The Mortdecai Trilogy (46 page)

‘So far I’m abreast of you.’
‘Then there’s the inverted cross –’

 

‘What inverted cross?’ I interrupted.

‘Why the one on the witchmaster’s belly, to be sure; hadn’t you twigged? The ladies would naturally have thought it to be a sword and it may well have been pointed at the top to represent the woven crosses they give out in churches on Palm Sunday, this combining an insult to Christianity and an ancient sex-symbol. Do you happen to know what colour it was?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Try and find out, there’s a dear boy. And find out whether it left any paint marks: it would be quite splendid – that is to say, very interesting – if it proved not to be painted at all but pyschosomatically produced. The body can do wonderful things, as I’m sure you know, under hypnosis or auto-induced hysteria. The stigmata, of course, springs to mind, and levitation: there’s far too much evidence to dismiss.’

I shot him a furtive look. He was displaying just a little too much zeal for his hobby-horse; committedness is next to pottiness, especially in elderly dons.

‘You are thinking that I am riding my hobby-horse a little hard,’ he said – beaming at my guilty start – ‘and I confess to finding the subject almost unwholesomely engaging.’

I mumbled a few disclaimers which he waved aside.

‘The words “hobby-horse” and “levitation”,’ he resumed, ‘bring us to the next point, the riding-jollop.’

‘How’s that again?’

‘Riding-jollop. There are many names for it but the formulae are all very similar. It is the pungent mixture a witch smears on his or her body before going to the Sabbat. The greasy base stops up the pores and thus subtly alters the body’s chemistry, another ingredient reddens and excites the skin, while the bizarre stench – added to the guilty knowledge of what the jollop is made of – heightens the witch’s impure excitement to the point where he
knows
that he can fly. In the case of she-witches, a canter round the kitchen with the broom-stick between her legs adds a little extra elation, no doubt.’

‘No doubt,’ I agreed.

‘Whether any of them succeeds in flying is an open question: it is their certain conviction that they
can
that is important. Do you care to know the ingredients of the jollop?’

‘No thanks. My dinner sits a little queasily on my stomach as it is.’

‘You are probably wise. By the bye, did you happen to notice in your local paper that any new-born babies had been missing shortly before Easter?’

‘Whatever has that –?’ I said. ‘Oh, yes, I see; how very nasty. Do they really? No, I wouldn’t have noticed that sort of thing. People shouldn’t have babies if they’re not prepared to look after them is what
my
old nanny used to say.’

‘You might just check, dear boy. It would have been in the dark of the moon before Easter. But of course it might have been the sort of baby which doesn’t get recorded. You know, “ditch-delivered of a drab”.’

‘Just so. “Eye of newt and blood of bat”.’

‘Precisely. But
try
. Now we come to the toads. I’ve always felt that Jersey’s particular fondness for toads might indicate that it was perhaps the last outpost of the Old Religion, for the toad was easily the most popular Familiar for witches. The warts on its skin, you see, remind one of the extra nipples which every she-witch was supposed to have and that goes back (am I boring you, dear boy? How is your glass?) that goes back to the polymastia or superfluity of breasts of the ancients. I need not remind you of Diana of the Ephesians, who must have looked like a fir-cone, as dear Jim Cabell pointed out.’

‘But I thought that the cat was the favourite familiar? I mean, Grimalkin and all that?’

‘A wide-spread and pardonable error, Mortdecai. First, you see, by the time of the great witch hunts of the seventeenth century – best-known because they were politically inspired you see, for there was a sort of suggestion of confrontation between the High Church and Papist Cavaliers, who, oddly, were supposed to more or less tolerate the Old Religion (perhaps they knew how to use it?) and the Puritans, who chose to see witchcraft as an extension of Rome; by this time, I say, the serious witches had gone very thoroughly underground and the only ones left on the surface were a few old crones practising a little Goëtic magic to help their friendly neighbours and to smarten up their petty persecutors.

‘Now, the rules of witch-finding were that a witch always had a devil’s nipple, by which she could give suck to her Familiar. They
used to tie the poor old biddies up and watch them, certain that when the Familiar became hungry it would come around for its rations. Most old ladies, to this day, own a pussy-cat – and most old ladies tend to have a wart or a mole or two, this is common knowledge. You see? Moreover, there is an ancient confusion here, for the word “cat” used also to mean a stick, such as witches might ride on. (Perhaps you played “tip-cat” as a child? No?) In short, you may be sure that the toad, not the cat, is the most popular and effective familiar. “Was” perhaps I should say. Or rather “was deemed to be”,’ he ended lamely. The warmth of his defence of the toad led me to suspect uneasily that a close search of his quarters would pretty certainly reveal a comfortable vivarium somewhere, bursting with the little batrachians.

‘Well, John,’ I said heavily, ‘that’s all quite riveting and I’m more than grateful for the insight you have supplied into the way this awful chap’s mind works and so forth, but now I feel we should be thinking about remedies and things, don’t you? I mean, to you it’s an entrancing piece of living folk-lore, no doubt, but over there in Jersey two of my good friends’ wives have been horribly assaulted and one of them, if I’m not mistaken, is in jeopardy of grave mental illness. I mean, conversation of old customs and so on I’m all for, and I’d be the first to join a society for preserving the Piddle-Hinton Cruddy Dance etc., but you wouldn’t actually subscribe to a fund for the preservation of the practice of
thuggee
, would you? To my mind, this Johnny should be stopped. Or am I being old-fashioned?’

‘Oh Mortdecai, Mortdecai,’ he said – how funny it sounded, sort of hyphenated – ‘you were always impatient with things of the spirit. I remember you were rusticated in your second year, were you not, for –’

‘Yes.’

‘And again in your last year for –’

‘Yes, John, but is this to the point?’

‘Yes, of course,
no
, you’re quite right. Remedies are what you must have, I see that, I really do. Now, let me think. We shall assume that the violator is (and I have not a scrap of
doubt
that he is), properly versed in all the side-knowledge of his dread religion. Therefore, he can be daunted in several ways. First and easiest, common salt (rock-salt is better) sprinkled liberally on all entrances into the room; door-sills, window-sills, hearth-stones and even
transoms and ventilation-louvres. Second, garlands of wild garlic festooned around those same apertures are reckoned sovereign, but you would be hard put to find wild garlic in Jersey, or anywhere, at this time of the year and its smell is really quite beastly.’

‘I know. I have tried to eat wild duck which have been feeding off it. The very dustbin rejects them.’

‘Just so. Third, and this has not been known to fail, the person fearful of visitations from a witch or warlock should go to bed clutching a crucifix made either of wood, or, much better, of either or both of the two noble metals – gold and silver: the very best of all is a cross made of one of the hardest woods such as ebony or lignum vitae and inlaid with silver and gold. He or she should memorize a simple cantrip to recite to the emissary of the Desired – chrm – that is to say, the
Evil
One, which I shall now dictate to you.’

‘Look John, forgive me, but I don’t think we are approaching this on the right lines. For one thing, I’ve no intention of distributing cantrips and costly crucifixes to every rapable woman in the Parish of St Magloire. For another, we don’t want just to keep the beggar out of our bedrooms, we want to catch him if possible – kill him if that becomes necessary – but at all costs to stop him for good.’

‘Oh dear, that is a very different matter indeed. You really mustn’t kill him if you can help it, you know; he may very well be the last living receptacle of some extremely ancient knowledge, we have no way of guessing whether he has yet initiated a successor to the Black Goatskin. No, no, you must try not to kill him. You might, in any case, find it a little difficult, heh, heh.’

‘I know; I’m thinking of ordering a box of silver bullets.’

‘My word, Mortdecai,’ he cried, clapping his hands merrily, ‘you always were a resourceful fellow, even the Dean said as much when you almost won the Newdigate with a thousand lines lifted from Shelley’s
Cenci
. Did you get rusticated that time?’

‘No, I played the “youthful prank” gambit. The Proctors hit me for fifty pounds. My father paid. I threatened to marry a barmaid if he didn’t.’

‘There you are again, you see.
Resourceful
. But no, try to avoid killing him. As to capturing him, I really cannot offer any suggestions. He will be endued with Fiendish cunning, you understand, and will have all sorts of other resources which we
cannot gauge, it really depends on whether he’s been to Chorazin or not.’ He seemed to be addressing himself.

‘Chorazin?’

‘Ah, yes, well, just a scholarly aside, not to the point really. It’s a place mentioned in the Bible, just a few mounds today – or so they tell me – and one goes there, or rather chaps like your witchmaster go there, to complete their education, so to speak.’

‘A sort of Sabbatical?’ I prompted.

‘Just so, ha ha. Very good. Yes, they went there to, as it were, pay their respects to Someone; it was called the
Peregrinatio Nigra
, the Black Pilgrimage, you know.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry, dear boy, I had forgotten that undergraduates used once to have a little Latin. Now; catching this chap; I honestly cannot think of a method which would have much hope of success. I suppose one could leave an attractive young woman unguarded in a spinney or copse – but who would volunteer to be the bait? One could hardly
tether
her, could one, it would look suspicious. No, I think your best plan is to fight him on his own terms and bar him from your neighbourhood for good – make him cry
vicisti
, which – ’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry. Yes; you must give him a whiff of grape-shot and let him know that he’s outgunned; he will give you best, I’m sure, and turn his talents elsewhere. In short; you must have a Mass said.’

‘A
Mass
?’

‘A Satanic Mass, naturally. One of the real, juicy ones. You will then be, as it were, under the protection of his, ah, Supervisor, and he’ll have no choice but to leave you and yours alone. You might say it will put the fear of the Devil into him, heh heh.’

I found myself in a quandary. How real was the witchcraft element in our rapist? Dryden, the top scholar in the field, clearly was satisfied that the man was a dangerous adept – but then, how potty was Dryden? Could I go back to Jersey and tell George and Sam that what we needed was a Black Mass? On the other hand, what was on the other hand? Lying out night after night in damp potato fields, hoping that the chap would blunder into one’s arms? And what would that prove? Or lie in wait in the wardrobes of likely victims’ bedrooms? Quite absurd; moreover,
if the Beast of Jersey was any guide, our man would have been watching the chosen house for hours, perhaps days, and rapable women abound in Jersey – if you don’t object to legs like bedroom jugs.

‘Very well,’ I said at length. ‘We’ll give the Satanic Mass a crack of the whip; I’m sure you know best.’

‘Capital, capital; I always said that you were a capable man. I remember saying so to the Dean when –’

‘
Yes
, John. Now, how does one go about arranging that sort of beano?’

‘Of course, let us be practical. First, we must select a suitable Mass. What? Oh, goodness, yes, there are many. Many. By far the best is the Medici Mass, it never fails, it is positively and finally lethal, but there are no reliable texts of its
Graduale
to be had – all corrupt, every one of them, such a shame. In any case, the
Missa Mediciensis
involves the dismemberment of a beautiful young boy, which I fancy you might think a horrid
waste
– or am I thinking of a chap with a name like yours who came up in the same year as you?’

‘Bonfiglioli?’ I asked.

‘Yes, that was he. Sorry, Mortdecai. And in any case, unless your Jersey witchmaster is uncommonly learned he may not have heard of that particular ritual and it is of the greatest importance that he should
know
what forces you are throwing against him. You see that, don’t you?’

‘It makes sense, certainly.’

‘Ah. Yes. Now I have it: the very one, the
Messe de Saint Sécaire
.’

‘And who, pray, was Saint Sécaire?’

‘Well, he probably wasn’t a saint; in fact he may never have been what you or I would call a
person
even, but his name is known everywhere from the Basque country to the Lowlands-Low amongst the sort of people who know about that sort of thing.’

‘You speak in riddles, John.’

‘Naturally. Now, you will need only three things: first, an unfrocked priest, for the ritual demands it. I know the very chap: he teaches in a prep-school in Eastbourne and is both reliable and cheap. It will only cost you his steamer-fare – chaps like that never
travel by
air
for obvious reasons – and a few bottles of Pastis; some clean straw to sleep-it-off on and perhaps a couple of fivers as a going-away present.’

‘I have a servant called Jock who will anticipate his every need.’

‘Splendid. Then, you will need a text of the Ritual. There is only one sound copy in existence: it is in the incomparable library of a ridiculous old lecher called Lord Dunromin. I shall give you a letter to him: if you grovel a bit and pretend to believe that he is – as he loves to think – the wickedest man in England, he may be persuaded to let you have a sight of the manuscript and copy out such parts as differ most grossly from the
Ordinale
. Pay particular attention to the peculiarities of the
Introit
, the
Kyrie
and the, well, the
equivalent
of the
Agnus Dei
.’