The Satanist

by Dennis Wheatley

  The corporal's face became a little sullen. 'Well, it isn't the first time that someone's forgot to send a routine signal, Sir. Anyhow, I didn't think it was anything to get excited about, and neither did my officer when I told him.'

  'All right! All right! Describe the pilot to me.'

  'He was a tallish chap, age about thirty. Clean shaven, and I think his eyes were brown. He was wearing pilot's kit, not uniform.'

  'How many people had he with him?'

  'Only one man, Sir. He'd left the aircraft by the time I reached her and, being Sunday, with no one about, he'd walked over to the hangars to get the runabout out for himself. He drove it off towards the laboratory block, to fetch the stuff they'd come for, I suppose.' The corporal turned towards Khune, and added, 'I didn't see him close to, but he was about your build, Sir; dressed like you too, in a mack and a beret.'

  'What make was the aircraft,' Verney asked.

  'I'm afraid I didn't notice, Sir. She was a two-engined job and I'd say she'd carry up to a ton of cargo.'

  'Did you take her number?'

  'No, Sir.' The corporal bridled again. 'This isn't like a civil airport, you know, with aircraft coming in from all sorts of places all the time.'

  'Hell!' muttered C.B. and, turning, he strode across the passage to the office. He was just about to pick up the telephone when it rang. The corporal, who had followed, murmured, 'Excuse me, Sir,' reached a hand past him, and answered it. After a minute he said:

  'It's Squadron-Leader Forsby, saying to have the tower manned to clear the Farnborough plane in three-quarters of an hour.'

  C.B. took the receiver from him. 'Dick. This is Verney. There's been a spot of trouble. Instead of going to the Club, drop everything and come here. Yes, at once, please.' Hanging up, he said to the corporal:

  'There's no need to get your team together yet. The Farnborough plane won't be leaving till later. I expect the pilot is on his way here though. Go outside and, when he turns up, tell him there has been a postponement.' Then, to Khune, he added, 'Would you be good enough to wait for us across the passage.'

  Directly the two men had left the room, he rang the exchange and asked for a priority call to the Air Ministry. While it was being put through he remarked with a frown to Barney: 'As it's Sunday the place will be practically empty and none of our people available. We can only hope that the Duty Group Captain is a live wire.'

  The Group Captain proved willing but far from hopeful about tracing Lothar's plane. He too remarked upon its being Sunday, which meant that, in addition to normal traffic, hundreds of trainers and aircraft from Flying Clubs all over the country would be up, so that with such an inadequate description to go on, the chances of the plane being identified were extremely slender. But he said he would send out an emergency signal to all airports to hold any twin-engined transport aircraft that came down to refuel, pending special clearance.

  C.B. then got on to Special Branch and asked for a warrant to be taken out for Lothar's arrest, and for a check up that a night and day watch was being kept on the house at Cremorne, in case he returned to it.

  While he was still on the telephone, Forsby joined them and Barney told him in a low voice what had happened. When he realized how completely they had been fooled, he shut his eyes and began to curse under his breath. Verney hung up and turned to him.

  'This is a bad business, Dick, and I'm afraid I can't congratulate you on your security arrangements for your airstrip.'

  'Yes, it's I who am to blame, Sir.' Forsby's tone had at once become formal. 'Normally one of my men is present at every aircraft arrival and departure, to check the passes of the crew as they come off or reboard the plane. The thought that an unauthorized aircraft might come in without warning, land, and get away with it, never occurred to me.'

  'In a place of this importance, I think it should have.'

  'I'll resign, of course, Sir.'

  Verney gave him a gentle pat on the arm. 'You'll do nothing of the kind, old friend. This afternoon we've all been taken for a ride. If anyone is responsible, it is myself, as I came down here to take charge. Now, as an airman, tell me - what is the chance of our bird getting out of the country with his loot?'

  The Squadron-Leader glanced at his watch. 'It's now twenty minutes to six, so he must have been gone the best part of three hours. From the description of the aircraft it doesn't sound as though he has anyway near a full load, so he should have had plenty of petrol. Anyway, by now he could have refuelled at some small landing-ground near the East coast and be well out over the North Sea.'

  'I feared as much. Still, we might get a break even in Belgium or Holland through the Air Ministry tie-up with N.A.T.O. Anyway, there is no more we can do for the moment, so I'm in favour of accepting that late tea you offered us.'

  Having collected Khune, they drove round to the Club and, owing to the hour, settled for drinks instead of tea. Taking their drinks into a corner, they held a gloomy inquest. As a result of it they reached the conclusion that Lothar had probably taken Otto's excuse for not coming up to London - that an American boffin was coming down - to be a lie; so, from Friday night, he had given up hope of persuading him to co-operate and switched to threatening him with a death curse unless he left the Station for a few hours to keep a rendezvous, thus leaving the field free for his double to move about the Station during that time, without fear of coming face to face with him, and to make off with a quantity of the fuel instead of its formula.

  It was Barney who produced the idea that, owing to Otto's psychic link with Lothar, the former might be able to secure some clue to the latter's whereabouts. Otto who, since the discovery of the way they had been tricked, had hardly spoken, brightened at once, and said:

  'That certainly is a possibility. Anyhow, I will do my utmost; but, for such an attempt, I must have solitude and silence, so I had better go back to my quarters.'

  Forsby looked across at C.B. 'I ought to be moving, too. I've the unpleasant task in front of me of reporting this business to the Chief, and I don't want to leave it much longer, as he usually asks a few people along to drinks on Sunday evenings. Do you still wish to set off to London as soon as possible, or would you prefer to dine here first?'

  'Dine and sleep, I think,' Verney replied. 'I told the Air Ministry to report back here if they manage to trace Lothar's plane; and now Mr. Khune is going to have a cut at that too from the psychic angle. If either succeeded while Sullivan and I were on our way back to London, we'd lose hours of precious time in getting after him; so we will stay put for the night. We'll all go along to Sir Charles now, and I'll break the news to him for you.'

  That's damned decent of you, C.B. The old boy is bound to take it pretty badly - the actual theft, I mean - and what he'll say when told about the psychic angle, I can't imagine. If I tried to explain that part of it to him without support, he would probably think that I ought to be certified.'

  They finished their drinks, returned to the car, dropped Khune at his bungalow, then drove to the Headquarters block, in which the Director of the Station had a flat overlooking the quadrangle. Forsby sent up his name and a few minutes later a man-servant showed them into a pleasant sitting-room.

  Sir Charles Remmington-Rudd was a portly man in the middle fifties. He was nearly bald and had heavy sagging jowls, but an alert manner and a friendly smile. When Forsby had introduced his companions, C.B. reported the bare facts.

  The eminent scientist said nothing for a moment, then he shook his head. 'This is a very serious matter. Sit down please, gentlemen, and give me full particulars.'

  'Thank you, Sir.' Verney took a chair. 'It is an extraordinary story and, I'm afraid, a long one. May I ask to begin with whether you believe in psychic phenomena?'

  Sir Charles raised his eyebrows. 'I can answer that only if you give me a precise definition of the meaning to yourself of the term you have used. However, it may help you if I say that science now admits the existence of certain faculties in the human mind which cannot be acco
unted for by normal processes. Before you go further, though, you say the story is a long one, and I am expecting a few friends in for drinks quite shortly. I take it everything possible is being done to trace these stolen drums of our special fuel?'

  'Everything, Sir.'

  'Very well, then.' Sir Charles stood up. 'It is now too late to put my friends off, but I can put off a couple who were to dine with me. If I can be of no immediate help this long story of yours will keep for an hour or two, so I suggest that the three of you should return at eight o'clock and tell it to me over dinner.'

  They thanked him and took their leave, then repaired to Forsby's bungalow, where they again mulled over the shattering event of the day without getting any further. After a wash and brush up, they dined with Sir Charles, who at first found it difficult to believe what they were saying; but Forsby had brought along a copy of Otto's statement and, after the scientist had read it, he had to agree that the psychic bond between the twins must be accepted.

  At half past ten they looked in on Otto. He had tried for an hour before dinner to get into touch with Lothar, then dined in the Mess and, since, tried again, but on both occasions without success. Forsby set the tape recorder in the hope that it might pick up a conversation between the twins during the night, then they all turned in.

  On Monday morning the tape proved blank, but Otto reported that he had woken at about half past six after a vivid dream. In it he had seen Lothar getting into an aircraft, standing near which were a number of men in uniform, and he felt sure that these were Americans. He also had a feeling that the place was one of the air bases occupied by United States Forces in Eastern England.

  Verney at once rang through to the Air Ministry and asked the senior officer in the Security Department there to take the matter up with his American opposite number and ask for exhaustive enquiries to be made.

  This first earnest that Otto might succeed in helping them to trace his brother decided C.B. to take him to London, so that if he had further visions he could give full particulars of them with a minimum of delay. While the aircraft was being got ready to fly them back to Farnborough, Otto arranged with his number two to carry on with the experiments on which he was engaged, then Forsby ran the three of them along to the airstrip.

  At Farnborough, Verney's car was waiting to meet them. On the way into central London they stopped at the little hotel in Chelsea and arrangements were made for Otto to stay there, then C.B. dropped Barney in Warwick Square and went on to his office.

  In spite of his preoccupations over the week-end, Barney had several times thought of Mary, and he feared that she might have taken rather badly his having had to let her down on Saturday night. So the first thing he did on getting into his flat, was to ring her number. As it was just on lunch-time he hoped to catch her in but there was no reply, so he assumed that she was probably out for the day on one of her modelling jobs.

  In the evening he considered buying more roses to take to her, but decided that might give the impression that he had been enjoying himself over the week-end and now had a guilty conscience; so he arrived in the Cromwell Road at half past seven empty handed but armed with an elaborate story of a millionaire who had suddenly become interested in his Kenya travel project and had insisted on carrying him off to the country on Saturday to discuss putting money into it.

  To his disappointment and annoyance, his ring at the front door of Mary's flat brought no response, so evidently she was still out. Hoping that something had detained her, he hung about for nearly an hour, but she did not put in an appearance; so he was forced to the conclusion that she was so annoyed with him that she had decided to ignore the invitation he had posted to her before setting off for Wales, and had already gone out for the evening either alone, or with someone else.

  Consoling himself as best he could with the thought that having been up early that morning an 'early bed' would be welcome, he ate a solitary dinner at a little restaurant in Gloucester Road and returned to Warwick Square. But it was quite a time before he got off to sleep as thinking of Mary made him realize how much he had been looking forward to seeing her again and how much, in the past fortnight, she had, almost imperceptibly, come to mean to him.

  Next morning he rang her number at eight o'clock and, as there was no reply, repeated the call at half past, but still without result. It might be, he thought, that she had had to go out early to catch a train for a model show that she had been booked for somewhere outside London. On the other hand, he knew that she had very few acquaintances, so probably guessed that it was him ringing up and, still suffering from the sulks, had deliberately refrained from answering the telephone. Taking this last to be the most likely assumption, he decided to leave her for thirty-six hours to stew in her own juice.

  Before he set about the routine jobs that he had in mind to do that day, he looked in at the office. There he learnt from C.B. that all attempts to trace Lothar had so far failed. The enquiry set on foot by United States Air Force H.Q. had drawn a blank, and Otto's efforts to locate his brother via the astral plane had, so far, produced only a strong impression that he had crossed a sea and was now somewhere on the Continent. Interpol had been asked to help, but with the thousands of aircraft that criss-crossed Europe daily, there was small hope that they would be able to identify the airfield on which a plane, of which they had only a very sketchy description, had come down some twenty-four hours earlier.

  That evening another meeting was due to be held by the Communist-dominated branch, down at Hammersmith, of a Union to which Barney belonged; so just before seven he clocked in at the rather dreary little hall that was used on such occasions. There ensued a long wrangle, carried over from the previous meeting, during which the leaders urged the men to refuse to work overtime until a new claim for higher wages was settled. A few older men stood up to say that it seemed wrong to them to put a break on production before the employers had actually refused to grant the new rates of pay, but they were accused by the Reds of being mouthpieces of the bosses, and shouted down. The go-slow motion was passed and about nine o'clock the meeting broke up. The little fraternity of Communists who had control of the branch made for the pub they frequented, and Barney with them.

  After they had had a few rounds of drinks, the leery little man who had tipped Barney off to lay wagers that Tom Ruddy would not be elected as the new Secretary-General of the C.G.T. drew him aside and asked him if he had made good use of the tip.

  'I stand to win about ten quid,' Barney told him with a grin.

  'You bloody fool!' the little man snorted, and spat in the cuspidor. 'You ought to have made yerself fifty. But you've missed the blinking boat now. That is for taking on any more suckers. News'll be out tomorrow morning. Mr. bloody Ruddy's standing down.'

  'Are you certain?' Barney asked, concealing his dismay under an expression of surprised cheerfulness.

  'Course I am,' came the prompt reply. 'He's thrown his hand in. I can't tell you why. Don't know meself. But I had it straight from the horse's mouth that the Comrades meant to put a fast one over him.'

  At closing time the groups broke up and, as was his custom on such occasions, Barney set out by a circuitous route back to the Tube Station. On his way he thought of Mary again and his resolution of the morning - to make no further attempt to get into touch with her for the next thirty-six hours. Reconsidered, it seemed to him that he was probably cutting off his nose to spite his face and that, as he was so anxious to make it up with her, the more evidence he gave of his eagerness to do so, the more likely she was to relent. In consequence, instead of taking the Underground to Victoria, he got out at Gloucester Road and walked along to the tall old house in which Mary had her little flat.

  On his way there, as it was nearly half past ten, he was expecting to find her in; but she was not. Since it was a Tuesday, it occurred to him that, although she had promised him not to, she might have gone to the weekly meeting at Mrs. Wardeel's. If so, she should soon be back; if not, the odds seemed
to be that she had gone to a cinema, in which case also she would soon be home. He decided to wait for her, but feeling that in his 'worker's' clothes he might be taken for a suspicious character if found lurking on her landing by one of the other tenants, he went out into the street and took up a position on the other side of the road.

  There had been many occasions when Barney's work had necessitated his waiting outside a block of flats or offices for hours at a stretch; so the undertaking was not new to him and he thought himself lucky that the night was fine. Now and then he changed his position, taking a short stroll but never going beyond clear sight of the house, for to do so would have been to risk her arriving just at the moment when he had ceased to watch; then he might wait on till dawn, accuse her next day of having stayed out all night, and later find that she could show proof that he was entirely mistaken.

  Eleven o'clock came, half past, and a quarter to twelve, without Mary appearing. By then he had decided that she must have gone out to dinner with a man and the thought annoyed him considerably. Although she had given him to understand that she had no family, the fact that she appeared to have no friends at all had often puzzled him. Even if she had not been living for a long time in London, it seemed strange that any young widow with her attractions should not have acquired at least one man friend. That she had not, thus leaving him a free field, he had come to accept; so, now he believed that someone had entered it against him, he felt a quite unjustified resentment.

  Animated by more than a suspicion of jealousy, he decided to continue his watch, so that when his rival brought Mary home he might have a sight of him. Between midnight and one the volume of passing traffic down London's long main western artery fell steeply, the buses ceased, while private cars and taxis, from having been a steady stream, were reduced to a trickle. By half past one Barney began to think of throwing his hand in. It was an hour since he had run out of cigarettes, and Mary's failure to return suggested that she had not only gone out to dinner or a show, but also gone on to supper somewhere.