The Devil Rides Out (46 page)

‘Now then,' he said, as he gripped the cold, moist iron, ‘steady pressure isn't any good. It needs a violent jerk, so when I say “go!” we must all throw our weight on the bar together. Ready? Go!'

They heaved downwards. There was a sudden snap. The tongue of the padlock had been wrenched out of the lock. De Richleau removed it from the chain and in another moment they had the tall wooden door open.

Once inside, De Richleau struck a match, and while he shaded it with his hands the others looked about them. From what little they could see, the place appeared to be empty. They moved quickly forward, striking more matches as they went, in the direction where Castelnau had told them they would find a trap-door leading to the cellars.

In a far corner they halted. ‘Stand back all of you,' whispered Rex, and while the Duke held up a light he pulled at the second in a row of upright iron girders, apparently built in to strengthen the wall. As Castelnau had said in his trance, it was a secret lever to operate the trap. The girder came forward and a large square of flooring lifted noiselessly on well-oiled hinges.

De Richleau blew out his match and produced the small automatic which he had taken from the banker. ‘I will go first,' he said, ‘and you, Rex, follow me. Richard, you have the other gun so you had better come last. You can look after Marie Lou and protect our rear. No noise now, because if we're lucky our man is here.'

Feeling about with his foot he ascertained that a flight of stairs led downwards. His shoes made no noise, and it was evident that they were covered with a thick carpet. Swiftly, but cautiously, he began to descend the flight and the others followed him down into the pitchy darkness.

At the bottom of the stairs they groped their way along a tunnel until the Duke was brought up sharply by a wooden partition at which it seemed to end. He fumbled for the handle, thinking that it was a door. The sides were as smooth and polished as the centre, yet it moved gently under his touch, and after a moment he found it to be a sliding panel. With the faintest click of ball bearings it slid back on its runners.

Straining their eyes they peered into the great apartment upon which it opened. A hundred feet long, at least, and thirty wide, it stretched out before them. Two lines of thick pillars, acting as supporters to the roof above, and rows of chairs divided in the centre by an aisle which led up to a distant altar, gave it the appearance of a big private chapel. It was lit by one solitary lamp which hung suspended before the altar, and that distant beacon did not penetrate to the shadows in which they stood.

On tiptoe and with their weapons ready they moved forward along the wall. De Richleau peered from side to side as he advanced, his pistol levelled. Rex crept along beside him, the iron winch lever which they had used to smash the padlock gripped tight in his big fist. At any moment they expected their presence to be discovered.

As they crept nearer to the hanging lamp, they saw that the place had been furnished with the utmost luxury and elegance for those unholy meetings. It was, indeed, a superbly equipped temple for the worship of the Devil. Above the altar a great and horrible representation of the Goat of Mendes, worked in the loveliest coloured silks, leered down at them; its eyes were two red stones which had been inset in the tapestry. They flickered with dull malevolence in the dim light of the solitary lamp.

On the side walls were pictures of men, women and beasts practising obscenities only possible of conception in the brain of a mad artist. Below the enormous central figure, which had hideous, distorted, human faces protruding from its elbows, knees and belly, was a great altar of glistening red stone, worked and inlaid with other coloured metals in the Italian fashion. Upon it reposed the ancient ‘devil's bibles' containing all liturgies of hell; broken crucifixes and desecrated chalices stolen from churches and profaned here at the meetings of the Satanists.

Luxurious armchairs, upholstered in red velvet and gold with elaborate canopies of lace above, such as High Prelates use in cathedrals when assisting at important ceremonies, flanked the altar on either side. Below the steps to the short chancel, on a level with where they stood, were arranged rows and rows of cushioned
prie-dieux
for the accommodation of the worshippers.

No sound or movement disturbed the stillness of the heavy incense-laden air and, with a sinking of the heart, De Richleau knew that they had lost their man. He had gambled blindly upon Tanith's message and she had proved wrong as to time. Mocata might not be in Paris for days to come; perhaps he had divined their journey and, knowing that he would be unmolested while they were abroad, returned to Simon's house where, even now, he might by foully murdering poor little Fleur. It seemed that their last hope had gone.

Then as they stepped from the side aisle they suddenly saw a thing that
had been hidden from them by the rows of chair backs–a body, clad in a long white robe with mystic signs embroidered on it in black and red, lay spreadeagled, face downwards on the floor, at the bottom of the chancel steps.

‘It's Simon!' breathed the Duke.

‘Oh, hell, they've killed him!' Rex ran forward and knelt beside the body of their friend. They turned him over and felt his heart. It was beating slowly but rhythmically. The Duke pulled out of his waistcoat pocket a little bottle, without which he never travelled, and held it beneath Simon's nose. He shuddered suddenly and his eyes opened, staring up at them.

‘Simon, darling, Simon. It's us–we're here.' Marie Lou grasped his limp hands between her own.

He shuddered again and struggled into a sitting position. ‘What—what's happened?' he murmured, but his voice was normal.

‘You left us, you dear, pig-headed ass!' exclaimed Richard. ‘Gave yourself up and ruined our whole plan of campaign. What's happened to
you?
That's what we want to know.'

‘Well, I met him.' Simon gave the ghost of a smile. ‘And he took me to Paris in his plane. Then to some place down on the riverside.' He gazed round and added quickly: ‘But this is it. How did you get here?'

‘Never mind that,' De Richleau urged him. ‘Have you seen Fleur?'

‘Yes. He sent a car for me, and when I reached the plane she was already in it. We had an argument and he swore he'd keep his word unless I went through with this.'

‘The ritual to Saturn?' asked De Richleau.

‘Um. He said that if I'd do it without making any fuss he'd let me take Fleur out of here immediately afterwards and back to England.'

‘He's double-crossed you, as we thought he would,' Rex grunted. ‘There's not a soul in this place. He's quit, and taken Fleur with him. Can't you say where he'll be likely to make for?'

‘Ner.' Simon shook his head. ‘Directly we started on the ritual he put me under. I let him, but of course he would have done that anyway. The last I saw of Fleur she was sound asleep in that armchair and the next thing I knew you were all staring down at me just now.'

‘If you completed the ritual, Mocata knows now where the Talisman is,' De Richleau said abruptly.

‘Yes,' Simon nodded.

‘Then he will have gone to wherever it is–from here.'

‘Of course,' Richard cut in. ‘That's his main objective. He wouldn't lose a second.'

‘Then Simon must know the place to which he's gone.'

‘How's that? I don't quite get you.' Rex looked at the Duke with a puzzled frown.

‘In his subconscious, I mean. Our only hope now is for me to put Simon under again and make him repeat every word that he said when the ritual was performed. That will give us the hiding-place of the Talisman and the place to which I'll stake my life Mocata is heading at the present moment. Are you game, Simon?'

‘Yes, of course. You know that I would do anything to help.'

‘Right.' The Duke took him by the arm and pushed him gently. ‘Sit down in that chair to the right of the altar and we'll go ahead.'

Simon settled himself and leaned back on the comfortable cushions, his white robe with its esoteric designs in black and red settling about his feet like the long skirts of a woman. De Richleau made a few swift passes. ‘Sleep, Simon,' he commanded.

Simon's eyelids trembled and closed. After a moment he began to breathe deeply and regularly. The Duke went on: ‘You are in this temple with Mocata. The ritual to Saturn is about to begin. Repeat the words that he made you speak then.'

Dreamily but easily, Simon spoke the words of power which were utterly meaningless to Richard, Rex and Marie Lou, who stood, a tensely anxious audience, at the bottom of the chancel steps.

‘On,' commanded De Richleau. ‘Jump a quarter of an hour.' Simon spoke again, more sentences incomprehensible to the uninitiated.

‘On again,' commanded De Richleau. ‘Another quarter of an hour has passed.'

‘—was built above the place where the Talisman is buried,' said Simon. ‘It will be found in the earth beneath the right hand stone of the altar.'

‘Go back one minute,' ordered De Richleau, and Simon spoke once more.

‘—Attila's death the Greek secreted it and took it to his own country. In the city of Yanina, upon his return, he became possessed of devils and was handed over to the brethren at the monastery above Metsovo, which stands in the mountains twenty miles east of the city. They failed to cast out the spirits which inhabited his body and so imprisoned him in an underground cell and there, before he died, he buried the Talisman. Seven years later the dungeons were demolished and the crypt built in their place on the same site, with the great church above it. The Talisman remained undisturbed in its original hiding place. Its power gradually pervaded the whole of the Brotherhood, filling it with lechery and greed, so that it disintegrated and was finally disbanded before the invasion by the Turks. The chapel to the left in the crypt was built above the place where the Talisman is buried.'

‘Stop,' ordered the Duke. ‘Awake now.'

‘By Jove, we've got it!' exclaimed Rex. But as he spoke a slight noise behind them made him swing upon his heel.

Four figures stood there in the shadows. The tallest suddenly stepped forward.

Richard's hand leapt to his gun but the tall man snapped: ‘Stand still,
mon vieux,
I have you covered,' and they saw that he held an automatic.

The other two strangers came forward. The fourth was Castelnau.

The leader of the party turned to a little old man, who stood beside him wearing an out-of-date bowler hat that came almost down to his ears, then nodded towards the Duke.

‘Is that De Richleau, Verrier? You should be able to recognise him, since he was in your time.'

‘
Oui monsieur
” declared the little old man. ‘That is the famous Royalist who caused us so much trouble when I was young. I would know his face again anywhere.'

‘
Bon!
All this is very interesting.' The tall, hard-eyed man glanced from the obscene pictures on the walls to the magnificent appurtenances of Satanic worship upon the altar, and went on in a silky tone: ‘I have had an idea for some time that a secret society has been practising devil worship in Paris and is responsible for certain disappearances, but I could never lay my
hands on them before. Now I have got five of you red-handed.'

He paused for a moment then gave a jerky little bow. ‘
Madame et Messieurs,
permit me to introduce myself. I am
le Chef de la Sûreté,
Daudet.
Monsieur le Duc,
I arrest you as an enemy of the Government upon the old charge. The rest of you I shall hold with him, as persons suspected of kidnapping and the murder of young children at the practice of infamous rites.'

For ten seconds the friends stood there staring at the detective. Castelnau's presence gave them the key to this grotesque but highly dangerous situation. Mocata must have left the warehouse at almost the same time they had left the banker's apartment. Perhaps their taxis had even passed within a few feet of each other, racing in opposite directions. Tanith had proved right after all when she had told them that she could see Mocata talking with Castelnau that night in his flat.

Mocata had found the banker there, released and revived him, and then listened to his story; realising at once that, since it was possible for De Richleau to hypnotise Castlenau against his will, it would be easy for him to do the same to Simon, learn the hiding place of the Talisman, and follow him to it.

Now that they had discovered the secret Satanic temple which was his headquarters in Paris, the place would be useless to him and only a source of danger. Unmentionable crimes had been committed there, and it would be far too great a risk for him ever to visit it again. Then the brilliant decision that, since the place had to be abandoned, he could at least use it to destroy his enemies.

The whole thing flashed through De Richleau's brain in those few seconds. Mocata's first idea that, if only he could get the police to the warehouse before they left it, he would have involved them in all the crimes associated with such a place and thrown them off his trail for good. Next, the vital question, how to get the police there in time. Would they act at once if Castelnau were sent to tell them a tale about Satanic orgies or only laugh at him? What practical crime could his enemies be charged with? Then the perfect inspiration. If the authorities were told that De Richleau, the Royalist exile, was a party to the business they would not lose a second, but seize on it as a heaven-sent opportunity to throw discredit upon their political opponents. What a magnificent scandal for the Government Press to handle. ‘Secret Royalist Society practises Black Art'–‘Satanic Temple raided at Asnières'–‘Notorious exile arrested while performing Blasphemous Rites.' The Duke could see the scurrilous headlines and hear the newsboy's cry.