Strange Conflict (20 page)

‘That goes for me too.' A shudder ran through Rex's mighty frame. ‘God knows what would have happened to us if good old Simon hadn't come down into the filthy purple mist and pulled us out.'

‘Oh, bless you, Simon,' Marie Lou exclaimed; then, after a moment, she sighed. ‘I can't tell you how I'm hating this business. It's the thought that we might all be driven mad if we're caught off our guard for a single second that is so terrifying, I think. Still, there can be no going back; we've got to go through with it.'

‘Sure,' Rex agreed. ‘And this was our own darned fault. In the midst of a show like this we were just clean crackers to go down to the cellars at all; I reckon it'd be dangerous even in daylight—let alone at night. We'll have to keep a sharper watch on ourselves for the future.'

Simon nodded his bird-like head and his dark eyes flickered from one to the other of them. ‘That's it; mustn't take any chances at all from now on. You two had better
undress here; I'll dash up and fetch your pyjamas then we'll all get into the safety of the pentacle.'

But they would not allow him to leave the room alone, so the three men crossed the hall and sped up the stairs together, visiting first Rex's room and then Richard's. It was only as Richard was about to snatch up the clean pyjamas which were laid out for him each night that he realised that all this time he had been clutching in his right hand the coat that he had dragged from the back of their European prisoner.

Flinging it on the bed, he swiftly ran through the pockets to find that, while the side-pockets were empty, the breast pocket contained a small sheaf of papers. Gripping these with one hand, and his pyjamas with the other, he turned to the door and, with his friends beside him, dashed downstairs back to the library.

Simon and Marie Lou had already remade the pentacle for the night, before de Richleau had dropped off to sleep, so nothing remained to be done but to seal the doors and windows of the room; and this Simon did while the other two were undressing. With a sigh of thankfulness they all crawled into their makeshift beds, which were arranged like a five-pointed star, with their heads to the centre and their feet to the rim of the pentacle.

Richard had brought with him the papers that he had found in the prisoner's pocket, and in whispers, so as not to arouse the sleeping Duke, they began to examine and discuss them.

The papers consisted of a passport issued to one Alfonse Rodin, as a member of the Free French Forces, and a number of letters written to him. There was also the sum of four-pounds-ten in British treasury notes. Marie Lou, whose French was much more perfect than that of any of her companions, read the letters through carefully. They were from three different women and all of them were a strange mixture of love and business which at first she could not understand; but when she had translated them Richard said:

‘I think I can guess this particular riddle. They are from three French prostitutes who are plying their trade in the West End of London. This fellow is evidently one of the brutes who protect such women, but take most of their
money off them after providing them with flats and clothes. The poor wretches have to try and kid themselves that there's some romance in their lives else they'd go insane, so they usually pin their affections on their so-called protector while they sell themselves for his benefit. Hence the love passages which appear in the letters all mixed up with accounts of daily payments into the bank.'

‘Um; that's about it,' Simon nodded. ‘One of them even mentions a fine of thirty bob, though she doesn't say what it was for—evidently she was pinched for accosting and run in by the police.'

‘The filthy swine!' muttered Rex. ‘If I'd been wise to his business I'd have made such a mess of his face that not even the oldest tart in Marseilles would ever have worked for him again. But it doesn't seem that those letters get us any place.'

‘No.' Marie Lou shook her curls. ‘But I wonder what this white-slaver was doing in General de Gaulle's Free Force?'

‘Cover, probably,' replied Richard. ‘He may have been operating in London for years, but every Frenchman's done his term of military service, and this chap may have thought that the authorities would sling him out after the collapse of France unless he wangled his way into de Gaulle's legion.'

‘That's about the size of it,' Rex agreed. ‘De Gaulle seems a grand guy and many of his people are splendid fellows, but it must be mighty difficult for them to know whom they dare trust in these days. It wasn't only the politicians who went bad on us last summer. The Nazis' rot got right into the nation, and it's my view that even now the bulk of the French upper classes are playing for a draw.'

Marie Lou nodded quickly: ‘And, of course, they'll come sneaking in again on our side to save their faces when we've as good as won the war off our own bat. But at the moment we're up against something infinitely worse than German bullies, Italian gangsters or French crooks, and I think we ought to try to get some sleep. Who's going to take first watch?'

‘I will,' volunteered Rex and Simon together.

‘Let Simon take it, Rex,' said Marie Lou. ‘You and Richard ought to have a good long sleep after your nasty experience tonight. If Simon watches till one, I'll take on from one till three, which will give both of you the best part of five hours before your turn of duty. Then you can take three till five, and Richard five till seven.'

[
Richard Eaton's views on the French collapse were rather strong, so Mr. Wheatley decided that as a matter of courtesy to the Free French Forces they should be deleted
.] - 1941

So it was settled, and with the exception of Simon they snuggled down under their covers.

During most of his watch Simon played a very complicated form of patience with a new pack of cards which he had brought into the pentacle; but every few minutes he looked up from his game to glance round the quiet room. In the distance the monotonous but petulant banging of the door continued, and once he caught the faint crash of china from the kitchen, where another poltergeist was evidently at work, but otherwise his watch proved uneventful, and at one o'clock he woke Marie Lou.

She wished him happy dreams, carefully snuffed the candles, examined the little vases of charged water, the horseshoes and the bunches of herbs to see that they were all in place, then settled down to read a brand-new book which Richard had bought for her from a shop in the village that afternoon.

Like many women who have particularly large and beautiful eyes, her sight was not very strong, so she always wore spectacles for reading, and to her annoyance she found that she had forgotten to bring hers downstairs when she had gone up to get ready for the night. As the print of the book was fairly large she was able to read for some time without them, but after a while she began to feel the strain and had to put the book down.

Without anything at all to occupy her she found watching to be a dreary business and she half-decided to play a game of patience with Simon's cards but abandoned the idea because to get at them she would have had to crawl across his body and might have wakened him.

The door had at last cease to bang, and an utter silence had descended upon the old house, so that even the normal little noises of the night did not seem to disturb it any more. The big fire was still burning in the wide hearth and the candle flames were dead steady. The room was warm and cosy. No breath of that cold, repellent Evil intruded to trouble her mind and it seemed that the five of them within their strong occult defences were absolutely safe from all harm. She knew that although their bodies were still sleeping
all four of her friends were still very near her, because, as things were, even their astrals would not venture outside the pentacle that night.

For over an hour she sat there doing nothing but ruminate quietly upon this extraordinary weaponless fight in which they were involved against Hitler and wondering what would be its end. The strain of reading had tired her eyes a little and for a few moments she allowed the heavy lids to sink down over them.

When she opened them again all was still well, so she closed them once more; and for how long she remained with her eyes shut she never knew. Sitting there with her hands clasped round her knees and her head sunk forward on her chest, she was almost asleep—but not quite. She was just wondering how much longer there was to go before she could rouse Rex for his turn at watching, when she suddenly became conscious that in the last few moments the temperature of the room had changed; from a pleasant warmth it had fallen to a comfortless chill that seemed to be creeping up all her limbs.

Instantly she was fully awake and staring anxiously about her. To her alarm and dismay she saw that the fire was out and that each of the five candle-flames had shrunk to a bare glimmer, so that the whole room was practically in darkness.

Jerking round, she thrust out her hands to rouse the others but from sheer terror her cry of warning was stifled in her throat. Crouching upon de Richleau's breast was a huge and horrid black thing. As her eyes swiftly became accustomed to the dim light she saw that it was a great vampire bat, as big as a large dog; a phosphorescent glow which came from the brute's eyes showed that its teeth were buried in the Duke's throat.

Her temporary paralysis passed. She let out a piercing scream. Richard, Rex and Simon threw off their bedclothes and sprang up, but de Richleau only moaned loudly and seemed to struggle in his sleep.

None of them had any weapon, but Rex grabbed at the foul creature with his bare hands. It was forced to withdraw its teeth from the Duke's throat but slithered through Rex's hands, spread its powerful wings and came rushing straight at Marie Lou's face.

She screamed again and jerked backwards. Richard struck out at it, hitting it full in the breast and knocking it to the floor. For a second it lay there squirming, then suddenly changed its form into that of a great serpent with seven heads.

Simon had grabbed the Duke under the armpits and was dragging him from his bed across the floor. ‘Out of the pentacle, all of you!' he yelled. ‘Get out of the pentacle!'

Coiled on its tail, the great snake hissed and its seven heads struck out in all directions at once. Marie Lou rolled over and over away from it, Rex leapt aside but Richard slipped and fell. The snake reared above him and for a moment he lay there, wondering in horror which of its heads would strike him first.

‘O Lord,' he prayed, ‘deliver me.' And at that second he found that one of his outflung hands was touching one of the little silver vases that contained charged water. Dipping his fingers into it, with a frantic jerk of his hand he flicked a few drops in the direction of the snake. Some of them hit it and sizzled as though they had fallen upon white-hot metal. The snake recoiled with incredible swiftness as Richard rolled away from under it.

All five of them were now outside the pentacle. Rex, Richard and Marie Lou, staring at the Monster, were still jittering with fear, but Simon, who had once so nearly become a Black Magician, knew that for the time being they were safe. The pentacle was a barrier of immense power which worked both ways. It could keep any evil thing from entering it, but at the same time it could prevent the escape of any Evil thing which was inside it. The ab-human threshed violently from side to side, striking with its seven heads at the empty air above the line of the candles and the charged-water vases; but it was caged and could not pursue them.

De Richleau had struggled into wakefulness directly Simon had succeeded in getting him outside the pentacle. One glance was enough to show him the terrible peril they had just escaped. Staggering to his feet, he limped over to his suitcase which stood in a corner of the room. Wrenching from it a full bottle of charged water, that he had kept in reserve, he began to sprinkle it by flicking the bottle-top
so that the water fell into the centre of the circle, while he pronounced aloud a Latin abjuration.

For fifty heart-beats the Monster continued to glide and dart from side to side in an endeavour to evade the scalding drops; then it gave up the struggle and with an angry hissing disappeared in a little cloud of evil green vapour.

It was many minutes before any of them could breathe evenly, but at last, in a stifled voice, de Richleau asked what had happened, and Marie Lou said:

‘The brute was a huge bat, and when I first saw it its fangs were buried in your throat.'

‘Um,' nodded Simon. ‘Look, there are the marks, two little round punctures near your jugular vein.'

De Richleau touched the spot. ‘Yes; I can feel them. In a minute I must do a purifying rite to cleanse the place, but fortunately it could have had its fangs in me only for a few seconds otherwise I should feel much weaker than I do. The thing that worries me, though, is the fact that a Satanic force managed to get inside the pentacle. You must have made some slip when you were erecting our astral defences last night.'

Marie Lou shook her head. ‘It wasn't that. Simon and I made the pentacle together while you were getting ready to go to sleep, and we checked each other's every move.'

‘Then one of you must have brought something unclean into the pentacle with you,' said the Duke.

‘That's it!' exclaimed Richard. ‘And it's entirely my fault. There were some letters and a passport; papers that I got out of the pocket of one of the prisoners. Rex and I had a pretty nasty turn last night down in the cellars. If I'd been my normal self I should never have done such a thing, but as it was, I brought the stuff with me when we came to bed and we were looking through it before going to sleep. I can't say how desperately sorry I am.'

De Richleau nodded. ‘Anything of that kind would be quite sufficient to enable an Evil Entity to materialise. Well, that explains the matter.'

‘It was just as much my fault,' said Marie Lou quickly; ‘I forgot to bring down my “specs” so I couldn't read for long, and I very nearly went to sleep—at least, I shut my eyes for a little and that gave the Thing time to materialise
before I could warn you. I feel absolutely frightful about it.'