`I'm sorry,' Molly put in. `Christina did tell me the first time I talked to her. I ought to have told you, but there has been no mention of it since, and it entirely slipped my memory when I was telling you her history last night.'
`Why may it be important?' Christina asked.
`Because it is the principal landmark in anyone's life. In addition the three sevens have a special magical property. As it is Satanists who are after you, that would explain why they are so anxious to get hold of you by that particular date. It looks now as if they are planning some special ritual at which the presence of an unmarried girl of twenty one is required. To make use of her on her actual birthday would, of course, enormously increase the potency of the conjuration. In fact, that is probably essential to the success of the whole business.!
'If that is so, and we can protect her over Saturday, she will be out of the wood then?' John put in eagerly.
C. B. nodded. `Yes, if we can do that I think the worst danger to her will have been averted. But we should still have to get her freed from this spell, or whatever it is, that causes her personality to become evil at night. Her father must hold the key to that; so putting her in prison will not affect my decision to go and demand his help.'
John looked at his mother. `If Christina is to be put behind bars there will be nothing that I can do here; so, if you don't mind, Mumsie, I think I'll go with C. B. to England. Should Christina's father resent C.B.’s interference, I could justify it by telling him that I am her fiancé. That might make him more willing to co operate.'
`Yes, that's true. Then go by all means, dear.
'If you do, and her old man thinks you would make a good husband for her, this fake engagement of yours may land you in for a breach of promise case,' C. B. grinned.
`Not a bit of it.' John laughed. `If she jilts me, it is I who will bring the action. You've forgotten that she is an heiress.'
Christina coloured slightly, but joined in the general laughter.
After a glance at his watch, C. B. said, `It is half past ten; so if John and I are to get to England to day, we ought to be moving. I wonder which is the best bet for an aircraft, Nice or Marseilles.'
`Nice is some thirty kilometres nearer,' replied Malouet, `and there is a plane that leaves at one o'clock for London. Even if you cannot get places on it, a lot of air traffic passes through Nice now; so you should be able to get an Air France or some other line by which you could go via Paris.'
`Going by Nice has the additional advantage that you could collect your things at the villa on the way,' Molly added.
`Come on, then.' C. B. stood up. `I'll pay the bill while one of you telephone the .local garage for a car.'
Malouet did the telephoning, and ten minutes later an ancient but comfortable car arrived from the village to pick them up. The sun was hot now and as they skidded down the rough track they could smell the scent of the pines and wild thyme growing in the marquis through which it ran. At the village they turned on to the main coast road and three quarters of an hour's drive brought them to Molly's villa. There, Christina, John and C. B. hastily packed suitcases and said good bye to her. Another three quarters of an hour, with the driver urged on by the promise of a handsome pourboire, and the others were set down at the Nice airport.
It was twenty five to one when they got there, and they were lucky enough to pick up two seats that had been returned that morning on the B.E.A. plane. C. B. sent a telegram to his office, asking that his car should be sent to meet him at Northolt; then, as there was still a quarter of an hour to spare, they had drinks and some delicious snacks at the airport bar.
When the time came to say good bye, John and Christina both tried to make light of the matter; and he jokingly told her that when he met her at the prison gates on Monday he would have his pockets sewn up, as it was certain that by then she would have become a real old lag. Since they were in public he made no attempt to kiss her, but their eyes held one another's in a long glance as they parted. Malouet watched with her until the plane had taken off, then they returned to the car and did the last four miles in to the centre of Nice.. By two o'clock Christina’s name had been entered on the prison register, and, now a number, she was being escorted by a fat, garlic breathing wardress to a cell.
The journey in the aircraft proved uneventful; and, having been up most of the night, John and C. B. slept through the greater part of it. The Cote d'Azur, with its sun and palms, was soon left behind. Over Avignon they ran into cloud and only occasional patches of land or sea were visible for the rest of the way. When they same down at Northolt it was raining. Everyone at the airport was polite and helpful, so the formalities of landing were over in a few minutes, and a pretty air hostess led them out to the place where C.B.’s car was waiting. He took it over from the junior who had bought it out, made John get into the driver's seat, and soon after four o'clock they set out for Essex.
North of London the earliest daffodils and almond trees were not yet out, so there was no colour in the gardens, and the branches of the trees still displayed their winter bareness. The skies were grey, a chill wind was blowing and the rain lashed against the windows of the car; so their sixty mile drive was a depressing contrast to the one through a smiling land of summer they had taken only that morning. It was already dark when at six o'clock they entered Colchester.
There, they engaged rooms at the Red Lion for the night, dropped their bags, and, having enquired the way to Beddows Agricultural Tractor plant, drove straight out to it.
As the factory was working night shifts, it was brilliantly lit and still a hive of activity. On asking for Mr. Beddows they were told that he was not there, and had not been to his office for a week or more. They then asked to see his secretary. She had gone home for the night, but after stating that their business was personal they were shown into a garish modem waiting room. Presently a Mr. Hicks came down to see them, and he proved to be a senior member of the staff. In spite of all their pressing that they must see Mr. Beddows on a matter of the utmost urgency, he assured them that his chief had gone abroad ten days before, leaving no address, and orders that all correspondence was to be dealt with in his absence as he could give no certain date for his return.
Their failure to learn Beddows' whereabouts was a bitter disappointment; so they returned to the Red Lion, had a wash, and sat there very despondently drinking Gimlets until dinner was served. The meal, and even a bottle of claret, followed by half a bottle of port, to wash it down, did little to cheer them.
There was, however, still a chance that something might be learned at Beddows' home, so at half past eight they got out the car again and took the road leading east out of Colchester to Walton on the Naze.
The country they were now entering was that northeastern segment of Essex which has its curve upon the sea and its two sides formed by the Rivers Stour and Colne. Its only towns of any size are the pleasure resort of Clacton in the south and the naval base of Harwich in the extreme north. For many centuries the two rivers almost enclosing it shut it off from easy communication with neighboring districts; so no great highway passes through it, and to this day it remains almost as unindustrialized as it was when Cromwell raised a company of his Roundheads from its scattered hamlets.
When they had covered a few miles the road forked, and they ran on through a series of narrow, winding lanes. Twice they took wrong turnings and had to ask their way once at an old thatched cottage and once of a benighted cyclist from whose mackintosh cape the rain was streaming : but at length they came to a triangular village green with half a dozen buildings dotted round it. One was a pub called the Weaver's Arms. On C. B. enquiring at it, they found that this was Little Bentford and that The Grange lay about two miles beyond it on the road to Tendring.
After following a sharp bend for half a mile, they passed an ancient stone church with a squat, square tower, and a little further on a moderate sized private house of hideous Victorian Gothic design; they then ran through a wood and out again
into the open country.
From the description C. B. had been given, they had no difficulty in finding The Grange. It stood some way from the road in a slight hollow and a curved drive led down to it. As the car approached and the headlights threw it up, they saw it was one of those inelegant, nondescript houses, not uncommon in the English countryside, which have resulted from two or more generations adding bits in the Style of their own day to an original building. No light showed in any of its windows; in spite of the rain a suggestion of mist lurked round it up to the first floor level, and it had a chill, forbidding air.
C. B. got out and rang the front door bell. He could hear it ringing, but no one came to answer it; so, after waiting a few minutes, he rang again. Still there was no reply and there was no sound of movement within the house.
John left the car, went over to join him and said, `I remember Christina telling us that the only servants were a couple named the Jutsons, and that they lived over the garage, in the flat where she was born. Let's go round there and see if they are about.'
At the back of the house they saw lights in two first floor windows of the outbuildings and, locating a narrow door next to the big ones of the garage, C. B. rang the bell beside it. Footsteps sounded on the stairs and the door was opened by a thin faced, rather sour looking middle aged woman. To C.B.’s enquiry she replied
'No: Mr. Beddows is away. I'm afraid I can't help You.'
C. B. clinked some silver in his pocket. `We're very anxious to get in touch with him; perhaps you could suggest someway. ..'
A man's voice cut him short by calling, `Who's that, Mary?'
There came more clumping of feet, then Jutson appeared and pushed past his wife. He was a small man with grey hair close cropped at the sides; his face was careworn and tight lipped. He was in shirt sleeves and wearing an unbuttoned waistcoat, but no collar. A wireless was reeling off sporting news upstairs, and evidently he was annoyed at being disturbed, as he gave his callers a most unfriendly stare while C. B. repeated his request.
`No.' He shook his bullet head. `The guv'ner's from home. Has been for near a fortnight, an' we dunno when 'e'll be back.'
`Can't you possibly think of someone who might be able to help us?' John asked persuasively. `We are friends of Miss Chris ... Miss Ellen Beddows.'
`That don't make no difference. I tell you 'e ain't 'ere, an' we dunno where 'e is neither. 'Tain't none of our business; an' it's no good you fiddlin' with your note case neither. G'night.'
With that Jutson slammed the door and they were left standing in the rain. As they walked back to the car John said miserably, `What appalling luck! Everything depends on our getting hold of him. How else can we hope to free Christina from this beastly thing that gets into her at night? There must be some way we can trace him.'
`I'll get on to a pal of mine at Scotland Yard tomorrow. They will do more for me than for most people without asking any questions.' C. B. made the promise in the hope of cheering John up, but he was by no means optimistic of getting results, as it now seemed certain that Beddows was still abroad.
Climbing into the car again, they took the road back to Little Bentford. Half a mile before they reached it, on the corner of a lane opposite the church, there was a pillar box, and the car lights showed a man just posting a letter in it. His back was turned to them, but they could see that he was elderly, as a rim of silvery hair caught the light between the collar of a dark cloak and the clerical hat he was wearing. As they passed him John said in an excited whisper
`I'll swear that was Canon Copely Syle. Christina said that he lives in the village at a house called The Priory; so it must have been.'
C. B. turned quickly in his seat and looked back. He saw that the elderly clergyman was now crossing the road diagonally towards the pseudo Gothic house. `Pull up, John,' he called, as they entered the long bend that led to the village green. `I think I've got the germ of an idea.'
John brought the car to a standstill, and they sat in it for some minutes in silence, while C. B. smoked a cigarette. As he stubbed the end out he said, `Turn round and drive back a little way, so that you can park in the shadow of that belt of trees. I'm going to pay the old boy a visit. Maybe it will come to nothing, but with a little luck I might find out a lot.'
When John had driven the car in under the trees, C. B. murmured in his most conspiratorial voice, `Now listen, partner. This bird may be dangerous. If he catches me out all sorts of unpleasant things might happen to yours truly. I don't want you to start anything prematurely, because if matters go well I may be with him for a considerable time. But if I am not out of his house by midnight you are to go along to the village, telephone the police, then come in to get me.'
14
The Black Art
The rain was still falling in a steady downpour, and now that the light was failing the little turrets surmounting the steep gables roofing the house presented only a blurred outline. As C. B. squelched his way up the garden path the coppice twenty yards away on his right was already pitch dark, but to his left the tall, ancient yews of the churchyard still stood out, like sombre sentinels guarding the dead, against the heavy grey sky that presaged a night of inky blackness.
Under the Gothic porch there lingered enough light for him to make out a scrolled iron bell pull beside an arched front door of solid oak and studded with massive nailheads making a curious pattern. He jerked it vigorously and heard the bell clang hollowly in a distant part of the house. No approaching footsteps told him that anyone was on the way to answer it, but after a moment the door swung silently open on well oiled hinges.
Framed against the dim light from a Moorish lantern that hung in the centre of a small square hall stood a manservant of a type that one would hardly have expected to find in an Essex village. He wore a red fez and was robed in a white burnoose. His skin was very dark, but only his thick lips suggested Negro blood; and C. B. put him down at once as an Egyptian. Crossing his black hands on his chest he made a deep bow, then waited silently until C. B. asked
`Is Canon Copely Syle in?'
The man salaamed again and replied in excellent English, a slight lisp alone betraying his foreign origin, `My master has just settled down to his writing, and at such times he is averse to being disturbed. But if you will give me your name, sir, I will enquire if he is willing to receive you.'
`My name is Verney; but that won't convey anything to him. Just say that I arrived from Nice this afternoon.'
As C. B. spoke he stepped into the hall and the Egyptian closed the door. His felt slippers making no sound on the tiled floor and his white robe billowing out behind him, he seemed almost to float away down the corridor. Two minutes later he returned; his white teeth flashed in a smile, he bowed and murmured, `Allow me, sir,, to take your things. Then if you will follow me ...'
Having divested himself of his wet coat, C. B. was led to the back of the house and shown into a room that, unlike the appearance of the house itself and the Egyptian servant, had nothing even suggestive of the sinister about it. In fact it might well have been the workroom of a wealthy but unimaginative clergyman. Wealthy, because of the great array of valuable books that covered all its walls from floor to ceiling: unimaginative, because its owner was evidently content to have left unchanged its Victorian decor and hideous furnishings of elaborately carved light oak. Nevertheless, it had an air of solid comfort. It was a large room, but the fact that it was not very lofty made it cozier than it would otherwise have been. The light from three standard lamps shone warmly on the gilding of the books and a big log fire blazed on an open hearth. In front of it stood the Canon.
C. B. thought John's description of him good. He was shortish and plump both in face and figure. His cheeks were rosy but tended to sag a little; the rest of his skin had such a childlike pinkness that it was difficult to visualize him ever having the need to shave. His forehead was broad and smooth; his long silver hair swept back from it to fall in curls on the nape of his neck, but gave no impre
ssion of untidiness, suggesting rather the elegance of a Georgian parson. His eyes were hazel, but very pale, and his expression benign. His features were well cut, the only thing unpleasant about them being an exceptionally thick and out jutting lower lip. He was dressed in a black frock coat, ribbed satin vest, clerical collar, breeches, gaiters and black shoes with silver buckles; all of which added to the impression that he was a divine of a past generation.
Stepping forward, he smiled and extended a plump hand as he said, `I take it you have news for me, Mr. er Verney. It was good of you to come here in such shocking weather.'
His smile detracted from the pleasantness of his expression, as it revealed a lower row of blackened, uneven teeth. His hand was slightly damp and so soft as to seem almost boneless. C. B. found its touch so repulsive that he had to restrain himself from withdrawing his own unduly quickly, as he replied
`Yes, it's a horrid night, isn't it? But our mutual friend, de Grasse, had an urgent message for you, and knowing that I was returning to England to day he asked me to come here this evening.'
The Canon pushed a big horsehair covered armchair a little nearer to the fire and murmured, `Sit down, Mr. Verney. Sit down and warm yourself.' Then he bustled over to a table on which stood an array of drinks, and added, `A whisky and soda now? You must need it after your chilly journey.'
C. B. would have preferred to accept neither food nor drink while in that house, but as his object was to win Copely Syle’s confidence he accepted, and, producing his pipe, said, `D'you mind if I smoke?'
`No, no. Please do.' The Canon carried over two whiskies, handed one to his caller, and went on, `I trust you have not come to tell me that de Grasse has bungled this affair. It is to me of the utmost importance.'
`I gathered that.' C. B. began to fill his pipe. `So I'm afraid you won't be very pleased to hear what I have to say. Mind, it's through no fault of de Grasse that things have gone wrong, but on account of the interference of that infernal young man, John Fountain.'
To The Devil A Daughter mf-1 Page 21
