Brangwyn had been afraid to leave the flat lest he should miss a phone call from Murchison, and time went slowly as he waited, feeling sure that Murchison must be hot on the trail or he would have turned up before that. He found it impossible to settle down to anything. It was long after lunch-time, and still no word from Ursula. Obviously Murchison's intuitions had been right, and she had either been decoyed away or had gone of her own accord.
One bright spot, however, stood out in the unsavoury and dangerous business - Murchison's confession of his feelings for Ursula. Brangwyn was satisfied that this was something much more than a mere stirring of the senses. Murchison, in his thwarted and solitary life, was quite accustomed to having his senses stirred, and took it for what it was worth - the voice of neither God nor the Devil, but a matter of endocrinology. The great bull was unfolding his wings at length, and Murchison knew the difference.
He wondered how the two of them would get on if they settled down together. Murchison was not an easy-tempered man, circumstances having taken their toll of him, and Ursula was fastidious and exacting. Murchison, he knew, would not be willing to live in his wife's pocket, nor to take money he had not earned. He himself would dearly have loved to keep them with him, to work and experiment together, but he doubted whether Murchison would consider this sufficiently like work to accept a salary for it.
His meditations were interrupted by the sound of a key in the door, and in walked the subject of them, and said without preamble,
‘She's with Astley.’ Brangwyn whistled. ‘Have you seen her to speak to?’
‘Yes. What do you think she was doing? Try and guess?’
‘Something improbable, I take it. Saying her prayers?’
‘No, washing the steps.’
‘You don't say! That's one up for Astley! I really admire that man. There is nothing that could possibly do Ursula more good. I hope he makes her peel potatoes as well. But how did you find her, and what had she got to say for herself?’
‘She seemed all right. But then, of course, she has only been there a few hours, and Fouldes isn't back from Wales yet. Astley is going to do the Black Mass or something of that sort with her as soon as Fouldes gets back, and what do you think? He has offered me a walk-on part!’
‘What do you mean? Asked you to take part in the ceremonial? But you aren't initiated. There's a catch somewhere, Murchison.’
‘That's what I thought. But it's too good an offer to refuse, don't you think? It's a chance in a million to get one's nose in there at the critical moment. I bet I wreck that Mass!’
‘I bet you do, too. But you will have to watch your step. Astley's up to something.’
‘I have got an idea what his opening gambit will be, but haven't a notion about his follow-up. I thought perhaps you might know, as it's your line of country.’
‘What is his opening gambit?’
‘All in due order. What do you suppose I have spent the morning doing?’
‘I've no idea.’
‘Carpentering with Astley in the basement. And what do you suppose we have been making?’
‘Heaven alone knows. What could Astley want? A coffin?’
‘No, a cross big enough to crucify a six-foot man on.’
‘Good God, Murchison, what are they playing at?’
‘I've no idea. Astley swore it was symbolical. You just stand in front of it with your arms suspended by slings from the cross-bar and pretend to be the Saviour of the World. My guess is that when you are safely spread-eagled on that cross, someone comes along quietly and tightens those slings so's you can't budge and then gives you beans. I made that cross of old floor-boards and strutted it up with iron stays. You could slaughter an ox on it.’
‘I don't envy the person who is cast for the part of Saviour of the World.’
‘Neither do I. And it's me.’
‘You? Is Astley going to truss you up on that cross? He's up to something all right. But, Murchison, you're never going to walk into that trap, are you? I don't suppose he would go as far as murder, but there is not much else he would stick at. You are in for a pretty ghastly experience, once he gets you fastened to that cross.’
‘I've been thinking things out, and I'll tell you what my idea is. I think your sister is safe enough till the day after tomorrow, when the ceremony comes off, because Astley will want her in good form for the ceremony. What's left of her after that ceremony won't bear thinking about, to judge from Astley's expression when he talked of her. My suggestion is that I turn up at the ceremony with a revolver in my pocket and you hang about outside, and if I don't come out at the appointed time you fetch the police.’
‘You won't have any pockets to put revolvers in at that ceremony, my dear boy. You will be lucky if you have a loin-cloth.’
‘Gosh, it's going to be a chilly job on that cross.’
‘No, it won't. That will be the least of your worries. The temple will get as hot as a Turkish bath when the ceremony gets going.’
‘Well, it's an odd do, anyway. I say, what else do you think Astley has got down in that basement? A stinking old billy-goat. Would you believe it? And didn't he hum! They couldn't have cleaned him out for donkey's years.’
‘What a menage!’ said Brangwyn. ‘And there's my ultra-faddy sister in the midst of it! But, look here, my dear fellow, why should we wait till the day after tomorrow to do anything. If you can get access to Ursula quite freely, it is obvious no coercion is being used, and we might be able to persuade her to come away, or even take her by the arms and march her out.’
‘Don't you believe it, Brangwyn. She was planted on those steps for me to fall over. Astley knows what he's about. And in any case, you couldn't budge her. I did my darnedest, and she rated me like a pickpocket for my pains. Astley had shown her the blessed letter we compounded, and she'd swallowed it, hook, line and sinker, and blackguarded me for having betrayed your trust. She'd have smacked my faced for two twos.’
‘I'll bet she would! Do you remember what was in that letter, Murchison?’
‘Yes, by gosh, there was a reference to her, wasn't there? I'd forgotten all about that. And I didn't attempt to explain that letter. I daren't, in case she'd rat on me. Oh, my Lord, what a mix-up! No wonder she wouldn't accept it when I tried to apologize. I say, sir, this has put the lid on. I'll get her out of Astley's dive if I die in the attempt, but I'll have to clear out afterwards.’
‘Don't let us cross our bridges before we come to them. I am inclined to agree with you; she is safe enough till they start the Mass, and then, God help her. But we can't do anything until the little fool learns her lesson, and sometimes, Murchison, I can't help feeling she would deserve all she got if we let her go through with it.’
‘I dunno about that, sir. She's probably been told a pack of lies. She can't be expected to realize what she's up against.’
‘When I think of you going on that cross, Murchison, to save that little idiot from the results of her folly -’
‘I don't mind, sir. It will be rather a lark.’
‘I am not so sure of that, my boy. Astley is a dangerous brute, and as cruel as a fiend. He knows we won't want the publicity of a prosecution because of Ursula's reputation. I am certain you are in for a pretty painful experience, and I only hope you will take no permanent harm.’
Time passed slowly for the two men at the flat until the day of Ursula's ordeal came round. Brangwyn took Murchison down to Scotland Yard, and they had a long talk with a man high up, to whom Brangwyn's connections gave him access. Murchison saw the outside of a stout folder, held together by a strap to keep it from bursting, which contained Astley's record in the files of the CID, and in response to a telephone call they sent over another, nearly as stout, from Scotland house, which contained an account of his doings in subversive politics.
‘Have you never had the chap under lock and key?’ he asked.
‘Never,’ was the answer. ‘The worse the criminal, the harder he is to catch. You may rest assured we shall leave no stone unturned if you call us in; but I quite understand that you do not want any publicity for Miss Brangwyn's sake, and, of course, we have to work in the full glare of publicity.’
The time passed at length, however, to Brangwyn's great relief, for he was exceedingly anxious about his sister, in spite of Murchison's belief that she would be immune till the ceremony started; for he knew a great deal about the possibilities of subtle evil in that terrible house of which Murchison had no suspicion.
The two men walked across the murky district behind Euston together. Brangwyn wished to see Murchison enter the house so that he could, if necessary, swear to his presence there. It was a silent walk. Murchison was trying to visualize all possible contingencies and provide against them, and Brangwyn was much more anxious than he cared to admit, and was debating whether he ought not, after all, to withdraw his consent to his companion's scheme for permitting himself to be fastened helpless to the cross of sacrifice, and insist on the police being invoked forthwith, although he knew only too well that Ursula would refuse to be rescued or interfered with until she had learnt for herself what the actualities of the Black Mass were, and then, alas, it might be too late to help her. Brangwyn was not so old fashioned as to think that a single experience of the seamy side of life could ruin a woman; but the kind of evil that is wrought with ritual disintegrates character in a peculiar way, and in Ursula's already highly nervous state the result was not unlikely to be definite mental unbalance.
At the corner of Astley's road they parted, for they did not wish any of Astley's hangers-on to see them approaching the house together. It was arranged that if Murchison did not return to the flat by three o'clock in the morning, it was to be concluded that there had been foul play, and Brangwyn had a letter in his pocket to that effect. It was their intention, however, to get Ursula out without invoking the police if possible, in order to avoid the disgrace of the publicity, for there could be no question but that Astley, cornered, would be an exceedingly ugly customer. Brangwyn confirmed Ursula's statement concerning three men who were believed to have met their deaths at Astley's hands; but in each case their bodies had been found in smashed up motor-cars in one or another of the home counties, and it was impossible to say whether the head injuries that had caused their deaths had been inflicted at the time of the smash, or whether a dead body had been in the car when it was despatched to destruction from the top of a steep hill. All that was known was that three associates of Astley's, after a quarrel, had died in the same manner, and, although there was no evidence to go to a jury, the finger of suspicion pointed at him uncompromisingly.
Murchison, with no other weapon in his pocket than a small electric torch, was admitted into the dingy black house by the grinning black butler, who conducted him downstairs to the depths with such expedition that he suspected it was desired that his presence in the house should not be known to certain of its inmates. The butler took him straight into the underground temple. It was brightly lit with electric light, and pictures and statues were displayed about it of a nature that brought Murchison up all standing with a gasp, which caused the butler to go off in a fit of giggles. From the chairs ranged round the walls Murchison gathered that an audience of no inconsiderable dimensions was expected, but at present the room, though all lit up and heated almost to suffocation by a powerful anthracite stove, was empty, save for the billy-goat, tied up in a corner, looking like a dilapidated hearthrug with the evil eye, and smelling to high heaven.
Murchison and his escort crossed the big room and entered the lumber-room behind the platform, where the carpentering had been done.
‘You will be kind enough, suh, to get ondressed and put this on,’ said the butler holding out a brief length of roller-towelling. Murchison began to strip without protest, and the butler, seeing that he had a willing victim, left him to his own devices while he went to tend the stove. Murchison availed himself of the opportunity to slip his electric torch into the towel twisted about his middle, and added to it, as an afterthought, a stout chisel, a formidable weapon in a ruthless hand. He wished he had had his trench-coat, which he had left in the hall, to use as a dressing-gown while waiting. He strolled back into the temple to stand by the stove and keep warm, using his eyes diligently. He observed that a single big master-switch controlled all the small switches on the switchboard near the door, so it was evidently the practice to switch all the lights off suddenly at certain points in the ceremonies. If this happened, all sorts of chances would occur, and he hoped and prayed that this was one of the ceremonies in which it was done.
At that moment Astley entered, and the billy-goat suddenly became stricken with panic fear, backing away to the length of its rope and bleating piteously. Astley paid not the faintest attention to it, but came hastily over to Murchison.
‘I say, old chap, do you mind waiting in the workshop?’
‘Not if you'll lend me a dressing-gown, but it's a bit chilly in there with nothing on.’
‘Here, take this.’ Astley hastily flung over his bare shoulders a voluminous black velvet cape that lay over the arm of a kind of throne on the platform at the opposite end to the great cross, which was almost invisible against its black velvet background now that it was painted.
Astley pushed Murchison into the lumber-room in a great hurry and shut the door behind him. Obviously his presence was to be kept a secret for some reason or other.
He took advantage of being unobserved to take a thorough inventory of his surroundings. He opened the door into the area, to make sure that its hinges worked easily and silently; and, discovering among the tools on the bench a stout iron bar that might have been a very large case-opener, but looked suspiciously like a burglar's jemmy, he put it outside the door. Then he sat down on an empty box and lit a cigarette, a grotesque figure in his black velvet cloak, naked except for a loin-cloth, with his shock of fair hair, as always, standing up in all directions, and, as always, in want of cutting.
He guessed by the sound of voices and the scrape of chairs that the audience was beginning to arrive. Then the negro butler put his bullet head round the corner and beckoned, and shedding his cloak, Murchison stepped out into the brilliantly lighted room where the ceremony was to take place, and heard a gasp of astonishment go up from the assembled audience.
He was certainly a startling figure with his milk-white skin, inherited from his Norse ancestors, his ruddy face, heavily muscled limbs and shock of fair hair like a sun-god's halo.
‘You stand here, suh,’ said the butler, backing him up to the cross, beside which stood Monks of the book-shop, got up in a kind of verger's soutane, who exchanged grins with him. In fact, both Monks and the butler were grinning altogether too much for his liking.
‘Put your ‘ands through the loops, sir,’ said Monks.
Murchison did as he was bid, slipping his wrists into stout webbing loops that hung from the ends of the cross-bar, and in an instant there was a jerk, and the butler and Monks had pulled those loops tight and buckled them, and added a strap round his ankles as well.
‘Here, steady on,’ he said, ‘that's too tight to be comfortable.’
But Monks and the butler had already quitted the platform, and left him alone to face the staring room.
There were, perhaps, forty persons present, all clad in flowing robes of various primary colours, making a very gay assembly, and all masked, so it was only by the feet of the front row that he could tell who were the men and who were the women, and he judged that they were fairly evenly divided. Then an organ, and quite a good one, began to play, and in came a procession, consisting of Astley, Ursula, Fouldes, a couple of strapping young fellows armed with swords, and the butler and the unhappy goat bringing up the rear.
Astley was a sight for the gods, all in cloth of gold and crimson, with a towering head-dress of scarlet feathers, not unlike a Red Indian Chief. Ursula wore a white velvet cloak with a cowl, that enveloped her from head to heel; the cowl was drawn over her head, hiding her face, all except her small pointed chin, and from underneath the robe gleamed the shimmer of a silver tunic as she moved. Fouldes also wore a silver tunic, but a black cloak. The two young men were respectively in black and white, and the billy-goat wore his own dingy fur.
Astley took his seat on the throne on the far platform, the two young men behind him. Fouldes faced the billy-goat across the open space in the centre of the room, and Ursula came forward to the table-tomb that stood almost at the foot of the cross. She put her foot on a stool at the side of it, the butler gave her a hand, and she sprang up on to the altar and lay down, her feet within a yard of Murchison's own feet. The white velvet cowl encircled her head, and she lay with her eyes closed, like one dead. Murchison stared at her, thinking he had never seen any living being quite so white.
Astley called his temple to order with a resounding rap of a gavel, and everyone sat up straight and stopped whispering. But across the sacred silence cut a very secular voice.
‘Excuse me, sir, before you start, could I have the straps slacked off. They are uncomfortably tight.’
A murmur of shocked surprise ran through the audience. Astley paused, evidently taken aback, and wondering how he could best restore the atmosphere of religious awe that had been shattered by the matter-of-fact Murchison.
‘That’ - he replied in portentous tones - ‘is one of the tests of the Degree. You are bound upon the Cross of Suffering as the Saviour of the World, and it is by your sweat of agony that power is exuded for the work of the rite we are about to perform.’
He rose to his feet, and with slow pacing steps came sweeping across the hall in his flowing robes. Ursula lifted her head from her cowl and stared at Murchison with startled eyes, an expression of horror gradually growing in them as the significance of the scene dawned on her.
Astley mounted the platform at the foot of the cross, went round behind Murchison and encircled his throat with his hands. Murchison thought he was going to be strangled, and his startled eyes met Ursula's. She read in them his fear, and half rose on her elbow as if to protest.
But Astley did nothing so crude as to exert pressure on Murchison's windpipe. His thumbs felt for the two spots in the neck where the carotids cross a muscle, and he pressed there with a ju-jitsu grip. Murchison saw the room swirl and go dark as the blood supply to the brain was cut off, and his head fell forward on to his chest and his whole figure sagged down, hanging by the arms in a dead faint, the true image of the Crucified One. Astley stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with the satisfaction of an artist, and then swept back with stately pace to his throne. The organ struck up at a sign of his hand, and the ritual began.
One by one he picked up his officers with question and answer, even the miserable billy-goat replying to his cue with a despairing bleat as the butler stuck a pin into him. Ursula lay motionless, staring at Murchison as he hung limply from the cross, his face ashen-grey, his hands nearly black.
Fortunately his faint did not last long, the blood supply speedily reestablishing itself as soon as the pressure of Astley's thumbs was removed. He lifted his head, and stared dazedly about him, unable to realize where he was or what had been done to him. The intolerable strain on his arms made itself felt, and he struggled to get upright and relieve it. But his feet had slipped through their strap during his faint, and he could not get his balance. It was an ugly sight as he struggled on the cross, and the audience held its breath, spell-bound, watching it, stirred to God knows what intensity of decadent emotion by the spectacle.
At length he got on to his feet and heaved a sigh of relief, met Ursula's horrified eyes and half smiled at her. Then he turned his attention to the ritual, watching for anything that should give him a cue. Astley was chanting translations from some of the more recondite Greek poets - the passages that are not included in the versions prepared for the use of schools. Murchison glanced down, and saw that Ursula was still gazing at him with a fixed intensity.
The ritual went on, chant and response and intoning making an impressive ceremony. Monks marched round with a censer that smoked like a factory chimney and smelt worse than the billy-goat. Astley waved his arms and boomed at intervals. Murchison leant back against the cross and watched it all.
And as he stood extended on the black Cross of Sacrifice watching it all, a strange feeling began to steal over him. Everything became unreal on the physical plane and real in some other dimension, and he himself, stretched on that cross, willingly suffering for the sake of another who despised and rejected him, felt himself actually becoming a saviour by the power of sacrifice and vicarious suffering, and for the first time he had a glimpse of the significance of the Christian doctrine. What his brother had been unable to accomplish in his comfortable and aesthetic church, Astley accomplished without meaning to in a rite intended to invoke all evil and stimulate every depraved emotion.
Then the alleged virgins began to dance in diaphanous draperies, and Murchison was devoutly thankful that Ursula had her back to the performance.
Finally, Astley struck his pedestal a resounding crash, the organ went off full blast, all the lights went out, and Murchison knew they had got to business at last, and tensed himself for whatever might be forthcoming.
The thing that was immediately forthcoming startled him so that he nearly cried out, for it was a small cold hand on his bare chest, and a voice that whispered, ‘It's me, it's Ursula!’
The hand ran down his arm to the strap that held it, and after a moment's struggle the buckle was cast loose and the arm dropped down, drawing a gasp of agony from him in the pain of the bending. In another second the other arm was also set free, and, bending down, she unstrapped his feet. He put a numbed arm round her shoulder, and half dragging her, half supported by her, got behind the draperies at the back of the platform and out into the workshop. She switched on the light, as could safely be done behind these draperies, and they stared at each other silently. Ursula had left her cloak behind her, and was clad only in a straight silver tunic held round the breast by a band, her feet bare.
‘Come on, quick!’ he said, seizing her by the wrist with one hand and picking up the cloak Astley had wrapped about him with the other. He threw the cloak over her shoulders, opened the door leading into the area, thrust her through it, switched off the light, and followed her, after pulling the lumber back into position so as to block the door and make it look as if nothing had been disturbed. Then, electric torch in hand, he guided her up the steps that led to the trapdoor.
‘Hold this, will you?’ he said, thrusting the torch into her hand; she took it, and he put his hands against the trapdoor and pushed. But nothing happened save a trickle of coal-dust through the cracks and a sound of crunching. The trapdoor would not budge. It was held down by a weight too great for his strength to move, strain as he would, and it dawned on him that a load of coal must have come into the empty cellar since his last visit, and that a ton weight probably rested upon the trapdoor.
He turned a horrified face towards Ursula.
‘Stymied!’ he said.
At that moment they heard noises from the carpenter's shop which sounded as if someone were pulling down piles of lumber in the search for them. They listened, holding their breath, till the sounds died away and the light disappeared from the cracks of the door.
‘What are we going to do?’ whispered Ursula.
‘Sit here and wait, and stick it as best we can till your brother comes.’
‘Does my brother know you are here?’
‘Yes, that's all right, don't you worry about that. He goes for the police if I'm not back by three.’
‘What time is it now?’
‘Goodness knows. Getting on for eleven, I should think. We'd better sit down and make the best of it.’
They sat down in the angle of the area steps so as to have the wall to lean their backs against. Ursula, drawing the thick black velvet cloak around her for what warmth she could get, accidentally brushed Murchison's bare back with her wrist.
‘Good gracious!’ she said, ‘you've got nothing on!’
‘Yes I have. I've got half a yard of roller-towelling.’
‘Oh, but you can't sit like that for three or four hours. Here, have half my cape.’
He felt a fold of velvet come over his shoulder and Ursula snuggle up against him, but he made no attempt to draw the cloak round him, but left it hanging loose, very draughty for both of them.
‘I want to say something,’ came the girl's voice in the dark.
‘Yes?’
‘I'm awfully sorry I was so rotten to you the other morning.’
‘Perhaps you realize now that I did not betray your brother?’
‘Yes, of course I do. But why didn't you explain?’
‘I was afraid you might give me away.’
‘I shouldn't have.’
‘How was I to know that?’
‘Will you forgive me?’
‘What for?’
‘Everything. I have been rotten to you, and you've been simply wonderful to me.’
‘That's all right. I'm glad if I've been able to help you.’
‘But do you really forgive me for - for everything?’
‘There's nothing to forgive that I know of. I don't bear any ill-will, and never did. I'm sorry I lost my temper that day in the car, and if you'll accept my apologies for that, we'll call it square.’
‘I believe I owe you a great deal more than my life tonight.’
‘You had better wait a bit before you return thanks for that. I haven't got you out of this yet. We are still sitting on Astley's area steps, quite as likely to die of pneumonia as of murder.’
At that moment rays of light burst through the cracks of the door leading into the lumber-room, and they knew that the search was not yet over. They heard a sound of lumber being shifted away from the door.
‘We have got to face this,’ said Murchison. ‘It is no good taking it lying down. I guess I can bluff him. He won't dare murder two of us together.’
He rose, an electric torch in one hand and the iron bar in the other, went forward to the door, banged on it with the bar, and called in a loud voice:
‘Hullo, Astley, looking for us?’
‘Hullo, yourself!’ returned Astley, with a most deceptive affability. ‘Having a Mass of the Bull on your own out there?’
‘What's the next item on the programme?’
‘I thought of inviting you to come in and finish the Mass.’
‘Supposing we won't?’
‘You soon will when you get a sulphur candle lit under you.’
‘Suppose I show fight?’
‘You'll get the worst of it.’
‘How about the summons for assault next morning?’
‘There won't be any summons for assault.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because there will be no one to bring it.’
‘Looks to me as if someone were going to get murdered.’
‘I have envisaged that possibility.’
‘Are you quite sure we are both thinking of the same person?’
‘Who may you be thinking of?’
‘I am thinking of the first person who comes through this door.’
‘What is going to happen to him?’
‘He will get a tap on the head with an iron bar. And I shall hit to kill, Astley. I know three men have died in this house, and if you corner me I shall fight to a finish.’
‘We shan't trouble to corner you, we shall leave you there. You won't last long in this weather.’
‘I shall last till the police arrive.’
‘And when do you expect that to be?’
‘Three a.m.’
‘And how can you be so precise about time?’
‘Because that is the arrangement with Scotland Yard.’
There was a dead silence in the lumber-room, and a muttered consultation could be heard.
‘I am not sure that I believe that yarn, Murchison.’
‘Please yourself about that.’
‘We shall simply deny that you have ever been here, and I don't suppose you have advertised your comings and goings.’
‘Brangwyn walked with me to the end of the road and saw me enter the door.’
‘Do you expect us to believe that?’
‘What do you suppose Brangwyn would say if he saw a certain letter I had from you?’
‘He wrote it.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I wrote it at his dictation.’
There was another dead silence from the other side of the door, not even enlivened by a whispered consultation.
‘Look here, Murchison, if we let you and the girl go, will you keep your mouth shut?’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, if you open yours, I shall open mine, and to some purpose too; she won't dare show her nose in decent society again.’
‘If you open your mouth, Astley, I'll lay for you till I catch you, and I'll disable you for life.’
‘Well, what about it? Like a free pass to go quietly?’
‘Right you are. But I say, Astley?’
‘Yes?’
‘If you murder one, you'll have to murder both, you know, and I've already been down to Scotland Yard with Brangwyn to discuss this stunt, and they have a letter from me to say I'm here.’
‘All right, don't worry. I don't want the trouble of disposing of your corpses. It isn't worth it. I'm not in love with Ursula.’
The door swung wide open and a flood of light poured into the draughty darkness of the area.
‘Come on, Miss Brangwyn,’ said Murchison, not daring to turn round.
He felt Ursula's hand clutch his, and advanced through the low doorway, iron bar at the ready, drawing her after him.
Before him were Astley, the butler, Monks and the two young men in black and white, complete with swords, and in the hands of the butler was an iron bar, the fellow to Murchison's.
‘You had better get some clothes on,’ said Astley amiably. ‘We don't want the house disgraced.’
‘No damn fear. Think I want to be scragged while I'm half in and half out of my trousers?’
‘Please yourself. Only don't say you come from here.’
‘All I want is a taxi, and you can chuck my duds into it. If anyone comes near me, I'll brain him.’
He pointed towards the door.
‘You go first, all of you,’ he said.
‘Anything to oblige. Come along, boys,’ said Astley, who knew how to lose gracefully. And in any case he did not greatly care, not being, as he said, enamoured of Miss Brangwyn. Fouldes could kick up a row if he liked. He led the way towards the door, the others trooping after him.
‘I'll lead, I think, in case of trouble,’ said Murchison, motioning to Ursula to follow him.
They came out into the now empty temple, and the first person they came face to face with was Fouldes, now back in the dinner jacket of civilization. Involuntarily Ursula drew close to Murchison's side. Fouldes saw the movement, and for a long moment he stared at the pair of them without speaking, and then, God knows what demons of drink or drugs possessing him, struck Murchison full in the face. Murchison sprang back, iron bar upraised. Luckily some streak of sanity prevailed, and he dropped the bar and came for Fouldes with his bare hands. They were much of a height, but Murchison was the heavier and the hardier man. The result was a foregone conclusion. Fouldes was exceedingly quick and active, Murchison slower because of his weight and type, but he had the advantage of being stripped, against the man in a dress-shirt. It was not so much a fight as a chase. Fouldes made a dash for the door, but Murchison headed him off. They dodged round the altar on which Ursula had lain, and Murchison nearly had him. Murchison was fighting mad in one of his berserk rages; his eyes had that strange, shining, blue, insane look of the Norseman in a tantrum, and Fouldes sincerely believed that he would die if Murchison laid hands on him, and the fear lent wings to his feet. Ursula, watching the man she had once loved and feared being chased like a frightened hen, felt his influence over her break once and for all.
It was obvious that Fouldes was faster than Murchison, and could turn in a shorter space, and the clutter of furniture in the room was to his advantage; but it was equally evident that Fouldes was panting and straining, whereas the deep-chested, heavily-muscled Murchison was going like a steam-engine; it was only a matter of time till he ran the other man down; it was impossible for Fouldes to get out through the door, as Astley and his party blocked it, thoroughly enjoying the fun and showing no signs of assisting him.
Finally, the end came when Fouldes made a bolt across an open space, tried to turn, and ran smack into Murchison. In a second his head was in chancery under Murchison's arm, and Murchison was pounding his face to pulp. He twisted round, got hold of the fold of skin under Murchison's ribs, and made his teeth meet in it. Murchison gave a snarl of rage, picked him up, raised him at arm's length above his head, and flung him from him with all his strength. He hit one of Astley's homemade pillars, and knocked it flying.
‘My God!’ said Astley, as Fouldes lay in a crumpled heap almost at his feet, blood pouring from a nasty scalp wound. ‘We don't want any more corpses here. We've had too many already.’
Murchison blinked, and stared round him with the look of one suddenly wakened from sleep. Astley bent down and examined the unconscious man, who stirred and groaned.
‘Ribs gone, and badly concussed. I thought you'd broken his spine! Look at my pillar! The bally house will come down. Here, you, get out of this. We've had enough of you.’
‘All right. Lend me that cloak.’
‘Take it. Take anything. Only go.’
Murchison wrapped about him the white velvet cloak Ursula had worn. He did not bother with his iron bar, nor to guard against possible attack from the rear. All the fight had gone out of everybody. The butler phoned for a taxi from one of the big stations; Murchison and Ursula, looking like the fag-end of a very rowdy fancy-dress ball, got into it; Astley flung Murchison's clothes in after them, and somebody rushed up with Ursula's frock and handbag, and flung those in too.
The drive home was silent. Ursula glanced up shyly at her companion once or twice, but he only presented to her a grim profile, and stared steadily out of the window.