The Professor’s guests were motionless, their faces pale in the yellow lamplight. James’s wide, white forehead was furrowed in an effort of concentration, and he was aware of the puzzled glances of the policemen. The Rev. Duncan Nicholson, however, gave no sign either of strain or amazement. Mr. Archibald MacLean’s rather protruding eyes were staring strangely at the Professor. Dr. Black snipped off the end of a cigar with fierce intentness.
“In the ritual of which I speak,” went on the Professor slowly, “the fire festival took a leading part, and the myth of the Norse god, Balder, stood to the magic of its rites in a manner closely after the relation of theory to practice. It is my belief, however, that the cult was of an even more ancient origin than the myth itself, and those with whom I have laboured always agreed with me that the myth was merely a story which people told to explain this cult and others like it …
Balder, as you know, was so protected that neither fire nor water, metals nor stones, earth nor trees, sickness nor poisons, nor beasts and birds and creeping things would hurt him. All these had sworn to the gods to guard his life and spare him. Only the mistletoe, on account of its insignificance, was omitted in the general request for protection. And an enemy of Balder made a spear of a twig of mistletoe and threw it at the god and pierced him to the heart. And a huge fire was made on Balder’s ship and his dead body was burned amid the lamentations of the gods … That, in brief, is the tale that is told in the younger or prose Edda.
“Balder, it is believed by most scholars, represented the oak tree, which had to be cut down and burned at certain seasons to ensure benefits to men. But before the oak could be killed, the mistletoe which grew upon it, and which was the symbol of its life, had to be cut. That was a Druidical belief, common to other European religions. But in the rites of the cult to which I refer other factors were present, factors which differentiate it with certainty from the religion of the Druids. Not only had the oak to be burned, but a living representation of Balder had to be killed also. Not only had the oak to be sacrificed by the symbolic means of the mistletoe, but the human sacrifice had also to be killed by the same instrument.”
James shifted uneasily in his chair, and he passed a hand swiftly through his great mop of red hair. Slowly understanding was beginning to creep into his brain — an understanding of something incredibly evil which he could not before have believed possible.
Professor Campbell took a sip of his coffee before continuing.
‘‘The difficulty which I — and others of whom I shall speak later — encountered at this stage in the unravelling of the rites of the ancient cult was to discover the manner in which the victims were slain by a sprig of mistletoe. It was fairly evident that the mistletoe must stand for something which could actually cause the death of a man or woman. True understanding, however, did not come for months — until I remembered the Aryan reverence for the oak and the association of the tree with the great god of the thunder and of the sky — an association probably merely an inference based on the frequency with which the oak was struck by lightning. And as this idea struck me I recalled also the passage in Pliny which states that the Druids worshipped the mistletoe because they believed it to have fallen from heaven. Could the believers in this other, more ancient, cult have thought that the mistletoe had dropped on the oak as a flash of lightning?
“While I worked at my old manuscripts my notion gradually grew to a certainty. In theory, if not always in practice, the victims of the cult died by lightning — by a thunderbolt from the sky.
“Gentlemen,” said the Professor, “I could give you more intimate details concerning the cult, details which would scarify your very souls … I could tell you of the rites of the burning hand; of the orgies which succeeded their festivals; of the fate of consecrated women, who were always chosen from without the circle of believers. But I have no desire to do more to-night than to provide you with a faint background for what I intend you later to hear … It will be sufficient to say that, like the devotees of Druidism, the followers of the cult met in lonely places — in green glades and tree-covered hillsides — when the moon was high, and held ghastly festival at certain periods of the year. These periods correspond in the most part to the more modern Beltane and Samhain, our own May Day and Hallow’een. But their greatest festival was on Midsummer’s Eve. It was then that the groves shone fair in the moon. It was then that there glistened the green robes of the High Priests. It was then that there sparkled the golden sickles with which they cut down the mistletoe to lay on the naked breasts of the sacrifices. And, gentlemen, this is of the highest importance: a further lesser festival was always held upon the seventh day after Midsummer … ”
Professor Campbell paused. All of his guests knew by this time what he was about to say; and yet when he spoke the effect of his words was as awesome as the first sudden clang of a death-knell.
“My friends,” he said, “that cult is alive and strong in Britain at the present time.”
CHAPTER V
A quick choking sigh escaped from the throat of Mr. Archibald MacLean. Dr. Black pulled impatiently at his cigar, while James lit his third cigarette. The Rev. Duncan Nicholson’s thin lips were sucked in tightly around the stem of an empty pipe. Major Dallas polished his eyeglass, placed it in his right eye, and began smoothing the ends of his waxed moustache with darting movements of his white hands. Inspector McMillan’s lower lip hung pendulously, as if all physical energy had left him; but Detective-Inspector McKay’s lean, hard face was set and stern.
No one spoke. The personality of the little stout Professor had them all in the spell of its power. His words had been set in a mould of truth and knowledge, which rendered scepticism impossible.
“The discovery of the modern existence of this ghastly ritual was made some five years ago,” he said, “by the Right Reverend Kenneth Millar, with whom, by reason of our common interest in ancient things, I had become very intimate, and myself.”
James noticed the sadness in the eyes of their host as he referred to his old friend. The editor of the Gazette was beginning slowly to realise how the recent tragedies must have affected the old man, and he marvelled at the latter’s calmness and courage in the terrible circumstances.
“At the time,” continued Professor Campbell quietly, “we were working on a book which we recently brought out in collaboration, entitled The Religious History of Pre-Christian Britain. It is a volume which some of you may have read; for it has already acquired the status of a textbook at several of our universities. A possibility of the presence of the cult came to our notice while we were poring over some of the oldest Gaelic records in existence — tracts called Dinnsenchus — in which famous places are enumerated, together with legends relating to them. A strange phrase occurred in the old manuscripts with such frequency and with such an apparent lack of relevance that Millar and I were deeply puzzled and intrigued as to its significance.
“This phrase was Na Daoine Deadh Ghinn, of which an almost perfect translation is the Greek word Eumenides, ‘the well-meaning ones.’ As all of you will realise, the phrase was singularly suggestive, for the ‘well-meaning ones’ is the euphemistic word which was used by the ancient Greeks to denote the Furies, the terrible hell-witches of their mythology. The ancients were always possessed of this habit of referring in a propitiatory manner to those beings whom they held in fear and dread, and probably the ‘well-meaning ones’ of the Celts were to them no less terrible than the Furies were to the Greeks. That, at any rate, was how we argued.
“And then an old manuscript came into my hands in the ordinary course of my vocation. It was sent to the University by an Irish landowner named McGill, who had found it in the cellar of his castle in Donegal, and it cleared up the mystery for us to such an extent that our souls were filled with horror …
“That the cult has survived through the centuries is due almost entirely to the fact that its beliefs and practices have been handed down by the fathers to their eldest sons or daughter
s, who are sworn on a fatal oath to continue them, until death releases them from their vows. Our subsequent cautious inquiries and investigations established the presence of the ritual in many parts of Britain — on a very small scale, you understand, but, at the same time, an ever-present menace to the peace and safety of our country. We could, however, do nothing openly against it. Neither the Home Office nor the police would listen to our story, though time and again we tried to make them understand. We had no actual proof, you see, that any atrocities had been committed by the cult within recent years, and we could not exhibit legal proof that any one individual was a member of the body. We were dismissed as two queer old fellows with antiquarian bees in our bonnets. But each time we read of a person who had been struck down by lightning or burned in a great fire we wondered in our hearts.
“Millar and I decided, therefore, to form a kind of secret society, the members of which should include archaeologists like ourselves who could appreciate the gravity of the situation without the aid of legal proof. As time went on it grew steadily in numbers, until we were over five hundred strong and had representatives in every part of Britain, watching and waiting for anything definite of which to inform the authorities. But nothing occurred until this Midsummer’s Eve … I am under the impression that during the last few decades the power of the cult had steadily been waning until it almost dwindled away altogether, and that only this year did it receive some mysterious impetus. What that impetus was I have not the faintest knowledge. But it is a terrible power, and one which has taken us completely by surprise.
“Our membership included almost two hundred clergymen and priests, twenty of these being on the inner council of fifty. The Reverend Kenneth Millar was chairman of this inner council, while I held the post of secretary and general organiser. Two of the ministers who have been murdered, the Reverend Archibald Allan and the Reverend Augustus Wainwright, were of the select few.
“I do not think, however, that Na Daoine Deadh Ghinn — in their rejuvenated state — are aware of the existence of the Society, or that when they decided to sacrifice leaders of a rival religion they knew the inestimable harm with which there were about to visit our work. If they had realised our knowledge of their activities they would never have risked such a wholesale series of crimes. But their purpose in committing these dreadful outrages is, I think, clear. They wished, for one thing, to direct a telling blow at the very fountain-head of Christianity at the present day, and, secondly, to put out of the way men whose antiquarian researches might disclose the existence of their cult. Not without reason they believed that they would remain undetected in connection with the crimes. Their use of electricity as an instrument of murder — an instrument which, as far as I know, has never before been detected as used for such a purpose — would strengthen them in their trust, for in very few cases does it leave any signs of its work on the human body different from those left by lightning.”
*
Professor Campbell’s face had grown pinched, and the ruddiness in his cheeks had faded. A marble clock on the mantelpiece chimed eleven, and James saw that the big bay windows which looked out on to the front garden were now black oblongs against the light of the room.
“During our years of watching,” continued the old man, “we were always learning more and more facts concerning the ‘well-meaning ones.’ Now that we knew of their existence, certain passages in our old Celtic manuscripts took on an entirely new significance, and from them we were able to cull information regarding the best manner of our investigations. We learnt of their belief in the reincarnation of souls and of their deep superstition. We learned that many of the members were students of the science of hypnotism; and, though we could not prove it, we believed that lately electrocution had gradually displaced burning in regard to their sacrifices.
“As a matter of fact, many of our theories were actually confirmed by one of the ‘well-meaning ones’ themselves, who had decided to break his vows and expose the evil of the cult. He was a young man — scarcely more than twenty-five years of age — who had just heard from his father of the terrible burden which he would have to carry with him through life, and whose soul revolted at the prospect. He came to my house in Edinburgh one dark winter night about eighteen months ago, babbling in his fear, but determined to tell ‘someone who would understand’ of the maddening secret in his heart. He would not for very terror divulge his own name or the names of the leaders of the cult; but he stated with certainty that its headquarters had lately been established in Blaan, and that the High Priest and his retinue lived in that parish. Orders were issued from that quiet and out-of-the-world spot to every part of Britain … I told him to come back the next day, when he could tell his story to the Chief Constable of Edinburgh and to a Home Office representative in the privacy of my house; but on the next day I learned that a man answering his description had been killed in Princes Street by a fast-moving car which was never afterwards traced. As the body remained unidentified we were again prevented from getting to grips with the cult by the same old stumbling-block — lack of legal evidence.
“A few months later I decided to retire from my professorship and take a house in Blaan. My intention, of course, was to try to discover the identity of the leaders, and to find out their place of worship in the parish. It was a hard task, for it might be that any person to whom I spoke was himself or herself one of the cult. Other members of our society in all parts of the country heightened their vigilance with a similar end in view. Only about a month ago Millar reported to me that the information being received from our members had at last become valuable: certain individuals had aroused suspicion, and in almost every corner of the land places where worship was probably held had been located. These, in every instance, were quiet glens and hollows, tree-filled, in which large flat stones lay in certain positions. They seemed innocent enough to the unsuspicious passerby, for no traces of worship were ever left behind to be discovered after the date of a festival.
“My own quest had been partially successful. Though I had failed to unmask the High Priest of the Order and to find out his dwelling, I had identified to my own satisfaction certain people in this district as being members of the cult, and I had discovered their secret shrine … My difficulty, however, and the difficulty which faced other members of the Society, was that in practically every instance the individuals whom we suspected were, to all outward appearances at any rate, quiet-living members of the community, And we should have found it almost impossible, without material proof, to persuade the police of their connection with the cult. If only we had tried once again to persuade the authorities of what we knew seven terrible tragedies might have been averted … ”
Professor Campbell, it seemed to James, had suddenly become a shrunken and somewhat pathetic figure. It was apparent that the strain of recounting his awful knowledge was now telling upon him; for his sentences were becoming jerky, and his very form of speech was an obvious effort. It might be that by some twisted reasoning he imagined himself to be to some extent blameworthy for the death of the seven ministers. But he squared his shoulders and continued:
“We knew, of course, that as Midsummer’s Eve is one of the most important festivals of Na Daoine Deadh Ghinn, a sacrifice of some kind would be made that night in one part of the kingdom at least. But though all the efforts of the Society were concentrated on discovering where that sacrifice might take place, we received no inkling of what actually did occur … I fear that our plans and precautions were puny and childish as compared with the power against us — a power which, unknown to us, had been strengthened financially by some outside agency. But with our lack of outside support all that we could do was to watch and wait. We ourselves could take no initiative in the matter; for it was estimated by the Moderator that the members of the cult outnumbered our Society by more than eight to one.
“It is my belief,” he went on, “that the ‘well-meaning ones’ are determined to exterminate all those whom they imagine migh
t have the knowledge to discover the presence of their ritual. Seven ministers — the mystic seven of Celtic mythology — were chosen on Midsummer’s Eve. Seven laymen will be marked as sacrifices for the lesser Festival on Wednesday. I myself may be among that number.
“But I have some confidence that we may prevent the accomplishment of such a scheme … For one thing, the ‘well-meaning ones’ are not, I think, aware of the existence of our Society, and to-night all over the country, members — like myself — are informing the police of what they know, and the net is drawing closer around Na Daoine Deadh Ghinn. Now that something definite — something terrible — has occurred, the police should not be long in finding definite proof — proof that will lead to the disruption of the cult for good and all. An obvious search, of course, is for the electrical apparatus and dynamo.
“Another reason for my faith that the days of the cult are now nearing an end may seem to you rather a strange and feeble one. It is this … ”
The Professor’s eyes lit up for a moment, and as he paused his bearing was more eager than it had been since he had commenced his strange narrative.
“Early in the sixteenth century,” he said, “there lived in this parish an old man named Brion McShenog — known later as the Blaan Seer — who was reputed to have the second sight. Many of his sayings became bywords in Scotland, and it is stated that several of them have been proved in modern days to have been inspired. One of them, indeed, came true in every detail when the MacDonell Treasure was found on Craig Dheatg — three miles off the Blaan shore — some years ago. All of you will remember the circumstances.*
Death by the Mistletoe Page 7
