The Satanist

by Dennis Wheatley

  It should be the object of all Theosophists to strive to fit themselves to be taken as a pupil by one of these Masters. The two first could be approached only on the astral plane, while in a state of trance, or during what we know as dreams. They were said to live on opposite sides of a narrow gorge at Shigatse in Tibet. But the Master the Count possessed a physical body and was believed to have a castle in Hungary.

  The lecturer then went on to speak of the founder of Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky, and those who had succeeded her as enlightened leaders of the Society - Mrs. Annie Besant, C. W. Leadbeater, George Arundale, Cruppumullage Jinarajadasa, James Wedgwood, and several others. All these, she said, had passed several of the Five Initiations, all of which must be passed before a person became liberated from the law of 'Karma'. Madame Blavatsky had achieved this supreme goal and so been permitted to stay for a time with the Master M. in Tibet; while Mrs. Besant and C. W, Leadbeater had both passed the Fourth Initiation, and the latter was said actually to have met the Master the Count in the flesh, when strolling along the Corso in Rome.

  She then spoke of the Orders of the Rosy Cross and of the Star in the East, and of the unhappy schisms in the Society which had in turn led to the formal dissolution of both; deplored the differences of opinion between Krishnamurti - who during his boyhood and youth had been accepted by Theosophists as the new great Bringer of Light to the world - and Arundale and Leadbeater, which had saddened Mrs. Besant's last years; and, finally, urged them to refrain from such disputes, which could only bring discredit upon the movement and check the progress along the Upward Path of those who participated in them.

  It was not until the lecture had finished that Mary, on glancing round, realized that Barney must have belatedly slipped in; for there he was, sitting in the back row near the door. Her heart began to beat as he caught her glance, but he gave her only a nod and a suggestion of a smile. Then, when the chairs were moved into a circle, instead of coming over to her, he remained helping with them at the far end of the room.

  For the second part of that evening's session, Mrs. Wardeel had provided a clairvoyant. She was a fat, blowsy looking woman with dreamy eyes, but not so dreamy by nature as to lack a sense of business. Having taken her seat at a small table with a crystal on it, and another chair on its far side, she announced in a deep voice, 'I'll be pleased to see what I can for those who wish, but owing to numbers I can give each of you only a short session. Just enough to answer, if things prove favourable, one or two questions. But, if any of you would like a private consultation about intimate matters, Mrs. Wardeel will give you my telephone number. My fee for a hour's looking is two guineas.'

  All the lights were put out except that of a standard lamp which had been brought in and placed near the table; then she went to work.

  Those members of the audience who had questions to ask sat in turn in the chair opposite her and she gave each of them a few minutes. Most of the enquiries were about relatives abroad, the recovery of children or friends from illness or mishaps, journeys it was proposed to take, and law-suits or money matters, but at times her consultants asked only if anything was likely to happen to them soon which would have an important effect on their future.

  After a dozen or more people had had their turn, Barney went to the table and put that sort of question to her. The clairvoyant gave him a shrewd look, concentrated on her crystal for a little, then replied, 'I see a fair young lady. Soon now you're going to fall in love with her, but I'm afraid she's going to lead you a fine dance!'

  'Have I met her yet? And do I marry her?' Barney enquired.

  'Come and see me privately,' replied the sibyl, promptly, 'and I'll tell you more. Next please!'

  Mary at once stood up, took his place and asked the same question.

  After gazing fixedly down into her crystal for about half a minute, the woman sat back, gave her an uneasy look, and said: 'You're heading for trouble. I'd watch my step, if I were you.'

  'What sort of trouble?' enquired Mary.

  'You know,' replied the woman darkly. 'Wouldn't do to speak of it here. And if you take a drive into the country with a fair man, you'll have cause to regret it. Next please!'

  For a moment Mary had been both startled and frightened; for she had jumped to the conclusion that the clairvoyant's warning must refer to her association with the Brotherhood. But the mention of 'a fair man' set her at ease again, convincing her that the woman was only baiting her hook with the most likely lure to induce a potential customer to spend two guineas on a private consultation.

  Twenty minutes later the session was over and they all trooped across the hall for the usual refreshments. Ratnadatta paused by Mary to smile a greeting and say to her in a low voice, 'I haf no news for you yet. Next week perhaps. Do not fail to attend here every week; otherwise when time comes I haf the bother to make contact with you where you live.'

  He then quickly left her to get hold of the woman wearing valuable jewels, to whom he had spent most of his time talking during the after-session reception the previous week.

  As Mary had, two days before, contemplated leaving London, his last words aroused a vague fear in her. They might have simply referred to her flat, the address of which he already had; but they might equally well have implied that wherever she went he had the means of finding her. In any case, they clearly indicated that she was no longer free to sever at will her connection with the Brotherhood, and that if she tried to she must expect him to seek her out and, perhaps, inflict some form of punishment on her.

  Thrusting that unnerving thought out of her mind, she looked quickly round for Barney. He was near the end of the buffer furthest from her, and engaged in conversation with a small earnest woman who, from an experience of her own, she knew, once started, babbled on like a brook. That he would have liked to break away was evident from the fact that he kept throwing sideways glances at other people, particularly at Ratnadatta, who was only a few feet distant from him.

  Mary had accepted a sausage roll from a man who was a regular attendant at Mrs. Wardeel's meetings, and after exchanging a few words with her he moved off with the dish; so she decided that as soon as she had finished it she would both rescue Barney from the bore and gently reproach him for having ignored her. But, before she could put her plate down, she was buttonholed by her admirer, the retired general, who thrust a cup of coffee upon her; and he was such a pleasant old man that she had not the heart to cut him short then push her way across the room to break in on another conversation.

  The minutes ticked by without change in the situation until people began to leave. Ratnadatta went out with the richly bejewelled woman and did not return. Barney, who had been listening with only half an ear to reminiscences about a poltergeist, cursed silently, his only reason for having come there having been to get on friendly terms with the Indian.

  Quickly, he re-assessed the situation. Through being deprived of the chance of tactfully opening the subject of other occult circles existing which were, perhaps, much more advanced than Mrs. Wardeel's, as a first move in getting Ratnadatta to take him to his, he felt that he had wasted his evening. But not quite, perhaps, as Mary was still there.

  He had decided that, lovely as she was to look at, her ill-temper and unpredictability rendered her not worth powder and shot as a woman; but, nevertheless, she had actually been to Ratnadatta's circle, so there was always the chance that she might be in a more amenable mood this evening, and willing to talk about it. Suddenly the boyish smile broke over his round face, he put out his hand to the little babbling brook, seized hers, wrung it heartily and said, 'It's been terribly interesting to hear about your poltergeist; but I must go now. Train to catch. Goodnight.'

  Before she quite realized that she had lost her audience, he was across the room and focusing his friendly grin on the retired general. 'Sorry to butt in, Sir; but I promised to see Mrs. Mauriac home, and most people seem to be leaving.'

  Mary made no demur until they were in the street, then she said
: 'Really! Of all the impudence! First to practically cut me, then stake a claim to me as if I were your . . . your, er . . .'

  'Dark lady of the Sonnets,' suggested Barney helpfully.

  'No, you fool. I mean, as though there were some sort of understanding between us.'

  'Well, there is, isn't there?' he countered, with cheerful assurance. 'I like you and you like me. At least I hope you do. I must admit, though, that I'm a bit jealous of this fair-haired chap who is going to take you for a run in the country.'

  'Oh, that was all nonsense.' Mary spoke with confidence, yet she had an uneasy memory of the clairvoyant's face as she had warned her that she was heading for trouble. Could she, after all, have seen in her crystal darkly an aura of evil round her questioner, and - sudden thought - could the 'fair-haired chap' possibly be the very tall Satanist who, on the previous Saturday evening, had lifted her off her feet and kissed her until she was gasping for breath?

  'Of course,' Barney agreed. 'The old bag was just throwing out whatever struck her as the most likely draw to induce suckers to spend a couple of quid on a private consultation. As I'm dark, in my case it was a ravishing blonde, and the suggestion that she was going to lead me a dance the subtle twist to intrigue me into wanting to hear just what sort of a dance she might lead me. But as I don't happen to be interested in a blonde, and even if I met one, am too busy just now to run after her, Madame Zero, or whatever she calls herself, was barking up the wrong tree.'

  Mary did not reply, but she was thinking, 'You don't realize it, my gay boyo, but you are escorting a blonde home here and now, and with a little luck, it's a pretty dance she is going to lead you!' After a moment, she asked: 'What did you think of the lecture?'

  'The first part made sense. Everything these people say about reincarnation is so logical that there seems no answer to their arguments in support of it.'

  'Yes, there's something awfully reasonable about regarding the world as a school at which we get a move up, or not, at the opening of each new term as a result of the good or bad marks we have earned the term before. It is much more attractive than the idea of a Day of Judgment on which everyone is tried on their performance in a single life and either carried up to heaven or thrown down to hell, for all eternity.'

  'I don't mind paying up for my lapses,' Barney remarked, 'but, like old Omar Khayyám, I feel that when the last Trump sounds we'd be justified in saying to God, "You made me as I am, so what about it?" '

  Mary laughed. 'I don't think I'd have the courage to do that; and I really am on the way to becoming a reincarnationist. To have made one's own bed and have to lie on it until one can make a better is the sort of treatment no one could reasonably complain about.'

  'True enough; but these Theosophists aren't content to accept the basic teaching, and they've gone right off the rails somewhere. How could that American woman, or anyone else, really know about these big shots who are supposed to ordain all that happens in the world. If one took literally what she said about the two great Masters living on either side of a valley in Tibet, it would conjure up a picture of two elderly crap players throwing the dice, one of whom is an American and the other a Russian. As for the Master the Count, if he ever had any existence outside the wildest imagination, I'll bet that by this time his castle in Hungary has been taken over as a free holiday resort for good little Marxists, and that the Reds put the skids under the old gentleman long ago.'

  'Of course, you're right.' Mary laughed again. 'And people like Leadbeater and Arundale may have been honest to begin with, but like the ambitious priests of other religions they became corrupted by the power that being leaders of the movement had given them. I haven't the least doubt that they invented all that nonsense about the Hierarchy and their contacts with the Master M. and Koot what's-his-name, just to make their followers treat them as though they were little gods themselves.'

  By this time they had arrived in front of the tall old house in which Mary had her flat. As they faced one another, after a moment's hesitation, she said: 'It's not very late. Would you like to come up and share my supper?'

  'I'd love to,' he gave her a quick smile, 'if that wouldn't be robbing you too badly.'

  'Oh no! That is, if you don't mind something simple, like scrambled eggs?'

  'What could be nicer?'

  Having been frustrated in his intention of cultivating Ratnadatta, he had decided to ask Mary out to dinner again in the hope that through her he might learn more about the Indian, pending his next chance to get hold of him, which would not be for another week; so her invitation, while it took him by surprise, could not have pleased him better. But as he followed her into the house and upstairs, he felt that it would be wise to keep off the subject for a while, at least; as he thought her such a prickly pear that she might fly into a temper unless he handled her very tactfully.

  Mary, meanwhile, was regretting that she could not give him the sort of supper she had prepared the previous week, and wishing that she had tidied up her sitting-room before going out. But she had bought fresh flowers the day before, and the bottle of Hock was still unopened.

  While Barney laid the table and opened the wine, she cooked a dish of scrambled eggs, bacon and tomatoes, and as they called to one another during these preparations the very naturalness of this little domestic scene put them more at their ease than they had so far been when together.

  Over the meal he got her talking about her work as a model, and of films she had recently seen; so by the time they lit cigarettes with their coffee, her mind was a long way from the supernatural and it came as quite a shock when he asked:

  'How did you get on last Saturday?'

  His question had been quite casual, but it instantly brought back to her the scene in the Temple. Swiftly averting her eyes, she played for time. 'On Saturday? What do you mean?'

  'Why, you told me you were going to meet that chap Ratnadatta again.'

  'Er . . . yes; of course.'

  He smiled at her. 'Well, how did the party go?'

  'Oh, much the same as on the previous Saturday.'

  'Just Yoga, and that sort of thing?'

  She nodded.

  'Look,' he said, 'I'd like to learn a bit about Yoga. Will you lake me along to Ratnadatta's place one evening?'

  'No. I couldn't do that. I'm not a member and one has to be introduced by somebody who is.'

  'I see. Well, anyway, you might let me have the address; then I'll write him a line and ask him if he will introduce me.'

  'I can't. I don't know it.' The moment she had spoken she realized that she had made a stupid admission which might lead him to suppose that something less innocent than Yoga went on there, but he only shrugged and remarked:

  'Of course, I'd forgotten. He blindfolds you when he takes you there, doesn't he?'

  'Oh no.' She quickly retrieved her error. 'I made that up just as I did about the Great Ram and his black imp, and all the other things I told you. The only reason I can't give you the address is that I didn't hear Ratnadatta give it to the taxi-driver either time, and it is in a district that I've never been to before; so all I know is that it's somewhere up in North London.'

  Barney knew that she was lying, and it was clear that she did not mean to tell him anything, so he said: 'It doesn't matter. I meant to ask Ratnadatta tonight about his Yoga circle, but I didn't get the chance. I'll have another shot when I see him at Mrs. Wardeel's next week.'

  He then tactfully changed the conversation, but her reaction to his questions worried him. As she did not know where the place was to which Ratnadatta took her that meant that he really did blindfold her when taking her there; and he would not do that unless something much more sinister than the innocent practice of Yoga went on at his circle. That being so, she must be playing with fire and might get herself badly burnt. If she would, or could, have let him go with her next time she indulged her curiosity about occult mysteries, that would have been one thing; but for her to continue going on her own to these parties was quite
another. In consequence, after they had talked cheerfully again for a further half-hour, and he stood up to go, he said:

  'Listen, Margot. You're a queer girl, and a bit of a mystery, living on your own like this with no family and apparently very few friends. But I like you a lot, and I'm worried about you.'

  She smiled at him. 'Why should you be? There are lots of girls like me earning a living in London on their own.'

  'Not many who are so darn good-looking,' he grinned back. 'But that's beside the point at the moment; and I'll tell you why I'm worried. I was watching your face this evening when that old crystal-gazing bag told you that you were heading for trouble.'

  'What, with a fair-haired boy-friend? Don't worry. I'm not a precocious school girl, to be lured to her fate by the offer of a ride in a Jaguar.'

  'Of course not. But I mean before she mentioned him. It was when she warned you to watch your step. She rang a bell then; because for a moment you looked as if you were scared to death. You are frightened of something. I'm sure of it. And I've a hunch that Mr. Ratnadatta is the nigger in your wood-pile. He may only be teaching you Yoga exercises at the moment, but you know yourself, or anyhow suspect, that it's leading up to something pretty dangerous. I want you to cut Ratnadatta out. Promise me not to go with him to this place again, there's a good girl.'

  She shook her head. 'I'm afraid I can't do that; and, as I've told you, I'm quite capable of looking after myself.'

  'Well, cut him out for the time being, then. Come and dine and dance with me again. Let's put on our glad rags on Saturday and go to the Berkeley.'

  For a moment Mary hesitated. Ratnadatta had not asked her to meet him on Saturday; he had even implied that it might be some weeks before he took her to the Temple again, so why should she not accept Barney's invitation?

  'Very well,' she said, accompanying him to the door of the flat, 'I'd love to; and I'm awfully sorry about our last evening together having been such a flop. As a matter of fact, I'd formed a little plan to make amends.'