The Winged Bull

by Dion Fortune

  ‘I felt as if my inhibitions loosened up.’

  Brangwyn nodded, and Murchison saw that he was well content.

  Murchison experienced a keen sensation of pleasure as he discarded his heavy everyday garments and wrapped the thin silk about him. Especially did be feel pleasure in the thin, light, glove-like slippers that enabled him to move so quietly over Brangwyn’s thick carpets. He felt like a kid going to a pantomime as he came down the stairs from his own quarters and opened the door on to the gallery that surrounded the lounge.

  It was not until he was on to the stairs that he suddenly realized with a shock that Miss Brangwyn was standing beneath him, watching his descent. Her appearance so amazed him that he completed the rest of the descent and came towards her without knowing what he did or where he was.

  She, too, was dressed in green, but in the exquisitely delicate green of the youngest buds just opening. A loosely tied girdle of heavy gold cord confined the thin silk of her robe at the waist and defined her hips; two clasps caught the robe together on her shoulders, and the loose wide sleeves fell away from her arms like wings. Murchison felt as if her outer husk had dropped off, and for the first time he saw her as she really was.

  Brangwyn, from his chair, was watching the descent of the stairs. ‘There are some cocktails and biscuits over on the table. Help yourself.’

  Murchison did as he was bid, pouring himself out a glass of sherry and starting to munch a handful of small biscuits.

  ‘What do you generally do in the matter of alcohol?’ asked Brangwyn.

  ‘I take it if it’s there. I should never go out to fetch it if it wasn’t. I’m afraid I don’t know much about vintages. Do you want me to knock off drink while I’m on this job?’ He paused with the arrested glass half-way to his lips.

  ‘I want you to go easy on it,’ said Brangwyn. ‘There are some parts of the work when it isn’t wise to risk it, because even a small amount of alcohol might lead to things getting out of hand. But we aren’t on that aspect at the moment, so go ahead and enjoy your drink.’

  Murchison sipped his glass, and then stared thoughtfully at it. He would not look at Ursula, and did not know whether she was looking at him or not. Brangwyn, watching them, nodded to himself with inward satisfaction. The experiment had begun to move.

  ‘It’s a little earlier than our usual time, but I think we’ll have a meal,’ he said.

  Luigi, as usual, produced a meal out of his hat with the sweetest of smiles. After the meal they returned to the lounge. The fire of logs was blazing brightly, its warm flickering light filling the room but leaving the high gallery in shadow and mystery. Brangwyn switched on a shaded reading-lamp, but left the wall lights extinguished, and in the flickering half-light Ursula Brangwyn made coffee with her electric kettle on the low tabouret at her side, and the two men lay back in their chairs and smoked, and watched her.

  Brangwyn rose and fetched a portfolio, and, opening it, gave Murchison a handful of water-colour sketches. ‘These may amuse you,’ he said, ‘they are the fruit of my travels.’

  Murchison bent down to bring the portfolio within the narrow circle of light thrown by the shaded reading-lamp, and began to look through them. They were studies of Egypt, but not the vivid poster-colours of children’s books but Egypt seen through the haze of time that gave the imagination a chance to work. The shadowy temples, half-seen in twilight or veiled in sun-glare, caught at his imagination. The forgotten splendour of that civilization was all about him, and sorrow at its irreparable loss took him by the heart. It seemed as if they lived in a dead world today, and could only remember ancient glories that were no more. The shades of the prison-house had closed about them; the great gods had departed and the temples were empty and desolate. He felt he would give his soul to see Horus mount the morning with the wings of a hawk and to hear the boom of the Kephra beetle in the dusk. These things were the gods to him, and the orthodoxy of today was stale, flat and unprofitable.

  ‘These also will interest you,’ said Brangwyn, handing him another portfolio, and he recognized the strange step-temples of Yucatan, festooned with creepers and jungle-weed.

  ‘Do you see the likeness between the two styles of architecture?’ asked Brangwyn, and Murchison looked more closely and saw that the architecture of the New World seemed to be an archaic version of the architecture of ancient Egypt.

  ‘Did you ever hear of the tradition of the lost continent of Atlantis?’ said Brangwyn.

  ‘No, can’t say that I have.’

  ‘Plato heard of it from the Egyptian priests, and he was no fool, and neither were they. They believed that their civilization was derived from the Lost Continent. And it is a very curious fact that there are remarkable points of resemblance between the two cultures, though there has been no communication between them within historical times. It has been one of my hobbies to trace out these points of resemblance, and the further you go, the more you see in it. At any rate, if Egypt did not get her culture from Atlantis, where did she get it from? There are no primitive Egyptian remains; it is always a full-blown culture, even from the first.’

  The idea of a lost continent took hold of Murchison’s imagination. ‘What happened to it? How did it get lost?’ he asked.

  ‘It is supposed to have been overwhelmed by volcanic catastrophe because of its extreme wickedness in its latter days. It is a curious fact that at the exact spot that Plato gives as its site there is the Great Atlantic Deep, an enormous gash in the ocean floor, like the Grand Canyon of Colorado, and it was not discovered until modern deep-sea sounding apparatus revealed it. It is also a fact, within my personal knowledge, that the psychic atmosphere is such that it completely capsizes the crew of a cable-ship when they have to hang about there doing cable repairs. They dread going there. There are some spots on the earth’s surface like that, you know, Murchison. Spots where psychic influences have been concentrated, both good and evil, and anyone who is at all sensitive feels it.’

  ‘I went into the Polynesian Gallery at the British Museum the same time that I was mucking around with the winged bull,’ said Murchison, completely forgetting the silent presence of Miss Brangwyn. ‘And, my goodness, I came out quicker than I went in! It fairly stank. And when I was doing my invocation in the yard it suddenly struck me that I might be raising some of the critters upstairs, and it gave me quite a turn for a moment; but I reckoned they were the fag-end of something, and not the genuine article, and, as it turned out, I was right.’

  Brangwyn, although he dared not look at his sister as this confession was being made, felt her prick up her ears.

  ‘The fag-end of anything is apt to be unpleasant,’ he said, ‘but I don’t believe there is any such thing as innate evil, but only misplaced force. It was the same in Atlantis. It’s end was evil, but its hey-day was great. There was knowledge there that we have never matched since, and that went down with the Lost Continent, save such as was preserved by the Egyptian priests.’ He rose. ‘I am going to pack you two children off to bed. I have work to do.’

  He watched them going up the winding stair and along the gallery, the tall, slender, dark girl and the big, blond, powerful man — priest of the sun and priestess of the moon, and he thought of lost Atlantis and its forgotten wisdom, and wondered how his experiment was going to turn out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Murchison went to bed in a very cheerful frame of mind. He had not enjoyed an evening so much for years. He wondered what dreams he would have to produce for his employer’s delectation in the morning, and whether he would be expected to dream of lost Atlantis, or a previous incarnation as a Pharaoh. In response to his employer’s questionings twelve hours later, however, he had nothing more interesting to produce than a vision of chasing a black cat round and round the flat.

  ‘What sort of a cat was it?’ asked Brangwyn.

  ‘A long-haired, fuzzy sort of beast, a Persian, I suppose.’ Brangwyn chuckled inwardly, remembering his sister’s nickname of Kitten, which her
aureole of wavy dark hair and small, pointed, oval face had earned her.

  ‘I want to take this opportunity of having a few words with you before my sister appears. We can trust Ursula to be late. I have got rather a curious problem on my hands. I had trouble with your predecessor, and had to chuck him out more or less violently. There are some papers of mine that he wants to get hold of, and I do not think he would stick at very much to do it. You must keep your eyes skinned. Don’t admit anybody to the flat on any pretext whatever in my absence.’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Murchison cheerfully. ‘Out they go, dead or alive!’

  At this moment Miss Brangwyn entered, putting a stop to the conversation.

  ‘What train are you catching, Ursula?’ inquired her brother.

  ‘The ten fifty-seven,’ replied the girl.

  ‘Ah,’ said Brangwyn, ‘I am afraid I shall not be able to see you off by that, but perhaps Murchison would be good enough.’

  Their late breakfast did not leave them much time for the train, and Brangwyn pushed them off straight from the table. Alone with Ursula in the taxi, Murchison was at a loss to know what to say to her.

  ‘Have you a long journey in front of you?’ he asked politely.

  ‘North Wales,’ said Miss Brangwyn. ‘I go as far as Llandudno Junction by train, and then I have a long car-run right up into the mountains.’

  Murchison opened his eyes at this information. The Brangwyns must consider his part in the forthcoming experiment of considerable importance if the girl would take such a journey as that in order to inspect him. Brangwyn must have put through a trunk call, and she must have travelled all night in order to arrive when she did.

  There was neither luggage nor ticket to attend to, so they had ample time in hand at the station, thanks to Brangwyn’s urgency, and Murchison sat down opposite Ursula on the wide, padded seat of the empty first-class compartment to keep her company till the train started. They had hardly settled themselves when a shadow fell across the carriage, and a man appeared in the doorway leading into the corridor.

  ‘Well, Ursula?’ he said. ‘How are you?’ And, without waiting for an invitation, he came in and sat down beside her. Murchison stared at him resentfully; he was just beginning to enjoy talking to Miss Brangwyn.

  He saw before him a tall but slenderly built man, who was exceedingly carefully dressed, and whose perfectly regular features had a chiselled perfection that promised nonentity if it had not been for the high, narrow forehead, which relieved the face from ordinariness though it did not add to its attractiveness. He felt that he did not like the man, quite apart from the fact of his intrusion; in fact, he disliked him very much indeed. The newcomer possessed personality to a marked degree; one felt it even as he stood in the doorway, and the personality he possessed was of a kind that made Murchison’s hackle rise.

  There was a dead silence in the carriage of such a peculiar quality that Murchison turned and looked at Ursula. She never had any colour in her cheeks, but normally they were of a creamy magnolia hue which is perfectly healthy, but as he stared he saw her gradually go the colour of ashes. The pupils of her large, dark eyes slowly dilated until there was no iris left, and they were uncanny pools of blackness. And all the while she never spoke or moved, but stared at the newcomer like a bird fascinated by a snake. He, for his part, watched this painful exhibition with evident satisfaction, and made no attempt to put her at her ease.

  A wave of hot anger swept over Murchison. It was too bad for a nice girl like Ursula Brangwyn to be scared half to death by this unpleasant individual. Now Murchison was decidedly slow in social relationships, but he was quick enough when action was needed. He knew it was impossible to drive the newcomer out of the carriage, for he had as good a right to be there as Ursula had, so he leant forward and placed his hand on the girl’s knee.

  ‘I am afraid you’re not feeling very fit,’ he said. ‘Would you like to come along with me to the buffet and I’ll get you a drop of brandy?’

  She turned her dazed eyes from the other man and gazed helplessly at Murchison without speaking. He did not wait for any reply from her, but opened the door of the carriage and got out, and then leant in and lifted her out bodily, as if she had been a child, set her on her feet, holding her as she leant helplessly up against him, and said over her shoulder to the disgusted young man in the carriage:

  ‘You keep out of the way unless you want your head punched.’

  Murchison supported Ursula, who hardly seemed capable of setting one foot in front of the other, into the refreshment-room, and sat her down on a corner settee where she could lean her head back against the cushions, sent the waitress for brandy, and, diluting it with no more than its own bulk of water, took Ursula firmly by the head and poured it down her throat.

  ‘Are you obliged to travel by this train?’ he asked, ‘Because you are going to have your friend as a travelling companion. Why not come back to the flat and have a rest, and go on later?’

  Ursula nodded acquiescence, and be led her out of the station and into a taxi, and back to the flat, sincerely hoping that Brangwyn would be at home to cope with his sister; but, as before, Brangwyn was not forthcoming when be wanted him, and he found himself with the collapsing Ursula on his hands, and not even a char in sight.

  He got her out of her hat and her mink coat as if he were undressing a doll, and deposited her gently in one of the large armchairs, and sat down himself on the edge of the wide brick hearth and stared at her as she gazed into space with unseeing eyes, wondering what on earth he should do with her. He recognized that she had had a severe emotional shock; in fact, her condition reminded him vividly of shell-shock but be could not imagine what on earth could have occurred in a civilized city to reduce her to this state. The fellow had simply looked at her, and she had gone as flat as a burst tyre. He could understand a girl getting the wind up if she had a sticky past and it suddenly rose up and smote her; he could understand her having hysterics, or something of that sort; but the kind of paralysis that had overtaken Ursula Brangwyn was beyond his comprehension. He did not think it would be much use sending a doctor to cope with a condition of this kind, nor did he think the excitable Latins in the restaurant would prove particularly helpful. No, anything that was to be done for Ursula Brangwyn would have to be done by him, and he bad better get on with it.

  He bent forward and laid his hand on her knee once again.

  ‘Look here, Miss Brangwyn,’ he said, ‘you have absolutely no need to be scared of that fellow. Your brother and I will send him spinning if he gives any trouble or bothers you again.’

  And then, as it suddenly occurred to him that it might be fear of her brother finding out something with regard to the young exquisite that had thrown her into a panic, he added:

  ‘Or if there is anything I can do for you on my own, you have only got to say what it is and I’ll do anything I can.’

  The girl slowly turned her eyes towards him. He noticed that all her movements were peculiarly slowed down.

  ‘No,’ she said in a low, toneless voice, ‘there is nothing either you or Alick can do. Alick has done all he can. I am the only person who can do anything. I have got to help myself— if I can.’

  ‘Well,’ said Murchison, ‘I don’t know what it is that you propose to do about it, but I can tell you one thing, the longer you sit and look at it before you do it, the worse it will get.’

  ‘There is nothing for me to do. It is just the way I feel about things.’

  ‘There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it,’ said Murchison.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ replied the girl. ‘It isn’t that. I’m not fond of him any longer. I’d be only too thankful to be rid of him. I would truly. But I can’t get rid of him. I can’t break the rapport between us. He still has the most awful power over me. He can made me do anything he wants.’

  ‘Well,’ said Murchison, ‘he wanted to make you stop in the train and talk to him, but he didn’t manage it when I hoicke
d you out. What’s been done once can be done again.’

  ‘It isn’t just that. It’s me, too. It’s just like drink or drugs. A kind of craving.’

  ‘It’ll wear off with time,’ said Murchison firmly, though he hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about.

  ‘I thought so, too,’ said the girl, with a sigh, ‘but it’s come back as strong as ever now I’ve seen him again.’

  Murchison suddenly remembered the girl’s words concerning an experiment that had gone wrong, and which had left her considerably shaken up. He also remembered his employer’s words concerning a previous secretary who bad turned out badly and had to be fired hastily and was not on any pretext to be admitted to the flat. The young man bad probably been engaged as be bad been engaged, got mixed up with Ursula Brangwyn, and been slung out by her brother for some pretty drastic reason, and the girl had had the shock of a bust-up love affair, and was having a bit of a nervous breakdown in consequence. He wondered what they had all been up to — this man, who radiated such curious personal magnetism and had such an uncanny power over the girl, Brangwyn, with his interest in queer cults and lost arts, and the girl herself, possibly badly damaged as a result of some psychological experiment that had gone wrong.

  A wave of pity swept over him as be looked at the girl, sitting huddled in the big chair and staring into space with unseeing, terrified eyes. It was an ugly thing to see a human being reduced to such a condition. He felt the short hairs on the nape of his neck beginning to rise. Powers were abroad that he did not understand. Anyone who had not actually seen the incident would pooh-pooh it as an hysterical girl’s imagination; but he himself had felt the strange personal influence that radiated from the man; an influence that filled him, a male, with an almost irresistible desire to strike him, and that might quite well have all sorts of queer effects on a highly strung girl like Miss Brangwyn if the fellow gave his mind to getting bold of her.