Strange Conflict (4 page)

Having settled his guest in a comfortable chair before the glowing fire, the Duke went over to a great carved-ivory chest, which he unlocked with a long, spindle-like key. On the front of it being lowered one hundred and one drawers were disclosed—deep and shallow, large and small. From one of the larger drawers he took a battered old iron tray, twenty-one inches long and seven inches broad, which had certain curious markings engraved upon it, and this he placed on top of the chest; from another drawer he took an incense burner and some cones of incense which he inserted in the burner then lit with a white taper.

When the incense was well alight he left the chest and went over to a handsome table-desk, where he sat down and, picking up a pen, drew a sheet of notepaper towards him. Having covered both sides of the sheet with neat writing he folded it, placed it in an envelope and, turning, handed it to Sir Pellinore, as he said:

‘Slip that in your pocket. When the time is ripe I shall ask you to open it, and if my ceremony is successful it will prove to you that there has been no element of coincidence about this business.'

De Richleau next took from the ivory chest four little bronze bowls, each supported by three winged legs obviously fashioned after a portion of the male body. To the contents of one he applied the lighted taper, upon which the matter in it began to burn with a steady blue flame. Another of the bowls already had some dark substance in it, while the remaining two were empty. Taking one of them, he walked over to a tray of drinks that stood on a side-table and half-filled it from a bottle of Malvern water. As he replaced the bowl in a line with the three others he glanced across at the Baronet, who was watching him with faintly cynical disapproval, and remarked:

‘Here we have the four Elements, Air, Earth, Fire, and
Water, all of which are necessary to the performance of any magical ceremony.'

The cones of incense were now giving off spirals of blue smoke which scented the air of the quiet room with a strong, musky perfume, and as the Duke selected three small pay-envelopes from a number of others, each marked with a name, that were arranged alphabetically in one of the drawers, he added:

‘This doubtless seems a lot of tomfoolery to you, yet there is a sound reason for everything in these little-understood but very ancient practices. For example, the incense will prevent our noses being offended by the—to some— unpleasant odour of the things which I am about to dissolve by fire.'

‘What are they?' Sir Pellinore inquired.

The Duke opened one of the little envelopes, tapped its contents into the palm of his hand and held it out. ‘They are, as you see, the parings of human nails.'

‘Good God!' Sir Pellinore turned away quickly. He was not at all happy about this business as his life-long disbelief in the occult had suddenly become tinged with a vague fear now that all against his wish he was being brought in direct contact with it. The fact that he had won a V.C. in the Boer War, and had performed many acts of bravery since, was not the least comfort to him. Bullets and bombs he understood; but not erudite gentlemen who proposed to bring about abnormal happenings by burning small portions of the human body.

De Richleau read his thoughts and smiled. Returning to the ivory chest, he took from it a silvery powder of which he made three little heaps on the old iron tray, and upon each heap he put a few pieces of the nail parings. He then made a sign which was neither that of the Cross nor the touching of the forehead that Mohammedans make when they mention the Prophet, lit one of the little heaps of powder and in a ringing voice, which startled Sir Pellinore, pronounced an incantation of eleven words from a long-dead language.

The powder flared up in a dazzling flame, the nail-parings were consumed in a little puff of acrid smoke and de Richleau repeated the sign which was neither that of
the Cross nor the touching of the forehead that Mohammedans make when they mention the Prophet.

Twice more the Duke went through the same motions and the same words; then he put out the flame which was burning in one bowl, emptied the water from another, snuffed out the incense in the burner, and, putting all his impedimenta back into the ivory chest, relocked it with the spindle-like key.

‘There,' he said, in the same inconsequent tone that he might have used had he just finished demonstrating a new type of carpet-sweeper. ‘It will be a little time before the logical results of the enchantment which I have effected will become apparent, so what about a drink? Brandy, Chartreuse, or a glass of wine—which do you prefer?'

‘Brandy-and-soda, thanks,' replied Sir Pellinore, distinctly relieved that the antics of his friend were over.

As he brought the drink and sat down before the fire the Duke smiled genially. ‘I'm so sorry to have made you uncomfortable—a great failing in any host towards his guest—but you brought it on yourself, you know.'

‘Good Lord, yes! You have every possible right to prove your own statement if you can, and I'm delighted for you to do so; although I must confess that this business gave me a rather creepy feeling—sort of thing I haven't experienced for years. D'you honestly believe, though, that the
Fuehrer
monkeys about with incense and bowls of this and that, and bits of human nail, as you have done tonight?'

‘I haven't the least doubt that he does; everything that is known about him indicates it. Witness his love of high places, the fact that he shuts himself up in that secret room of his at Berchtesgaden, sometimes for as much as twelve hours at a stretch, when nobody is allowed to disturb him however urgent their business; his so-called fits, and, above all, his way of life: no women, no alcohol and a vegetarian diet.'

‘What on earth's that got to do with it?'

‘To attain occult power it is generally essential to forgo all joys of the flesh, often even to the point of carrying out prolonged fasts, so as to purify the body. You will recall that all the holy men who performed miracles were famed for their asceticism, and it is just as necessary to deny one
self every sort of self-indulgence if one wishes to practise the Black Art as for any other form of occultism.'

‘That doesn't fit in with your own performance this evening. We enjoyed a darned good dinner and plenty of fine liquor before you set to work.'

‘True. But then, as I told you, I only proposed to perform quite a small magic. I couldn't have attempted anything really difficult without having first got myself back into training.'

Sir Pellinore nodded. ‘All the same, I find it impossible to believe that a man in Hitler's position would be able to give the time to a whole series of these—er—ceremonies day after day, week after week, to discover the route by which each of our convoys is sailing, when he must have such a mass of important things to attend to.'

‘I shouldn't think so either. Doubtless there are many people round him to whom he could delegate such routine work, while reserving himself for special occasions on which he seeks power to bring about far greater Evils.'

‘God bless my soul! Are you suggesting that all the Nazis are tarred with the same brush?'

‘Not all of them, but a considerable number. I don't suppose it has ever occurred to you to wonder why they chose a left-handed Swastika as their symbol?'

‘I've always thought that it was on account of their pro-Aryan policy. The Swastika is Aryan in origin, isn't it?'

‘Yes. Long before the Cross was ever heard of the Swastika was the Aryan symbol for Light, and its history is so ancient that no man can trace it; but that was a right-handed Swastika, whereas the Nazi badge is left-handed and, being the direct opposite, was the symbol for Darkness.'

Sir Pellinore frowned. ‘All this is absolutely new to me, and I find it very difficult to accept your theory.'

De Richleau laughed. ‘If you had time to go into the whole matter you'd soon find that it's much more than a theory. D'you know anything about astrology?'

‘Not a thing; though a feller did my horoscope once and I must confess he made a remarkably good job of it. That's many years ago now, but practically everything he predicted about me has since come true.'

‘It always does if the astrologer really knows his job, is
provided with accurate data and spends enough time on it. The sort of horoscope that people get for half a guinea is rarely much good, because astrology is a little-understood but very exact science and it takes many hours of intricate calculation to work out the influence which each celestial body will have upon a child at the hour of birth. Even hard work and a sound knowledge of the science are not alone sufficient, as the astrologer must have had years of practice in assessing the manner in which the influence of one heavenly body will increase or detract from the influence of all the others that are above the horizon at the natal hour. But the labourer is worthy of his hire, and to pay ten or twenty guineas to have the job done by a man who really understands his stuff is worth it a hundredfold. One can make a really good horoscope the key to one's life by using the warnings it contains to remould tendencies and thus guard against many ills.'

‘Really?' Sir Pellinore looked a little surprised. ‘I was under the impression that these astrologer gentry all believed that what the stars foretold
must
come to pass. That's why I've never regarded my horoscope as anything but a curiosity. Nothing would induce me to believe that we're not the masters of our own fate.'

‘We are,' the Duke replied mildly; ‘but our paths are circumscribed. The Great Planners give to each child at its birth circumstances together with certain strengths and weaknesses of character which are exactly suited to it and are, in fact, the outcome of the sum of all its previous existence. On broad lines, the life of that child is laid out, because its parents and environment will automatically have a great influence upon its future and it is pre-ordained that from time to time during its life other persons will come into its orbit, exercising great influence for good or ill upon it. Temptations will be put in its path, but also chances for it to achieve advancement. These things are decreed by the Overseers in accordance with the vast plan into which everything fits perfectly; and that is why character, tendencies and periods of special stress or opportunity can be predicted from the stars prevailing at any birth. But free will remains, and that is why, although future events can be foreseen in a life with a great degree of probability, they cannot be foretold with absolute certainty; because the
person concerned may suddenly evince some hidden weakness or great strength and thus depart from the apparent destiny.'

Then a horoscope is by no means final?'

‘Certainly not; yet it can be an invaluable guide to one's own shortcomings and potentialities, and the fact that we frequently go off the predestined track in one direction or another does not necessarily mean that we leave it for good. Surely you've noticed how people often fail in some direction through their own folly yet achieve their aims a little later by some quite unexpected avenue; and again, how, through what appear to be entirely fortuitous circumstances, a man's life is often completely changed so that his whole future is given an entirely different direction. That is not chance, because there is no such thing; it is merely that, having been faced with a certain test, and having reacted with unexpected strength or weakness to it, he is swung back, by powers over which he has no control, on to the path where other trials or opportunities have been laid out in advance for him.'

The anti-aircraft fire flared up again so that the glasses on the side-table jingled, then two bombs whined over the house and exploded somewhere behind it in the direction of Piccadilly. The whole place shuddered and the menacing hum of the enemy planes could be heard clearly overhead.

For a few moments they sat silent, then when the din had faded, Sir Pellinore said: ‘Damn that house-painter feller! There soon won't be a window left in any of the clubs. But what were you going to say about him and astrology?'

‘Simply that his every major move so far—with one exception—has been made at a time when his stars were in the ascendant. His march into the Rhine, his
Anschluss
with Austria, the rape of Czechoslovakia and a score of smaller but nevertheless important acts in his career all took place upon dates when the stars were particularly propitious to him. I don't ask you to accept my word for that—go to any reputable astrologer and he will substantiate what I say—but, to my mind, that is conclusive proof that Hitler either practises astrology himself or employs a first-class astrologer and definitely chooses the dates for each big move he makes in accordance with occult forces ruling at those times.'

‘What was the exception?'

‘September the 2nd, 1939. Evil persons can use occult forces for their own ends, but only within limits. The all-seeing powers of Light are ever watchful, and inevitably a time comes when they trap the Black occultist through his own acts. They trapped Hitler over Poland. I am sure he never thought for one moment that Great Britain would go to war on account of his marching into Danzig; therefore when he consulted the stars as to a propitious date for that adventure he was thinking only in terms of Poland. He chose a date upon which Poland's stars were bad and his stars were good; but he forgot or neglected to take into account the stars of Great Britain and her Empire on that date and the day following. We all know what happened to Poland; but the same thing has not happened to Britain yet—and will never happen. In the map of the heavens for September the 3rd, 1939, you will find that Britain's stars are more powerful than Hitler's. He thought that he was only going to launch a short, devastating attack on Poland on the 2nd, whereas, actually, he precipitated a second World War; and that is where this servant of Darkness has at last been trapped by the powers of Light.'