‘Where’s Rex?’ Richard cried suddenly. ‘We need his strength to get this thing up. Rex! Where the hell are you?’
It was Marie Lou who answered. ‘He’s not here—he was standing near the door and I saw him spring through it into the hall just before the bomb exploded.’
Malin returned at that moment, carrying some lighted candles, and for the first time they were able to see the extent of the damage. The bomb had blown the whole of the lower portion of the bookcase to smithereens, and its top part, together with the books which had cascaded from it, lay in the centre of the room, a scattered heap, with the armchair overturned beneath it. There was a gaping hole in the lower part of the wall against which the bookcase had stood, several large lumps of plaster had fallen from the ceiling, the fireplace was full of soot, every ornament in the room was broken, and practically every piece of furniture was either scarred or torn.
As Malin held the lighted candles above his head they saw that the Duke was lying pinned beneath the armchair and half buried under the pile of books. Now that they could see properly they were soon able to get to work and within a few moments had dragged him clear.
At first they feared that he was dead, but they soon found that he was breathing, and although he had been badly cut about the face by flying glass from the bookcase they could find only one other wound upon him, which was in his right foot. Evidently in a last desperate effort to protect his friends as much as possible he had thrown himself, kneeling, into the armchair, facing towards the bookcase in an endeavour to keep it and the chair in position by his own weight. The explosion had thrown the whole lot over but the padding of the chair had saved him from the bomb fragments, except for the piece in his foot, which must have been dangling down.
‘We’d better take him to the library,’ said Richard, ‘and put him in the pentacle; otherwise some of these swine may get him on the astral while he’s unconscious.’
Malin helped them to carry the Duke, and it was the first time that he had been in the library since they had taken possession of it. Richard caught him eyeing with ill-concealed disapproval all the paraphernalia of the pentacle, so he said quietly:
‘I expect you think we’ve been monkeying with spiritualism, Malin, and that it’s our own fault that we’ve had all this trouble in the house these last few days, but I give you my word that we haven’t been doing this for our own amusement.’
‘It’s not for me to criticise, Mr. Richard, sir,’ replied the elderly retainer gravely, ‘but I’ve always held that spiritualism never brought any good to anyone.’
‘I heartily agree,’ responded Richard feelingly, as they laid the Duke down on his bed. ‘Still, that explosion just now had nothing to do with spirits; it was caused by a hand-grenade hurled through the window by a Nazi spy.’
‘Good gracious me, sir! We seem to have got ourselves right in the front line, then, in a manner of speaking.’
‘That’s just what it is, Malin, and—though this is hardly the time to explain things to you—all this paraphernalia here and the trouble we’ve been having is part of the same business. I’m most touched by the way you’ve stayed on, but I think now that the enemy has started in to try and murder us you had better, for your own safety, follow the example of the rest of the staff.’
‘I shouldn’t dream of doing so, sir, as long as you have any use for me. It’s quite enough for me to know that His Grace and the rest of you are up against the Nazis. But I must say that I miss my sleep; the banging of the doors at night is something chronic. With your permission I was thinking of occupying a room in Mr. MacPherson’s cottage for the time being and coming up to the house each day.’
MacPherson was Richard’s head gardener, and he thought the plan an excellent one so he suggested that Malin should pack a bag and take up his quarters in the cottage that very evening.
Marie Lou came hurrying in with a basin of hot water, towels and bandages. She sponged the blood from the cuts on de Richleau’s face and soon afterwards he came round, to heave a sigh of relief when he found that except for scratches and bruises the others were uninjured.
On removing his right shoe and sock they found that a tiny fragment of the bomb had torn its way through the flesh at the side of his foot. The wound was painful but it did not appear that any of the tendons were cut, so they considered that they had all come off very lightly.
By now they were wondering what in the world could have happened to Rex; but when Marie Lou was half way through bandaging the injured foot the mystery of his disappearance was solved.
There was a sound of trampling feet in the hall and Rex’s voice shouting directions, then a little man staggered into the library, bowed almost double under the weight of a taller man whom he was carrying slung across his shoulders. Rex entered triumphantly behind them.
‘Thank the Lord you’re all all right!’ he gasped, after a swift glance round; then with his mighty hand he gave the man in front of him a swift push which sent the fellow and his burden sprawling to the floor.
Suddenly he laughed. ‘I got ‘em—got both the devils. They were standing around waiting to come in after the pineapple went off—to make certain that they’d rubbed us out.’
‘Well done, Rex—well done!’ cried Marie Lou, and all eyes were turned upon the woebegone-looking prisoners.
The one whom Rex had forced to become a beast of burden was a short, wiry-looking little Japanese man; the other, who was still unconscious, was a tall, thin, sallow-faced European. To have taken both of them captive was no small feat of work—but then, Rex was no ordinary man. His great height gave him a huge stride which few people could outdistance, and woe betide anybody who angered him once he was near enough to exert his giant strength agaisst the culprit.
He related quite casually that he had caught the Jap first and, picking him up by the neck, had used him as a missile to bring the other fellow down. The European had tried to knife him as he came up, but he had hit the man one sledgehammer blow which had rendered him unconscious. In the meantime the Jap had attempted to make off again but had very soon been brought back and booted round in a circle until he had submitted to orders.
They all agreed that it was a grand piece of work and de Richleau, who had recovered a little, sat up to question the prisoners. He soon found, however, that in his still groggy state the job was too much for him, so Marie Lou insisted that he should lie down and leave it to the others.
The European prisoner was now groaning and soon came round sufficiently for them to heave him to his feet. It was then decided that both of them should be locked up in one of the numerous cellars which lay under the older wing of Cardinals Folly. Richard led the way out while Rex shepherded his charges along with ungentle prods and Simon went off with Marie Lou to help her to prepare dinner.
To have eaten in the pentacle would have destroyed its occult protection, so three-quarters of an hour later de Richleau was helped along to the dining-room where they gathered for their evening meal. Malin had departed for the gardener’s cottage so they waited on themselves. Full night had come and with it the poltergeists had resumed their irritating activities, announcing their arrival by the violent banging of a door somewhere in the servants’ quarters soon after the friends had sat down to table. They endeavoured to ignore the sound as they discussed the new situation.
Considering that one of the best rooms in his house had been totally wrecked, Richard was in good spirits, as he felt confident that they ought to be able to screw all sorts of useful information out of their two captives, but the Duke was by no means so optimistic.
‘I doubt if they know anything about the astral side of the business,’ he said. ‘Our real adversary will have communicated with the head of the Nazi spy system in Britain and asked that we should be eliminated. These two thugs were detailed to do the job; but I should think it most unlikely that they have the least idea as to why they were ordered to murder us.’
‘Still,’ remarked Simon, ‘if we ha
nd them over to the police, Military Intelligence might be able to get out of them the name of the man from whom they received their instructions. Trouble is, though, that no one in this country dare handle spies without velvet gloves unless they’re willing to risk the sack.’
‘That’s true,’ Richard muttered bitterly. ‘They’ve shot one or two recently, but we had to be at war for fifteen months and get a new Home Secretary before they even had the guts to do that. I’ll bet anything that the Government hasn’t given permission for our Intelligence people to third degree the swine yet. Lots of people still don’t seem to have got it into their heads that Hitler is waging Total war against us, and that if we want to win we’ve got to wage Total war against him.’
‘As I see it, what the counter-espionage people are allowed to do, or are not allowed to do, doesn’t cut any ice with us,’ commented Rex. ‘We’ve got these two palookas in the can, so why not a little private session? I just hate hurting people, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep at all on account of giving these hoodlums another beating-up.’
‘You can try your hand, if you like, and see what you can get out of them,’ de Richleau agreed. ‘I’m feeling distinctly shaky still, so I’m going straight back to bed. I shan’t try anything tonight on the astral but will concentrate on recouping my strength instead. All the same, I should be grateful if one of you would watch beside me until the rest turn in.’
‘Um,’ Simon nodded. ‘Since you went to London and the trouble started here we’ve made it a rule to go about in couples after dark and for two of us to sleep by turns in the pentacle while the other two watch. Never have liked rough houses myself, so I’m game to leave our visitors to the tender care of Rex and Richard.’
‘I’ll sit with you as well,’ said Marie Lou. ‘Hark at that damn’d door! It’s enough to drive anyone crazy.’
As they listened they could hear a door slamming somewhere in the west wing. It kept on banging rhythmically about every thirty seconds, as though someone was constantly opening it, pulling it back and then crashing it to.
‘Let’s make a move,’ said the Duke abruptly. ‘Tomorrow, when I’m feeling stronger, I’ll perform a banishing ritual and try to get rid of these things for you. They’re not dangerous in themselves and are quite a low form of elemental sent by our enemy to annoy us, so I don’t think there should be any great difficulty in driving them away.’
As he limped off to the library with Marie Lou and Simon, to prepare the great pentacle for the night, Richard and Rex lit candles and together descended into the cellars of the house. They were centuries old, having thick stone walls and heavy doors so that they differed little from actual mediaeval dungeons and quite possibly had been used for that purpose in the bad old days when the Lord Abbots held temporal as well as spiritual sway over the lands adjacent to Cardinals Folly.
One of them was now used as a wine-cellar and two others for lumber of various kinds, but a fourth was empty and it was into this that Richard had locked the two enemy agents. Taking a huge key from its nail beside the door, he unlocked it, and holding their candles aloft they went in.
The Japanese was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, and the other man was lying propped-up in a corner. They blinked a little from having been in total darkness for over two hours, and Rex said:
‘Now then, you two, you’d better get this straight. We’re not standing any nonsense. You tried to rub us out, and unless you answer the questions I’m going to put to you we’re going to rub you out. Got that?’
‘No understand Engleesh,’ said the Jap.
‘Oh yes, you do,’ boomed Rex. ‘And what’s more, you’re going to talk it, unless you want both your ears torn off.’
‘No understand Engleesh,’ repeated the Jap impassively.
Rex looked over at the other man. ‘How about you, comrade? Are you going to talk a little Engleesh or do I knock your teeth down your throat?’
The man had scrambled slowly to his feet but he just stood there and dumbly shook his head.
‘These guys are asking for trouble,’ Rex remarked to Richard, ‘and in a minute they’re going to get it.’
Richard laid a hand on his arm. ‘Before you start in on them, let me have a go. I’ll bet they understand all right. With a war on, they couldn’t keep out of the clutches of the police for twenty-four hours unless they could talk enough English to make themselves understood while getting about the country. But the Jap looks as though he could take a lot of punishment without squealing, so I think we stand a better chance of getting what we want by exerting mental pressure.’
‘Play it your way if you like,’ Rex shrugged. ‘I don’t want to soil my hands on the dirty little rat.’
Richard then addressed the prisoners, speaking very slowly and clearly in a hard, cold voice. ‘Listen, both of you. This is my house. There are no servants here and no one will come down to these cellars whatever happens. You can shout until you have no voices left, but nobody will hear you, and if you persist in forgetting how to talk I mean to forget that I have ever set eyes on either, of you. This cellar, as you see, is absolutely empty; there is no food and no water in it, and not even a bed on which to lie down. What is more, the stone floor is damp and cold. If you persist in refusing to answer my questions my friend and I will leave you here and we shall not—come—back. No food and no water will be brought to you, so in the course of a day or two you will die of thirst—and a very unpleasant form of death you will find it. Now, are you going to be sensible or do you prefer to die here?’
Both the prisoners maintained a sullen silence, so after waiting a little, Rex said: That line’s no good, Richard— at least, it won’t get us anywhere at the moment. They’d probably stick it for twenty-four hours anyhow before they decided to spill the beans. We’ll have to try something else if we want quick results.’
It was very cold down in the cellar, and very quiet. The only sound that disturbed the stillness was the faint but persistent banging of the door upstairs in the west wing. It was the cold chill of the place which gave Richard a new inspiration.
‘I know how we can hasten matters,’ he said grimly. ‘Whatever we get out of them, we shan’t be able to make use of it until tomorrow morning, and in any case we ought to search their clothes to see if they have anything of interest on them. Let’s strip them both and leave them here in the cold all night. I bet they’ll be ready enough to talk by the time we’ve had our breakfast.’
‘Yep,’ Rex nodded. ‘Good stunt, that; and if they die of pneumonia afterwards—what the hell! Better folk than they are dying as we stand here, as a result of the Nazi air-raids. Let’s do as you say. For the sake of a blanket and a cup of hot soup apiece tomorrow morning they’ll be ready to give their own mothers away.’
Carefully setting their candles down on the floor, near the door, they advanced upon the Jap. Having felt that they were more than a match for the two prisoners neither of them had thought it necessary to bring down a gun, and seeing that they were unarmed the Jap stood up, apparently prepared to defend himself. The European slithered sideways a little, as though about to make a dash for the door. Rex was watching him out of the corner of his eye and let him cover a few feet. Then, just as he was on the point of dashing forward, Rex suddenly swung round and struck him behind the ear. With a gasp he stumbled against the wall and slid to the floor.
The Japanese took advantage of the diversion to leap at Richard. They went down with a mighty crash that nearly drove the breath out of Richard’s body. He was underneath, and he knew at once, from the way in which his arms were seized and twisted giving him a moment’s excruciating pain, that the wiry little devil on top of him was a Judo expert.
But no amount of ju-jutsu could prevail against Rex’s Herculean strength; his great hands closed about the Jap’s collar and the seat of his pants. With one violent jerk he tore him from on top of Richard then flung him sideways against the stone wall of the cellar.
As Richard struggled,
panting, to his feet, Rex dived after the Jap and, picking him up again, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.
‘Come on, Richard,’ he cried; ‘I’ve got the little swine; just tear his clothes off him for me, will you?’
In vain the Jap squirmed and kicked. Between them they ripped off every shred of his clothes and flung him, gasping, in a corner.
‘Now for the other feller,’ said Rex, kicking the Jap’s clothes toward the door. Together they advanced upon the European, who, apparently only semi-conscious, lay moaning on the floor. Rex sat him up and Richard pulled off his coat. It was at that moment that over Rex’s shoulder Richard caught sight of something which made his blood turn to water in his veins.
11
The Horror in the Cellars
The thing that Richard saw was not alarming in itself. Had he been down in that cellar a month or so before and seen it he would just have stood there wondering what on earth it could be, since it was no more than a tiny blob of purplish-red light, about as big as a firefly, hovering near the ceiling. He would probably have thought then that it was some form of phosphorescent beetle, but now he knew instantly that it must be something infinitely more dangerous.
Ever since the Duke had started his operations on the astral Richard had known that they might be subject to attacks from Evil entities, and during the past few days they had had ample evidence that the war was now being carried into their own camp. This little glimmer of red light might be only a low form of Elemental, like the poltergeists which had been causing them so much annoyance but were comparatively harmless. On the other hand, it might be some terrible Saatii manifestation from the Outer Circle which had come on the scene to protect the two thugs who were pawns in its physical game. If so, in the next few moments both he and Rex, unprotected as they were by astral barriers, stood a good chance of losing their reason.
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