‘Here’s the way they went,’ cried Rex. ‘There’s a ladder under this window.’
‘Then for God’s sake get after him,’ Richard shouted, racing across the room. ‘If that damn door hadn’t stuck we’d have caught him red-handed, he can’t have got far.’
Rex was already on the terrace below, Simon shinned down the ladder and Richard flung his leg over the sill of the window to follow.
Marie Lou was left alone with De Richleau in the nursery. She stared at him with round, tearless eyes, utterly overcome by this new calamity. The Duke stared back, shaken to the very depths by this appalling thing which he had brought upon his friends. He wanted most desperately to comfort and console her, but realised how hopelessly inadequate anything that he could say would be. The thought of that child having been seized by the Satanist to be offered up in some ghastly sacrifice, was utterly unbearable.
‘Princess,’ he managed to stammer. ‘Princess.’ But further words would not come, and for once in his life he found himself powerless to deal with a situation.
Marie Lou just stood there motionless and staring, held rigid by such extreme distress that she could no longer think coherently.
With a tremendous effort De Richleau pulled himself together. He knew that he had earned any opprobrium that she and Richard might choose to heap upon him for having used their house as a refuge, stated that no harm could befall them if they followed his instructions, and yet been the means of perhaps causing the death of the child whom they both idolised. But it was no time to offer himself for the whipping-post now. They must act and quickly.
‘Where is nurse?’ he shot out hoarsely.
‘In—in her bedroom.’ Marie Lou turned to a door at the end of the room which stood ajar.
‘It’s extraordinary that she should not have woken with all this noise,’ De Richleau strode over and thrust it open.
In Fleur’s nursery a greyness blurred the outlines of the furniture and shadowed the corners of the room, but in the nurse’s bedroom, the curtains being drawn, it was still completely dark.
The Duke jerked on the electric light and saw at once that Fleur’s nanny was lying peacefully asleep in bed. He walked over and touched her swiftly on the shoulder. ‘Wake up,’ he said, ‘wake up!’
She did not stir, and Marie Lou, who had followed him into the room, peered at the woman’s face anxiously, then cried on a louder note: ‘Wake up, nanny! Wake up!’
De Richleau shook the nurse roughly now, but her head rolled helplessly upon her shoulders and her eyes remained tightly shut.
‘She’s been drugged, I suppose,’ Marie Lou said miserably.
‘I don’t think so.’ The Duke bent over and sniffed. ‘There is no smell of chloroform or anything here. It’s more likely that Mocata plunged her into a deep hypnotic sleep directly he arrived. Best leave her,’ he added after a moment. ‘She’ll wake in due course, and obviously she cannot tell us anything if she has been in a heavy induced sleep all the time.’
They returned to the nursery and the Duke switched on the lights there to make a thorough examination. Almost at once his eye fell on a paper which lay at the foot of Fleur’s empty cot. He snatched it up and quickly scanned the close, typewritten lines.
Please do not worry about the little girl. She will be returned to you tomorrow morning providing that certain conditions are complied with. These are as follows:
In this exceptional case I have been compelled to resort to unusual methods which bring me within the scope of the law. I have no doubt, therefore, that one of you will suggest calling in the police to trace the child. Any such action might embarrass my operations and therefore you are not to even consider such a proceeding. You cannot doubt by now that I have ways and means of informing myself regarding all your actions and, in the event of your disobeying my injunction in this respect, I shall immediately take steps which will ensure that you never recover the child alive.
My failure last night was regrettable, since it has caused the death of a young woman recently discovered by me as an exceptional medium, for whom I might have had some further use. Mr Van Ryn removed her body while I slept and it is now in your keeping; I am anxious that every care should be taken of it. You will leave the body just as it is in your library until further instructions and refrain from taking any steps towards a coroner’s examination or its burial. If you disobey me in this matter, I shall command certain forces at my disposal, of which Monsieur Le Duc de Richleau may be able to inform you, to take possession of it.
All of you will confine yourselves in the library during the coming day, giving such reasons as you choose to your servants that you are not to be disturbed.
Lastly, my friend Simon Aron is to rejoin me for the continuance of those experiments in which we are engaged. He will leave the house alone at mid-day and proceed on foot to the cross-roads which lie a mile and a half to the southwest of Cardinals Folly, where I shall arrange for him to be met and, having surrendered himself to my representative, he must agree to give me his willing co-operation in the ritual to Satan tonight, which is necessary for the rediscovery of the Talisman of Set.
If any of these injunctions are disregarded in the least degree, you already know the penalty, but if they are carried out to my entire satisfaction, Simon Aron shall return to you sane and well after I have carried out my operations, and the child shall be restored as innocent and happy as she was yesterday.
Marie Lou read the document over De Richleau’s shoulder. ‘Oh, what are we to do?’ she wailed, wringing her hands together. ‘Greyeyes, this is too awful. What are we going to do?’
‘God knows,’ De Richleau muttered miserably. ‘He has the whip hand of us now with a vengeance. The devil of it is that I don’t trust his promise to return the child even if Simon is game to sacrifice himself.’
At that moment Simon’s head appeared above the window sill, and he scrambled up the last rungs of the ladder into the room.
‘Well!’ the Duke shot at him, but Simon shook his head.
‘The three of us have been round the grounds but in this filthy fog it’s impossible to see any distance. He’s got clean away by now.’
‘I feared as much,’ the Duke murmured despondently, and with a new access of miserable unhappiness, he watched Richard climb into the room.
‘Not a trace,’ Richard exclaimed hoarsely. ‘No footmarks, even on the flower beds, to show which way he went. Where the hell is nurse? I’ll sack the woman for her damned incompetence. With her door ajar, there’s no excuse for her not having heard Fleur cry out.’
‘It was not her fault,’ said De Richleau mildly. ‘Mocata threw her into a deep sleep and she is sleeping still. Until the time he has set it will be impossible to rouse her.’
Rex followed the others through the window, muttering angrily: ‘This filthy mist! A dozen toughs might be racketing round the garden, but we’d never get a sight of them. Is it supposed to be daylight yet, or isn’t it?’
Simon glanced at the clock on the nursery mantelpiece. ‘According to this it’s only ten to five. Surely it must be later than that.’
‘It’s stopped,’ announced Richard, ‘but it can’t be much after half past six, or the servants would be getting up, and when I ran round the far side of the house just now, there were no lights in their windows.’
‘All the better,’ said the Duke abruptly. ‘Mocata’s left a letter, Richard, with certain instructions which he orders us to carry out if Fleur is to remain unharmed.’
‘Let’s see it.’ Richard held out his hand.
De Richleau hesitated. ‘I’d rather you read it when we are downstairs again, if you don’t mind. It doesn’t help us for the present and there are certain things which we should do at once, before the servants start moving about.’
‘Good Lord, man! I mean to have the lot of them out of bed inside ten minutes. We shall need their help.’
‘I wish, instead, that while I connect the telephone again and see if I can find out anything from the inn, you would write a brief note to Malin saying that our experiments are still in progress and that we are to be left undisturbed in this wing of the house for the whole day.’
‘If you think I’m going to stay here twiddling my thumbs while Fleur’s in danger—you’re crazy!’ cried Richard indignantly.
The Duke knew that his suggestion of continued inactivity must make his apparent negligence seem even worse, but he had never yet been known to lose his head in a crisis and he managed to keep his voice quiet and even.
‘I would like you to see this letter first and talk it over with Marie Lou before you do anything reckless. In any case Tanith’s body is still downstairs. It must remain there for the moment and that is quite sufficient reason for the servants to be kept away from the library. You, Rex, go along to the kitchen, take Simon with you, and between you bring us back the best cold meal that you can muster. We’re half starved, and fasting has its limits of usefulness, even in an affair like this.’
Marie Lou stood there listening to the argument. She could not really believe that this awful thing had actually happened to her. If she had lost Fleur she would die. Even Richard would never be able to console her. It simply could not be true. The four men were phantoms talking—, yet she could see every object in the room with a curious supernormal clarity. Strange that she had never noticed one handle on the old walnut chest of drawers to be odd before, or that one of the wires in the fireguard protruded a little. Fleur might cut herself if she fell against it. She must tell nanny to have it seen to tomorrow. Yet all the time these thoughts were drifting through her mind she was conscious of what the others were saying and of an urgent need to comfort De Richleau. Her poor ‘Greyeyes’ was feeling desperately unhappy, she knew, and held himself entirely responsible for the terrible thing which could not possibly be true. When he mentioned breakfast she said at once: ‘I will go down and cook you some eggs or something.’
‘No, no, my dear,’ De Richleau looked round and then lowered his eyes quickly, his heart wrung at the sight of her dead-white face. ‘Please go down to the library and read this letter of Mocata’s through again quietly with Richard. Then you can talk it over together and will have made up your minds what you think best by the time the rest of us get back.’
Richard gave in to the Duke’s wishes for the moment. They all descended to the ground floor again and, when the other three had gone off to the kitchen quarters, he remained with Marie Lou and read Mocata’s letter quickly.
As he finished he looked up at her in miserable indecision. ‘My poor sweet. This is ghastly for you.’
‘It’s just as bad for you,’ she said softly. Then, with a little cry, she flung her arms round his neck. ‘Oh, Richard, darling, what are we to do?’
‘Dearest.’ He hugged her to him, soothing her gently as best he could now that the storm had broken. Her small body heaved with desperate sobbing, while great tears ran down her cheeks, falling in large, damp splashes upon his hands and neck.
As he held her, murmuring little phrases of endearment and optimistic comfort, he thought her weeping would never cease. Her body trembled as it was swept with terrible emotion at the loss of her cherished Fleur.
‘Marie Lou, my angel,’ he whispered softly, ‘try and pull yourself together, do, or else you’ll have me breaking down as well in a minute. No harm can have happened to her yet, and it isn’t likely to until tonight at the earliest. Even then, he’ll think twice before he carries out his threat. Only a fool destroys his hostage to spite his enemy. Mocata may be every sort of rogue, but he’s a civilised one at least, so he won’t maltreat her in any way, you can be sure of that, and if we only play our cards properly, we’ll get her back before it comes to any question of his carrying out this appalling threat.’
‘But what can we do, Richard? What can we do?’ she cried, looking at him wildly from large, tear-dimmed eyes.
‘Get after him the second the others come back,’ Richard declared promptly. ‘He’s human, isn’t he? He had to use a ladder to get up to the nursery just like any other thug. If we act at once we’ll have him under lock and key by nightfall.’
De Richleau’s quiet voice broke in from behind them. ‘You have decided, then, to call in the police?’
‘Of course.’ Richard turned to stare at him. ‘This is totally different from last night’s affair. It is a case of kidnapping, pure and simple, and I’m going to pull every gun I know to get the police of the whole country after him in the next half hour. If you’ve reconnected that line, I’ll get straight through to Scotland Yard now.’
‘Yes, the telephone is all right. I’ve been through to the inn and had old Wilkes out of bed. He remembers Rex and Tanith dining there last night, of course, but when I described Mocata to him, he said he hadn’t seen anyone who answers to that description there at all, either yesterday or this morning. Have you written that letter for the servants?’
‘Not yet. I will.’ Richard left the library just as Simon and Rex came in, carrying a collection of plates and dishes on two trays, prominent upon which were a large China teapot and the half of a York ham.
‘Please don’t phone Scotland Yard just yet,’ Marie Lou called after Richard. ‘I simply must talk to you again before we burn our boats.’
The Duke gave her a sharp glance from under his grey eyebrows. ‘You are not then in favour of calling in the police?’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she confessed miserably. ‘Richard is so sane and practical that I suppose he’s right, but you read the letter and I should never forgive myself if our calling in the police forced Mocata’s hand. Do you—do you really think that he has the power to find out if we go against his instructions?’
De Richleau nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. But Simon can tell you more of his capabilities in that direction than I can.’
Simon and Rex had put down their trays and were reading Mocata’s letter together. The former looked up swiftly.
‘Um. He can see things when he wants to in that mirror I told you of, and once he gets to London he’ll have half-a-dozen mediums that he can throw into a trance to pick us up. It will be child’s play for a man of his powers to find out if we leave this room.’
‘That’s my view,’ the Duke agreed. ‘And if we once turn to the police, we have either to go to them or else bring them here. Telephoning won’t be sufficient. They will want photographs of Fleur and to question everyone concerned, so Mocata stands a pretty good chance of seeing us in conference with them, if he keeps us under psychic observation, whichever way we set to work.’
‘We should be mad to even think of it,’ said Simon jerkily. ‘It’s pretty useless for me to say I’m sorry, but I brought this whole trouble on you all and there’s only one thing to do, that’s obvious.’
‘For us to sit here like a lot of dummies while you go off to give yourself up at twelve o’clock, I suppose?’ Richard, who had just rejoined them, cut in acidly.
‘I have been expecting that, knowing Simon,’ the Duke observed. ‘Terrible as the consquences may be for him and although the idea of surrender makes my blood boil I must confess that I think he’s right, with certain modifications!’
‘Oh, isn’t there some other way?’ Marie Lou exclaimed desperately, catching at Simon’s hand. ‘It’s too awful that because of our own trouble we should even talk of sacrificing you.’
One of those rare smiles that made him such a lovable person lit Simon’s face. ‘Ner,’ he said softly, ‘it’s been my muddle from the beginning. I’m terribly grateful to you all for trying to get me out of it, but Mocata’s been too much for us, and I must throw my hand in now. It’s the only thing to do.’
‘It is my damned incompetence which has let us in for this,’ grunted the Duke. ‘I deserve to take your place, Simon, and I would—you know that—if it were the least use. The devil of it is that it’s you he wants, not me.’
Rex had been cutting thin slices from the ham and pouring out the tea. Richard took a welcome cup of his favourite Orange Pekoe from him and said firmly:
‘Stop talking nonsense, for God’s sake! Neither of you is to blame. After what we’ve all been through together in the past you did quite rightly to come here. Who should we look to for help in times of trouble if not each other? If I was in a real tight corner I shouldn’t hesitate to involve either of you, and I know that Marie Lou feels the same. This blow couldn’t possibly have been foreseen by anyone. It was just, well, call it an accident, and the responsibility for protecting Fleur was ours every bit as much as yours. Now let’s get down to what we mean to do.’
‘That’s decent of you, Richard.’ De Richleau tried to smile, knowing what it must have cost his friend to ease their feeling of guilt when he must be so desperately anxious about his child.
‘Damned decent,’ Simon echoed. ‘But all the same I’m going to keep the appointment Mocata’s made for me. It’s the only hope we’ve got.’
Richard stuck out his chin. ‘You’re not, old chap. You placed yourself in my hands by coming to my house, and I won’t have it. The business we went through last night scared me as much as anyone, I admit it; but because Greyeyes has proved right about Satanic manifestations, there is no reason for you all to lose your sense of proportion about what the evil powers can do. They have their limitations, just like anything else. Greyeyes admitted last night that they were based on natural laws, and this swine’s gone outside them. He’s operating now in a country that is strange to him. He confesses as much in his letter. You can see he is scared of calling in the police, and that’s the very way we’re going to get him. You people seem to have lost your nerve.’
‘No,’ the Duke said sadly. ‘I haven’t lost my nerve, but look at it if you like on the basis which you suggest, Richard, that this is a perfectly normal kidnapping. Say Fleur were being held to ransom by a group of unscrupulous gangsters, such as operate in the States, the gang being in a position to know what is going on in your house. They have threatened to kill Fleur if you bring the police into the business. Now, would you be prepared to risk that in such circumstances?’
‘No, I should pay up, as most wretched parents seem to, on the off-chance that the gang gave me a square deal and I got the child back unharmed. But this is different. I’ll stake my oath that Mocata means to double-cross us anyhow. If it were only Simon that he wanted he might be prepared to let us have Fleur back in exchange. You seem to forget what Tanith told you. He doesn’t know that we know his intentions, but she was absolutely definite on three points. One, he means to do his damnedest to bring her back. Two, he will fail unless he makes the attempt in the next few days. Three, the only way that can be done is by performing a full Black Mass, including the sacrifice of a baptised child. Kidnappings take time to plan in a civilised country unless you want the police on your track. Mocata has succeeded in one where he thinks there is a fair chance of keeping the police out of it, and no one in their senses could suggest that he’s the sort of man who would run the risk of doing another just for the joy of keeping his word with us. It’s as clear as daylight that he is using Fleur as bait to get hold of Simon and then he’ll do us down by killing the child in the end.’
De Richleau slit open a roll and slipped a slice of ham inside it. ‘Well,’ he said as he began to trim the ragged edges neatly, ‘it is for you and Marie Lou to decide. The prospect of sitting in this room for hours on end doing nothing is about the grimmest I’ve ever had to face in a pretty crowded lifetime. I would give most things I really value for a chance to have another cut at him. The only things that deters me for one moment is the risk to Fleur.’
‘I know that well enough,’ Richard acknowledged, ‘but I am convinced our only chance of seeing her alive again is to call in the police, and trust to running him to earth before nightfall.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Simon shook his head, ‘I wouldn’t honestly, Richard. He’s certain to find out if we take steps against him. We shall waste hours here being questioned by the local bigwigs, and it’s a hundred to one against their being able to corner him in a single day. Fleur is safe for the moment, for God’s sake don’t make things worse than they are. I know the man and he’s as heartless as a snake. It’s signing Fleur’s death warrant to try and tackle him like this.’
Marie Lou listened to these conflicting arguments in miserable indecision. She was torn violently from side to side by each in turn. Simon spoke with such absolute conviction that it seemed certain Richard’s suggested intervention would precipitate her child’s death, and yet she felt, too, how right Richard was in his belief that Mocata was certain to doublecross them, and having trapped them into surrendering Simon, retain Fleur for this abominable sacrifice which Tanith had told them he was so anxious to make. The horns of the dilemma seemed to join and form a vicious circle which went round and round in her aching head.
The others fell silent and Richard looked across at her. ‘Well, dearest, which is it to be?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she moaned. ‘Both sides seem right and yet the risk is so appalling either way.’
He laid his hand gently on her hair. ‘It’s beastly having to make such a decision, and if we were alone in this I wouldn’t dream of asking you. I’d do what I thought best myself unless you were dead against it, but as the others disagree with me so strongly what can I do but ask you to decide?’
Wringing her hands together in agonised distress at this horrible problem with which she was faced, Marie Lou looked desperately from side to side, then her glance fell on Rex. He was sitting hunched up in a dejected attitude on the far side of Tanith’s body, his eyes fixed in hopeless misery on the dead girl’s face.
‘Rex,’ she said hoarsely, ‘you haven’t said what you think yet. Both these alternatives seem equally ghastly to me. What do you advise?’
‘Eh?’ He looked up quickly ‘It’s mighty difficult and I was just trying to figure it out. I hate the thought of doing nothing, waiting about when you’ve got a packet of trouble is just real hell to me, and I’d like to get after this bird with a gun. But Simon’s so certain that if we did it would be fatal to Fleur, and I guess the Duke thinks that way too. They both know him, you must remember, and Richard doesn’t, which is a point to them, but I’ve got a hunch that we are barking up the wrong tree, and that this is a case for what Greyeyes calls his masterly policy of inactivity. The old game of giving the enemy enough rope so he’ll hang himself in the end.
‘Any sort of compromise is all against my nature, but I reckon it’s the only policy that offers now. If we stay put here and carry out Mocata’s instructions to the letter, we’ll at least be satisfied in our minds that we are not bringing any fresh danger on Fleur. But let’s go that far and no farther. We all know Simon is willing enough to cash in his checks, but I don’t think we ought to let him. Instead, we’ll keep him here. That is going to force Mocata to scratch his head a whole heap. He’ll not do Fleur in before he’s had another cut at getting hold of Simon, so it will be up to him to make the next move in the game, and that may give us a fresh opening. The situation can’t be worse than it is at present, and when he shows his hand again, given a spot of luck, we might be able to ring the changes on him yet.’
De Richleau smiled, for the first time in days, it seemed. ‘My friend, I salute you,’ he said, with real feeling in his voice. ‘I am growing old, I think, or I should have thought of that myself. It is by far and away the most sensible thing that any of us have suggested yet.’
With a sigh of relief, Marie Lou moved over and, stooping down, kissed Rex on the cheek. ‘Rex, darling, bless you. In our trouble we’ve been forgetting yours, and it is very wonderful that you should have thought of a real way out for us in the midst of your sorrow. I dreaded having to make that decision just now more than anything that I have had to do in my whole life.’
He smiled rather wanly. ‘That’s all right, darling. There’s nothing so mighty clever about it, but it gives us time, and you must try and comfort yourself with the thought that time and the angels are on our side.’
Even Richard’s frantic anxiety to set out immediately in search of his Fleur d’amour was overcome for the time being by Rex’s so obviously sensible suggestion. In his agitation he had eaten nothing yet, but now he sat down to cut some sandwiches, and set about persuading Marie Lou that she must eat the first of them in order to keep up her strength. Then he looked over at the Duke.
‘I left that note for Malin where he’s bound to see it—slipped it under his bedroom door, so we shan’t be disturbed here. Is there anything at all that we can do?’
‘Nothing, I fear, only possess ourselves with such patience as we can, but we’re all at about the end of our tether, so we ought to try and get some sleep. If Mocata makes some fresh move this evening it’s on the cards that we shall be up again all night.’
‘I’ll get some cushions,’ Simon volunteered. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in bringing used articles into this room now?’
‘None. You had better collect all the stuff you can and we’ll make up some temporary beds on the floor.’
Simon, Richard and Rex left the room and returned a few moments later with piles of cushions and all the rugs that they could find. They placed some fresh logs on the smouldering ashes of the fire and then set about laying out five makeshift resting-places.
When they had finished, Marie Lou allowed Richard to lead her over to one of them and tuck her up, although she protested that, exhausted though she was, she would never be able to sleep. The rest lay down, and then Richard switched out the light.
Full day had come at last, but it was of little use, for the range of vision was limited to about fifteen yards. The mist outside the windows seemed, if anything, denser than before, and it swirled and eddied in curling wreaths above the damp stones of the terrace, muffling the noises of the countryside and shutting out the light.
None of them felt that they would be able to sleep. Rex’s gnawing sorrow for Tanith preyed upon his mind. The others, racked with anxiety for Fleur, turned restlessly upon their cushions. Every now and then they heard Marie Lou give way to fits of sobbing as though her heart would break. But the stress of those terrible night hours and the emotions they had passed through since had exhausted them completely. Marie Lou’s bursts of sobbing became quieter and then ceased. Richard fell into an uneasy doze. De Richleau and Rex breathed evenly, sunk at last in a heavy sleep.
Hours later Marie Lou was dreaming that she was seated in an ancient library reading a big, old-fashioned book, the cover of which was soft and hairy like a wolf’s skin, and that as she read it a circle of iron was bound about her head. Then the scene changed. She was in the pentacle again, and that loathsome sack-like Thing was attacking Fleur. She awoke—started up with a sudden scream of fear.
Her waking was little better than the nightmare when memory flooded back into her mind. Yet that too and the present only seemed other phases of the frightful dream; the comfortable library denuded of its furniture; Tanith’s dead body lying in the centre of the floor and the dimness of the room from those horrible fog banks shutting out the sunshine. They could not possibly be anything but figments of the imagination.
The men had roused at once, and crowded round her, shadowy figures in the uncertain light. De Richleau pressed the electric switch. They blinked a little, and looked at each other sleepily, then their eyes turned to the place where Simon had lain.
With one thought their glances shifted to the window and they knew that while they slept their friend had gone out, into that ghostly unnatural night, to keep his grim appointment.