eleven words of power, each having eleven letters, twice pronounced in a fitting time and place after due preparation, and she would stand before you, terrible in her beauty, demanding a new sacrifice.' Even Rex's gay modernity was not proof against that sinister declaration. De Richleau's voice held no trace of the gentle cynicism which was so characteristic of him, but seemed to ring with the positiveness of some horrible secret truth. He shuddered slightly as the Duke began to pull open the drawers of Simon's desk. All except one, which was locked, held letter files, and a brief examination of these showed that they contained nothing but accounts, receipts, and correspondence of a normal nature. Rex forced the remaining drawer with a heavy steel paper knife, but it only held cheque book counterfoils and bundles of dividend warrants, so they turned their attention to the long shelves of books. It was possible that Simon might have concealed certain private papers behind his treasured collection of modern first editions, but after ten minutes' careful search they assured themselves that nothing of interest was hidden at the back of the neat rows of volumes. Having drawn a blank in the library, they proceeded to the other downstairs rooms, going systematically through every drawer and cabinet, but without result. Then they moved upstairs and tried the bedrooms, yet here again they could discover nothing which might not have been found in any normal house, nor was there any safe in which important documents might have been placed. During the search De Richleau kept Rex constantly beside him, and Rex was not altogether sorry. Little by little the atmosphere of the place was getting him down, and more than once he had the unpleasant sensation that somebody was watching him covertly from behind, although he told himself that it was pure imagination, due entirely to De Richleau's evident belief in the supernatural, of which they had been talking all the evening. 'These people must, have left traces of their doings in this house somewhere," declared the Duke angrily as they came out of the last bedroom on to the landing, 'and I'm determined to find them.' 'We haven't done the Observatory yet, and I'd say that's the most likely spot of all,' Rex suggested. 'Yes-let's do that next.' De Richleau turned towards the upper flight of stairs. The great domed room was just as they had left it a few hours before. The big telescope pointing in the same direction, the astrolabes and sextants still in the same places. The five-pointed pentacle enclosed in the double circle with its Cabalistic figures stood out white and clear on the polished floor in the glare of the electric lights. Evidently no ceremony had taken place after their departure. To verify his impression the Duke threw up the lid of the wicker hamper that stood beside the wall. A scraping sound came from the basket, and he nodded. 'See Rex! The Black Cock and the White Hen destined for sacrifice, but we spoilt their game for tonight at all events. We'll take them down and free them in the garden when we go.' 'What did they really mean to do-d'you think?' Rex asked gravely. 'Utilise the conjunction of certain stars which occurred at Simon's birth, and again tonight, to work some invocation through him. To raise some dark familiar perhaps, an elemental or an earthbound spirit-or even some terrible intelligence from what we know as Hell, in order to obtain certain information they require from it.' 'Oh, nuts!' Rex exclaimed impatiently. 'I don't believe such things. Simon's been got hold of by a gang of blackmailing kidnappers and hypnotised if you like. They've probably used this Black Magic stuff to impose on him just as it imposes on you-but in every other way it's sheer, preposterous nonsense.' 'I only hope that you may continue to think so, Rex, but I fear you may have reason to alter your views before we're through. Let's continue our search-shall we?' 'Fine-though I've a hunch it's a pity we didn't call hi the cops at the beginning.' They examined the instruments, but all of them were beyond suspicion of any secret purpose, and then a square revolving bookcase, but it held only trigonometry tables and charts of the heavens, 'Damn it, there must be something hi this place!' De Richleau muttered, 'Swords or cups or devils' bibles. They couldn't perform their rituals without them.' 'Maybe they took their impedimenta with them when they quit.' 'Perhaps, but I'd like even to see the place in which they kept it. You never know what they may have left behind. Try tapping all round the walls, Rex, and I'll do the floor. There's almost certain to be a secret cache somewhere.' For some minutes they pursued their search in silence, only their repeated knockings breaking the stillness of the empty house. Then Rex gave a sudden joyful shout. 'Here, quick-it's hollow under here!' Together they pulled aside an early seventeenth-century chart of the Macrocosm by Robert Fludd, and after fumbling for a moment found the secret spring. The panel slid back with a click. In the recess some four feet deep reposed a strange collection of articles: a wand of hazelwood, a crystal set in gold, a torch with a pointed end so that it could be stuck upright in the ground, candle- sticks, a short sword, two great books, a dagger with a blade curved like a sickle moon, a ring, a chalice and an old bronze lamp, formed out of twisted human figures, which had nine wicks. All had pentacles, planetary signs, and other strange symbols engraved upon them, and each had the polish which is a sign of great age coupled with frequent usage. 'Got them!' snapped the Duke. 'By Jove, I'm glad we stayed, Rex! These things are incredibly rare, and each a power in itself through association with past mysteries. It is a thousand to one against their having others, and without them their claws will be clipped from working any serious evil against us.' As he spoke De Richleau Lifted out the two ancient volumes. One had a binding of worked copper on which were chased designs and characters. Its leaves, which were made from the bark of young trees, were covered with very clear writing done with an iron point. The text of the other was painted on vellum yellowed by time, and its binding supported by great scrolled silver clasps. 'Wonderful copies,' the Duke murmured, with all the enthusiasm of a bibliophile. 'The Clavicule of Solomon and The Grimoire of Pope Honorius. They are not the muddled recast versions of the seventeenth century either, but far, far older. This Clavicule on cork may be of almost any age, and is to the Black Art what the Codex Sinaiticus and such early versions are to Christianity.' 'Well, maybe Mocata didn't figure we'd stay to search this place when we found Simon wasn't here, but it doesn't say much for all his clairvoyant powers you make such a song about for him to let us get away with his whole magician's box of tricks. Say! where's that draught coming from?' Rex suddenly clapped a hand on the back of his neck. The Duke thrust the two books back and swung round as if he had been stung. He had felt it at the same instant-a sudden chill wind which increased to a rushing icy blast, so cold that it stung his hands and face like burning fire. The electric lights flickered and went dim, so that only the faint red glow of the wires showed in the globes. The great room was plunged in shadow and a violet mist began to rise out of the middle of the pentacle, swirling with incredible rapidity like some dust devil of the desert., It gathered height and bulk, spread and took form. The lights flickered again and then went out, but the violet mist had a queer phosphorescent glow of its own. By it they could see the cabalistic bookcase, like a dark shadow beyond it, through the luminous mist. An awful stench of decay, which yet had something sweet and cloying about it, filled their nostrils as they gazed, sick and almost retching with repulsion, at a grey face that was taking shape about seven feet from the floor. The eyes were fixed upon them, malicious and intent? The eyeballs whitened but the face went dark. Under it the mist was gathering into shoulders, torso, hips. Before they could choke for breath the materialisation had completed. Clad in flowing robes of white, Mocata's black servant towered above them. His astral body was just as the Duke had seen it in the flesh, from tip to toe a full six foot eight, and the eyes, slanting inward, burned upon them like live coals of fire. 6 The Secret Art Rex was not frightened in the ordinary meaning of the word. He was past the state in which he could have ducked, or screamed, or run. He stood there rigid, numbered by the icy chill that radiated from the figure in the pentagram, a tiny pulse throbbed in his forehead, and his knees seemed to grow weak beneath him. A clear, silvery voice beat in his ears: 'Do not look at his eyes!-do not look at his eyes I-do not look at his eyes!'-an urgent repetition of De Richleau's warning to him, but try as he would, he could not drag his gaze from the malignant yellow pupils which burned in the black face. Unable to stir, hand or foot, he watched the ab-human figure grow in breadth and height, its white draperies billowing with a strange silent motion as they rose from the violet mist that obscured the feet, until it overflowed the circles that ringed the pentagram and seemed to fill the lofty chamber like a veritable Djin. The room reeked with the sickly, cloying stench which he had heard of but never thought to know-the abominable affluvium of embodied evil. Suddenly red rays began to glint from the baleful slanting eyes, and Rex found himself quivering from head to foot. He tried desperately to pray: 'Our Father which art in Heaven- hallowed-hallowed-hallowed . . .' but the words which he had not used for so long would not come; the vibrations, surging through his body, as though he were holding the terminals of a powerful electric battery, seemed to cut them off. His left knee began to jerk. His foot lifted. He strove to raise his arms to cover his face, but they remained fixed to his sides as though held by invisible steel bands. He tried to cry out, to throw himself backwards, but, despite every atom of will which he could muster, a relentless force was drawing him towards the silent, menacing figure. Almost before he realised it he had taken a pace forward. Through that timeless interval of seconds, days or weeks, after the violet mist first appeared, De Richleau stood within a foot of Rex, his eyes riveted upon the ground. He would not even allow himself to ascertain in what form the apparition had taken shape. The sudden deathly cold, the flicker of the lights as the room was plunged in darkness, the noisome odour, were enough to tell him that an entity of supreme evil was abroad. With racing thoughts, he cursed his foolhardiness in ever entering the accursed house without doing all things proper for their protection. It was so many years since he had had any dealings with the occult that his acute anxiety for Simon had caused him to minimise the appalling risk they would run. What folly could have possessed him, he wondered miserably, to allow Rex, whose ignorance and scepticism would make him doubly vulnerable, to accompany him. Despite his advancing age, the Duke would have given five precious years of his life for an assurance that Rex was staring at the parquet floor, momentarily riveted by fear perhaps, yet still free from the malevolent influence which was streaming in pulsing waves from the circle; but Rex was not-instinctively De Richleau knew that his eyes were fixed on the Thing-and a ghastly dread caused little beads of icy perspiration to break out on his forehead. Then he felt, rather than saw, Rex move. Next second he heard his footfall and knew that he was walking towards the pentagram. With trembling lips he began to mutter strange sentences of Persian, Greek and Hebrew, dimly remembered from his studies of the past-calling-calling-urgently- imperatively, upon the Power of Light for guidance and protection. Almost instantly the memory that he had slipped the jewelled swastika into his waistcoat pocket when Max returned it, flashed into his mind-and he knew that his prayer was answered. His fingers closed on the jewel. His arms shot out. It glittered for a second in the violet light, then came to rest in the centre of the circle. A piercing scream, desperate with anger, fear, and pain, like that of a beast seared with a white-hot iron, blasted the silence. The lights flickered again so that the wires showed red-came on-went out-and flickered once more, as though two mighty forces were struggling for possession of the current. The chill wind died so suddenly that it seemed as if a blanket of warm air had descended on their faces-but even while that hideous screech was still ringing through the chamber De Richleau grabbed Rex by the arm and dragged him towards the door. Next second the control of both had snapped and they were plunging down the stairs with an utter recklessness born of sheer terror. Rex slipped on the lower landing and sprawled down the last flight on his back. The Duke came bounding after, six stairs at a time, and fell beside him. Together they scrambled to their feet-dashed through the library-out of the french-windows-an