by Heron Carvic
“Yes, sir. I—er—mean no, sir. I mean, yes, I did but I mean, no, she isn’t, sir.”
“Your meaning,” Delphick assured him, “is crystal clear. And how did Miss Seeton take this rigmarole?”
“Oh, very well, sir.” And all at once Bob’s discomposure left him. There was something in it, come to that. After all, the Oracle himself had told him once that Miss Seeton was a sort of universal aunt. And in the car on the way back, with Anne still calling her Aunt and laughing, and Miss Seeton herself not minding, or not seeming to, and him thinking of her in that way too, she was somehow easier to cope with. He didn’t mean she wasn’t off. She was. And half the things she did were off-er still. But lots of people had eccentric aunts, and as an aunt it was easier to—well, cope. A pity that she’d joined the Force—that was right off. But, in a way, aunt-wise, she seemed different, more—more likely somehow. Yes, he decided, he’d settle for her as an aunt.
The superintendent broke in on these reflections. “Did these young men stick around when you were all playing Happy Families?”
“Yes, sir, they did. And they were standing on the steps outside when we drove off.”
Delphick frowned. “So your cover’s blown as well as Foxon’s, but, more important, it’s blown Miss Seeton’s too. You told me you thought it was her handbag they were after?”
“I think so, sir. In the car, she seemed to think it was people pushing accidentally, but she did say that twice she nearly lost her bag.”
“Probably wanted to see her notes.”
“Fat lot of good they’d’ve done them,” remarked Brinton.
“But they aren’t to know that,” Delphick pointed out.
“We’ll need to keep a watch where she’s concerned. They appear to be a tough crew by all accounts—manners or no.” He put Miss Seeton’s sketch back on the desk.
Brinton glanced at it. “Oh, yes, by the way, what’s all this yoga breathing stuff? What’s she know about it?” Delphick interpreted. Miss Seeton, sometime previously, had taken up yoga exercises of which she had read in an advertisement to correct a certain stiffness in the joints. “You mean,” demanded Brinton, “stands on her head? That sort of thing? No wonder she does half the things she does—it’s softening of the brain.”
“I’ve got a little on Nuscience, not much.” Delphick threw over the photograph. “That’s the man they call the Master; I had a few copies run off. Name’s Hilary Evelyn, age forty-six, small-time actor; hasn’t worked in the theater for the last two years; no private means as far as we can check, but seems flush, so presumably Nuscience pays him well. In the opinion of his late colleagues, a good actor but unreliable through drink; no brains whatever; also a womanizer. I imagine he’s employed only as a figurehead. He might prove a weak link. Can’t get a line on who’s behind Nuscience. Everybody very cagey. Only name we’ve picked up is Duke, or the Duke—don’t know which, or who he is. The other time Nuscience came to police notice was in Scotland about two years ago, in the Trossachs north of Glasgow. A lot of rumors; about the end of the world. Two or three hundred people trooped down to some cave to sit it out. When they finally came up again there was a complaint that they’d been robbed. The complaint was withdrawn—or rather the man died and his wife said it was all a mistake. The Glasgow boys investigated but couldn’t prove it wasn’t suicide. He’d threatened to kill himself several times—again only the wife’s evidence—and that’s how it was left; with a very fishy smell. I asked Glasgow to let me have anything they’ve got on file and also any details or rumors that anyone remembers. I had a chat with Sir George Colveden, who’s worried about some distant cousin of his, a Mrs. Trenthorne, whom they all call Aunt Bray. Her son, Basil—Sir George won’t have him in the house—got her interested in Nuscience: she coughed up the cash for the boy to become a Greenhorn and then bought herself in as a Serene, which according to Sir George is the misnomer of the century. Her Serenity cost her a cool five thousand pounds—it’s incredible what people will fall for when it comes to insuring their immortal souls. The son was then upped to Trumpeter—God save us, the names they give themselves—presumably as a reward for bringing in his mum. I’ve checked on Master Basil and he’s one of our little boys: twenty and done everything crooked he could dream up since he escaped from his pram. His ma’s been buying him out of trouble from the age of ten and he completed his education in an approved school. Sir George thinks little Basil’s helping them milk mama for all they, and he, can get. Apparently she let slip something about a Secret Place, but clammed up and denied it when questioned. The Colvedens and their Aunt Bray had a set-to after the Maidstone do and she’s taken off to an hotel in Rye in a pet, though the son’s still in Maidstone.”
Brinton ruminated. “All right, so what it boils down to,” he said at length, “is we thought they were crooked, now we know, but no proof of anything as usual. On the other hand, they know we’re interested, which leaves them knowing more than us—as usual—and we’ll just wait, as usual, till they step out of line. As we can’t get Miss Seeton into Nuscience now—though she certainly stirred things up and tipped us off about the bodyguards—here’s something else”—he picked up a sheet of paper from his desk—“she might have a dekko at. Should be just her cuppa—things that go bump in the night. You told me once your Ass. Comm. thinks she’s a catalyst for crime; so all right, me and Sir Hubert both. As she’s stirred herself out of Nuscience, let’s stick her back in witchcraft. Potter reports”—he waved the piece of paper—“Plummergen’s got itself all of a twit. Some yobs’ve been seeing lights in the church at Iverhurst at night. Since the place isn’t used and’s falling to bits, it’s given them the jitters. After the Malebury scare they see black magic everywhere. Might be something in it—it was in Iverhurst churchyard that Potter found his bits of burnt cow. He’s had a look-see and found traces of another fire; and he thinks there’s been goings on”—he glanced at the paper—“what he calls a potential occurrence—in the church itself. Could be a tramp, sightseers, lovers, or what have you, but Potter suggests we beat the wood. What’s he think I’ve got? A private army? The wood’s behind the church,” he explained, “and comes right down to the graveyard. Could put a couple of men on, I suppose, to keep watch, but they might be there for weeks and nothing happen. I’d rather get an idea if there’s something to watch for first. Thought if we put Miss Seeton there one night—with her so full of ESP and all the rest of the alphabet—she might come up with a drawing or something that would give us a line. Anyway, now she’s on the strength might just as well use her. At worst”—he tucked the paper back into a file and closed it—“maybe she’ll start a fire of her own and burn the damn church down, which’d stop it.”
Delphick was dubious. “You’re asking a bit much, Chris; I don’t suppose she knows anything about witchcraft.”
“Then it’s high time she learned,” retorted Brinton. “According to Potter here”—he tapped the file—“half Plummergen’s got her taped as the Witch of Endor. They’ve even dragged the postmaster into it; say he’s running a witch’s shop.”
Delphick didn’t like it. “ESP or no, Chris—and don’t forget she wouldn’t recognize extrasensory perception if she met it in the street—Miss Seeton’s not a medium, she doesn’t go into trance. I can’t see what sort of drawing you’ll get out of her, sitting there catching cold in an empty church. There’d be nothing for her to go on. Try getting her to sketch it by daylight—that might get something.”
Brinton was stubborn. “No, Oracle, I want her there at night; get the feel of the place under the same conditions. I saw it by day when I was looking at bits of cow and it doesn’t mean a thing, but at night I could see it being spooky.” Delphick was unconvinced but yielded. After all, witchcraft was not his case. The chief inspector looked at Foxon. “You get yourself over to Plummergen and arrange with Miss Seeton to visit the church at night; make it early in the week.”
Foxon stood up. “Yes, sir.”
“And don�
��t,” he was told, “fall over your feet this time; don’t knock the building down and don’t have hysterics.”
After Foxon’s exit Delphick sat thoughtful. He had, as he had promised himself, been reading up on witchcraft; also he was alive to the circumstance that he was to a large extent instrumental in the launching of Miss Seeton on her new career and sensible of her aptitude for attracting turmoil. Something was nagging him. Miss Seeton’s sketch. A goat? Why had she drawn a goat? Those quick, vital cartoons of hers so often bore a meaning of which she was unaware. Something about a goat … Of course—witchcraft. Historically, from what he’d been reading on the subject, the goat had frequently been the symbol or disguise of the Devil. But then the goat, so far as he remembered, had been chiefly confined to France; certainly never in England. Still that wasn’t to say that the more modern cults hadn’t adopted it as an easy and effective disguise. Many of the better known paintings of sabbaths had included the goat. No … perhaps it was a bit farfetched. In any case there was no connection with Nuscience. He got to his feet and began to pace the office. “What we need, Chris, to get anywhere with Nuscience is background. I thought of tackling Mrs. Trenthorne, but from what Sir George has told me she’s a fool and bigoted, which means I’d get nowhere. She’d blab and all we’d’ve done would be to tip our hand. And I certainly can’t see her son spilling any beans. There’s big money behind Nuscience, which means we’ll need gang warily. One thing that Glasgow did let slip was that they’d heard rumors of witchcraft and a coven meeting at about the time of the Nuscience complaint. Can there be a connection? And if so, how? Surely the two would be diametrically opposed. No use sending a man to Glasgow to do a bit of ferreting. Too long ago and all the trails are cold. The boys there will do a better job. It’s their bailiwick and now that they’ve reason to poke around, although it’s rather ancient history, I suppose it’s barely possible they might come up with something. But that’s what bugs me: background and history. History. I feel somehow the answer’s there. I don’t see how it’s possible but”—he swung round on Brinton—“don’t laugh—historically Miss Seeton’s drawing of the goat could by a stretch of the imagination link up with witchcraft.”
“Some stretch,” observed Brinton.
“Right.” Delphick was impatient. “I said it was reaching, but I’ve had more experience of the odd quirks in her sketches than you. I feel … I feel somehow the answer should be there. If we could find some connection … Could there be something somewhere in their history which would establish a link between witchcraft and Nuscience?”
chapter
~7~
The link which the superintendent was seeking had been forged in Scotland some two years previously when two businessmen had met. Both men were ministers of religion: both had taken Christianity as a basis for their respective cults on the sound principle that since Christianity had proved reasonably successful it should give a firm foundation on which to adjust and improvise plus a ready-made audience willing to listen to negation or interpretation according to individual preference.
One man denied the Christian doctrine, reversed its teaching, derided Good and worshiped Evil, insisting that the True Faith sprang only from Below. The other professed to accept the Christian creed but expanded and improved upon it by preaching that the True Faith gravitated solely from Above; from the stars.
One glorified Sin as a way of life, the means to a paradise in Damnation after death. The other, more subtly, assuming sin to be inevitable, urged that without sin there could be no redemption and held that Celestial Happiness lay for all mankind upon the planet of his choice.
One, refuting Christianity, adopted a perverted form of an old, once happy, religion which through abuse and the denunciations of the early Christians has come to be known as Satanism. The other, embracing Christianity, adapted it to a new religion, Nuscience.
These two men, divergent in their approach, had two things in common, method and aim: to hoodwink the gullible; to make money.
By coincidence, or to be accurate, by the incidence of their professions, both men were nameless. Each in the course of years had used many aliases and names no longer had a meaning. One was of medium height and sturdy build and was inconspicuous and, fearing perhaps to lose his identity in his shifting world, was known as Duke. The other, tall, dark and saturnine, in his shiftless world had no permanent title. On one occasion when he had been checking a reference in the Book of Common Prayer a colleague had insisted on a name by which to call him. The tall man had turned to the confirmation service and from the restricted choice had chosen N. And N. he had remained.
Duke had selected Hell as his hunting ground. After studying the subject he had started witches’ covens in various parts of the British Isles, attracting the seekers after pleasure and sensation by including the more lurid ceremonies, the more erotic details; but human sacrifice he frowned upon as unrewarding; murder, if at any time advisable, should only be done for his personal advantage. He insisted that all members at the meetings should be masked: the men to wear an animal’s head of their choice and the women to be disguised by black face masks. It was a rule that whatever the members might take off during the ceremonies—and after a sabbath feast, in the course of the ensuing dance and orgy, they frequently took off everything—in no circumstances was the mask to be removed. It was explained to members on their initiation that the rule of the mask was for their own protection. No member could identify another and by the same token, in the event of trouble, no member could attempt the blackmail of another. Duke had decided from the start that the perquisite of blackmail must remain strictly his own. His physique was unimpressive for the role of Devil in these saturnalia, so to correct the impression he had chosen a long black shift and the Continental tradition of a goat’s head. He prospered in a modest way, leaving each coven in the charge of a lieutenant or subdevil during his absences. The fees for membership were reasonable and the levy on those members who proved themselves worthy of blackmail was not extreme. Duke preferred the safety of an income derived in small sums from the many to the danger involved by demanding excessive amounts from the few. Each coven had its nucleus of thirteen and these with the subdevil as their leader were free to enroll as many followers as they wished, while taking reasonable precautions. The rules were few but strict. A convert renounced all erstwhile errors of faith, devoting body and soul to the Devil, who must be obeyed in all things. The vow itself was simple: one hand was placed upon the crown of the head, the other upon the sole of one foot, and all that lay between the two hands was dedicated to the service of the new Master. A covenant was signed. The covenants had been almost Duke’s only outlay. He had had them ornamentally printed on parchment and they insisted, in old and misspelled English, on the candidate’s free will and consent. Duke had felt, however, that in these effete modern times the historic cutting of the novice’s finger for the signing in blood might prove unpopular, so he had mixed red ink with a little blue, thickened it slightly with cornstarch, put it in stoppered phials and called it Bull’s Blood. The covenants, signed in this Bull’s Blood, he retained. Duke’s running expenses were exactly that—travel. He had no salaries to pay. The covens worked for pleasure. They provided their own black candles, black altar cloths, reversed crucifixes, or other trappings that took their fancy. They bought their own books, did their own research, brought their own food and drink to sabbath feasts, tried out their own spells, learned incantations and, should their imaginations become too free, a sharp reproof on Duke’s next visit soon brought them into line. He had started his covens in Scotland as being the traditional hunting ground of witches and it was during a visit to the Glasgow coven that he had first met N.
Like Duke, N. too had read books and studied his chosen subject. He had explored the various idiocies in the name of this or that religion which had sprung up over the years, noting that the mainspring of each creed was the gospel that personal salvation could be bought for cash. As a prototype, he had pi
cked on one which had been introduced by a man who had flourished by giving lectures for a short time in London’s West End some thirty years before and whose books still sold well in America and occasionally in Britain. The blatant gibberish of these sermons had appealed to his cynical mind. To suit his purpose they needed little titivation, the main improvement necessary being a stronger emphasis on the ever-green and successful catchpenny that the way to true redemption lay through sin. There was nothing, N. had grasped, like a delicately tinted license to sin for bringing in the customers. His researchers had only heightened his conviction that people needed an assured man prepared to tell them what to do—and the more nonsensical the better—to give them clear-cut directions, rules and punishments, badges to make them feel they belonged to a brotherhood and the assurance that they themselves would be all right and never mind the rest. Provided that these ingredients were well mixed and well put over, there was almost no limit to what people would believe and, more important, no limit to what people then would pay. So Nuscience was born.
To anyone operating a witches’ coven in Glasgow the Trossachs were an inevitable choice. All the traditional elements were present: water, trees and rocks. The last two features Duke could appreciate: trees aided concealment, and a good-size rock made a convenient focal point for the others to dance around and a commanding platform for himself. He himself had never seen the need for the proximity of water since it had no place in the ceremonies and, in spite of all his reading, he had never grasped that the ancient fertility rites applied principally to earth, not to human beings. However, the Trossachs were a suitable distance from the city: far enough to avoid interference by the authorities; near enough to be easily accessible by car.
In N.’s case the center of the city had to be his operating theater. He needed to hire a large hall and to arrange for publicity. From the beginning he had assumed for himself the title of Master and he had chosen the name Nuscience for his doctrine because, although he was aware of the automatic puns that would be made, an easy pun bred quick advertisement and in any case to become a nuisance was the sum of his intention. On this particular occasion he had determined to try out a new idea. All the more modern religions from Christianity onward had prophesied the end of the world at intervals; he saw no reason why his should lag behind and he had no objection to arranging an end to the world provided that it served his own ends. He had seen a way to achieve his object for a small outlay, his chief necessity being a large cave. He scoured the countryside and at length found what he wanted in the Trossachs. He had put it about among his adherents that the End of the World Was Nigh; just how Nigh he would divulge at his next lecture. Even he was surprised at the enthusiasm with which the rumor had been received. Human beings it would appear always welcomed the idea of total destruction and welcomed it even more ardently if they, as individuals, could be assured of an out. N. had stocked the cave with an impressive array of provisions, then had given his lecture, informing the congregation that by careful calculation he could now give them the exact date of Armageddon. The End of the World, he warned them, was due in a week’s time. He proceeded to arrange with the best-heeled and most fervent of his disciples that they should retire to a Secret Place, bringing with them all their portable valuables, to await the event. As he had expected, the majority of them settled for money and jewels. They had been trained from childhood to worship money as their god, and he had foreseen that it was unlikely to occur to them that neither money nor jewels would avail them as a commercial asset after the holocaust.
