The palms of John’s hands were already sweating. His memory of the impotence and fear he had felt when in the crypt twenty-four hours earlier was still vivid in his mind; yet he had made his decision the moment Beddows had spoken of the Pact as the price on which he must insist for his cooperation.
John had come there determined to secure that cooperation somehow; not only because it could bring to nought the Canon’s attempt to get Christina out of prison during the night that was already upon them, but also because on that depended her whole future. To save her from an abominable death at the hands of Copely-Syle was the overriding consideration for the moment, but even success in that could later prove a barren victory if she were to continue to be the nightly victim of evil cravings which, now she was out in the world, must soon lead her to become cynically immoral, decadent, unscrupulous and, perhaps, criminal. Only her father could save her from that by ratting on his bargain with the Devil. Since his price for that was the Pact, he must have it.
The mere idea of going into the crypt again filled John with terrifying qualms. He felt that to argue the matter further could only weaken his resolution, and that in immediate action lay his sole hope of maintaining it long enough to force himself to enter that Satanic stronghold when he got there; so he said abruptly: ‘Perhaps you are right, and I’ll be dead in an hour. If not, I’ll be back here.’ Then he turned towards the door.
‘Hi!’ C.B. called after him. ‘If we’ve got to do this thing, we had better take some weapons with us.’
‘You are not in this!’ John’s voice was made surly by fear. ‘This is my show. You stay where you are.’
‘Is it likely?’ C.B. grunted. ‘I’ve never liked anything less in my life; but how could I ever face your mother if I let you go alone?’ Turning to Beddows, he said, ‘These cups in the valleys of the pentacle have Holy water in them, haven’t they? Where’s the rest of it?’
Reaching behind him into the tea-chest, Beddows produced a quart bottle half full. As he handed it over, C.B. asked: ‘Have you any spare horse-shoes?’
‘No. I’m afraid not.’
‘That’s a pity,’ muttered C.B. ‘And I daren’t deprive you of any of your defences, in case something gets at you while we are away. I suppose you haven’t got a crucifix in the house?’
Beddows shook his head. ‘Of course not! I could hardly bear to look at one, and it would burn me if I touched it. As it was I had to be mighty careful when I poured the Holy water out: if I had spilt any on my hands it would have scalded me.’
John was already at the door. Without another glance at Beddows, C.B. joined him and they hurried downstairs. When they reached the hall John made for the baize door, but C.B. called after him: ‘Hold your horses! We’ve got to forge a few Astral weapons before we leave here. I wish to goodness we had a little time to make proper preparations. We ought to have necklaces of garlic and asafoetida grass, not to mention purifying ourselves with the smoke of sweet herbs and putting on clean underclothes. Still, we must do the best we can.’
As he spoke he led the way through the breakfast room to the pantry, and began to pull open its rows of drawers one after another. In one he found string and scissors, in another a bundle of firewood. Handing them to John, he said: ‘Here, take these. Use four of the sticks to make two crosses. Bind them together with the string and attach long loops to them so that we can hang them round our necks.’
In a corner of the room were stacked several crates. The top ones contained quart bottles of beer, but underneath he found one holding small bottles of lemonade. Taking two of them, he opened and emptied them at the sink, then refilled them with Holy water and corked them roughly with tight wads of screwed-up newspaper.
‘Put this in your pocket,’ he said, handing one of them to John. ‘And don’t use it until I tell you to.’ The other he pocketed himself.
Picking up a broom that stood behind the door, he wrenched out the long handle, then laid it over a Windsor chair and snapped it in two pieces about one third of the way up. With another length of string he lashed them together, so that they formed a large cross to carry in the hand. After a quick look round, he went to the further door that led to the rear quarters of the house, opened it and said: ‘I am going to hunt round for something with which to prise up the altar slab. In the meantime pull down some curtains, soak them with water and carry them out to the car. Unbolt the front door and go out by that. It will save time.’
John did as he was told, and he was still piling the sopping mess on the floor in front of the back seat when C.B. rejoined him, carrying a steel case-opener. As he held it out, he remarked, ‘This is not much bigger than my own jemmy, but the best thing I could find. You take it, and I’ll carry the cross.’
As they got in the car and he started up the engine, John said, ‘I take it the wet things are for throwing down the furnace chimney?’
‘Yes. We’ve been lucky here in finding that the Jutsons go to bed early; but it’s only just eleven o’clock; so that servant of the Canon’s may still be up. I had thought of going to the front door and knocking him out as soon as he answered it. We would be almost sure of having the free run of the place then, as it is most unlikely that anyone who performs the Canon’s tricks would have any other servants living in; but the door to the crypt is of iron and has a Chubb lock. As Copely-Syle keeps the key to it on him we wouldn’t be able to get in that way; so I think we would do better to ignore the Egyptian and go straight in down the chimney.’
A few minutes’ drive brought them to The Priory. Pulling up a hundred yards short of it, John parked the car under the trees that overhung the road, and they got out. A light wind had risen, keeping off more rain, but the sky was four-fifths scudding cloud and it was only when the moon broke through at intervals for a minute or two that there was enough light for them to see their way at all clearly.
Carrying the sopping curtains between them, they broke through the hedge into the coppice and approached the house by the route that John had taken the previous night. On reaching the crypt they dumped their burden and made a brief reconnaissance round the house and back. No light showed in any of the windows; so it looked as if the Egyptian had gone to bed. C.B., as the taller, gave John a leg up, passed him the bundle of curtains, and scrambled on to the roof after him. In single file they crossed it to the chimney.
‘Now,’ said C.B. in a low voice, ‘I needn’t stress the fact that we are going into great danger. We must kneel down and pray.’
Side by side they went down on their knees, and remained so in silence for a few minutes.
If anything nasty comes at you cry aloud, “In the name of Jesus Christ I defy thee, Satan.”
John dropped the curtains down the wide chimney mouth. As they fell on the furnace at its bottom with a faint thud, he made to follow them; but C.B. pushed him firmly aside. ‘No, John. I am carrying the cross; so you must let me be the leader of this party. What is more, if at any time I tell you to get out, you will get out, and not stop to argue about it. By doing so you will not only save yourself, but will be able to bring help, with at least some chance of saving me later. Is that clear?’
As John nodded, C.B. swung his long legs over the chimney lip, found the first rungs inside and disappeared down it. Dropping the last few feet, he landed on the wet curtains. Beneath them the coke made a crunching sound, but the fire was dull and he scarcely felt its heat as he jumped off it.
The crypt was in darkness. Holding the cross in his left hand, he pulled his torch from his pocket with his right and switched it on. The instant he could see his way, he ran up the steps that led to the iron door and brushed down all the switches beside it, flooding the central aisle of the crypt with light. Pushing the torch back in his pocket he turned, planted his back firmly against the door, and only then let his glance rove round the vaulted chamber.
There was less change in it than he had expected from what Inspector Fuller had implied. The curtains at the far end, embroidered with the Goat of Mendes and the Woman with Seven Breasts, were gone; so were the sorcerer’s robes, the altar cloth, the black candle, and the broken crucifix with the bat nailed upside down on it: but the sword, the chalice and the book still reposed upon the altar slab, looking not inappropriate in the role of harmless ornaments. The skeleton still dangled grotesquely from its wire and the mummy-case lay undisturbed beneath the nearest table; but both were the sort of exhibits that might be found in the museum-workshop of any amateur scientist. That also applied to the astrolabe, the six out of the seven great glass jars that had contained the homunculi, and the bottles, measures, balances and retorts that loaded the four long refectory tables.
One sweeping glance was enough for C.B. to take that much in, and he had hardly had time to register it before John thumped down on the furnace, sprang off it and pulled the now steaming curtains after him. Neither had the least intention of staying there one moment longer than they had to, and both simultaneously started forward towards the altar. They had taken only two steps when a cock crowed.
The cock’s raucous challenge, seeming unnaturally loud as it echoed from the stone arches overhead, sounded like the voice of doom. The two men halted in their tracks. The blood rushed to their hearts. Fearfully they jerked white faces round towards the left-hand aisle and the shadowy tier of cages behind the row of pillars, from which the crowing came.
There was nothing really terrifying about the sound itself—it was hearing it so unexpectedly in those surroundings. They had forgotten that although, according to the inspector’s account, the Canon had disposed of all his maimed animals, he had not removed the chickens, doves and other fowl which he used for sacrifices. In the darkness they had all been silently sleeping, till the sudden switching on of the lights had aroused them to chirp and flutter in a false dawn.
As realisation dawned upon the two intruders, that this was no demon giving tongue in the likeness of a bird, they let go their breath and breathed again; but only for a moment. Something moved swiftly behind one of the pillars. Both of them glimpsed the quick, furtive jump of a shadowy body, but neither could have said what it was. Instead of advancing further, they remained there, staring apprehensively at the base of the pillar behind which it had disappeared.
Before they could make up their minds to leave it unaccounted for in their rear, their attention was distracted to the roof. A faint squeaking sounded up in the shadows above the row of lights. There was a sudden movement up there too, then the squeaking ceased.
‘Come on!’ said John. ‘We’re wasting time.’
As he spoke the thing behind the pillar moved again. It sprang out into the open, a yard ahead of them, right in their path. Their gasps merged into sighs of relief. It was an obscene and ugly creature, but appeared to be no more than an exceptionally large toad.
John took another step forward. His foot had not reached the ground when something hurtled at his head from above, like a small dive-bomber. He gave a cry of fear and ducked, but caught a swift sight of the thing as it streaked downward between his upturned face and the nearest light. As he did so he upbraided himself for showing such funk, when the squeaking should have told him that the creatures above the lights were only bats.
Next moment he had cause for real terror. The toad had been watching him with bright, jewel-like, unwinking eyes. Suddenly its mouth opened and it laughed.
That deep unholy chuckle, coming from a reptile, sent chills rippling down both their spines. Instinctively they backed towards the steps.
‘We’ve got to go forward,’ said C.B. hoarsely. ‘If we lose our nerve now, we’re finished.’
In two paces they recovered their lost ground; but the toad held his. Then an extraordinary thing happened. Its outline blurred and it crepitated until it turned into a yellowish-green ball of gaseous matter. An instant later there were two toads squatting where there had been only one before.
With unbelieving eyes they stared at the twin creatures begotten so mysteriously. As they did so they heard a swish in the air above them, and this time two bats came hurtling at their heads. Both of them ducked; the two toads laughed, wobbled into whirling balls and became four.
It was at that moment that the lights went out.
For a few seconds they were blinded by the darkness; then they became conscious of a glow behind them. Swinging round they saw that the door had opened, and the Canon’s servant stood framed in it.
It occurred to them only then that he must have a key to the door in order to keep the furnace going and feed the birds. What had brought him on the scene they could not guess. They had been in the crypt for about two minutes. It was possible that he had heard the cock crow, or seen a line of light below the door, or simply come to stoke the furnace up for the night, or perhaps been summoned as the guardian of the place by some occult signal. They could only be certain that it was he who had turned out the lights; for, as they swung upon him, he still had his dark hand on the two lowest switches.
After the unnerving episode of the toad a human enemy held few terrors for the nocturnal intruders. The Egyptian was as tall as C.B. and the flowing white burnous which concealed his limbs gave him the appearance of being considerably more powerful; yet without a second’s hesitation John tensed his muscles to spring up the steps towards him.
C.B. did likewise, then swiftly averted his gaze and shouted a warning. ‘Don’t look at his eyes! Don’t look at his eyes!’
It came too late. John was already staring straight into his white-rimmed eyeballs. The reason why he had switched out the lights instantly became clear. It was to prevent them dazzling him and to enable his eyes to become luminous in the semi-darkness. In his coffee-coloured face they now showed up brilliantly. They held John’s gaze so that he could not draw it away, and seemed to increase in size with extraordinary swiftness. To his fury and amazement his body made a futile jerk, but he was incapable of launching himself up the stone stairway. The eyes that bored into his grew bigger and bigger, until they merged and became one great blinding circle of light. An intolerable pain shot through his head, his knees gave under him and he crumpled up on the lowest step.
The Egyptian had overcome him in a matter of seconds by catching his glance as he was about to jump. But C.B., after one glimpse of the baleful light in the man’s eyes, had torn his own away. Riveting his gaze on the stone flags of the floor for a moment, he concentrated both his mental and physical strength. Swiftly, he muttered a short prayer; then, without raising his glance, he hurled himself at the Egyptian’s legs.
John had at that second collapsed. Having dealt successfully with one intruder, the Egyptian turned on the other. But he had time only to kick C.B. in the chest. The force of the kick would have broken C.B.’s breast-bone had the man been wearing boots, but he had on only soft leather sandals. The jolt was no worse than a punch from a pugilist wearing boxing gloves; yet that was bad enough. It shook C.B. sufficiently to make him gasp and boggle his tackle. Instead of getting the man beneath the knees, he succeeded in grasping him only by one ankle. Tightening his grip, he drew a deep breath, then threw his weight backward.
The Egyptian’s foot flew from beneath him and he crashed to the ground. Without losing a second he kicked out with his other foot. It caught C.B. on the head and sent him reeling down the steps. But John, now freed for a few seconds from the paralysing effect of that hypnotic stare, was on his feet again. He still grasped in his right hand the steel case-opener that he had been holding when he came down the chimney. Rushing up the steps he beat wildly at the servant with it just as he was struggling back on to his feet. One blow caught him on the shoulder, and he let out a yell of pain. The second landed on his forehead. Without another sound, he went down like a poleaxed bullock.
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 coffer. 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.