The Devil Rides Out Read online

  ‘O.K.’

  A moment later they were down the second flight. The hall was empty and only a vague murmur of conversation came to them from behind the double doors that led to the salon.

  `Quick.!’ urged the Duke. ‘Mocata may come out to look for him any moment.’

  `Right.’ Rex, bent double beneath his burden, plunged down the last stairs, and De Richleau was already halfway across the hall when the dumb servant suddenly appeared from the vestibule.

  For a second he stood there, his sallow face a mask of blank surprise then, side-stepping the Duke with the agility of a rugby forward, he lowered his bullet head and charged Rex with silent animal ferocity.

  `Got you,’ snapped De Richleau, for although the man had dodged with lightning speed he had caught his wrist in passing. Then flinging his whole weight upon it as he turned, he jerked the fellow clean off his feet and sent him spinning head foremost against the wall.

  As his head hit the panelling the mute gave an uncouth grunt, and rolled over on the floor, but he staggered up again and dashed towards the salon. Rex and the Duke were already pounding down the tiled path and in another second they had flung themselves into the lane through the entrance in the garden wall.

  `Thank God,’ gasped the Duke as he wrenched open the door of the Hispano. `I believe that hellish crew would have killed us rather than let us get Simon out of there alive.’

  `Well, I suppose you do know what you’re at,’ Rex muttered is he propped Simon up on the back seat of the car. `But I’m not certain you’re safe to be with.’

  `Home,’ ordered De Richleau curtly to the footman, who was hiding his astonishment at their sudden exit by hastily tucking the rug over their knees. Then he smiled at Rex a trifle grimly. `I suppose I do seem a little mad to you, but you can’t possibly be expected to appreciate what a horribly serious business this is. I’ll explain later.’

  In a few moments they had left the gloom of the quiet streets behind and were once more running through well-lit ways towards Mayfair, but Simon was still unconscious when they pulled up in Curzon Street before Errol House.

  I’ll take him,’ volunteered Rex. The less the servants have to do with this the better,’ and picking up Simon in his strong arms as though he had been a baby, he carried him straight upstairs to the first floor where De Richleau’s flat was situated.

  ‘Put him in the library,’ said the Duke, who had paused to murmur something about a sudden illness to the porter, when he arrived on the landing a moment later. ‘I’ll get something to bring him round from the bathroom.’

  Rex nodded obediently, and carried Simon into that room in the Curzon Street fiat which was so memorable for those who had been privileged to visit it, not so much on account of its size and decorations, but for the unique collection of rare and beautiful objects which it contained. A Tibetan Buddha seated upon the Lotus; bronze figurines from ancient Greece; beautifully chased rapiers of Toledo steel, and Moorish pistols inlaid with turquoise and gold; ikons from Holy Russia set with semi-precious stones and curiously carved ivories from the East.

  As Rex laid Simon upon the wide sofa he glanced round him with an interest unappeased by a hundred visits, at the walls lined shoulder high with beautifully bound books, and at the lovely old colour prints, interspersed with priceless historical documents and maps, which hung above them.

  De Richleau, when he joined him, produced a small crystal bottle which he held beneath Simon’s beak-like nose. ‘No good trying to talk to him tonight,’ he remarked, ‘but I want to bring him round sufficiently to put him to sleep again.

  Rex grunted. That sounds like double-dutch to me.’

  ‘No. I mean to fight these devils with their own weapons, as you will see.’

  Simon groaned a little, and as his eyes flickered open the Duke took a small round mirror from his pocket. ‘Simon,’ he said softly, moving the lamp a little nearer, ‘look upward at my hand.’

  As he spoke De Richleau held the mirror about eighteen inches from Simon’s forehead and a little above the level of his eyes, so that it caught and reflected the light of the lamp on to his lids.

  ‘Hold it lower,’ suggested Rex. ‘He’ll strain his eyes turning them upwards like that.’

  ‘Quiet,’ said the Duke sharply. ‘Simon, look up and listen to me. You have been hurt and have a troubled mind, but your friends are with you and you have no need to worry any more.’

  Simon opened his eyes again and turned them upwards to the mirror, where they remained fixed.

  ‘I am going to send you to sleep, Simon,’ De Richleau went on softly. ‘You need rest and you will awake free from pain. In a moment your eyes will close and then your head will feel better.’

  For another half-minute he held the mirror steadily reflecting the light upon Simon’s retina, then he placed the first and second fingers of his free hand upon the glass with his palm turned outward and made a slow pass from it towards the staring eyes, which closed at once before he touched them.

  ‘You will sleep now,’ he continued quietly, ‘and you will not wake until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Directly you awake you will come straight to me either here or in my bedroom and you will speak to no one, nor will you open any letter or message which may be brought to you, until you have seen me.’

  De Richleau paused for a moment, put down the mirror and lifted one of Simon’s arms until it stood straight above his head. When he released it the arm did not drop but remained stiff and rigid in the air.

  ‘Most satisfactory,’ he murmured cheerfully to Rex. ‘He is in the second stage of hypnosis already and will do exactly what he is told. The induction was amazingly easy, but of course, his half-conscious state simplified it a lot.’

  Rex shook his head in disapproval. ‘I don’t like to see you monkey with him like this. I wouldn’t allow it if it was anyone but you.’

  ‘A prejudice based upon lack of understanding, my friend. Hypnotism in proper hands is the greatest healing power in the world.’ With a quick shrug the Duke moved over to his desk and, unlocking one of the lower drawers, took something from it, then he returned to Simon and addressed him in the same low voice.

  ‘Open your eyes now and sit up.’

  Simon obeyed at once and Rex was surprised to see that he looked quite wide awake and normal. Only a certain blankness about the face betrayed his abnormal state, and he displayed no aversion as De Richleau extended the thing he had taken from the drawer. It was a small golden swastika set with precious stones and threaded on a silken ribbon.

  ‘Simon Aron,’ the Duke spoke again. ‘With this symbol I am about to place you under the protection of the power of Light. No being or force of Earth, or Air, of Fire, or Water can harm you while you wear it.’

  With quick fingers he knotted the talisman round Simon’s neck and went on evenly: ‘Now you will go to the spare bedroom. Ring for my man Max and tell him that you are staying here tonight. He will provide you with everything you need and, if your throat is parched from your recent coma, ask him for any soft drink you wish, but no alcohol remember’ Peace be upon you and about you. Now go.’

  Simon stood up at once and looked from one to the other of them. ‘Good night,’ he said cheerfully, with his quick natural smile. ‘See you both in the morning,’ then he promptly walked out of the room.

  ‘He-he’s not really asleep is he?’ asked Rex, looking a little scared.

  ‘Certainly, but he will remember everything that has taken place tomorrow because he is not in the deep somnambulistic state where I could order him to forget. To achieve that usually takes a little practice with a new subject.’

  ‘Then he’ll be pretty livid I’ll promise you. Fancy hanging a Nazi swastika round the neck of a professing Jew.’

  ‘My dear Rex! Do please try and broaden your outlook a little. The swastika is the oldest symbol of wisdom and right thinking in the world. It has been used by every race and in every country at some time or other. You might just as well regard t
he Cross as purely Christian, when we all know it was venerated in early Egypt, thousands of years before the birth of Christ. The Nazis have only adopted the swastika because it is supposed to be of Aryan origin and part of their programme aims at welding together a large section of the Aryan race. The vast majority of them have no conception of its esoteric significance and even if they bring discredit upon it, as the Spanish Inquisition did upon the Cross, that could have no effect upon its true meaning.’

  ‘Yes, I get that, though I doubt if it’ll make any difference to Simon’s resentment when he finds it round his neck tomorrow.

  Still, that’s a minor point. What worries me is this whole box of tricks this evening. I’ve got a feeling you ought to be locked up as downright insane, unless it’s me.’

  De Richleau smiled. ‘A strange business to be happening in modern London, isn’t it? But let’s mix a drink and talk it over quietly.’

  ‘Strange! Why, if it were true it would be utterly fantastic, but it’s not. All this hooha about Black Magic and talking hocus-pocus while you hang silly charms round Simon’s neck is utter bunk.’

  ‘It is?’ The Duke smiled again as he tipped a lump of ice into Rex’s glass and handed it to him. ‘Well, let’s hear your explanation of Simon’s queer behaviour. I suppose you do consider that it is queer by the way?’

  ‘Of course, but nothing like as queer as you’re trying to make out. As I see it Simon’s taken up spiritualism or something of the kind and plenty of normal earnest people believe in that, but you know what he is when he gets keen on a thing, everything else goes to,, the wall and that’s why he has neglected you a bit.

  ‘Then this evening he was probably sick as mud to miss our dinner, but had a séance all fixed that he couldn’t shelve at the last moment. We butt in on his party, and naturally he doesn’t care to admit what he’s up to entertaining all those queer, odd-looking women and men, so he spins a yarn about it being an astronomical society. So you-who’ve read a sight too many books-and seem to have stored up all the old wives’ tales your nurse told you in your cradle-get a bee in your bonnet and slog the poor mut under the jaw.’

  De Richleau nodded. ‘I can hardly expect you to see it any other way at the moment, but let’s start at the beginning. Do you agree that after knocking him out I called into play a supernormal power in order to send him cheerfully off to bed without a single protest?’

  ‘Yes, even the doctors admit hypnotic influence now, and Simon would never have stood for you tying that swastika under his chin if he’d been conscious.’

  ‘Good. Then at least we are at one on the fact that certain forces can be called into play which the average person does not understand. Now, if instead of practising that comparatively simple exercise in front of you, I had done it before ignorant natives, who had never heard of hypnotism, they would terra it magic, would they not?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Then to go a step further. If, by a greater exertion of the same power, I levitated, that is to say, lifted myself to a height of several inches from this floor, you might not use the word magic but you would class that feat in the same category as the ignorant native would place the easier one, because it is something which you have always thought impossible.’

  That’s true.’

  ‘Well, I am not sufficient of an adept to perform the feat, but will you accept my assurances that I’ve seen it done, not once, but a number of times?’

  ‘If you say so, but from all I’ve heard about such things, the fellows you saw didn’t leave the ground at all. It is just mass hypnotism exercised upon the whole audience-like the rope trick.’

  ‘As you wish, but that explanation does not rob me of my point. If you admit that I can tap an unknown power to make Simon obey my will, and that an Eastern mystic can tap that power to the far greater extent of making a hundred people’s eyes deceive them into believing that he is standing on thin air, you admit that there is a power and that it can be tapped in greater degrees according to the knowledge and proficiency of the man who uses it.’

  ‘Yes, within limits.’

  ‘Why within limits? You apparently consider levitation im possible, but wouldn’t you have considered wireless impossible if you had been living fifty years ago and somebody had endeavoured to convince you of it?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Rex sat forward suddenly. ‘But I don’t get what you’re driving at. Hypnotism is only a demonstration of the power of the human will.’

  ‘Ah! There you have it. The will to good and the will to evil. That is the whole matter in a nutshell. The human will is like a wireless set and properly adjusted-trained that is-it can tune in with the invisible influence which is all about us.’

  ‘The Invisible Influence. I’ve certainly heard that phrase somewhere before.’

  ‘No doubt. A very eminent mental specialist who holds a high position in our asylums wrote a book with that title and I have not yet asked you to believe one tenth of what he vouches for.’

  ‘Then I wonder they haven’t locked him up.’

  ‘Rex! Rex!’ De Richleau smiled a little sadly. Try and open your mind, my friend. Do you believe in the miracles performed by Jesus Christ?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And of His Disciples and certain of the Saints?’

  ‘Sure, but they had Some Special Power granted to them from on high.’

  ‘Exactly! Some Special Power. But I suppose you would deny that Gautama Buddha and his disciples performed miracles of a similar nature?’

  ‘Not at all. Most people agree now that Buddha was a sort of Indian Christ, a Holy Man, and no doubt he had some sort of power granted to him too.’

  The Duke sat back with a heavy sigh. ‘At last my friend we seem to be getting somewhere. If you admit that miracles, as you call them although you object to the word magic, have been performed by two men living in different countries hundreds of years apart, and that even their disciples were able to tap a similar power through their holiness, you cannot reasonably deny that other mystics have also performed similar acts in many portions of the globe-and therefore, that there is a power existing outside us which is not peculiar to any religion, but can be utilised if one can get into communication with it,’

  Rex laughed. That’s so, I can’t deny it.’

  ‘Thank God! Let’s mix ourselves another drink shall we, I need it?’

  ‘Don’t move, I’ll fix it.’ Rex good-naturedly scrambled to his feet. ‘All the same,’ he added slowly, ‘it doesn’t follow that because a number of good men have been granted supernatural powers that there is anything in Black Magic.’

  ‘Then you do not believe in Witchcraft?’

  ‘Of course not, nobody does in these days.’

  ‘Really! How long do you think it is since the last trial for Witchcraft took place?’

  ‘I’ll say it was all of a hundred and fifty years ago.’

  ‘No, it was in January, 1926, at Melun near Paris.’

  ‘Oh! You’re fooling!’ Rex exclaimed angrily.

  ‘I’m not,’ De Richleau assured him solemnly. The records of the court will prove my statement, so you see you are hardly accurate when you say that nobody believes in Witchcraft in these days, and many-many thousands still believe in a personal devil.’

  ‘Yes, simple folk maybe, but not educated people.’

  ‘Possibly not, yet every thinking man must admit that there is still such a thing as the power of Evil.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My dear fellow, all qualities have their opposites, like love and hate, pleasure and pain, generosity and avarice. How could we recognise the goodness of Jesus Christ, Lao Tze, Ashoka, Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi, Florence Nightingale and a thousand others if it were not for the evil lives of Herod, Caesar Borgia, Rasputin, Landru, Ivan Kreuger and the rest?’

  That’s true,’ Rex admitted slowly.

  ‘Then if an intensive cultivation of good can beget strange powers is there any reason why an intensive cultivation of
evil should not beget them also?’

  ‘I think I begin to get what you’re driving at.’

  ‘Good! Now listen, Rex.’ The Duke leaned forward earnestly. ‘And I will try and expound what little I know of the Esoteric Doctrine which has come down to us through the ages. You will have heard of the Persian myth of Ozamund and Ahriman, the eternal powers of Light and Darkness, said to be co-equal and warring without cessation for the good or ill of mankind. All ancient sun and nature worship-festivals of spring and so on, were only an outward expression of that myth, for Light typifies Health and Wisdom, Growth and Life; while Darkness means Disease and Ignorance, Decay and Death.

  ‘In its highest sense Light symbolises the growth of the Spirit towards that perfection in which it can throw off the body and become light itself; but the road to perfection is long and arduous, too much to hope for in one short human life, hence the widespread belief in reincarnation; that we are born again and again until we begin to despise the pleasures of the flesh. This doctrine is so old that no man can trace its origin, yet it is the inner core of truth common to all religions at their inception. Consider the teaching of Jesus Christ with that in mind and you will be amazed that you have not realised before the true purport of His message. Did He not say that the ‘ Kingdom of God was within us,’ and, when He walked upon the waters declared: ‘These things that I do ye shall do also; and greater things than these shall ye do, for I go unto my Father which is in Heaven,’ meaning most certainly that He had achieved perfection but that others had the same power within each one of them to do likewise.’

  De Richleau paused for a moment and then went on more slowly. ‘Unfortunately the hours of the night are still equal to the hours of the day, and so the power of Darkness is no less active than when the world was young, and no sooner does a fresh Master appear to reveal the light than ignorance, greed, and lust for power cloud the minds of his followers. The message becomes distorted and the simplicity of the truth submerged and forgotten in the pomp of ceremonies and the meticulous performance of rituals which have lost their meaning. Yet the real truth is never entirely lost, and through the centuries new Masters are continually arising either to proclaim it or, if the time is not propitious, to pass it on in secret to the chosen few.