The Satanist (25 page)

‘No, she is a bit out of series. To the majority of them a
common denominator applies; they are super-tax payers, middle-aged to elderly, not known to have any affiliations with Labour or to be particularly generous to other charities and, outwardly, at least, respectable. But that doesn’t get us anywhere.’

With a shrug of his lean shoulders, Verney put the pass sheets in a drawer, and added: ‘Well, that’s that; no doubt we’ll solve the puzzle in due course. Now tell me what you’ve been up to?’

‘The usual thing, Sir. Attending branch meetings most nights, and getting a bit closer to my Communist buddies in between times. I handed a detailed report in to your P.A. just now. There is nothing in it of special interest; but I’ve made one bit of progress on what you call my second string.’

‘You mean Mrs. Wardeel’s set-up and the lovely that you have been interesting yourself in?’

‘That’s it; Mrs. Mauriac. We had a bit of an upset when I last took her out, two Sundays ago; but I saw her again on Tuesday at Mrs. Wardeel’s and we patched it up. In fact, she took me back to her flat afterwards and gave me supper.’

‘She did, eh!’ C.B. raised a prawn-like eyebrow. ‘Then I’ll have to ask you for your expense money back.’

Barney grinned. ‘No, there was nothing like that. And I couldn’t get her to talk. All the same, I’m convinced that her pal, the Indian occultist Ratnadatta, is leading her into something pretty nasty; and I’m more than ever inclined to believe that Ratnadatta got hold of Teddy Morden and led him up the same street’

‘When we last talked of this you said the Mauriac woman had assured you that Ratnadatta’s circle went in only for Yoga. What has happened since to convince you that she was lying?’

‘Well, first go off she ‘fessed up to Ratnadatta’s crowd being a bunch of Satanists and said he had blindfolded her both going to and returning from their hang-out. Then spilling a glass of wine seemed to rattle her, and she abruptly
took it all back; swore she had only been pulling my leg. But she had already told me that she was going for the second time to a meeting there with Ratnadatta the following Saturday. Last night I tackled her about it. She tried to sell me the Yoga stuff again, and refused to tell me where the meeting place is. As I had no means of making her, she could have got away with that if she hadn’t made a stupid blunder. She said that she couldn’t give me the address of the place because it is in a district in which she had never been before, somewhere up in North London.’

‘And what do you deduce from that?’

That she honestly does not know where it is; so she really must have been blindfolded both times when she was taken to it. And Ratnadatta would not have taken the precaution of blindfolding her unless something much more sinister than Yoga goes on there.’

‘Come, come! It’s too much to expect any woman to know every district well enough to identify a street in which she is set down from a taxi after dark!’

‘I agree; but where she bogged it was telling me that the place was in North London.’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘Because I know that it was not. She was taken to a house off the far end of the King’s Road, Chelsea. That S.W.10 district, as you know, is now made up of big blocks of post-war Council flats, mostly built on sites that were left derelict by bombs, and streets of slums that escaped them. This place is down near the river, only a stone’s throw from where Cremorne Gardens used to be. At one time I believed they rivalled Vauxhall Gardens as a favourite haunt of eighteenth century boys and girls at which to have their fun.’

‘How did you find out that she was taken there?’

‘She had told me that she was going to meet Ratnadatta at Sloane Square Tube at nine-thirty. I parked my car nearby, watched them meet and, when they got into a taxi, followed them.’

Verney gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘Good work, partner;
good work. And what sort of a place was it that he took her to?’

‘An old Georgian mansion, most of which is concealed behind high walls. Sounds a bit improbable in a slum quarter like that; but that’s why I mentioned Cremorne Gardens having once been nearby. This place must be a relic from those days. Its entrance can be approached only down a cul-de-sac, and they’re darned careful not to attract the attention of the locals to the fact that quite large meetings are held there. In a courtyard in front of the house there were a few cars, but I stooged around for about half-an-hour and nearly all the people who entered the place, including Ratnadatta and Mrs. Mauriac, either paid off their taxis or parked their cars some way off, because they arrived at the place on foot.’

After pulling at his thin-stemmed pipe thoughtfully for a minute, Verney opened a drawer in his desk, took out a folder, threw it across to Barney, and said: ‘I’d like you to read that through. It’s a report, by our man at the Long-Range Rocket Experimental Station down in Wales, on a scientist there who seems to be going a bit round the bend, and a statement by the egg-head himself. Take it over to the armchair by the window while I get on with some other work. When you’ve done, let me know what you think of it.’

Barney moved over to the window and spent the next twenty minutes reading through the contents of the folder. To Squadron-Leader Forsby’s original report and the two sections of Otto Khune’s account of his strange association with his brother, Lothar, a final document dated two days previously had been added.

It was a letter from Forsby in which he said that Otto appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown and had given out to his colleagues, as a reason for his state, that he was suffering from terrible nightmares; so Forsby had installed a tape-recorder in the scientist’s bedroom on the chance that it might pick up something if he talked in his sleep.

It had. From the long jumbles of talk that had been recorded, it emerged that Lothar was proposing a clandestine exchange of secret information about the latest rocket fuels, by which, he argued, each of them could gain great prestige as a scientist on producing as his own discovery the other’s knowledge. Just as he had in 1950, he was now working on Otto and pressing him to meet him in London on the coming Saturday or, if he could not manage that, on the Saturday that followed, and showing him in his dreams a house to which he should come at midday, with directions how to find it.

When Barney reached that passage, he jumped to his feet and exclaimed: ‘C.B.! Sorry, Sir, I mean. The description of the place at which Lothar wants Otto to meet him next weekend…’

The buzzer on the Colonel’s desk sounded, cutting him short. Verney answered it, then looked back at Barney and nodded.

That is why I asked you to read the Khune file. I felt pretty certain you’d confirm my impression. It tallies with yours of this Georgian mansion to which Ratnadatta took Mrs. Mauriac.’

On the previous Tuesday night Mary had gone to bed in a very happy frame of mind. For the best part of two hours she had forgotten her loneliness and bitterness and had felt more like her normally cheerful self than at any time since she had lost her husband. Barney’s anxiety that she should break off her association with Ratnadatta had obviously been inspired by genuine concern for her, and to have once more a man eager to safeguard her well-being was just the tonic she had needed.

Even so, by Wednesday evening she had decided that leopards did
not
change their spots. There was no mistaking from his attitude that he would like to start an affair with her, so his wish to protect her from trouble could as equally well be put down to a selfish, as an unselfish, motive. Recalling the way in which he had left her in such a desperate plight five years ago, she felt convinced that his nature could not have altered, and that he would still use his gay attractiveness to get what he could out of any pretty woman, then leave her in the lurch the moment it suited him.

But, she thought, with a suggestion of cynical amusement, it was he, and not she, who was now playing with fire; for she knew his form, whereas he still knew nothing about her except what he had learnt since their meeting just over a fortnight before. Moreover, as a companion he was great fun, and there was no reason at all for her to hurry the
dénouement
of her plan; so why should she not enjoy as long as possible the benefits of the present situation? It would be time enough to tell him that she was the Mary McCreedy he had put in the family way at the age of eighteen and then deserted when he made the pace too hot for her to keep him on a string any longer. In this mood she began to look forward to Saturday, and when he called for her that evening she greeted him with her loveliest smile.

He had brought his car and, after dropping her at the Berkeley, left it in the garage at the bottom of Hay Hill, then rejoined her. As they had both determined to make the evening a success, it went well from the start. Both of them had healthy appetites, so enjoyed their dinners, and when they danced afterwards, just as had been the case before, they forgot everything else in the pleasure of the movement and rhythm. The time went all too quickly and when the restaurant began to empty he suggested that they should go on to Churchill’s. She willingly agreed, so they took a taxi round to Bond Street and spent two more happy hours dancing and talking in the dim rose-shaded light of the night-club.

It was getting on for three in the morning by the time he
pulled up in his car with her in Cromwell Road. Having thanked him for a lovely evening before getting out, she said:

‘I’m afraid it’s too late to ask you in, but here is something you wanted the other evening.’ Then she leaned towards him quickly and kissed him.

He put out an arm to catch her to him; but she already had one hand on the door handle, so was able to slip out of his embrace and from the car on to the pavement.

‘Hi!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s only a sample. Don’t leave a poor fellow to go thirsting to his bed. Come back, there’s a sweet.’

‘No,’ she laughed, ‘that’s enough for now,’ and turned to run up the steps to the house.

Scrambling out, he hurried after her, and caught her by the arm.

‘No! Please Barney. Not in the street,’ she said quickly.

‘All right,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘But what about tomorrow? Today, rather. How about coming for a run in the car and lunching somewhere in the country?’

‘If it’s a fine day, I’d love to,’ she replied at once.

‘Splendid!’ he grinned. ‘I’ll pick you up then. Shall we say half-past eleven?’

Getting out her latch-key, she nodded. ‘I expect I’ll come to about ten; so that should be all right. Goodnight, my dear.’

‘Margot, you’re a honey! But it’s “good-morning”, and we’re all set now for a happy day together. Happy dreams!’

By mid-morning the weather prospects had worsened and, although it was not actually raining, grey clouds obscured the sky; but they decided to risk the weather and drive down to the Hut, at Wisley.

Just as he felt certain that she had been lying to him about what went on in Ratnadatta’s circle, she felt sure that he had lied to her about his being Lord Larne, and that his story of being in England only on a visit from Kenya was a wily stratagem put out in advance, which would provide
him with the excuse that he had to return there should he wish to terminate any love affair that looked like becoming troublesome for him. So on their way down into Surrey, she amused herself by asking him, with apparent innocence, a number of awkward questions.

Although unsuspicious of her motive, he was far too old a hand at posing under a false identity to let himself be caught out easily, and by now he had had ample time to get used to thinking of himself, when with her, as a titled visitor from Kenya. About his having a car, he said, he had hired it for his stay; about the length of his visit, that it would depend on how long it took to complete the tie-ups for his travel agency, and that would take another month, at least; about where he was staying, that he was lucky in having many friends who were willing to put him up for a few nights at a time, so he moved around from one to another; about his home in Kenya, that he had a house in one of the better suburbs of Nairobi, but not a very large one as he was not particularly well off; about his parents, that both of them had died while he was still young, which was the truth; and he was able to keep her amused for quite a time by improvising on an imaginary upbringing.

She scored only one hit, and that was when she asked him to tell her where he was staying at the moment, in case she wanted to get in touch with him. In reply he had to give her the address of his flat in Warwick Square, but he said that it had been temporarily lent to him by a friend of his and, as he was a stranger there, any message for him should be sent care of Mr. Sullivan.

Having pushed him into using his own name and, as she saw it, as good as admitting that he had no right to a title, gave her a quiet laugh; but afterwards she wondered a little grimly how many young women he had led up the garden path by the idea that he might make them the Countess of Larne.

They lunched at the Hut Hotel and the rain held off until they were half way through the meal, but then for about half-an-hour it came down hard. Barney had been hoping
that during the afternoon they would be able to go for a walk in the woods, and find some pleasant spot suitable for improving their relationship from the point it had reached in the early hours of that morning, but as the rain had made mossy banks and fallen tree-trunks too wet to sit on he had, for the time being, to confine his amorous intentions to getting closer to Mary mentally, in a long talk.

They discussed many things and found they had many tastes in common so, by the time they returned to the Hut for tea, a much greater degree of intimacy had been established between them, and he felt that his afternoon had been far from wasted. Unfortunately, however, he was debarred from following it up. That evening he had to attend a subscription concert got up by some of his Communist contacts at which one of their number was to receive a presentation on retirement from office; so he had to excuse himself to Mary for not asking her out to dinner by saying that he had a long-standing date, that he could not break, to dine with friends whom he had entertained when they were on a visit to Kenya.