One other door opened off it besides those to the servants’ quarters and the vestibule. De Richleau slowly turned the knob and pressed. The room was a small library, and at the far end a pair of uncurtained french windows showed the garden, ghostly and mysterious in the starlight. Leaving Rex by the door, the Duke tiptoed across the room, drew the bolts, opened the windows and propped them wide. From where he stood he could just make out the laburnum by the wall. A clear retreat was open to them now. He turned, then halted with a sharp intake of breath. Rex had disappeared.
‘Rex!’ he hissed in a loud whisper, gripped by a sudden nameless fear. Rex!’ But there was no reply.
CHAPTER V
EMBODIED EVIL
De Richleau had been involved in so many strange adventures in his long and chequered career, that instinctively his hand flew to the pocket where he kept his automatic at such times, but it was flatand in a fraction of time it had come back to him that this was no affair of shootings and escapes, but a grim struggle against the Power of Darknessin which their only protection must be an utter faith in the ultimate triumph of good, and the use of such little power as he possessed to bring into play the great forces of the Power of Light.
In two strides he had reached the door, grabbed the electric switch, and pressed it as he cried in ringing tones : ‘Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis!’
‘What the hell!’ exclaimed Rex as the light flashed on. He was at the far side of the hall, carefully constructing a booby trap of chairs and china in front of the door that led to the servants’ quarters.
‘You’ve done it now,’ he added, with his eyes riveted upon the upper landing, but nothing stirred and the pall of silence descended upon the place again until they could hear each other’s quickened breathing.
‘The house is empty,’ Rex declared after a moment. ‘If there were anyone here they’d have been bound to hear you about. It echoed from the cellars to the attics.’
De Richleau was regarding him with an angry stare. ‘You madman,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you understand what we’re up against? We must not separate for an instant in this unholy placeeven now that the lights are on.’
Rex smiled. He had always considered the Duke as the most fearless man he knew, and to see him in such a state of nerves was a revelation. ‘I’m not scared of bogeys, but I am of being shot up from behind,’ he said simply. ‘I was fixing this so we’d hear the servants if there was trouble upstairs and they came up to help Mocata.’
‘Yes, but honestly, Rex, it is imperative that we should keep as near each other as possible every second we remain in this ghastly house. It may sound childish, but I ought to have told you before that if anything queer does happen we must actually hold hands. That will quadruple our resistance to evil by attuning our vibrations towards good. Now let’s go upstairs and see if they have really gone though I can hardly doubt it.’
Rex followed marvelling. This man who was frightened of shadows and talked of holding hands at a time of danger was so utterly different to the De Richleau that he knew. Yet as he watched the Duke mounting the stairs in swift, panther-like, noiseless strides, he felt that since he was so scared, this midnight visitation was a fresh demonstration of his courage.
On the floor above they made a quick examination of the bedrooms, but all of them were unoccupied and none of the beds had been slept in.
‘Mocata must have sent the rest of them away and been waiting here with a car to whisk Simon off immediately he got back,’ De Richleau declared as they came out of the last room.
‘That’s about it, so we may as well clear out.’ Rex shivered slightly as he added: ‘It’s beastly cold up here.’
‘I was wondering whether you’d notice that, but we’re not going home yet. This is a God-given opportunity to search the house at our leisure. We may discover all sorts of interesting things. Leave all the lights on here, the more the better, and come downstairs.’
In the salon the great buffet table still lay spread with the excellent collation which they had seen there on their first visit. The Duke walked over to it and poured himself a glass of wine. ‘I see Simon has taken to Cliquot again,’ he observed. ‘He alternates between that and Bollinger with remarkable consistency, though in certain years I prefer Pol Roger to either when it has a little age on it.’
As Rex spooned a slab of Duck a la Montmorency on to a plate, helping himself liberally to the foie gras mousse and cherries, he wondered if De Richleau had really recovered from the extraordinary agitation that he had displayed a quarter of an hour before, or if he was talking so casually to cover his secret apprehensions. He hated to admit it even to himself, but there, was something queer about the house, a chill seemed to be spreading up his legs from beneath the heavily-laden table, and the silence was strangely oppressive. Anxious to get on with the business and out of the place now, he said quickly, I don’t give two hoots what he drinks, but where has Mocata goneand why?’
‘The last question is simple.’ De Richleau set down his glass and drew out the case containing the famous Hoyo de Monterrey’s. ‘There are virtually no laws against the practice of Black Magic in this country now. Only that of 1842, called the Rogues and Vagabonds Act, under which a person may be prosecuted for “pretending or professing to tell Fortunes, by using any subtle Graft, Means or Device!” But since the practitioners of it are universally evil, the Drug Traffic, Blackmail. Criminal Assault and even Murder are often mixed up with it, and for one of those reasons Mocata, having learnt that we were on our way here through his occult powers, feared a brawl might attract the attention of the police to his activities. Evidently he considered discretion the better part of valour on this occasion and temporarily abandoned the place to ustaking Simon with him.’
‘Not very logicalare you?’ Rex commented. ‘One moment it’s you who’re scared that he may do all sorts of strange things to us, and the next you tell me that he’s bolted for fear of being slogged under the jaw.’
‘My dear fellow, I can only theorise. I’m completely in the dark myself. Some of these followers of the Left Hand Path are mere neophytes who can do little more than wish evil in minor matters on people they dislike. Others are adepts and can set in .motion the most violent destructive forces which are not yet even suspected by our modern scientists.
‘If Mocata only occupies a low place in the hierarchy we can deal with him as we would any other crook with little risk of any serious danger to ourselves, but if he is a Master he may be able to strike us blind or dead. Unfortunately I know little enough of this horrible business, only the minor rituals of the Right Hand Path, or White Magic as people call it, which may protect us in an emergency. If only I knew more I might be able to find out where he has taken Simon.’
‘Cheer upwe’ll find him.’ Rex laughed as he set down his plate, but the sound echoed eerily through the deserted house, causing him to glance swiftly over his shoulder in the direction of the still darkened inner room. ‘What’s the next move?’ he asked more soberly.
‘We’ve got to try and find Simon’s papers. If we can, we may be able to get the real names and addresses of some of those people who were here tonight. Let’s try the library firstbring the bottle with you. I’ll take the glasses.’
‘What d’you mean real names?’ Rex questioned as he followed De Richleau across the hall.
‘Why, you don’t suppose that incredible old woman with the parrot beak was really called Madame D’Urfedo you? That’s only a nom-du-Diable, taken when she was re-baptised, and adopted from the Countess of that name, who was a notorious witch in Louis XV’s time. All the others are the same. Didn’t you realise the meaning of the name your lovely lady calls herself by Tanith?’
‘No.’ Rex hesitated. ‘I thought she was just foreigner that’s all.’
‘Dear me! Well, Tanith was the Moon Goddess of the Carthaginians. Thousands of years earlier the Egyptians called her Isis, and in the intervening stage she was known to the
Phoenicians as the Lady Astoroth. They worshipped her in sacred groves where doves were sacrificed and unmentionable scenes of licentiousness took place. The God Adonis was her lover, and the people wept for his mythical death each year, believing upon him as a Redeemer of Mankind. As they went in processions to her shrines they wrought themselves into the wildest frenzy, and to slake the thwarted passion of the widowed goddess, gashed themselves with knives. Sir George Frazer’s “Golden Bough” will tell you all about it, but the blood that was shed still lives, Rex, and she has been thirsty through these Christian centuries for more. Eleven words of power, each having eleven letters, twice pronounced in a fitting time and place after due preparation, and she would stand before you, terrible in her beauty, demanding a new sacrifice.’
Even Rex’s gay modernity was not proof against that sinister declaration. De Richleau’s voice held no trace of the gentle cynicism which was so characteristic of him, but seemed to ring with the positiveness of some horrible secret truth. He shuddered slightly as the Duke began to pull open the drawers of Simon’s desk.
All except one, which was locked, held letter files, and a brief examination of these showed that they contained nothing but accounts, receipts, and correspondence of a normal nature. Rex forced the remaining drawer with a heavy steel paper knife, but it only held cheque book counterfoils and bundles of dividend warrants, so they turned their attention to the long shelves of books. It was possible that Simon might have concealed certain private papers behind his treasured collection of modern first editions, but after ten minutes’ careful search they assured themselves that nothing of interest was hidden at the back of the neat rows of volumes.
Having drawn a blank in the library, they proceeded to the other downstairs rooms, going systematically through every drawer and cabinet, but without result. Then they moved upstairs and tried the bedrooms, yet here again they could discover nothing which might not have been found in any normal house, nor was there any safe in which important documents might have been placed.
During the search De Richleau kept Rex constantly beside him, and Rex was not altogether sorry. Little by little the atmosphere of the place was getting him down, and more than once he had the unpleasant sensation that somebody was watching him covertly from behind, although he told himself that it was pure imagination, due entirely to De Richleau’s evident belief in the supernatural, of which they had been talking all the evening.
‘These people must have left traces of their doings in this house somewhere,’ declared the Duke angrily as they came out of the last bedroom on to the landing, ‘and I’m determined to find them.’
‘We haven’t done the Observatory yet, and I’d say that’s the most likely spot of all,’ Rex suggested.
‘Yeslet’s do that next.’ De Richleau turned towards the upper flight of stairs.
The great domed room was just as they had left it a few hours before. The big telescope pointing in the same direction, the astrolabes and sextants still in the same places. The five-pointed pentacle enclosed in the double circle with its Cabalistic figures stood out white and clear on the polished floor in the glare of the electric lights. Evidently no ceremony had taken place after their departure. To verify his impression the Duke threw up the lid of the wicker hamper that stood beside the wall.
A scraping sound came from the basket, and he nodded. ‘See Rex! The Black Cock and the White Hen destined for sacrifice, but we spoilt their game for tonight at all events. We’ll take them down and free them in the garden when we go.’
‘What did they really mean to dod’you think?’ Rex asked gravely.
‘Utilise the conjunction of certain stars which occurred at Simon’s birth, and again tonight, to work some invocation through him. To raise some dark familiar perhaps, an elemental or an earthbound spiritor even some terrible intelligence from what we know as Hell, in order to obtain certain information they require from it.’
‘Oh, nuts!’ Rex exclaimed impatiently. I don’t believe such things. Simon’s been got hold of by a gang of blackmailing kidnappers and hypnotised if you like. They’ve probably used this Black Magic stuff to impose on him just as it imposes on you but in every other way it’s sheer, preposterous nonsense.’
‘I only hope that you may continue to think so, Rex, but I fear you may have reason to altar your views before we’re through. Let’s continue our searchshall we?
‘Fine though I’ve a hunch it’s a pity we didn’t call in the cops at the beginning.’
They examined the instruments, but all of them were beyond suspicion of any secret purpose, and then a square revolving bookcase, but it held only trigonometry tables and charts of the heavens.
‘Damn it, there must be something in this place!’ De Richleau muttered. ‘Swords or cups or devils’ bibles. They couldn’t perform their ritual without them.’
‘Maybe they took their impedimenta with them when they quit.’
‘Perhaps, but I’d like even to see the place in which they kept it. You never know what they may have left behind. Try tapping all round the walls, Rex, and I’ll do the floor. There’s almost certain to be a secret cache somewhere.’
For some minutes they pursued their search in silence, only their repeated knockings breaking the stillness of the empty house. Then Rex gave a sudden joyful shout.
‘Here, quickit’s hollow under here!
Together they pulled aside an early seventeenth-century chart of the Macrocosm by Robert Fludd, and after fumbling for a moment found the secret spring. The panel slid back with a click.
In a recess some four feet deep reposed a strange collection of articles : a wand of hazelwood, a crystal set in gold, a torch with a pointed end so that it could be stuck upright in the ground, candlesticks, a short sword, two great books, a dagger with a blade curved like a sickle moon, a ring, a chalice and an old bronze lamp, formed out of twisted human figures, which had nine wicks. All had pentacles, planetary signs, and other strange symbols engraved upon them, and each had the polish which is a sign of great age coupled with frequent usage.
‘Got them!’ snapped the Duke. ‘By Jove, I’m glad we stayed, Rex! These things are incredibly rare, and each a power in itself through association with past mysteries. It is a thousand to one against their having others, and without them their claws will be clipped from working any serious evil against us.’ As he spoke De Richleau lifted out the two ancient volumes. One had a binding of worked copper on which were chased designs and characters. Its leaves, which were made from the bark of young trees, were covered with very clear writing done with an iron point. The text of the other was painted on vellum yellowed by time, and its binding supported by great scrolled silver clasps.
‘Wonderful copies,’ the Duke murmured, with all the enthusiasm of a bibliophile. ‘The Clavicule of Solomon and The Grimoire of Pope Honorius. They are not the muddled recast versions of the seventeenth century either, but far, far older. This Clavicule on cork may be of almost any age, and is to the Black Art what the Codex Sinaiticus and such early versions are to Christianity.’
‘Well, maybe Mocata didn’t figure we’d stay to search this place when we found Simon wasn’t here, but it doesn’t say much for all his clairvoyant powers you make such a song about for him to let us get away with his whole magician’s box of tricks. Say! where’s that draught coming from?’ Rex suddenly clapped a hand on the back of his neck.
The Duke thrust the two books back and swung round as if he had been stung. He had felt it at the same instanta sudden chill wind which increased to a rushing icy blast, so cold that it stung his hands and face like burning fire. The electric lights flickered and went dim, so that only the faint red glow of the wires showed in the globes. The great room was plunged in shadow and a violet mist began to rise out of the middle of the pentacle, swirling with incredible rapidity like some dust devil of the desert. It gathered height and bulk, spread and took form.
The lights flickered again and then went out, bu
t the violet mist had a queer phosphorescent glow of its own. By it they could see the cabalistic characters between the circles that ringed the pentacle, and the revolving bookcase, like a dark shadow beyond it, through the luminous mist. An awful stench of decay which yet had something sweet and cloying about it, filled their nostrils as they gazed, sick and almost retching with repulsion, at a grey face that was taking shape about seven feet from the floor. The eyes were fixed upon them, malicious and intent. The eyeballs whitened but the face went dark. Under it the mist was gathering into shoulders, torso, hips.
Before they could choke for breath the materialisation had completed. Clad in flowing robes of white, Mocata’s black servant towered above them. His astral body was just as the Duke had seen in the flesh, from tip to toe a full six foot eight, and the eyes, slanting inward, burned upon them like live coals of fire.
CHAPTER VI
THE SECRET ART
Rex was not frightened in the ordinary meaning of the word. He was past the state in which he could have ducked, or screamed, or run. He stood there rigid, numbed by the icy chill that radiated from the figure in the pentagram, a tiny pulse throbbed in his forehead, and his knees seemed to grow weak beneath him. A clear, silvery voice beat in his ears: ‘Do not look at his eyes! do not look at his eyes!do not look at his eyes!’ An urgent repetition of De Richleau’s warning to him, but try as he would, he could not drag his gaze from the malignant yellow pupils which burned in the black face.
Unable to stir hand or foot, he watched the ab-human figure grow in breadth and height, its white draperies billowing with a strange silent motion as they rose from the violet mist that obscured the feet, until overflowed the circles that ringed the pentagram and seemed to fill the lofty chamber like a veritable Djin. The room reeked with the sickly, cloying stench which he had heard of but never thought to knowthe abominable effluvium of embodied evil.
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