‘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 Jetyjrah and some of the Midra-schim. Then I began to see a little daylight.’
‘In fact you began to believe, like 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 utilised 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 rightCastelnau. 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 interested. 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?’
‘Um. 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 Adept 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 extraordinaryutterly 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 Magicneither 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 Dom Gorenflot’s.’
‘I know,’ agreed the Duke impatiently. ‘I’ve seen him. But I mean 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 b
attle 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 used 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 wasp 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, in 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 a 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.’
‘Whatto 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 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 Talismen 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 that 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 destructionand I know the Talisman of Set to be another. Europe is ripe now for any trouble and if they are loosed 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 him plunging the world into another war.’
CHAPTER XXI
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 crazyor 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 lunchand 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 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 too! What can it mean?’
‘God knows! Anyhow it seems that virtuous and upright wife orders preparation 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.’
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