The Canon made an impatient gesture. `Then de Grasse has bungled the affair! How utterly infuriating. With his resources he should never have allowed a boy like Fountain to get the best of him. That is no excuse. No excuse whatever! But tell me what happened.'
In his usual leisurely manner C. B. then related all that had taken place, from Jules de Grasse luring Ellen as he now called her away the previous evening, to her escape that morning; except that he refrained from making any mention of his own participation in these events. When he had done, the Canon said petulantly
`Really ! To think that a man like de Grasse should allow two children to set him at defiance. But he is not the type to lie down under such treatment. No doubt he means to teach that young man a lesson; and even if he has to use force will get the girl back again from Mrs. Fountain to night.'
`I don't somehow think he'll be able to get her to night,' said C. B. slowly.
`Why not? His wound may incapacitate him personally, but it should not prevent his sending Jules and some of his people to carry her off.'
C. B. felt confident that next morning's post would bring the Canon an airmail letter from de Grasse with full particulars of the latest situation; so there being no point in concealing it overnight, he replied, `It's not quite as simple as that. The girl is no longer with Mrs. Fountain. She is in prison.'
`What!' Copely Syle's drink slopped over, and he jumped to his feet. `What's that you say? In prison! Surely de Grasse has not been idiot enough to bring a charge against her for shooting him?'
`No, it's not that.'
`What then?'
`We don't know ourselves. At least de Grasse didn't know when I left him. All we know is that soon after she landed this morning she was taken into custody. Perhaps she thinks she killed de Grasse, so gave herself up pending enquiries. Or, as she has been living under a false name, it may be something to do with her passport.'
`But this is calamitous!' The Canon's heavy under lip trembled and his babyish face screwed up, so that for a moment C. B. thought he was about to burst into tears. An instant later it became apparent that the contortion of his features was due to rage. Abandoning all control, he began to stamp up and down the room, flinging wide his arms and reviling de Grasse in the most filthy language for his incompetence. Then, turning about, he screamed curses at C. B. for having brought him such unwelcome tidings.
C. B. watched the performance with detached interest, pulled on his pipe, and said with a suggestion of a smile, `It's no good swearing at me; and cursing de Grasse can do your case nothing but harm.'
At his quiet words the Canon's fury subsided as swiftly as it had arisen. He took a gulp of his drink and muttered, `You are right. This is no fault of yours, and curses should be used only with solemn intent.'
`Exactly; so if you are hoping that de Grasse may yet pull the chestnuts out of the fire for you, it's silly to hamper his efforts with even the most casual vibrations of ill wishing.'
Copely Syle gave him a half furtive glance, and asked, `What do you know of such matters?'
`Oh, quite a bit.' C. B. shrugged the question aside. Having sown the seed, and feeling that enough had now passed between them for him to begin his probe without arousing suspicion, he said, `I can understand your being annoyed at young Fountain having thrown a spanner in the works; but surely the girl being temporarily in prison scarcely justifies your getting into such a tizzy? The odds are that she'll be out before the end of the week; then de Grasse's boys should have little trouble in collecting her for you.'
`The end of the week!' Copely Syle threw up his plump hands and the little veins in the whites of his eyes became suffused with blood from the intensity of his annoyance. `That's no good! No earthly good! This matter is one of the utmost urgency. Surely I cannot have failed to make that plain to de Grasse?'
C. B. felt that he was getting warm, and nodded with becoming solemnness. `Yes, I feel sure you did. That must be why he was so upset this morning. Of course, I'm not in on this thing, except as an old friend whom he knew he could trust to bring you an account of what has happened to date. I know only the bare outline of the affair merely that you are anxious to get this young woman back to England. But why the frantic haste?'
`Because to day is the 4th. I must have her here by the 6th.'
`Can't you possibly rearrange your plans so that a few days' delay won't make any difference?'
`You might as well suggest that I should attempt to stop the stars in their courses,' snapped the Canon. `The 6th of March is her birthday. At nine forty five that evening she comes of age. If she is not under my control by then the hopes that I have cherished for years will be dashed.'
`Oh, I see; this is a family affair and a case of a young woman having kicked over the traces,' remarked C. B., deliberately misunderstanding. `Naturally, then, you are anxious to have her back in time to bury the hatchet on her twenty first birthday. May I ask what relationship she bears you?'
`None; but I have known her since birth, and am, in a sense, her guardian.'
`Has she given you this sort of trouble before, or behaved like a flighty type generally?'
`On the contrary. She has lived a very retired life, and shown no inclination to do otherwise.'
The quiet indifference of C.B.’s tone when he made his next remark did much to lessen its impertinence. `Then, as she didn't run away with a man, there's some hope of her still being a virgin?'
The Canon's pale eyes narrowed a trifle and he said quickly, `What leads you to speculate on that?'
`The thought automatically came into my mind that a combination of three times seven years and virginity have immense mystical significance. In fact, there is no state which even approaches its tremendous potence for good or evil; and that if ... But no, this is your affair and nothing to do with me.'
`If what?’ the Canon insisted.
`Why, that if the hesitant manner in which you admit your guardianship of this young woman is due to your status being unofficial; er like, shall we say, one who prefers to remain in shadow. ..'
Copely Syle had slowly risen to his feet. As he did so he seemed to increase in stature. His plump face lost all trace of babyishness. It looked old now, but extraordinarily strong and menacing. Suddenly he burst out harshly:
`You have said either too much or too little. Explain yourself, or it will be the worse for you.'
C.B.’s work brought him into touch with all types of tough customers; so, although he knew that he was on exceptionally dangerous ground, he remained outwardly imperturbable, and even smiled slightly as he replied
`Hold your horses, Canon. There's nothing to get excited about. I thought I had made it clear that I'm not one of de Grasse's thugs, and that our association is simply that of two people who have been of use to one another from time to time. You have no need to fear that he suspects the reason for your interest in the girl and may start trying to blackmail you. I shouldn't have suspected it myself but for what you've just told me and the fact that, although you may not remember it, we've met before.'
`Have we? Where?'
`I can't remember exactly, but I know it was with Aleister Crowley.'
`That charlatan! I hardly knew him.'
With the object of passing himself off as a brother initiate in the Black Art, C. B. had risked a shot in the dark. He had felt confident that anyone of Copely Syle's age and interests must have come into contact with the infamous Crowley at one time or another, and, although the Canon's reactions were disappointing, he could not now go back on his statement. To get on firmer ground, he began to reminisce about the dead magician.
`If you had known Aleister as well as I did, you certainly wouldn't dub him a charlatan. Of course in his later years he couldn't have harmed a rabbit; everyone knew that. The poor old boy degenerated into a rather pathetic figure, and was reduced to sponging on all and sundry in order to keep body and soul together. But when he was a young man it was a very different story. He unquestionably had power,
and there were very few things of this world that he could not get with it. Even as an undergraduate he showed how far advanced he was along the Left Hand Path. You must have heard about the Master of John's refusing to let him put on a bawdy Greek play, and how he revenged himself. He made a wax image of the master and took it out to a meadow one night with some friends when the moon was at the full. They formed the usual circle and Crowley recited the incantation. He was holding the needle and meant to jab it into the place that was the equivalent of the image's liver, but at the critical moment one of his pals got the wind up and broke the circle. Crowley's hand was deflected and the needle pierced the image's left ankle. That was a bit of luck for the master of John's. Instead of dying of a tumor on the liver, he only slipped and broke his left ankle when coming down the college steps next day. Up to then Crowley's friends had regarded the whole business as a joke spiced with a vague sort of wickedness; but afterwards they were scared stiff of him, and naturally they were much too impressed to keep their mouths shut; so the facts are known beyond any shadow of doubt.'
Copely Syle shrugged slightly. `Of course, it's perfectly possible, ,and I do remember hearing about it now. But the story can be no more than hearsay as far as you are concerned. You are much too young to have been up at Cambridge with Crowley.'
`Oh yes. I didn't meet him till years later, when he was in middle life and at the height of his powers.' After pausing for a moment C. B. added the glib lie, `I was initiated by him at the Abbaye de Thelema.'
`Really? I was under the impression that Crowley did no more than use his reputation as a mystic to lure young neurotics there, and kept the place going as a private brothel for his own enjoyment.'
`Most of its inmates were young people, and as the whole of his teaching was summed up in “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” a state of general promiscuity naturally followed from it. New brothers and sisters soon lost their shyness, and after that he had little difficulty in persuading them to participate in sexual orgies when the stars were propitious for the performance of special rites. But you can take it from me that he knew his stuff, and that the perversions practised under his auspices were only a means to an end. You must know as well as I do that certain types of Satanic entity feed upon the emanations given out by humans while engaged in the baser forms of eroticism. As far as Crowley was concerned the orgies were simply the bait that lured such entities to the Abbaye and enabled him to gain power over them.'
The Canon had sat down again. He now appeared deeply interested as he said, `You are really convinced that he conducted Satanic rituals with intent, and not merely performed some mumbo jumbo as an excuse to possess a series of young women?'
`Each of his rituals was performed with a definite intention. Of that I am certain, and I know that many of them produced the desired result. He always insisted on everyone present behaving with the greatest solemnity, and when celebrating pagan rites he was most impressive.
He could even render the receiving of the osculam in fame
a gesture of some dignity, and his memory was prodigious; so he experienced no difficulty at all in reciting the lines of the Roman communion backwards.'
`In Christian countries there are few ceremonies more potent than the Black Mass; but from my memory of him I am much surprised to learn from you that he ever proved capable of celebrating that mystery.'
`I have never seen it better done,' C. B. averred seriously. `Although, of course, he was not able to fulfill the technical requirements in their entirety.'
`You mean that among the women neophytes there was never a virgin who could be used as an altar?'
`No, I didn't mean that. It's true that on most occasions he had to make do with young women who had already been seduced, but twice while I was there he managed to get hold of a virgin. And naturally there was no difficulty about holy wafers for desecration and that sort of thing. I was simply referring to the fact that to be one hundred per cent potent the celebrant should have been a Roman Catholic priest, and Crowley had never been ordained.'
`Quite, quite. That was a pity, but would be overlooked if suitable propitiation were made to the Prince by way of blood offerings. Did Crowley er ever achieve the apotheosis in that direction?'
`I can't say for certain. In mediaeval times life was held so cheap that adepts such as Gilles de Rais could decimate a dozen parishes for the furtherance of their magical operations, and no one powerful enough to interfere felt sufficiently strongly about it to do so. But in these days matters are very different. The Italian police must have had a pretty shrewd idea of the sort of thing that went on at the Abbaye; but they were a tolerant lot and were well bribed to keep their ideas to themselves, so they never gave us any trouble. I'm sure they would have, though, had they the least grounds to suppose that we were offering up human sacrifices. Usually Crowley used cats or goats, and once I was present when a monkey was crucified upside down. After I had left I heard rumours that one or two children had disappeared from villages round about; but I'm inclined to suppose that was simply malicious gossip put about by Crowley's enemies.'
The pale eyes of Copely Syle had a faraway look as he murmured thoughtfully, `Ah, for the culminating act in such rituals there is nothing so effacious as the warm blood of an unweaned child.'
C. B. had to bite hard on the stem of his pipe to repress a shudder; but he felt that he was now well on the way to achieving his object in going there, which was to establish such an apparent community of interests with the Canon that the latter would voluntarily give himself away. For a few moments they both sat staring silently into the fire, then the Canon said
`From all you say, Crowley must have reached at least the degree of Magus, if not Ipsissimus. What I cannot understand is how by the middle nineteen thirties, when I met him, he should have degenerated into an impotent windbag, incapable of impressing anyone except a handful of credulous old women.'
`That is easily explained. It was that unfortunate affair in Paris towards the end of the nineteen twenties. You are right in supposing that before that he ranked as an Ipsissimus, but that night he was cast right back across the Abyss. In fact, he was stripped of all his powers and afterwards the most callow neophyte could have bested him in an astral conflict.'
`What an awful thing to happen to an adept,' said the Canon a shade uneasily. `Did he then recant and offer to make a full confession in exchange for being accepted back into the Church? I imagine no other act deserving of such terrible punishment.'
`Oh no, it was nothing like that. It was simply that his ambition was so great that he over reached himself. If he could have bent Pan to his will he would have been the most powerful being on earth. With Pan's pipes playing as he directed he could have made even governments dance to his tune. He attempted to master Pan, but he wasn't quite strong enough; so he paid the price of failure: that's all.'
`I find this most interesting,' said Copely Syle in a low voice. `Do you happen to know any details of what took place?'
`Yes. As a matter of fact I was still one of his disciples, so with him at the time.' C. B. was on safer ground now, as he had actually had a first hand account of this grim affair from one of Crowley's young men, and he went on
`The attempt took place in Paris. Crowley made up a coven, so including himself there were thirteen of us; and in this instance we were naturally all males. We were staying at an hotel on the Left Bank. The proprietor was an initiate, and it was quite a small place; so we took the whole premises for the night, and all the servants were got rid of from mid day to mid day. There was a big room at the top of the house which seemed just the thing for the purpose. In the afternoon we moved out every scrap of furniture and cleaned it with the utmost thoroughness. Then in the evening all of us assisted at the purificatory rites; but fortunately as it turned out, Crowley had decided that only his senior disciple, a chap who had taken the name of McAleister, should assist him at the actual evocation.
`At ten o'clock the rest of
us robed them, then left them there, and Crowley locked the door behind us. He had already issued strict injunctions that whatever sounds we might hear coming from the room, even if they were cries for help, we were in no circumstances to attempt to enter it; as such cries might be a trick of Pan's made in an endeavour to evade him, and any interruption of the ritual would render the spell abortive. We had fasted all day, so our associate, the landlord, had prepared an excellent cold buffet for us downstairs in the dining room. It wasn't a very gay meal, as all of us were aware of the magnitude of the task the Master Therion had set himself. We had great confidence in his powers, but it was probably several centuries since any adept had had the audacity to attempt to summon the horned God in person, so we were naturally a bit nervy.
`It was just on midnight when we heard the first noises upstairs. There were thumping’s and shouts, then all Hell seemed to break loose. Piercing screams were mingled with what sounded like sacks of potatoes being flung about. We had the impression that the whole building was rocking. In fact it was, as the chandelier above us began to swing, the glasses jingled on the sideboard and a picture fell from the wall with a loud crash. It was like being in the middle of an earthquake, and the room in which we were sitting had suddenly become icy cold.
`We had all been inmates of the Abbaye at one time or another and had passed pretty severe tests in standing up to Satanic manifestations, so we were by no means a chicken hearted lot. But on this occasion we were seized by abject terror, and none of us made the least effort to hide it. We just sat there, white to the gills and paralyzed by the thought that at any second the terrible Being up above might descend on us.
`After a few moments the pandemonium subsided, and we tried to pull ourselves together. With our teeth chattering from the cold, we debated whether we had better not ignore Crowley's orders and go up to find out what had happened. But the room began to get warm again and that, together with the continued silence, led us to hope that Crowley had won his battle and succeeded in binding Pan. If so, for us to have gone in then might still have ruined everything, and Crowley's rage would have been beyond all reckoning. Knowing his powers, none of us felt inclined to risk the sort of punishment he might have inflicted on us for disobeying him; so we decided to let matters be, and I for one was not sorry about that.
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