‘All the same,’ said Peter, ‘if anybody contemplated betrayal, and this intention became known to the others, it would provide a very strong motive for killing them, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Donaldson. ‘But if you are thinking of those four people who were poisoned, I’m not at all sure that that was the motive in their case. Why should they suddenly decide that they wanted to leave the cult? It wouldn’t have been disgust or horror in their case. They must have become inured to all the beastliness and, besides, they went to Witch’s House to carry on a sort of sideline to the main business . . .’
‘The meeting at Witch’s House might have been suggested and arranged by the murderer.’ said Peter, ‘so you can’t use that as an argument to show that they were not contemplating leaving the coven. They’d have gone in any case. But I don’t think they were trying to get out. I believe the motive for the murders was something quite different . . .’
‘What?’ demanded the inspector.
Peter shrugged his shoulders.
‘I don’t know.’ he answered. ‘It’ll probably come to light when we discover who arranged the meeting at the cottage . . .’
‘Well, sir,’ remarked Donaldson, a little dubiously, ‘it looks to me as if we got our work cut out to discover anything. I believe your idea is right, but it’s all supposition . . .’
‘I agree,’ interrupted Peter, quickly. ‘But at least it gives us a line. The place where they held their ghastly orgies must be somewhere in the district and it ’ud have to be pretty big. If you could find it, there’d probably be a lot of evidence there . . .’
‘It’s going to be difficult,’ said the inspector, shaking his head slowly. ‘Very difficult, Mr. Chard. We’ll have to go very carefully indeed.’
‘Try the past history of Ray,’ suggested Peter. ‘That might supply some useful information.’
‘If he’s got anything to do with it,’ said Donaldson. ‘There’s not a vestige of anything to show that he has, you know . . .’
‘And there’s another person it might be worth while to look into,’ said Peter. ‘Ralph Gourley . . .’ He related what he had heard about Gourley from the Reverend Amos Benskill. ‘That cyanide had to come from somewhere.’
‘H’m, that is something,’ said Donaldson. ‘I’ll get on to that. I don’t think I’d say anything to anybody about this theory of yours, Mr. Chard. The fewer people who know about it, the better. I shan’t say anything about it. We’ve got to put in a lot of hard work and get a lot more proof before we dare even admit to ourselves that we’re on the right lines. I shall keep it dark even from the Chief Constable . . .’
Peter smiled.
‘I doubt if Colonel Shoredust would appreciate it,’ he said. ‘He’d probably consider it a very highly-coloured flight of the imagination on your part, inspector. Not many people know anything about Satanism . . .’
‘I’d probably have treated the idea in the same way, sir,’ admitted Donaldson, candidly, ‘if I hadn’t come up against it, personally, in this other case I was telling you about. To the average person it does sound fantastic and a little ridiculous . . .’
‘There’s nothing ridiculous about it,’ said Peter, grimly. ‘The foul, black cult of Satan-worship exists, and has existed, from the earliest times. It offers an excuse for unbridled sensuality and debauchery, and so long as there are people depraved and corrupt enough to appreciate such things it will continue to flourish in secret. We’ve come up against a particularly ghastly nest, for if we are right, and I firmly believe we are, the hideous cult was carried to the most horrible and ghastly extremes — the full, bestial ritual of the Satanists . . .’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Inspector Donaldson, and his expression was very grave and serious. ‘Yes, sir. You can be quite sure that I realize all that. If such a bunch exists in this district, and I agree with you that it does, we’ll stamp it out of existence . . .’
Chapter Nine
‘Well,’ said Ann, when Peter got back.
‘What did Donaldson say? Did he laugh at you . . .?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ answered Peter. ‘He took the idea quite seriously. Luckily he had been engaged on a similar case in London and knew something about it . . .’
‘Then he believes that we’re right?’ she said. ‘What’s he going to do . . .?’
‘Everything he can,’ answered Peter. ‘I suggested that possibly the Reverend Gilbert Ray was mixed up in it . . .’
‘Peter, you didn’t!’ she exclaimed, in dismay.
‘I did . . .’
‘I don’t think you should have,’ she said. ‘There’s absolutely nothing at all to connect him with it, except that we don’t like him.’
‘If this is a real, genuine Satanist outfit — and if it isn’t then we’re completely wrong,’ said Peter, ‘there’s got to be a parson in it . . .’
‘But that doesn’t mean it’s Ray,’ protested his wife.
‘I know,’ replied Peter, ‘but I’m a great believer in intuition. There’s an unwholesome atmosphere about him — a kind of an evil aura — and there must be some reason for it. There was something of the same kind about Laura Courtland. Perhaps you can’t soak yourself in absolute evil and corruption without some sort of emanation . . . Anyway, I believe Ray is the leading light of the abominable cult.’
Ann gave a little shiver.
‘The whole thing’s horrible,’ she said. ‘Monstrous and hideous. Every now and again I feel that we must be wrong; that such things couldn’t happen in this civilized age . . .’
‘They couldn’t — if this really was a civilized age,’ said Peter. ‘The trouble is that it isn’t.’
‘I hope they find these people,’ said Ann, ‘and put an end to them and their obscene, blasphemous, and beastly cult . . .’
‘They will, if by ‘they’ you mean Donaldson,’ said Peter. ‘He feels just as strongly about it as you do . . .’
Chapter Ten
The days went by, and Inspector Donaldson made no very great headway. A further search of the belongings of Mallory and Severac had, however, brought to light two sets of cufflinks, bearing the initial L in rubies, and exactly alike in appearance, which was one more point in confirmation of the fact that the four dead people had all belonged to some club or sect. Nothing else turned up, although Donaldson was doing his utmost to find evidence in support of the theory which Peter had expounded. The whole thing, as he had said, required very careful and diplomatic handling, for an incautious word, or action, might not only have the effect of destroying all chance of ever discovering the people involved, but lead to a great deal of trouble for him if it should turn out that the idea he was working on was wrong after all. He had written to the Sûreté in Paris asking for details concerning the past history of not only Gilbert Ray, but André Severac. As yet, however, he had not received any reply.
The weather had grown milder and the last vestige of snow had melted, filling the swollen dykes and causing the keepers of the locks to watch their straining gates with anxiety. When the thaw was complete, Peter and Ann went one afternoon to look at Witch’s House. It looked different without the white covering which had to a great extent softened its harsh and ugly lines. It was possible to see, now, the ravages which time and weather had wrought. Peter and Ann walked round the cottage. There was scarcely any garden at the rear. The place was divided from the flat marshland, that stretched away to the sloping embankment of a dyke, by a wire fence that seemed to be in a better state of repair than the rest of the building. Peter concluded that the land probably belonged to the Conservancy Board and that they were responsible for this. He had come with the intention of trying, once again, to find an answer to the puzzle of how the unknown fifth person had managed to leave the cottage without marking the snow, but, although he and Ann spent a considerable time examining the outside of the dilapidated building, neither of them could find anything that suggested a solution. They left, more than a little disappointed at the frui
tlessness of their visit.
In the early hours of the Sunday morning Mrs. Coxen died. Peter was coming back from the post office when he met Doctor Culpepper and heard the news.
‘She died from shock and a broken heart,’ said the doctor. ‘I shall have to put heart failure, aggravated by shock, on the certificate, but what ought to be there is the name of the person who killed her child. She was murdered just as certainly as if she’d been stabbed with a knife.’
The woman’s death roused the people of the village to an angry indignation. There was, too, an undercurrent of fear that was induced by superstition. Robson, the father of the first child to be murdered, declared openly that someone had put a spell on the whole district. He made his avowal in the bar of the Red Lion and Peter and Ann, who had dropped in for a drink, heard him.
‘And,’ he added, staring at the little group that was gathered round him, ‘it wouldn’t be difficult to put a name to ’em neither.’
‘Meanin’ Gourley?’ said a small, scraggy-necked man.
‘No names, no pack-drill,’ warned one of the others, but Robson took no notice.
‘Aye, that’s the man,’ he declared. ‘Things ain’t never bin the same since ’e come. ’Member them cows bein’ took sick an’ dying a week arter ’e come?’
There was a general murmur and nodding of heads.
‘An’ them crops o’ beets o’ old Jowles. Turned black they did, ’member?’
‘Aye, it’s true enough, Jim,’ agreed the scraggy-necked man. ‘There’s bin a rare lot o’ trouble since ’e come.’
Peter listened with interest. The Reverend Gilbert Ray had been right when he said that there might be trouble. Robson’s rugged face was ugly and so were some of his friends’.
‘There’s queer things goes on at that house of his,’ went on Robson. ‘Why’s there a light burnin’ all night. Can any of you tell me that? From dusk to dawn it’s lit up. An’ why? That’s wot I’d like to know. Why?’
Since nobody was able to tell him, nobody answered.
‘Did you hear that?’ whispered Ann. ‘About the house . . .?’
Peter nodded. He knew what she was thinking. Could Gourley’s house be the place where the Satanists met to indulge in their hideous ritual? He answered her thoughts rather than her words. ‘He wouldn’t have a light every night for that,’ he said. ‘The coven wouldn’t meet more than once a month . . .’
‘Has Donaldson seen Gourley?’ asked Ann.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘He made the excuse of wanting to ask him some questions about Fay Bennett. Gourley was very brusque. He said he knew nothing about her whatever . . .’
‘But he was one of the people who used to visit her,’ broke in Ann.
‘That’s what Donaldson told him,’ said Peter, ‘and he answered that his visits were purely of a business nature and refused, point-blank, to discuss the matter further.’
‘What kind of business could he have with a woman like that?’ asked Ann, and Peter shrugged his shoulders.
‘Donaldson would like to know that,’ he answered, ‘but Gourley isn’t talking. Donaldson says that the house is very poorly furnished and indescribably dirty and untidy. He says that it gives the impression of extreme poverty.’
Ann finished the remainder of her gin and Italian. The little group of which Robson formed the nucleus were talking in low voices, their heads almost touching.
‘There’s going to be trouble, Peter,’ she said. ‘Unless something is done soon . . .’
Peter agreed with her. These people had reached a pitch of tension which was liable to break out into something serious. For months they had lived in the shadow of a fear which was rapidly developing into a panic. And people in a panic were capable of anything . . .
Chapter Eleven
The crisis came suddenly and unexpectedly. Ann developed a slight headache on the following evening and, in consequence, Peter went down to the Red Lion alone. It was a clear, rather cold, night, with a thin rind of moon, and he passed several groups of villagers on his way, all whispering animatedly among themselves. It struck him as unusual, and when he reached the Red Lion he found something that was more unusual still. The bar was completely deserted.
He attracted the landlord’s attention by rapping on the counter, and ordered a pint of bitter.
‘What’s happened to everybody this evening?’ he asked, while Mr. Ruddock was drawing the beer.
‘There’s a bit of a meetin’ on,’ answered the landlord in his slow, quiet way. ‘Maybe they’ll be in presently, sir.’
But he was wrong. Nobody came in.
Peter drank his beer in solitary state and ordered another, and still nobody set foot inside the place. It was extraordinary and made him feel more than a little uneasy. He tried to draw the landlord into a conversation, but Mr. Ruddock only answered in monosyllables and seemed disinclined to talk.
‘Where is this meeting you mentioned?’ asked Peter.
‘Up on the Green,’ answered Mr. Ruddock, polishing a glass with extreme deliberation and care. ‘An’ if you was thinkin’ o’ going to ’ave a look, sir, I wouldn’t, not if I was you . . .’
‘Why not?’ demanded Peter.
‘I wouldn’t, not if I was you,’ repeated the landlord.
‘What’s the meeting about?’ asked Peter, but Mr. Ruddock appeared to have suddenly gone deaf. With a muttered excuse he disappeared through a door at the back of the bar. Peter’s uneasiness increased and so did his curiosity. Something important was going on and he was determined to find out what it was. He swallowed the remainder of his second pint quickly and left the bar, walking rapidly in the direction of the Green. When he reached it he found that it was thick with people. The entire population seemed to be gathered there, and even as he looked, belated stragglers were hurrying to join the rest. A murmur of voices reached him; a wordless murmur that was like the sound of surf upon a beach, and then this suddenly died down and was still. He saw the reason. A man had climbed up on to a bench and was haranguing the crowd. It was Robson. Peter couldn’t hear what he was saying at first, but as he got nearer the words became audible.
‘. . . stop it for good an’ all. We ain’t goin’ ter stand for no more of it. ’E was at ’is Devil’s-work an’ witchcraft agin last night. There was a light a-burnin’ in the ’ouse until the sun rose. Nobody’s goin’ to do anythin’ about it so we’ve got ter do it ourselves. Remember my kid, Ivy, an’ what ’appened to ’er an’ little Joan Coxen, an’ Kelvin’s baby an’ the rest? I say there’s only one way to stop it . . .’
An angry mutter drowned the rest of his speech.
‘Let’s go up to the ’ouse now,’ cried a voice, shrilly.
‘Aye, to the ’ouse! To the ’ouse!’ The cry was taken up and tossed from mouth to mouth until the night rang with it. An ugly and dangerous gathering, thought Peter. There was going to be trouble, and serious trouble, unless it could be prevented. He saw with deepening anxiety that every one of that excited mob was armed with stakes and improvised weapons . . .
‘Burn it,’ screamed a voice. ‘Burn the bloody place to the ground.’ And there was a roar of approval. A light blazed up, followed by another and another as pitch-soaked rags, wrapped round tree branches, were ignited and waved aloft. The lurid, smoky glare of these hastily made torches lit up the grim faces of the crowd as they began to move in a straggling procession across the Green. A large number of women were present and they kept pace with the uneven column, shouting encouragement. From cottages, from side lanes and by-ways, other men and women came hurrying to join the main throng, and in the rear went Peter, helpless to stem the maddened mob, but hoping that something might yet be done to disperse it before any serious damage resulted. The majority of the people were good, honest working men from the land who had become momentarily imbued with that half-hysterical excitement which is one of the peculiarities of mass psychology. But there was another element, too. Every town and village has its black sheep, and Peter was a
ble to pick out several. These hooligans cared little for the reason for the demonstration. All they were after was the excitement. It was easy to tell them. They were making the most noise and their threatening shouts were louder and wilder. They had worked their way up to the van of the procession and were urging the rest on, and keeping the emotions of the crowd at fever heat. Something ought to be done, thought Peter. In their present mood these people were capable of anything . . . And at that moment out of a side turning came the majestic figure of Police Constable Cropps. He stopped, stared at the throng filling the roadway, and then advanced and held up his hand.
‘’Ere,’ he demanded, loudly. ‘What’s all this, eh?’
He was brushed aside like a leaf in a gale.
‘It ain’t none of your business, Cropps,’ shouted Robson. ‘We’re going ter Gourley’s ’ouse, an’ no one ain’t goin’ for to stop us . . .’
‘An’ lynch ’im!’ cried somebody.
‘Aye, that’s right. Lynch ’im!’ screamed a dozen voices.
‘Burn down the ’ouse an’ lynch ’im . . .’
The crowd pressed on past the astonished and helpless policeman, and with them, now, went murder . . .
Peter caught Cropps by the arm.
‘Get hold of Superintendent Odds,’ he said, urgently. ‘Tell him to bring as many men as he can to Ralph Gourley’s house. Hurry, man, for God’s sake! There’ll be murder done if they don’t get here in time . . .’
The constable, still looking a little dazed, departed at a lumbering trot, and Peter set off to catch up with the mob. Gourley’s house was an isolated building set amid a small forest of trees, and the crowd swarmed through the gate and clustered in a murmuring mass round the front door.
‘Break down the door,’ shouted Robson. ‘Who’s got an axe?’
Peter decided that it was time he took an active hand in the proceedings. Somehow or other these crazy people must be stopped doing anything drastic until Odds had time to arrive. He forced his way through until he reached the porch and then he turned and faced them.
They Walk in Darkness Page 17
