The Admiral rose to his full height, gave a friendly nod to the Duke and passed out of the room. He was obviously blissfully unaware that he was stark naked, but that fact immediatey informed de Richleau of one of the things he was anxious to know. The Admiral was a young soul and all but the minor mysteries of the Great Beyond still remained veiled to him.
This simplified matters considerably for the purpose of the investigation, as there are seven planes, or levels of consciousness, of which the Earth is the lowest and the normal sleep plane the next; but to ascend to each of those beyond requires ever greater degrees of power. De Richleau could achieve the fourth and had glimpsed the fifth on very rare occasions, but if the Admiral had been far advanced upon the great journey and had chosen to ascend into the realms of the greater Beatitudes, the Duke could not have followed him. The number of people living on this Earth who are capable of reaching the higher spheres is, however, extremely limited, and comparatively few ever get beyond the third plane in their nightly wanderings; while in the Admiral’s case it was quite clear from his nudity that he was still held very near to Earth even when out of his body.
As the elderly lady was still turning restlessly, de Richleau compassionately made a sign above her which immediately sent her into peaceful sleep, but he did not wait to witness the materialisation of her astral and, leaving the room, floated gently after her husband.
The Admiral paused for a little above Orme Square to regard the blitzkrieg which was still in progress. Having muttered some profane things about the Nazis he shrugged his shoulders and turned east, moving at great speed. De Richleau followed with equal swiftness but keeping at some distance, and as they journeyed eastward through the night they passed many other astrals floating in the stratosphere. As their speed further increased these became only little blurs then faint streaks of light, until finally they made no impression at all on the surrounding darkness.
In less time than it takes to walk down the Haymarket they had left Earth behind, the darkness faded and the Duke saw that they were travelling in a country which he knew to be the astral equivalent of China. With the coming of full light the Admiral entered a rice field outside a town and began to walk along a path towards the nearest houses. De Richleau followed, changing his costume and appearance as he did so to that of a middle-aged Chinaman.
There was nothing at all in the whole landscape to indicate that they were not actually in China. The ground was hard to the feet, a gentle wind was blowing and the leaves of a grove of bamboos were rustling in it. Only one thing indicated that they were, in fact, upon the astral plane, and this was that the Admiral, although stepping out with commendable vigour for one of his years, was still stark naked.
A hundred yards further on, a group of coolies were working among the bushes of a tea plantation. As the Admiral drew near they suddenly noticed him, stopped work, pointed and began to titter. Glancing down at himself he suddenly realised his plight and, evidently recalling the first trick which is learnt by a young spirit in its nightly wandering, exercised his will to good effect by clothing himself in the white tropical uniform of a British midshipman.
Soon afterwards he entered the Chinese city and the Duke followed him through numerous twisting byways until they reached a charming little house set apart in a garden. Secure from recognition in his disguise as a Chinaman, de Richleau had almost caught up with his quarry and could now see that although the Admiral’s will had not proved strong enough to give him back his lost youth a good twenty years had fallen from him. He was more upright, less paunchy and appeared to be in the early forties, which, admittedly, was an advanced age for a midshipman but not too bad in view of his obvious intentions, for, having knocked upon the door of the little house, it had been opened to him by a smiling and most attractive young woman whose almond eyes and golden skin betrayed her oriental origin.
De Richleau sat down for a little while beneath a peach tree that was in blossom near the garden gate. It was reasonable to suppose that for one reason or another the Admiral now desired privacy and would therefore be putting up resistance to any other astral appearing to interrupt his tête-à-tête; yet it was necessary that the Duke should make quite certain that his quarry was not giving away information. He therefore left the astral plane, rising to the next highest level of consciousness, which is as far removed from the astral as the astral is from Earth. Invisible and soundless to the Admiral now, he drifted in through an open window. At once he observed with entirely detached interest certain not altogether unexpected, and by no means original, exercises which the Midshipman-Admiral, now once more unclothed, was performing with the willing assistance of the delightful almond-eyed lady. He then discreetly withdrew, having concluded that it was now about six to four against his discovering that willingly, or unwillingly, the Admiral spent any portion of his nights in communicating Britain’s secrets to her enemies.
However, the Duke was a man who believed in always making dead certain of his facts, and it was still quite on the cards that after the Admiral had rendered the girl her due he might turn his attention to more serious matters. Clearly he must be kept under supervision until he returned to his body, so de Richleau elected to while away the time of waiting by summoning a friend. Back in the street he returned to his normal form, clothing himself as a European gentleman travelling in the Tropics, then he pronounced certain words very softly, several times, and waited for a few moments.
Shortly afterwards a plump, genial-faced Roman Catholic priest came walking down the street and he and de Richleau greeted each other with evident affection. The priest was not in a state of incarnation at this time so had no mortal body, but de Richleau had known him for many centuries and had often met him in various incarnations on Earth; at one time the two of them had been twin sisters and they were devoted to each other.
There was a tea-house near by, from the verandah of which the Duke could keep an eye upon the little house where the Admiral was disporting himself, so at his suggestion they went over and, sitting down at a table, ordered tea.
Although he was pleased to see the Duke the priest at once expressed considerable concern at being called from his duties. For years past the slaughter by violence in China had been positively appalling and he was one of the many who were helping over the unenlightened spirits that were being divorced from their bodies in hundreds, day and night. De Richleau explained his own mission and asked for the counsel of his wise friend, who replied:
‘I don’t think there’s any better line than the one you’re taking at the moment. That your theory is correct I haven’t the least doubt, as the Nazis are the strongest force for Evil which the Master of Evil has succeeded in introducing into the world for a very considerable time. Obviously many of their leaders must be well aware of that fact and must be utilising such powers as they possess to marshal the forces of Darkness to their aid. But I beg of you to be careful, my dear friend, since once you succeed in uncovering the mystic who is acting as their agent you’ll almost certainly bring yourself into grave peril.’
‘I know it,’ nodded the Duke; ‘but to fear anything is to open the road by which one may succumb to it.’
‘True,’ nodded the other. ‘Fearlessness is our only armour; yet when the time comes the test may prove a terrible one.’
After that, while they sipped their tea, they talked casually of various acquaintances, just as though they had been on Earth. At length the door of the little house across the street opened and the middle-aged Midshipman stepped out of it to be waved away by his little Chinese girlfriend. De Richleau bade a hurried farewell to his companion and followed the Admiral at a distance.
When they had traversed a few hundred yards the Duke noticed that the scene about him was beginning to blur and grow indistinct, and having by certain means associated himself for the time being with the spirit of the Admiral, he realised that that worthy was about to leave the astral equivalent of China. They took the air almost at the same moment and agai
n journeyed very fast through space until they reached a totally different scene. It was the quiet English countryside in summer, and soon the Duke was following the Admiral through the back gate of a garden, from the depths of which, laughing voices came to him.
They came, as he saw a few minutes later, from a tennis court about which a number of young people were assembled, and he paused to watch the scene while the Admiral went forward, now clothed in flannels and swinging a tennis-racket, to be greeted with shouts of delight from the little crowd that were evidently his friends.
There followed rather a boring time for the Duke as the Admiral, although not a particularly good performer, played six sets of tennis with considerable vigour. De Richleau meantime had again exercised those powers that were his as an old soul far advanced upon the great upward journey and removed himself to the third level of consciousness from which he could continue to observe while remaining unobserved himself.
He was considerably relieved when the scene began to fade once more and after further travel the Admiral entered a naval dockyard where, in the uniform of a lieutenant-commander, he went on board a destroyer. It was clear that he was revelling again in the joy of his first command, since the ship was of an almost obsolete pattern, having only the most primitive wireless and no anti-aircraft guns.
The Duke became even more bored with the destroyer than he had been with the tennis-party; moreover, he was now beginning to feel the strain of remaining on the third level. Just as one can only sleep for a certain time, so the period that one can remain on any of the higher levels is limited. His power to stay at such a spiritual altitude was waning, so his only course was to return to the astral and adopt a disguise. The most suitable seemed to be that of an inconspicuous member of the crew, so he became a young A.B. whose duties kept him in the neighbourhood of the bridge. Astrals are not affected by Earth conditions but are fully conscious of the climate in any astral scene in which they may happen to be, and the weather was both cold and wet, so de Richleau could cheerfully have murdered the Admiral when he decided to take the destroyer to sea. They put out of harbour with half a gale blowing and, to the Duke’s fury, he was compelled to hang about the bridge of the heaving vessel for the equivalent of many hours in Earthly time while the Admiral, apparently filled with tireless energy and boundless delight, put her through endless evolutions.
It was, therefore, with a great sigh of thankfulness that the Duke observed the Admiral suddenly stagger, rock upon his feet and grab at the bridge-rail, as the scene once more dissolved. With incredible swiftness they returned to the bedroom in Orme Square and de Richleau saw, as he had guessed, that the Amdiral’s wife had him by the shoulder and was gently shaking him, as she said:
‘Wake up, darling, wake up; it’s seven o’clock,’
Waiting for nothing more, de Richleau returned to Cardinals Folly, lay down in his Earthly body, remained still for a moment, then, opening his eyes, yawned and sat up.
‘Well,’ said Rex, who was seated beside him, ‘how did it go?’
‘Splendidly,’ murmured the Duke sleepily. ‘The Admiral is a dear, simple fellow and the leakage certainly does not come through him directly, although there’s still just a chance that at times, all unknown to himself, he may be made the tool of some Evil force. Tomorrow night I shall spend with Captain Fennimere, but I do hope that he’s not quite so keen on his job, as I positively loathe having to play the part of an Able Seaman in a gale.’
‘What in heck do you mean?’ asked the astonished Rex.
De Richleau smiled. ‘I’m quite certain that Sir Pellinore would never believe me if I told him of my night’s adventures; but you know the old saying: “There are stranger things in Heaven and Earth than are ever dreamt of in our philosophy”.’
6
The Captain Goes Below
It was still early so the Duke and Rex decided to turn in for an hour or two. Having carefully locked the door of the library behind them and removed the key so that the servants should not see or interfere with the pentacle, they went upstairs to their bedrooms.
In spite of his night’s activities, de Richleau did not feel the least bit tired; in fact he felt remarkably fresh, as his sleep from half-past ten until seven o’clock was much longer than that which he usually enjoyed and his tranquillity had not been disturbed by bombs or gunfire. Actually, he had not exerted himself during his astral journey to anything like the same extent as the Admiral, and the only difference between them was that de Richleau had the power to retain full and coherent memory of the things that he had seen and done, whereas the Admiral would wake after a good night’s rest remembering nothing of his night’s adventures or—at most—a muddled dream in which, perhaps, he had played tennis on his first ship and disported himself not altogether creditably with an oriental lady in the middle of a tennis-court. In the meantime, while they had been absent from their bodies their etheric bodies, which are exact replicas of each person’s physical form and remain with them always until death, had been recharged with vitality just as a battery is recharged, since it is to give opportunity for this absolutely essential operation that we sleep each night.
As the Eatons, and any guests who were staying with them, habitually breakfasted in bed, it was not until they were all gathered in the long drawing-room before lunch that the Duke regaled the others with an amusing account of the Admiral’s frolics of which he had been the unsuspected witness.
‘How livid the old boy would be if he knew that you had been snooping on him!’ laughed Marie Lou.
De Richleau smiled. ‘He is a very young soul, so I’m quite certain that he wouldn’t believe such a thing possible even if he were told about it.’
‘Anyhow, I suppose we can take it that his innocence is fully established?’ Richard remarked.
De Richleau shook his head. ‘We are hardly justified in assuming that whoever is communicating with the enemy on the astral plane does so every time he goes to sleep; so if there’s nothing suspicious in Captain Fennimere’s actions when he is out of his body tonight I shall have to spend further nights checking up on both of them.’
The day was wet and dreary, so they did not go out but spent the afternoon reading and in the casual, amusing conversation of which they never tired when they were together. After dinner they repaired once more to the library and the Duke remade the pentacle. Watches were changed round, so that Simon was to take the first, Rex the second and Richard the third. The same performance was gone through as on the previous evening and by ten o’clock de Richleau, with Simon beside him to keep watch, was tucked up in bed all ready to set out on his astral journey.
He reached London about half-past ten and observed at once that there was a lull in the blitzkrieg. After the previous nights the quiet of the great city seemed a little sinister, as in view of the fact that comparatively few of London’s millions could yet be asleep the silence was unnatural.
Although the night was dark and rainy the Duke had no difficulty in identifying the lake in Regent’s Park and, coming down near it, he glided northwards, across the canal to the great dark block of North Gate Mansions. There were several doors to the solid, well-built flats but he soon found the hallway that served No. 43 and sailing up the lift-shaft he passed through the door of Captain Fennimere’s flat to find that the Captain was off duty and had been entertaining a decidedly attractive young woman to dinner.
From their conversation it was soon clear to the Duke that she was neither the Captain’s wife nor his fiancé; but that their relations had reached a degree of no uncertain intimacy was soon manifest. A little before eleven a mid-servant came in to inquire if there was anything more that the Captain required and having been answered in the negative went off to bed. The Captain then experienced no difficulty in persuading his charming guest to remove her dress, lest it should become creased, and they settled down together very happily on a large sofa which they had drawn up in front of the fire.
The Duke viewed these proceeding
s with considerable regret; not because he was in any way a Puritan and would willingly have deprived either party of the recreation upon which they were bent, but because he foresaw a long and, for him, tiresome wait before there was any hope of the Captain’s going to sleep.
It was hardly likely that these two obviously healthy people would have concluded their somewhat spasmodic and entirely uninteresting conversation for another hour or two, and then it was a foregone conclusion that the sailor would see the lady home; so it was quite on the cards that his astral might not emerge from its mortal frame before two or three o’clock in the morning.
However, as the conversation progressed, the Duke became aware that the couple, although obviously enamoured of each other, were not in the first hectic flush of an amour which might well have led to their remaining embraced until the early hours of the morning. He would have been prepared to wager that the affair had reached a more or less routine stage where enjoyment was had by all, but parting could be borne without heart-ache after reasonable indulgence. He therefore decided to leave them to it and return in half an hour, meanwhile occupying himself with any good work which he could find to do in the big block of mansions.
Several of the flats he visited had been evacuated by their occupants, and others provided a quiet domestic scene which failed to give him the sort of opportunity that he was seeking.
After visiting several he entered a bedroom in which a little girl was tossing sleeplessly, tortured with ear-ache. A few passes over her were sufficient to relieve the pain and send her to sleep, upon which her astral rose from her body in the form of a middle-aged man with distinguished features; who proved at once to be ‘aware’, as before moving off to attend to his own affairs he thanked the Duke most courteously for his kindness.
Strange Conflict Page 7