The Winged Bull

by Dion Fortune

  ‘No, none. There are some things that cannot be apologized for. The best thing you can do is to go away and leave me alone. I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘You may change it before Astley’s finished with you. I shouldn’t care to be in your shoes after the way he looked as he spoke of you.’

  ‘What do you mean? Has he been discussing me with you?’

  ‘He told me what he intended to do with you. I gathered it was the Black Mass.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Well, it’s as near as makes no matter.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it is not your business.’

  ‘It’s any decent man’s business when a thing like this is afoot!’

  ‘Mr Murchison, you had better be careful what you do. I know of three men who died in this house.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘No. It’s a warning,’ and Ursula Brangwyn turned in at the door and slammed it behind her.

  She went into the inner hall, feeling as if her knees would give way under her. She was trembling all over with excitement after her passage of arms with Murchison. Why was it that he was always able to affect her so powerfully? She sat down in one of the broken-down chairs to recover. What an utter nasty type the man was. Alick would be heartbroken when he found out about Murchison, for he had thought the world of him. For some unaccountable reason Ursula Brangwyn found herself very near tears.

  She went slowly up to her room, locked the door to safeguard herself from intrusion, and sat down on the narrow camp-bed with its army blankets. Astley believed in training souls by driving them hard along the line of greatest resistance. If they yielded, the job was done. So Ursula Brangwyn had the worst room in the house, a mean slip of a room, cut off from a larger one by a very inadequate partition, and looking into the well of the house, so that it got neither light nor air.

  But the upheaval of her disillusionment over Murchison had been so great that she neither knew nor cared what her surroundings were like.

  She got her handbag out of a drawer and drew from it Murchison’s letter, written on the notepaper of the little Welsh hotel, and read it through again. For the first time it struck her that Murchison’s two letters, the one to Astley and the one to her, were quite different. She took out the one he had written to Astley, and that Astley, with his usual carelessness, had not troubled to recover from her after giving it to her to read, and re-read that also, her blood boiling at the references to herself.

  What an extraordinary man Murchison was, an absolute Jekyll and Hyde. The first letter was not a bit like him. Or, rather, it was like him at his worst. Like he was the day they had had lunch together in her brother’s absence, and she had thought him such an appalling lout. The letters were puzzling. The handwriting was obviously identical, and yet the letters did not seem as if they were from the same man. What was the answer to the riddle? Who had written the second letter if Murchison had not? For her whole case turned on that letter and his perfidy. And yet Murchison, when taxed with it, had not denied that it was his letter. She read it through again. The turn of a phrase struck her as familiar. Then the answer to the riddle leapt to her mind. The letter had been written by Murchison at Alick’s dictation.

  Then, if that were the case, her violent reaction had been entirely groundless. Though Murchison had never betrayed his feelings by word or deed, there had been times when there had been a look in his eyes — but then one could never be quite sure. But if he had been fond of her, and had overheard her unlucky words in the cottage on the night of his arrival, they must have wounded him very deeply, and the quarrel at Llandudno had been the result.

  She decided that even if she and Murchison could not polarize, she would not remain any longer in Astley’s sordid and dangerous house. She had been an utter fool ever to enter it again after her previous experiences there. She took off her borrowed overall, put on her hat, and went downstairs.

  In the hall she met the Negro butler, who, grinning widely, leant his back against the door.

  ‘Will you kindly open the door?’ she said. ‘I am going out.’

  Grinning still wider, he put out a hand and pushed her gently into the inner hall and shut the door behind her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Brangwyn had been afraid to leave the flat lest he should miss a phone call from Murchison, and time went slowly as he waited, feeling sure that Murchison must be hot on the trail or he would have turned up before that. He found it impossible to settle down to anything. It was long after lunch-time, and still no word from Ursula. Obviously Murchison’s intuitions had been right, and she had either been decoyed away or had gone of her own accord.

  One bright spot, however, stood out in the unsavoury and dangerous business — Murchison’s obvious feelings for Ursula. Brangwyn was satisfied that this was something much more than a mere stirring of the senses. The great bull was unfolding his wings at length, and Murchison knew the difference.

  He wondered how the two of them would get on if they settled down together. Murchison was not an easy-tempered man, circumstances having taken their toll of him, and Ursula was fastidious and exacting. Murchison, he knew, would not be willing to live in his wife’s pocket, nor to take money he had not earned. He himself would dearly have loved to keep them with him, to work and experiment together, but he doubted whether Murchison would consider this sufficiently like work to accept a salary for it.

  His meditations were interrupted by the sound of a key in the door, and in walked the subject of them, and said without preamble, ‘She’s with Astley.’

  Brangwyn whistled. ‘Have you seen her to speak to?’

  ‘Yes. What do you think she was doing? Try and guess.’

  ‘Something improbable, I take it. Saying her prayers?’

  ‘No, washing the steps.’

  ‘You don’t say so! That’s one up for Astley! There is nothing that could possibly do Ursula more good. I hope he makes her peel potatoes as well. But how did you find her, and what had she got to say for herself?’

  ‘She seemed all right. But then, of course, she has only been there a few hours, and Fouldes isn’t back from Wales yet. Astley is going to do the Black Mass or something of that sort with her as soon as Fouldes gets back, and what do you think? He has offered me a walking-on part.’

  ‘What do you mean? Asked you to take part in the ceremonial? But you aren’t initiated. There’s a catch somewhere.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But it’s too good an offer to refuse. It’s a chance in a million to get one’s nose in there at the critical moment and wreck that Mass!’

  ‘You will have to watch your step. Astley’s up to something.’

  ‘I have an idea what his opening gambit will be, but haven’t a notion about his follow-up. I thought perhaps you might know, as it’s your line of country. I’ve spent all morning with Astley making a cross big enough to crucify a six-foot man.’

  ‘Good God, what are they playing at?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Astley swore it was symbolical. You just stand in front of it with your arms suspended by slings from the cross-bar and pretend to be the Saviour of the World. My guess is that when you are safely spread-eagled on that cross, someone comes along quietly and tightens those slings so’s you can’t budge. I made that cross of old floorboards and strutted it up with iron stays. You could slaughter an ox on it.’

  ‘I don’t envy the person who is cast for the part of Saviour of the World.’

  ‘Neither do I. And it’s me.’

  ‘You? You’re not going to walk into that trap! I don’t suppose he would go as far as murder, but there is not much else he would stick at!’

  ‘I’ve been thinking things out, and I’ll tell you what my idea is. I think your sister is safe enough till the day after tomorrow, when the ceremony comes off. What’s left of her after that ceremony won’t bear thinking about, to judge from Astley’s expression when he talked of her. My suggestion is that I turn up at that ceremony with a revolve
r in my pocket and you hang about outside, and if I don’t come out at the appointed time you fetch the police.’

  ‘You won’t have any pockets to put revolvers in at that ceremony, my dear boy. You will be lucky if you have a loin-cloth. But, look here, why should we wait till the day after tomorrow to do anything? If you can get access to Ursula quite freely we might be able to persuade her to come away, or even take her by the arms and march her out.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. She was planted on those steps for me to fall over. Astley knows what he’s about. And in any case, you couldn’t budge her. Astley had shown her the letter we compounded, and she swallowed it, hook, line and sinker, and blackguarded me for having betrayed your trust.’

  Brangwyn seemed really angry. ‘Sometimes, Murchison, I can’t help feeling she would deserve all she got if we let her go through with it.’

  Time passed slowly for the two men at the flat until the day of Ursula’s ordeal came round, to Brangwyn’s great relief, for he was exceedingly anxious about his sister, in spite of Murchison’s belief that she would be immune till the ceremony started.

  The two men walked across the murky district behind Euston together. Brangwyn wished to see Murchison enter the house so that he could, if necessary, swear to his presence there. It was a silent walk. Murchison was trying to visualize all possible contingencies and provide against them, and Brangwyn was much more anxious than he cared to admit, and was debating whether he ought not, after all, to withdraw his consent to his companion’s scheme for permitting himself to be fastened helpless to the cross of sacrffice, and insist on the police being invoked forthwith, although he knew only too well that Ursula would refuse to be rescued or interfered with until she bad learnt for herself what the actualities of the Black Mass were, and then, alas, it might be too late to help her. Brangwyn was not so old fashioned as to think that a single experience of the seamy side of life could ruin a woman; but the kind of evil that is wrought with ritual disintegrates character in a peculiar way, and in Ursula’s already highly nervous state the result was not unlikely to be definite mental unbalance.

  At the corner of Astley’s road they parted, for they did not wish any of Astley’s hangers-on to see them approaching the house together. It was arranged that if Murchison did not return to the flat by three o’clock in the morning Brangwyn would bring in the police. It was their intention, however, to get Ursula out without invoking the police if possible, in order to avoid the disgrace of the publicity, for there could be no question but that Astley, cornered, would be an exceedingly ugly customer. Brangwyn confirmed Ursula’s statement concerning three men who were believed to have met their deaths at Astley’s hands; but in each case their bodies had been found in smashed-up motor-cars in one or another of the home counties, and it was impossible to say whether the head injuries that had caused their deaths had been inflicted at the time of the smash, or whether a dead body had been in the car when it was despatched to destruction from the top of a steep hill. All that was known was that three associates of Astley’s, after a quarrel, had died in the same manner, and, although there was no evidence to go to a jury, the finger of suspicion pointed at him uncompromisingly.

  Murchison, with no other weapon in his pocket than a small electric torch, was admitted into the dingy black house by the black butler, who conducted him downstairs to the depths with such expedition that he suspected it was desired that his presence in the house should not be known to certain of its inmates. The butler took him straight into the underground temple. It was brightly lit with electric light, and pictures and statues were displayed about it of a nature that made Murchison gasp. From the chairs ranged round the walls Murchison gathered that a large audience was expected, but at present the room, though all lit up and heated almost to suffocation, was empty, save for the billy-goat, tied up in a corner.

  Murchison and his escort crossed the big room and entered the lumber-room behind the platform, where the carpentering had been done.

  ‘Be kind enough to put this on,’ said the butler, holding out a brief length of roller-towelling. Murchison began to strip without protest, and the butler left him to his own devices while he went to tend the stove. Murchison availed himself of the opportunity to slip his electric torch into the towel twisted about his middle, and added to it, as an afterthought, a stout chisel, a formidable weapon in a ruthless hand. He wished he had had his trench-coat, which he had left in the hall, to use as a dressing-gown while waiting. He strolled back into the temple to stand by the stove and keep warm, using his eyes diligently. He observed that a single big master-switch controlled all the small switches on a switchboard near the door, so it was evidently the practice to switch all the lights off suddenly at certain points in the ceremonies, If this happened, all sorts of chances would occur.

  At that moment Astley entered, and the billy-goat suddenly became stricken with panic fear, backing away to the length of its rope and bleating piteously. Astley paid not the faintest attention to it, but came hastily over to Murchison.

  ‘Do you mind waiting in the workshop?’

  ‘Not if you’ll lend me a dressing-gown, it’s a bit chilly in there with nothing on.’

  ‘Here, take this.’ Astley hastily flung over his bare shoulders a voluminous black velvet cape that lay over the arm of a kind of throne on the platform at the opposite end to the great cross, which was almost invisible against its black velvet background now that it was painted.

  Astley pushed Murchison into the lumber-room in a great hurry and shut the door behind him. Obviously his presence was to be kept a secret for some reason or other.

  He took advantage of being unobserved to take a thorough inventory of his surroundings. He opened the door into the area, to make sure that its hinges worked easily and silently; and, discovering among the tools on the bench a stout iron bar that might have been a very large case-opener, but looked suspiciously like a burglar’s jemmy, be put it outside the door. Then he sat down on an empty box and lit a cigarette, a grotesque figure in his black velvet cloak, naked except for a loin-cloth, with his shock of fair hair, as always, standing up in all directions, and, as always, in want of cutting.

  He guessed by the sound of voices and the scrape of chairs that the audience was beginning to arrive. Then the negro butler put his head round the corner and beckoned, and shedding his cloak, Murchison stepped out into the brilliantly lighted room where the ceremony was to take place, and heard a gasp of astonishment go up from the assembled audience.

  He was certainly a startling figure with his milk-white skin, inherited from his Norse ancestors, his ruddy face, heavily muscled limbs and shock of fair hair like a sun-god’s halo.

  ‘You stand here,’ said the butler, backing him up to the cross, beside which stood Monks of the book-shop, got up in a kind of verger’s soutane, who exchanged grins with him. In fact, both Monks and the butler were grinning altogether too much for his liking.

  ‘Put your ‘ands through the loops, sir,’ said Monks.

  Murchison did as he was bid, slipping his wrists into stout webbing loops that hung from the ends of the cross-bar, and in an instant there was a jerk, and the butler and Monks had pulled the loops tight and buckled them, and added a strap round his ankles as well.

  ‘Here, steady on,’ he said, ‘that’s too tight to be comfortable.’

  But Monks and the butler had already quitted the platform, and left him alone to face the staring room.

  There were, perhaps, forty persons present, all clad in flowing robes of various primary colours, making a very gay assembly, and all masked, so it was only by the feet of the front row that he could tell who were the men and who were the women, and he judged that they were fairly evenly divided. Then an organ, and quite a good one, began to play, and in came a procession, consisting of Astley, Ursula, Fouldes, a couple of strapping young fellows armed with swords, and the negro butler and the unhappy goat bringing up the rear.

  Astley was all in cloth of gold and
crimson, with a towering head-dress of scarlet feathers. Ursula wore a white velvet cloak with a cowl, that enveloped her from head to heel; the cowl was drawn over her head, hiding her face, all except her small pointed chin, and from underneath the robe gleamed the shimmer of a silver tunic as she moved. Fouldes also wore a silver tunic, but a black cloak. The two young men were respectively in black and white, and the billy-goat wore his own dingy fur.

  Astley took his seat on the throne on the far platform, the two young men behind him. Fouldes faced the billy-goat across the open space in the centre of the room, and Ursula came forward to the table-tomb that stood almost at the foot of the cross. She put her foot on a stool at the side of it, the butler gave her a hand, and she sprang up on to the altar and lay down, her feet within a yard of Murchison’s own feet. The white velvet cowl encircled her head, and she lay with her eyes closed, like one dead. Murchison stared at her, thinking he had never seen any living being quite so white.

  Astley called his temple to order with a resounding rap of a gavel. He rose to his feet, and with slow pacing steps came sweeping across the hall in his flowing robes. Ursula lifted her head from her cowl and stared at Murchison with startled eyes, an expression of horror gradually growing in them as the significance of the scene dawned on her.

  Astley mounted the platform at the foot of the cross, went round behind Murchison and encircled his throat with his hands. Murchison thought he was going to be strangled, and his startled eyes met Ursula’s. She read in them his fear, and half rose on her elbow as if to protest.

  But Astley did nothing so crude as to exert pressure on Murchison’s windpipe. His thumbs felt for the two spots in the neck where the carotids cross a muscle, and he pressed there with a ju-jitsu grip. Murchison saw the room swirl and go dark as the blood supply to the brain was cut off, and his head fell forward on to his chest and his whole figure sagged down, hanging by the arms in a dead faint, the true image of the Crucified One. Astley stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with the satisfaction of an artist, and then swept back with stately pace to his throne. The organ struck up at a sign of his hand, and the ritual began.