Ages.'
  'As they still do,' De Richleau answered soberly,
  'What-in these days?'
  'Yes. Don't you remember the case of Helene Poirier who died  only
in  1914. She suffered from such terrible demoniacal possession that
many  of  the  most learned priests in France, including Monsiegneur
Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, and Monsieur Mallet, Superior  of  the
Grand  Seminary, had to be called in before, with God's  grace,  she
could be freed from the evil spirit which controlled her.'
  'I  didn't think the Church admitted the existence of such  things
as witchcraft and black magic.'
  'Then  you  are  very  ignorant, my friend.  I  do  not  know  the
official  views  of  others, but the Roman Church,  whose  authority
comes  unbroken over nineteen centuries from the time when Our  Lord
made  St.  Peter  his  viceregent on earth, has  ever  admitted  the
existence  of  the evil power. Why else should they have  issued  so
many ordinances against it, or at the present time so unhesitatingly
condemn all spiritualistic practices which they regard as the modern
counterparts of necromancy, by which Hell's emissaries seek to  lure
weak, foolish and trusting people into their net?'
  'I  can't  agree  to  that,' Rex demurred. 'I  know  a  number  of
Spiritualists, men and women of the utmost rectitude.'
  'Perhaps.' De Richleau was arranging Simon's limp body.  They  are
entitled  to their opinion and he who thinks rightly lives  rightly.
No  doubt their high principles act as a protective barrier  between
them  and  the more dangerous entities of the spirit world. However,
for  the  weak-minded  and mentally frail such  practices  hold  the
gravest peril. Look at that Bavarian family of eleven people, all of
whom  went out of their minds after a Spiritualistic seance in 1921.
The  case  was fully reported by the Press at the time and  I  could
give  you  a  dozen similar examples, all attributable  to  Diabolic
possession, of course. In fact, according to the Roman Church, there
is  no  phenomenon of modem Spiritism which cannot be paralleled  in
the records of old witch trials.'
  'According to them, maybe, but Simon's not a Catholic.'
  'No  matter,  there is nothing to prevent a member  of  the  Roman
Church  asking  Divine aid for any man whatever his race  or  creed.
Fortunately I was baptised a Catholic and, although I may not  be  a
good  one,  I  believe that with the grace of  God,  power  will  be
granted to me this night to help our poor friend.
  'Kneel  down  now and pray silently, for all prayers are  good  if
the heart is earnest and perhaps those of the Church of England more
efficacious than others since we are now in the English countryside.
It  is  for  that reason I recite certain psalms from  the  book  of
Common Prayer. But be ready to hold him if he leaps up for, if he is
possessed, the Demon within him will fight like a maniac.'
  De  Richleau took up the holy water and sprinkled a few  drops  on
Simon's  forehead.  They remained there a moment and  then  trickled
slowly  down  his drawn, furrowed face. But he remained  corpse-like
and still.
  'May the Lord be praised,' murmured the Duke.
  'What is it?' breathed Rex.
  'He  is  not  actually possessed. If he were the holy water  would
have  scalded him like boiling oil, and at its touch the Demon would
have screamed like a hell cat.'
  'What now then?'
  'He  still reeks of evil so I must employ the banishing ritual  to
purge the atmosphere about him and do all things possible to protect
him from Mocata's influence. Then we will see if this coma shows any
signs of lifting.'
  The  Duke  produced  a  crutch of Rowan  wood  then  proceeded  to
certain  curious  and  complicated  rites;  consisting  largely   in
stroking Simon's limbs with a brushing motion towards the feet;  the
repetition of many Latin formulas with long intervals in which,  led
by the Duke, the two men knelt to pray beside their friend.
  Simon  was anointed with holy water and with holy oil. The gesture
of Horus was made to the north, to the south, to the east and to the
west.  The  palms of his hands were sprinkled and the soles  of  his
feet. Asafoetida grass was tied round his wrists and his ankles.  An
orb with the cross upon it was placed in his right hand, and a phial
of  quicksilver between his lips. A chain of garlic flowers was hung
about  his  neck,  and the sacred oil placed in  a  cross  upon  his
forehead. Each action upon him was preceded by prayer, concentration
of  thought,  and invocation to the archangels, the high  beings  of
Light, and to his own higher consciousness.
  At  last,  after an hour, all had been accomplished in  accordance
with  the ancient lore and De Richleau examined Simon again. He  was
warmer now and the ugly lines of distress and terror had faded  from
his  face.  He  seemed to have passed out of his dead faint  into  a
natural sleep and was breathing regularly.
  'I  think  that with God's help we have saved him,'  declared  the
Duke.  'He  looks almost normal now, but we had best wait  until  he
wakes  of  his own accord; I can do no more, so we will rest  for  a
little.'
  Rex  passed  his  hand across his eyes as De  Richleau  sank  down
beside  him.  'I'll  say I need it. Would  it  be  .  .  .  er  .  .
sacrilegious or anything if I had a smoke?'
  'Of  course not.' De Richleau drew out his cigars. 'Have  a  Hoyo.
It is thoughts, not formalities, which make an atmosphere of good or
evil.'
  For  a  little  while the two friends sat silent,  the  points  of
their  cigars glowing faintly in the darkness until a pale  greyness
in  the  eastern sky made clearer the ghostly outlines of the  great
oblong stones towering at varying angles to twenty feet about  their
heads.
  'What  a  strange place this is,' Rex murmured. 'How  old  do  you
suppose it to be?'
  'About four thousand years.'
  'As old as that, eh?'
  'Yes,  but  that is young compared with the Pyramids  and,  beside
them,  for  architecture and scientific alignment, this thing  is  a
primitive toy.'
  'Those  ancient Britons must have been a whole heap cleverer  than
we  give them credit for all the same, to get these great blocks  of
stone  set  up.  It  would  tax  all the  resources  of  our  modern
engineers, I reckon. Some of them must weigh a hundred tons apiece.'
  De  Richleau  nodded.  'Only the piety of  many  thousand  willing
hands,  hauling on skin ropes, and manipulating vast  levers,  could
have  accomplished it, but what is even more remarkable is that  the
foreign  stones  were transported from a quarry nearly  two  hundred
miles from here.'
  'What do you mean by "foreign stones"?'
  The  stones which form the inner ring and the inner horseshoe  are
called so because they were brought from a great distance-a place in
Pembrokeshire, I think.'
  'Horseshoe,' Rex repeated with a puzzled look. 'I thought all  the
stones were placed in rings.'
  'It  is  hardly discernible in the ruins now, but originally  this
great temple consisted of an outer ring formed of big arches, then a
concentric  circle  of  smaller uprights. Inside  that,  five  great
separate  trilithons  of  arches, two of which  you  can  see  still
standing,  set in the form of a horseshoe and then another horseshoe
of the smaller stones,'
  The Druids used the horseshoe, too, then?'
  'Certainly.  As  I  have  told you, it is  a  most  potent  symbol
indissolubly connected with the Power of Light. Hence my use  of  it
in connection with the swastika and the cross.'
  They  fell  silent again for some time, then Simon stirred  beside
them  and they both stood up. He slowly turned over and looked about
him  with duil eyes until he recognised his friends, and asked in  a
stifled voice where he was.
  Without  answering,  De Richleau drew him  down  between  Rex  and
himself  on  to  his  knees, and proceeded to give  thanks  for  his
restoration.  'Repeat after me,' he said, 'the words of  the  fifty-
first Psalm.
  '  "Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness: according
to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences.
  Wash  me  thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse  me  from  my
sin,
  For I  acknowledge my faults and my sin is ever before me." '
  To  the  end of the beautiful penitent appeal the Duke read  in  a
solemn voice from the Prayer Book by the aid of a little torch while
the  others repeated verse by verse after him. Then all three  stood
up and began at last to talk in their normal voices.
  De  Richleau  explained what had taken place, and Simon  sat  upon
the altar-stone weeping like a child as now, with a clear brain,  he
began  at  last  to  understand the terrible peril  from  which  his
friends had rescued him.
  He  remembered  the party which had been given at  his  house  and
that   the   Duke  had  hypnotised  him  in  Curzon  Street.   After
that-nothing, until he found himself present in the Sabbat which had
been held that night, and even then he could only see vague pictures
of  it, as though he had not participated in it himself, but watched
the  whole of the ghastly proceedings from a distance; horrified  to
the  last  degree to see a figure that seemed to be  himself  taking
part  in  those  abominable  ceremonies, yet  mentally  chained  and
powerless to intervene or stop that body, so curiously like his own,
participating in that godless scene of debauchery.
  Dawn  was  now breaking in the eastern sky. as De Richleau  placed
his  arm affectionately round Simon's shoulders. 'Don't take  it  to
heart  so, my friend,' he said kindly. 'For the moment at least  you
have been spared, and praise be to God you are still sane, which  is
more than I dared to hope for when we got you here.'
  Simon  nodded. 'I know-I've been lucky,' he said soberly. 'But  am
I  really free-for good? I'm afraid Mocata will try and get me  back
somehow.'
  'Now  we're  together again you needn't worry,' Rex  grinned.  'If
the  three of us can't fight this horror and win out we're  not  the
men I always thought we were.'
  'Yes,'  Simon  agreed, a little doubtfully. 'But  the  trouble  is
that I was born at a time when certain stars were in conjunction, so
in  a  way  I'm the key to a ritual which Mocata's set his heart  on
performing.'
  The invocation to Saturn coupled with Mars,' the Duke put in.
  'I'm  scared he'll exercise every incantation in the book to  drag
me back to him despite myself,'
  'Isn't  that  danger  over? Surely it should have  been  done  two
nights ago, but we managed to prevent it then.'
  'Ner,' Simon used his favourite negative with a little wriggle  of
his bird-like head. 'That would have been the most suitable time  of
all,  but the ritual can be performed with a reasonable prospect  of
success any night while the two planets remain in the same house  of
the Zodiac.'
  'Then  the  longer we can keep you out of Mocata's  clutches,  the
less  chance  he  stands of pulling it off as the  two  planets  get
farther apart,' Rex commented.
  De  Richleau sighed. His face looked grey and haggard in the early
morning  light. 'In that case,' he said slowly, 'Mocata  will  exert
his  whole strength when twilight comes again, and we shall have  to
fight with our backs to the wall throughout this coming night.'


                                 20

                          The Four Horsemen

  Now  that the sun was up Rex's resilient spirit reasserted itself.
'Time  enough to worry about tonight when we are through today,'  he
declared  cheerfully. 'What we need most just  now  is  a  good  hot
breakfast.'
  The  Duke  smiled. 'I thoroughly agree, and in any case  we  can't
stay  here much longer. While we feed we'll discuss the safest place
to which we can take Simon.'
  'We  can't take him anywhere at the moment,' Rex grinned. 'Not  as
he  is-with  only  the  car  rug and your great-coat  to  cover  his
birthday suit.'
  Simon  tittered into his hand. It was the gesture which  both  his
friends  knew so well, and which it delighted them to see again.  'I
must  look pretty comic as I am,' he chuckled. 'And it's chilly too.
One of you had better try and raise me a suit of clothes.'
  'You  take  the  car, Rex,' said the Duke, 'and drive  into  Ames-
bury. Knock up the first clothes dealer you can find and buy him  an
outfit. Have you enough money?'
  'Plenty. I was going down to Derby yesterday for the first  Spring
Race  Meeting if this business hadn't cropped up overnight.  So  I'd
drawn fifty the day before.'
  'Good,'  the  Duke  nodded. 'We shan't move from  here  until  you
return.'  Then, as Rex strode away across the grass to the  Hispano,
which  was  now visible where they had left it in the  car-park,  he
turned to Simon:
  'Tell  me,'  he  said, 'while Rex is gone. How did  you  ever  get
drawn into this terrible business?'
  Simon  smiled. 'Well,' he said hesitantly, 'it may  seem  a  queer
thing to say, but you are partly responsible yourself.'
  'I!' exclaimed the Duke. 'What the deuce do you mean?'
  'I'm  not  blaming  you,  of course, in  the  least,  but  do  you
remember  that long chat we had when we were both down at  Cardinals
Folly  for  Christmas? It started by your telling us about  the  old
Alchemists and how they used to make gold out of base metals.'
  De  Richleau  nodded. 'Yes, and you threw doubt upon my  statement
that  the feat had actually been performed. I cited the case of  the
scientist  Helvetius, I remember, who was bitterly  opposed  to  the
pretentions of the Alchemists, but who, when he was visited  by  one
at  the Hague in December, 1666, managed to secrete a little of  the
reddish  powder which the man showed him under his finger-nail,  and
afterwards succeeded in transmuting a small amount of lead into gold
with  it. But you would not believe me, although I assured you, that
no less a person than Sponoza verified the experiment at the time.'
  'That's   right,'   said  Simon.  'Well,  I  was   sceptical   but
interested, so I took the trouble to check up as far as possible  on
all you'd said. It was Spinoza's testimony that impressed
  me because he was so very sane and unbiased.'
  'So was Helvetius himself for that matter.'
  'I  know.  Anyhow,  I  dug up the fact that  Povelius,  the  chief
tester of the Dutch Mint, assayed the metal seven times with all the
leading  goldsmiths at the Hague and they unanimously pronounced  it
to  be  pure gold. Of course there was a possibility that  Helvetius
deceived  them  by submitting a piece of gold obtained  through  the
ordinary  channels, but it hardly seemed likely  that  he  practised
deliberate  fraud, because he had no motive. He had always  declared
his  disbelief in alchemy and he couldn't make any more  because  he
hadn't  got  the powder -so there was no question of his  trying  to
float a bogus company on the experiment. He couldn't even claim  any
scientific kudos from it either because he frankly admitted that  he
had  stolen the powder from the stranger who showed it to him. After
that  I  went  into  the  experiment of Berigord  de  Pisa  and  Van
Helmont.'
  'And  what did you think of those?' asked the Duke, his lined face
showing quick interest in the early morning light.
  'They  shook  my  unbelief  a lot. Van Helmont  was  the  greatest
chemist  of his time, and like Helvetius, he'd always said the  idea
of  transmitting  base metals into gold was sheer nonsense  until  a
stranger gave him a little of that mysterious powder with which  he,
too,  performed  the experiment successfully; and he  again  had  no
personal axe to grind,'
  'There  are  plenty  of other cases as well,' remarked  the  Duke;
'Raymond Lully made gold for King Edward III of England, and  George
Ripley  gave ?100,000 of alchemical gold to the Knights  of  Rhodes.
The  Emperor Augustus of Saxony left 17,000,000 Rix dollars and Pope
John  XXII of Avignon 25,000,000 florins, sums which were positively
gigantic  for  those days. Both were poor men with slender  revenues
which could not have accounted in a hundred years for such fortunes.
But  both  were  alchemists, and transmutation is the only  possible
explanation of the almost fabulous treasure which was actually found
in their coffers after their deaths.'
  Simon  nodded. 'I know. And if one rejects the sworn  evidence  of
men  like Spinoza and Van Helmont, why should one believe the people
who  say  they  can  measure  the distance  to  the  stars,  or  the
scientists of the last century who produced electrical phenomena?'
  The  difference  is that the mass mind will not accept  scientific
truths  unless they can be demonstrated freely and harnessed to  the
public  good.  Everyone  accepts the miracle  that  sulphur  can  be
converted  into fire because they see it happen twenty times  a  day
and we all carry a box of matches in our pockets, but if it had been
kept  as  a jealously guarded secret by a small number of initiates,
the  public would still regard it as impossible. And that, you  see,
is precisely the position of the alchemist.
  'He  stands  apart  from the world and is indifferent  to  it.  To
succeed  in the Great Work he must be absolutely pure, and  to  such
men  gold is dross. In most cases he makes only sufficient to supply
his  modest needs and refuses to pass on his secret to the  profane;
but  that does not necessarily mean that he is a fraud and  a  liar.
The  theory  that  all  matter is composed of atoms,  molecules  and
electrons in varying states is generally accepted now. Milk  can  be
made  as hard as concrete by the new scientific process, glass  into
women's  dresses,  wood and human flesh decay into  a  very  similar
dust,  iron  turns to rust, and crystals are known to grow  although
they are a type of stone. Even diamonds can be made synthetically.'
  'Of  course,'  Simon agreed, with his old eagerness,  so  absorbed
now  in  the  discussion  as  to  be  apparently  oblivious  of  his
surroundings.  'And  as far as metals are concerned,  they  are  all
composed of sulphur and mercury and can be condensed or materialised
by  means  of  a salt. Only the varying proportions of  those  three
Principals account for the difference between them. Metals  are  the
fruits  of  mineral  nature, and the baser  ones  are  still  unripe
because the sulphur and mercury had no time to combine in the  right
proportions   before   they  solidified.   This   powder,   or   the
Philosophers' Stone as they call it, is a ferment that forces on the
original process of Nature and ripens the base metals into gold.'
  'That  is  so.  But  do you mean to tell me  that  you  have  been
experimenting yourself?'
  'Ner,' Simon shook his narrow head. 'I soon found out that  to  do
so  would  mean a lifetime of restheticism and then perhaps  failure
after  all.  It  is hardly in my line to become a "Puffer."  Besides
it's  obvious that transmutation in its higher sense is the  supreme
mystery of turning Matter into Light. Metals are like men, the baser
corresponding   to   the  once  born,  and  both  gradually   become
purified-metals   by  geological  upheavals-   men   by   successive
reincarnations,  and  the  part piayed by  the  secret  agent  which
hurries lead to gold is the counterpart of esoteric initiation which
lifts the spirit towards light.'
  'Was that your aim then?'
  To  some  extent.  You  know how one thing  leads  to  another.  I
discovered that the whole business is bound up with the Quabalah so,
being  a  Jew,  I  began to study the esoteric doctrine  of  my  own
people.'
  De  Richleau nodded. 'And very interesting you found it.  I  don't
doubt.'
  'Yes,  it  took  a bit of getting into, but after  I'd  tackled  a
certain amount of the profane literature to get a grounding, I  read
the Sepher Ha Zoher, the Sepher Jetyirah and some of the Midraschim.
Then I began to see a Little daylight.'
  'In  fact  you began to believe, lake most people who have  really
read  considerably  and  had a wide experience  of  life,  that  our
western  scientists have only been advancing in  one  direction  and
that  we have even lost the knowledge of many things with which  the
wise men of ancient times were well acquainted.'
  'That's  so,'  Simon smiled again. 'I've always  been  a  complete
sceptic. But once I began to burrow beneath the surface I found such
a  mass  of  evidence that I could no longer doubt the existence  of
strange hidden forces which can be chained and untilised if one only
knows the way.'
  'Yes.  And  plenty  of people still interest themselves  in  these
questions  and use the Quabalah to promote their own well-being  and
the general good. But where does Mocata come into all this?'
  Simon  shuddered slightly at the name and drew the  car  rug  more
closely about his shoulders. 'I met him in Paris,' he said, 'at  the
house of a French banker with whom I've sometimes done business.'
  'Castelnau!' exclaimed the Duke. 'The man with the jagged  ear.  I
knew  last night that I had seen that ear somewhere before, but  for
the life of me I couldn't recall where.'
  Simon  nodded quickly. That's right-Castelnau. Well, I met  Mocata
at  his  place,  and  I  don't quite know how it  started,  but  the
conversation  drifted  round to the Quabalah  and,  as  I  had  been
soaking  myself in it at the time, I was naturally in- terested.  He
said  he had a lot of books upon it and suggested that I might  like
to  visit  the  house where he was staying and have a  look  through
them.  Of  course I did. Then he told me that he was  conducting  an
experiment  in Magic the following night, and asked if I would  care
to be present.'
  'I see. That's how the trouble started.'
  'Yes.  The experiment was quite a harmless affair. He made certain
ritual  conjurations with the four elements, Fire,  Air,  Water  and
Earth,  then told me to look into a mirror with him. It was  an  old
Venetian  piece,  a  bit  spotted at the back  but  otherwise  quite
ordinary  you  know. As I watched, it clouded over with  a  sort  of
mist, then when it cleared again I could no longer see my reflection
in  it, but a sheet of newspaper instead. It was the financial  page
of  Le  Temps  giving all the quotations of the Paris Bourse,  which
sounds  pretty prosaic I suppose, but the queer part  is  that  this
issue was dated three days ahead.'
  De  Richleau  stroked his lean face with his slender  fingers.  'I
saw  a  similar demonstration in Cairo once,' he commented  gravely.
'But on that occasion it was the name of the new Commander-in-Chief,
who  had  only  been  appointed by the War  Office  in  London  that
afternoon, which appeared in the mirror. You took a note of some  of
the Bourse quotations I suppose?'
  'Urn.  The list wasn't visible for more than ten seconds then  the
mirror  clouded  over again and went back to its normal  state,  but
that  was  quite  long enough for me to memorise the  stocks  I  was
interested in, and when I checked up afterwards they were right to a
fraction.'
  'What happened then?'
  'Mocata  offered to instruct me in the attainment of the knowledge
and  conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel as the first step on the
road to obtaining similar powers myself.'
  'My  poor Simon!' The Duke made an unhappy grimace. 'You  are  not
the  first to be trapped by a Brother of the Left Hand Path  who  is
recruiting for the Devil by such a promise. If you had known more of
Magic you would have realised that it is proper to pass through  the
six stages of Probationer, Neophyte, Zelator, Practicus, Philosophus
and  Dominus Liminis before, as an Adeptus Inferior after many years
of  study and experience, you would be qualified to take the risk of
attempting  to  pass the Abyss. Besides, there are no precise  rules
for  attaining the knowledge and conversation of one's Holy Guardian
Angel. It is a thing which each man must work out for himself and no
other can help one to it. Mocata invoked your Evil Angel, of course,
to  act  a  blasphemous impersonation while your Holy Guardian  wept
impotent tears to see the terrible danger into which you were  being
drawn.'
  'I  suppose so, although, of course, I couldn't know that  at  the
time. Anyhow, I had to go back to London a few days later, and I was
so  impressed  by  that  time that I asked Mocata  to  let  me  know
directly he arrived, because he spoke of coming over. He turned up a
fortnight later and rang me up at once to urge me to unload a lot of
stock  that he knew I was carrying. I had faith in it myself but  in
view  of what I'd seen in his mirror I took his tip and saved myself
quite a packet, because the market broke almost immediately after.'
  'Was  that  when you asked him to go and live with you?'  inquired
the Duke.
  'Yes.  I  suggested that he should stay with me while  he  was  in
London  because  he had no suitable place in which to  practise  his
evocations at his hotel. He moved over to St. John's Wood  then  and
after that we used to sit up together in the observatory pretty well
every night. That's why I saw so little of you during that time. But
the results were extraordinary-utterly amazing.'
  'He  gave  you  more  information which  governed  your  financial
transactions, I suppose.'
  'Yes,  but more than that. He foretold the whole of the Stravinsky
scandal.  I'm  not  a poor man as you know, but  if  I  hadn't  been
forewarned about that, it would have darn nearly broken  me.  As  it
was,  I  cleared every single share in the dud companies before  the
storm broke and got out with an immense profit.'
  'By that time you had begun to dabble in Black Magic I imagine?'
  Simon's  dark  eyes flickered away from the Duke's for  a  moment,
then he nodded. 'Just a bit. He asked me to recite the Lord's Prayer
backwards  one night, and I was a bit unhappy about it  but  .  .  .
well, I did. He said that since I wasn't a Christian anyhow no  harm
could come to me from it.'
  'It is horribly potent all the same,' the Duke commented.
  'Perhaps,'   agreed   Simon   miserably.   'But   Mocata  is    so
devilish  glib and according to him there is no such thing as  Black
Magic anyhow. The harnessing of supernatural powers to one's will is
just Magic-neither black nor white, and that's all there is to it.'
  'Tell me about this man.'
  'Oh,  he's about fifty, I suppose, bald-headed, with curious light
blue eyes and a paunch that would rival Dorn Goren-fiot's.'
  'I  know,'  agreed the Duke impatiently. 'I've  seen  him.  But  I
meant his personality, not his appearance.'
  'Of  course, I forgot,' Simon apologised. 'You know for weeks  now
I hardly know what I've been doing. It's almost as though I had been
dreaming   the   whole   time.  But  about  Mocata:   he   possesses
extraordinary  force of character, and he can be the  most  charming
person when he likes. He's clever of course-amazingly so, and  seems
to  have  read  pretty well every book that one can think  of.  It's
extraordinary, too, what a fascination he can exercise over women. I
know half a dozen who are simply "bats" about him.'
  'What can you tell me of his history?'
  'Not  much, I'm afraid. His Christian name is Damien and he  is  a
Frenchman by nationality, but his mother was Irish. He was  educated
for  the  Church. In fact, he actually took Orders, but finding  the
life of a priest did not suit him, he chucked it up.'
  De  Richleau  nodded. 'I thought as much. Only an ordained  priest
can practise the Black Mass, and since he is so powerful an adept of
the  Left  Hand Path, it was pretty certain that he was  a  renegade
priest  of  the Roman Church. But what more can you tell  me?  Every
scrap  of  information  which you have may help  us  in  our  fight,
because you must remember, Simon, that you have only achieved a very
temporary  security. The battle will begin again when  he  exercises
his dominance over you to call you back.'
  Simon  shifted  his  position  on  the  stones  and  then  replied
thoughtfully. 'He does the most lovely needlework, petit  point  and
that  sort  of  thing you know, and he's terribly  fastidious  about
keeping his plump little hands scrupulously clean. As a companion he
is  delightful  to  be with except that he will smother  himself  in
expensive perfumes and is as greedy as a schoolboy about sweets.  He
had  huge boxes of fondants, crystallised fruits, and marzipan  sent
over from Paris twice a week when he was at St. John's Wood.
  'Ordinarily   he  was  perfectly  normal  and  his  manners   were
charming, but now and again he used to get irritable fits. They came
on  about once a month and after he had been boiling up for  twenty-
four  hours, he use to clear out for a couple of days and nights.  I
don't know where he used to go to at those times, but I ran into him
one  morning  early, when he had just returned  from  one  of  these
bouts,  and  he was in a shocking state: filthy dirty, a  two  days'
growth  of  beard on his chin, his clothes all torn  and  absolutely
stinking  of drink. It looked to me as if he hadn't been to  bed  at
all  the  whole  time  but  had  been wallowing  in  every  sort  of
debauchery down in the slums of the East End.
  'He  is  quite  an  exceptional hypnotist, of  course,  and  keeps
himself  in touch with what is going on in Paris, Berlin,  New  York
and a dozen other places by throwing various women, who used to come
and  visit  him  regularly, into a trance. One of them  was  a  girl
called Tanith, a perfectly lovely creature. You may have seen her at
the  party, and he says she is by far the best medium he's ever had.
He  can  use her almost like a telephone and plug in right  away  to
whatever  he wants to know about. Whereas with the others there  are
very often hitches and delays.'
  'You let him hypnotise you, too, of course?'
  'Yes, hi order to get these financial results.'
  'I  thought  as  much,' De Richleau nodded.  'And  after  you  had
allowed  him to do it willingly for some little time he was able  to
block out your own mentality entirely and govern your every thought.
That's why you've failed to realise what's been going on. It is just
as though he'd been keeping you drugged the whole time.'
  'Um,'  Simon  agreed  miserably. 'It makes me positively  sick  to
think  of it, but I suppose he has been gradually preparing  me  for
this  Ritual to Saturn which he meant to perform two nights ago  and
...'  He broke off suddenly as Rex appeared between two of the great
monoliths.
  Grinning  from ear to ear, Rex displayed his purchases  for  their
inspection. A pair of grey flannel shorts, a khaki shirt, black  and
white check worsted stockings, a gaudy tie of revolting magenta hue,
a  pair  of  waders, a cricket cap quartered in alternate triangular
sections  of  orange and mauve, and a short, dark  blue  bicyclist's
cape.
  'Only things I could get,' he volunteered cheerfully. 'The
  people  who run the local Co-op don't live on the premises,  so  I
had to knock up a sports outfitter.'
  De  Richleau  sat  back  and  roared  with  laughter  while  Simon
fingered the queer assortment of garments doubtfully. 'You're joking
Rex,'  he protested with a sheepish grin. 'I can't return to  London
in this get-up.'
  'We're  not  going  to  London,'  the  Duke  announced.  'But   to
Cardinals Folly.'
  'What-to  Marie Lou's?' Rex looked at him sharply.  'How  did  you
come to get that idea ...'
  'Something that Simon said just after you left us.'
  Simon  shook his head jerkily. 'I don't like it-not a little  bit.
I'd never forgive myself if I brought danger into their home.'
  'You  will  do  as  you're told my friend,'  De  Richleau's  voice
brooked  no  further argument. 'Richard and Marie Lou are  the  most
mentally  healthy couple that I know. The atmosphere of  their  sane
and  happy household will be the very best protection we could  find
for  you  and all of us are certain of a warm welcome. No harm  will
come to them if we exercise reasonable precautions, and the help  of
their  right-thinking minds will give us the extra strength we need.
Besides,  they are about the only people to whom we can explain  the
whole  situation without being taken for madmen. Now  hurry  up  and
array yourself like the champion of next year's Olympic games.'
  With a shrug of his narrow shoulders Simon disappeared behind  the
stones while Rex added: 'That's right. I ordered ham and eggs to  be
got  ready  at the local inn and I'm mighty anxious to start  in  on
them.'
  'Eggs  and fruit,' cut in the Duke, 'but no ham for any of us.  It
is  essential that we should avoid meat for the moment. If we are to
retain our astral strength our physical bodies must undergo a  semi-
fast at least.'
  Rex  groaned.  'Why, oh, why dear Simon, did you ever  go  hunting
Talisman  and  let your friends in for this? When I went  to  Russia
after the Shulimoff jewels and you came to get me out of trouble, at
least  it  didn't  prevent your feeding decently when  you  had  the
chance.'
  'That  reminds  me,' De Richleau threw over his  shoulder  in  the
direction where Simon was struggling into his queer garments.  'What
is this Talisman? Rex mentioned it last night.'
  'It's  the  reason why Mocata is certain to make every  effort  to
get  possession of me again,' Simon's voice came back. 'It is buried
somewhere, and adepts of the Left Hand Path have been seeking it for
centuries. It conveys almost limitless powers upon its possessor and
Mocata  has discovered that its whereabouts will be revealed  if  he
can  practise  the ritual to Saturn in conjunction  with  Mars  with
someone  who  was  born  in  a certain  year  at  the  hour  of  the
conjunction. There can't be many such, but for my sins I  happen  to
be  one,  and even if he can find others they might not be  suitable
for various reasons.'
  'Yes, I realise that. But what is the Talisman?'
  'I  don't  really know. Except for conducting my business  on  the
lines  suggested  by  Mocata,  I  don't  think  my  brain  has  been
functioning  at  all  in the last two months. But  it's  called  the
Talisman of Set.'
  'What!'  The Duke sprang to his feet as Simon appeared grotesquely
attired  in  his incongruous new clothes, his long knees  protruding
beneath the shorts, the absurd cricket cap set at a rakish angle  on
his head, and the cycling cloak flapping about his shoulders.
  Rex  dissolved  into tears of laughter, but the Duke's  grim  face
quickly sobered his mirth.
  'The Talisman of Set,' De Richleau repeated almost in a whisper.
  'Yes, it has something to do with four horsemen I think- but  what
on earth's the matter?' Simon's big mouth fell open in dismay at the
sight of the Duke's horror-stricken eyes.
  'It  has indeed! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,' De Richleau
grated  out.  'War,  Plague, Famine and  Death.  We  all  know  what
happened  the last time those four terrible entities were  unleashed
to cloud the brains of statesmen and rulers.'
  'You're referring to the Great War I take it.' Rex said soberly.
  'Of  course, and every adept knows that it started because one  of
the  most terrible Satanists who ever lived found one of the  secret
gateways through which to release the four horsemen.'
  'I  thought the Germans got a bit above themselves,' Rex hazarded,
'although it seems that lots of other folks were pretty well as much
to blame.'
  'You fool!' De Richleau suddenly swung upon him. 'Germany did  not
make  the  War. It came out of Russia. It was Russia who  instigated
the murder at Sarajevo, Russia who backed Serbia to resist Austria's
demands,  Russia who mobilised first and Russia who invaded Germany.
The  monk  Rasputin was the Evil genius behind it all.  He  was  the
greatest  Black Magician that the world has known for centuries.  It
was  he who found one of the gateways through which to let forth the
four horsemen that they might wallow in blood and destruction-and  I
know  the Talisman of Set to be another. Europe is ripe now for  any
trouble and if they are loosened again, it will be final Armageddon.
This  is no longer a personal matter of protecting Simon. We've  got
to  kill  Mocata before he can secure the Talisman and  prevent  his
plunging the world into another war.'


                                 21

                           Cardinals Folly

  Richard Eaton read the telegram a second time:
  'Eat  no lunch this vitally important Simon ill Rex and I bringing
him  down to you this afternoon Marie Lou must stop eating too  kiss
Fleur love all.-De Richleau,'
  He  passed one hand over the smooth brown hair which grew from his
broad forehead in an attractive widow's peak, and handed the wire to
his wife with a puzzled smile.
  'This is from the Duke. Do you think he has gone crazy- or what?'
  'What, darling,' said Marie Lou promptly. 'Definitely what. If  he
stood on his handsome head in Piccadilly and the whole world told me
he  was  crazy  I should still maintain that dear old  Greyeyes  was
quite sane.'
  'But  really,' Richard protested. 'No lunch-and you told  me  that
the  shrimps from Morecambe Bay came in this morning. I was  looking
forward ...'
  'My  sweet!' Marie Lou gave a delicious gurgle of laughter as  she
flung one arm round his neck and drew him down on to the sofa beside
her. 'What a glutton you are. You simply live for your tummy.'
  He nuzzled his head against her thick chestnut curls. 'I don't.  I
eat only in order to maintain sufficient strength to deal with you.'
  'Liar,'  she pushed him away suddenly. 'There must be some  reason
for  this  extraordinary wire, and poor Simon ill tool What  can  it
mean?'
  'God  knows! Anyhow it seems that virtuous and upright wife orders
preparations  of rooms for guests while miserable worm husband  goes
down  into dark, dirty cellar to select liquid sustenance for same.'
Richard paused for a moment. A wicked little smile hovered round his
lips  as he looked at Marie Lou curled up on the sofa with her  slim
legs  tucked  under her like a very lovely Persian kitten,  then  he
added  thoughtfully: 'I think tonight perhaps we might give  them  a
Little of the Chateau Lafite '99.'
  'Don't  you  dare,' she cried, springing to her  feet.  'You  know
that it's my favourit.,'
  'Got  you-got  you,'  chanted Richard merrily.  'Who's  a  glutton
now?'
  'You  beast,' she pouted deliciously, and for the thousandth  time
since he had brought her out of Russia her husband felt himself go a
little  giddy  as his eyes rested on the perfection  of  her  heart-
shaped face, the delicately flushed cheeks and the heavy-lidded blue
eyes, With a sudden movement, he jerked her to him and swinging  her
off her feet, picked her up in his arms.
  'Richard-put  me down-stop.' Her slightly husky voice  rose  to  a
higher note in a breathless gasp of protest.
  'Not until you kiss me.'
  'All right.'
  He  let her slide down to her feet, and although he was not a tall
man,  she was so diminutive that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach
her arms round his neck.
  'There,'  she  declared,  a  trifle  breathlessly,  after  he  had
crushed her soft lips under his. 'Now go and play with your bottles,
but  spare the Lafite, beloved. That's our own special wine, and you
mustn't  even give it to our dearest friends- unless it's for  Simon
and he's really ill.
  'I  won't,' he promised. 'But whatever I give them, we  shall  all
be  tight  if  we're not to be allowed to eat anything.  I  wish  to
goodness I knew what De Richleau is driving at.'
  'Something  it is worth our while to take notice of,  you  may  be
certain. Greyeyes never does anything without a purpose. He's a wily
old fox if ever there was one in this world.'
  'Yes-wily's  the  word,' Richard agreed. 'But it's  nearly  lunch-
time  now,  and I'm hungry. Surely we're not going to  take  serious
notice of this absurd telegram?'
  'Richard!' Marie Lou had curled herself up on the sofa again.  But
now she sat forward suddenly, almost closing her big eyes with their
long curved lashes. 'I do think we ought to do as he says, but I was
looking round the strawberry house this morning.'
  'Oh  were you!' He suppressed a smile. 'And picking a few  just'to
see how they were getting on, I don't mind betting.'
  'Three,'   she   answered   gravely.  'And   they   are   ripening
beautifully.  Now if we took a little cream and a little  sugar,  it
wouldn't  be  cheating really to go and have another  look  at  them
instead of having lunch-would it?'
  'No,'  said  Richard with equal gravity. 'But we have  an  ancient
custom  in  England  when  a girl takes a  man  to  pick  the  first
strawberries,'
  'But,  darling, you have so many ancient customs and  they  nearly
always end in kissing.'
  'Do you dislike them on that account?'
  'No.'  She  smiled, extending a small, strong  hand  by  which  he
pulled  her to her feet. 'I think that is one of the reasons  why  I
enjoy so much having become an Englishwoman.'
  They   left  Marie  Lou's  comfortable  little  sitting-room  and,
pausing  for  a moment for her to pull on a pair of gum-boots  which
came  almost  up  to her knees while Richard gave orders  cancelling
their luncheon, went out into the garden through the great octagonal
Library.
  The  house  was a rambling old mansion, parts of which dated  back
to  the thirteenth century, and the Library, being one of the oldest
portions of it, was sunk into the ground so that they had to  go  up
half  a  dozen steps from its french windows on to the long  terrace
which ran the whole length of the
  southern side of the house.
  A  grey  stone balustrade patched with moss and lichens  separated
the  terrace from the garden, and from the former two sets of  steps
led  down  to  a  broad, velvety lawn. An ancient cedar  graced  the
greensward  towards the east end of the mansion  where  the  kitchen
quarters  lay, hiding the roofs of the glass-houses and  the  walled
garden with its espaliered peach and nectarine trees.
  At  the  bottom  of  the lawn tall yew hedges shut  in  the  outer
circle  of  the  maze,  beyond which lay the  rose  garden  and  the
swimming-pool. To the right, just visible from the library  windows,
a  gravel walk separated the lawn from a gently sloping bank, called
the  Botticelli Garden. It was so named because in spring it had all
the  beauty of the Italian master's paintings. Dwarf trees of apple,
plum,  and cherry, standing no more than six feet high and separated
by  ten yards or more from each other, stood covered with white  and
pink  blossom  while, rising from the grass up  the  shelving  bank,
clumps  of polyanthus, pheasant's-eye narcissus, forget-me-nots  and
daffodils were planted one to the square yard.
  This  spring  garden was in full bloom now and the effect  of  the
bright  colours  against the delicate green of the young  grass  was
almost incredibly lovely. To walk up and down that two hundred  yard
stretch  of  green starred by its rnany-hued clumps of flowers  with
Richard  beside her was, Marie Lou thought -sometimes with a  little
feeling  of  anxiety that her present happiness  was  too  great  to
last-as  near  to Heaven as she would ever get. Yet she  spent  even
more time in the long walk that lay beyond it, for that was her own,
in  which  the  head  gardener was never allowed  to  interfere.  It
consisted of two glorious herbaceous borders rising to steep  hedges
on  either side, and ending at an old sun-dial beyond which lay  the
pond  garden,  modelled  from  that at  Hampton  Court,  sinking  in
rectangular  stages to a pool where, later in the year,  blue  lotus
flowers and white water-lilies floated serenely in the sunshine.
  As  they  came  out  on  to the terrace,  there  were  shrieks  of
'Mummy-Mummy,'  and a diminutive copy of Marie  Lou,  dressed  in  a
Russian  peasant  costume with wide puffed sleeves  of  lawn  and  a
slashed  vest  of  colourful embroidery  threaded  with  gold,  came
hurtling across the grass. Her mother and father went down the steps
of  the  terrace  to  meet  her, and as she  arrived  like  a  small
whirlwind Richard swung her up shoulder high in his arms.
  'What  is  it  Fleur  d'amour?' he asked, with simulated  concern,
calling her by the nick-name that he had invented for her. 'Have you
crashed  the scooter again or is it that Nanny's been a wicked  girl
today?'
  'No-no,' the child cried, her blue eyes, seeming enormous in  that
tiny face, opened wide with concern. 'Jim's hurted his-self.'
  'Has  he?'  Richard  put her down. 'Poor Jim. We  must  see  about
this.
  'He's  hurted  bad,'  Fleur went on, tugging  impulsively  at  her
mother's skirt. 'He's cutted hisself on his magic sword.'
  'Dear  me,' Marie Lou ran her ringers through Fleur's dark  curls.
She  knew  that by 'magic sword' Fleur meant the gardener's  scythe,
for Richard always insisted that the lawn at Cardinals Folly was too
old  and  too fine to be ruined by a mowing machine, and  maintained
the  ancient practice of having it scythe-cut. 'Where is he now,  my
sweet?'
  'Nanny  binded  him up and I helped a lot. Then he went  wound  to
the kitchen.'
  'And  you  weren't  frightened of the blood?' Richard  asked  with
interest.
  Fleur  shook her curly head. 'No. Fleur's not to be frightened  of
anyfink, Mummy says. Why would I be frightened of theblug?'
  'Silly  people are sometimes,' her father replied. 'But not people
who know things like Mummy and you and I.'
  At  that moment Fleur's nurse joined them. She had heard the  last
part of the conversation. 'It's nothing serious, madam,' she assured
Marie Lou. 'Jim was sharpening his scythe and the hone slipped,  but
he only cut his finger.'
  'But fink if he can't work,' Fleur interjected in a high treble.
  'Why?' asked her father gravely.
  'He's poor,' announced the child after a solemn interval for  deep
thought. 'He-has-to-work-to-keep-his-children. So if he can't  work,
he'll be in a muddle-won't he?'
  Richard   and   Marie Lou exchanged a  smiling glance  as  Simon's
expression  for  any sort of trouble came so glibly to  the  child's
lips.
  'Yes,  that's a serious matter,' her father agreed gravely.  'What
are we going to do about it?'
  'We mus' all give him somefink,' Fleur announced breathlessly.
  'Well, say I give him half-a-crown,' Richard suggested. 'How  much
do you think you can afford?'
  Til give half-a-cwown too.' Fleur was nothing if not generous.
  'But have you got it, Batuskha?' inquired her mother?
  Fleur  thought  for  a bit, and then said doubtfully:  'P'r'aps  I
haven't. So I'll give him a ha'-penny instead.'
  'That's splendid, darling, and I'll contribute a shilling,'  Marie
Lou  declared.  That  makes three shillings and  sixpence  halfpenny
altogether, doesn't it?'
  'But  Nanny  must give somefink,' declared Fleur suddenly  turning
on  her  nurse, who smiling said that she thought she  could  manage
fourpence.
  'There,' laughed Richard. 'Three and tenpence halfpenny! He'll  be
a  rich  man  for life, won't he? Now you had better  toddle  in  to
lunch.'
  This  domestic crisis having been satisfactorily settled,  Richard
and  Marie Lou strolled along beneath the balustraded terrace,  past
the  low branches of the old cedar, and so to the hot-houses.  Their
butler, Malin, had just arrived with sugar and fresh cream, and  for
half an hour they made a merry meal of the early strawberries.
  They  had  hardly finished when, to their surprise, since  it  was
barely two o'clock, Malin returned to announce the arrival of  their
guests. So they hurried back to the house.
  'There  they are,' cried Marie Lou as the three friends  came  out
from  the tall windows of the drawing-room on to the terrace.  'But,
darling, look at Simon-they have gone mad.'
  Well  might  the Batons think so from Simon's grotesque appearance
in  shorts,  cycling cape and the absurd mauve and orange cricketing
cap.  Hurried greetings were soon exchanged and the whole party went
back into the drawing-room.
  'Greyeyes,  darling,' Marie Lou exclaimed as she stood  on  tiptoe
again to kiss De Richleau's lean cheek. 'We had your telegram and we
are  dying  to know what it's all about. Have our servants conspired
to poison us or what?'
  'What,' smiled De Richleau. 'Definitely what, Princess. We have  a
very  strange story to tell you, and I was most anxious  you  should
avoid eating any meat for today at all events.'
  Richard moved towards the bell. 'Well, we're not debarred  from  a
glass of your favourite sherry, I trust.'
  The  Duke held up a restraining hand. 'I'm afraid we are. None  of
us must touch alcohol under any circumstances at present.'
  'Good  God!' Richard exclaimed. 'You don't mean that-  you  can't.
You have gone crazy!'
  'I do,' the Duke assured him with a smile. 'Quite seriously.'
  'We're  in  a muddle-a nasty muddle,' Simon added with  a  twisted
grin.
  'So  it appears,' Richard laughed, a trifle uneasily. He was quite
staggered  by  the  strange appearance of  his  friends,  the  tense
electric atmosphere which they had brought into the house with them,
and  the  unnatural way in which they stood about-speaking  only  in
short jerky, sentences.
  He  glanced  at  Rex,  usually so full of gaiety,  standing  huge,
gloomy and silent near the door, then he turned suddenly back to the
Duke and demanded: 'What is Simon doing in that absurd get-up? If it
was  the  right season for it I should imagine that he was competing
for the fool's prize at the Three Arts' Ball.'
  'I   can  quite  understand  your  amazement,'  the  Duke  replied
quietly,  'but  the  truth  is that Simon has  been  very  seriously
bewitched.'
  'It  is  obvious that something's happened to him,' agreed Richard
curtly. 'But don't you think it would be better to stop fooling  and
tell us just what all this nonsense is about?'
  'I  mean  it,' the Duke insisted. 'He was sufficiently ill advised
to  start dabbling in Black Magic a few months ago, and it's only by
the mercy of Providence that Rex and I were enabled to step in at  a
critical juncture with some hope of arresting the evil effects.'
  Richard's  brown  eyes held the Duke's grey ones  steadily.  'Look
here,'  he  said,  'I  am  far too fond  of  you  ever  to  be  rude
intentionally, but hasn't this joke gone far enough? To  talk  about
magic in the twentieth century is absurd.'
  'All  right. Call it natural science then.' De Richleau  leaned  a
little  wearily against the mantelpiece. 'Magic is only a  name  for
the sciences of causing change to occur in conformity with will.'
  'Or  by setting natural laws in action quite inadvertently,' added
Marie Lou, to everyone's surprise.
  'Certainly,'  the  Duke agreed after a moment,  'and  Richard  has
practised that type of magic himself.'
  'What on earth are you talking about?' Richard exclaimed.
  De  Richleau shrugged. 'Didn't you tell me that you got a  Diviner
down  from London when you were so terribly short of water here last
summer, and that when you took his hazel twig from him you found out
quite by accident that you could locate an underground spring in the
garden without his help?'
  'Yes,'  Richard hesitated. That's true, and as a matter  of  fact,
I've been successful in finding places where people could sink wells
on  several estates in the neighbourhood since. But surely that  has
something to do with electricity? It's not magic.'
  'If you were to say vibrations, you would be nearer the mark,'  De
Richleau replied seriously. 'It is an attunement of certain  little-
understood  vibrations  between  the  water  under  the  ground  and
something  in  yourself which makes the forked hazel  twig  suddenly
begin  to jump and revolve in your hands when you walk over a hidden
spring.  That is undoubtedly a demonstration of the lesser  kind  of
magic.'
  'The  miracle of Moses striking the rock in the desert from  which
the  waters gushed forth is only another example of the same thing,'
Simon cut in.
  Marie  Lou  was  watching  the Duke's face  with  grave  interest.
'Everyone knows there is such a thing as magic,' she declared,  'and
witchcraft. During those years that I lived in a little  village  on
the  borders  of the Siberian Forest I saw many strange things,  and
the  peasants went in fear and trembling of one old woman who  lived
in  a cottage ail alone outside the village. But what do you mean by
lesser magic?'
  'There  are two kinds,' De Richleau informed her. 'The  lesser  is
performing certain operations which you believe will bring  about  a
certain  result without knowing why it should be so. If you chalk  a
line on the floor and take an ordinary hen, hold its beak down for a
little  time on to the line and then release it, the hen will remain
there  motionless  with  its  head  bent  down  to  the  floor.  The
assumption  is that, being such a stupid creature, it believes  that
it  has  been tied down to the line and it is therefore  useless  to
endeavour to escape. But nobody knows for certain. All we do know is
that  it  happens. That is a fair example of an operation  in  minor
magic.  The great majority of the lesser witches and wizards in  the
part  had  no  conception  as to why their spells  worked,  but  had
learned  from  their  predecessors that if they  performed  a  given
operation a certain result was almost sure to follow it.'
  Rex  looked  up  suddenly and spoke for the first time.  'I'd  say
they were pretty expert at playing on the belief of the credulous by
peddling  a  sort  of  inverted Christian  Science,  faith  healing,
Coueism and all that as well.'
  'Of  course,' De Richleau smiled faintly. 'But they were  far  too
clever  to  tell  a  customer straight out that if  he  concentrated
sufficiently on his objective he would probably achieve it- even  if
they  realised  that  themselves. Instead,  they  followed  the  old
formulas which compelled him to develop his will power. If a man  is
in  love  with a girl and is told that he will get her if  he  rises
from  his  bed  at seven minutes past two every night for  a  month,
gathers  half  a dozen flowers from a new-made grave  in  the  local
churchyard and places them in a spot where the girl will  walk  over
them  the  following day, he does not get much chance to slacken  in
his desire and we all know that persistence can often work wonders.'
  'Perhaps,' Richard agreed with mild cynicism. 'But would you  have
us  believe that Simon is seeking the favour of a lady by  wandering
about in this lunatic get-up?'
  'No,  there  is also the greater magic which is only practised  by
learned  students  of  the  Art  who  go  through  long  courses  of
preparation  and  initiation, after which they understand  not  only
that certain apparently inexplicable results are brought about by  a
given  series of actions, but the actual reason why this  should  be
so. Such people are powerful and dangerous in the extreme, and it is
into the hands of one of these that our poor friend has fallen.'
  Richard  nodded,  realising at last that the  Duke  was  perfectly
serious  in his statement. 'This seems a most extraordinary affair,'
he  commented.  'I think you'd better start from the  beginning  and
give us the whole story.'
  'All  right.  Let's sit down. If you doubt any of  the  statements
that I am about to make, Rex will guarantee the facts and vouch  for
my sanity.'
  'I certainly will,' Rex agreed with a sombre smile.
  De  Richleau then told the Batons all that had taken place in  the
last  forty-eight  hours,  and asked quite  solemnly  if  they  were
prepared to receive Simon, Rex and himself under their roof in spite
of the fact that it might involve some risk to themselves.
  'Of  course,' Marie Lou said at once. 'We would not dream of  your
going away. You must stay just as long as you like and until you are
quite certain that Simon is absolutely out of danger.'
  Richard,  sceptical  still, but devoted to  his  friends  whatever
their  apparent  folly, nodded his agreement as he  slipped  an  arm
through  his  wife's.  'Certainly you  must  stay.  And,'  he  added
generously  without the shadow of a smile, 'tell us exactly  how  we
can help you best.'
  'It's  awfully  decent  of  you,' Simon hazarded  with  a  ghostly
flicker of his old wide-mouthed grin. 'But I'll never forgive myself
if any harm comes to you from it.'
  'Don't let's have that all over again,' Rex begged. 'We argued  it
long  enough in the car on the way here, and De Rich-leau's  assured
you  time and again that no harm will come to Richard and Marie  Lou
providing we take reasonable precautions.'
  'That  is so,' the Duke nodded. 'And your help will be invaluable.
You  see, Simon's resistance is practically nill owing to his having
been  under Mocata's influence for so long, and Rex and I are  at  a
pretty  low  ebb  after last night. We need every atom  of  vitality
which  we  can  get to protect him, and your coming fresh  into  the
battle should turn the scale in our favour. What we should have done
if  you  had thrown us out I can't think, because I know of  no  one
else who wouldn't have considered us all to be raving lunatics.'
  Richard laughed. 'My dear fellow, how can you even suggest such  a
thing? You would still be welcome here if you'd committed murder.'
  !I  may have to before long,' De Richleau commented soberly.  'The
risk  to  myself  is a bagatelle compared to the horrors  which  may
overwhelm the world if Mocata succeeds in getting possession of  the
Talisman-but I won't involve you in that of course.'
  This  Sabbat you saw ...' Richard hazarded after a moment.  'Don't
think  I'm  doubting your account of it, but isn't it just  possible
that  your  eyes  deceived you in the darkness?  I  mean  about  the
Satanic  part.  Everyone  knows that Sabbats  took  place  all  over
England  in  the  sixteenth and seventeenth  centuries.  But  it  is
generally accepted now that they were only an excuse for a bit of  a
blind and a sexual orgy. Country people had no motor bikes and buses
to take them in to local cinemas then, and the Church frowned on all
but the mildest forms of amusement, so the bad hats of the community
used  to  sneak off to some quiet spot every now and again  to  give
their repressed complexes an airing. Are you sure that it was not  a
revival  of  that  sort  of  thing staged  by  a  group  of  wealthy
decadents?'
  'Not  on  your  life,'  Rex declared with a sudden  shiver.  'I've
never  been scared all that bad before and, believe you me,  it  was
the real business.'
  'What  do  you wish us to do, Greyeyes dear?' Marie Lou asked  the
Duke.
  He  hoisted  himself slowly out of the chair  into  which  he  had
sunk.  'I must drive to Oxford. An old Catholic priest whom  I  know
lives  there  and I am going to try and persuade him to  entrust  me
with  a  portion of the Blessed Host. If he will, that is  the  most
perfect  of  all  protections which we could have to  keep  with  us
through  the night. In the meantime, I want the rest of you to  look
after  Simon.'  He smiled affectionately in Simon's direction.  'You
must  forgive me treating you like a child for the moment,  my  dear
boy, but I don't want the others to let you out of their sight until
I return.'
  'That's  all right,' Simon agreed cheerfully. 'But are you certain
that I'm not-er-carrying harmful things about with me still?'
  'Absolutely. The purification ceremonies which I practised on  you
last night have banished all traces of the evil. Our business now is
to  keep you free of it and get on Mocata's trail as quickly  as  we
can.'
  'Then  I  think I'll rest for a bit.' Simon glanced at Richard  as
he  followed the Duke towards the door. The nap we had at the  hotel
in  Amesbury after breakfast wasn't long enough to put me  right-and
afterwards perhaps you could lend me a decent suit of clothes?'
  'Of  course,' Richard smiled, 'Let's see Greyeyes off,  then  I'll
make you comfortable upstairs.'
  The  whole party filed into the hall and, crowding about  the  low
nail-studded  oaken door, watched De Richleau, who  promised  to  be
back  before dark, drive off. Then Richard, taking Simon by the arm,
led  him  up the broad Jacobean stairway, while Marie Lou turned  to
Rex.
  'What  do  you  really think of all this?' she asked gravely,  the
usual  merriment  of her deep blue eyes clouded by a  foreboding  of
coming trouble.
  He  stared  down at her upturned heart-shaped face from his  great
height  and  answered soberly. 'We've struck a gateway of  Hell  all
right,  my  dear, and I'm just worried out of my wits.  De  Richleau
didn't  give  you  the  whole story. There's a  girl  in  this  that
I'm-well-that I'm crazy about.'
  'Rex!'  Marie  Lou  laid her small strong hand on  his  arm.  'How
awful for you. Come into my room and tell me everything.'
  He  followed  her to her sitting-room and for half an hour  poured
into her sympathetic ears the strange tale of his three glimpses  of
Tanith  at  different times abroad, and then his unexpected  meeting
with  her  at Simon's party. Afterwards he related with more  detail
than the Duke had done their terrible experiences on Salisbury Plain
and was just beginning his anxious speculation as to what could have
happened to Tanith when Malin, the butler, softly opened the door.
  'Someone is asking for you on the telephone, Mr. Van Ryn, sir.'
  'For  me!'  Rex  stood  up and, excusing  himself  to  Marie  Lou,
hurried  out,  wondering who in the world it could be since  no  one
knew  his  whereabouts. He was soon enlightened.  A  lilting  voice,
which  had  a  strong resemblance to that of Marlene Dietrich,  came
over the wire as he placed the receiver to his ear.
  'Is  that you, Rex? Oh, I am so glad I have found you. I must  see
you at once-quickly-without a moment's delay.'
  'Tanith!'  he  exclaimed. 'How did you tumble to  it  that  I  was
here?'
  'Oh,  never mind that! I will tell you when I see you. But  hurry,
please.'
  'Where are you then?'
  'At  the  village inn, no more than a mile from you.  Do  come  at
once. It is very urgent.'
  For a second Rex hesitated, but only for a second. Simon would  be
safe enough in the care of Richard and Marie Lou, and Tanith's voice
had  all the urgency and agitation of extreme fear. Anxiety for  her
had  been gnawing at his heart ever since he had heard of her  crash
the  previous  evening.  He knew that he  loved  her  now-loved  her
desperately.
  'All  right,'  he  answered, his voice shaking a  little.  Til  be
right over.'
  Running  back across the hall, he explained breathlessly to  Marie
Lou what had happened.
  'You  must  go  of course,' she said evenly. 'But you'll  be  back
before nightfall won't you, Rex?'
  'Sure.' All his animation seemed suddenly to have returned to  him
as,  with  a  quick grin, he hurried out, snatched up his  hat  and,
leaving  the house, set off at a long easy loping trot by the  short
cut across the meadows to the village.
  Unnoticed  by  him, a short figure entered the drive  just  as  he
disappeared  beyond the boundary of the garden. A few moments  later
the  newcomer was in conversation with Malin. The butler  knew  that
his  master was upstairs sitting with his friend Mr. Aron while  the
latter rested, and had given orders that he was not to be disturbed,
so leaving the visitor in the hall he crossed to Marie Lou's sitting-
room.
  'There  is a gentleman to see you, madam,' he announced quietly.'A
Mr. Mocata.'


                                 22

                            The Satanist

  For  a  moment Marie Lou hesitated, her eyes round with  surprise,
staring at the butler. In the last hour she had heard so much  about
this strange and terrifying visitor, but it had not occurred to  her
for  one  instant that she might be called upon to face him  in  the
flesh so soon.
  Her  first impulse was to send upstairs for Richard, but like many
people   who   possess  extremely  small  bodies,  her   brain   was
exceptionally quick. Rex and the Duke were both absent, and, if  she
sent  for Richard, Simon would be left alone-the one thing  that  De
Richleau  had  been  so insistent should not be allowed  to  happen.
True,   she  and  Richard  would  have  the  principal  enemy  under
observation themselves, but he had allies. It flashed upon her  that
this  girl Tanith was one perhaps and had purposely decoyed Rex away
to  the inn. Mocata might have others already waiting to lure  Simon
out  of  the  house  while  they were busy talking  to  him.  Almost
instantly her mind was made up. Richard must not leave Simon, so she
would have to interview Mocata on her own.
  'Show him in,' she told the butler evenly. 'But if I ring you  are
to come at once-immediately, you understand?'
  'Certainly, madam.' Malin softly withdrew, while Marie Lou  seated
herself  in  an armchair with her back to the light and within  easy
reach of the bell-push.
  Mocata  was  shown  in,  and she studied  him  curiously.  He  was
dressed  in  a suit of grey tweeds and wore a black stock  tie.  His
head,  large, bald and shiny, reminded her of an enormous  egg,  and
the  several  folds  of  his heavy chin protruded  above  his  stiff
collar.
  'I  do  hope you'll forgive me, Mrs. Eaton,' he began in  a  voice
that  was  musical  and charming, 'for calling on  you  without  any
invitation. But you may perhaps have heard my name.'
  She  nodded  slightly, carefully ignoring the hand which  he  half
extended as she motioned him to the armchair on the opposite side of
the  fireplace.  Marie Lou knew nothing of Esoteric  Doctrines,  but
quite enough from the peasants' superstitions which had been rife in
the  little  village where she had lived, an outcast of the  Russian
Revolution, to be aware that she must not touch this man, not  offer
him any form of refreshment while he was in her house.
  The  afternoon  sunshine played full upon  Mocata's  pink,  fleshy
countenance  as  he went on, 'I thought perhaps that  would  be  the
case.  Whether  the facts have been rightly represented  to  you,  I
don't know, but Simon Aron is a very dear friend of mine, and during
his recent illness I have been taking care of him.'
  'I  see,' she answered guardedly. 'Well, it was hardly put  to  me
in that way, but what is the purpose of your visit?'
  'I understand that Simon is with you now?'
  'Yes,' she replied briefly, feeling that it was senseless to  deny
it, 'and his visit to us will continue for some little time.'
  He smiled then, and with a little shock Marie Lou suddenly
  caught  herself  thinking that he was really quite  an  attractive
person. His strange light-coloured eyes showed a strong intelligence
and,  to  her  surprise, a glint of the most friendly humour,  which
almost  suggested  that he was about to conspire with  her  in  some
amusing  undertaking. His lisping voice, too, was strangely pleasant
and  restful  to  listen  to as he spoke again  in  perfect  English
periods,  only  a curious intonation of the vowel sounds  indicating
his French extraction.
  'The  country air would no doubt be excellent for him,  and  I  am
certain  that  nothing  could be more charming  for  him  than  your
hospitality. Unfortunately there are certain matters, of  which  you
naturally  know nothing, but which make it quite imperative  that  I
should take him back to London tonight.'
  'I am afraid that is quite impossible.'
  'I  see,'  Mocata looked thoughtfully for a moment  at  his  large
elastic-sided boots. 'I feared that you might take this attitude  to
begin  with,  because  I imagine our friend De  Rich-leau  has  been
filling  the  heads  of  your husband and  yourself  with  the  most
preposterous nonsense. I don't propose to go into that  now  or  his
reason  for it, but I do ask you to believe me, Mrs. Eaton,  when  I
say  that  Simon will be in very considerable danger if you  do  not
allow me to take him back into my care.'
  'No  danger  will come to him as long as he is in my house,'  said
Marie Lou firmly.
  'Ah,  my  dear young lady,' he sighed a little wistfully.  'I  can
hardly expect anyone like yourself to understand precisely what will
happen  to  our poor Simon if he remains here, but his mental  state
has  been unsatisfactory for some little time, and I alone can  cure
him  of his lamentable condition. Chocolates!' he added suddenly and
irrelevantly as his eyes rested upon a large box on a nearby  table.
'You'll  think  me  terribly  rude,  but  may  I?  I  simply   adore
chocolates.'
  'I'm  so  sorry,'  Marie Lou replied without  the  flicker  of  an
eyelash, 'but that box is empty. Do go on with what you were  saying
about Simon.'
  Mocata withdrew his hand, feeling himself unable to challenge  her
statement  by  opening  the  box to see,  and  Marie  Lou  found  it
difficult to repress a smile as he made a comically rueful face like
some greedy schoolboy who has been disappointed of a slice of cake.
  'Really!'  he exclaimed. 'What a pity. May I put it in the  waste-
paper  basket  for you then? To leave it about is  such  a  terrible
temptation for people like myself.' Before she could stop him he had
reached  out  again and picked up the box, realising immediately  by
its weight that she had lied to him.
  'No,  please,'  she put out her hand and almost snatched  the  box
from  his  pudgy fingers. 'I gave it to my little girl  to  put  her
marbles in-we mustn't throw it away.' The box gave a faint rustle as
she  laid  it down beside her, so she added swiftly: 'She puts  each
one  in the little paper cups that the chocolates are packed in  and
arranges them in rows. She would be terribly distressed if they were
upset.'
  Mocata  was not deceived by that ingenious fiction. He guessed  at
once her true reason for denying him the chocolates and was quick to
realise that in this lovely young woman, who stood no taller than  a
well-grown  child, he was up against a far cleverer antagonist  than
he  had at first supposed. However, he was amply satisfied with  the
progress  he had made so far, sensing that her first antagonism  had
already  given  way to a guarded interest. He must  talk  to  her  a
little,  his  eyes and voice would do the rest. For  a  moment  they
stared at each other in silence. Then he opened his attack in a  new
direction.
  'Mrs.  Eaton, it is quite obvious to me that you distrust me  and,
after what your friends have told you, I am not surprised. But  your
intelligence  emboldens me to think that I am  likely  to  serve  my
purpose  better  by putting my cards on the table  than  by  beating
about the bush.'
  'It will make no difference what you do,' said Marie Lou quietly.
  He  ignored  the  remark and went on in his low, slightly  lisping
voice. 'I do not propose to discuss with you the rights or wrongs of
practising the Magic Art. I will confine myself to saying that I  am
a  practitioner  of  some experience and Simon, who  has  interested
himself in these things for the past few months, shows great promise
of  one day achieving considerable powers. Monsieur De Richleau  has
probably  led  you to suppose that I am a most evil person.  But  in
fairness  to myself I must protest that such a view of me  is  quite
untrue.  In  magic, there is neither good nor evil. It is  only  the
science  of  causing change to occur by means of  will.  The  rather
sinister reputation attaching to it is easily accounted for  by  the
fact  that it had to be practised in secret for many centuries owing
to  the ban placed upon it by the Church. Anything which is done  in
secret naturally begets a reputation for mystery and, since it  dare
not  face  the  light  of  day,  the reverse  of  good.  Few  people
understand anything of these mysteries, and I can hardly assume that
you  have  more than vague impressions gathered from casual reading;
but  at  least I imagine you will have heard that genuine adepts  in
the  secret Art have the power to call certain entities,  which  are
not understood or admitted by the profane, into actual being.
  'Now  these are perfectly harmless as long as they are  under  the
control of the practitioner, just as a qualified electrician  stands
no risk in adjusting a powerful electric battery from which a child,
who  played foolishly with it, might receive a serious shock or even
death.  This  analogy applies to the work Simon and  I  are  engaged
upon. We have called a certain entity into being just as workers  in
another  sphere  might  have constructed an electrical  machine.  It
needs both of us to operate this thing with skill and safety, but if
I  am  to  be  left  to handle it alone, the forces  which  we  have
engendered will undoubtedly escape and do the very gravest harm both
to Simon and myself. Have I made the position clear?'
  'Yes,' murmured Marie Lou. During that long explanatory speech  he
had  been regarding her with a steady stare, and as she Listened  to
his  quiet,  cultured  voice expressing  what  seemed  such  obvious
truths, she felt her whole reaction to his personality changing.  It
suddenly seemed to her absurd that this nice, charming gentleman  in
the neat grey suit could be dangerous to anyone. His face seemed  to
have  lost its puffy appearance even while he was speaking, and  now
her  eyes  beheld it as only hairless, pink and clean like  that  of
some elderly divine.
  'I  am so glad,' he went on in his even, silky tone. 'I felt quite
sure  that  if  you allowed me a few moments I could clear  up  this
misunderstanding which has only arisen through the over-eagerness of
your  old  friend  the Duke, and that charming  young  American,  to
protect  Simon from some purely imaginary danger. If I had only  had
the  opportunity to explain to them personally I am quite  convinced
that I should have been able to save them a great deal of worry, but
I  only met them for a few moments one evening at Simon's house.  It
is  a  charming little place that, and he very kindly permits me  to
share it with him while I am in England. If you are in London during
the  next few weeks, I do hope that you will come and see us  there.
We  both know without asking that Simon would be delighted,  and  it
would  give  me the very greatest pleasure to show you my collection
of perfumes, which I always take with me when I travel.
  'As  a  matter  of  fact, I am rather an  expert  in  the  art  of
blending  perfumes,  and quite a number of  my  women  friends  have
allowed  me to make a special scent for them. It is a delicate  art,
and interesting, because each woman should have her own perfume made
to  conform  to  her aura and personality. You have  an  outstanding
individuality, Mrs. Eaton, and it would be a very great pleasure  if
you  would  allow  me  some  time to see if  I  could  not  compound
something really distinctive in that way for you.'
  'It  sounds  most  interesting,' Marie Lou's  voice  was  low  and
Mocata's  eyes still held hers. Really, she felt, despite his  bulk,
he was a most attractive person, and she had been quite stupid to be
a  little frightened of him when he first entered the room. The  May
sunshine came in gently-moving shafts through the foliage of a  tree
outside the window, so that the dappled light played upon his  face,
and  it was that, she thought, which gave her the illusion that  his
unblinking  eyes  were larger than when she had  first  looked  into
them.
  'When will the Duke be back?' he asked softly. 'Unfortunately,  my
visit today must be a brief one, but I should so much have liked  to
talk this matter over quietly with him before I go.'
  'I  don't  know,'  Marie  Lou found herself  answering.  'But  I'm
afraid he won't be back before six.'
  'And our American friend-the young giant,' he prompted her.
  "I've no idea. He has gone down to the village.'
  'I  see.  What  a  pity,  but  of  course  your  husband  is  here
entertaining Simon, is he not?'
  'Yes, they are upstairs together.'
  'Well,  presently I should like to explain to your  husband,  just
as  I have to you, how very important it is that I should take Simon
back  with me tonight, but I wonder first if I might beg a glass  of
water. Walking from the village has given me quite a thirst.'
  'Of  course,' Marie Lou rose to her feet automatically and pressed
the  bell. 'Wouldn't you prefer a cup of tea or a glass of wine  and
some   biscuits?'  she  added,  completely  now  under  the  strange
influence that radiated from hirn.
  'You  are most kind, but just a glass of water and a biscuit if  I
may.'
  Malin  already stood in the doorway and Marie Lou gave orders  for
these  slender refreshments. Then she sat down again,  and  Mocata's
talk  flowed  on easily and glibly, while her ears became  more  and
more attuned to that faint musical lisping intonation.
  The  butler  appeared with water and biscuits on a  tray  and  set
them down beside Mocata, but for the moment he took no notice of it.
Instead  he  looked again at Marie Lou, and said: 'I do hope  you'll
forgive  me asking, but have you recently been ill? You are  looking
as though you were terribly run down and very, very tired.'
  'No,'  said  Marie Lou slowly. 'I haven't been ill.' But  at  that
moment her limbs seemed to relax where she was sitting and her heavy
eyelids  weighed upon her eyes. For some unaccountable  reason,  she
felt an intense longing to shut them altogether and fall asleep.
  Mocata  watched her with a faint smile curving his full mouth.  He
had  her under his dominance now and knew it. Another moment and she
would  be  asleep. It would be easy to carry her into the next  room
and  leave  her  there, ring for the servant, ask him  to  find  his
master and when Richard arrived, say that she had gone out into  the
garden  to find him. Then another of those quiet little talks  which
he  knew  so  well  how  to  handle, even when  people  were  openly
antagonistic to him to begin with, and the master of the house would
also  pass Into a quiet, untroubled sleep. Then he would simply call
Simon by his will and they would leave the house together.
  Marie Lou's eyes flickered and shut. With a shake of her head  she
jerked them open again. 'I'm so sorry,' she said sleepily. 'But I am
tired, most awfully tired. What was it that you were talking about?'
  Mocata's  eyes seemed enormous to her now, as they  held  her  own
with  a solemn, dreamy look. 'We shall not talk any more,' he  said.
'You  will sleep, and at four o'clock on the afternoon of  7th  May,
you will call on me at Simon's house in St. John's Wood.'
  Marie  Lou's  heavy lashes fell on her rounded cheeks  again,  but
next second her eyes were wide open, for the door was flung back and
Fleur came scampering into the room.
  'Darling,  what is it?' Marie Lou struggled wide awake and  Mocata
snapped his plump fingers with a little angry, disappointed gesture.
The  sudden entrance of the child had broken the current of delicate
vibrations.
  'Mummy-mummy,'  Fleur  panted.  'Daddy-sent-me-to-find-you.  We'se
playing  hosses in the garden, an' Uncle Simon says he's  a  dwagon,
an'  not  a  boss  at all. Daddy says you're to come  and  tell  him
diffwent.'
  'So  tbis  is  your little daughter? What a lovely child,'  Mocata
said amiably, stretching out a hand to Fleur. 'Come here, my ...'
  But  Marie Lou cut short his sentence as full realisation  of  the
danger to which she had exposed herself flooded her mind. 'Don't you
touch  her!'  she cried, snatching up the child with  blazing  eyes.
'Don't you dare! '
  'Really,  Mrs.  Eaton,' he raised his eyebrows  in  mild  protest.
'Surely  you cannot think that I meant to hurt the child? I  thought
too, that we were beginning to understand each other so well.'
  'You  beast,' Marie Lou cried angrily as she jabbed her finger  on
the bell. 'You tried to hypnotise me.'
  'What  nonsense,' he smiled good-humouredly. 'You  were  a  little
tired, but I fear I bored you rather with a long dissertation-  upon
things  which can hardly interest a woman so young and  charming  as
yourself.  It  was most stupid of me, and I hardly wonder  that  you
nearly fell asleep.'
  As   Malin  arrived  on  the  scene  she  thrust  Fleur  into  the
astonished  butler's arms and gasped: 'Fetch Mr. Eaton-he's  in  the
garden- quickly-at once.'
  The  butler hurried off with Fleur and Mocata turned on  her.  His
eyes  had gone cold and steely. 'It is vital that I should at  least
see Simon before I leave this house.'
  'You  shan't,' she stormed. 'You had better go before  my  husband
comes. D'you hear?' Then she found herself looking at him again, and
quickly  jerked her head away so that she should not see  his  eyes,
yet  she  caught his gesture as he stooped to pick up the  glass  of
water from the table.
  Furious now at the way she had been tricked into ordering
  it  for  him, and determining that he should not drink, she sprang
forward  and, before he could stop her, dashed the little  table  to
the  ground. The plate caught the carafe as it fell and  smashed  it
into a dozen pieces, the biscuits scattered and the water spread  in
a shallow, widening lake upon the carpet. Mocata swung round with an
angry snarl. This small, sensuous, catlike creature had cheated  him
at  the  last, and the placid, kindly expression of his face changed
to  one  of hideous demoniacal fury. His eyes, muddled now with  all
the   foulness  of  his  true  nature,  stripped  and  flayed   her,
threatening  a thousand unspeakable abominations in their  unwinking
stare as she-faced him across the fallen table.
  Suddenly,  with a fresh access of terror, Marie Lou cowered  back,
bringing  up  her  hands  to shield her face  from  those  revolting
eyeballs. Then a quick voice in the doorway exclaimed: 'Hello!  What
is all this?'
  'Richard,' she gasped. 'Richard, it's Mocata! I saw him because  I
thought you'd better stay with Simon, but he tried to hypnotise  me.
Have him thrown out. Oh, have him thrown out.'
  The  muscles  in Richard's lean face tightened as  he  caught  the
look of terror in his wife's eyes and thrusting her aside he took  a
quick  step towards Mocata. 'If you weren't twice my age and  in  my
house,  I'd  smash your face in,' he said savagely. 'And that  won't
stop me either unless you get out thundering quick.'
  With  almost  incredible  swiftness Mocata  had  his  anger  under
control.  His face was benign and smiling once more, as he shrugged,
showing no trace of panic. 'I'm afraid your wife is a little upset,'
he  said  mildly.  'It is this spring weather,  and  while  we  were
talking together, she nearly fell asleep. Having heard all sorts  of
extraordinary things about me from your friends, she scared  herself
into  thinking that I tried to hypnotise her. I apologise profoundly
for having caused her one moment's distress.'
  'I  don't believe one word of that,' replied Richard. 'Now  kindly
leave the house.'
  Mocata  shrugged  again.  'You are being  very  unreasonable,  Mr.
Eaton.  I called this afternoon in order to take Simon Aron back  to
London.'
  'Well, you're not going to.'
  'Please,' Mocata held up his protesting hand. 'Hear me for
  one   moment.   The   whole  situation  has  been   most   gravely
misrepresented  to  you, as I explained to your  wife,  and  if  she
hadn't suddenly started to imagine things we should be discussing it
quite  amicably now. In fact, I even asked her to send for  you,  as
she will tell you herself.'
  'It  was  a  trick,' cried Marie Lou angrily. 'Don't look  at  his
eyes, Richard, and for God's sake turn him out!'
  'You  hear,' Richard's voice held a threatening note and his  face
was white. 'You had better go-before I lose my temper.'
  'It's  a pity that you are so pig-headed, my young friend,' Mocata
snapped  icily.  'By retaining Simon here, you are bringing  extreme
peril  both  on  him and on yourself. But since  you  refuse  to  be
reasonable  and let me take him with me, let me at least  have  five
minutes' conversation with him alone.'
  'Not  five  seconds,'  Richard  stood  aside  from  the  door  and
motioned through it for Mocata to pass into the hall.
  'All  right! If that is your final word!' Mocata drew himself  up.
He  seemed  to grow in size and strength even as he stood  there.  A
terrible  force and energy suddenly began to shake his  obese  body.
They felt it radiating from him as his words came low and clear like
the  whispering splash of death-cold drops falling from icicles upon
a frozen lake.
  'Then  I  will  send the Messenger to your house  tonight  and  he
shall take Simon from you ah've-or dead!'
  'Get  out,'  gritted  Richard between his teeth,  'Damn  you-  get
out!'
  Without  another word Mocata left them. Marie Lou crossed herself,
and  with Richard's arm about her shoulder they followed him to  the
door.
  He  did  not turn or once look back, but plodded heavily,  a  very
ordinary figure now, down the long, sunlit drive.
  Richard suddenly felt Marie Lou's small body tremble against  him,
and with a little cry of fright she buried her head on his shoulder.
'Oh,  darling,'  she wailed. 'I'm frightened of that man-frightened.
Did you see?'
  'See what, my sweet?' he asked, a little puzzled.
    'Why!' sobbed Marie Lou. 'He is walking in the sunshine -but  he
has no shadow!'


                                 23

                        The Pride of Peacocks

  The  inn which served the village near Cardinals Folly was  almost
as  old  as the house. At one period it had been a hostelry of  some
importance,  but the changing system of highways in  the  eighteenth
century had left it denuded of the coaching traffic and doomed  from
then  on  to  cater  only for the modest wants of  the  small  local
population.  It  had been added to and altered many times;  for  one
long  period falling almost wholly into disrepair, since its revenue
was  insufficient for its upkeep, and so it had remained until a few
years  earlier upon the retirement of Mr. Jeremiah Wilkes,  the  ex-
valet of a wealthy peer who lived not far distant.
  Only  the  fact  that Mr. Wilkes suffered from  chronic  sciatica,
which rendered it impossible for him to travel any more with his old
master,  had made his retirement necessary, and through  those  long
years  of  packing just the right garments that his  lordship  might
need  for  Cowes, Scotland or the French Riviera and exercising  his
incomparable facility for obtaining the most comfortable seats  upon
trains which were already full, he had always had it in the back  of
his  mind  that he would like to be the proprietor of a  gentlemanly
'house.'
  When  the  question  of  his retirement had  been  discussed,  and
Jeremiah had named the ambition of his old age, his master had  most
generously  suggested the purchase and restoration of the  old  inn,
but  voiced his doubts of Jeremiah's ability to run it at a  profit;
stating  that  capital  was very necessary to  the  success  of  any
business, and adding in his innocence that he did not feel  Jeremiah
could  have  saved a sufficient sum despite the long period  in  his
employment.
  In  this,  of course, his lordship was entirely wrong.  Jeremiah's
wage  might have been a modest one but, while protecting his  master
from many generations of minor thieves, he had gathered in the time-
honoured  perquisites which were his due and, since he  had  stoutly
resisted the efforts of his fellow servants to interest him in  'the
horses,'   he  owned  investments  in  property  which  would   have
considerably amazed his master.
  Mr.  Wilkes,  therefore, had modestly stated that  he  thought  he
might  manage  providing that his lordship would be good  enough  to
send   him  such  friends  or  their  retainers  as  could  not   be
accommodated at the Court when shooting parties and such  like  were
in  progress. This having been arranged satisfactorily,  Mr.  Wilkes
underwent the metamorphosis from a gentleman's gentleman to host  of
'The Pride of Peacocks.'
  Very  soon the old inn began to thrive again; quietly, of  course,
since  it was no road-house for noisy motorists. But it became  well
known  among a certain select few who enjoyed a peaceful weekend  in
lovely  scenery,  and  Mr.  Wilkes' admirable  attention  to  these,
together with his wife's considerable knowledge of the culinary art,
never caused them to question their Monday morning bill.
  Jeremiah  had  further added to the attraction  of  the  place  by
stocking a cellar with variety and taste from his lordship's  London
wine  merchant  on  terms  extremely advantageous  to  himself,  and
moreover  to the added well-being of the neighbourhood. The  hideous
and  childish tyranny of licensing hours never affected him  in  the
least  for  the  simple reason that all his customers were  personal
friends, including, of course, the magistrates upon the local bench,
and  had some officious policeman from the town ever questioned  the
fact  that gentlemen were to be found there quite frequently in  the
middle  of  the  afternoon taking a little modest refreshment,  they
would  have quailed under the astonished and supercilious glance  of
the  good Mr. Wilkes, together with the freezing statement that this
was  no monetary transaction, but the gentlemen concerned were doing
him the honour to give him their opinion upon his latest purchase in
the way ot port.
  In  short,  it  will be gathered that this ancient hostelry  could
provide  all  the comfort which any reasonable person might  demand,
and  was  something a little out of the ordinary for a village  inn.
Rex,  of  course,  knew the place well from his previous  visits  to
Cardinals Folly and, a little out of breath from the pace  at  which
he had come, hurried into the low, comfortably furnished lounge, the
old oak beams of which almost came down to his head,
  Tanith  was  there alone. Immediately she saw him  she  jumped  up
from  her chair and ran to meet him, gripping both his hands in hers
with a strength surprising for her slender fingers.
  She  was  pale  and weary. Her green linen dress was  stained  and
mired  from  her  terrible journey on the previous  night,  although
obviously  she  had  done her best to tidy herself.  Her  eyes  were
shadowed  from strain and lack of sleep, seeming unnaturally  large,
and she trembled slightly as she clutched at him.
  'Oh, thank God you've come!' she cried.
  'But  how  did  you know I was at Cardinals Folly?' he  asked  her
quickly.
  'My  dear,'  she  sank down in the chair again, drawing  her  hand
wearily  across her eyes. 'I am terribly sorry about last  night.  I
think  I  was  mad when I stole your car and tried  to  get  to  the
Sabbat. I crashed of course, but I expect you will have heard  about
that-and then I did the last five miles on foot.'
  'Good God! Do you mean to say you got there after all?'
  She  nodded and told him of that nightmare walk from Easterton  to
the  Satanic  Festival. As she came to the part in her story  where,
against her will, she had been drawn down into the valley, her  eyes
once more expressed the hideous terror which she had felt.
  'I  could not help myself,' she said. 'I tried to resist with  all
my  mind  but  my  feet simply moved against my will.  Then,  for  a
moment,  I thought that the heavens had opened and an angry God  had
suddenly decided to strike those blasphemous people dead. There  was
a noise like thunder and two giant eyes like those of some nightmare
monster  seemed to leap out of the darkness right at me. I screamed,
I  think,  and  jumped aside. I remember falling  and  springing  up
again.  The power that had held my feet seemed to have been suddenly
released and I fled up the hill in absolute panic. When I got to the
top I tripped over something and then I must have fainted.'
  Rex  smiled.  That was us in the car,' he said. 'But how  did  you
know where to find me?'
  'It  was not very difficult,' she told him. 'When I came to, I was
lying on the grass and there wasn't a sound to show that there was a
living  soul within miles of me. I started off at a run without  the
faintest  idea where I was going-my only thought being to  get  away
from  that  terrible valley. Then when I was absolutely exhausted  I
fell  again,  and I must have been so done in that  I  slept  for  a
little in a ditch.
  'When I woke up, it was morning and I found that I was quite  near
a main road. I limped along it not knowing what I should come to and
then  I  saw houses and a straggling street and, after a  little,  I
discovered that I had walked into Devizes.
  'I  went  into the centre of the town and was about to go into  an
hotel when I realised that I had no money; but I had a brooch, so  I
found  a  jeweller's and sold it to them-or rather, they  agreed  to
advance me twenty pounds, because I didn't want to part with it  and
it  must be worth at least a hundred. An awfully nice old man  there
agreed  to keep it as security until I could send him the  money  on
from  London. Then I did go to the hotel, took a room and  tried  to
think things over.
  'Such an extraordinary lot seemed to have happened since you  took
me  off  in your car from Claridges yesterday that at first I  could
not  get  things straight at ail, but one thing stood out absolutely
clearly.  Whether  it was you or the vision of my  mother,  I  don't
know, but my whole outlook had changed completely. How I could  ever
have  allowed  myself to listen to Madame D'Urfe and do  the  things
I've  done I just can't think. But I know now that I've been in  the
most  awful  danger,  and that I must try and  get  free  of  Mocata
somehow.  Anyone would think me mad, and possibly I am, to  come  to
you  like this when I hardly know you, but the whole thing has  been
absolutely  outside all ordinary experiences. I am  terribly  alone,
Rex, and you are the only person in the world that I can turn to.'
  She  sank  back in her chair almost exhausted with the  effort  of
endeavouring to impress him with her feelings, but he leant  forward
and,  taking  one  of  her  hands in his great  leg-of-mutton  fist,
squeezed it gently.
  'There,  there,  my sweet.' Speaking from his heart  he  used  the
endearment  quite naturally and unconsciously. 'You  did  the  right
thing every time. Don't you worry any more. Nobody is going to  hurt
a hair of your head now you've got here safely. But how in the world
did you do it?'
  Her  eyes  opened again and she smiled faintly. 'My only hope  was
to throw myself on your protection, so I had to find you somehow and
that part wasn't difficult. All systems of divination are merely  so
many  methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order that the inner
may  become clear. Tea-leaves, crystals, melting wax, lees of  wine,
cards, water, entrails, birds, sieve-turning, sand and all the rest.
  'I  wanted sleep terribly when I got to that hotel bedroom, but  I
knew  that I mustn't allow myself to, so I took some paper from  the
lounge,  and  borrowed a pencil. Then I threw myself into  a  trance
with the paper before me and the pencil in my hand. When I looked at
it  again I had quite enough information scribbled down to enable me
to follow you here.'
  Rex  accepted this amazing explanation quite calmly. Had  he  been
told  such  a  thing a few days before he would have  considered  it
fantastic, but now it never even occurred to him that it was in  any
way  extraordinary  that a woman desiring to  know  his  whereabouts
should throw herself into a trance and employ automatic writing.
  She  glanced at the old grandfather clock which stood ticking away
in  a  corner  of the low-raftered room. Half an hour  had  sped  by
already and he was feeling guilty now at having left Simon. He would
never be able to forgive himself if, in his absence, any harm befell
his  friend.  Now that he knew Tanith was safe he must get  back  to
Cardinals  Folly, so he announced abruptly: 'I'm mighty  sorry,  but
I've got Simon to look after so I can't stay here much longer.'
  'Oh,  Rex,'  her eyes held his imploringly. 'You must  not  unless
you  take me with you. If you leave me alone, Mocata will be certain
to get me.'
  For  a moment Rex hesitated miserably, wrestling with the quandary
that  faced  him.  If  Tanith was telling  the  truth,  he  couldn't
possibly leave her to be drawn back by that terrible power of  evil.
But was she? So far she had been Mocata's puppet. How much truth was
there  in  this  pretended change of heart? Had Mocata  planted  her
there in order to lure him deliberately away from Simon's side?
  It  occurred  to  him  that he might take her  back  with  him  to
Cardinals  Folly, for if she was speaking the truth she was  in  the
same  case  as  Simon. They could keep the two of them together  and
concentrate  their  forces  against  the  black  magician.  But   he
dismissed the idea almost as soon as it entered his mind. To  do  so
would  be  playing Mocata's game with a vengeance.  If  Tanith  were
acting  consciously or unconsciously under his influence, God  alone
knew  what  powers  she might possess to aid her  master  once  they
accepted  her  as a friend in their midst. If he took her  there  it
would  be  like  introducing one of the  enemy  into  a  beleaguered
fortress.
  'What  are  you  afraid  might happen if I leave  you?'  he  asked
suddenly.
  'You can't-you mustn't,' her eyes pleaded with him, 'Not only  for
my  own sake, but your friends' as well. Mocata has a hundred  means
of  knowing where Simon is and where I am too. He may arrive here at
any  moment. It's no good pretending Rex. I know beyond any question
that I cannot resist him and he'll work through me, however much  my
will is set against it. He's told me a dozen times that he has never
met  a  woman who is such a successful medium for him as myself.  So
you can be certain that he is on his way here now.'
  'What d'you think he'll do when he turns up?'
  'He  will  throw me into a trance and call Simon to him.  Then  if
Simon fails to come Mocata may curse him through me.'
  Rex  shrugged. 'Don't worry. De Richleau's a wily old bird.  He'll
turn the curse aside some way.'
  'But  you  don't seem to understand,' she sobbed. 'If a  curse  is
sent  out  it  must lodge somewhere, and if it fails  to  reach  its
objective  because  there  is an equally  strong  influence  working
against it, the vibrations recoil and impinge upon the sender.'
  'Steady now.' He took her hands and tried to soothe her. 'If  that
is so I guess we couldn't find a better way to tickle up Mocata.'
  'No-no!! He never does things himself-at least I have never  known
him  to-just in case he fails, because then he would have to pay the
penalty.  Instead, he uses other people -hypnotises them  and  makes
them  throw out the thought or the wish. That is what he will do  to
me. If he succeeds, you will no longer be able to protect Simon, and
if he fails, it is I who will pay the price. That is why you've just
got to stay with me and prevent him using me as his instrument.'
  'Holy  smoke! Then we're in a proper jam!' Rex's brain was working
swiftly.  If she were telling the truth, she was in real danger.  If
not, at least Simon still had Richard and Marie Lou to take care  of
him until the Duke's return.
  All  his  chivalry  and  his love for her  which  seemed  to  have
blossomed  overnight welled up and told him that he must chance  her
honesty and remain there to protect her. 'All right, I'll stay,'  he
said after a moment.
  'Oh, thank God!' she sighed. 'Thank God!'
  'But  tell me,' he went on, 'just why is it you're such a  kingpin
medium to this man? What about old Madame D'Urfe and the rest? Can't
he do his stuff through them?'
  Tanith looked at him through tear-dimmed eyes and shook her  head.
'Not  in  the  same  way. You see there is rather  an  unusual  link
between us. My number is twenty and so is his.'
  Rex  frowned. 'What exactly do you mean by that?' he  asked  in  a
puzzled voice.
  'I mean our astrological number,' she replied quietly. 'Give me  a
piece of paper, and I will show you.'
  Rex  handed her a few sheets from a nearby table and a pencil from
his  waistcoat  pocket, then she quickly drew  out  a  list  of  the
numerical values to the letters of the alphabet: -

         A=1           K=2           S=3
         B=2           L=3           T=4
         C=3           M=4           U=6
         D=4           N=5           V=6
         E=5           O=7           W=6
         F=5           P=8           X=5
         G=3           Q=1           Y=1
         H=5           R=2           Z=7
         I or J=1

  'There!'  she  went on. 'By substituting numbers  for  letters  in
anyone's  name and adding them up you get their occult number  which
indicates  the  planet that influences them most  in  all  spiritual
affairs.  It  must  be  the name by which they  are  most  generally
known-even if it is a pet name. Now look!'

         M=4                   T=4
         O=7                   A=1
         C=3                   N=5
         A=1                   I=1
         T=4                   T=4
         A=1                   H=5
         ____                  ____
             20   2+0=2            20
                           2+0=2

  'You  see how closely our vibrations are attuned. Two is the value
of  the  Moon,  to which both he and I are subject,  and  any  names
having   a  total  numerical  value  which  reduce  by  progresssive
additions  to two, such as eleven or twenty-nine or thirty-eight  or
forty-seven, would give us some affinity, but that they actually add
up  to the same compound number shows that we are attuned to a  very
remarkable  degree. That is why I have proved such an  exceptionally
good medium for him to work through.'
  'But you are utterly different from him,' Rex protested,
  'Of  course,'  she  nodded gravely. 'One's birth  date  gives  the
material  number,  which is generally that  of  another  planet  and
modifies the influence of the spiritual number considerably.  As  it
happens mine is May 2nd-again a two you see, so I am an almost  pure
type.  Moon  people  are intensely imaginative, artistic,  romantic,
gentle  by  nature and not very strong physically. They  are  rather
over-sensitive  and lacking in self-co