The Devil Rides Out (28 page)

In short, it will be gathered that this ancient hostelry could provide all the comfort which any reasonable person might demand, and was something a
little out of the ordinary for a village inn. Rex, of course, knew the place well from his previous visits to Cardinals Folly and, a little out of breath from the pace at which he had come, hurried into the low comfortably furnished lounge, the old oak beams of which almost came down to his head.

Tanith was there alone. Immediately she saw him she jumped up from her chair and ran to meet him, gripping both his hands in hers with a strength surprising for her slender fingers.

She was pale and weary. Her green linen dress was stained and mired from her terrible journey on the previous night, although obviously she had done her best to tidy herself. Her eyes were shadowed from strain and lack of sleep, seeming unnaturally large, and she trembled slightly as she clutched at him.

‘Oh, thank God you've come!' she cried.

‘But how did you know I was at Cardinals Folly?' he asked her quickly.

‘My dear,' she sank down in the chair again, drawing her hand wearily across her eyes. ‘I am terribly sorry about last night. I think I was mad when I stole your car and tried to get to the Sabbat. I crashed of course, but I expect you will have heard about that–and then I did the last five miles on foot.'

‘Good God! Do you mean to say you got there after all?'

She nodded and told him of that nightmare walk from Easterton to the Satanic Festival. As she came to the part in her story where, against her will, she had been drawn down into the valley, her eyes once more expressed the hideous terror which she had felt.

‘I could not help myself,' she said. ‘I tried to resist with all my mind but my feet simply moved against my will. Then, for a moment, I thought that the heavens had opened and an angry God had suddenly decided to strike those blasphemous people dead. There was a noise like thunder and two giant eyes like those of some nightmare monster seemed to leap out of the darkness right at me. I screamed, I think, and jumped aside. I remember falling and springing up again. The power that had held my feet seemed to have been suddenly released and I fled up the hill in absolute panic. When I got to the top I tripped over something and then I must have fainted.'

Rex smiled. ‘That was us in the car,' he said. ‘But how did you know where to find me?'

‘It was not very difficult,' she told him. ‘When I came to, I was lying on the grass and there wasn't a sound to show that there was a living soul within miles of me. I started off at a run without the faintest idea where I was going–my only thought being to get away from that terrible valley. Then when I was absolutely exhausted I fell again, and I must have been so done in that I slept for a little in a ditch.

‘When I woke up, it was morning and I found that I was quite near a main road. I limped along it not knowing what I should come to and then I saw houses and a straggling street and, after a little, I discovered that I had walked into Devizes.

‘I went into the centre of the town and was about to go into an hotel when I realised that I had no money; but I had a brooch, so I found a jeweller's and sold it to them–or rather, they agreed to advance me twenty pounds, because I didn't want to part with it and it must be worth at least a hundred. An awfully nice old man there agreed to keep it as security until I could send him the money on from London. Then I did go to the hotel, took a room and tried to think things over.

‘Such an extraordinary lot seemed to have happened since you took me off in your car from Claridges yesterday that at first I could not get things straight at all, but one thing stood out absolutely clearly. Whether it was you or the vision of my mother, I don't know, but my whole outlook had changed completely. How I could ever have allowed myself to listen to Madame D'Urfé and do the things I've done I just can't think. But I know now that I've been in the most awful danger, and that I must try and get free of Mocata somehow. Anyone would think me mad, and possibly I am, to come to you like this when I hardly know you, but the whole thing has been absolutely outside all ordinary experiences. I am terribly alone, Rex, and you are the only person in the world that I can turn to.'

She sank back in her chair almost exhausted with the effort of endeavouring to impress him with her feelings, but he leant forward and, taking one of her hands in his great leg-of-mutton fist, squeezed it gently.

‘There, there, my sweet.' Speaking from his heart he used the endearment quite naturally and unconsciously. ‘You did the right thing every time. Don't you worry any more. Nobody is going to hurt a hair of your head now you've got here safely. But how in the world did you do it?'

Her eyes opened again and she smiled faintly. ‘My only hope was to throw myself on your protection, so I had to find you somehow and that part wasn't difficult. All systems of divination are merely so many methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order that the inner may become clear. Tea-leaves, crystals, melting wax, lees of wine, cards, water, entrails, birds, sieve-turning, sand and all the rest.

‘I wanted sleep terribly when I got to that hotel bedroom, but I knew that I mustn't allow myself to, so I took some paper from the lounge, and borrowed a pencil. Then I drew myself into a trance with the paper before me and the pencil in my hand. When I looked at it again I had quite enough information scribbled down to enable me to follow you here.'

Rex accepted this amazing explanation quite calmly. Had he been told such a thing a few days before he would have considered it fantastic, but now it never even occurred to him that it was in any way extraordinary that a woman desiring to know his whereabouts should throw herself into a trance and employ automatic writing.

She glanced at the old grandfather clock which stood ticking away in a corner of the low-raftered room. Half an hour had sped by already and he was feeling guilty now at having left Simon. He would never be able to forgive himself if, in his absence, any harm befell his friend. Now that he knew Tanith was safe he must get back to Cardinals Folly, so he announced abruptly: ‘I'm mighty sorry, but I've got Simon to look after so I can't stay here much longer.'

‘Oh, Rex,' her eyes held his imploringly. ‘You must not unless you take me with you. If you leave me alone, Mocata will be certain to get me.'

For a moment Rex hesitated miserably, wrestling with the quandary that faced him. If Tanith was telling the truth, he couldn't possibly leave her to be drawn back by that terrible power of evil. But was she? So far she had been Mocata's puppet. How much truth was there in this pretended change of heart? Had Mocata planted her there in order to lure him deliberately away from Simon's side?

It occurred to him that he might take her back with him to Cardinals Folly, for if she was speaking the truth she was in the same case as Simon.
They could keep the two of them together and concentrate their forces against the black magician. But he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it entered his mind. To do so would be playing Mocata's game with a vengeance. If Tanith were acting consciously or unconsciously under his influence, God alone knew what powers she might possess to aid her master once they accepted her as a friend in their midst. If he took her there it would be like introducing one of the enemy into a beleaguered fortress.

‘What are you afraid might happen if I leave you?' he asked suddenly.

‘You can't–you mustn't,' her eyes pleaded with him. ‘Not only for my own sake, but your friends' as well. Mocata has a hundred means of knowing where Simon is and where I am too. He may arrive here at any moment. It's no good pretending Rex. I know beyond any question that I cannot resist him and he'll work through me, however much my will is set against it. He's told me a dozen times that he has never met a woman who is such a successful medium for him as myself. So you can be certain that he is on his way here now.'

‘What d'you think he'll do when he turns up?'

‘He will throw me into a trance and call Simon to him. Then if Simon fails to come Mocata may curse him through me.'

Rex shrugged. ‘Don't worry. De Richleau's a wily old bird. He'll turn the curse aside some way.'

‘But you don't seem to understand,' she sobbed. ‘If a curse is sent out it must lodge somewhere, and if it fails to reach its objective because there is an equally strong influence working against it, the vibrations recoil and impinge upon the sender.'

‘Steady now.' He took her hands and tried to soothe her. ‘If that is so I guess we couldn't find a better way to tickle up Mocata.'

‘No–no!! He never does things himself–at least I have never known him to–just in case he fails, because then he would have to pay the penalty. Instead, he uses other people–hypnotises them and makes them throw out the thought or the wish. That is what he will do to me. If he succeeds, you will no longer be able to protect Simon, and if he fails, it is I who will pay the price. That is why you've just got to stay with me and prevent him using me as his instrument.'

‘Holy smoke! Then we're in a proper jam!' Rex's brain was working swiftly. If she were telling the truth, she was in real danger. If not, at least Simon still had Richard and Marie Lou to take care of him until the Duke's return.

All his chivalry and his love for her which seemed to have blossomed overnight welled up and told him that he must chance her honesty and remain there to protect her. ‘All right, I'll stay,' he said after a moment.

‘Oh, thank God!' she sighed. ‘Thank God!'

‘But tell me,' he went on, ‘just why is it you're such a king-pin medium to this man? What about old Madame D'Urfé and the rest? Can't he do his stuff through them?'

Tanith looked at him through tear-dimmed eyes and shook her head. ‘Not in the same way. You see there is rather an unusual link between us. My number is twenty and so is his.'

Rex frowned. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?' he asked in a puzzled voice.

‘I mean our astrological number,' she replied quietly. ‘Give me a piece
of paper, and I will show you.'

Rex handed her a few sheets from a nearby table and a pencil from his waistcoat pocket. Then she quickly drew out a list of the numerical values to the letters of the alphabet:

 

‘There!' she went on. ‘By substituting numbers for letters in anyone's name and adding them up you get their occult number which indicates the planet that influences them most in all spiritual affairs. It must be the name by which they are most generally known–even if it is a pet name. Now look!'

 

‘You see how closely our vibrations are attuned. Two is the value of the Moon, to which both he and I are subject, and any names having a total numerical value which reduce by progressive additions to two, such as eleven or twenty-nine or thirty-eight or forty-seven, would give us some affinity, but that they actually add up to the same
compound
number shows that we are attuned to a very remarkable degree. That is why I have proved such an exceptionally good medium for him to work through.'

‘But you are utterly different from him,' Rex protested.

‘Of course,' she nodded gravely. ‘One's birth date gives the
material
number, which is generally that of another planet and modifies the influence of the
spiritual
number considerably. As it happens mine is May 2nd–again a two you see, so I am an almost pure type. Moon people are intensely imaginative, artistic, romantic, gentle by nature and not very strong physically. They are rather over-sensitive and lacking in self-confidence, unsettled too, and liable to be continually changing their plans, but most of them, of course, have some balancing factor. Mocata gets all his imaginative and psychic qualities from the Moon, but his birthday is April 24th which adds up to six, and six being the number of Venus, he is very strongly influenced by that planet. Venus people are extremely magnetic. They attract others easily and are usually loved and worshipped by those under them, but very often they are obstinate and unyielding. It is that in his
nature which balances the weakness of the Moon and makes him so determined in carrying out his plans.'