She shook her head. ‘No … I … I feel awfully strange.’
The Marquise uncoiled her long legs in the beautifully tailored grey slacks, and said, ‘Poor little one. Would you like to go to the bathroom? Come with me. I will take you there.’
‘No,’ murmured Christina. ‘I don’t want to be sick. I … just feel muzzy.’ She pointed to her glass, which was nearly empty, and added, ‘That … that last cocktail must have been too much for me.’
‘Drinking a spot too much when one is overtired often has that effect,’ John remarked. ‘But this settles it. She must come home with us; and the sooner the better.’
‘No!’ A sharp note had crept into Jules’s voice. ‘She shall stay here until she recovers. Belle mére, oblige me, please, by taking her to your room and looking after her.’
‘I’m afraid that is not a very good idea,’ John countered smoothly. ‘She’ll only fall asleep, and wake up in a few hours’ time feeling like hell. Then you would have the unenviable task of driving her home.’
John’s contention was amply supported by the fact that, although Christina was trying to keep her head up, it now kept falling forward on to her chest. But Jules replied coldly: ‘I should not in the least mind putting myself out a little for a young guest of mine who has been taken ill.’
‘Perhaps; but has it occurred to you that someone will have to stay with her, and that if your stepmother does so it would mean depriving her of the party and your father’s other guests of their hostess?’
‘That can be overcome. My stepmother’s maid is most competent.’
‘But,’ Molly put in, ‘it would be bad for the girl when she wakes, to be taken for a twenty-five-mile drive.’
Jules’s black eyes had gone as hard as pebbles as he turned them on her. ‘She can stay here for the night. What is to prevent her?’
‘I am,’ replied Molly firmly. ‘As an older woman I know better than you how to deal with a case like this. She will feel miserable and ashamed if, after having allowed herself to drink too much, she wakes up among comparative strangers and in a strange bed. I intend to take her back to her own villa.’
Jules could barely conceal his anger any longer. ‘Madame!’ he snapped, ‘I will not be dictated to in this manner. She is in no condition to be driven anywhere. A doctor should see her, and I mean to send for one. I insist that she stays here.’
‘Sorry, old chap!’ John’s voice was still quite good-humoured and level. ‘But my mother has known her for some time and is more or less responsible for her. So what she says goes.’
As he spoke he advanced towards Christina, took her firmly by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. Then he added quietly, ‘Give me a hand to get her to the lift, will you?’
Quite suddenly Jules’s determination to keep her there seemed to collapse. With a tight little smile he stepped forward, took Christina’s other arm, and helped John support her to the door. The Marquise asked Molly to telephone them next morning to let them know if Christina was all right, then the two older women exchanged polite adieus, and Molly followed the others out into the corridor.
There, at Jules’s suggestion, she went down ahead of them in the lift, to bring the car round to a side door of the hotel, so that they should not have to take the half-conscious girl right across the big lounge. By making a great effort, Christina could manage to walk a few steps at a time, as long as she was supported on both sides. Ten minutes later, with few people having seen them, they had her safely in the back seat of the car. Just as it was about to drive off, Jules leaned forward and said smoothly through the window to John: ‘My father will be so sorry to have missed you; but you must come over and see us again.’
‘Thanks,’ John replied, with the appearance of equal cordiality, ‘I should love to.’
Molly had overheard the exchange, and as the car ran down the drive she murmured, ‘I thought at one moment he was going to prove really troublesome. I wonder what caused him suddenly to change his mind.’
‘I’ve no idea.’John shrugged. ‘Anyhow, we pulled it off. But what a bit of luck that she asked for that last cocktail. God alone knows how we should have got her away if it hadn’t been for that.’
‘Yes. That, and what I put in it.’
‘Mother!’ He turned to stare at her for a second. ‘What the devil do you mean?’
‘I gave her a Micky Finn, darling.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘Well, to be accurate, only about a quarter of one, because I didn’t want to knock her right out.’ Molly’s voice was just a trifle smug. ‘I’m really rather pleased with myself. I’ve had some of those little tablets in my museum for years. I souvenired them during the war, and I’ve always wanted to try them on someone, but a suitable opportunity has never arisen before. The way it worked was most gratifying.’
‘How on earth did you manage to put it in her drink without anyone seeing you?’
Molly tittered with pleasure at the thought of her skilful coup. ‘I didn’t. I put it in my own, and used the cherry-stick to help dissolve it quickly. Then, when I had made you all look away from the table to the bookcases, I exchanged her glass for mine.’
‘Well played, Mother!’ John spoke with genuine admiration. ‘But you’ve let the cat out of the bag, you know. This night’s work dispels my last lingering doubts about your having been Molly Polloffski, the beautiful spy.’
‘No, Johnny. Really, I assure you I never did anything but work in an office.’
‘Tell that one to the Marines!’ he replied, closing the conversation.
As Christina had been given only a small dose of the powerful drug, she recovered fairly quickly from its worst effects, and when they got back to Molly’s villa she was able to walk up the path to it unassisted. As soon as they reached the sitting-room Molly sat her down in an armchair, then went upstairs and fetched her a bromoseltzer.
She was now fully conscious again, but in a curious mood, half tearful and half defiant. Several times she apologised for having made a fool of herself, and for having given them so much trouble. But she did not seem to realise that they had saved her from some very grave danger. Every now and then she harped back to the de Grasses’ party and said how sorry she was to have missed it. In fact it soon became clear that she now resented their having prevented her remaining at the Capricorn until she recovered, so that there might still have been a chance of her being able to go on the yacht.
At length Molly said, ‘I’m afraid, my dear, that this business has been getting on your nerves, and that you are no longer in a quite normal state. If you were, you would recall that it was at your own request, made earlier this evening, that we got you out of the clutches of the de Grasses.’ Pausing for a moment she fished something out of her bag and concealed it in her hand; then she went on, ‘Our only wish is to get to the root of your trouble, and see you out of it. Here is something which may help us to do that, and help you, too.’
As she finished speaking she threw the thing she was holding towards Christina’s lap, and cried, ‘Catch!’
Christina cupped her hands and caught the spinning object. It was a small gold crucifix. The second it fell into her palms she gave a scream of pain. Then, as though seared by white-hot metal, she thrust it from her.
‘I feared as much!’ Molly said grimly. ‘And now we know the worst! Every night when darkness falls, you become possessed by the Devil.’
Chapter 6
The Christina of the Dark Hours
With her eyes glaring, Christina sprang up from the armchair. Then, as though suddenly stricken by a fit, her long limbs grew rigid, she fell back into it, and little flecks of froth began to appear at the corners of her mouth.
Molly went quickly over to the side-table on which stood the drinks, filled a tumbler half full of Perrier water and, turning about, sloshed its contents into the girl’s face. She whimpered, the rigor passed, and she sat up, the water dripping from her brown hair and running down her pale cheeks. Lay
ing a hand on her shoulder, Molly said kindly: ‘God help you, child; but I am right, aren’t I? You are only your real self in the daytime, and at night you become possessed.’
With a moan, Christina buried her face in her hands, and burst into a flood of tears.
Turning to John, Molly said, ‘She had better stay here tonight. Before we left I told Angèle that we might be late for dinner, so we would have something cold. Slip out to the kitchen and tell her that we shan’t be ready for it for another half-hour, and that she is to go up at once and make the spare room ready.’
John was standing with his mouth a little open, staring at Christina. He could still hardly believe that he had not been the victim of a sudden amnesia and imagined the happenings of the last few moments. But he pulled himself together, nodded, and left the room.
For a few minutes Molly remained silently beside Christina, then when the girl’s weeping ceased she said, ‘My dear, you must be quite exhausted, and are in no state to talk further about this tonight. I’m going to put you to bed here, and tomorrow when you are feeling better we will decide what it is best for us to do.’
‘There is nothing that you can do,’ murmured Christina a little sullenly.
‘Oh yes, there is,’ countered Molly, in her most determined voice. ‘And we’re going to do it; but it is not the time to go into that now.’
At that moment John returned; so his mother said to him, ‘You had better stay with her, while I go over to her villa and get her a few things for the night.’
Christina was now sitting staring at the floor. After another swift glance at her, John mixed himself a drink and, feeling extremely awkward, sat down some way from her on the edge of the sofa. For once he was completely out of his depth. The very idea of anyone in this modern world being possessed by the Devil struck him as utterly fantastic. Yet Christina had reacted to the touch of the crucifix as though she had been stung by a hornet, and there seemed no normal explanation for that. Moreover, she had made no attempt to explain it herself, or deny his mother’s diagnosis of her case. In such extraordinary circumstances he could think of nothing whatever to say to her; but fortunately she did not seem to expect him to start a conversation; so they both remained sitting there in silence until Molly returned.
Much to his relief, no further scene ensued. Molly’s attitude to the girl was now the same as she would have adopted to any young guest who had suddenly been taken ill in her house. With brisk efficiency, she hurried her off to bed; and Christina went without a word of protest.
Shortly afterwards Angèle came in to say that she had laid supper, and when Molly came down she found John in the dining-room pulling the cork of a bottle of vin rosé. As she took her seat at the table she said: ‘For a moment I feared that poor child was going to run screaming from the house. It was a great relief that after her fit she became so docile, and allowed me to put her to bed, where I can keep an eye on her. She is fairly comfortable now, but as a result of that Mickey Finn she naturally does not feel like eating any dinner. I have told Angele to take her up a cup of bouillon, and later I shall give her a good dose of some stuff I have.’
‘I suppose,’ John remarked, ‘that if we made her drink a noggin of Holy water she would start to fizz, then blow up; so no doubt you’re right to play for safety and stick to your panacea for all childish ills—a grey powder disguised in a spoonful of raspberry jam.’
His rather poor attempt at humour brought the quick reproof, ‘I was referring to some stuff which will make her sleep. And, Johnny, this is nothing to joke about.’
‘Sorry; but I haven’t yet got my bearings. What was the big idea in putting a fast one over on Christina while she was still too doped to fully understand what was going on?’
‘If you mean my throwing her that little crucifix, I should have thought my reason for doing so immediately became obvious.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that. While she was in that state, throwing anything at her might have made her scream. I meant putting the idea that she was possessed into the poor girl’s head at a time when she was too goofy to repudiate it?’
‘She didn’t repudiate it because she knows—or at least suspects—that it is true.’
‘Oh come, Mother! You can’t really believe that people become possessed. That is now just a form of speech for a particular kind of religious lunacy.’
‘It is not, and she is’ Molly announced with decision. ‘I have been wondering all day if that could be at the bottom of her extraordinary behaviour, and now I am certain of it. The acid test is to touch anyone who is suspected of possession with a crucifix. If they react as though they have been burnt, that is a sure sign that they have a devil inside them.’
John helped himself to another chunk of paté maison, spread it lavishly on a brioche, and asked sceptically, ‘How do you know? Is it just that you have read about it in some old book, or have you actually seen it happen on a previous occasion?’
‘I was told about it by a Roman Catholic priest whom I knew years ago. He specialised in exorcism, and had witnessed many strange happenings. One experience that he told me of I shall never forget. It was in Ireland and he was endeavouring to drive a devil out of a poor cottager. The place was deep in the country, so the wife had prepared a meal. In honour of the priest she had bought a leg of mutton, but as the time when he could get out there was uncertain she cooked it in advance and placed it cold on the table of the living-room, all ready for when he had fulfilled his mission. The case proved a very stubborn one. The possessed man became violent, struggling and blaspheming, and had to be tied down. For over two hours the priest wrestled with the fiend, conjuring him to come forth without success; but at last he triumphed. A wisp of evil-smelling black smoke issued from the cottager’s foaming mouth, sped across the room, apparently passing through the leg of mutton, then disappeared through the wall. When the exhausted victim had been put to bed the priest and the rest of the family sat down to supper. But they were unable to eat the mutton. When it was touched it fell from the bones, absolutely rotten and alive with maggots.’
‘Did the chap who told you this story produce any supporting evidence to substantiate that he was telling the truth?’
‘No, and I did not need it. He was a most saintly old man. I am sure he would have allowed himself to be torn in pieces rather than lie about any matter connected with his faith.’
‘Have you any other sources for believing that such things still happen?’
‘Not direct ones, but occasionally one sees cases reported in the French papers.’
‘Why the French papers, particularly?’
‘Cases are probably also reported in the Spanish and Italian press, and those of other Catholic countries; but I don’t see them.’
‘The inference is, then, that these occurrences are confined to Catholic countries?’
‘No, I don’t think that is so. I think that the profound knowledge of demonology that has been handed down by the Roman Catholic Church enables certain of her priests to recognise possession and deal with it; whereas when a case occurs in a Protestant country hardly anyone is capable of distinguishing it from ordinary lunacy, so the sufferer is simply certified and put in an asylum.’
John could not help being impressed, and after remaining silent for a moment he said, ‘If you are really right about all this, Mother, it looks as if we ought to call a Catholic priest in to cope with Christina.’
‘That is easier said than done, darling. You see, although all Roman Catholic priests are qualified by their office to perform ceremonies of exorcism, very few of them ever do so. Experience has shown it to be a job for experts who have made a special study of that sort of thing; much in the same way as only a very limited number of doctors are capable of prescribing the most efficient treatment for a rare disease. As we are not Catholics ourselves and Christina isn’t one either, I’m afraid it would prove difficult to interest the local man in her case sufficiently to induce him to send for a first-class exor
cist, perhaps from some distant part of France.’
‘How do you propose to handle this extraordinary business, then? She is quite sane most of the time, and we can’t let her be popped into a loony bin.’
Molly looked down at her plate. ‘When we’ve finished supper I thought I would ring up London, and try to get hold of Colonel Verney.’
‘What, Conky Bill!’ John exclaimed in astonishment.
‘Yes. He usually dines at his club in the middle of the week and never goes home much before eleven, so there is quite a good chance of my catching him. If he is not too desperately busy I might be able to persuade him to fly down tomorrow and stay with us for a few days.’
‘But hang it all, Mother, what’s the idea? Of course, I know you’ve always had a bit of a yen for C.B., so one can’t blame you for seizing on any excuse …’
‘Johnny, I’ve told you often enough that I had to act as liaison between my chief and C.B. during the war, and that after your father died he was extremely kind to me. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Dearest, you know jolly well that the two of you flirt like mad whenever you are together. I think he’s a grand chap, and nothing would please me better than to get tight at your wedding: but that is beside the point at the moment. The thing I don’t get is why you should regard him as a suitable substitute for a Catholic priest who has trained as an expert exorcist.’
‘If I tell you, you must promise never to repeat it.’
‘Go ahead. I can give as good an imitation of a bearded oyster as you can about things that really matter.’
‘Well, you are quite right in assuming that for the past few years C.B. has given most of his time to checking up on the activities of Communists and fellow travellers. But that is only because they have now become the principal source of danger to our right to choose whom we want to rule us at free elections. Before the war he spent just as much of his time keeping his eye on the Fascists. Actually he is responsible for keeping his chief informed about all groups that may be engaged in subversive activities. That, of course, covers every type of secret society, including circles that practise Black Magic’
To the Devil, a Daughter Page 8