The shadows lengthened and the patches of sunlight dimmed, yet still Tanith slept onthe sleep of utter exhaustionbrought about by the terrible nervous crises through which she had passed from hour to hour during the previous day, the past night, and that morning, in her attempt to seek safety with him.
With infinite precaution not to disturb her he looked at his watch and found that the time was nearly eight o’clock. De Richleau should be back by now and after all it was unlikely that Mocata could prevent his return before sundown. De Richleau might have lost his nerve for a few moments the night before, but he had retrieved it brilliantly in that headlong dash at the wheel of the Hispano down into the hellish valley where the Satanists practised their grim rites. Now that they had secured Simon safe and sound once more, Rex had an utter faith that De Richleau would fight to the last ditch, with all the skill and cunning of his subtle brain, and that stubborn, tenacious courage that Rex knew so well, before he would surrender their friend to the evil powers again.
It was dark now; even the afterglow had faded, leaving the trees as vague, dark sentinels in that silent wood. The undergrowth was massed in bulky shadows and the colour had faded from the grasses and wild-flowers on the green, mossy bank where he lay with Tanith breathing so evenly in his embrace.
His back and arms were aching from his strained position but he sat on while the moments fled, sleepy himself now, yet determined not to give way to the temptation, even to doze, lest silent evil should steal upon them where they lay.
Another hour crept by and then Tanith stirred slightly. Another moment, and she had raised her head, shaking the tumbled golden hair back from her face and blinking up at him a little out of sleepy eyes.
‘Rex, where are we?’ she murmured indistinctly. ‘What has happened? I’ve had an awful dream.’
He smiled down at her and kissed her full on the lips.
‘Together,’ he said. ‘That’s all that matters, isn’t it? But if you must know, we’re in the wood behind the road-house.’
‘Of course,’ she gave a little gasp, and hurriedly began to tidy herself. ‘But we can’t stay here all night’
The thought of taking her back to Cardinals Folly occurred to him again, but in these timeless hours he had witnessed so many things he would have thought impossible a few days before that he dismissed the idea at once. Tanith, he felt convinced, was not lying to him. She was genuinely repentant and terrified of Mocata. But who could say what strange powers that sinister man might not be able to exercise over her at a distance. He dared not risk it. However, she was certainly right in saying that they could not stay where they were all night.
‘We’d best go back to the road-house,’ he suggested. ‘They will be able to knock us up a meal, and after, it’ll be time enough, to figure out what we mean to do.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed a little. ‘I am hungry nowterribly hungry. Do let us go back and see if they can find us something to eat’
Her arm through his, their fingers laced together, they walked back the quarter of a mile to the little stream which separated the wood from the inn garden. He lifted her over it again and when they reached the house of the Pride of Peacocks they found that it was already half-past nine.
Knowing that his friends would be anxious about him, Rex tried to telephone immediately he got in, but the village exchange told him that the line to Cardinals Folly was out of order. Then he sent the trim maid for Mr. Wilkes, and when that worthy arrived on the scene, inquired if it was too late for them to have a hot meal.
‘Not at all, sir,’ Mr. Wilkes bent, quiet-voiced, deferential, priest-like, benign. ‘My wife will be very happy to cook you a little dinner. What would you care for now? Fish is a little difficult in these parts, except when I know that I have guests staying and can order in advance, and game, of course, is unfortunately out of season. But a nice young duckling perhaps, or a chicken? My wife, if I may say so, does a very good Chicken Maryland, sir, of which our American visitors have been kind enough to express their approval from time to time.’
‘Chicken Maryland,’ exclaimed Rex. ‘That sounds grand to me. How about you, honey?’
Tanith nodded. ‘Lovely, if only it is not going to take too long.’
‘Some twenty minutes, madam. Not more. Mrs. Wilkes will see to it right away, and in the meantime, I’ve just had in a very nice piece of smoked salmon, which comes to me from a London house. I could recommend that if “you would like to start your dinner fairly soon.’
Rex nodded, and the aged Wilkes went on amiably: ‘And now, sirto drink? Red wine, if I might make so bold would be best with the grill, perhaps. I have a little of the Clos de Vougoet 1920 left, which Mr. Richard Eaton was good enough to compliment me on when he dined here last, and his Lordship, my late master, always used to say that he found a glass of Justerini’s Amontillado before a meal lent an edge to the appetite.’
For a second Rex wavered. He recalled De Richleau’s prohibition against alcohol, but he had been far from satisfied by the brief rest which he had snatched that morning and was feeling all the strain now of the events which had taken place in the last forty-eight hours. Tanith, too, was looking pale and drawn, despite her sleep. A bottle of good burgundy was the very thing they needed to give them fresh strength and courage. He could have sunk half a dozen cocktails with the greatest ease and pleasure, but by denying himself spirits, he felt that he was at least carrying out the kernel of the Duke’s instructions. Good wine could surely harm no oneso he acquiesced.
A quarter of an hour later, he was seated opposite to Tanith at a little corner table in the dining-room, munching fresh, warm toast and the smoked salmon with hungry relish, while the neat little maid ministered to their wants, and the pontifical Mr. Wilkes hovered eagle-eyed in the background. The chicken was admirably cooked, and the wine lent an additional flavour by the fact that his palate was unusually clean and fresh from having denied himself those cocktails before the meal.
When the chicken was served, Mr. Wilkes murmured something about a sweet and Rex, gazing entranced into Tanith’s big eyes, nodded vaguely. Which sign of assent resulted, a little later, in the production of a flaming omelette au kirsch. Then Wilkes came forward once more, with a suggestion that the dinner should be rounded off by allowing him to decant a bottle of his Cockburn’s ‘08. But here, Rex was firm. The burgundy had served its purpose, stimulated his brain and put fresh life into his body. To drink a vintage port after it would have been pleasant he knew, but certain to destroy the good effect and cause him to feel sleepy. So he resisted Mr. Wilkes’s blandishments.
After the meal Rex tried to get on to Cardinals Folly again but the line was still reported out of order, so he scribbled a note to Richard, saying that he was safe and well and would ring them in the morning, then asked Wilkes to have it sent up to the house by hand.
When the landlord had left them, they moved back into the lounge and discussed how they should pass the night. Tanith was as insistent as ever that under no circumstances should Rex leave her to herself, even if she asked him later on to do so. She felt that her only hope of safety lay in remaining with him beside her until the morning, so it was decided that they should spend the night together in the empty lounge.
Tanith had already booked a room and so, to make all things orderly in the mind of the good Mr. Wilkes, Rex booked another, but told the landlord that, as Tanith suffered from insomnia, they would probably remain in the lounge until very late, and so he was not to bother about them when he locked up. As a gesture he also borrowed from Wilkes a pack of cards, saying that they meant to pass an hour or two playing nap.
The fire was made up and they settled down comfortably under the shelter of the big mantel in the inglenook with a little table before them upon which they spread out the cards for appearance’ sake. But no sooner had the maid withdrawn than they had their arms about each other once more and blissfully oblivious of their surroundings, began that delightful first exchange of confidences
about their previous lives, which is such a blissful hour for all lovers.
Rex would have been in the seventh heaven but for the thought of this terrible business in which Tanith had got herself involved and the threat of Mocata’s power hanging like a sword of Damocles above her head.
Again and again, from a variety of subjects and experiences ranging the world over, and from their childhood to the present day, they found themselves continually and inexplicably caught back to that macabre subject which both were seeking to avoid. In the end, both surrendered to it and allowed the thoughts which were uppermost in their minds to enter their conversation freely.
‘I’m still hopelessly at sea about this business,’ Rex confessed. ‘It’s all so alien, so bizarre, so utterly fantastic. I know I wasn’t dreaming last night or the night before. I know that if Simon hadn’t got himself into trouble I wouldn’t be holding your loveliness in my arms right now. Yet, every time I think of it, I feel that I must have been imagining things, and that it just simply can’t be true.’
‘It is, my dear,’ she pressed his hand gently. ‘That is just the horror of it. If it were any ordinary tangible peril, it wouldn’t be quite so terrifying. It wouldn’t be quite so bad even if we were living in the Middle Ages. Then at least, I could seek sanctuary in some convent where the nuns would understand and the priests, who were learned in such matters, exert themselves to protect me. But in these days of modern scepticism there is no one I can turn to; police and clergymen and doctors would all think me insane. I only have you and after last night I’m frightened, Rex, frightened.’ A sudden flush mounted to her cheeks again.
I know, I know,’ Rex soothed her gently. ‘But you must try all you know not to be. I’ve a feeling that you’re scaring yourself more than is really necessary. I’ll agree that Mocata might hypnotise you if he got you on your own again, and maybe use you in some way to get poor Simon back into his net, but what could he actually do to you beyond that? He’s not going to take a chance on murdering anybody, so that the police could take a hand, even if he had sufficient motive to want to try.’
‘I am afraid you don’t understand, dearest,’ she murmured gently. ‘A Satanist who is as far along the Path as Mocata does not need a motive to do murder, unless you can call malicious pleasure in the deed a motive in itself, and my having left him in the lurch at such a critical time is quite sufficient to anger him into bringing about my death.’
‘I tell you, sweet, he’ll never risk doing murder. In this country it is far too dangerous a game.’
‘But his murders are not like ordinary murders. He can kill from a distance if he likes.’
‘Whatby sticking pins in a little wax figure with your name scratched on it, or letting it melt away before the fire until you pine and die?’
‘That is one way, but he is more likely to use the blood of white mice.’
‘How in the world do you mean?’
‘I don’t know very much about it except what I have picked up from Madame D’Urfe and a few other people. They say that when a very advanced adept wishes to kill someone, he feeds a white mouse on some of the holy waters that they compel people to steal from churches for them. The sacrilegious aspect of the thing is very important, you see. Then they perform the Catholic ceremony of baptism over the mouse, christening it with the same name as that of their intended victim. That creates an affinity between the mouse and the person far stronger than carving their name on any image.’
‘Then they kill the mouse, eh?’
‘No, I don’t think so. They draw off some of its blood, impregnate that with their malefic will, vaporise it, and call up an elemental to feed upon its essence. Then they perform a mystic transfusion in their victim’s veins causing the elemental to poison them. But, Rex–—’
‘Yes, my sweet.’
‘It is not that I am afraid to die. In any case, as I have told you, there is no hope of my living out the year, but that has not troubled me for a long time now. It is what may come after that terrifies me so.’
‘Surely he can’t harm anybody once they’re dead,’ Rex protested.
‘But he can,’ Tanith burst out with a little cry of distress and fear. ‘If he kills me that way, he can make me dead to the world, but I shall live on as an undead, and that would be horrible.’
Rex passed his hand wearily across his eyes. ‘Don’t speak in riddles, treasure. What is this thing you’re frightened of? Just tell me now in ordinary, plain English.’
‘All right. I suppose you have heard of a vampire.’
‘Why, yes. I’ve read of them in fiction. They’re supposed to come out of their graves every night and drink the blood of human beings, aren’t they? Until they’re found out, then their graves are opened up for a priest to cut off their head and drive stakes through their hearts. Is that what you call an undead?’
Tanith nodded slowly. ‘Yes, that is an undeada foul, revolting thing, a living corpse that creeps through the night like a great white slug, and a body bloated from drinking people’s blood. But have you never read of them in other books beside nightmare fiction?’
‘No. I wouldn’t exactly say I have as far as I can remember. The Duke would know all about them for a certaintyand Richard Eaton too, I expectbecause they’re both great readers. But I’m just an ordinary chap who’s content to take his reading from the popular novelists who can turn out a good, interesting story. Do you mean to tell me seriously that such creatures have ever existed outside the thriller writer’s imagination?’
‘I do. In the Carpathians, where I come from, the whole countryside is riddled with vampire stories from real life. You hear of them in Poland and Hungary and Roumania, too. All through Middle Europe and right down into the Balkan countries there have been endless cases of such revolting Satanic manifestations. Anyone there will tell you that time and again, when graves have been opened on suspicion, the corpses of vampires have been found, months after burial without the slightest sign of decay, their flesh pink and flushed, their eyes wide-open, bright and staring. The only difference to their previous appearance is the way in which their canine teeth have grown long and pointed. Often, even, they have been found with fresh blood trickling out of the sides of their mouths.’
‘Say, that sounds pretty grim,’ Rex exclaimed with a little shudder. ‘I reckon De Richleau would explain that by saying that the person was possessed before he died and that after, although the actual soul passed on, the evil spirit continued to make a doss-house of its borrowed body. But I can’t think that anything so awful would ever happen to you.’
‘It might, my dear. That is what scares me so. And if Mocata did get hold of me again he would not need to perform those ghastly rites with impregnated blood. He could just throw me into the hypnotic state and, after he had made me do all he wished, allow some terrible thing to take possession of me at once. The elemental would still remain in my body when he killed me, and I should become one of those loathsome creaturesthe un-dead, if that happened, this very night.’
‘Stop! I can’t bear to think of it,’ Rex drew her quickly to him again. ‘But he shan’t get hold of you. We’ll fight him till all’s blue, and I’m going to marry you tomorrow so that I can be with you constantly. We’ll apply for a special licence first thing in the morning.’
She nodded, and a new light of hope came into her eyes. ‘If you wish it, Rex,’ she whispered, ‘and I do believe that by your love and strength, you can save me. But you mustn’t leave me for a single second tonight, and we mustn’t sleep a wink. Listen!’
She paused a moment as the bell in the village steeple chimed the twelve strokes of midnight, which came to them clearly in the stillness of the quiet room. ‘It is the second of May now my fatal day.’
He smiled indulgently. ‘Sure, I won’t leave you, and we won’t sleep either. One of us might drop off if we were all alone, but together we’ll prod each other into keeping awake. Though I just can’t think that’ll be necessary, with all t
he million things I’ve got to tell you about your sweet self.’
She stood up then, raising her arms to smooth back her hair, and making a graceful slender silhouette against the flickering flames of the heaped-up fire.
‘No. The night will slip away before we know it,’ she agreed more cheerfully. ‘Because I’ve got a thousand things to tell you too. I must just slip upstairs to powder my nose now, and when I come back, we’ll settle down in earnest to make a night of it together.’
A quick frown crossed his face. ‘I thought you said I wasn’t to let you leave me even for a second. I don’t like your going upstairs alone at all.’
‘But, my dear!’ Tanith gave a little laugh, ‘I can hardly take you with me, and I shan’t be gone more than a few moments.’
Rex nodded, reassured as he saw her standing there, smiling down at him in the firelight so happy and normal in every way. He felt certain that he would know at once if Mocata was trying to exert his power on her from a distance, by that strange faraway look which had come into her eyes and the fanatical note that had raised the pitch of her voice each time she had spoken of the imperative necessity of her reaching the meeting-place for the Sabbat on the previous day. There was not the faintest suggestion of that other will, imposed upon her own, in her face or voice now, and obviously it would have been childish to attempt to prevent her carrying out so sensible a suggestion before settling down. The best part of six hours must elapse before daylight began to filter greyly through the old-fashioned bow window at the far end of the room.
‘All right,’ he laughed. ‘I’ll give you five minutes by that clock but no more, remember, and if you’re not down then, I’ll come up and get you.’
‘Dear lover!’ she stopped suddenly and kissed him, then slipped out of the room closing the door softly behind her.
Rex lay back, spreading his great limbs now in the comfortable corner of the inglenook, and stretching out his long legs to the glow of the log fire. He wasn’t sleepy, which amazed him when he thought how little sleep he had had since he woke in his stateroom on the giant Cunarder the morning of the day that he dined with De Richleau. That seemed ages ago now, weeks, months, years. So many things had happened, so many new and staggering thoughts come to seethe and ferment in his brain, yet Simon’s party had been held only a bare two nights before.
The Devil Rides Out ddr-6 Page 26