C.B. came panting up the steps into the doorway. Seeing the look on John’s face he muttered, ‘Don’t worry! You haven’t killed him. But he’ll be out long enough not to bother us again. Help me to get him back into the passage.’
Grasping the unconscious man by the legs and shoulders, they pulled him from the stairhead and clear of the door; then for a second they stood in it side by side, staring down into the crypt.
It was lit now only by the glow coming from the passage behind them, and was no longer silent. From all sides of it came weird discordant noises, as though it was filled with horrible, half-human, half-animal life. A lunatic-like chuckling mingled with the bleating of a goat. The cock was crowing again, the bats squeaked as though they were now legion, a pig grunted, and as a background to it all there came a low rhythmical throbbing of Voodoo drums.
‘We’ve got to go in at the charge this time,’ said C.B. urgently. ‘The longer we wait, the worse it will get. They can’t harm us as long as we remain defiant and trust in the Lord. To tackle the servant I had to drop my cross at the bottom of the steps. I’ve got to get that; so you must give me a moment to snatch it up. I’m going in now. As I grab it I’ll give a shout. Switch on all the lights, then come hell for leather after me.’
As he finished speaking, he ran down the steps. Stooping, he seized the broomstick cross, lifted it on high and cried, ‘Oh Lord be with us!’ The lights flashed on. John leapt down beside him. Together they dashed forward.
They had fifty feet to cover. In the brief space that the lights had been out the huge toads had multiplied exceedingly. A company of them, dozens strong, now barred the way between the tables and either side of them. From the roof a cloud of bats streaked down.
The first rush carried them fifteen paces. They were halfway along the crypt, but there they lost momentum and their footsteps faltered. The bats thudded into their bodies and dashed themselves against their faces. The toads spat venom which turned into clouds of greenish vapour. It had the awful stench of rotting corpses. In a few moments it had formed a thick barrier through which the altar could no longer be seen. The poisonous fumes it carried stung their eyes and made their throats feel raw.
‘Satan, I defy thee!’ cried C.B. ‘Satan, I defy thee!’ And John chimed in, ‘Oh God, destroy our enemies! Dear God, destroy our enemies!’
Suddenly the babble of sound subsided to a muted, angry muttering. The clouds of poisonous vapour dissolved. The bats flopped helplessly upon the floor, and the toads wilted into weak, flabby, grovelling creatures.
Again C.B. and John ran forward; but a new terror arose to halt them. The lights flickered twice, then dimmed almost to extinction. Ahead of them the floor began to glow with a dull, reddish light, and to heave like the swell of an oily pond. It seemed to be imbued with some weird malevolent life of its own. With the next steps they took they could feel its heat through the soles of their shoes, and wisps of smoke curled up from the leather. The flagstones had become red hot, and those in front of the altar were molten.
For a moment they remained half crouching, shoulder to shoulder, their eyes nearly dazzled by the glare that came from the shimmering crucible that threatened to engulf them if they advanced another few steps. A blast of intense heat hit against their hands and faces; so that in another few seconds the sweat was streaming from them.
‘Have faith, John! Have faith!’ whispered C.B. ‘If we trust in the Lord we can walk unharmed through this fiery furnace. We must go forward boldly.’
Simultaneously they began to recite the Lord’s Prayer and walk steadily towards the altar. Their shoes ceased to char and, although the stones about them continued to appear white hot, they no longer felt any heat on the soles of their feet.
As they reached the altar the glow of the stones faded. Only then did they become aware that some awful thing was materialising on the altar itself. The lights remained dimmed and out of the shadows immediately in front of them emerged a monster that made them blanch with fear. It had a woman’s face set in the middle of a round, fleshy body. The face was beautiful, yet incredibly evil: the body was covered with filthy suppurating sores and from it eight writhing, octopus-like tentacles reached out to seize them.
Terror again gripped them as they sprang back to evade the groping tentacles. Then, recovering himself, C.B. pulled the small bottle of Holy water from his pocket. Holding the cross aloft in his left hand, he tore the paper stopper from the bottle with his teeth and flung its contents at the demon.
The red lips of the woman’s mouth opened and emitted a piercing scream. The tentacles threshed wildly. The leprous body suddenly exploded in a great puff of magenta-coloured smoke. Its stench was so nauseating that both C.B. and John were seized with a fit of retching. When they could raise their heads again no trace of the awful thing remained upon the altar. They had just time for that one glance; then the dim lights flickered and went out, plunging that end of the crypt in total darkness.
Instantly they became aware that with the darkness had come a cessation of all sound. The Voodoo drums, the horrid laughter, the snarling pandemonium made by the denizens of the Pit had given way, as at an order, to utter silence. There was something more frightening about the eerie stillness than the hideous noises that had preceded it. Quite suddenly, too, the crypt had become as cold as the interior of an ice-house.
With every nerve alert they waited, as though a paralysis had descended on them, riveting them there unable to move hand or foot. Then out of the blackness behind them came a clear silvery voice. It said: ‘I have always admired courage. You have proved yours; so I will give you that for which you came. You no longer have cause to be afraid. I have here the Pact which Henry Beddows signed with my servant Copely-Syle. Turn round and you shall receive it as a free gift from me.’
‘Don’t look, John!’ gasped C.B. ‘For God’s sake don’t turn round! Shut your ears to everything you hear and prise up the altar slab.’
As he spoke he lugged his torch from his pocket and shone it on the flat piece of stone. At that moment the voice came again, low and persuasive: ‘You foolish men. The Pact is not there. I have it here in my hand. For those who are not prepared to serve me willingly I have no use; and no one has ever accused me of meanness. I am not one to hold a man to his word when he regrets having given it. You may take the Pact back to Beddows and tell him that I release him from his bond.’
Ignoring the honeyed words, John forced the edge of the case-opener under the slab and heaved upon it. The four-foot-long stone lifted a little. Another heave and a gap of a few inches showed below it. John dropped the heavy jemmy, got the fingers of both hands under the slab and prepared to exert all his strength in lifting it back like the lid of a great box.
Again the voice came, but its tone had changed. It now rang out like the clash of cold steel and was vibrant with menace.
‘Stop!’ it commanded. ‘I have allowed you to trifle with me long enough. I give you two minutes to leave my temple. Remain and I will make Hell gape open to receive you.’
With the sweat pouring from him in spite of the icy cold, John strove with all his might to raise the stone. It would not budge, and C.B. could not help him as he was holding the torch with one hand and the cross in the other.
Without warning, there came an ear-splitting crash of thunder. The floor of the crypt heaved; its walls rocked. Throwing the arm with the hand that held the torch round John’s shoulders, C.B. raised the cross high above both their heads and cried: ‘Oh Lord, defend us!’
There was a blinding flash. A fork of light streaked down through the roof striking, not them, but the centre of the altar slab, shattering it into a hundred fragments. God had intervened. Instantly a deafening din broke out. Cries, screams, moans and groans sounded from every direction, as the minions of Hell fled back into the dark underworld.
Still dazed, C.B. shone his torch down into the cavity now gaping where the altar stone had been. Among its fragments reposed a small, brass-bound cof
fer. John pulled it out, snatched up his jemmy from the floor, and broke it open. It contained about twenty pieces of parchment. On all of them were several lines of writing in dried blood. Hastily John shuffled through them until he came on one signed ‘Henry Beddows’; then, with a sigh of relief, he crammed the whole lot into his pocket.
In the frightful stress and excitement of the last few moments they had scarcely been conscious that all the lights had come on again, or that big drops of rain were splashing upon them. Turning now, they saw that the crypt was as peaceful and empty as when they had entered it; then, on glancing up, they noticed that a three-foot-wide hole had been torn in the roof above the altar by the thunderbolt that had smashed it.
‘Let’s get out this way,’ C.B. suggested, and, clambering up on the altar, they wriggled through the hole.
Outside the rain was sheeting down, and by the time they reached the car their outer garments were almost soaked through with it; but for the time being they could think of nothing except their delivery from the awful perils they had so recently encountered.
The car swiftly covered the mile back to The Grange. As they got out C.B. looked at his watch and said, ‘How long do you think we have been?’
‘Goodness knows,’ John muttered. ‘Two hours—three perhaps.’
‘No. It is now nineteen minutes past eleven. Allowing for going and coming back, and our reconnaissance round the house before we went in, we could not have been in the crypt much more than seven minutes.’
Two minutes later they were upstairs with Beddows. Until John showed him the Pact he could not believe that they had got it. At first he was overcome by astonishment at their success; then, as he looked at their haggard faces and realised what they had been through, his gratitude was pathetic.
C.B. took the rest of the papers from John with the remark, ‘I’ll turn these in to Scotland Yard. They may be of use in tracing up some of the Canon’s associates; although I doubt if any of them could be persuaded to give evidence against him. Still, the people who signed these other Pacts will be informed that they have now been freed.’
He then stepped into the pentacle, removed the contents of the tea-chest, turned it upside down, leant his broomstick cross upright against its back and set two of the unlit candles upon it, thus transforming it into a temporary altar. Having lit the candles, he said to Beddows: ‘Now, take the Pact in your right hand and burn it; then say these words after me.’
Beddows took the Pact, lit one corner of it, and repeated sentence by sentence as C.B. pronounced the abjuration: ‘By this act I, Henry Beddows, renounce Satan and all his Works, now and for evermore, both on my own behalf and on that of my daughter Ellen. I have sinned grievously; but, trusting in the Divine Mercy promised by our Lord Jesus Christ to sinners who repent, I beg to be received back into God’s grace. In the name of Christ I now call upon the Archangel Michael and his Host to protect my daughter, Ellen, this night; to guard her from all harmful thoughts and to deliver her from evil. Blessed be the names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost for evermore. Amen.’
John and C.B. then knelt down beside Beddows and prayed, giving thanks for the courage they had been granted and their safe delivery from the Valley of the Shadow.
When they all stood up, and Beddows stepped from the pentacle, they saw with amazement that an extraordinary change had taken place in his appearance. He seemed to have aged twenty years. His broad shoulders slumped, his hair and the bristles of his beard had turned white; and he had the look of an old man. Yet, after thanking his rescuers, he said firmly: ‘I shall leave for the South of France first thing in the morning. Ellen should be safe now; but I mean to hunt Copely-Syle down, and see to it that he goes to the Hell to which he has led so many others.’
C.B. endeavoured to hide his surprise at the transformation in Beddows, which was evidently the first sign of the payment he would now have to make for the twenty-one years of favour he had secured by unholy means: then he said to John, ‘The outside chance of the Canon’s coming back tomorrow is taken care of by the police. They will pinch him if he lands illegally in the marshes. There is nothing more we can do here now; so we’ll go South too.’
Glancing again at Beddows, he added, ‘I think it would be best if you accompanied us back to Colchester, as we must make a very early start. They will find you a room at the Red Lion, then we can all drive up to London together.’
‘That suits me,’ Beddows agreed. ‘But I’ll have to get into some clothes and pack a bag. I am feeling very weak, too, from my long semi-fast. While I am getting dressed perhaps you would go down to the larder. Jutson asked me through the door this morning if I was all right, as he had seen that somebody had been up here; but he doesn’t know why I locked myself in, or anything about this business. He is very well paid to ask no questions; but all the same, the less he knows, the better; so I’d rather not have him routed out. It would save time, too, if you’d open up a tin or two for me yourselves, and I’ll leave a note for him before we go. You will find quite a selection of tinned stuff down there, but anything will do.’
Together they descended to the first floor. Beddows went into his bedroom and the others continued on downstairs to prepare a picnic meal. A quarter of an hour later, when he joined them in the dining-room, they had ready a spread of sardines, cold ham and tinned peaches. After their ordeal C.B. and John also felt hungry; so they sat down with him and, while he ate ravenously, kept him company.
Soon after midnight they left the table and went out to the car. As Beddows stowed his suitcase in the back he said, ‘I’ve never done the Government down more than I’ve had to; but this is a case in which I have no scruples. It may need big money to finance bringing Copely-Syle to book; so we can’t afford to observe currency restrictions. Fortunately, I’ve always kept a tidy sum in my wall-safe against an emergency; so I was able to pack the best part of three thousand pounds in fivers into a couple of pairs of shoes.’
C.B. smiled a little wryly. ‘I’d rather you hadn’t told me that; but since you have, how about it if the emigration authorities search your baggage?’
Beddows smiled. ‘They might if I went to and fro regular. But the odds are all on my getting away with it once.’
At twenty-five past twelve the night porter let them into the Red Lion. He booked Beddows a room on the same floor as the others, and entered an order from C.B. to call them all at a quarter to five. Before they went upstairs C.B. telephoned his office and asked the night duty officer to ring Northolt, and use all the pull he could to secure three seats on the plane leaving for Nice at 7.16. Then they went up to their rooms, got the worst of the dirt off themselves with a quick wash, and, mentally exhausted from the strain of the past few hours, fell asleep as soon as their heads touched their pillows.
When C.B.’s bedside telephone rang, he roused out of a deep sleep and picked up the receiver. It was the night porter, who said: ‘Your call, sir. It’s a quarter to five and about half an hour ago I took a telephone message from your office. It was to report a telegram which reads “Special stop Despatched from Police Headquarters Nice at nought hours twenty stop Christina removed from prison without authority twenty-three hours fifteen stop Has since disappeared without trace stop Signed Malouet.”’
‘Thank you,’ said C.B. quietly; but as he hung up, his face was grim. In a few minutes he would have to break it to John that, although they had braved such fearful perils during the earlier part of the night they had, after all, failed to save Christina. Beddows had abjured Satan at a little after half-past eleven. By about eighteen minutes the Canon had beaten them to it again.
Chapter 23
The Cave of the Bats
Over the cups of coffee that the night porter had made for them and on the long drive to the airport, John and his two companions spoke little. After learning the contents of Malouet’s telegram they could only hope that by the time they got to Nice the police would have succeeded in tracing the vanished prisoner: in the mea
ntime all speculation on their chances of rescuing Christina was futile.
At Northolt a young man from C.B.’s office met them to take over his car, and told him that only by luck had it been possible to get three passages for Nice by the first plane that morning. The Riviera season was still at its height and the aircraft booked to capacity; but one travel agency had rung up the previous afternoon to charter a special plane for ten; so B.E.A. had decided to put an additional Viking on the run, which would carry Colonel Verney’s party. C.B. then asked him to send a telegram to Molly, to let her know that they were on the plane and ask her to meet them at Nice.
The regular plane left on scheduled time, but there was some delay in its relief getting off, as it was held for two of the party often who, it transpired, were motoring down from Scotland. The others all appeared to know one another and were all middle-aged or elderly people. Their clothes and hand baggage suggested that they were all very well off, which was borne out by a remark that John heard exchanged between two of the three women in the party, to the effect that they had decided to make the trip at the last moment only to attend a wedding.
While in the waiting-room he had ample time to study their fellow passengers, but his thoughts being otherwise occupied he took little notice of them, except to remark that they seemed an exceptionally ugly lot. He reminded himself then that most fellow travellers seen at airports, railway stations and boarding liners appeared unprepossessing until one got to know them; yet his impression was strengthened on the arrival of the couple who had been motoring through the night from Scotland. The man was very tall and so lean that his skin seemed stretched over the bones of his face to a degree that made it almost corpse-like, while the woman had the most disconcerting squint that he ever remembered seeing.
In spite of the delay, which held up the take-off until twenty minutes to eight, the flying conditions were so good that the aircraft made up most of the lost time, and they came down in the brilliant sunshine of Nice at ten past one. Molly and Malouet were both there to meet them and, after Beddows had been introduced, the elderly ex-inspector said: ‘I regret to say I have no news for you; but one gets as good a lunch at the airport restaurant here as anywhere in Nice; so I have booked a table. While we eat I will tell you all that is known of the most extraordinary occurrence last night.’
To the Devil, a Daughter Page 36
