Authors: Dennis Wheatley
‘Oh, all right then. What had he to say about it?’
For the best part of half-an-hour, between mouthfuls of food and wine, she gave him the highlights of Ratnadatta’s discourse, and as they discussed them Barney had to agree that much of it made sense. Just after the main course they had chosen – a Hungarian
goulash
– had been served, he enquired: ‘And when you had finished dinner, what happened then?’
She gave her sweetest smile. ‘He took me to a Satanic temple.’
‘The little swine! That’s just what I feared he might do. Still, it seems you came to no harm, otherwise you wouldn’t be looking so cheerful.’
‘No; I enjoyed it. I found it absolutely fascinating.’
Barney was on the point of giving way to an outburst but, his duty coming uppermost in his mind, he checked it and asked, ‘Whereabouts was this place?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she replied lightly. ‘He took me to and from it in a taxi, and both ways he insisted on putting a bandage over my eyes. Going there took a long time and for no very good reason I got the impression that it was somewhere in north-east London. But I’m sure the distance we covered coming back was much shorter, and when he dropped me at Hyde Park Corner the taxi had just come up the
slope from Knightsbridge; so it may be anywhere.’
‘You must have seen something of it when you got out of the taxi. What was it like outside?’
‘It was an old Georgian mansion with a high wall all round it, except for its front; and there it faced on to a semi-private courtyard. But it was in the heart of a slum district. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘That doesn’t get us far. In a great area like London there must be dozens of derelict places like that in districts that have gradually deteriorated into slums.’
‘Oh, but it wasn’t derelict. Inside it was beautifully decorated, and furnished in keeping with its period.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Those sort of crooks have oodles of money. What happened after you arrived there?’
For a second Mary hesitated. She had not forgotten Ratnadatta’s threat that he and his friends would know about it if she betrayed their secrets, and take steps to exact a grim penalty. But now that she had made up her mind to break with them, and would soon have lost touch with him altogether, she felt that she need no longer take serious notice of his threat. Besides, she was thoroughly enjoying Barney’s reactions to the dangers she had courted and was tempted by the urge to see him becoming more wrought up on her account.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if I do tell you I must ask you to keep it to yourself. You see, I’m not supposed to speak about these people’s doings to anyone, and if it leaked out that I had they might make trouble for me.’
‘I fully appreciate that,’ he nodded. ‘So the last thing you need be afraid of is that I’d let you down.’
‘All right then. He took me up to a gallery where without being seen we could look down on the interior of the temple. There were about thirty men and women in it, all masked and wearing only gossamer-thin cloaks, through which one could see absolutely everything.’
Barney’s face had become grim, and he muttered, ‘That’s more or less the kind of form I expected. But, damn it all, Margot! You mustn’t let yourself get involved further in
this sort of thing. You really mustn’t!’
‘I don’t know.’ She gave a shrug that implied sophisticated detachment. ‘I haven’t yet quite made up my mind. I wouldn’t have missed this show last night for anything. By comparison, the sort of things one sees at Mrs. Wardeel’s are child’s play. Ratnadatta and his friends really can call down power, and I’m awfully tempted to go with him again next Saturday. It depends on whether I can screw up my courage to go through the initiation ceremony.’
‘What form does it take? Something pretty beastly, I bet.’
‘Not necessarily. But once in, I might be expected to take part in the, er – social activities of the Brotherhood.’
‘I don’t quite get you?’
‘Well, Ratnadatta let me watch them do their serious stuff, but then he said that I’d seen quite enough for a first visit. Just as we were leaving they were about to sit down to a feast, and I’ve rather uneasy suspicions about the kind of fun and games they may have got up to afterwards.’
‘Suspicions! Be your age, Margot! You’d get yourself raped for a certainty.’
She turned her big blue eyes on him with an innocent look. ‘D’you really think so?’
‘Of course I do! You mustn’t even think of going to this place again. You’ve got nothing to offer them except your body, and that’s what they’re after. They might even dope and white-slave you. Let’s hear now about what you did see – their serious stuff?’
With secret amusement at his agitation, Mary replied: ‘First of all they made their reports to the High Priest about what they had been up to since last attending a meeting. He looked a charming old man; the sort of priest that no woman would mind confessing anything to. Then, after a long period of silence, came the manifestations of genuine occult power. Somehow, I didn’t see exactly how it happened, but the Arch-Priest of the Brotherhood appeared from some curtains that hung behind the altar.
‘They all seemed a bit scared of him, and so was I. Aparrently
he is the big-shot of a world-wide organisation, and only in London on a visit. The greater part of his face was hidden under a horned headdress, he was dressed in black tights – just as one sees pictures of the Devil – and he was wearing a fortune in jewels. He listened to the requests made by the congregation, and granted nearly all of them what they asked for – beauty, ways to make money, restoration of sight and all sorts of other favours and cures.’
Barney stopped eating and a slow smile spread over his face as he said, ‘Oh, come on; you’re pulling my leg?’
‘No, really! And after that there came the most extraordinary and terrifying thing of all. A small cloud of smoke formed down at his feet and from it there materialised a hideous black imp.’
While she was speaking, Barney had picked up from in front of him the wicker cradle in which lay the bottle of Burgundy they were drinking with their
goulash.
With his other hand he took her glass and refilled it. As she was about to take it from him, somehow, they fumbled it. At the moment she said the word ‘imp’, the glass slipped from between their hands and precipitated the whole of its contents into her lap.
With exclamations of dismay, both of them stood up. A passing waiter quickly pulled out the table and muttered expressions of sympathy while Mary hurried off to the ladies’ room. The splashed table cloth was replaced, the remains of the
goulash
taken away and fresh places laid.
Mary was furious. As an aid to her designs to ensnare Barney she had put on her best semi-evening frock. It was brand new, and of a yellow material which she had chosen because, now that she was a brunette, she knew that the colour would set off her dark beauty to perfection.
In the cloakroom she quickly wriggled out of it and the attendant did her best to remove the stain by sponging with hot water. But when they had rough-dried it in front of an electric fire, the edge of the great circular splodge, where the wine had soaked in, was still plainly visible, and to their dismay they found that some of the wine having trickled
through between Mary’s legs, there was a smaller stain on the back of the skirt. As the wine there had had longer to penetrate the material, sponging the place had less effect and the woman glumly declared that she doubted if even proper cleaning would get it out.
Conscious of the many pairs of eyes taking stock of her misfortune as she recrossed the restaurant twenty minutes later, and still seething with rage, Mary rejoined Barney. He accepted the blame, and apologised profusely. She, out of good manners, did her best to make light of the matter and said that it had been her fault; but she was unable, altogether, to conceal her annoyance, and when new portions of
goulash
were served to them she petulantly told the waiter to take hers away as she had had enough.
Barney ate some of his in an uncomfortable silence; then in an endeavour to take her mind off her misfortune, he said: ‘I didn’t really mean it when I said I thought you were pulling my leg. Do go on and tell me more about the extraordinary things you saw last night. You’d got as far as the appearance of the black imp.’
As though she had received a mild electric shock, Mary stiffened slightly. It had flashed into her mind that the spilling of the wine might not have been an ordinary accident. In defiance of Ratnadatta’s warning, she had been giving away the secrets of the Brotherhood. Was it possible that she was being overlooked and some occult force had been set in motion to check her? Thinking about it again she knew that the mishap had been more her fault than Barney’s, because it was through her hand that the glass had actually slipped. Momentarily it had seemed as if her fingertips had lost their sense of touch, and next second the wine had cascaded into her lap. Suddenly she felt convinced that the temporary paralysis, although it had come and gone in less time than it takes to draw breath, could have been caused only by supernatural means.
Striving to conceal the fear with which the thought filled her, she stammered: ‘The… the imp! Yes, I … I. But, of course, I
was
pulling your leg. There was no imp or priest
who used it to perform an abortion….’
Barney shot her a swift, shocked suspicious glance and broke in, ‘You never mentioned that.’
‘Oh … didn’t I? Well, it doesn’t matter. I was making the whole thing up. I mean about them all wearing masks but having no clothes on, and about an Arch-Priest they called the Great Ram performing miracles.’
‘D’ you mean that? Honestly?’
‘Of course.’ She forced a smile. ‘I was just seeing how much I could get you to swallow.’
He smiled back. ‘I boggled at the miracles, and the black-clad gent producing an imp was a bit too much; but you sold me the general set-up. Anyhow, praise be to God you were only fooling. What did Ratnadatta’s game turn out to be after all, though?’
‘It was as I thought – Yoga.’ Mary quickly tried to recall the little she had heard about Yoga, and went on: ‘It really was rather thrilling. One of them, wearing only a loin cloth, lay down on a bed of nails, and another walked on live coals without burning his feet. It can be of practical use, too, if one works at it hard enough. Ratnadatta swears to me that through having learnt to breathe in a certain way he can keep himself warm on the coldest day without wearing an overcoat. It is also the royal road to getting out of one’s body; so I mean to take up practising the exercises.’
‘Does that mean that you are going to this place again next Saturday?’
Mary still had no intention of doing so; but the temptation to re-arouse Barney’s concern for her, even to a more limited extent, led her to reply, ‘Yes, why not?’
His reaction was just what she had hoped for. ‘And that, I suppose, commits you to having dinner again in a private room with this slimy Babu?’
Recalling all she had told him of Ratnadatta’s arguments in support of the ancient worship of Satan as the Lord of this World, she suddenly saw the red light. That did not fit in with the new aspect she had given the Indian as an innocent practitioner of Yoga. To forestall Barney’s
possibly asking her to explain this obvious contradiction in the story she was now anxious that he should believe, she said:
‘I was fooling about that, too. We dined downstairs in the restaurant, and next Saturday he is not even giving me dinner. I’m not to meet him at the Sloane Square Tube until half-past nine.’
‘What about his blindfolding you, though? Did he, or was that just another taradiddle to get a rise out of me?’
Mary saw that she was cornered. As she had no idea in what part of London the temple was situated, she could not tell him its locality; on the other hand, to admit that she had been blindfolded was to imply that there really was something sinister about it. In desperation, her nerves still barely under control, she exclaimed:
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake leave it! You’ve no right to catechise me about where I go or what I do.’
‘Sorry,’ said Barney, ‘but seeing we’re friends, I’m naturally interested.’
For a few minutes they ploughed into the Peach Melba that they had chosen as a pudding. When they had finished, Barney said: ‘Come on, let’s dance.’
His proposal brought back to her the stained condition of her frock. ‘How can I?’ she snapped. ‘The wine not only went through to my belt, but dripped off it on to the back of my skirt; so both from the rear as well as from the front, I look a shocking sight.’
For a moment Barney considered whether he ought to offer to buy her a new dress. But he decided that as this was only the second time he had taken her out, he did not know her well enough, and she might regard the suggestion as an impertinence. After a moment he said, a shade resentfully:
‘I’m terribly sorry about your dress. But really it wasn’t my fault. I handed your glass to you and you seemed to be gripping it firmly before I let go of it.’
Again the terrifying image of the imp came into her mind. Renewed fear mingled with resentment caused her to give
an angry shrug. ‘What’s it matter whose fault it was? My dress is ruined anyway; and I’m not going to make an exhibition of myself just to please you.’
Barney also had an Irish temper and at this, as he felt, unjustified attack on him, he said: ‘Well, if you don’t want to talk, and you won’t dance, there’s not much point in our remaining here, is there?’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘And the sooner I can get my dress into soak the better chance there will be of the stains not showing after I’ve had it dyed a less attractive colour.’
‘O.K. Let’s go then!’ Abruptly he stood up and pulled out the table for her. ‘Go and get your coat. I’ll settle the bill later.’
She had hardly had time to think before he put her into a taxi. And he did not follow her into it. He gave the driver her address and some silver then, with a casual wave, he wished her an unsmiling ‘good night’ and stalked off back into the restaurant. They had been on edge with one another for three-quarters of an hour, but when the blow-up came it lasted less than four minutes.