The Age of Exodus

by Gavin Scott

  “And you know this because?”

  “Because as I said to you on the boat, there are no such things as Sumerian demons outside the imaginations of very gullible people. Hopefully that does not include you or anyone else in the New York Police Department.”

  “And how was it you came to be the lucky fella who discovered the body?” said O’Connell, studiously unprovoked.

  “I already told all this to the police at Flushing Meadows,” said Forrester, “so I’m assuming you already know. I was going to speak to someone from the Jewish Agency and was told he and Loppersum had gone for a walk together in that direction.”

  “In other words, when you went to the police with your story about finding the body, you already had the name of the suspect to give them.”

  “I didn’t accuse Aubrey Eban of killing Loppersum,” said Forrester, “and I have no reason to think he did. He was just the last person to be seen with him.”

  “Well, thanks to you Mr. Eban has spent a very uncomfortable twenty-four hours,” said O’Connell. “But he has a good lawyer and a good alibi backed by witnesses. He and Loppersum ran into the Australian delegation not long after they left the General Assembly building, and when Eban went back to the delegates’ dining room, still with the Australians, Loppersum continued alone into the grounds.”

  “I’m pleased to hear Eban is in the clear,” said Forrester. “Was the Australian he met with Brian Cross?”

  “It was,” said O’Connell. “You’re not accusing him, are you?”

  “No, of course not. Although he did, of course, know William Burke.”

  “Maybe, but Cross wasn’t on the Queen Mary when Burke went overboard, was he?”

  “He wasn’t,” said Forrester, his mind racing. “But Loppersum was, of course.”

  “Are you saying he had something to do with Burke going overboard?”

  “No, I’m just making the point he was there.”

  “Was there some disagreement between them? Something you saw?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “So you’re just throwing Loppersum’s name into the ring to keep me on my toes, Dr. Forrester? Or possibly to keep me from focusing on you.”

  “Focus on me as much as you like, it won’t get you anywhere,” said Forrester. “I only met the man a few days ago on board the ship.”

  “You also only met Billy Burke a few days ago on board the ship,” said O’Connell. “And look what happened to him.”

  “I don’t know what happened to him any more than you do,” said Forrester.

  “So you said,” replied O’Connell, “and I might have gone on believing you, if it hadn’t been for you turning up a second time at Flushing Meadows.”

  “Well, I suggest you go on believing me,” said Forrester. “Because I’m telling you the truth.”

  “But how much of the truth, Dr. Forrester?” said O’Connell. “That’s what I want to know.”

  * * *

  Before O’Connell finally left, Forrester had managed to find out what progress the police had made with the theft of the effigy from Columbia University, which turned out to be very little. They had found the hotel at which Theresa Palmer had been staying, the Chelsea, but she’d checked out the morning of her visit to the conference and hadn’t been seen since. Nor was she due to return to England on the Queen Mary. And as she’d been searched before she left Columbia, there weren’t any grounds to put out a warrant for her arrest. In short, she had disappeared, and nobody, it seemed, was looking for her.

  As for Aleister Crowley and Forrester’s suspicion he had seen him – or almost seen him – both aboard the Queen Mary and in the corridor at Columbia, the police, not surprisingly, took very little interest. Crowley’s name had not been on the passenger lists of the Queen Mary, immigration had no record of anyone of that name entering the Port of New York, and as far as they were concerned he was a red herring.

  But as soon as O’Connell was gone, Forrester finished his list of bookstores and hailed a cab to take him south down Park Avenue and west past Washington Square. Getting out to walk he found himself traversing narrow, tree-shaded streets lined with human-scale redbrick buildings that would not have looked out of place in London or Paris. Before long, in the heart of Greenwich Village, he was looking into the cool, dim interior of a bookstore called Lumley’s. Displayed artfully in the window among folds of purple velvet were books with titles such as Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings, Corpus Hermeticum, Madam Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine and Mysterium Magnum.

  Together with a copy of Sir Edward St. John Townsend’s Poetry of Ur.

  Forrester stared at it. Was this pure chance – a recognition of the name because he had recently spoken it – or did it mean something? When he went into the shop he saw a benign-looking man with a beautifully shaped white beard that reminded Forrester of a department store Father Christmas.

  “I wonder if you can help me,” Forrester began, but the man held up his hand, rose to his feet, and came around the counter to gaze up admiringly into Forrester’s face.

  “It’s an honour to meet you, sir,” he said. “Welcome to my bookstore,” and clasping Forrester’s arm he called behind him into the dark recesses of the shop. “Tiresias Lumley at your service. Billy, bring the camera.”

  “Is it the double-eye guy?” said a voice from the depths.

  “No, Billy,” said Lumley. “It’s a very special guest.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Forrester, “but who do you think I am?”

  “Not think, sir – know. You are Dr. Duncan Forrester, famed for your association with the demon Narak,” said Lumley, as a pimply youth emerged from the back of the shop with a camera and a flashbulb went off, capturing the image of Mr. Lumley beaming at him like a long-lost friend. Lumley then picked up a copy of one of the evening editions, on the front page of which Forrester saw his own furtive image as he dodged into the department store that morning. He had been fast, but clearly not fast enough.

  “What can I do for you, Dr. Forrester?” said the proprietor. “Just name it.”

  “Well, you can stop associating me with Narak, for a start,” said Forrester. “I study ancient history, not magic.”

  “Not even magick?” said Lumley knowingly.

  “No, not even magick,” said Forrester. “I saw a copy of St. John Townsend’s Sumerian book in your window. Do you know anything about him?”

  “Sinjun?” said Lumley, apparently genuinely puzzled.

  “Sinjun is how the English name St. John is pronounced.”

  “Goodness! I never knew that. How fascinating. And what a distinguished man!”

  “In what sense?”

  “Great traveller, great archaeologist, great poet, in my view.”

  “And occultist?”

  “A student of the dark arts, I believe, rather than a master. I’ve seen his name in connection with Crowley and other illuminati. In England, you know, during the nineteen thirties. What a time that must have been! Country houses, elegant parties, decadence.”

  “He’s not by any chance here in New York at present is he?”

  “Not that I know of. And I think I would have heard if he was.”

  At which point a well-dressed, grey-haired, heavy-jowled man in his fifties came into the store, took one look at Forrester and barked at him angrily.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” His three-piece suit had clearly been made for him by an expensive tailor and in his left hand he held a grey Homburg hat.

  “This is Dr. Forrester, Mr. Samson,” said Lumley, clearly delighted to be able to make the introduction. “Dr. Forrester, meet one of my most distinguished clients, Mr. Alexander Samson of Stamford Oil.”

  Samson’s eyes remained locked on Forrester’s.

  “I know who he is,” said Samson coldly. “I asked what he was doing here.”

  “I’m trying to find out what really happened at Columbia University,” said Forrester.

  “That is simply ans
wered,” said Samson. “Narak has returned.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Forrester. “I believe the effigy was stolen.”

  Samson peered at him as if looking at a specimen in a zoo. “You Europeans!” he said. “You think that because this city is full of skyscrapers and radio masts and stock tickers, the ancient forces that have battled the human race from the beginning of time have no power here. But you are wrong, Dr. Forrester. If you study the history of the native peoples of America you will see that they grappled with exactly the same kind of hellish forces the Sumerians or the Babylonians had to deal with.” He leant closer, and Forrester could smell his expensive aftershave. “In fact I believe that Narak is now at large on this island and has melded itself with Mahtantu.”

  “Mahtantu?”

  “The Spirit of the Death,” said Samson triumphantly, “in the mythology of the Delaware peoples. And as you may or may not know, the original inhabitants of New York were Delaware Indians.”

  Forrester felt an urgent need to bring the conversation back to earth. “And is there any reason, in your view, Mr. Samson, why either of these two entities would have wanted to kill a member of the Dutch delegation to the United Nations?”

  “I’m certain it was on the direct orders of Stalin,” said Samson unhesitatingly. For a moment Forrester could think of no reply.

  “I don’t understand,” he said at last. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean,” said Samson, “that the same dark forces which terrorised our ancestors and pushed them towards evil are now working on behalf of international communism.”

  Forrester forced himself to keep his face expressionless, certain that silence would be more effective than another question. And sure enough Samson was soon speaking again, and Forrester was aware that both Lumley and Billy were listening, rapt.

  “I believe that during the revolutions of 1848 the young Karl Marx made a pact with the devil. Furthermore, I believe that same pact was renewed in Zürich in 1917 to enable Lenin to travel across Europe in a sealed train and bring Marxist doctrines to Russia. I am certain that on Lenin’s death Stalin formed his own alliance with Beelzebub and now has at his disposal a whole range of supernatural entities who are hell-bent on subjugating the entire world to Bolshevism. And if you do not believe me, sir, after all that you have witnessed, you are more naïve than you look.” He looked over Forrester’s shoulder. “I will come back at another time, Mr. Lumley,” he said, “and we will continue our discussions then.” And he crammed his Homburg back on his head and left the shop.

  As he left Forrester remembered that the company to which Edward St. John Townsend was supposed to have been selling petroleum concessions in Saudi Arabia was Stamford Oil.

  * * *

  Two hours later he was sitting with Gillian Lytton in a mediaeval garden high above the Hudson River, looking out at the cliffs of New Jersey across the water. The museum, known as The Cloisters, had been created on the northern tip of Manhattan Island by John Rockefeller Jr. to house a collection of architectural elements bought from the abbeys and monasteries of Europe and here fancifully reassembled. As he sat there with her under the trees among the ancient stones, with the sound of Gregorian chants coming from the buildings behind them, Forrester felt able for the first time in many hours to let out a long breath.

  “How clever of you to find this place,” said Gillian. “It feels as if we’re in the Middle Ages but looking out into the primeval wilderness.” And indeed, as all that could be seen above the cliffs on the far bank of the Hudson was forest, it was easy to imagine that what lay beyond it was the great pristine continent that had confronted Henry Hudson in the seventeenth century. “And when you look upriver,” she said, “you could easily imagine Rip Van Winkle playing bowls. Remember he came across a group of mysterious Dutchmen playing a game of bowls in the Catskill Mountains?”

  “Oh, right, Washington Irving.” Forrester saw a mental picture of himself, aged about eight, reading Irving in East Park and being transported back into the world of forgotten villages in upstate New York. “He drank the Dutchmen’s beer, went to sleep and woke up twenty years later with a long white beard, as I recall, having missed the whole American Revolution.”

  “I bet right now you wish you could get to sleep for twenty years,” said Gillian.

  Forrester grinned. “Well, not quite that long,” he said. “But it has all got a bit fraught. The FO people want to get me out of New York before somebody links me and that so-called demon to Ernie Bevin.”

  “Oh, rats,” said Gillian. “I’d been hoping you’d stay for a while.”

  “I’d hoped so too,” said Forrester.

  Gillian looked at him. “But you’re secretly relieved, aren’t you? Because things were moving a bit fast between you and me, weren’t they?”

  Forrester smiled ruefully. As usual, she had gone to the heart of the matter.

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s true too.”

  “And you feel scared.”

  “Well, unprepared.”

  “You know I don’t care about that, don’t you? I’d take my chances.”

  Forrester took her hand. “I know you would, Gillian. But I wouldn’t do it to you.”

  She met his eyes. “And I should be grateful for that, right?”

  Forrester shook his head, if only to give himself the chance to break that unwavering, truthful gaze.

  “No, you should be angry with me for leading you on and making excuses. My only defence is I think I’m doing the right thing.”

  She shook her head. “The right thing for who?” She looked around her. “It might have been kinder if you hadn’t brought me to a lovely place like this to give me the brush-off.”

  “I’m not giving you the brush-off. But the Foreign Office people are pretty determined I should leave, because of all the fuss about Ernie Bevin.”

  “How do you think all this fits in with how that poor Dutchman was killed? Apart from it happening right afterwards.”

  “Well, he had strong views on Palestine and wasn’t afraid to let people know them.”

  “But lots of people have strong views on Palestine,” said Gillian. “People who actually have some influence on what happens there, like Ernie Bevin. Holland has nothing to do with the Middle East. All their colonies are in the East Indies, aren’t they?”

  For some reason at that moment Loppersum’s compatriot, Nicholas Van Houts, came into Forrester’s mind, and his reminiscences about being governor of Sumatra. But for the life of him he could not come up with a link between how Nicholas Van Houts had treated the natives of the Dutch East Indies and Jan Loppersum getting his throat cut in the abandoned Westinghouse Pavilion.

  “And all this stuff about the Sumerian demon is just a red herring, isn’t it?” said Gillian, hopefully.

  “A damned effective red herring,” said Forrester. “It’s all anybody seems to be able to think about.” And as he said these words he knew they contained a vital clue.

  And then he remembered the boy in Lumley’s bookstore asking about the “double-eye guy”, and suddenly his mind was working furiously.

  15

  PIER 751

  In the cab on the way back into town Gillian asked him if he had given any further thought to her idea that someone in Ernie Bevin’s entourage might know more than he was letting on, and he had to admit he hadn’t. But when he had finally kissed her goodbye and promised he would be in touch again before he went, he saw Thornham and Priestley walking into the hotel and hurried after them. He found them in the bar ordering Manhattans and went over to talk. Both men, he thought, seemed distinctly shaken by Loppersum’s death, and chubby little Priestley, perhaps because he had been involved in translating the Sumerian curses that had preceded Charles Templar’s murder, seemed particularly upset.

  “I have to say I wish you hadn’t brought that Sumerian demon into the equation,” he said slightly plaintively. “After what happened in London it’s the last thing we n
eed.”

  “I thought I was just talking to the police,” said Forrester. “I’d no idea there was a journalist listening in.”

  “Of course it was just bad luck,” said Richard Thornham. “Nobody really blames you. What I don’t understand is whether this whole supernatural thing is pure coincidence or not.”

  “I believe it’s a distraction,” said Forrester. “I’m sure the real link has something to do with Palestine.”

  “Charles wasn’t on the Middle East desk,” said Priestley.

  “And Burke had no particular link to either the Jews or the Arabs,” said Thornham.

  “He did have strong views on a homeland for the Jews though,” said Forrester. “As did Jan Loppersum.”

  “As does Mr. Bevin,” said Thornham, “and hopefully there’s no Sumerian demon after him.”

  Forrester now tried a shot in the dark. “But I wonder if he has anything to do with Double Eye?” Both men looked at him sharply.

  “Double I?” said Thornham. “What leads you to mention that?”

  And as he spoke Forrester suddenly heard the phrase for the first time as a set of initials – I.I.” He told them what the boy in the Lumley’s shop had said, and added a description of Alexander Samson.

  “He talked a lot of nonsense about international communism, but he was the chairman of the board type.”

  Priestley leant closer, looking worried. “Look, old chap, less said the better about I.I., eh? In fact, better forgotten about.”

  “Why?” said Forrester. “What does I.I. stand for?”

  “Listen,” said Thornham, smiling. “We’re all about to go home soon. Let’s not add to the complications before we go, eh?” And he called for another round of drinks.

  * * *

  As Forrester walked along the corridor back to his room, he felt an increasing certainty there was someone inside waiting there for him, and for a long moment he stood in front of the door, wondering what to do. For some reason the image of the man in the Homburg in Lumley’s bookstore came into his head, and he prepared himself mentally for a second encounter with Alexander Samson. But when he opened the door he found himself looking at someone he instantly recognised as one of the G-men he had seen in the comic books of his childhood, a man he could easily imagine cradling a Thompson submachine gun in his arms in a Chicago warehouse. His head was square and his hair grizzled, as if from long hours staking out the likes of Al Capone. Without getting up the man flashed a badge and identified himself as FBI Agent Duane Tolling Jr.