Immediately Rex was inside, the Duke squatted down on the floor. ‘Take off your shoes,’ he ordered. ‘And your socks.’
‘Shoes if you like, though we’ll hurt our feet if we have to runbut why the socks?’
‘Don’t argue we waste time.’
‘Well what now?’ Rex muttered after a moment.
‘Put your shoes on again and the socks over themthen you can run as fast as you like.’ As Rex obeyed the Duke went on in a low voice. ‘Not a sound now. I really believe the others have gone, and if Mocata is not lying in wait for us, we may be able to get hold of Simon. If we come up against that black servant, for God’s sake remember not to look at his eyes.’
With infinite care he opened the door and peered out into the darkened hall. A faint light from an upper window showed the double doors that led to the salon standing wide open. He listened intently for a moment, then slipping out stood aside for Rex to follow, and gently closed the door behind him.
Their footsteps, now muffled by the socks, were barely audible as they stole across the stretch of parquet. When they reached the salon De Richleau carefully drew aside a blind. The dim starlight was just sufficient to show the outlines of the gilded furniture, and they could make out the plates and glasses left scattered upon the buhl and marquetry tables.
Rex picked up a goblet two-thirds full of champagne and held it so that the Duke could see the wine still in it.
De Richleau nodded. The Irish Bard, the Albino, the one-armed Eurasian, the hare-lipped man and the rest of that devilish company must have taken fright when he and Rex had forcibly abducted Simon, and fled, abandoning their unholy operations for the night. He gently replaced the blind and they crept back into the hall.
One other door opened off it besides those to the servants’ quarters and the vestibule. De Richleau slowly turned the knob and pressed. The room was a small library, and at the far end a pair of uncurtained french windows showed the garden, ghostly and mysterious in the starlight. Leaving Rex by the door, the Duke tiptoed across the room, drew the bolts, opened the windows and propped them wide. From where he stood he could just make out the laburnum by the wall. A clear retreat was open to them now. He turned, then halted with a sharp intake of breath. Rex had disappeared.
‘Rex!’ he hissed in a loud whisper, gripped by a sudden nameless fear. Rex!’ But there was no reply.
CHAPTER V
EMBODIED EVIL
De Richleau had been involved in so many strange adventures in his long and chequered career, that instinctively his hand flew to the pocket where he kept his automatic at such times, but it was flatand in a fraction of time it had come back to him that this was no affair of shootings and escapes, but a grim struggle against the Power of Darknessin which their only protection must be an utter faith in the ultimate triumph of good, and the use of such little power as he possessed to bring into play the great forces of the Power of Light.
In two strides he had reached the door, grabbed the electric switch, and pressed it as he cried in ringing tones : ‘Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis!’
‘What the hell!’ exclaimed Rex as the light flashed on. He was at the far side of the hall, carefully constructing a booby trap of chairs and china in front of the door that led to the servants’ quarters.
‘You’ve done it now,’ he added, with his eyes riveted upon the upper landing, but nothing stirred and the pall of silence descended upon the place again until they could hear each other’s quickened breathing.
‘The house is empty,’ Rex declared after a moment. ‘If there were anyone here they’d have been bound to hear you about. It echoed from the cellars to the attics.’
De Richleau was regarding him with an angry stare. ‘You madman,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you understand what we’re up against? We must not separate for an instant in this unholy placeeven now that the lights are on.’
Rex smiled. He had always considered the Duke as the most fearless man he knew, and to see him in such a state of nerves was a revelation. ‘I’m not scared of bogeys, but I am of being shot up from behind,’ he said simply. ‘I was fixing this so we’d hear the servants if there was trouble upstairs and they came up to help Mocata.’
‘Yes, but honestly, Rex, it is imperative that we should keep as near each other as possible every second we remain in this ghastly house. It may sound childish, but I ought to have told you before that if anything queer does happen we must actually hold hands. That will quadruple our resistance to evil by attuning our vibrations towards good. Now let’s go upstairs and see if they have really gone though I can hardly doubt it.’
Rex followed marvelling. This man who was frightened of shadows and talked of holding hands at a time of danger was so utterly different to the De Richleau that he knew. Yet as he watched the Duke mounting the stairs in swift, panther-like, noiseless strides, he felt that since he was so scared, this midnight visitation was a fresh demonstration of his courage.
On the floor above they made a quick examination of the bedrooms, but all of them were unoccupied and none of the beds had been slept in.
‘Mocata must have sent the rest of them away and been waiting here with a car to whisk Simon off immediately he got back,’ De Richleau declared as they came out of the last room.
‘That’s about it, so we may as well clear out.’ Rex shivered slightly as he added: ‘It’s beastly cold up here.’
‘I was wondering whether you’d notice that, but we’re not going home yet. This is a God-given opportunity to search the house at our leisure. We may discover all sorts of interesting things. Leave all the lights on here, the more the better, and come downstairs.’
In the salon the great buffet table still lay spread with the excellent collation which they had seen there on their first visit. The Duke walked over to it and poured himself a glass of wine. ‘I see Simon has taken to Cliquot again,’ he observed. ‘He alternates between that and Bollinger with remarkable consistency, though in certain years I prefer Pol Roger to either when it has a little age on it.’
As Rex spooned a slab of Duck a la Montmorency on to a plate, helping himself liberally to the foie gras mousse and cherries, he wondered if De Richleau had really recovered from the extraordinary agitation that he had displayed a quarter of an hour before, or if he was talking so casually to cover his secret apprehensions. He hated to admit it even to himself, but there, was something queer about the house, a chill seemed to be spreading up his legs from beneath the heavily-laden table, and the silence was strangely oppressive. Anxious to get on with the business and out of the place now, he said quickly, I don’t give two hoots what he drinks, but where has Mocata goneand why?’
‘The last question is simple.’ De Richleau set down his glass and drew out the case containing the famous Hoyo de Monterrey’s. ‘There are virtually no laws against the practice of Black Magic in this country now. Only that of 1842, called the Rogues and Vagabonds Act, under which a person may be prosecuted for “pretending or professing to tell Fortunes, by using any subtle Graft, Means or Device!” But since the practitioners of it are universally evil, the Drug Traffic, Blackmail. Criminal Assault and even Murder are often mixed up with it, and for one of those reasons Mocata, having learnt that we were on our way here through his occult powers, feared a brawl might attract the attention of the police to his activities. Evidently he considered discretion the better part of valour on this occasion and temporarily abandoned the place to ustaking Simon with him.’
‘Not very logicalare you?’ Rex commented. ‘One moment it’s you who’re scared that he may do all sorts of strange things to us, and the next you tell me that he’s bolted for fear of being slogged under the jaw.’