The Irish Witch rb-11

by Dennis Wheatley

  'And when young Charles arrived, having been a pre­vious member of the club he decided to throw in his lot with those people instead of bringing Susan home.'

  'That could well be, since he has long been in love with Susan. Under this evil woman's influence she could have tempted him and, rather than lose her, he elected to re­main.'

  Over supper the two friends speculated further, but neither could produce any other theory, so they turned to Napoleon's defeat and abdication, while polishing off the best part of two bottles of Chateau Lafitte, followed by old port wine. These liberal potations ensured Roger a good night's sleep. But in the morning, instead of going to the Bristol coach station, he walked across St. James's Park to Birdcage Walk.

  It was in a house there that, when he had first become a secret agent, he had made his reports to a Mr. Gilbert Maxwell. Later he had dealt direct with Mr. Pitt and a succession of Ministers of Foreign Affairs; but he had often had occasion to collect documents and money from a Mr. Desmond Knight, who had succeeded Max­well, and he now sent up his name to him.

  Mr. Knight was a tall, thin, greyhaired man. He re­ceived Roger courteously, then asked in what way he could be of service to him.

  ‘It is a private matter,' Roger smiled, 'but, knowing you as well as I do, I feel sure you will not refuse me your help. I am anxious to learn all you can tell me about a man named Cornelius Quelp: a Dutchman who was tried and convicted some months ago as a secret agent in the pay of the French.'

  Mr. Knight returned his smile. 'Mr. Brook, we have many secrets here, but none from a man so intimately acquainted with such affairs as yourself. Mynheer Quelp was sentenced to three years hard labour and is now quarrying stone on Dartmoor. What do you wish to know about him?'

  ‘I understand that he acted as courier for a woman named Katie O'Brien, who collected information for our enemies. She lived in a house out at Islington. No doubt you know what went on there?'

  'Yes; she was known as the Irish Witch, and ran a Satanic circle, called the New Hell Fire Club. Unfor­tunately, before her connection with Quelp emerged at his trial, she got away to Ireland.'

  'So I gather. But why was she not arrested by our auth­orities there?'

  'Because we could trace her only as far as Dublin. From there she disappeared.'

  ‘I am told she is possibly there now, running another Satanic circle.'

  'If she is it must be under another name, otherwise we should have learned of it.'

  'Did you perchance secure a list of the members of the Hell Fire Club?'

  'Yes, although by no means a complete one. The mem­bers went to considerable pains to conceal their identities. They put on masks before entering the house. But discreet enquiries among the coachmen of the nobility gave us the names of some thirty-odd people who had been driven there at night and not returned until the early hours of the morning. Some, too, visited the house fairly frequently in daylight.'

  'Was Lady Luggala among them?'

  'Yes. She, I recall, was one of the regular visitors.'

  Roger's guess had been right. He smiled grimly, then said, 'Mr. Knight, reverting to espionage. It will naturally have occurred to you that the woman O'Brien must have obtained much of the information she passed on to our enemies from the members of her club. Were many of them prosecuted on that account?'

  The Secret Service chief shook his head. 'No, Mr. Brook. The majority of them, I am sure, were entirely ignorant of that side of the woman's activities, and anything she received from others would have been by word of mouth. There were a few that we sus­pected, but we had not a tittle of evidence against them.'

  'Was Lady Luggala among those you suspected?'

  'Yes, for a variety of reasons. She was one of the witch's most frequent visitors. They were both Irish and she was living beyond her means. Our undercover man at Coutt's traced several drafts on the O'Brien's account made pay­able to Lady Luggala.'

  'She is now living in Dublin and I am about to proceed there. I have reason to believe that, given your help, I could secure the evidence needed to convict her and, per­haps, others.'

  'Indeed! Well, the war, thank God, is over; but all the same if there are grounds for believing that she gave infor­mation to an enemy agent, she should certainly be brought to trial. What help do you need ?'

  'Authority to enter her house, to search it, to question her servants and, if my suspicions are correct, to arrest her.'

  Mr. Knight hesitated. 'Mr. Brook, as you are not an official agent of the Grown, you are asking a lot, particu­larly the right to take her into custody.'

  'If, having got the evidence we need I am not em­powered to do so, before I can get a warrant from a magistrate she will have the chance to disappear, as the other woman has done. You know enough about me to be sure that I should not abuse such powers as you may give me.'

  'True, true, Mr. Brook. I am sure you would not. In the intimate circle in which we move, you are become almost a legendary figure. I recall that there have even been times when you have been given Lettres de Marque to speak on behalf of Prime Ministers. Unorthodox as your request is, it would be unreasonable in me not to grant it.'

  As he spoke Mr. Knight tinkled a bell on his desk. A secretary came in and, a quarter of an hour later, Roger left the house with the papers he had asked for in his pocket.

  He lunched at White's, wrote a brief, loving note to Georgina, just to let her know he had stumbled upon one lead that he hoped would facilitate his search for Susan and Charles; then, having said good-bye to Droopy, he took the night coach to Bristol.

  Next morning, having booked himself a cabin at the ferry office, he had a clerk there produce the register of passengers who had taken tickets to cross during the last week in March and found that Charles had sailed on the 25th.

  Satisfied that no accident had befallen Charles before leaving England, he went aboard and ordered champagne and dry biscuits; having found from long experience that sipping the one and nibbling the other gave the best hope that the queasiness from which he always suffered when at sea would not become actually sickness.

  On landing in Dublin he hired a coach and told the driver to take him in turn to the best hostelries in the city. The second at which they halted was the Grown and Shamrock. His inquiry produced the information that the Earl of St. Ermins had arrived there on March 26th and stayed two nights, then departed leaving no address. He had not been seen there since.

  Having taken a room, unpacked and had a meal, Roger went out and bought himself a cheap, ready-made trouser suit of brown cloth, a cloak of Irish homespun, a pair of heavy boots and a top hat made of shiny, black water­proof material. Taking his purchases back to the Grown and Shamrock, he changed into them, scruffed the boots and battered the hat a little, then slipped down the back stairs and into the stable yard.

  By then it was growing dark. Out in the street, after enquiring of a passer-by, he soon found his way to Merrion Square, in which Lady Luggala had her house. On find­ing the number he was greatly relieved to see chinks of light coming from between the drawn curtains of a room on die first floor, which implied that she was at home, but no sounds suggesting that an entertainment was in pro­gress. There were also lights in the basement.

  From what Mr. Knight had told him, it was quite cer­tain that Maureen Luggala was intimate with Katie O'Brien, and he felt convinced that she could tell him where to find the witch. With her, he had little doubt, were Susan and Charles. There was also good reason to believe that Maureen had furnished information to the spy Quelp; but he had no proof of that. He had a warrant for her arrest in his pocket, but he could not use it. By con­fronting her, as he meant to do, he was taking a great gamble. If she called his bluff, gone would be the only lead he had to tracing and rescuing from the devil's clutches the two young people he loved.

  24

  Blackmail

  Roger walked down the area steps and pulled the beli chain. A few minutes later the door was opened by a foot­man in a stri
ped waistcoat and shirt sleeves.

  In a gruff voice Roger said to him, ‘I am one of the Viceroy's police agents from up at the castle. Are all the servants in?'

  'Yes,' replied the man, with a scared look. 'It is having our bite of supper we are.'

  Having judged the time of his call carefully, that was what Roger had hoped for, and he said, 'Good. Take me to them and I'll see you all together.'

  The footman led him down a smelly passage, past the open door of a kitchen and into a room beyond it at the back of the house. Only one other man and three females were seated at a table, confirming Mr. Knight's statement that Lady Luggala was by no means well off, or she would have had a bigger staff. It transpired that the footman also acted as butler; the other man, an uncouth-looking lout, did the chores, the eldest woman was the cook, a pretty girl in her twenties combined the duties of lady's maid and housemaid, and a teenaged drab did the scubbing.

  The three senior servants all had lilting Irish accents, the other two could speak only Erse. It was from the footman and the lady's maid that Roger got the information he wanted, and without their even asking to see his papers, as his manner of speaking told them that he was English, and his having said he came from the castle filled them with awe.

  They confirmed that Lady Luggala and Jemima had arrived from England with Susan in mid-February. In mid-March all three had left Dublin in a hired coach, as her ladyship did not keep one of her own, but she had not said where they were going. Two days later Lady Luggala had returned alone. Then, one afternoon toward the end of March, a young English milord had called and spent over two hours with her ladyship. Two evenings later she had entertained both the young lord and a tall, lean priest to dinner. After the meal the priest and the young lord had driven off together in the priest's coach, but the servants had no idea where. Since then they had not seen either of the young ladies nor the English milord, and her ladyship had had no other guests to stay.

  Roger then asked if any of them knew a woman named Katie O'Brien and, if so, when they had last seen her.

  All of them shook their heads, with the exception of the middle-aged cook, who had been in Lady Luggala's service much longer than the others. She replied that in the old days, before her ladyship went to live in London, she had a friend of that name, who came frequently to see her; but since her return they had neither seen nor heard anything of Mrs. O'Brien.

  Convinced that he could learn no more from them, Roger enquired if her ladyship was alone upstairs. When they said that she was, he bade the footman put on his jacket and take him up to her. But, before leaving the room, as a precaution against the cook having lied and perhaps leaving as soon as his back was turned, to warn the witch that Lady Luggala was being questioned by the police, he said sternly:

  'All of you will remain here until I come downstairs. If any of you leave the house you will be charged with aiding and abetting a very serious crime.'

  They could not know it to be an empty threat, and cowed into silence they resumed their supper of potatoes, bread and pickles.

  Upstairs, outside the door of the drawing room, the foot­man asked whom he should announce, but Roger ignored him, pushed him aside, walked into the room and shut the door behind him.

  Maureen Luggala was lying on a chaise longue, wear­ing a negligee and reading a French paper-back novel. At Roger's entrance she dropped the book, stared up in surprise and demanded:

  'Who... who are you ?'

  Roger made a leg and replied with deceptive courtesy. 'May it please Your Ladyship, I am a government agent from London, and it is my duty to question you on a very serious matter.'

  'I... I don't understand,' she faltered.

  'The name Katie O'Brien will not be unknown to Your Ladyship?'

  'I... yes. I knew her when I lived in Dublin some years ago.'

  'And more recently when you both lived in London.'

  Maureen Luggala came to her feet, pulled her negligee round her and said angrily, 'With whom I am acquainted has nothing to do with you, and I have committed no crime to be questioned in this manner.'

  'My superiors are of a different opinion, milady,' Roger smiled a little grimly. 'A regular visitor to Mrs. O'Brien's house in Islington was a Dutchman, named Cornelius

  Quelp. You, too, were a regular visitor, and you met him there.'

  The blood drained from Maureen's face, so that the patches of rouge on her cheeks stood out and she pressed one hand over her wildly beating heart.

  'Quelp was arrested as an enemy agent, tried, con­victed and is now in prison,' Roger went on inexorably. 'We have recently come upon evidence, milady, that you supplied him with information to the detriment of the safety of the realm.'

  ‘I... no,' she gasped. 'I told him nothing of importance. Perhaps I talked foolishly, but I had no idea that he was an enemy agent.'

  Roger had no evidence, but his bluff had succeeded. 'Quelp will testify that you did know,’ he declared harsh­ly. 'And your assertion that the information was of no importance is untrue. Otherwise you would not have been paid for it, as you were through Coutts Bank by Mrs. O'Brien.'

  His stricken victim collapsed on to the chaise longue and covered her face with her hands. Then after a moment she withdrew them and panted, "Tis not true. The money was not for that. I am far from rich and was taking a daughter out in fashionable London society. Katie O'Brien is the girl's god-mother, and she helped to finance me.'

  Drawing a paper from his pocket, Roger told her stern­ly, 'At your trial you will have the opportunity of trying to persuade the jury of your innocence, but I'd wager big odds on it that you will fail. And I have here a warrant for your arrest.'

  'No!' Her voice quavered and tears began to run down her cheeks. 'No, please! I've done no real harm. I'm cer­tain of it. And the war is over. I'd be ruined, ruined!'

  'That would be only justice, since you have been re­sponsible for the ruin of others,' Roger snapped. Then, abandoning his role of a government official, he sat down in an armchair, crossed his legs and went on in a quieter tone, 'And now we will talk of that. I am wearing these clothes only because they are better suited for questioning your servants than my usual attire, which might have made them doubt my being a police agent.'

  She looked up quickly, with new hope in her pale blue eyes. 'Then you are not... All this...'

  'Oh, yes I am,' he asserted quickly. 'I will show you the papers I carry if you wish. But I have assumed the role only temporarily. Although we have never met, my name is not unknown to you. It is Roger Brook.'

  She stared at him aghast. 'Then ... then you are Susan's father.'

  He nodded. 'And god-father to the Earl of St. Ermins. My primary purpose in coming here is to find out what has become of them. I am convinced that you know and could take me to them.'

  'No!' she shook her head violently. 'I cannot. I've no idea where they are. The two girls left me against my wish. And I've not seen the young Earl since I left London.'

  'You are lying, woman. That was the story you told the Duchess of Kew in your letter to her, but I know the truth. I had it out of your servants before I came up here. The girls left this house with you in mid-March in a hired coach, and St. Ermins also left here with, presumably, a friend of yours—a priest—on the 29th of that month.'

  She shuddered. ‘I know! I know! It was stupid of me not to realise that you would have found out. But I can't take you to them, I can't!'

  'You can, and you will,' snarled Roger.

  ‘I dare not. They are with the O'Brien woman, of course. You must have guessed that. If I betrayed the place where she is, she'd put a curse on me.'

  'I'll take care of her. You have only to take me to the place where she has gone to earth, and leave the rest to me.'

  'I won't! I'd rather die! She knows my weakness. She'd render me incapable of ever pleasuring a man again.'

  Roger stood up, grasped her by the wrist, pulled her to her feet and shook her. ‘I, too, have that power. If the witch remain
s in ignorance of who led me to her you'll have naught to fear from her, and I'll tear up this warrant I have for your arrest. Refuse, and I'll execute it. You'll sleep tonight in one of the dungeons below Dublin Castle. Then you'll be tried and condemned to penal servitude. When you have served a year or two with the female scum of the city, such looks as you have will have been replaced by lacklustre eyes, scrofolous grey hair and the wrinkled face of an old crone. Maybe you will catch typhus and die in prison. If you do come out alive, you'll have to haunt the lowest taverns to find even a drunken dock rat who'll be bemused enough to sleep with you.'

  'You awful man,' she whimpered. 'How can you threaten a woman like me with such a terrible fate? Have you no pity?'

  'None,' he retorted, shaking her again. 'None for lecherous bitches of your ilk who corrupt young people, and trade them to a priestess of the Devil in return for opportunities to gratify your lust. Come now! Make up your mind. Do you give me the information I require, or do I send you to live on skilly and stitch mail bags for a term of years? The choice is yours.'

  Falling back on the couch, she sobbed, ‘I ... I'll do as you demand. But it is already night, and the place is far from here—thirty miles at the least’

  'In that case we'll need a coach, and had best postpone our journey until tomorrow. But foster no illusion that you will succeed in playing me any tricks. I propose to hold you incommunicado for the night. Now show me the way to your bedroom.'

  Stifling her sobs, she led the way from the room and up­stairs to the second floor. Her bedroom was at the back of the house. Roger walked over to one of the windows and looked down. Below, in the semi-darkness, he could make out a small, paved garden. Satisfied that there was no way down to it and that the window was much too high for her to risk a drop, he recrossed the room to the door, removed the key from the inside and transferred it to the outside. Then he said to her: