‘What a break!’ Rex exclaimed. ‘Out there in the West Indies we’ll be able to forget this filthy war for a bit. Think of it—sunshine, bathing, dancing, big game, fishing, lots of good things to eat and drink—all the fun we used to have in those old peace-time days when we packed our grips for the sunny South.’
Richard sighed. ‘Those lovely winter holidays in the sunshine are what Marie Lou and I have missed most. We’ve so often said what heaven it would be to go cruising with you all on the yacht again. Yet somehow it doesn’t seem right to leave England while there’s a war on, and I’ll bet that when we really got down to trying to enjoy ourselves we just wouldn’t be able to, because all the time we’d be thinking of what’s going on here.’
Marie Lou slipped her hand through his arm. ‘You silly darling; it isn’t a question of enjoying ourselves and you know quite well that not one of us would dream of quitting for our own sakes; but this is different.’
‘Of course,’ added the Duke. ‘Far from running away from danger, we shall be going further into it, and this is a fight for Britain which only we can wage.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Richard agreed, still a shade reluctantly. ‘Anyhow, you’ve always been our leader and what you say goes.’
‘Thanks, Richard,’ de Richleau smiled. ‘We’ll set about our preparations tomorrow morning. In the meantime we’ve quite a lot to do after the narrow escape we had tonight; then some of us at least should get a little more sleep.’
For the next hour they employed themselves in banishing all traces of the evil manifestation which had attacked them. The whole floor had to be thoroughly cleaned while the Duke performed certain exorcisms and the pentacle was remade. The French prisoner’s papers were taken outside to the hall, the Duke attended to the marks on his throat, the door was re-sealed, and they settled down again, with Richard and Rex to watch while the other three slept.
When they awoke Richard, Rex and Simon, still wearing their wreaths of garlic flowers and crucifixes for protection, went down into the cellars to find out if the two prisoners were still there; but in the previous night’s panic the door had been left open and, as they had expected, both the Frenchman and the Jap had escaped, leaving no trace behind them.
In the meantime Marie Lou helped the Duke upstairs to his bedroom and set about attending to his injured foot. As she dressed the gash he remarked:
‘Don’t put on too thick a bandage, because I must get a shoe over it. I’m going up to London to see Pellinore.’
‘No, Greyeyes, you’re not,’ she contradicted him promptly. ‘You put up a splendid front last night but that explosion shook you much more than you’d have us believe, and you can’t possibly expect this place in your foot to heal unless you keep your leg up. You’re not moving out of this house today and you’re going to spend it resting.’
De Richleau was one of the most determined people in the world, but he had come up against Marie Lou before, and knew that she could be extraordinarily pig-headed. He glanced up at her uneasily as she went on:
‘Richard can quite well go up to London for you. All you have to do is to tell him what you want done. He will see Sir Pellinore and make all arrangements for our journey. ‘You know as well as I do that he’s extraordinarily competent at that sort of thing.’
‘Of course he is,’ agreed the Duke, ‘but it’s essential that I should see Pellinore myself.’
‘Then it’s a case of Mohammed and the Mountain,’ she countered. ‘Since I will not allow you to go up to see him he must come down here to see you.’
‘Impossible; he’s much too busy,’ said the Duke a trifle curtly.
Upon which, somewhat to his surprise, Marie Lou replied: ‘Well, if he really is too busy to come down I suppose I’ll have to let you go, but I insist on your staying in bed for breakfast.’
‘That’s settled, then,’ de Richleau smiled. Yet he remained vaguely suspicious about her sudden surrender; and, as it proved, with good reason. An hour or so later, just as he was finishing his breakfast, she returned to his room and said with a mischievous smile:
‘You needn’t bother to get up, after all. I was lucky enough to get a personal call through to London with comparatively little delay, and I’ve spoken to Sir Pellinore. He says that no business is as important at the moment as the business which we are engaged on, and that as you’re laid up he’ll motor down to join us for luncheon.’
The Duke laughed as he took her small hand and kissed it. ‘I might have known that you’d get the best of me—and, frankly, I’m not sorry. That bomb shook me up pretty badly and it’s rather a relief to be able to take things easy.’
Soon after one Sir Pellinore was with them. When he was shown Marie Lou’s devastated sitting-room he expressed real concern and insisted that now that this strange war within the war had been carried on to the physical plane they must have a police guard to protect them from further attempts upon their lives.
De Richleau laughingly protested that it was quite useless to have police officers in the house, as instead of their being able to give protection after dark they would themselves require it and would only add to his own burdens; but Sir Pellinore persisted that, in any case, police could patrol the grounds to prevent strangers from getting near the house, and he forthwith put through a priority call to the Special Branch at Scotland Yard to arrange matters, at the same time giving particulars of the two enemy agents who had thrown the bomb and afterwards escaped.
At the Duke’s special request he added that the officer in charge was not to call at the house or institute any inquiry but to confine his activities to seeing that no stranger was allowed to approach within two hundred yards of the house or its outbuildings.
Over luncheon the Duke announced his discovery that the enemy was operating from Haiti and that it would be necessary for them to go there.
‘Why?’ asked Sir Pellinore bluntly. ‘From what I’ve gathered of this extraordinary business, you people seem to be able to travel anywhere, with perfect ease, in your sleep, so what’s to be gained by your all sailing off to the West Indies in the flesh?’
‘There is only one way in which we can stop this thing,’ said the Duke promptly. ‘The Adept of the Left-Hand Path whose astral gets on board each convoy-leader secure particulars of the route planned for it. He must then communicate with a Nazi occultist in Germany. The Nazi then wakes up and gives particulars to the German Admiralty, who issue code instructions to their submarines which are patrolling the Atlantic or dispatch dive-bombers from the French coast to attack the convoy; but each morning the Adept, however powerful he is, has to wake up in his body in Haiti, and he is the fellow we want to get at.’
‘One thing I don’t understand.’ Simon gave a little nervous wriggle of his head. ‘If an Adept in Haiti can get the information, why can’t the Nazi occultist to whom it is passed on get it for himself?’
De Richleau shrugged. ‘That’s more than I can say for the moment; but I believe it’s a question of relative power. You must remember that when I started to operate I had definite facts to work upon. I knew the time and place from which the convoy was sailing and the route that it was to take. Therefore, each time I went out I knew, within a relatively small area, where to look for it. Our enemy, on the other hand, has no such information, and to search for a group of ships in the vast spaces of the Atlantic, without any guide at all as to where they are to be found, would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And, mark you, they must be located within twenty-four hours of their escort having left them, otherwise they would be getting to the limit of the belt in which the enemy can operate. If I were given such a job it’s almost certain that I should miss nine out of ten of the convoys, and probably the German occultist would be no more successful.’
‘Whereas the fellow we’re up against manages to locate every convoy in the limited time at his disposal,’ cut in Richard.
‘Exactly. How he does so I don’t pretend to know, but he is evidently an Adept of very great power, and that, I think, is why the Germans have to work through him instead of doing the job for themselves.’
‘Sounds feasible,’ boomed Sir Pellinore; ‘that is, as far as any of this stuff can be said to make sense at all. But I still don’t see why you’ve got to go all the way to Haiti to deal with the feller—I mean, since this battle is being fought on the—er—astral plane.’
‘Because,’ said the Duke patiently, ‘the only way in which we can stop this thing is by killing the Haitian Adept, and only in our physical bodies can we do that.’
‘Sure. That adds up about having to go there if we want to rub him out,’ said Rex. ‘But how’s killing him going to prevent his astral from carrying on the dirty work and continuing to turn over the information that they want to his Nazi friends while they’re asleep?’
‘A very shrewd question, Rex,’ the Duke smiled, ‘and the answer lies in the law of the Timeless Ones who have created all things as they are. As I explained to Pellinore some time ago, and as all of you are aware, when we have achieved a certain state of advancement through many lives we have complete continuity of consciousness—that is to say, when we are asleep our astral knows everything there is to know about the physical body to which it is temporarily attached, and when we are awake we are able, through long practice, to remember all that we do on the astral plane. More: when we achieve true memory we are able to look back and recall all that we did in our innumerable past lives on Earth. Therefore, the genuine Adept, whether of the Right or the Left-Hand Path, can view his existence, either in the flesh or out of it, as one continuous whole.’
Simon nodded. ‘That’s what makes it so difficult to trap a really powerful Black. Having continuity of consciousness enables him to be perpetually on guard, so it’s practically impossible to take him by surprise; whether he’s in his body or out of it, he’s always on the look-out to foil any attempt which may be made to get at him.’
‘True,’ de Richleau agreed. ‘But the Wise Ones foresaw that and provided for it. However powerful an individual may become, there is always one moment, which occurs every two or three hundred years, when he is completely helpless. That moment is at the end of each Earth life. It doesn’t in the least matter if people die in bed of so-called old age, or, at the height of their strength, through violence. As each incarnation finishes, there is a brief space of time in which the individual suffers a complete black-out, and it is then, in the case of a Black Magician, that the warriors of Light can rush in and chain him.’
Sir Pellinore passed a large hand over his fine head of white hair. ‘Dear me, this is all very—well, I won’t say that it’s beyond me—but a bit outside the compass of an ordinary feller like myself. Still, I’ve no doubt that you know what you’re talking about, and it all seems to fit in. I take it, then, that you propose to kill the chap who’s making all the trouble and collar his—er—soul I suppose you’d call it—while the going’s good. What happens to him then? Not that I care what you do to the feller, but just as a matter of interest. Is it possible to kill his soul too?’
‘No,’ smiled the Duke; ‘but we can cast it into prison. No individual is wholly bad, and Black Magicians are only people who have gone astray throughout a number of incarnations. It’s quite a reasonable analogy to compare them with men who have become habitual criminals in this life. Most crooks start their criminal careers as youngsters who through bad example, or a sudden impulse, pick a pocket or rob a till and get away with it. They know perfectly well that they’re running a risk and that sooner or later they will be caught and punished, but they’re tempted through laziness or ambition, and, more often still, by false pride which flatters them into thinking how clever they are to continue obtaining money by illicit means instead of working for it. Sometimes the shock of being caught and put on probation or given a light prison sentence is enough to bring them to their senses and they mend their ways. In other cases they have to be given sentence after sentence before they finally decide that crime does not pay.’
‘Oh, come!’ protested Sir Pellinore. ‘What about the old lags? The really hardened crooks never give up their profession however often they’re jailed.’
‘One moment. I grant you that the average Earth life of seventy years is not long enough to cure the worst cases. But if men lived for seven thousand years, instead of for seventy, I think you’ll agree that the most hardened crook that ever lived would get a little tired of prison after he had done about two thousand years inside and each new sentence was getting longer and longer.’
‘Ha!’ Sir Pellinore guffawed. ‘That’s good. Yes, you’re right there, Duke; I see your point.’
‘Well, that’s what happens on the astral. There’s not one of us who hasn’t dabbled in Black Magic at some time or other during our many lives, and at one time I could do as neat a job of sorcery as most people myself; but the majority of us give it up after being hauled up and cautioned, while the hardened cases go on for maybe a dozen lives or more, until they’re caught out and sentenced to a really long spell. If that’s not enough they get an even heavier sentence next time they’re caught; and, of course, each prison sentence sets them back on the upward journey which we all have to accomplish sooner or later whether we like it or not.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Simply that if a spirit is cast into prison for having taken the Left-Hand Path it is automatically debarred from any chance of reincarnation during the term of its imprisonment. Prison sentences are much longer on the astral than they are on Earth, so a bad Black might easily get a thousand years. That would set him back three or four lives and the long intervening periods in which we are not in incarnation; and as he has to live those lives some time before he can possibly pass on to a higher sphere all that lost time later proves a heavy handicap. However, as you’ve got to get back to London we mustn’t wander too far from the matter in hand. I take it that you can arrange passages to Haiti for us?’
‘Certainly,’ said Sir Pellinore quickly. ‘I’ll have you flown over to Lisbon and will see that seats are reserved for you on the Clipper to New York. It would be better for you to fly from New York to Miami and hire a plane there to take you on to your destination. Money, of course, is no object, but speed is of the first importance.’
‘Situation’s still pretty bad, then,’ hazarded Simon.
‘Bad!’ echoed Sir Pellinore, lifting his blue eyes heavenwards. ‘My God, if you only knew! The Intelligence people are going grey with worry over it, and even the “silent” service has been forced to admit that it’s at its wits’ end. Up to the moment the P.M. has been most sympathetic with the difficulties of all concerned, but I can see the point coming when his patience will be exhausted; and when that happens I’d rather have to face Hitler.’
‘Our losses in tonnage were considerably down last week, though,’ Richard remarked.
‘Yes; thanks to brilliant handling of their ships by our seamen—plus, apparently, the fact that de Richleau put a spoke in the Nazis’ wheel and enabled one convoy to get through without being attacked. However, the menace is still there. Britain entered the war with twenty-one million tons of shipping, but that is dispersed all over the world, and since September we’ve lost hundreds of thousands of tons every month in Atlantic waters. We can’t go on that way. It’s not only the ships—it’s hundreds of fine seamen who can’t be replaced—the very salt of our island race— many of them young men who’ve not lived long enough yet to beget sons and so pass on the blood that for centuries has given England the mastery of the seas and of the narrow waters. Then there’s the cargoes; loss of exports means loss in dollars, and, more important still, it’s temporarily halved our imports in such vital commodities as food, tommy-guns and the planes from America which we’re counting upon to enable us to beat the Germans in 1941.’
‘Well, you can rely upon us to do our damn’dest,’ said the Duke soberly.
‘I know. But I cannot too heavily stress the absolutely vital issues which are at stake. All our splendid naval successes in the Mediterranean, and the magnificent work in the Libyan Desert by which the Army has regained the confidence of the nation, will go for nothing unless this mass destruction of our shipping can be checked. The Western Approaches have now become the focal point of the whole war, and as the spring advances Hitler will unquestionably intensify his attacks. I don’t pretend to understand what you’re up to, but you seem to have got a line on this thing and you’re the only people in Britain who have, so I beg of you not to spare yourselves. If you’re victorious we shall never be able to tell the public how the Nazi counter-blockade was broken, but you yourselves will have the satisfaction of knowing that you five have gained as great a triumph for Britain as any military commander, with the whole of our new Armies, could do in the field.’
Simon tittered into his hand. That ranks us as equal to about ten divisions apiece; pretty good going, eh?’
‘I mean it,’ insisted Sir Pellinore. ‘Now, when can you start?’
‘I think I can say for all of us that we’re ready to leave as soon as you can complete arrangements for our journey,’ said the Duke, looking round at the others, who all nodded silent agreement.
‘Good. That will be the day after tomorrow, then. The Clipper leaves Lisbon on Friday, and there’s no sense in your kicking your heels there for twenty-four hours which you could doubtless better employ here.’
‘Would you be able to get us places at such short notice?’ Rex asked. ‘I gather the Clipper’s pretty crowded these days.’
Sir Pellinore waved the question aside with one of his large hands. ‘Your countrymen are in this thing with us now, Van Ryn, praise be to God. I have only to ask one of the officials of the War Cabinet to get on to the American Embassy and—whoever has to be turned off—they’ll see to it for us that you have places on the plane.’
Shortly afterwards, having earnestly wished them God’s blessing on their strange mission, Sir Pellinore left for London. The Duke then told the others that he intended to set about purging the house of the poltergeists.
Marie Lou remonstrated with him because she wanted him to lie down again and rest his injured foot, but he pointed out to her that as there would be quite a number of things to do in London before setting out on their journey they would have to leave Cardinals Folly very early the following morning, and he was anxious that the house should be made habitable so that the servants could return to it before they left.
Seeing the sense of that she gave way but asked him a question that had been puzzling her for some days.
‘Why is it that, while we can’t make ourselves either felt or heard when we’re out of our bodies, a poltergeist can perform all sorts of physical acts?’
‘It’s because they are not individuals, but elementals,’ he replied. They differ from living spirits in the same way as a poisonous jelly-fish differs from a human being. Both these low forms are unpleasant and malignant but they are blind and lack all intelligence. Both can make themselves felt in a way that we cannot, but can easily be destroyed by us.’
They spent the next two hours accompanying the Duke as he moved from room to room with bell and book and water sprinkler. In each room he remained standing and read an exorcism, while they stood on either side of him murmuring the responses to his prompting. He then sprinkled the four corners of the room, the doorway and the hearth, while reciting certain powerful abjurations which from time immemorial have been known to drive away evil spirits.
In room after room as each ceremony was completed there was temporarily a disgusting stench until they had flung wide the windows and let in the cold winter air. At one place in the west wing the horrible smell of rotting meat was so bad that Marie Lou was on the point of vomiting, until de Richleau told her that if she were in her astral she would laugh to see the fun. The poltergeists were little like round balloons about the size of footballs, and each time the holy water hit one it burst, disintegrating in a puff of astral smoke which gave off the beastly smell of the earthly filth from the essence of which it derived its strength.
That night they again slept in the pentacle, taking turns to watch, while the astrals of those who slept never left it. In consequence they passed an untroubled night and beyond the library door silence reigned all through the dark hours, showing that the purification of the house which had been carried out that afternoon had proved entirely successful.
They were up very early the following morning. As soon as they had dressed they packed their bags, and while Marie Lou did Richard’s packing he had a talk with Malin, giving the butler a number of post-dated cheques with which to run the house while its master and mistress were absent. Malin also undertook to reassure such members of the staff as were willing to return that they would not be troubled by any further curious happenings. At nine o’clock he deferentially shook hands with them all and wished them good luck as they got into Richard’s car and set off for London.
All five of them spent a busy day. At the Duke’s request, Simon telephoned to Sir Pellinore and arranged for the issue of a special treasury-permit enabling them to transfer ample funds to a bank in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Marie Lou did a hectic afternoon’s shopping, acquiring the sort of lovely, light, clothes for tropical sunshine which she had never hoped to wear again until the war was over. Rex reported to Air Force Headquarters and ascertained that his indefinite extension of leave was all in order. De Richleau purchased an additional supply of rare herbs from Culpeper House while Richard, the ever-practical, saw that the armaments of the whole party were in proper order. They all possessed automatics from their past adventures, with permits to retain them, but none of the weapons had been used for several years and for two of the guns he had to obtain a new supply of ammunition.
At cocktail-time they met at the Duke’s flat, as it had been decided that after rendezvousing there for drinks they would dine at the Dorchester and make a holiday of this their last night for none of them knew how long in dear, bomb-torn London.
They had just satisfied themselves that all their arrangements had been completed, and were about to move off for the Dorchester, when the telephone bell rang. De Richleau picked up the receiver and Sir Pellinore’s deep voice boomed along the line.
‘That you, de Richleau? Listen, I’ve got a favour to ask of you.’
‘Certainly. What is it?’ replied the Duke.
‘There’s a young woman—daughter of a man I know— her name’s Philippa Ricardi—he’s very anxious to get her out of England and he has an estate in Jamaica—grows sugar or something of the kind, and the place is run for him by his sister. He’s already made arrangements to send the girl there by the Clipper leaving on Friday, so her permits and passport are all in order. She’s travelling alone, though, and I was wondering if Mrs. Eaton would be good enough to chaperone her as far as Miami. It would be a great kindness if she would.’
‘Hold on one moment.’ De Richleau turned and repeated the request to Marie Lou.
‘Of course I will,’ she said at once, and the Duke told Sir Pellinore that it would be quite all right.
‘Splendid,’ boomed the Baronet. ‘Please convey my most grateful thanks to Mrs. Eaton. Miss Ricardi will meet you at Waterloo tomorrow morning. Oh, by the by, I forgot to tell you, and I can’t stay to explain further, because I’m wanted on another line, but the poor girl’s a mute—you know, deaf-and-dumb.’