Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts

by Dennis Wheatley

  When I started to write someone told me that the royal road to fame and fortune through the pen lay in humorous stories. That is true to the extent that, whereas best-sellers amongst serious novelists and thriller writers always run to a dozen or more at any one time, it is rare for more than one humorist to achieve nation-wide success in a generation. Therefore, if you can pull it off, you acquire a vast public devoted to you alone and waiting with beating hearts and an anticipatory grin for your new book.

  Nothing venture, nothing gain. Following this apparently sage but, in my case, totally irrelevant advice and quite oblivious to my lack of aptitude for such a job, I went home and wrote a ‘humorous’ story in what I optimistically believed to be the ‘Wodehouse’ manner.

  My only excuse for printing this strange freak is that my maternal grandfather possessed just such another monstrosity of a sideboard and, when I was a youngster, its contents were to me an unfailing joy.

  The Sideboard

  ‘Lot 204,’ said the auctioneer.

  ‘Lot 204 showin’ ’ere,’ sang out the foreman-porter as he gave the piece a resounding slap with his grimy hand.

  It was a sideboard, but what a sideboard—vast, enormous, gargantuan. It completely filled the corner of the room into which it had been pushed. Venerable and archaic it stood there, awaiting a new owner. Grandfather and begetter of all the sideboards that had ever been.

  I knew it well. Every gleam that shone from its peculiarly ugly dark mahogany surface—every knob and twist and twirl by which, through some aberration of the times, a Victorian craftsman had striven to make it more hideous to our modern eyes.

  Was it not a portion of my grandfather’s estate?—grandfather Toothkins as was? But let me hasten to reassure you, I have not been afflicted with that name—my mother swapped it, and got me!

  ‘Lot 204 showin’ ‘ere,’ came the beery voice of the foreman-porter once more. The man had the appearance of an owl with his thick glasses.

  ‘How ghastly,’ murmured Archie.

  I took up the challenge, I felt I must. ‘Old top,’ I said, ‘you know not what you say. Think of the history that lies hidden in that ancient piece. It listened to my ancestors when they talked of Sevastopol and the Crimea. They retold the story of the Light Brigade with rows of salted almonds for the Russian guns upon its top. Old chappies with gold alberts sat before it—fellows who really believed the humbug of the Grand Old Man. It heard about the siege of Paris and the Zulu War, even when you were a mewing babe puking at your mother’s breast…’

  ‘I never puked,’ said Archie angrily.

  ‘You did,’ I said, ‘it’s in Shakespeare’ (I knew I had him there), and I went on: ‘Think of those prosperous Victorian days—the barons of beef, the golden ducks, the venison, that noble piece has carried in its time. Asparagus and peaches, great dishes of sweet peas—no, sweet dishes of great peas, I mean—the noble salmon, the turkeys and the pies.’

  ‘Don’t forget the rice puddings and the salted cod, and I’ll bet they had blancmange—ugh, how I hate blancmange!’ Archie shuddered.

  I thought that was a little unkind but I am a mild forbearing man, so I drew his attention to the cupboards underneath.

  ‘Think,’ I cried, my mouth watering at the thought, ‘what has passed into those mighty doors. The one on the left—fruit cake with more almonds than I could ever count, raisins and candied fruits, angelica and rings of peel, marrons glaces, chocolates, sugar biscuits, ginger-nuts. That cupboard was an Aladdin’s cave for any boy.’

  Archie grinned. ‘Greedy little brute you must have been.’ But that was just sour grapes because his own grandfather is such a mean old screw.

  ‘Come now, will no one make me an offer?’ the auctioneer was saying. ‘Start it at what you like.’

  ‘Then the cupboard on the right,’ I whispered with sudden memory; ‘the cellarette—whisky, my boy. No, no, I don’t mean that—whisky was only for the servants’ hall—but brandy, mellow golden stuff; Sherry, Madeira, untold pipes of Port; liqueurs, too, enough to float a battleship!’

  ‘Shall we say twenty pounds?’ coaxed the auctioneer—but silence brooded over the baize tables. ‘Ten now,’ he said persuasively.

  ‘It’s monstrous,’ I hissed to Archie. ‘It must have cost a hundred guineas at least,’ but he was not listening; he was making faces at the girl in green. Poor Archie, I’ve told him heaps of times that no girl could be interested in a chappie with a face like his, but he simply will not understand.

  Five guineas then?’ the auctioneer suggested. ‘It’s worth that for the wood alone.’

  I nodded vigorously. Of course it was; I prodded Archie. ‘Stop pestering that delightful child,’ I said severely. ‘I know she looked this way, but it’s my new shirting which intrigues her. The sideboard’s being knocked down for a fiver—think of it, one could make ten thousand mahogany penholders from the wood!’

  ‘Well, you’ll be able to,’ he grinned, just like the idiot he is; ‘it’s been knocked down to you!’

  And so it had. I was furious, but what could I do with the beastly thing? I looked towards the auctioneer.

  ‘That’s ‘im,’ said the foreman-porter; ‘gentleman wiv’ the ‘are-lip—wot said jest now that ‘e wasn’t bidden’ fer the commode.’

  The auctioneer was a born fool; that was the second mistake he had made. What could I have wanted with a commode? I couldn’t even give it to Aunt Agatha for Christmas. He might have known, but I didn’t like to make a scene about the sideboard.

  Archie tittered at my side. Really he has the silliest laugh of any man I know. ‘Hare-lip,’ he gurgled; ‘that’s a good one. I must remember that—it’s your moustache, old man!’

  ‘I see no humour,’ I said stiffly, ‘in ridiculing the errors of the blind. However, as you are supposed to be my friend I will let you have my purchase for two-ten. The balance of the money I shall consider as having been spent on your birthday present in advance.’

  He shook his head. ‘No thanks, I’d rather you let me have the ties Aunt Aggie sends you at Christmas, like last year. I pass ‘em on to Judd—he’s got just that kind of face.’

  Of course I always knew that Archie was tactless, but really—Judd is Archie’s man.

  The girl in green had moved towards us. Archie grinned all over his stupid face as he took off his hat. I caught him by the arm and jerked him back. ‘This,’ I said with that little air of authority which I sometimes use, ‘Is my affair.’

  He looked an awful fool. I could see the girl thought that too, she smiled divinely. You should have seen her, as she said: ‘I think you bought Lot 204.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said blissfully, ‘any lot you like.’

  ‘The sideboard, I mean.’

  ‘Ha, ha! the sideboard.’ I felt a little tremor run down my spine; the darling wanted a sideboard. Of course she should have a sideboard—a dozen if she liked. She was just the sort of girl I’d been longing to buy sideboards for all my life. ‘Maples,’ I said, ‘is fine.’ It occurred to me that we might spend the day there.

  She gave a little puzzled frown. ‘I’m talking about the sideboard you’ve just bought,’ she said. ‘I want to know if you’ll take a profit on it—it was knocked down so quickly I didn’t get a chance to bid.’

  ‘That’s different,’ I assured her. She was an angelic girl, but all the business ability with which my family refuse to credit me bubbled to my chest. ‘It’s a valuable piece,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she laughed, ‘it’s a horrid old thing, but it just happens that I’d like to have it.’

  She had just the faintest trace of an American accent, not much you know, but enough. Americans have money. I jabbed Archie in the ribs—I thought it would be good training for him to see how a big business deal was carried through. The fool spluttered as though he was going to choke. I ignored him and put on what I know to be my cunning look.

  ‘Madam,’ I said, ‘you cannot be aware of the interesting historic associati
ons that…’

  ‘Now, please,’ she checked me at the very beginning of my peroration, ‘how much will you take?’

  ‘It’s genuine pre-Woolworth,’ I assured her with an air of knowledge, although unfortunately I don’t know much about antiques.

  She laughed deliciously.

  I tried again. ‘But that is not all—the thing is dear to me—how dear you cannot know. It has been in the possession of the Toothkins family for over a hundred years. My aged mother said to me—“My boy,” she said, “never let that grand old sideboard pass into the possession of one who is not of the Toothkin blood.” ’ At the moment I nearly believed myself—tears stood in my eyes.

  A strange look came into her lovely face. ‘You’re Loopy,’ she declared.

  ‘I’m what?’ I gasped.

  She was actually laughing. ‘I remember now—you’re Loopy.’

  ‘Hi!’ I cried, Archie had trodden heavily on my toe. I jabbed him off and turned to her again. ‘Madam,’ I said severely, ‘Im nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she smiled, ‘but that’s what we used to call you.’

  Then I suddenly realised who she was. Everything else was different, but the green eyes were unchanged.

  ‘I know who you are,’ I cried. ‘You’re …’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ she pleaded.

  I laughed, I was not going to forgo my revenge. ‘You’re Ethelfreda Toothkins!’

  ‘You beast!’ she said. ‘Anyhow, I don’t care. I’ve used my second name for years. I’m Ann now.’

  I nodded. ‘You’re the cousin who had the wicked mother—she married again—went to live in America and all that?’

  ‘Not quite a cousin,’ she smiled, ‘and Mother is a dear. We’re over on a visit.’

  ‘Your great-aunt married my great-aunt’s sister,’ I told her. (I pride myself on my knowledge of the family tree.) ‘You were a horrid little girl; you had straight hair and wore enormous white pancakey hats.’

  ‘Did I? Anyhow, it’s never been suggested that I had a hare-lip!’ There was sudden laughter in those green eyes of hers.

  In a vague way I heard the auctioneer saying that there would be an interval for lunch. I turned to Archie. ‘Old top,’ I said, ‘something tells me that someone wants to see you at your club, though why he should I simply cannot think.’

  For once in his life he behaved quite sensibly, despite his very unnecessary wink. ‘What shall we do about the jolly old sideboard?’ I asked my lovely cousin as I led her away.

  She looked quite serious for a moment, then she smiled. ‘Well, if one of us kept it we could fill it up with candied fruit again.’

  ‘And rings of peel,’ I added.

  ‘And marrons glacés,’ she said.

  ‘And ginger biscuits,’ I laughed.

  ‘Ginger-nuts,’ we said together.

  * * * * *

  We have that venerable sideboard still. We wouldn’t swap it for the whole of Maples’s stock. It holds the wireless, and the biscuits for the dog, but it gets its ration of ginger now and then. I lost that nice moustache of mine—but I got Ann instead, and of course old Archie’s only trying to be funny when he says the darling married me just to shed her other name.

  STORY XVII

  Black Magic

  A few years ago a young woman reported that she had been victimised by a Satanic circle in Birmingham. Her statement aroused such widespread interest that a National newspaper asked me to do a series of six articles on Black Magic, Witchcraft and the occult generally.

  So little is understood about this subject by the general public that when writing the articles I went to great pains to express my views clearly. However, with what I can only imagine to be the object of getting the maximum amount of sensationalism out of the material I sent in, a Sub-Editor transposed many of the sentences and cut out others altogether; so that, to my mind, many of the passages no longer made sense.

  Naturally, I was most indignant. But an author soon learns the futility of arguing with the editors of a great newspaper and as I did not see my articles after the Sub-Editor had done his worst—or, in his view, his best—until they appeared in print, there was really nothing to be done about it.

  This series of articles, therefore, appears here, unabridged, unaltered and as originally written, for the first time.

  Article No. 1

  WHITE AND BLACK MAGIC

  The Devil is just round the corner, and he is watching YOU. Don’t you believe that? There are a lot of people who do, and some of them, even in this country, still participate in abominable rites for the purpose of courting his favour.

  If you do not believe that the Devil is interested in you, then you do not believe in God, without Whose knowledge, so the Bible tells us, not a sparrow falls. You cannot believe in one and not the other.

  In the beginning Lucifer, to give the Devil his personal name, was an Archangel. His pride and ambition caused him to become the leader of the first revolution. God gave St. Michael command of the loyal angels. There was a tremendous battle and Michael’s angels drove Lucifer and his angels out of Heaven down to Earth. That is why the Devil is known as ‘The Lord of This World’.

  That, too, is why, when our Lord Jesus Christ was on earth, the Devil was able to take Him up into a High Place and offer Him dominion over the fair cities and fruitful plains. To deny that the Temptation occurred is to deny a fundamental tenet of the Christian religion.

  In the Middle Ages it was not uncommon for people to report that the Devil had appeared to them. In those days everyone’s mind was dominated by religion Most people attended two services on Sundays, fasted on Fridays and were present at family prayers morning and evening. They had no holidays other than Saints’ days and going on a pilgrimage; they went regularly to confession and, for even the smallest sin, had to perform a penance. For them Heaven and Hell were vivid realities and, as life was cheap, they might find themselves pitchforked into one or the other with little warning. So it is not surprising that the more imaginative sometimes ‘saw things’. We may, therefore, put down most of these reported Visions’ as the product of an empty stomach upon an empty brain. But not all.

  Not, that is, if we can believe the late Aleister Crowley, who once assured me that it is perfectly possible to raise—he did not say the Devil, but that was what he meant.

  Of course, it is not suggested that the mighty Lucifer—who is second only in power to the Lord God Himself—appears to people in person. But each of us has a Guardian Angel, and it is his opposite number, a creature of the Devil’s charged with our undoing, who, in exceptional circumstances, may become visible to human eyes.

  The form in which such evil entities materialise is naturally that expected of them. Hence the fire-breathing horrors with horns, cloven hoofs and spiked tail which appeared to people in the Middle Ages, and that in Crowley’s case it was that of Pan—the coldly evil horned-god whom he had deliberately conjured up.

  Why, you may ask, are people rarely troubled by such supernatural visitors in these days? The answer is that life is infinitely more complex, and the modern mind occupied by such things as politics, sport, the cinema, travel, broadcasts, the constant change in the fashions of clothes, and so on—to the exclusion of religion. They are no longer interested in either saints or demons.

  But do not suppose that, for that reason, the Devil no longer exists. As part of the original Creation he is immortal. Being no fool he has adapted himself to modern conditions and gone underground.

  It is with good reason that one of his names is ‘Lord of Misrule’. God’s wish, clearly manifested in the teachings of Jesus Christ, is that we should avoid all cause for quarrels—and so lead peaceful, orderly lives. The Devil’s province is to make us do the opposite. By luring individuals into sin he can break up families; by fostering trade disputes he can cause conditions which ultimately lead to poverty and crime; by arousing the passions of nations he can cause war.

  From the beginn
ing of time he has made tools of the greedy, the discontented and the ambitious, stimulating them by the temptation of power to sabotage peace, prosperity and good stable government. Can anyone maintain that he has been idle during the past half century?

  These subtle and ubiquitous activities apart, the Devil still plays an active role in the lives of quite a number of people. It is a fact that any day in a bus or a train YOU may be sitting opposite to a man or woman who has made a pact with Satan, or been sold to him.

  In the introduction to Story IV ‘A Life for Life’ I have already mentioned the case of the Essex woman who was sold as a child to the Devil; and as ‘Lord of this World’ the Devil does not, of course, confine his attention to Christian people. As an example there is the case of the young Australian aboriginal, Lyn Wulumu, which was recently featured in the Press.

  His mother-in-law wanted him out of the way so she ‘sung him the song of the dreamtime snake’. When this is done by a votary of Satan a dream-snake coils itself round the body of the victim and gradually crushes him until he can no longer breathe. Lyn Wulumu, unquestionably a dying man, was flown down by the Methodist Mission to Darwin Hospital. Four doctors could find nothing whatever wrong with him physically, but they put him in an iron lung; his life was saved and it is now reported that he has regained the will to live.

  My books with occult backgrounds have brought me many hundreds of letters from all parts of the world upon similar subjects. Score of them are, of course, from people with bees in their bonnets; but with some knowledge of such matters it is not difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff, and many are from doctors, magistrates and clergymen—vouching for their personal knowledge of happenings impossible to explain except as the result of witchcraft.

  The fact is that, although unrealised by most Europeans, in every great city, in the jungles of Africa, the villages of Asia, the plantations of the West Indies, and even in some remote hamlets of our own countryside, Satanism is still practised.