by Jack Gerson
The public house in Bethnal Green was old, its ornate facade in need of a coat of paint. Above the door was its name, The Goat and Compasses.
He was sitting in a corner at the rear of the horse-shoe shaped bar. In his late seventies, Alfred Oliphant had a large moon-shaped head, the resemblance to the lunar satellite accentuated by the fact that the face and white dome of the head were completely hairless. Two furrows of skin marked where the eyebrows should have been. The cheeks were fat and pitted with small blemishes and indentations. The nose was squat and fleshy and the only suggestion of hairs came from each nostril. He was not a pleasant looking man.
He looked up as Crane came over and waved his hand in a gesture indicating the journalist should sit beside him.
'Mr Crane, join me. I am drinking brandy and Benedictine.'
The empty glass in Oliphant's other hand was pushed forward. Crane noted the large jewelled rings on each finger. Oliphant noticed the look. He gave an expressive sigh.
'All my wealth I carry around on my hands. A small compensation for a life of test and trial.'
Crane waved the barman over and ordered a pint of lager for himself and a large brandy and Benedictine for Oliphant.
'I like this tavern,' the old man said, sitting back in the corner. 'It combines the tastes of the proletariat with the atmosphere of a bygone age. That of Jack the Ripper, I think.'
'Your choice of a meeting place, Mr Oliphant,' Crane replied. 'You would have been welcome to visit my home.'
Oliphant smiled showing a row of brown stumps. 'And terrify the wife and children? No, not the thing, my dear fellow.'
'No children. Just a wife.'
'Ah, then she might have been attracted to me. And our relationship would have been strained.'
Crane smiled at the ludicrous presumption of the old man as the drinks arrived.
'Don't smile, Mr Crane. Such things can happen despite age and appearance. Magical properties can induce surprising results. And by the way will you pay for my first drink as well. I omitted to do so being short of funds.'
Crane paid the barman. The performance, he decided, was worthy of the cost of the drinks.
'Did you notice the name of this establishment?' Oliphant went on. 'The Goat and Compasses. Significant of the decay both of language and religion. The origin is the phrase, "God Encompasses". A few hundred years of Godless society debase the words to "Goat and Compasses". It would seem the Christian God is not actually dead but his coinage is much reduced.'
Crane decided there was no answer to this and sipped his lager. Oliphant ignored his silence, gulped half of his brandy and Benedictine and belched.
After a moment he started on a new tack. 'By the way, congratulations, dear boy, on the first of your articles.'
'Thank you.'
'Combines a certain shrewd insight with a complete lack of knowledge and a .certain naivety.'
'Thank you again,' Crane replied, not without sarcasm.
'Full of inaccuracies and egotistical presumptions. But then you did not have the benefit of my guidance.'
'I am, I gather, remedying that now.'
'I do hate to be a sequel. However on this occasion the second series should prove superior to the first,' he suddenly leaned forward and peered at Crane. 'For a reasonable remuneration, you understand?'
'We did agree on fifty pounds.'
Another sigh from Oliphant. 'Ah, well, barely adequate. But of course you continue to pay for the libations.'
He drained his glass with a flourish and pushed it in front of Crane. Crane beckoned the barman again.
'A brandy and Benedictine for Mr Oliphant,' he ordered.
'A double,' Oliphant added. A thoughtful expression came over his face. 'I must admit I'm surprised readers of a quality Sunday newspaper would still want to read about witchcraft. So passé, except perhaps in the more sensational tabloids.'
'You're not saying it doesn't still go on?' Tom asked.
'Oh, it goes on all right. A few so-called witch covens in Chelsea and Mayfair,' Oliphant waved his fat hands expressively. 'Bare bums and phoney ritual, you understand, confined mostly to the back streets. The odd belted earl using it as an excuse for a bit of slap and tickle.'
The large brandy and Benedictine arrived. Oliphant interrupted his flow of words to assess that it was a double.
Satisfied, he went on, 'And of course one or two of those strange young punk persons playing at being Beelzebub, not very successfully, and puffing inferior hashish at the same time. Very bad for the constitution. And they interpret Beelzebub's status as Lord of the Flies in quite the wrong way.'
He went into a short coughing fit, his cheeks trembling with irritation. When he had subdued the phlegm, he took a small sip of his drink this time.
'Then, of course,' he continued. 'There's the lot that sit up on Glastonbury Tor waiting for little green men and flying crockery. Damp. A cause of haemorrhoids. And there's that young fellow who bends spoons. It's a bit much claiming phenomenal psychic powers when one's only achievement is to mutilate cutlery.'
Oliphant laughed, a deep rumbling sound. The massive bulk of his body shook.
'Taylor, the Professor of Mathematics at King's College, would disagree with you,' Crane said.
Oliphant waved his large hand again, 'Parlour games. Attempts to define the indefinable in scientific terms; Actually they're using minor elementals and they don't realise it.'
He leaned across the table and before continuing, breathed alcoholic fumes into Crane's face.
'In my day, certain people could devastate a room, wreck an entire house with only a little effort. Look at Aleister Crowley. Tried to raise the great God Pan. There's an experiment in necromancy.'
Crane couldn't resist a small smile. 'Did he succeed?'
'Created quite a to-do. I'm inclined to think he did. He was never quite the same afterwards.'
Oliphant frowned. One fat finger seemed to be tracing a symbol across the surface of the table.
'I knew Crowley well, of course. Used to call himself the Great Beast of the Apocalypse. Very melodramatic. But he was rather talented. I must be one of the few people still alive who knew him intimately.'
The frown cleared away. Oliphant was remembering something that pleased him. He took another mouthful from his glass.
'I was a handsome youth in those days. More than that. Positively beautiful.'
He finished his drink. Crane automatically waved over the barman and ordered another for him. The pause allowed him to change the subject.
'Let's talk about Extra-Sensory Perception.'
'ESP? That old thing!'
'The Russians are taking it seriously enough. And the Americans.'
Oliphant responded with a sneer. 'Governments playing games! Letting damned piddling little civil servants try their hand at necromancy. Can you really imagine a genuine magician surrounded by cups of tea and red tape?'
'I'm not interested in magic this time,' said Tom. 'It's mind-power I'm concentrating on. The ability to will things to happen; to control events by thought transference.'
Oliphant inclined his head confidentially. 'My dear Crane, to make things happen, great mysterious things, you need great mysterious people. Apart from myself and possibly one other, there's no one left. Crowley's dead, Gardiner's dead, all of them. All of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Even W. B. Yeats was one of that magical group.'
'Who's the one other still alive?' Crane inquired as casually as he could.
Oliphant coughed again and swallowed another mouthful of the fresh drink that had been placed in front of him. As the coughing subsided he stared straight ahead avoiding Crane's gaze.
'I want to know, Oliphant!' Tom pressed on. 'If you keep things from me there's no point in our meeting. And no fifty quid.'
'And no more lubrication?' Oliphant gazed regretfully at the glass in his hand.
Then after a moment he looked up. 'Very well, I'll tell you. There's Drexel.'
'Drexel?' Cra
ne looked surprised and puzzled. 'Still alive?'
'Younger than I am,' Oliphant explained, meeting his companion's gaze. 'You asked me. I told you. The man Crowley avoided. Just in case.'
'I thought he was dead.'
'I think he wanted people to think that.'
'I've read a little about him,' Crane sat back thoughtfully. 'What became of him?'
'After his little misadventure in Cornwall?'
'Misadventure?' Crane questioned. 'My God, a woman died!'
Oliphant shrugged. 'It happens occasionally. A matter of over-enthusiastic exercise of whatever ritual they were practising. I think Drexel found it expedient to disappear. There was talk of at least a charge of manslaughter.'
'Was it followed up?'
'It was wartime, Crane,' Oliphant explained. 'What was the death of one poor bitch when millions were dying? Oh, I'm sure the authorities went through the motions of investigation. But not too diligently. It was also said that had they found Drexel he would have named a few prominent names. Nobody wanted that, not in wartime. It might indeed have provided some neat propaganda for the enemy. Prominent establishment figures involved in black magic scandal. Not the thing at all. It was easier to let Drexel vanish.'
'So he's still alive?'
Oliphant nodded. 'I believe so.'
T)o you know where he is?'
The large man became evasive. 'Somewhere in the north.'
'Not good enough,' Crane said with emphasis. 'Don't mess me around.'
'Perhaps in some foreign pagan city?'
'Still not good enough for fifty pounds.'
Oliphant sighed. 'In Edinburgh.'
'I'll check it out. If there's no sign of him, no payment to you.'
'There will be no sign of Edward Drexel of course,' Oliphant went on quickly. 'Look for Dexter, E. Dexter. Common, I grant you but there won't be too many antiquarian booksellers of that name, I shouldn't think.'
Crane nodded. It sounded genuine. Oliphant needed his payment and could be desperate enough to indulge in indiscretions. And Drexel alive was an indiscretion.
He tried to remember all that he had read about Drexel.
A charismatic figure, particularly because of his youth at the time he had become famous... no, not famous, notorious would be better. Sometime in the early thirties he had appeared in London. Edward Drexel, a kind of Golden Boy of evil as he had once been described in the columns of the Daily Mirror; a young man with strange powers, to whom had flocked the jaded and ageing bright young things, the left-over relics of the twenties.
There had been rumours, just before the outbreak of war, of drugs and sex orgies, perversion and blackmail. There had been other hints too, of strange rituals, esoteric ceremonies, of black masses being performed in certain houses in London.
Finally scandal had forced Drexel to leave London and he had settled into a desolate abandoned abbey in Cornwall. A small entourage of the faithful had followed him there. Here they had lived for the first two years of the war in isolation. Encounters with the locals had been few and discouraged. Incidents had occurred, lights seen in the abbey at night, the remains of a dead cockerel found, stories of naked orgies were prevalent and finally these culminated in the mysterious death of a young woman, said to be one of Drexel's mistresses.
During the subsequent investigation Drexel had disappeared and, as Oliphant had related, the police, involved in the many problems of a country at war, had let the case die. An inquest had brought in a verdict of death from unknown causes.
Crane had come across the story while researching his first series of articles. He had discovered, in the British Museum, an obscure volume published at the end of the war and printed on thin paper which had enjoyed no success whatsoever and after one printing had been remaindered and forgotten. It purported to be a series of potted biographies of so-called great British magicians. They had embraced such diverse figures as Merlin, Michael Scott, Francis, Earl of Bothwell, Doctor Dee and the English alchemists, and ended with contemporary characters which included Aleister Crowley and Edward Drexel.
Although the book had been useless as regards Crane's researches, filled as it was with the most outlandish stories of highly suspect achievements, he had found it amusing, and it had led him to read up newspaper files on Crowley and Drexel. The style of the anonymous author was overblown, florid and resembled the worst of the Victorian novelists.
A thought struck Crane. He looked across at Oliphant. The fat man responded with a vague smile. The results of the brandy and Benedictine were becoming apparent.
'The Lives of the Great Magicians?' Crane said, quizzically. 'A book I came across in the British Museum. Published in 1945.'
'By private subscription, dear boy,' Oliphant replied, his voice starting to blur at the edges. 'Delighted you've read it. The British Museum copy must be one of the only two in existence, I shouldn't be surprised.'
'You wrote it?'
'A labour of love. I hated it being published anonymously but, with the later chapters one had to be careful of the laws of libel.' Oliphant grinned expansively. 'Especially with Aleister Crowley. If he thought there was money in it he'd sue at the drop of a hat.'
Another thought struck him and he added, 'Or if he was angry he'd put a curse on you. Some of his curses were rather effective.'
Crane smiled. The old man actually believed what he said. Or he was a better actor than Crane gave him credit for.
'My dear boy, if there's nothing else, I shall have to leave you shortly,' Oliphant went on. 'An assignation with a loving friend. If you could see your way to providing my remuneration..?'
Crane took an envelope from his inside pocket and placed it in front of Oliphant. 'I may want to talk again. But this is full payment. Okay?'
Oliphant nodded and pocketed the envelope. 'You will of course try and see Drexel. Take my advice and be very careful with that one.'
'I'll remember,' Crane rose.
A damp flabby hand was held out and Crane shook it perfunctorily. But as he made to withdraw it, Oliphant gripped his hand more firmly.
'You're looking a trifle weary, dear boy. Not sleeping well, perhaps?'
The rain had become a misty drizzle as Crane drove back to his flat. The Thames was pitted with a million small craters and the outline of Battersea Power Station was fast disappearing in the gathering haze.
Julia, hair tied back in a pony tail and with no makeup, looked like a teenager as she bustled around, hanging his damp coat in the drying cupboard and producing a large pot of hot coffee.
After lunch they stretched out on the settee and watched the Sunday afternoon movie, Julia nestling in the crook of Crane's arm. Crane quickly found himself losing interest in the inanities of the film. He was thinking of Drexel. The second series of articles should start with the ideas of someone like Drexel, someone who believed completely in the more esoteric concepts of magic. And Crane could not resist the thought of an expose of the man. It was too easy to fall into the trap of writing as if he believed in the claims of these eccentric characters on the edge of society.
Of course if Drexel did have some kind of powers... Crane dismissed the idea, smiling to himself. The danger of writing this series lay in being caught up in the fantasies of others. Not that he doubted the strength of Drexel's personality. To achieve that kind of notoriety Drexel must have been a man of dominant qualities; possibly with hypnotic powers. Hypnotism, Crane thought, was the most useful, perhaps necessary adjunct, to creating fantasies in the minds of others.
In the evening he took out his notes On the first series. There had been only a mention of Drexel in the text, Crane's notes had been more extensive. He sat at the desk in the small room he called his study and re-read them. The room was little more than a large well-lit storeroom, but Julia as a birthday present some years before had gutted the room, redecorated and furnished it, the principal item of furniture being an elegant but practical Chippendale desk.
He had been reading for half an h
our when there was a tap on the door and Julia came in. She rarely interrupted him when he was working and her entrance was tentative.
'Can I come in or are you in the thick of it?'
'Come on in. Just reading up on my old notes.'
She placed a large whisky on the desk beside him and peered over his shoulder.
'Dinner in an hour. Thought you might like, what do you Scots call it, a wee sensation?'
'I like.'
She looked down at his notes and read aloud, 'Although his talent for so-called clairvoyancy is seemingly documented, his other experiments seemed little more than elementary rituals in sex magic!'
She giggled and looked at Crane. 'No wonder you were late back this morning if that's who you were with.'
'I was with a man called Oliphant. That's not him. Someone else. A character called Drexel. He got into a spot of bother some years back...'
'I'm not surprised. What kind of bother?'
'Things turned nasty and a woman died.'
Julia frowned. 'Of what?'
'I don't know. Drugs, probably. They had to use drugs or hypnotism to keep the faithful under control.'
Julia was reading the rest of the page of notes. I thought he was some kind of magician?'
Crane smiled up at her. 'Depends if you believe in magic. Me, in all these investigations I don't find no magic, honey chile. Just dem bad ole phoneys with black eyes and strong personalities.'
'Drexel?' Julia's nose wrinkled. 'Sounds like a mouthwash.'
'More like the Lionel Atwill in an old horror movie. The mad scientist.' Crane was an aficionado of old films. 'Though he was younger then. Rather good-looking they say.'
'How long ago was this?' Julia asked.
'You're out of luck. Thirty-five years out of luck.'
Julia pouted in mock disappointment. 'Spoilsport!'
Later, after dinner, Julia put Die Meistersinger on the stereo.
Crane protested, 'Not Wagner. Not on a full stomach.'
'All right, what then?'
He stretched in the deep softness of the armchair. 'Bach, I think. Played very quietly.'
She changed the records. Softly a Bach cello sonata filled the room. After a while Crane looked up from under drooping eyelids.
