‘By that time I’d tumbled to it that the five hundred didn’t mean much to him, and it wasn’t either to save it or to get me as a convert that he had gone to quite a lot of trouble. It was the child he was after, and I was still in half a mind to ditch him about that. I think I would have, but for the fact that three days after I had signed the pact I learnt that I had won seven hundred and twenty-three pounds in a football pool.
‘It wasn’t a fortune, but it seemed to me a real earnest of Prince Lucifer’s good faith. All the same, there was something a bit frightening about getting a sum like that out of the blue so soon after I had abjured the Christian God. It scared me enough to make me decide that I had better not try to wriggle out of taking the baby to be baptised.
‘We had fixed on the following Saturday night for that, and I slipped some dope that he had given me into Hettie’s evening cup of cocoa. No sooner was she in bed than she was sleeping like a log. I wrapped the child up well and carried her to a field about a mile away from The Grange, where the Canon had told me to meet him. There were a number of other people there, women as well as men, and among them old Mother Durnsford, although I did not know that at the time, as all of them were wearing cloaks and great animal masks that hid their identities. Later, when I was made a regular member of the coven, I got to know them all; but she would never forgive me for having tried to blackmail Copely-Syle, and nothing I could offer would persuade her to sell me this house. But to get back—I saw only the beginning of that first Sabbat I attended, as the Canon was very anxious that the child should not take a chill. The actual baptism didn’t take long. It was a revolting business; but as soon as it was over he packed me off home with her.
‘As you’ve met Ellen, you will probably have noticed that she is different from other girls. She can’t go into a church without being sick, and animals won’t go near her. At night, too, she seems to assume a different personality. Naturally, she has never understood why she should be affected as she is, because she knows nothing at all of what I’ve told you; but it is having been baptised into the Satanic faith which causes these instinctive reactions, and the fact that during the hours when the Powers of Darkness are abroad she becomes readily subject to their influences.
‘For many years I had no cause to regret what I had done. Once I had taken the plunge, Copely-Syle advised me that I’d be a fool to strive for success the hard way, by going to London and spending two years studying engineering; so I used my win from the football pools to buy a share as a working partner in the business of a second-hand agricultural implement dealer in Colchester. It was only a small concern, but from the day I started there it began to flourish. I found myself imbued with enormous energy, so that I could work eighteen hours a day and enjoy it.
In ’38 I merged all my interests as Beddows Ltd, with a capital of half a million, and in the same year work was begun on the big factory. It was completed just in time for the war. By the end of it I was rolling in money and a director of half-a-dozen big firms, in addition to being chairman of my own.
‘To begin with I saw quite a lot of Copely-Syle and often assisted him in his magical rituals. That is how I learned enough to erect this pentacle myself last week: but as my own concerns began to occupy me more and more I lost interest in the higher aspects of the Great Art. Then it gradually got down to my simply paying homage to Prince Lucifer once a year, at the great Sabbat on Walpurgis Night. Apart from round about the time of those annual gatherings I never gave a thought to the real source of my money and success.
‘That may sound strange, but it isn’t really, because my principles were no better and no worse than those of most of the other big business men with whom I was constantly mixing, and it seemed to me that my achievements, like theirs, were the natural outcome of ability, shrewdness and hard work.
‘It wasn’t till after last Walpurgis Night that I began to worry a bit. Attending the great Sabbat brought it home to me with something of a shock that I had only just over ten months to go before I was due to hand over Ellen. But even then I didn’t think about it much, as a hundred and one urgent business matters drove it into the back of my mind. Then, just before Christmas, Ellen came home for good, and that gave me a real jolt.
‘I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but poor Hettie committed suicide while Ellen was still only a little girl. I’ve never married again, but I took several women to live with me for various periods, and that was one of the reasons why I sent Ellen away to boarding-school at the age of eight. The other was an instinctive feeling that, anyhow until she was grown-up, I ought to keep her away from Copely-Syle. Of course I could not prevent her from meeting him now and then, but she has never been at home for long enough at a time to fall under his influence. It was for that reason, too, that when she was too old to stay at boarding-schools any longer I sent her to a finishing place in Paris. Her two-and-a-half years there came to an end last December, and her return brought me face to face with the fact that my twenty-one years of having everything for nothing were darn near up.
‘Ellen has been at home so little in all this time that I hardly know her; so I’m not going to pretend that I suffered frightful pangs of remorse at having sold her to Lucifer when she was a baby. She has meant practically nothing in my life, and I imagined that all that would happen when she was twenty-one was that she would be initiated as a witch. I reckoned that by having kept her away from Copely-Syle and seeing to it that she was educated by decent people I was doing the best I could for her in the circumstances. Naturally, I disliked the idea of having to hand her over to the Canon, but that was all I had undertaken to do, and it seemed to me that at the age of twenty-one she would be perfectly capable of telling him to go to blazes if she felt that way. If she liked the idea of becoming a witch, that was her look-out. If not, they couldn’t make her practise witchcraft against her will. Anyhow I’d quieted my conscience with the idea that I could honour my bond, while ensuring that when she had to take her decision she should do so with an unprejudiced mind.
‘Had I been right in my belief that there was no more to it than that, I should be taking her to The Priory on the evening of her birthday; but purely by chance I found out that I had been fooling myself. Ever since I’ve been in business in a fairly big way I’ve given Copely-Syle sound financial tips from time to time, and he has quite a bit invested in my companies. A few months ago I wanted to tip him off to sell out from one of my subsidiaries. Instead of dropping him a line, as I usually did, I called in at The Priory one evening on my way home. After we had had a drink his vanity got the better of his discretion, or perhaps he thought that I know less about magical operations than I do. Anyhow, he took me to his crypt and showed me his homunculi.
‘Apparently he has been working on them for years, although I was unaware of that. He has got one there now as near perfect as any magician is ever likely to produce. To enable it to leave its jar and function like a normal human being it needs only one thing—the lifeblood of a twenty-one-year-old virgin.
‘Naturally he never hinted that to me; but it so happened that I knew it. In a flash I realised what he was planning to do with Ellen. It solved, too, a question that had vaguely puzzled me for a long time. He had never pressed me to give him an opportunity to get to know Ellen, and had most heartily endorsed my policy of keeping her at school until she was grown up. I saw then that he had done so to lessen the risk of her meeting some young man and being seduced, or getting married, before she was twenty-one.
‘Well, I knew then that I was up against it. Although I had no special love for the girl I couldn’t let that happen. After a lot of thought I decided that there was only one thing for it—both Ellen and I must go into hiding for a time and remain so till after the fateful day.
‘It may sound strange to you, but it is a fact that Prince Lucifer is quite a sportsman. He has always been willing to match cunning with cunning. There are plenty of cases in which people have enjoyed his gifts and managed to cheat him i
n the end. Ellen was used to doing what she was told without argument; so I decided to get her out of the way. She had a nasty sore throat just after Christmas; so as a first step I fixed it for her to have her tonsils out, and whisked her off to a nursing home at Brighton. Then I made arrangements to get her quietly out of the country and park her in the South of France, under an assumed name.
‘On my failure to produce her, my bond made me liable to act as forfeit in her place, and as Copely-Syle held my bond it would be up to him to enforce it. I could not hope to escape him by taking a plane to the United States or Australia; because with me he has occult links which would enable him to find and attack me on the Astral, wherever I was; so I made up my mind to tell my office that I had gone abroad, then dig myself in here. Only here could I hope for the absolute privacy necessary to protect myself. The trap on the landing and the ape were designed to prevent Copely-Syle getting in to me in the flesh and using the cunning that Lucifer has given him to wheedle out of me where I had hidden Ellen. The pentacle, as you evidently know, is my defence against his getting at me on the Astral.
‘He hasn’t attempted to do either yet. That may be because he is occupied with other matters. Some while ago, you said that he was after Ellen’s blood. As you know that, and why, you probably know what he has been up to this past week. I shut myself in here as soon as I returned from taking Ellen down to the Riviera; so about what has happened since you must be better informed than I am. Anyhow, I can give you no further information.’
Suddenly Beddows’ voice changed, rising to an hysterical note, as he added, ‘If I were a free agent I’d hand the two of you over to the police for having broken in here. As I am not, and you threatened to expose me to the most frightful peril, I’ve told you everything there is to tell about my awful situation. Everything, d’you understand? Everything! Now get out! And leave me unencumbered to fight my own battle.’
Silence descended on the room like a curtain of draped black velvet.
Neither C.B. nor John had dared to interrupt Beddows’ long monologue. Both of them had been acutely conscious that although he was definitely not possessed, he was, all the same, in a quite abnormal state. From the toneless voice in which he had spoken for most of the time it was clear that he was using them only as a focus at which to pour out his own story; and it was reasonable to suppose that in all the twenty-one years since he had made his pact with the Devil he had never told it to anyone before. To have cut in at any point with question, or even comment, might well have checked the flow and deprived them of hearing the all-important latter part of the revelations.
A good half minute elapsed before C.B. said, ‘We are very grateful to you for having been so frank with us; and I can only repeat that we are here as friends who want to help. We got drawn into this thing because John Fountain’s mother lives in the villa next door to that which you rented for Ellen. I had better tell you what has happened since you left her there; then we shall better be able to decide between us on a plan of campaign for overcoming our mutual enemy.’
‘I can give you no help in that.’ Beddows’ voice was sharp. ‘I’ll have my work cut out to protect myself as it is, without inviting further trouble.’
C.B. ignored the remark and proceeded to give him an account of the events centring round Ellen that had taken place in the South of France. When he had done, Beddows said thoughtfully: ‘Copely-Syle must have smelt a rat as soon as he learned that I had gone abroad so near the date. The odds are that he came to The Grange in our absence and managed to get hold of some of the girl’s personal belongings; an old hairbrush or anything she had used for her toilet would enable him to overlook her and find out where she had gone. Evidently the reason that he has so far made no move against me is because he has been too occupied with his attempts to have her kidnapped. I’m grateful to you for all you’ve done to keep her out of his clutches, and I quite understand now your reasons for breaking in here; but all the same I’d be glad if you would leave me.’
‘Oh come!’ John protested. ‘Now you know the danger she is in surely you don’t propose to ignore it?’
‘Since you had this bright idea of having her arrested, she is no longer in danger. These crooks who are acting for the Canon will be far too scared of the police to attempt to abduct her from a French prison.’
‘You are forgetting the Canon,’ C.B. put in. ‘By using his occult powers he may be able to get her out; and it is as good as certain, now, that he will fly out there tomorrow morning. We know that he’ll stick at nothing to get hold of Ellen and he still has over forty hours to work in.’
‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Yes there is. You and he must have been mixed up in all sorts of business. It’s a sure thing that a thoroughly unscrupulous man like Copely-Syle has committed a number of criminal acts in order to carry on his sorcery and that you know of some of them. From time to time he must either have robbed churches or instigated others to do so, in order to get hold of Holy Communion wafers for desecration. We know, too, that he is having blood donors’ gifts of blood stolen from hospitals to feed his homunculi. I want you to come with us to the police and make a statement. On that we’ll get a warrant for his arrest, and even if he leaves for France in the morning I can get it executed there. That is the only way we can make absolutely certain of protecting Ellen until her maximum period of danger is past.’
Beddows gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘What the hell d’you take me for? A lunatic? Can’t you see that now you’ve queered his pitch with Ellen by having her imprisoned, the odds are that he will round on me? As long as I remain in this pentacle I’ve good hopes of cheating Lucifer yet; but the moment I move out of it I’m liable at any time to have my soul snatched, and my body will spend the rest of its days in an asylum. No thank you!’
‘You got Ellen into this!’ cried John angrily. ‘The very least you can do is to run some risk to get her out of it.’
‘She’s safe enough where she is! A darned sight safer than I am, anyway! I did my best for her by taking the risk that I’m running already, instead of handing her over in accordance with my bond; and I’ll do no more. Nothing you or anyone else can say is going to get me out of this pentacle within the next forty-eight hours.’
‘What is to prevent our smashing it up?’
‘I can’t; and if you do I’ll be in hideous danger for a while. But better that than the far worse risk of going with you now and committing myself to having to face Copely-Syle in open court as a witness against him tomorrow. If you do bust the electric current, I can use candles instead, and the moment you’ve gone I’ll make another pentacle. Besides, I’ve already paid your price for not interfering with this one by telling you what you came here to find out.’
For a further twenty minutes they argued and pleaded with Beddows, but in vain. Nothing would move him, and when C.B. found that they were repeating themselves over and over again he said at last: ‘It’s no good, John. We must do what we can on our own. Let’s get out of this and back to Colchester.’
With a curt Goodnight to Beddows, they left him and, having eased the bonds of the ape a little, made their way downstairs. On slipping out of the window by which they had come in they found that it was no longer raining, and with heartfelt relief at leaving the dank, dark house, they gratefully breathed in the cool night air.
As they turned into the drive, John muttered, ‘The callous swine! I would have liked to strangle him.’
C.B. shrugged. ‘After having had the luck to run him to earth like that it was damnably disappointing that he should refuse to help us; but he’s far from being a hundred per cent evil, otherwise he would not have tried to hide Ellen and be facing the music himself. Just think what an ordeal he undertook when he decided to coop himself up in that grim room for days on end and wait for some frightful thing to come and attempt to get him! It can hardly be wondered at that he is half crazy from fear already.’
‘All the same, he might
at least have given us some pointer which would help us to lay the Canon by the heels. The very idea of a father selling his child to the Devil in the beginning is almost unbelievable, and for him to refuse to utter a word that might help to save her from being murdered now is fantastic’
‘Fantastic is the word for this whole horrible business, partner. What could be more so than the thought of Henry Beddows, a down-to-earth inventor of motor engines, who has constantly to deal with Trade Union officials, and is a power in the commercial world of Britain, sitting up there in a magic pentacle preparing to wrestle with demons for his soul; or a man who was, apparently, once a Canon of the Church of England planning to murder a girl in order to give a semblance of human life to a monster of his own creation? Nevertheless, we know these things to be actually happening.’
‘I know, I know! But what are we going to do now?’
‘Get some sleep. I can do with it.’
It was getting on for three o’clock in the morning by the time they reached their hotel. By then they were too tired even to tip the night porter to get them a drink. On reaching their rooms they pulled off their clothes, flopped into bed and within a few moments were in the deep sleep of exhaustion.
Next morning they had their breakfasts sent up to C.B.’s room and while they ate them discussed the position to date. During the previous evening and night they had found out a great deal. They now knew more about Christina’s past than she knew herself, and the reason for her peculiar behaviour. They knew why the Canon was so anxious to get hold of her, and that if he succeeded it would cost her not only her freedom, but her life. They had traced her father and learned his reason for taking her to the South of France and abandoning her there; but he had positively refused to give them the aid they had expected from him. On the other hand it had been definitely verified that the danger in which she stood would be acute for only one day; since, should the Canon fail to carry out his abominable ritual on her twenty-first birthday, there would be no point whatever in his killing her afterwards. Therefore, their immediate problem boiled down to immobilising the Canon for the next thirty-six hours.
To the Devil, a Daughter Page 31