The Satanist (53 page)

‘All right then! Stay here if you want to! Stay and wallow with that great hog! Once a whore always a whore; and now I know why you became one.’

Mary’s eyes went as round as marbles; her mouth fell open; she gave a gasp. ‘What … what the hell d’you mean?’

‘What I say,’ he snapped. ‘Your name’s not Margot but Mary. I know all about you and the life you led before you married.’

When he said ‘all’ she thought he meant all. Never in her wildest dreams had she visualised a dénouement like this. She had believed that she knew all about his past while he knew nothing of hers. But now the cat
was
out of the bag. Hands on hips, her blue eyes shooting sparks, she let him have it.

‘All right! I was a whore! And who made me one? Who put me in the family way and left me in the lurch? Who went gaily off to America leaving the poor kid that I was to borrow the money for the illegal; so that for months afterwards I had to sell myself to pay it back? Who took little Mary McCreedy’s virginity and left her at six in the morning with the fine words, “See you again soon, sweetheart”, then without a thought that he might have got her into trouble, or a word of good-bye, took himself off to the United states? Who but that great Irish gentleman, Mister Barney Sullivan. The dirty rotten lecherous cad who now, to lead girls easier up the garden path, pretends to have property in Kenya and has the nerve to tell them he is a lord.’

Barney’s eyes had gone as round as Mary’s before she started to storm at him. From the moment he had come face to face with her on Mrs. Wardeel’s doorstep he had had a vague feeling that they had met somewhere before. But in five years she had altered from an unsophisticated slip of a girl to a fine self-possessed woman, and her hair being dark instead of fair had accentuated the difference. It was over a week now since she had had a chance to treat it with the dye she used, and as he stared at her he saw that, although she still had the appearance of a brunette, the quarter-of-an-inch of hair nearest to her scalp was golden.

Stunned by this revelation that she was the little cabaret girl who long ago in Dublin had exercised a fascination over him for a few weeks before he had come into his title and left Ireland for good, he was temporarily at a loss for words.
Before he could collect himself the door opened. The huge American stood framed in it. He was smiling at them, and said:

‘Young feller, this is your lucky day. It is the prerogative of our Exalted Master, the Great Ram, that he can make initiates anywhere, by using one drop of his own sacred blood. That eliminates the necessity for a sacrifice, and he’s consented to admit you two to the Brotherhood tonight. Come on now. We’ve no time to lose. It’s well past half-after eleven. We must be on our way to the Esbbat.’

Still dazed by the explosion of their personal relations, yet unable to exchange another word upon them, Mary and Barney followed the hook-nosed giant out into the hall. The front door was open. The Great Ram was already seated at the wheel of a large car outside it. Wash told Barney to get in beside him.

Barney hesitated only a second. The man at the wheel was Lothar. All else apart, it was his duty, now he had so unexpectedly got on to him, to stick with him, and let C.B. know their whereabouts at the first possible opportunity.

Wash’s car was drawn up in front of Lothar’s. Iziah was standing by it. Jim had picked up the suitcase containing Mary’s things, which had been standing ready in the hall. Carrying it out, he added it to the pile of luggage already in the back of the car. Having helped Mary on with her coat, Wash took her by the arm. Her mind was in such a turmoil that she did not even think of the invisible barrier which had for days prevented her leaving the house. His leading her out automatically nullified it. He opened the door of the car and she got in beside him. The engine purred and the big car slid away down the drive. As it turned into the road he said:

‘I’m still all of a dither, honey. It was a mighty fine break the Great Ram coming here tonight. You’ve been had for a sucker. The Exalted One’s got a no-good brother. He overlooks him from time to time. Last week-end, some
place down in Wales, he saw this guy Doctor Dee in cahoots with his brother and a bunch of R.A.F. security boys. The Doc is another police-spy. But it pans out good. We sold him the story about your both being initiated. You’re going to be initiated alright; but he’s to be the sacrifice that’ll both pay my forfeit and provide the blood to baptise you.’

For a moment Mary’s heart stopped beating. Her mind reeled as it grasped the appalling situation which had so suddenly developed.

Now for the hundredth time she cursed her folly in not having let sleeping dogs lie. The early stages of her investigation had held for her only a spice of danger sufficient to intrigue, and her first successes with Ratnadatta had strengthened her resolution to ignore the warnings she had been given – until Barney had extracted a promise from her that she would have nothing more to do with the Satanists. But by then, through having become a neophyte, she had already forged a fatal link with them, and the sight of Teddy’s shoes on Ratnadatta’s feet had proved her undoing.

From that night, as a result of her own actions, she had become the plaything of Evil and exposed to one peril after another. That she had, after all, succeeded in securing concrete evidence against her husband’s murderers was now small comfort. If these fiends with whom she had consorted dealt with Barney as they had with Teddy his death would lie at her door.

As her heart suddenly bgan to beat again she drew a sharp, rasping breath.

‘Surprised you, eh, honey?’ Wash commented grimly. ‘Surprised me too, seein’ you claimed to be well acquainted
with this Doctor Dee. Tell what you know of him.’

His tone implied no suspicion of her, only curiosity; but she knew that she must exercise the greatest caution about every word she said. In a low voice she murmured,

‘There’s not much I can tell you. I believed him to be one of us and it’s a nasty shock to hear that he’s not.’

‘Give, honey, give.’ Wash’s voice had suddenly become impatient. ‘He’s your boy friend, and came to these parts set on trying to snatch you off me. Fellers don’t go that far unless they and the dame are pretty close to one another.’

Mary’s mind was still a whirl of misery, but she managed to co-ordinate her thoughts sufficiently to reply. ‘He is in love with me, of course; but he’s never been my boy friend in the sense you mean. I met him only a few weeks ago at Mrs. Wardeel’s. She is a woman who holds evenings for dabblers in the occult. Ratnadatta always goes to them to pick up anyone there who looks a likely convert to the True Faith. He was introduced to me as Lord Larne and…’

‘Lord Larne,’ Wash interrupted. ‘He must have plenty gall to have taken a title for his front.’

Instantly Mary covered up for Barney by asserting, ‘It wasn’t a front. He is Lord Larne. No one’s ever questioned that. Anyway, after some of the meetings he walked home with me. Then he asked me out to dine and dance, and twice I’ve given him supper at my flat. He was an amusing companion and we had the common interest that we both hoped to become initiates. We had started an
affaire
, and if things hadn’t gone as they did the night you carried me off I expect that in due course he and I would have become lovers. His having come after me here shows only that he must have fallen harder for me than I thought’

‘So that’s your side of it. Maybe, though, it’s not hot pants that brought him here. Seeing he’s a cop it’s on the cards that he’s been stringing you along for what he could get out of you, and followed your trail on a hunch that you’d give him the dope about what goes on in these parts.’

‘Perhaps,’ Mary admitted; and for a moment her misery was rendered even more intense by the thought that possibly
that might be the truth. She had hardly yet had time to assimilate the idea that Barney was some sort of detective. If he was, that explained many things. On the assumption that he was a playboy whose time was his own, she had bitterly resented what she had believed to be his lies about his Kenya travel agency arrangements interfering with their meetings; but that, she realised now, could have been cover for periods when he had to perform certain duties. It also excused his taking a title as a pseudonym, as doing so would have made him more readily acceptable at Mrs. Wardeel’s. It even made it probable that he had not deliberately let her down the previous week-end to go off with some other woman. As against that there did seem to be a possibility that from the very beginning he had been making use of her only because she had got in with Ratnadatta before he had, and had succeeded in penetrating the Satanic circle at Cremorne.

After only the briefest consideration Mary thrust that last idea aside. Had there been any foundation for it Barney would have urged her to go through with her initiation, then pumped her about what had taken place. As it was he had used his utmost endeavours to persuade her to have no more to do with the Satanists. So if he was a detective he had put her safety before his duty as an investigator. At this thought, in spite of the harsh words with which they had parted, her heart both warmed towards him and was wrung afresh with terrible visions of what lay in store for him.

Virtually a prisoner as she was, she could think of no way in which she could save him or help him to escape, until Wash remarked, ‘There’s times when you British can be mighty sly. Who’d have thought that for special missions Scotland Yard would have kept on its pay-roll a real live Lord?’

Seizing the opening given her, Mary said quickly, ‘I can’t believe they do. There’s a mistake somewhere. There must be. This fellow is Lord Larne all right. If he had been a fake someone at Mrs. Wardeel’s would have been certain
to have found him out and exposed him. He is an Irish Earl and only on a visit to England. He has estates in Kenya and has lived there most of his life, so he can’t possibly be a member of the British Police Force. The Great Ram must have mistaken him for someone else.’

Wash gave an ugly laugh. ‘The Great Ram doesn’t make mistakes, honey. Could be you’re right about his coming from Kenya. If so, his tie-up with the police here is only temporary. But if the Great Ram says he’s a spy, a spy he is. Had we the time we’d put him under hypnosis and get details about his assignment. As things are tonight we’re working on too tight a schedule. Just have to bump him and get on with our own business.’

‘You can’t!’ Mary cried in protest. ‘You can’t. Not without giving him some form of trial. At least you must give him a chance to show that this is all a terrible mistake.’

‘Having liked the guy it’s natural you should see things that way.’ Wash put his big hand on her knee and gave it a friendly squeeze. ‘I guess, too, maybe you’d been countin’ on him making you his Duchess or something; so him turning out a rat is a bad break for you. Still, none of us can expect the little old ivories to roll as we want all the time, and now you’re my squaw I’ll see you lack for nothing. At this point, though, I’ll warn. When your Lord Larne is about to get his, no throwing a scene. The Great Ram wouldn’t take that kindly, and it might make things mighty awkward for us both.’

For a few minutes Mary remained silent while the car sped on through the dark night, then she asked, ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the ruined Abbey I was telling you of last night. Place where I dumped the body of that floosie down the well.’

Mary shuddered. ‘To … to hold a Sabbat in such a place must be very different from holding one in the Temple at Cremorne.

‘They’ve one thing in common: altars once used for
Christian rites. That’s a must in Christian countries. Leastways, they give ten times the potency to the conjurations of a priest of Our Lord Satan.’

‘I see. But after the ceremony? Surely it’s too cold and uncomfortable for anyone to enjoy feasting, and that sort of thing, in an old ruin?’

He laughed. ‘You’ll not find it cold, honey. To alter temperature within a radius of a hundred yards is a simple magic. I create a fog belt round the ruin as a precaution against passing casuals seeing our lights from the road and getting a mind to snoop. Then I call off the rain – if need be- and ante-up the heat inside the magic circle to a degree that’s pleasant.’

Having witnessed the Great Ram perform more astonishing miracles, Mary accepted without question Wash’s claim to control local weather conditions by magic, but she said, ‘All the same, unless you can turn slabs of stone into divans, and the hard ground into a carpet, there can’t be much fun in holding an orgy there.’

‘We don’t; not in the ruin. I’ve rented a house not far off that’s got all the etceteras. Once a month we adjourn there after the ceremony. There’s no women initiates in this little Lodge I’ve founded for my boys. I get out from Cambridge a picked bunch of dolls for them to hit it up with. The dolls are not wise to what goes on beforehand in the Abbey. They’re just invited to a party where there’ll be prizes for the hottest momma, and paid off in the morning.’

‘Shall we be going there tonight?’

‘No. We’ve only to do the rituals, perform the sacrifice and initiate you; then we beat it just as fast as we can.’

‘Does that mean that I’ll have to … to do my Temple Service in the ruin?’

‘Yeah. You’ll have to take it on the altar stone, honey. And for once in my life I’ll be jealous. You’ve sure got under my skin. I’ll just hate the others even eyeing you on the stone, let alone what’ll follow.’

‘I … Wash; listen!’ she burst out. ‘I’m going to hate it, too, now I know you feel like that about me. And as long
as you do I’d be content to remain a neophyte. You can give me everything I want without my becoming a witch. Let’s postpone my initiation. You can drop me somewhere before we get to the Abbey and I’ll wait on the roadside until you are through with your rituals and can pick me up again.’

With her pulses racing she waited breathlessly for his reply. If he agreed, not only would she escape the dreaded ordeal of initiation but, infinitely more important, she would have a chance to get to a telephone and bring the police on the scene before they could murder Barney.