The Devil and Drusilla
Page 20
Toby said, slowly and hesitantly, ‘I’m ruined, Devenish. I can’t honour my debts.’
He pointed at the IOUs on the table, and added mournfully, ‘I’ve no money to back them with. My father lost heavily on the Stock Exchange in the late wars, and after I inherited I spent my inheritance foolishly. My only destination is Calais where you, and the rest of my creditors, will be unable to dun me. You will let me go, won’t you? You’re rich enough without needing to persecute me for what I can’t give you.’
Devenish said coldly, ‘I have not the slightest desire to allow you to escape without payment.’
‘But dammit, I’ve just told you, I can’t pay you.’
‘Oh, I don’t want money,’ Devenish told him, as Toby dropped his head into his hands and began to wail gently into them, quite unmanned. ‘I want information which only you can give me. Oblige me by doing that and I will burn your IOUs before your eyes.’
Toby lifted his head and stared at him. ‘Information? What information can I possibly give you which was worth this night’s work?’
‘Come,’ said Devenish, rising and leaning forward across the table. ‘You know better than that, Claridge. I want you to tell me all that you know about the infamous goings-on of your friend Leander Harrington and the circle of his fellows who celebrate the Black Mass at Marsham Abbey. Principally those matters relating to the murder of Jeremy Faulkner and the strange disappearance of a number of village girls over the past two years.’
Toby paled. He said hoarsely, ‘You don’t know what you’re asking!’
‘Indeed, I do. You are frightened of what Leander Harrington might do to you if you inform on him. I assure you that if you tell me the whole truth I shall not only burn your IOUs, but I shall never reveal to anyone that you were my informer. They must put that down to my so-called devilish powers!’
His victim gave a short mirthless laugh. ‘Well, you’ve certainly behaved like the devil in ruining me, and that’s flat! I suppose I must do as you wish—so long as you keep your promise and say nothing to anyone. I’m a dead man else. On the other hand I’ll be a dead man if Harrington finds out what I’ve done.’
Devenish did not allow his exasperation with the fool before him to show.
Instead he said, as harshly as he could, ‘You and the rest of your black-hearted brotherhood will be gallows’ meat soon if I corner Harrington without your help—as I surely will. So, you have your choice. Help me and, when the day of reckoning comes, that you have done so will save you from swinging. Refuse, and you’ll share your companions’ fate. Which shall it be?’
‘You don’t leave a fellow much choice,’ moaned Toby, sinking his head in his hands again.
‘Oh, I never do that—it’s a damned bad habit I’ve no wish to acquire. Choose and have done with it. Refuse me and it’s financial ruin and an ultimately dreadful death. Oblige me and you may survive. Nothing could be simpler.’
‘What do you want to know?’ There was a note of desperation in Toby’s voice which Devenish ignored. This was no time for misplaced pity.
‘Everything. Where you met, how many of you there were, their names, and how and why the young women and Jeremy Faulkner died will do to begin with.’
His face working, Toby Claridge looked away—anything rather than see the stern, unforgiving face before him, bent on stripping everything from him, on making him reveal what he had always hoped to keep secret.
His voice low and unsteady, he began his sorry story. ‘It started as a joke, a drinking club with a bit of spice in it. Once a month when the moon was full we dressed up, wore masks and played about in the crypt, half-cut. We usually began the evening in the Abbey before dressing up in monks’ robes and moving on to the crypt. Gradually it became more serious with less drinking and increased ceremony. Leander Harrington was the instigator and at first we called him our President. Later he took the name of Apollyon—another word for the Devil.
‘And then he told us that in the genuine Black Mass a woman’s body was used as an altar and he suggested that we arrange for one of the village girls to take part by bribing her with a little present.’
Toby swallowed. ‘I remember that we all thought this a great joke, and so it was at first. George Lawson took the part of the officiating priest at the religious ceremony…And then, one evening, after we had all drunk heavily…’
He stopped and muttered, looking at the floor as he spoke so that his voice was scarcely audible, ‘I can’t tell you the details, but the upshot was that after coupling with the girl Harrington sacrificed her.
‘We were all shocked, I remember—except that somehow it didn’t seem quite real. It was like being at Drury Lane Theatre where the actors are only pretending to die. None of us protested at the time. Only, when we met at the next full moon, Jeremy got up and said that we ought to pass a resolution that we revert back to the club’s original form. We were not to use the word Apollyon, but call Harrington our President again and drop most of the ceremonial.
‘He said that he could only condone the murder of the girl if we agreed to his proposal. Leander Harrington said that we could not go back. The die was cast, he said, we were brothers in blood, and the ceremony would go on. Everyone seemed to agree with him. Jeremy told him that in that case he would go to the Lord Lieutenant and inform him of what had been taking place: he would not be a party to any further murders.
‘It was a dam’ fool thing for him to threaten knowing that Harrington had already committed murder—but then, Jeremy was always a bit stupid. Harrington told him that no one present would dare to betray him because of their own involvement. Jeremy refused to change his mind and Harrington said in that case Jeremy would be the next blood sacrifice and he called on the brotherhood to deal with him.
‘At the last Jeremy realised what was about to happen. He shouted something at us all and tried to escape by running through the French windows into the garden with Harrington and most of the rest hallooing after him as though he were a fox. They caught him up at the sundial…’
Toby shuddered. Devenish sat silent, remembering the fit of horror which Drusilla had suffered there when in his company, and later the second fit when she had touched Parson Lawson. Her intuition of evil had been right there, as it always was.
‘Go on,’ he said coldly, determined to spare Toby nothing. ‘Finish what you have begun.’
‘I don’t know exactly what happened to him. I was his friend. I couldn’t look, and, God forgive me, neither did I help him. I only know that they joined together in killing him.’
He shuddered again. ‘It was as though everyone had gone mad. They had executed him for treason, Harrington called it. He was carried to the crypt, half-stripped, his possessions taken from him, and then his body was removed to where it would later be found. I left for France soon afterwards. I wanted nothing more to do with it. Besides, I might have been the next to die, seeing that I was Jeremy’s best friend. I suppose the girls who disappeared were those who took part after his death.’
So that was how Jeremy Faulkner’s ring had come to be found in the crypt. It must have been dropped there when the frightened conspirators frantically and hastily tried to make it appear that when—and if—his body was discovered it would be assumed that he had been attacked and killed by robbers.
Devenish said nothing of this, but asked instead, ‘Tell me, Claridge, knowing what you did, what induced you to return?’
Toby looked at him as though he were simple minded. ‘Why, Dru, of course. Two years had gone by since Jeremy’s death and I had always loved her. I hoped to make her my wife. And I knew that no one suspected what had happened and was probably still happening at Marsham Abbey. The coast was clear.’
Devenish closed his eyes. For a moment he could not speak. Of all the moral idiots he had ever encountered, Toby Claridge took the prize for insensitivity. If he had not murdered young Faulkner himself, he had stood by whilst it was done, had connived at his disappearance and then taken h
imself off to France to escape any consequences for him which might ensue.
And then, as he had said, when the coast was clear, he had cheerfully returned to court his dead friend’s widow and, bearing in mind the conversation which Devenish had overheard at Marsham Abbey, he had also rejoined the brotherhood as a fully fledged member!
Devenish did not reproach him, however, for he wanted to use his present ascendancy over the creature before him to try to end Leander Harrington’s evil grip on what he could only conceive of as a brotherhood of blood bound together by their participation in a series of brutal murders.
Toby Claridge had been corrupted and now must pay for that by assisting in the brotherhood’s destruction. His head hanging, he was waiting for what Devenish might have to say to him next.
He did not need to wait long. Devenish leaned forward, and said sternly, ‘Look me in the eye, Claridge. This is what I want you to do for me.’ Numbly, all his usual cheerful confidence leached away, Sir Toby Claridge agreed to try to make amends for the death of his friend.
After Toby had gone to bed, stumbling as he went, Devenish rose and leaned his forehead on the cold marble of the mantelpiece. What he had heard was worse than he might have expected. The thought of a pack of country gentlemen killing one of their company as cheerfully as they might have killed a fox or shot a pheasant, combined with the rape and murder of a few helpless country girls who had been bribed to their death, was almost too much to bear.
Worse, he was sure of one thing—that this appalling scandal must never become public because of the damage it would do to the society in which it had taken place. This was no simple matter for the local Lord Lieutenant to deal with.
He must try to end it in such a fashion that no one would ever know the dreadful truth and still ensure that Leander Harrington at least might be punished for his dreadful crimes. Remove him from the scene and it was likely that the conspiracy would collapse for lack of a powerful leader.
What troubled him about this solution—even if it could be achieved—was the thought that the deaths of Jeremy Faulkner and the poor wenches caught in Harrington’s toils would never be publicly avenged and their families would never know what had happened to them. Best perhaps, if the dead girls’ parents never knew the truth but believed that they had fled to London.
He thought of Drusilla, deprived so dreadfully of her young husband, and of the agony which she would suffer if she knew how and why he had died. He also remembered Jeremy Faulkner’s last message from beyond the grave—’Dru must never know.’
There are some problems, he knew, which admit of no solution, and this was one. He prayed that he might be able to think of a way in which scandal could be avoided and justice could still be done—but for the moment a possible outcome still eluded him.
In the meantime he had to trust that the weak man he had suborned might not betray him to his evil master. It was a risk which had been forced upon him if he were to succeed in his object for he had not been able to think of any other way of penetrating the Brotherhood.
And now he must go to his bed, for morning was here, the servants were stirring, and soon he must be up and about as though nothing had occurred to add to the nightmares which he already suffered.
Chapter Twelve
Drusilla was becoming aware that Giles was worried about something. Twice he had muttered at her, ‘I say, Dru…’ and then he had fallen silent, his young face sad.
She found this strange new mood of his surprising because until this morning he had been enjoying himself hugely at Tresham Hall. Devenish had included some of the other young hopefuls of the district in his party, and Giles had got on famously with them.
That afternoon she came upon him sitting alone on a bench which overlooked the lake, a neglected book open on his knee.
‘What is it, Giles?’ she asked him. ‘Does your leg hurt that you are avoiding the others? Or are they avoiding you?’
His face shuttered, he shook his head. ‘No, it’s not that. The other fellows have been kind. It’s…’ and he fell silent.
Drusilla sat down beside him. ‘I don’t want to nag, Giles, but until today you seemed to be having a famous time. What’s gone wrong?’
From being shuttered his face became tortured. ‘Oh, I suppose I may as well tell you—though I know that you won’t like it. It’s Devenish. You and I have never believed the on dits about his wickedness, but there’s a really unpleasant one going the rounds this morning. You’re aware, of course, that Devenish arranged a gaming party for the men last night. It went on until the small hours and ended with Devenish ruining poor Toby. Those who took part said that he lost everything. I said that I didn’t believe it, but Jack Clifton told me that his father was there and swore that that was the upshot.’
Her face white, Drusilla said, ‘No, I don’t…I can’t…believe that Devenish would do such a thing. Surely if it were true Mr Clifton and the others would have left Tresham today rather than remain where their host had done something as dreadful as ruining one of his guests.’
Giles shook his head glumly. ‘No such thing, Dru. They think it’s rather clever of Devenish, you see. Gaming is what gentlemen do for fun, Jack says, and they must never crow if they win, or complain if they lose. He says it’s to do with honour—though that seems very odd to me, and so I told him. He scoffed at me then and told me it was plain that I had been brought up by women if I didn’t understand that.’
‘Did he, indeed! Nothing would induce me to believe that such behaviour is other than wicked—as well as stupid. I hope, Giles, that you don’t think that there is something clever in gambling—particularly if it’s likely to result in ruin—either yours, or anyone else’s.’
‘Of course not, Dru. On the other hand—’
‘There is no other hand, Giles.’ Drusilla rose to her feet. That Devenish—she could not think of him as Hal any more—should do such a thing made her feel quite faint. Poor Toby—what must he be feeling on this bright and sunny morning?
She walked rapidly back into the Hall after reading Giles another short sermon on the evils of play because she feared that he might prefer Jack Clifton’s verdict on the matter. By chance she met Devenish in the entrance hall. He didn’t look as though he had spent the night in play, ruining one of her oldest friends in the process.
He looked, in fact, just as he always did, and his smile when he saw her was a warm one.
‘Ah, there you are, Drusilla. I gather the ladies are arranging an archery contest today and I thought that you might like to take part.’
Still in shock, she could not immediately answer him. The empathy which had recently grown up between them had him saying, ‘What is it, Drusilla? You look distressed.’
For some reason this echo of her own words to Giles disturbed her profoundly. She said, her voice shaking, ‘Oh, m’lord, Giles says that a rumour is running round that you ruined Toby at play last night. Tell me it is not true.’
He might have known that such a rare piece of gossip would fly round the company at record speed. He could not, dare not tell her the truth, even though without doing so she would inevitably think the worst of him. He did not need to answer her for his hesitation told Drusilla everything.
‘It is true, then? Oh, I can scarcely believe it of you, m’lord. I had not thought—’
He caught at her hand urgently. ‘Drusilla, look at me, and do not judge me. Instead, I ask you to trust me. To trust Hal and forget Devenish.’
Drusilla tried to pull her hand away from his. ‘Trust you! I believed that you were not the man that gossip said you were—but what am I to think now?’
He would not release her hand, but gripped it ever more tightly. ‘Drusilla, I believe that you love me. Everything that you say and do to me betrays that one fact. If your love is true, then you must trust me unquestioningly in this matter—and not believe the worst of me—however wicked last night’s work must seem to you. I cannot explain to you why I behaved as I did.’
There, she had said it aloud.
He stood transfixed.
So did she.
At last she spoke, her voice faltering. ‘My reason tells me not to trust you. That inside me, which is beyond reason, tells me that I must, against all the evidence, do so. I have already trusted you once over the matter of your letter by refusing to question you further about the reason for it. But oh, Hal, don’t lie to me over this, for I do not think that I could easily survive another such agony as adding your falsity to Jeremy’s death would create in me.’
Devenish was in nearly as great a torment as she was, but his face showed no sign of it. ‘Believe me,’ he said passionately. ‘And trust me. I ask nothing more and nothing less than that.’
She could not speak, but nodded agreement.
He released her hand.
They stood face to face and Henry Devenish said at last what he had always thought he would never be able to say to any woman.
‘Oh, Drusilla, I love you. I love you because you are the woman I feared I would never be lucky enough to meet. A woman I do not deserve. I hope never to let you down, and that one day soon I can come to you with clean hands as well as a loving heart. For the present that is all that I can say to you.’
He bowed to her as she stood there, shaking a little with the silent passion which, once again, was passing between them.
‘And now I must leave you. I have duties to fulfil, and work to do, but rest assured that you are the one person in the whole wide world whom I love and trust as much as I hope that you love and trust me.’
He was gone, and Drusilla held to her heart the words which she had never thought to hear him say. She would trust him and pray that her trust was not misplaced.