Ursula had had some sleep on the train, thanks to the liberal use of aspirin, but she had no more sleep after they got back to the flat towards midnight. And as she sat up in her rose-pink bed to look at the clock, she wondered whether Murchison, up in his flat, were sleeping any better than she was. As a matter of fact, he was of the type that sleeps like the proverbial second mate, and his troubles were over for the time being.
As soon as it began to get light Ursula got up, had a bath, put on a walking costume, and went out. To her surprise, she found Monks taking down the shutters of the second-hand book-shop. She knew him well, and greeted him cordially, glad of the sight of a familiar face.
‘Good gracious, Mr. Monks!’ she said. ‘Whatever time do you open shop?’
‘Taint so early as all that, miss,’ he replied. ‘It's gettin’ on towards seven. I've got to get the place swep’ up before I open.’
He did not tell her that news of her precipitate return had been telephoned from Wales the night before.
‘You're up early, miss. Never known you do this before.’
‘I slept on the train, and then couldn't sleep again when I got to bed.’
‘Would you like a cup o'tea, miss? I got the kettle on the gas-ring, just goin'to make one for meself’
She followed him into the shop, where the sound of a kettle singing vouched for the truth of his words.
‘Taint quite bilin’ yet,’ he said. ‘I'll put through a phone call while we're waitin’, ‘cos I'm afraid I may miss the feller if I leave it too late.’
He was truly thankful that the automatic telephone had come in, and that he had not got to cry a number aloud in her presence. All unsuspicious, Ursula Brangwyn sat down and heard him, after a considerable wait, address an unknown interlocutor.
‘This is Monks this end. Will you tell the boss right now that the goods ‘as arrived, and I ‘ave ‘em in the shop.’
A simple message, but efficacious, for Ursula had hardly finished drinking her cup of tea when a taxi drew up outside the shop, and in walked Astley.
She rose to her feet, startled, wondering what extraordinary coincidence it was that brought him there; guessing that spies were at work, but quite unsuspicious of Monks, who had been with her brother some years and was deeply in debt to him for many kindnesses. In fact, Monks would probably have been paying the penalty for embezzlement at that moment but for the charity of Brangwyn.
‘Yessir?’ said Monks briskly, as if Astley were a complete stranger.
‘All right, my man, all right,’ said Astley, brushing him aside as if he had never set eyes on him before. ‘I wish to speak to the lady.’
‘Yessir,’ said Monks, and vanished into the little cubbyhole where he had made the tea, leaving Ursula alone with Astley, who was between her and the door.
‘Well, Ursula, what about it?’ said Astley.
‘There is nothing about anything, Mr. Astley. Good morning,’ said Ursula, and rose to depart. Astley shut the door, turned the key, and dropped it into his pocket. The heavy shutters were still up, the streets deserted at that hour, and Ursula Brangwyn was most effectually a prisoner.
‘Mr. Monks!’ she called out, but there was no reply, and the significance of the telephone call she had heard suddenly dawned on her.
She turned on Astley. ‘Will you kindly unlock the door?’ she said.
‘No, my girl, not till I've had a talk with you. Won't you sit down?’
‘I prefer to stand. This interview cannot be very prolonged, for I shall start screaming as soon as I hear a passer-by.’
‘I think you would be wise to hear what I have to say before you make any decision. You might regret it afterwards if you didn't. Am I right in thinking that you and Murchison are proposing to work the Mass of the Bull?’
‘No, we are proposing to work the Mass of the Winged Bull, which is a very different matter.’
‘A distinction without a difference, as far as I can see,’ said Astley. ‘Well, my dear child, whatever you are proposing to work, it won't come off. Murchison is a cock that won't fight.’
‘My affairs are none of your business,’ said Ursula.
‘But your affairs are my business, my dear child, because you and Frank are already pretty deeply committed to me in the matter of the Mass of the Bull. Now listen, Ursula, and be sensible. You are in a very bad nervous condition, and you cannot get right, as you very well know, until what you have begun is finished off. You think you can do it with Murchison, but I know that you cannot, because Murchison has other fish to fry, and he won't polarize with you. In other words, my dear child, you have a rival.’
The explanation fitted the circumstances so exactly that Ursula felt her heart turn to stone within her. Astley saw his advantage, and followed it up. ‘Read this,’ he said, and handed her Murchison's letter.
She read it in silence, and stood with it in her hand for several minutes without speaking, staring into space. Astley did not break in upon her thoughts, but stood concentrating upon her with the intent gaze of the hypnotist.
At length she raised her eyes and said, ‘Yes, I see your point. What do you suggest?’
‘I suggest that you and Frank take your lives into your own hands and do the thing that it is in your hearts to do. He is your real mate, Ursula, and you know it. This oaf of Brangwyn's is no possible mate for you, even if he were willing, and he quite obviously is not. You would have been happily married by now if your brother had not started poking sticks into the wheels.
‘You come back to me, Ursula, and you will feel the power beginning to flow again. It will bring life to you, Ursula. See, it is beginning to flow now. You feel the power flowing into you, Ursula. You cannot resist it. There is no resistance in you.’
He made the hypnotist's passes over her, unlocked the door, beckoned her to follow him, and winked over her shoulder at Monks. He put her into the taxi and they drove away. Monks hastily relocked the door, and decided that he would not open the shop early that morning, and then he could not be questioned as to whether he had seen Miss Brangwyn go out.
An hour later Brangwyn said to Murchison, ‘I don't think it is any use waiting for Ursula, so we will start our breakfast.’
But Murchison was not disposed to start his breakfast. He pecked at his food in a discontented fashion, fidgeted, and stared at the door.
‘I suppose she's all right?’ he said at length.
‘Why shouldn't she be all right?’
‘I don't know. I just wondered if she was.’
Brangwyn went on with his breakfast, but Murchison continued to drink tea and fidget, and would not eat anything.
At length he said, ‘Why don't you send the char up to see if she is all right?’
‘Because Ursula would not be at all pleased at having her beauty sleep disturbed. She is not an early riser at the best of times.’
After breakfast Brangwyn moved over to the fire with the Times, and Murchison went up to his flat. As he passed the door of Ursula's apartments he saw that it was slightly ajar. Obeying a sudden impulse he pushed it wider and looked in, and saw that both sitting-room and bathroom were empty, and the door into the bedroom stood ajar. He looked over the rail of the gallery and saw that Brangwyn was intent on his paper, so he tiptoed silently over the thick carpet and peered into the bedroom, taking a chance that he might come upon Miss Brangwyn with nothing on.
The bedroom was empty, her nightgown lying across the tumbled bed. She had obviously got up and dressed. But where was she? Hoping against hope he raced up the stairs to the roof-garden, but it stood empty in the spring sunshine. He leapt down the stairs three steps at a time, and Brangwyn looked up from his paper to find his secretary standing over him, his usually ruddy face as white as a sheet.
‘She's gone out,’ he said.
‘Has she?’ said Brangwyn. ‘Well, there's no need to be unduly alarmed about that. Why shouldn't she go out if she wanted to?’
‘My God, I am alarmed, though!’ said Murchison. ‘I think she's gone to Fouldes.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I gave her a terrific wipe in the eye yesterday. I bet she's done it out of sheer pique. I told her I'd marry her if you made it worth my while, but I wouldn't live with her longer than a year.’
‘What on earth possessed you to tell her that?’
‘God knows. I think I was mad. I suppose what she said about having to put up with me upset me.’
‘Have you got fond of Ursula, Murchison?’
‘Yes, I've got very fond of her.’
‘Well, my dear boy, don't let that affect your judgment. There is no need to jump to the conclusion that because she isn't in the flat something has happened to her. Wait and see whether she comes back for lunch or not. If she doesn't come back for lunch, and doesn't phone, then we'll start getting worried, not before.’
‘I know something has happened to her, Brangwyn.’
Brangwyn looked at him, and his own uneasiness increased. The magical bond he had wrought between Murchison and Ursula was such that he thought the man's feelings were a pretty good indication of what was happening to the girl. He had never seen the stolid and controlled Murchison like this before.
‘What do you suggest doing, Murchison?’ he asked.
‘I suggest that I look Astley up and tell him that I've had a row with you and would like that job he promised me. Then I shall get my nose in there, and may be able to sniff something out. Astley will know where she is, even if she isn't actually there, and it may leak out if I ply him with whisky and pump him.’
‘That's an excellent idea, Murchison. But don't tell him you've had a row with me. Tell him you haven't got much to do for me and have plenty of time on your hands, and you've dropped in to see him, and find out if there is anything doing in your line. I'll give you a few papers you can take him to act as a ground-bait.’
Murchison made his way cross-country on foot to the down-at-heel district in North London, at no great distance from Brangwyn's flat, where Astley's superlative visiting card said he lived.
The house itself was a large corner house painted a symbolic black, relieved only by leprous white patches where the neglected paint had scaled off, oddly reminiscent of the dark-skinned, pock-marked Astley. The whole effect of the place, with its uncleaned windows and unwhitened steps, was that of the shabby sophistication of a passee prostitute.
Murchison rang the bell, and waited some time for an answer; and then the door was opened to him by an enormous grinning negro, a great deal blacker than the dusty butler's blacks that he wore. Murchison was shown into an inner hall even dustier than the butler. The furniture was the kind of furniture that appears in American films of ancestral British homes.
Almost before he had sat down, Astley appeared and greeted him as if he were a long-lost brother.
‘Hullo, my dear chap? What brings you round to see me?’
Murchison saw him run his eye over the new blue suit of first-class tailoring, and guessed it was his prosperous appearance that was obtaining him this cordiality.
‘I managed to lay my hands on a few papers that looked to me like what you wanted,’ he said. ‘At any rate, they came out of the safe. I hope they're the right ones. I took a long chance to get them.’
‘Splendid, my dear chap, splendid! Let's have a look at them. Oh, damn it all, these aren't the ones. I've got these already, through Fouldes. Sorry, Murchison, these are no use to me,’ and he handed them back.
Murchison declined to take them, and looked as sulky as was compatible with a hard struggle to keep a straight face.
‘Well, what about a bit on account?’
‘My dear chap, these are no use to me. These are not the ones I asked you for. You deliver the goods, and you'll have no cause to complain of your treatment. Come and have a drink.’
‘Well, I don't mind if I do. Brangwyn keeps the decanter locked up.’
They went down a passage to what had evidently been a billiard-room when the house had belonged to decent city fathers, and which was now Astley's study. It was a chaotic apartment, strewn with papers and books, and surrounded by dusty book-lined walls. In one corner was an antique statue of the kind that the British Museum keeps locked up. Over the littered mantelpiece was a study of Pan and the nymphs which left nothing to the imagination. It was the room of a scholar, a sloven and a sensualist. Like the rest of the house, it bore the mark of lavish expenditure and negligent upkeep.
Murchison lowered himself into a massive leather-covered armchair, such as must once have graced a West-end club, and felt the broken springs digging into him. Beside it was a spittoon so full of cigar-ends that there was hardly room for the ash of his cigarette. There were several bottles and glasses standing on a side table, but none of the bottles were full, and none of the glasses were clean.
Astley rang the bell, and a girl appeared. Murchison stared hard at the girl and wondered whether Ursula Brangwyn would ever come to look as she did. The girl was thin to emaciation; her eyes sunken in her head and surrounded by black circles; her lips carmined with so vicious a lipstick that she looked as if she had been kissing the wet paint on a pillar-box. Her clothing consisted of an exceedingly figure-revealing djibbah of dingy green. She looked like a sickly and unclean nymph who had had altogether too much attention from Pan.
Astley demanded a bottle of whisky. The nymph shook her head with a faint smile.
‘Dash it all!’ exclaimed Astley, feeling in his pockets, ‘I've got no change. I say, Murchison, lend me a quid, will you?’
Murchison handed him ten shillings. Astley gave it to the girl, who disappeared, to return in a few minutes with a bottle.
‘Steady on for me,’ said Murchison. ‘I don't generally take spirits at this hour of the day.’
‘Lucky feller,’ said Astley. ‘They're the only things I can take. Everything else plays up my digestion.’
While Astley was busy with the syphon, Murchison slipped half his drink into an aspidistra which stood conveniently to hand; he wanted all his wits about him for the forthcoming interview.
‘Well?’ said Astley, when they were comfortably settled with their drinks and cigarettes. ‘How are you getting on with old Brangwyn?’
‘So-so. I've had the hell of a row with the girl, though.’
‘Have you really? What about?’
‘I got sick of playing lounge-lizard, and let her have it in the neck. I fancy my job's a bit precarious. She'll get me chucked out if she can. Luckily for me, old Brangwyn loves me. By the way, I suppose you heard there was a fine old shindy with Fouldes up at Brangwyn's place in the mountains? An old sheepdog ate the seat out of his pants. No end of a lark. We've been watching her like a cat at a mousehole ever since. Brangwyn thinks she means to go off with him.’
Astley smiled.
‘Oh, he thinks, does he? And where does he think she is at the present moment?’
‘Tucked up in her little bed, I suppose. At any rate, she wasn't down when I came out.’
‘Would it surprise you to learn that she is in this house at the present moment?’
‘Gee whizz, is she really? Won't old Brangwyn be wild! But I suppose that means my job's at an end. He won't want a watchdog any longer if she's definitely bolted. What's his chance of getting her back, do you think?’
‘None. I'll see to that.’
‘I say, for God's sake don't let her catch sight of me. I don't want any tales of my visits to go back to Brangwyn.’
‘You needn't worry. Nothing will go back to Brangwyn.’
Astley's certainty, and the curious sense of power behind the man struck cold at Murchison's heart.
Abruptly Astley changed subject.
‘Are you a handy man with tools?’
‘Pretty fair. The saw is mightier than the pen in my case.’
‘Got any time on your hands?’
‘Yes, lots. Brangwyn said he'd be out to lunch, and I could have a day off. I'm not to know there's a family catastrophe, am I? I shall stroll home when the pubs shut and hear the news for the first time.’
‘Care to lend me a hand downstairs? I'll show you something interesting.’
‘Yes, rather. I'm only killing time. Don't exactly want to spend the day calling on my sister-in-law.’
This was a chance beyond all expectation.
Astley rose laboriously from his chair, and Murchison realized what a wreck the man was. He could only just get up without assistance. According to the Sunday papers, Astley dealt in the elixir of life that bestowed immortal youth. Murchison thought that he was no testimonial to his own preparations.
‘This is an odd house, this is!’ said Astley. ‘It was built before the railway came this way, and the bridge that takes the road over the railway is raised on a good-sized embankment that completely swamps our two lower floors. This floor we are on now is, strictly speaking, the drawing-room floor. The original ground-floor is the basement, and we've got a kind of sub-basement that nobody knows anything about.’
They returned down the passage to the hall, and descended a staircase to murky kitchen quarters, where Murchison caught a glimpse of the dingy nymph engaged in washing up what looked like a belated breakfast. Astley inserted a key in a cupboard door, swung it open, and revealed another stairway apparently descending into the bowels of the earth. An extraordinary aroma arose to meet them, compounded of stale incense and something else, which was vaguely familiar, but Murchison could not identify it at first. Then the bleat of a billy-goat greeted them, and he guessed who the second thurifer was.
‘Old boy hums a bit, doesn't he?’ said Astley. ‘I must get someone to clean him out. Voluntary workers are extraordinarily slack.’
They entered a large room which seemed to extend under the whole house, with the superstructure supported on pillars which had obviously not been put up by a professional. Murchison eyed those pillars, and thought that one fine night the house would probably sit down on top of Astley and his crew when they were at their rites.
The room reminded him of the room in Brangwyn's basement devoted to the same purpose, save that it was much larger and decorated in Egyptian red and black. The effect of those two colours in juxtaposition was peculiarly sinister. In the centre of the room was what looked like an old-fashioned table-tomb such as crusaders repose on in country churches. It was covered with a black velvet pall, and a cushion at the head showed that it was intended for someone to lie on. Murchison remembered what Brangwyn had told him about the Black Mass, and wondered what scenes had been enacted with that tomb for a centre-piece.
At the far end of the room was a low platform reached by three shallow steps. Astley led the way on to this, put aside the heavy black draperies that formed its background, and revealed a door, which, on being opened, gave access to a lumber-room, half carpenter's shop and half general storage. There was a bench strewn with tools, and a quantity of timber pushed under it.
‘Can't very well send for a firm to do jobs like ours,’ said Astley, ‘so we have to get busy and do ‘em ourselves. I'd be glad if you'd lend me a hand. I'm no use with tools nowadays. I get goes of neuritis.’
Murchison believed him. He was lucky not to get goes of blindness, considering the way he was lowering the whisky.
‘What I want you to make is a cross.’
‘Right you are,’ said Murchison. ‘What sort of a cross?’
‘One big enough to crucify a six-foot man on.’
‘My God!’ said Murchison. ‘Who's going to be the corpse?’
‘No one's going to be the corpse. It's only symbolic. Your arms rest in webbing slings. It's perfectly comfortable.’
‘No accounting for tastes. Let folk have what they like, that's my motto. Shall I use some of this timber?’
They got to work. Astley measuring and marking competently enough, and Murchison in his shirt-sleeves doing the sawing, till they were interrupted by the dingy nymph, who came to tell Astley that he was wanted on the telephone.
‘Damn!’ said Astley, who was evidently enjoying himself at the carpentering. ‘Carry on, will you, Murchison, I won't be longer than I can help.’
Murchison downed tools as promptly as any trade unionist the moment the door closed behind Astley. He had observed another door at the opposite end of the room, and he wanted to see where it led to. He shifted aside the lumber till it could be got open wide enough for him to slide through edgeways, disposing the lumber so as to look as if it had not been disturbed, drew the enormous bolts that secured it top and bottom, coaxed it open on its rusted hinges, and slipped hastily through. He knew that Astley had a considerable distance to go to the phone, and prayed that his interlocutor would be loquacious.
He found himself in what was evidently the area of the original basement, to judge by the gullies of the drain pipes. It had been roofed over, and Murchison saw that the whole house had moved up a storey when the railway came, as Astley had described. He struck a match and discerned a mouldering flight of steps in one corner. He groped his way up these till his head met an obstruction, struck another match, and saw what looked like a trap-door above him; pushed it, found to his joy that it yielded, put his head and shoulders cautiously through, and found himself in the coal-cellar, empty save for a heap of swept-up coal-dust in a corner. This was a bit of all right. The coal-cellar would certainly have access to the present area, and it ought to be a comparatively simple matter to use this route as an emergency exit from Astley's temple of the black arts. It would also be an equally simple matter to get in the same way should need arise, provided one did not mind risking being charged with burglary.
Well pleased with his discoveries, Murchison slipped quickly back to the lumber-room, dusted the coal-dust off his hands, gave the hinges of the door a drop of oil, re-arranged the lumber so that it did not appear to have been disturbed, and yet allowed of the door being opened, and got to work on the cross again, looking as if butter would not melt in his mouth, and was so engaged when Astley returned from his telephoning.
The massive cross, made of old floor-boards, was soon knocked together, and with the help of the butler, who looked like a second edition of Jack Johnson, Murchison got it through into the temple and up-ended it on the platform and jammed its foot in a slot, securing it in position with struts from behind. It was a pretty stout piece of work by the time it was finished, and Murchison reckoned that anyone who was fastened to that cross would have to stay there.
‘There; we'll leave the girls to paint that black,’ said Astley, viewing the job with satisfaction. ‘Come upstairs and have a drink.’
Murchison wondered whether he were going to be offered lunch in return for his exertions, which had not been inconsiderable, the cross being a heavy piece of work, but there were no signs of it in that huggermugger household. He was particularly anxious to avoid any quantity of Astley's whisky on a stomach that was pretty empty by now, having had practically no breakfast, so the aspidistra again received a libation. He had always heard that aspidistras were very hardy plants, and he hoped this one would live up to its reputation, for this was its third glass of whisky that morning.
‘Did Brangwyn ever do any rituals with you?’ enquired Astley when they had settled down to their drinks.
Murchison thought frankness best, as he did not know how well-informed Monks might be concerning the doings in Brangwyn's basement, and any attempt at dissimulation would have put Astley on his guard; indeed, this might be a test to see whether he were whole-souled or not.
‘We did one,’ he said. ‘Pretty mild, but quite interesting.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Old Brangwyn recited poetry, and the girl and I pranced about. Nothing happened.’
‘Nothing could happen under those circumstances. Would you like to see a ritual where something really happens?’
‘Yes, rather; you bet I would.’
‘Let me see, tonight's the 18th, and it's full moon on the 21st, that's Thursday; the paint on the cross ought to be dry by then if the girls get the first coat on today. We'll have the show on Friday night; you come round then, about eight, no, make it nine, in case Fouldes’ train is late. And, look here, how'd you like to go on the cross?’
‘What do you mean? Run crooked?’
‘No, nothing of the sort. Someone has to stand in front of that cross looking as if he were crucified. You'd have nothing to say, just stand there and look pleasant.’
‘Arm-aching job, isn't it, spread-eagled like that?’
‘Not at all, your arms are suspended by webbing slings; it's perfectly comfortable. I've been on crosses for hours at a time, meditating.’
Murchison stared at him, thinking what a diabolical crucifix it must have been that was thus contrived, and amazed that any human imagination could have conceived such a bizarre blasphemy as the pot-bellied, bulldog-jowled, bottle-nosed mulatto on a cross.
‘I don't mind as long as it's not too much like hard work. What am I supposed to be, stuck up there like a stoat on a barn-door?’
‘You are supposed to be the Saviour of the World.’
‘God help the world!’
Astley chuckled. ‘You'll have a lovely time. We have the dance of the virgins round you.’
Murchison had no idea what kind of blasphemy was intended by the dance of the virgins, but he was pretty sure it was a misnomer.
‘Does the Brangwyn girl take part in this show?’ he enquired.
‘You bet she does. In fact, she is the show. That's why we have to wait for Fouldes.’
‘Is she willing?’ Astley's face suddenly changed from its leering good humour:
‘She will be by then!’