The Murder of Busy Lizzie mb-46

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘How did you get into the cave, may I ask?’ said the man, who, from his accent, was not an islander.

  ‘Largely by chance. I have rented Puffins, the house near the hotel, and I found, in traversing the old quarries, the entrance to a passage which brought me ultimately to the ladder and this cave.’

  ‘Do you usually carry an electric torch with you?’

  ‘Almost invariably when I am exploring. I read that the island used to be the haunt of smugglers, so I expected to find caves, you see.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Well, look, you better be off home now, ma’am,’ said the woman. She spoke in a tone of authority and gave the impression that she was the leader of the party. ‘Us ’ud be greatly obliged if we could have the place to ourselves, to finish our preparations, like, as there’s much to be done. Up the ladder with ee, and us’ll foller suit. Don’t want to put ee about, like, but we’ve sort of made this our meetin’ place over the years, so, if it’s all the same—’

  ‘You wish me to precede you? Very well.’

  Hoping that the woman meant what she said and that the party really did intend to make the ascent behind her and leave the way clear for the Lovelaines and Laura to follow as soon as the coast was clear, Dame Beatrice climbed the ladder and made her way along the narrow passage to the open air. She emerged and took the path towards Puffins. The party of five were not far behind her. She looked round when she lost the sound of them, and was pleased to see that they had turned away from her, and were taking the way which would lead them towards the old lighthouse. When they were but of sight she stood still and waited for the others. It was a quarter of an hour before they emerged.

  ‘Thought we’d better give those people plenty of time to get away, as they didn’t know we were there,’ said Laura. ‘You certainly gave them the benefit of your torch. Did you recognise any of them?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Sebastian. ‘Did you, Maggie?’

  ‘I knew one of them. Surely you remember the church cleaner who showed you the black-magic ladder in the tower?’

  ‘Oh, good gracious, yes! She was the woman who seemed to do most of the talking. I’m a bit puzzled, though. They didn’t seem the sort of people who would want to picnic in a dark cave.’

  ‘Judging by the paraphernalia they brought with them,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I fancy they were no ordinary picnic party. I imagine that, after they had gone, you took the opportunity of examining what they had left behind them?’

  ‘Yes. Laura had a torch. There was a long, narrow board which could be used as a table-top, two trestles to rest it on, a very well-laundered tablecloth and a big, rather terrifying knife with one straight edge and one slightly curved cutting-edge. We could make out some curious-looking marks on the handle—an inscription of some sort—but we couldn’t translate the characters.’

  ‘Yes, that was all,’ said Laura.

  ‘No doubt they’ll bring the rest of the ritual articles later -maybe not until tonight, then,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘The food, do you mean?’ asked his sister.

  ‘No,’ replied Sebastian, looking questioningly at Dame Beatrice and receiving a nod of approval. ‘I mean chalk, salt, fresh water, a ceremonial sword, a censer and probably some kind of whip or scourge.’

  ‘Good heavens! What on earth for?’

  ‘A witchcraft session, of course. That chap on my staircase—the one I think I’ve told you about—mentioned things he knew, and, of course, I recognised what kind of knife it was which we saw.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I fancy there will be a meeting of the coven tonight. The only thing which surprises me is that they brought the athame, that ritual knife, with them. It is to them a sacred object.’

  ‘It’s exciting and rather horrible to think of them holding midnight orgies in that cave,’ said Margaret, shuddering delightedly.

  ‘You are mistaken, dear child. There will be nothing horrible and I doubt very much whether there will be what even the wildest flight of imagination could construe as an orgy. The proceedings will be extremely formal, except for the dancing, perhaps. They will be deeply religious (in a non-Christian sense, but devotional, none the less) and probably of a simple ritual nature. The whole ceremony, if these people are white witches, as their cult objects suggest, will be dedicated to the doing of good.’

  ‘But I thought all witches were supposed to have made a pact with the Devil.’

  ‘In earlier, less tolerant, more superstitious times, it was thought to be so. A modern witch, however, will tell you that his or her dedication is to the Great Mother and the Horned God. The religion of the witches is a fertility cult and, as such (unless one condemns it as an unforgivable heresy) entirely harmless.’

  ‘How disappointing!’

  ‘I am sorry you find it so,’ said Dame Beatrice, solemnly. Somewhat to Sebastian’s surprise, he found himself missing his father’s company at dinner, especially as (so the head-waiter, to whom he had complained, informed him) Miss Crimp had now planted two of the ornithologists at their table. He and his sister went early to their chalet and Margaret, who seemed tired and somewhat out of sorts, went to bed earlier than usual. After about an hour Sebastian followed suit, but found himself wide awake and extremely restless. There was a remedy, however. With no need to alarm or disturb his sister, he could get out into the open air and had done so for one or two nights already when he found himself unable to sleep. On this particular night it was not only sleeplessness which possessed him, but a very lively curiosity. The indications were that the island coven was to meet that very night and although he knew that the ancient reports of the doings of witches were not only exaggerated but were largely untrue, he found himself very curious to find out exactly what did happen on such occasions, particularly as he suspected that this time an extraordinary meeting had been convened.

  The candle-droppings which he had seen on the floor of the cave had appeared to him to be comparatively fresh. The last meeting of the coven, therefore, he argued, could not have been held so very long ago. To hold another one so soon, therefore, appeared to indicate that something of importance was in the wind.

  He had no idea when the coven was likely to foregather. Shakespeare had caused Macbeth to call his three witches ‘secret, black and midnight hags’ and it seemed to Sebastian that midnight was as good an hour as any other for secret meetings and the casting of spells. On the other hand, darkness, as such, was a reasonable cloak at any hour, and at the beginning of July it would be dark, except for the moon, then almost at the full, at any time after ten at night.

  He had no idea, either, of how long the ceremony was likely to last, but he supposed that the coven would break up before dawn. He decided to leave his room at eleven. It would take him the best part of half-an-hour to reach the cave. He had marked a jutting-out part of the cave wall where he thought it would be possible to screen himself even if the witches floodlit the cave, an operation which he deemed unlikely. If they were already in session when he arrived, he thought that, by lying on his stomach at the top of the ladder and peering down the hole into the cave, he would be able to see and hear enough of the proceedings to satisfy his curiosity even if the satisfaction were not justified by any excitement.

  He thought he had made his preparations quietly, and so he had, but he reckoned without one thing. It suddenly occurred to him that he would need a torch. He had not brought one with him, but he remembered that Margaret possessed one. He stole into the sitting-room and opened the door which communicated with his sister’s room. He had no idea where she kept the torch and he did not want to wake her by putting on the electric light, so he groped his way to the dressing-table and felt for the handles of the top drawer. A loud gasp and a cry of, ‘Who’s that?’ interrupted his manoeuvres.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Where’s your torch?’

  Margaret switched on the bedhead light.

  ‘What do you want it for?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going out
.’

  ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘Better not. Two of us might be rumbled.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the cave, of course. Where’s the torch?’

  ‘Top drawer, right-hand side. Seb, I don’t want to be left alone in the chalet.’

  ‘Oh, rot! You’ll be all right. Lock your outside door.’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Well, I’ll lock mine and take my key with me.’

  ‘There are still the windows. Somebody might force them open.’

  ‘Look here, what is all this?’

  ‘Oh, Seb, I’m sure Aunt Eliza was murdered, and I’m scared.’

  ‘We don’t know yet what happened to her. I expect we’ll get a ’phone call from The Tutor as soon as the inquest is over.’

  ‘Please, Seb!’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Don’t leave me here alone.’

  ‘Oh, hell! What’s biting you? Look, I must go now, or they’ll arrive before I’m in position.’

  ‘If you go, I’ll follow you. I swear I will.’

  ‘All right, then, shove some clothes on, but you’ll queer my pitch, you know.’

  ‘Will you really lock your door if I stay behind?’

  ‘Of course. I should have done so in any case.’

  ‘Well, all right, then. I don’t want to spoil your fun. Don’t be too long, though, will you?’

  Sebastian, having found the torch, made a reassuring promise, went back to his room with a feeling of relief and let himself out, locking the door behind him and trousering the key. He had been out by moonlight before, but never in the direction of the quarries. It was astonishing, he always found, how different everything seemed by night, especially as he did not want to use the torch until he was at the entrance to the cave passage.

  The descent into the quarry was tricky, for the moonlight made treacherous shadows, but he reached his objective without disaster, stood in the passage opening for a moment to listen, heard nothing except the muted booming of the sea, switched on the torch and made his way downwards towards the cave.

  At the top of the ladder he halted and listened again, but it was plain that the cave was untenanted, so he shut off the torch, pocketed it and groped his way from rung to rung until both his feet were on the floor of the cave. Then he switched the torch on again, found the outcrop of rocky wall about three-quarters of the way towards the sea, settled himself in hiding, and wondered how long he would have to wait for the witches to appear. He also wondered whether they would appear at all.

  chapter twelve

  Ordeal by Water

  ‘Hold back thy hours, dark Night, till we have done;

  The Day will come too soon.’

  Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

  « ^ »

  He had timed his arrival pretty well, for he had only just begun to realise that it was very cold in the cave when, above the booming of the sea as it met the edge of the rocky shelf outside, he caught the sound of voices. He peered round the granite wall of his hiding-place, but at first he could see nothing. Then somebody lit a storm lantern and, the participants having entered the cave, the preparations began. The trestle table was set up and covered with the snowy cloth upon whose pristine laundering Margaret had commented.

  Ten or more people had climbed down into the cave, but the majority of them remained in shadow while two or three seemed to be making all the preparations. Peering out, Sebastian could make out the dim figures moving to and fro as they placed upon the table what he assumed were ritual objects. Then a woman’s voice said,

  ‘Now all be prepared, so stand you still and be counted.’ She counted up to the number thirteen, but only five of the motionless figures were sufficiently thrown into focus by the lamp-light for Sebastian to decide which of them were men and which were women. ‘Now,’ the woman went on, ‘you what want to take the oath, we hope as you do fully understand what you be taking upon you.’

  ‘Ay, that do I,’ replied a voice which Sebastian vaguely recognised, although, at the moment, he could not attach to it a name.

  ‘So long as you be sure. Well, now, let’s be at it. But first it behove me to remind him who is to be our new brother to think deep on the things wherefrom spring our belief. The light out, first. I needs to speak in the darkness which seemingly was the world before the old gods made their call and gave us to be their followers.’

  In spite of the homely accents and countrified, uncultivated voice, there was something of dignity and feeling in the woman’s speech and this impression was intensified as she went on, her words punctuated by the rhythmic crash of the breakers outside the mouth of the cave and the threatening snarl of the undertow as the waves retreated. Listening to the sounds, Sebastian thought of legions reforming, after an attack, to renew their assault on the island.

  ‘Us meet in the name of the Earth Mother and of the Hunting God, him of the Three Faces that bear the horns of the moon upon his head. To them, and to our brothers and sisters, be we always honest and true, calling upon the old gods in the words as was taught us from the beginning: Eko, Eko, Azarak. Eko, Eko, Zamelak. Eko, Eko, Eko, Eko, Eko!’

  These strange words were repeated with great reverence, and in the low tones of prayer, by the others. Then the priestess went on:

  ‘Let the circle be consecrated with salt and water and may him as we worships be lord of the dance, as was known, and is known, and shall be known. Herewith I lights up the four candles, marking the north, the south, the east and the west, as is laid down in the Old Book.’

  This was done and, by the tall flames which rose straight into the air at the windless end of the cave, Sebastian could see that the rest of the witches had formed a circle and that at some time during the discourse they had all stripped off their clothes and had joined hands around their leader. She was now standing in the centre of the circle, and was robed in white with her dark hair unbound and falling to her shoulders. To add to her air of authority she held a whip in her right hand and a censer in her left and, to the incongruous background music of a gramophone playing the Eton Boating Song, a solemn dance began. The censer swung, attempting to keep time with the music, and the whip flicked about the dancers’ naked bodies, more, it seemed, to encourage them than to do them much injury. The purpose of the bizarre punishment was made clear by the priestess, who, as she ritually whipped the others, intoned:

  ‘Herewith I drives out unclean spirits from our circle. This for purity—’ flick, ‘purity—’ flick, ‘this to drive away all evil—’ flick, ‘be gone, you foul ones, gone!’

  The dance having ended, Sebastian could see that those visible to him in the candle-light were now facing inwards and had their hands crossed on their breasts. It was not so much their nakedness which impressed him as the utter defencelessness it seemed to imply. The priestess, who had discarded the whip and the censer, now received from one of the circle a goblet which gleamed like gold in the candle-light and, for all Sebastian knew, was made of that precious metal. She raised it on high, turning slowly about so that she faced each of the others in turn, and, intoning the words in the most solemn manner, said:

  ‘I summon the Mighty Ones. Come, O ye gods who have been since time began! I call you from the north…’ she lowered the chalice as she faced the candle which indicated that point of the compass ‘… the east…’ she turned through the necessary ninety degrees ‘… the south and the west. Ye are the gods of our birth, of our youth, of our flowering and of our death. I summon ye to witness these our rites, and to bless, O Great Ones, your obedient people.’

  There was a long pause. At every turn she had made the priestess had taken a sip from the goblet. She now handed it to one of the men and received from him the sacred knife, the athame.

  ‘Let our aspiring brother stand before the altar,’ she said briskly, changing her tone from one of supplication to one of command. She turned to the east again and raised the athame on high. The candle
s turned its polished blade to silver, purple and black, and Sebastian almost convinced himself that he could see great drops of blood beginning to drip from it. Two of the circle moved aside, and, by means of the gap thus made, a man came into the candle-light and stood in front of the altar. His back was towards Sebastian, but the boy had caught sight of his profile as he entered the circle and there was no doubt that the neophyte was Ransome Lovelaine. He was wrapped in what appeared to be an ordinary white sheet.

  ‘I call upon the gods to accept this new member of our sacred coven,’ said the priestess. ‘May they bless him and make him worthy of the honour which is about to be bestowed upon him. May they seal his lips, that he may never betray our mysteries. May they cleanse his heart, that no evil spirit enter it.’

  Having delivered herself of these preliminaries, she stepped up to Ransome and, with one magnificent sweep of her arm, she plucked the white sheet from his shoulders, leaving him as naked as the others. Sebastian wondered how they could all bear the temperature, for he himself, in spite of being warmly clothed, found the cave, into whose depths no sunshine ever penetrated, as cold as the inside of a refrigerator. The coven, however, seemed unaffected, and the ceremony of initiating Ransome proceeded to take what Sebastian supposed was its usual course.

  From the altar a small dark piece of cloth was taken and Ransome was blindfolded with it. Then, with every evidence of reverence and propriety, a cord was picked up and exhibited to the worshippers. With it Ransome’s wrists were bound firmly behind his back and the priestess put back the knife and took from the altar a long sword. The cord which tied Ransome’s wrists had also been passed round his neck and the horrified Sebastian believed that he was about to witness a ritual killing.

  Before he could collect himself, however, the fear was dissolved and the moment of horror passed. Ritual was involved, but not ritual murder. The robed priestess presented the point of the gleaming sword at Ransome’s breast and again began to intone. She reminded him that he was entering a new life and must solemnly promise to be faithful to it and never to betray its secrets.