A good half minute elapsed before C. B, said, `We are very grateful to you for having been so frank with us; and I can only repeat that we are here as friends who want to help. We got drawn into this thing because John Fountain's mother lives in the villa next door to that which you rented for Ellen. I had better tell you what has happened since you left her there; then we shall better be able to decide between us on a plan of campaign for overcoming our mutual enemy.'
`I can give you no help in that.' Beddows' voice was sharp. `I'll have my work cut out to protect myself as it is, without inviting further trouble.'
C. B. ignored the remark and proceeded to give him an account of the events centering round Ellen that had taken place in the South of France. When he had done, Beddows said thoughtfully
`Copely Syle must have smelt a rat as soon as he learned that I had gone abroad so near the date. The odds are that he came to The Grange in our absence and managed to get hold of some of the girl's personal belongings; an old hairbrush or anything she had used for her toilet would enable him to overlook her and find out where she had gone.. Evidently the reason that he has so far made no move against me is because he has been too occupied with his
attempts to have her kidnapped. I'm grateful to you for all you've done to keep her out of his clutches, and I quite understand now your reasons for breaking in here; but all the same I'd be glad if you would leave me.'
`Oh come!' John protested. `Now you know the danger she is in surely you don't propose to ignore it?'
`Since you had this bright idea of having her arrested, she is no longer in danger. These crooks who are acting for the Canon will be far too scared of the police to attempt to abduct her from a French prison.'
`You are forgetting the Canon,' C. B. put in. `By using his occult powers he may be able to get her out; and it is as good as certain, now, that he will fly out there to morrow morning. We know that he'll stick at nothing to get hold of Ellen and he still has over forty hours to work in.'
`Well, there's nothing I can do about it.'
`Yes there is. You and he must have been mixed up in all sorts of queer business. It's a sure thing that a thoroughly unscrupulous man like Copely-Syle has committed a number of criminal acts in order to carry on his sorcery and that you know of some of them. From time to time he must either have robbed churches or instigated others to do so, in order to get hold of Holy Communion wafers for desecration. We know, too, that he is having blood donors' gifts of blood stolen from hospitals to feed his homunculi. I want you to come with us to the police and make a statement. On that we'll get a warrant for his arrest, and even if he leaves for France in the morning I can get it executed there. That is the only way we can make absolutely certain of protecting Ellen until her maximum period of danger is past.'
Beddows gave a short, harsh laugh. `What the hell d'you take me for? A lunatic? Can't you see that now you've queered his pitch with Ellen by having her imprisoned, the odds are that he will round on me? As long as I remain in this pentacle I've good hopes of cheating Lucifer yet; but the moment I move out of it I'm liable at any time to have my soul snatched, and my body will spend the rest of its days in an asylum. No thank you!
'You got Ellen into this!' cried John angrily. `The very least you can do is to run some risk to get her out of it.'
`She's safe enough where she is! A darned sight safer than I am, anyway ! I did my best for her by taking the risk that I'm running already, instead of handing her over in accordance with my bond; and I'll do no more. Nothing you or anyone else can say is going to get me out of this pentacle within the next forty eight hours.'
`What is to prevent our smashing it up?'
`I can't; and if you do I'll be in hideous danger for a while. But better that than the far worse risk of going with you now and committing myself to having to face Copely Syle in open court as a witness against him to morrow. If you do bust the electric current, I can use candles instead, and the moment you've gone I'll make another pentacle. Besides, I've already paid your price for not interfering with this one by telling you what you came here to find out.'
For a further twenty minutes they argued and pleaded with Beddows, but in vain. Nothing would move him, and when C. B. found that they were repeating themselves over end over again he said at last
`It's no good, John. We must do what we can on our own. Let's get out of this and back to Colchester.'
With a curt good night to Beddows, they left him and, having eased the bonds of the ape a little, made their way downstairs. On slipping out of the window by which they had come in they found that it was no longer raining, and with heartfelt relief at leaving the dank, dark house, they gratefully breathed in the cool night air.
As they turned into the drive, John muttered, `The callous swine! I would have liked to strangle him.'
C. B. shrugged. `After having had the luck to run him to earth like that it was damnably disappointing that he should refuse to help us; but he's far from being a hundred per cent evil, otherwise he would not have tried to hide Ellen and be facing the music himself. Just think what an ordeal he undertook when he decided to coop himself up in that grim room for days on end and wait for some Frightful thing to come and attempt to get him! It can hardly be wondered at that he is half crazy from fear already.'
`All the same, he might at least have given us some pointer which would help us to lay the Canon by the heels. The very idea of a father selling his child to the Devil in the beginning is almost unbelievable, and for him to refuse to utter a word that might help to save her from being murdered now is fantastic.'
`Fantastic is the word for this whole horrible business, partner. What could be more so than the thought of Henry Beddows, a down to earth inventor of motor engines, who has constantly to deal with Trade Union officials, and is a power in the commercial world of Britain, sitting up there in a magic pentacle preparing to wrestle with demons for his soul; or a man who was, apparently, once a Canon of the Church of England planning to murder a girl in order to give a semblance of human life to a monster of his own creation? Nevertheless, we know these things to be actually happening.'
`I know, I know! But what are we going to do now?' `Get some sleep. I can do with it.'
It was getting on for three o'clock in the morning by the time they reached their hotel. By then they were too tired even to tip the night porter to get them a drink. On reaching their rooms they pulled off their clothes, flopped into bed and within a few moments were in the deep sleep of exhaustion.
Next morning they had their breakfasts sent up to C.B.’s room and while they ate them discussed the position to date. During the previous evening and night they had found out a great deal. They now knew more about Christina's past than she knew herself and the reason for her queer behaviour. They knew why the Canon was so anxious to get hold of her, and that if he succeeded it would cost her not only her freedom, but her life. They had traced her father and learned his reason for taking her to the South of France and abandoning her there; but he had positively refused to give them the aid they had expected from him. On the other hand it had been definitely verified that the danger in which she stood would be acute for only one day; since, should the Canon fail to carry out his abominable ritual on her twenty first birthday, there would
be no point whatever in his killing her afterwards. Therefore, their immediate problem boiled down to immobilizing the Canon for the next thirty six hours.
Their prospects of doing so seemed exceedingly slender, as it was a foregone conclusion that either he was already, or would very soon be, on his way to France. The fact that Upson had arrived at The Priory the previous night made it certain he had come by air. C. B, thought it probable that during the war Upson had served in Coastal Command and had been stationed in that area. In any case, as it had been intended that he should fly Christina home, it was evident that he was familiar with the Essex coast and had already reconnoitered some of the many lonely creeks to select a good illicit landing pla
ce. It was, therefore, long odds that when de Grasse had decided that his latest news was of too compromising a nature to convey by telephone, and sent it instead by personal messenger, Upson had travelled in his own seaplane and made a secret landing by last light somewhere along the coast not far from Little Bentford.
If so, the Canon had a pilot and aircraft at his disposal, and could leave at any hour he chose. Obviously his only chance of getting hold of Christina now lay in flying south himself, so that he could exercise his occult powers on her jailers. However, there was one factor which might cause him to delay his departure for a few hours namely that the Satanic writ did not run, as far as Christina's mind was concerned, except during the hours of darkness. Only during them could he influence her voluntarily to leave prison, should the way have been opened for her to do so. Having considered this, C. B. said
`I had pretty well made up my mind that our best plan would be to make for Northolt right away, so as to catch the 10.30 plane for Nice, then bank on our being able to head him off from getting at Christina to night. But an afternoon plane to Paris would still enable us to get down there by Air France or K.L.M. in time for that; so I think it would be worth while making a bid against Copely Syle's planning to leave before mid day, and the sporting chance that we may then be able to prevent his leaving at all.'
`I'm game to use force,' John said quickly. `And if we manage to catch him, you have only to tell me what to do. But a charge of assault and battery would blot your official copybook really badly, so. ..'
`Thanks, partner,' C. B. cut him short with a smile, `but I don't think either of us need risk being hauled up before the beak on that count. I am proposing to lay information against him for practicing cruelty to animals, and request the police to apply for a search warrant. They have only to see those poor brutes I saw in the crypt last night to issue a summons. It is illegal to leave the country with a summons pending against one, and I have enough pull with the police to get them to keep a watch on him. If he attempts to clear out after the summons has been served he will be prevented from doing so by the coppers.'
`By Jove ! That's a grand idea.'
`I hope it may prove so; but it won't do us any good if he has gone before the police get out there. And they won't be able to secure a warrant until ten o'clock at the earliest, because the magistrates' court does not open until that hour.'
`Well, if he has gone, I have another idea.' `Let's hear it.'
John's dark eyes narrowed slightly. `The Canon can't do his final job on the homunculus without Christina; and Christina is no good to him without the homunculus. That's so, isn't it?'
`Yes. Unless he can bring her back here to morrow night he is sunk.'
`Even if he does, it won't do him any good if his prize homunculus is no longer in a state to lap up Christina's blood. If we find that he has already left for France, I mean to go down into that crypt and destroy it.'
`Good for you, John.' C. B. laughed for the first time in many hours. `I really am beginning to feel a bit more hopeful now. One way or the other I think we'll manage to spike his guns. As soon as we are dressed we'll go round and do our stuff with the police.'
At the station, after the usual formalities, they were shown into the office of an elderly inspector named Fuller. To him C. B. produced his card and a small trinket that he carried, after which the inspector listened to all he had to say with considerable respect. Although C. B, refrained from giving more than a general indication of what lay behind the excuse on which he desired a search warrant to be obtained, that was quite enough to have caused most people to show incredulity; but police officers of long experience have usually come up against so many extraordinary happenings that they are prepared to consider with an open mind every conceivable aberration possible to a diseased or criminal brain. In consequence Inspector Fuller took down C.B.’s formal deposition about the maimed animals without comment and quietly agreed to put the matter in hand at once.
However, at the magistrates' court some delay was unavoidable, as no special priority attached to an application regarding cruelty to animals, and the lists had already been made out. So it was half past ten before the application was granted, and after a quarter to eleven by the time the formalities of drawing the search warrant were completed.
There was no hurrying the law, and John fumed with impatience in vain; but at last Inspector Fuller and a constable came out to join C. B. and himself in the car, and they set off.
Anxious as C. B. was to learn the results of his move, he felt that any attempt on his part to accompany the police into the house might be met by the Canon, if he was still there, with legal objections, or possibly even a false accusation of having broken in the previous night, which might have seriously complicated matters. So it was decided that he and John should wait in the car just down the lane until the Inspector had carried out his search of the premises.
It was twenty past eleven when they pulled up under the trees that fringed the road some fifty yards east of The Priory, and the two police officers got out. Both C. B. and John thought it almost certain that by this time the Canon would be on his way to France; so they had lost much of the optimism that had buoyed them up earlier that morning, and they found the wait before they would know extremely trying. In anxious silence for the most part, they sat side by side smoking cigarette after cigarette while they watched the clock on the dashboard of the car tick away the minutes.
It was close on twelve before the inspector and the constable reappeared. Without a word C. B. and John got out of the car and walked with anxious faces to meet them.
The inspector smiled rather ruefully as he addressed C. B. `Canon Copely Syle is there all right, sir, and he couldn't have been more helpful. But there is no one in the house answering your description of the airman. There are no animals either, or human looking fish in big glass jars like you described. We visited the crypt and it has the appearance of being used as an ordinary laboratory; no curtains embroidered with pictures of the Devil, or anything of that sort. We went over the whole house from basement to attic, and there is nothing whatever in it on which we could ask for a summons.'
John looked at C. B. in amazement and dismay. The Canon had completely outwitted them. He was still there, but free to leave at any time he chose; for he had anticipated the raid, and there was now no legal pretext on which he could be detained. Moreover, he had removed his homunculi; so it was no longer possible to go in and destroy them.
20
The Secret Base
The police constable's face remained wooden, but C. B. felt sure that he was deriving a secret satisfaction from being in on a case where a plain clothes high hat from London had made a fool of himself. The inspector, on the other hand, knew that men like Colonel Verney did not apply for search warrants without good reason, and he said
`I'm sorry, sir. It looks as if they were tipped off that you were after them.'
C. B. rubbed the side of his big nose. `That's about it, Inspector. We won't go into the source of my information, but you can take it from me that it was red hot last night. They have destroyed most of the goods and unloaded the prize exhibit that I was after.'
`Is there any other way in which we can help, sir?'
`Only by telephoning for a car to take you back to Colchester. I shan't be going back yet. Let's go along to the pub and have one while you are waiting for transport.'
Getting into the car, they drove along to the Weavers Arms and went into the private bar. When C. B. had ordered a round of drinks and the constable had gone to telephone, he drew the inspector aside and said, `There is one thing you can do for me. Some time this morning a big crate or package, about four feet six high and three feet square, must have been removed from The Priory, either in a lorry or on a trailer. In such a quiet place as this it is a good bet that someone will have seen it being loaded up or passing along the road. Have a word with the landlord. The public bar is sure to be pretty full at this hour. Ask him to enquire
of everyone there, and tell him there's a quid for himself and a quid for anyone who can give us any useful information.'
The enquiry being made by a police inspector naturally secured the immediate co operation of the landlord with no questions asked. A few minutes later a lean, elderly man with a weather beaten face was brought into the private bar. His name was Sims and he proved to be the gardener at The Vicarage. He had seen a crate of the size described and a number of smaller packages loaded on to a lorry outside The Priory about ten o'clock. The loading had been done by the coloured servant and a tall man with a fair, fluffy moustache, under the Canon's supervision. The lorry was owned by one Joe Cotton, a local character who was no better than he should be, and he had driven off in the direction of Weeley.
Having obtained as detailed a description of Cotton and his lorry as Sims could give, C. B. paid for the information and the drinks took leave of Inspector Fuller and, accompanied by John, left the pub.
As John turned the car in the direction of Weeley he said, `Well done, C. B. If we can catch the fellow with the lorry we'll do in that filthy homunculus yet.'
'Yes if!' C. B. replied dubiously. `But he's got two and a half hours' start of us, and remember Copely Syle runs a coven in these parts. The odds are that it has been stowed away in the cellars of a house belonging to one of his brother warlocks an hour or more ago.'
At the village of Weeley they got out and made enquiries; but no one they asked had seen such a lorry, so they decided to go back to the last crossroads. On reaching them they took the road east to Thorpe le Soken, and there they had what they thought might turn out to be better luck. Soon after mid day a woman had seen a lorry pass through and take the road north towards Great Oakley. It sounded like the one they were after, but as she was certain that there had been two men in its cabin there was a possibility that it was another. No one else they asked had noticed a lorry at all; so they drove on, now heading north.
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