The Satanist

by Dennis Wheatley

  He had been telling himself that if she was out with a man it was probably some middle-aged director or important customer of one of the fashion houses for which she modelled, and that she had accepted an invitation to dine rather than give offence; but, if so, she should have been home by this time. The idea that she was more probably dancing with some young, attractive man now became insistent in his mind, and the memory of her firm young body against his own when they had danced together added fuel to his jealous imaginings.

  Two o'clock came, and with it the conviction that Mary and her new beau must have gone on to a night club, which meant that she might not now be home for another couple of hours. More put out than he had been for a long time, Barney hailed a taxi that was crawling westward and had himself driven to Warwick Square.

  While he undressed, he had a whisky and soda and some biscuits; then, as he got into bed, he tried to put Mary out of his mind. It was no good, but his thoughts did take another direction. Perhaps that evening she had gone out with a chap, yet it seemed strange that she had also been out the night before and out, apparently, on the several occasions when he had tried to ring her up. The explanation might be that she had suddenly decided to take a holiday.

  Yet if that were so, why, before leaving London, had she not let him know? The note he had written on Saturday morning must have reached her by first post on Monday. Surely, even if she was furious with him, she would have let him know it by writing a few angry lines in reply, which he should have received that morning? Could she possibly have met with an accident over the week-end and be in hospital? Or, unlikely as it seemed after the way she had broken down at their last meeting, and sworn to have no more to do with the Satanists, had Ratnadatta, after all, again got hold of her?

  At that disturbing thought Barney switched on the light again and set his alarm-clock for six o'clock, determined now to go really fully into the question first thing in the morning.

  Soon after seven he was back in Cromwell Road. As there were a dozen tenants in the old house, its front door was always left on the latch from first thing in the morning up till eleven at night; so he walked straight in and upstairs. His ring at Mary's door remained unanswered. Hoping that she was still in bed, and perhaps sleeping very soundly after her late night out, he waited for a few minutes then rang again, this time insistently. Taking his finger from the bell he listened but no sound of movement came from within the flat, so he then felt certain that she could not be there.

  In anticipation of such a possibility, he had brought with him a small implement, the efficient use of which he had been taught when training for his job. With it, in less than a minute he had the door open without damaging the lock. The first thing his eye lit on, face upwards on the mat, was the letter he had posted to Mary on Saturday morning. Evidently the caretaker, or somebody, brought up the tenants' mail and pushed it through their letterboxes. Anyhow, the fact that it was still there showed that Mary had not been in her flat during the past two days.

  Closing the door behind him, he took a quick look into each of the four rooms of the flat. The bathroom and tiny kitchen were clean and in good order; the bed had been made up and on the sitting-room table stood a vase holding a dozen long-stemmed roses. In the wastepaper basket he found the four pieces of a card, confirming that they were the roses he had ordered from Constance Spry's for Mary and, from the way in which the card had been ripped across, an indication of her anger on realizing the reason for his sending them to her.

  Taken together, the roses, the letter on the mat, and the unslept-in bed added up to Mary's having gone out sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening and not returned. With the hope of coming upon some clue to where she had gone, he began a systematic search of the premises. In the circumstances he felt no scruples about doing so and, as his duties made it necessary for him to carry out such searches fairly frequently, he did the job swiftly and thoroughly but with an automatic care which resulted in everything he disturbed being left exactly as he had found it.

  The only room to yield any information of interest was the bedroom. The cupboards and drawers were full of Mary's clothes. On checking through the major items he found everything there in which he had seen her, with the exception of a grey coat and skirt. It could be assumed that she had been wearing those when she went out, so had last left the flat in daytime. Up on a high shelf there were a hat box and a beauty box, and under the bed he came upon three suitcases. Two of them bore the initials M.M. and the third E.T.M. The latter Barney guessed to have belonged to the deceased Monsieur Mauriac and he wondered for a moment what E. stood for in the name of Mary's ex-French-customs-officer husband - Emile, perhaps, or Edouard.

  Anyway, the presence of the clothes and luggage made it clear that Mary had not gone off for a holiday; or even, as was confirmed by the finding of her sponge-bag and washing kit in the bathroom, deliberately for a night. Now really worried about what had become of her, Barney relocked the front door of the flat and hurried down to the basement.

  Down there in the gloomy depths, as Mary had told him, lived a not particularly likeable couple named Coggins. The landlord had put them in charge of the building and, theoretically, they were supposed to perform any reasonable small services that the tenants required but actually they would not lift a finger without being tipped. The man went out to work but could be bribed to carry up heavy luggage on his return. The wife took in parcels, cleaned for some of the tenants and did small commissions in the way of shopping for those whose jobs prevented them from doing their own regularly.

  Barney found Mrs. Coggins sorting out some washing, which had been drying in the backyard on the previous day. Her thick brows lifted at the sight of a stranger, and she enquired: 'What do you want, walking into my scullery like this, young man?'

  With his most disarming smile, he replied, 'I'm a friend of Mrs. Mauriac's and I'm worried about her. She is not in her flat, and I have reason to suppose that she has not been home for the past three nights. Can you give me any idea what has happened to her?'

  'Tenants' business is none of my business,' said the blowsy woman, with a suggestion of malicious pleasure. 'And if she'd wanted you to know where she was goin' off to, she would have told you, wouldn't she?'

  Barney had had plenty of experience of dealing with Mrs. Coggins' type. He spoke again, with an edge on his voice. 'Mrs. Mauriac's disappearance may turn out to be a very serious matter. Either you will answer my questions truthfully, promptly and politely, or I shall bring the police in to question you for me.'

  'Lor!' exclaimed Mrs. Coggins, immediately both overawed and stimulated by a new interest. 'She hasn't been murdered, has she?'

  'I sincerely trust not. Tell me; when did you see her last?'

  'Saturday, around one o'clock. Some flowers came in a big box from a florist, and I took 'em up to 'er. All them stairs. I tell you them stairs'll be the death of me. But she gave me a bob for me trouble, as I knew she would.'

  'And you've no idea what happened to her after that?'

  'No. Leastwise, not for certain. But there was the coloured gentleman what came enquiring for her about six o'clock.'

  'What's that?' Barney snapped.

  Mrs. Coggins shrugged and, sensing the possibility of getting under Barney's skin, replied with a superior smile. 'I wouldn't have thought one like her would have taken up with a coloured man; but there's never any telling, is there? Some people say as how they are more manly in a manner of speakin' than white fellers, and a lot of girls prefer their fellers to be that way. Of course. . . .'

  'I am not interested in your speculations,' Barney cut her short. 'What was this coloured man like, and did she see him?'

  'Well, he weren't a coloured man in the proper sense. Not a real nigger with curly hair an all; just coffee. Some sort of Indian I suppose, and very well spoken. It's expected that tenants' visitors shall go up and ring the bells of those they want. But this man rang again and again for me. I went up prepared to give
whoever it was a piece of my mind, but he told me he'd rung Mrs. Mauriac's bell again and again and couldn't get no reply, and could I tell him when she would be coming in. Of course I told him I'd no idea; then he asked my permission to wait there in the front hall till she came in. To that I said, "You can please yerself, there's no law against it". Then when I come up about an hour later with a bottle of whisky for the gentleman in the second floor back that we call "the Colonel", the coloured gent was no longer there. So maybe she'd come in and gone straight out again with him.'

  'Thank you.' Barney turned on his heel, ran quickly up the basement stairs and went out into the street. He had no doubt whatever that the 'coloured gentleman' was Ratnadatta; but what could possibly have induced Margot - as he thought of her - to go out with him? Surely just pique at his, Barney's, having let her down could not account for her reversing her decision to have nothing more to do with the Indian? And if, from annoyance and boredom, she had allowed herself to be persuaded, why had she not returned to her flat since? Perhaps he had hypnotized her and was now detaining her against her will in the mansion at Cremorne? In any case, it seemed certain that Ratnadatta having come to Cromwell Road on Saturday evening, it was he who was responsible for her disappearance; and its implications were now extremely alarming.

  Barney's immediate impulse was to go to Cremorne, but a moment's thought was enough to check it. Bulldog Drummond tactics were all very well in fiction, but for him to break in and attempt to tackle on his own the permanent staff that must live in the house could result only in disaster. He must restrain his impatience, make a report, secure a search warrant and have Special Branch raid the place officially. But it had taken him barely half an hour to search Mary's flat, so it was still not yet eight o'clock and C.B. would not be in his office until half past nine.

  Now a prey to acute anxiety, Barney strode along to the Earls Court Road, went into a Lyons and killed time as best he could by having breakfast there. Well before half past nine he arrived at the office and posted himself in the hall ready to waylay C.B.

  Verney arrived punctually, nodded 'good morning' to him and made for the lift. Barney returned his greeting and said hurriedly, 'Can I come up with you, Sir? There is a matter I want to see you about urgently.'

  'Sorry,' C.B. shook his head. 'I think I know what it is, but I can't see you yet. I must go through my mail, and Thompson of Special Branch is coining over at a quarter to ten. When I've seen him I hope we'll know more about it. Go to your room and I'll ring through for you as soon as I am free.'

  Wondering how the Colonel could possibly have got to know of Margot's disappearance, Barney went up to the room which, when he was working in the office, he shared with two other young men. At five past ten Verney's P.A. summoned him, and he went up to the big office on the top floor.

  On his entering the room the Colonel waved him to a chair, and said: 'This is a perfectly damnable business, and there's nothing we can do about it. Thompson got the truth out of Tom Ruddy last night, but he flatly refuses to prosecute.'

  'Tom Ruddy?' Barney echoed, momentarily taken aback.

  'No, Father Christmas!' retorted C.B., with an irritable impatience quite unusual in him. 'Or am I wrong in supposing that you came here this morning to report to me that he has withdrawn his name as a candidate for Secretary-General of the C.G.T.?'

  'Yes; no, I mean,' faltered Barney, suddenly recalled to the duty entailed by his major mission. 'I picked up a pretty definite rumour to that effect in Hammersmith last night, and of course intended to report it.'

  'Very well then. This ties up with your second string; so sit down and I'll tell you about it. I heard that Ruddy had thrown his hand in yesterday afternoon, so I asked Inspector Thompson to go to see him and try to find out why. Of course, it's none of our business officially, but I felt certain there must be something fishy about it, and that if Ruddy could be persuaded to accept police help we might be able to restore the situation. At first he was very reluctant to talk but, after Thompson had given him his word that no action of any kind which might involve him should be taken, he got the story.'

  C.B. stuffed some tobacco down into his pipe, and went on. 'One wouldn't have thought that a man like Ruddy would be a superstitious fool; but he is. Apparently his old mum used to tell fortunes pretty accurately, so he has been a believer in that sort of thing all his life. About a year ago someone introduced him to a crystal-gazer named Emily Purbess, a middle-aged and apparently respectable body. He has consulted Mrs. P. several times in the past six months and she's given him guidance that he says has paid off well on various problems connected with his election campaign. About ten days ago she warned him that there was trouble ahead; someone he relied on was going to double-cross him, and if he didn't watch out that would wreck his chances. But she couldn't tell him who or what to watch out for.

  'Naturally that got him worried, so she suggested that he should consult someone who had greater occult powers than herself and gave him the address of a man named Biernbaum, who is in practice in the West End as a psycho-analyst. Biernbaum gave Ruddy a lot of gupp about seeing into the future really being a science which was understood by the ancients and is only now being rediscovered, and how it had recently been proved that they were right to use pure young girls as priestesses in the temples because nubile virgins were the best vehicles for conveying the voices of unseen powers; then he said that, for a fee, he could take Ruddy to a house in which a young woman who had been trained to prophesy invariably produced the goods. Ruddy agreed to cough up five pounds and was told to report at Biernbaum's consulting room again on Saturday evening.'

  'Saturday evening,' Barney repeated. 'That's the night the Satanists meet. Did this chap Biernbaum take him along to the house in Cremorne?'

  C.B. nodded. 'You've hit it, partner. At least I'm pretty certain that is where they went. Biernbaum must have put Ruddy under a light hypnosis because after they got into a taxi he doesn't remember the streets through which they passed, or those by which they returned about an hour later; but his description of the approach to the place, and of its outside, tallies. He says the inside was like that of a nobleman's mansion, as seen on the films, but he was received by an elderly bald-headed doctor, who runs the place, and a fine looking woman who was dressed as a nurse. They told him that their most gifted girl had been taken ill but, as the appointment had been made, she had agreed all the same to prophesy for him. Then they took him up to a luxurious bedroom where a lovely girl was lying in bed with her eyes shut and the sheets up to her chin.'

  Barney grinned suddenly. 'This sounds more fun than getting a blowsy old woman to peer into a crystal. Did the lovely prove a good oracle?'

  'Yes, she prophesied all right. In fact, so plausibly that she shook poor Ruddy to his buttoned boots. She described the chap who was supposed to be going to do him dirt, and unmistakably she was seeing young Sir Hamish McFadden.'

  'The chap whose father left him about ten million pounds worth of shipping, and is now regarded as quite a big shot among the Socialist intelligentsia?'

  'That's right. But even if he is ass enough to believe in their old fashioned theories, he at least has the sense to realize the Communist danger, and he has been spending quite a lot of money lately to finance the campaigns of honest Trade Unionists like Ruddy, who want to oust the Reds. Ruddy was going down to lunch with him at his place in Kent last Sunday, to fix the final details about I.T.V. appearances, leaflets, and other anti-Communist propaganda for which Sir Hamish is footing the bill. But the prophecy decided Ruddy to call his visit off.'

  'So that's how they worked it.' Barney made a grimace. 'I suppose by Monday Ruddy and Sir Hamish had quarrelled violently and, after the break, Ruddy felt that, without the financial support he had been promised, he no longer stood a chance?'

  'Good Lord, no! With, or without Sir Hamish, Ruddy could still romp home. He has thrown his hand in on personal grounds: on account of his family. The lovely oracle predicted for him, despite
everything, a smashing victory. She even got so enthusiastic about it that, although she was as naked as when her mother tbore her, she suddenly sat up in bed and threw an arm round his neck. It was at that moment that from some camouflaged point of vantage someone took a photograph of them.'

  'Blackmail!' exclaimed Barney.

  'That's it. On Monday a man who was a complete stranger to Ruddy brought him a copy, gave it to him and said: 'We thought you might like to have this as a souvenir. We have plenty more and either you lay off standing for Secretary-General, or your wife gets one tomorrow.'

  'What swine these people are!'

  'Of course. Communists are of two kinds only. Gadarene Swine whose wits have been taken from them so that they rush headlong down the slope to their own destruction, and ordinary voracious swine who, if you were standing in their sty, had a heart-attack and fell among them, would instantly set upon and devour you - just as did the pigs in T. F. Powys' novel, "Mr. Tasker's Gods".'

  'I know, Sir. But this sort of thing really is frightful. Did poor old Ruddy cave in right away?'

  'I gather so. He told Thompson that he had been happily married for twenty-four years and counted his wife his greatest blessing; but she was not the sort of woman who would even tolerate his dancing twice in an evening with the good-looking wife of another chap at a Trade Union social and that once she had made his life a misery for a couple of months because she had found out that, while she was on holiday at the seaside with the children, he had taken a pretty typist to a movie. He said that the sight of the photograph would be a terrible shock to her. He felt sure that her principles would prove stronger than her affections: that, filled with righteous indignation, she would leave him, taking their two unmarried daughters with her, and that no political success he might achieve could compensate a man of his age for the loss of his family.'

  'Couldn't he explain?' Barney asked. 'Surely if his wife loves him, and he told the truth, she would believe him?'