The Satanist

by Dennis Wheatley

Starting forward, he ran towards the door to the sitting-room. Before he had covered half the distance, the huge American stepped in front of him and swung back a clenched fist the size of a small leg of lamb. It came up with the force of a battering ram, striking the Indian beneath the jaw.

  For a second Ratnadatta's feet actually left the carpet. He curved over backwards, came down with a crash and slithered along it to bring up with a bump against the bathroom door. There he remained, a twisted, unmoving figure. Mary wished that the had been capable of giving him that blow herself, but as she stared down at the still, crumpled body she could not help exclaiming:

  'My God; you've killed him!'

  The colossus smiled. 'Could be. I've known fellers' necks break from being given a little jolt like that. If so, his buddies will find a way of getting rid of the body. But I'd say he's only visiting the astral. He'll be back in about an hour, feeling sorry more than somewhat he didn't behave more civil.'

  Quickly Mary pulled her shoes on, then snatched up her coat and bag. Her rescuer took her by the arm. Crossing the sitting-room, they went out into the passage. By this time the Brotherhood had assembled in the Temple, so there was no one about. Side by side they ran down the two flights of stairs. In the hall the two negro footmen were standing, but their lack-lustre eyes remained expressionless, and they made no move to stop the hurrying couple. A moment later they were through the front door and out in the courtyard. As Mary drew in the cool night air, she thought that nothing had ever felt so good. She had been in the mansion for a little over three hours, but they seemed like three weeks. That morning, when she had believed herself finished with Ratnadatta and been looking forward to enjoying an evening out with Barney, seemed half a life time away.

  Her tall companion guided her over to one of the half-dozen cars that were parked in the courtyard. As he thrust her into it she noticed that it was large and powerful. He switched on the lights, started up the engine and turned it into the alleyway. As it emerged at the far end and came out into the street, he muttered:

  'Drat this ceremony! Why must it be on the night I've found a honey like you? And what'll I do with you till I can collect you in the morning? Reckon I'd best take you to your home.'

  Mary's heart bounded with delight. Ratnadatta's attack on her had dissipated the effects of the aphrodisiac. She no longer wanted any man, and certainly not this hulking American. He too was a Satanist and, apparently, a white-slaver into the bargain. How she could ever have thought of him as a lover she could not now imagine. He might have a fine body, but like the others his mind must be a sink of iniquity. When he had dropped her she would wait for ten minutes in the hall of the house, then go out, get a taxi and drive straight to Colonel Verney's. She should be with him shortly after half past ten. If he was at home he would soon get things moving. If not, she would go on to Scotland Yard. One way or another, by midnight she would pull off the great coup she had visualized earlier. Ratnadatta, Abaddon, Honorius, the whole of this evil murderous crew, would be flung handcuffed into police vans.

  'Where d'you live?' asked her companion.

  She told him, and he said: 'I'm acquainted with the Cromwell Road, but not sure how best to get to it from here. Can you guide me?'

  'Yes,' she breathed, trying to keep the excitement she felt from being noticeable in her voice. 'Take the next turning to the left. That will bring us to the Fulham Road. We cross it and go straight on through the Boltons.'

  The car ran smoothly on. As they approached the Fulham Road he said: 'About the morning. You'll not take a run-out powder on me, will you?'

  'Of course not!' In order to dispel any doubts he might have, she managed to raise a laugh and, quite unscrupulously, went on to lie to him. 'A fortnight ago I picked you out as just the boy-friend I've always wanted. I bet you are wonderful as a lover. How I wish you hadn't got to go back there, so that it could be tonight.'

  Two minutes later they were running along the right side of the oval garden on to which the houses in the Boltons faced. When they reached its far end, instead of steering the car into Gilston Road he swung it round so that it headed back down the other side of the oval.

  'Hi!' she exclaimed. 'What are you doing? This isn't the way.'

  'Sure it's not,' he grunted. 'But I've been thinking. By sacrificing something more acceptable than a ram, and by delivering you back to Abaddon tomorrow, I could put myself right for cutting tonight's fiesta. And that's the way I've decided to play it.'

  'Where . . .' she gasped, all her fears rushing back on her. 'Where are you taking me?'

  'Down to the country. I'm stationed near Cambridge, but I don't live in camp. I've hired me a grand little maison with everything that opens and shuts. We'll be there by a half after eleven, and you've hit the jack-pot with your wish. I mean to give you the night of your life.'

  16. The setting of a trap

  On that same Saturday, all unsuspecting of what fate had in store for Mary, Barney went to his lunch appointment with his Chief at the Army and Navy Club. The hall porter told him that he would find Colonel Verney in the smoking-room so, having parked his bag, he walked quickly up the splendid staircase. As it was a Saturday the big room, with its leather-covered sofas and scores of easy chairs, was almost empty. Verney was sitting at a table near a window with a pink gin and a pint of Pimm's in front of him. He made it a rule never to lunch alone, as he considered that to do so would have been wasting what often turned out to be the most valuable part of the day. On days when he had no appointment to lunch with officers in the Intelligence Departments of the Service Ministries, or senior Civil Servants, he always took one of his own young men to lunch at his Club, because doing so enabled him both to get to know them better and encouraged them to regard him as a friend as well as their master.

  'Here's how!' he said, picking up the pink gin as Barney sat down. Barney reached for the Pimm's and grinned. 'What a memory you've got, Sir, to have ordered my favourite tipple.'

  'It's just part of the Austin Reed service,' C.B. replied laconically. 'Talking of "service", Farnborough have fixed us up. About twice a week they send an aircraft down to Wales to facilitate the exchange of secret documents, personnel, special parts, and so on. They were sending one first thing tomorrow morning to bring back the American egg-head who is on a visit there. Instead, it is going to fly us down this afternoon and its pilot will remain there overnight. I said we'd be at Farnborough at three-thirty; so we've no need to hurry over lunch.'

  While they ate a pleasant meal, they reviewed the extraordinary case of Otto Khune and his twin and, when they got to the cheese, rather gloomily contemplated the risk that would have to be run if Otto were allowed to hand over to Lothar the fuel formula in desolate moorland country at a spot that could be kept under observation only from a distance. But, as they rose from the table, they agreed that it was futile to attempt to assess how great the risk of Lothar getting away would be, until they were on the spot and could make a thorough reconnaissance of the proposed meeting place.

  At the entrance to the Club, Verney's car was waiting and he told his chauffeur to drive them down to the Royal Air Force Experimental Establishment at Farnborough. There they were led out to a small six-seater passenger aircraft and, after a short delay for the usual last-minute testing of the engine, took off for Wales. For the greater part of the journey they were flying through cloud, but about five o'clock they could see below them crests in the chain of the Cambrian mountains and soon afterwards began to descend towards a stretch of rugged, desolate coast.

  Along it for miles no buildings were to be seen, except those of the Rocket Experimental Station, but those were scattered over a wide area enclosed by a high lattice and barbed-wire topped, fence. The place had little resemblance to an Atomic Station as there were no great buildings housing reactors, and many were temporary structures that had been erected soon after the war when materials were still short.

  As C.B. was aware, most of these had now fallen into disuse since.
With the development of rockets, another Experimental Station had been established in the Hebrides, much of the personnel had been transferred to it and it was there that the great Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles were tried out. The experiments here in Wales were now confined to rocket weapons for tactical use, the development of metals having maximum heat resistance in ratio to weight and fuels with maximum power in relation to bulk.

  As the landing strip was used only infrequently, its control tower was not kept permanently manned; but Farnborough had notified the Station to expect an arrival, so the staff responsible were on the look-out and, as the aircraft circled out over the sea, her pilot received the all clear signal to come in. Five minutes later, C.B. was being greeted by Forsby and introducing Barney to him.

  The landing strip was some distance from the main group of buildings, so the Squadron-Leader had brought his car. In it he drove them past some abandoned hutments, a football ground and a row of hard tennis courts, to a wide quadrangle of well-kept lawn, two sides of which were flanked with modern steel and glass buildings, and a third, facing towards the sea, occupied by one of red brick in the neo-Georgian style. Pointing to it, Forsby said:

  'That houses the H.Q., Admin., and the senior Mess; the residential quarters for single types are just behind it. The married quarters are some way away, down by the sea; quite nice little houses, each with a bit of garden.'

  At the back of the red brick block there was an avenue with young trees planted on both sides in wide borders of grass, beyond which were two rows of bungalows. Near the end of the avenue an airman, wearing a security-police armlet, was standing. As the car pulled up, he saluted and Forsby said to him:

  'Harlow, here are the two gentlemen you are to look after. The tall one is Mr. Smith and the short one Mr. Brown. Their bags are in the boot. They will be coming along for a wash before dinner, so you might unpack for them but, after that, I don't think they will need you till tomorrow morning.'

  'Very good, Sir.' Harlow saluted again, and grinned as 'Mr. Smith' and 'Mr. Brown' nodded and smiled at him. When he had got their bags out, Forsby turned the car round and said to his guests:

  'Sorry I can't put you up under my own roof, but we always keep a few of these quarters prepared for visitors, and Harlow is a good chap; I'm sure he'll see to it that you are comfortable.' Then he ran the car back about three hundred yards, they all got out and he led the way into his own bungalow.

  It had a small hall, but a good big sitting-room which he had furnished with his own things, and a casual glance round it was enough to reveal his main interests. Two fishing rods, a creel and a gaff stood in one corner, and a high proportion of the books in a bookcase at the far end of the room were to do with birds. In the window there stood a gate-legged mahogany dining table which was already laid for dinner and, on the right of the door, a smaller table on which stood the usual selection of drinks. Waving a hand towards it, he asked:

  'What will you have?' Then, while helping them to the drinks they chose, he went on, 'In the Mess tonight they are giving a special party for our visiting American. I didn't feel that you would particularly want to be in on that; and, anyhow, it might be better if you didn't meet Khune until you have decided what to do about him. So I've laid on dinner for us here.'

  'Couldn't be better, Dick,' Verney nodded. 'We'll be able to natter on without interruption about this pretty kettle of fish with which we've been landed.'

  Forsby gave him a far from happy look. 'It's the queerest business I've ever been involved in. I've handled plenty of spies and would-be traitors in my time; but I've never before found myself up against a Black Magician, and I suppose that is what you'd call this man Lothar.'

  'You've said it, chum. He's a Black Magician all right,' Verney agreed. 'The way he has used his psychic powers on this wretched brother of his suggested that he might be, and Sullivan here, having discovered that the house in Cremorne where they were going to meet is a Satanic Temple, clinched the matter. The thing that infuriates me is that they didn't meet there at midday today as arranged. We had everything set to pick up Otto quietly as he came out. If Lothar had left the place we could have picked him up too. But Saturday is the night of the week that these degenerates meet to hold their orgies, and today is May Day eve, the biggest Satanic feast in the whole year; so we can be pretty sure that Lothar would have stayed on for that, and that it will be a bumper meeting. I'd been hoping to give them the surprise of their lives and get him and all the rest of the unholy crew in the bag by a Special Branch swoop at midnight.'

  'Do you mean to have the swoop carried out anyhow?'

  'No. I cancelled it, because there's a chance that if Lothar gives us the slip, he may use the place as a bolt hole. I'm having a round-the-clock watch kept on it, so if he does we'll know, and can go in and get him. His Satanist pals can't possibly be aware that we have tied him up with them; so, if we do pinch him here tomorrow and he uses his psychic powers to tell them that he's in the bag, they won't take alarm. We'll be able to go in and mop them up any Saturday.'

  Little Forsby ran a hand over his greying hair. 'I must say I still find communication by psychic means a bit hard to take. I mean, not just odd snatches of telepathy, but when carried on with the same ease as two signallers miles apart could exchange thoughts through their morse buzzers.'

  'Like everything else it's largely a matter of practice; that is, of course, given that the people concerned have the right apparatus - psychic sensitivity in this case - to start with. Anyhow, I should have thought the tape recordings that you have taken during the past ten days of Otto's, well - for the lack of a better word - nightmares, would have accustomed you to the idea by now.'

  'They have, in a way. But at times, when I play them back, I'm almost inclined to believe that I'm imagining them; that I've taken to drink through having been cooped up for so long between the sea and the mountains, and have got D.T.s, or something! They send shivers down my spine.'

  Verney nodded. 'I can well believe it. All the same, I'd like you to run them through for us after dinner.'

  'Of course. I was expecting that you would want to hear them. I'm sorry that it should be necessary, and that you should have had to make this trip; but hearing a playover of the recordings may help you to decide how best to tackle the situation.'

  'This Lone Tree Hill,' C.B. asked, 'whereabouts is it, and what is it like?'

  'It is about four miles to north-eastward of the Station, and quite a well-known landmark in these parts. To reach it one leaves by the main gate and drives for some three miles until reaching a side road, leading north across a bridge that spans a small river. I quite often fish there. Beyond the bridge is moorland with a certain amount of stony outcrop and the ground slopes up fairly steeply. The track does not go up the hill but goes round it to a farm that lies on the far side, a good two-and-a-half miles from the main road. The hill is easy to climb and its top is rounded with just this one big pine on its crest. The tree must be a hundred years old by now, or more, as most of its branches are dead. Beyond it, about two hundred yards down the farther slope, there is a wood, and beyond that another, steeper hill. That's as good a description as I can give you, but I'll take you there tomorrow morning.'

  'What is the ground like - the open part from the bridge on? Are there gorse bushes and gullies, or is it just flat heather land?'

  'There is a certain amount of gorse, and some gullies. Those and the lumps of outcrop would provide a fair degree of cover, if you are thinking of putting a cordon round it.'

  'It's that I have in mind. If I do decide to risk it, how is the personnel situation? How many could you muster?'

  'I've a score of R.A.F. police, and, if you were agreeable to my having a quiet word with certain other people, I could probably raise double that number.'

  'No; we had better confine this to the police, your assistants and ourselves. That should give us twenty-five or so; enough, if they understand how to handle a rifle. What sort of marksmen
are they?'

  Forsby shook his head. 'Sorry, C.B., but I wouldn't know. I suppose by admitting that I'm putting up a black, because in theory I should be able to tell you. But you know how things go in peacetime. They are allowed five rounds per annum apiece to bang off on a range and, if they miss the target altogether, what can one do about it? Does your question mean that you would order my boys to fire on Lothar?'

  'I would, if Otto had given him the formula and he looked like getting away with it. The thing I have to decide is whether we dare risk even giving him a chance to do so.'

  'Better leave that until you've made a recce of the ground for yourself tomorrow morning.' The Squadron-Leader stood up. 'How about a breath of air before dinner? As you are here, it might interest you both to have a look round the Station.'

  They agreed, finished their drinks and went out with him. He took them down to the foreshore where, just above springtide level, there were steel and concrete platforms for launching various types of rocket; then to a covered gun-park, lined up in which stood half-a-dozen pieces of artillery, all of experimental types designed either to fire rockets from ground to air targets, or for tactical use with small atomic warheads against ground troops. Towards one end of the curving bay he pointed out the cluster of villas that gave the married quarters the appearance of a small village; then led them in the opposite direction to a much nearer long, low building that was the Station Club. In it there were a dance-hall, cinema, library, lounge, writing-room and bar, provided by the Ministry of Supply with the intention of relieving from boredom, as far as that was possible, the men and women stationed in this lonely spot.

  After the best part of an hour's walk, Forsby brought them back to 'Bachelors Avenue' and the bungalow they were to occupy for the night. There they found that Harlow had unpacked their bags and put everything ready for them. When they had freshened themselves up with a wash, they walked down to Forsby's bungalow and drank a glass of good dry Sherry with him while his man set out the grape fruit that was the first course for their dinner.