The Devil Rides Out

‘Have you by any chance ever heard of a Mr. Mocata, Rex?’

‘Nope. Who is he anyway?’

‘A new friend of Simon’s who has been staying with him these last few months.’

‘What — at his Club?’

‘No—no, Simon no longer lives at his Club. I thought you knew. He bought a house last February, a big, rambling old place tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac off one of those quiet residential streets in St. John’s Wood.’

‘Why, that’s right out past Regent’s Park—isn’t it? What’s he want with a place out there when there are any number of nice little houses to let here in Mayfair?’

‘Another mystery, my friend.’ The Duke’s thin lips creased into a smile. ‘He said he wanted a garden, that’s all I can tell you.’

‘Simon! A garden!’ Rex chuckled. ‘That’s a good story I’ll say. Simon doesn’t know a geranium from a fuchsia. His botany is limited to an outsized florist’s bill for bunching his women friends from shops, and why should a bachelor like Simon start running a big house at all?’

‘Perhaps Mr. Mocata could tell you,’ murmured De Richleau mildly, ‘or the queer servant that he has imported.’

‘Have you ever seen this bird—Mocata I mean?’

‘Yes, I called one evening about six weeks ago. Simon was out so Mocata received me.’

‘And what did you make of him?’

‘I disliked him intensely. He’s a pot-bellied, bald-headed person of about sixty, with large, protuberant, fishy eyes, limp hands, and a most unattractive lisp. He reminded me of a large white slug.’

‘What about this servant that you mention?’

‘I only saw him for a moment when he crossed the hall, but he reminded me in a most unpleasant way of the Bogey Man with whom I used to be threatened in my infancy.’

‘Why, is he a black?’

‘Yes. A Malagasy I should think’

Rex frowned. ‘Now what in heck is that?’

‘A native of Madagascar. They are a curious people, half-Negro and half-Polynesian. This great brute stands about six foot eight, and the one glimpse I had of his eyes made me want to shoot him on sight. He’s a “bad black” if ever I saw one, and I’ve travelled, as you know, in my time.’

‘Do you know any more about these people?’ asked Rex grimly.

‘Not a thing.’

‘Well, I’m not given to worry, but I’ve heard quite enough to get me scared for Simon. He’s in some jam or he’d never be housing people like that.’

The Duke gently laid the long, blue-grey ash of his cigar in the onyx ash-tray. ‘There is not a doubt,’ he said slowly, ‘that Simon is involved in some very queer business, but I have been stifling my anxiety until your arrival. You see I wanted to hear your views before taking the very exceptional step of—yes butting in—is the expression, on the private affairs of even so intimate a friend. The question is now—what are we to do?’

‘Do!’ Rex thrust back his chair and drew himself up to his full magnificent height. ‘We’re going up to that house to have a little heart-to-heart talk with Simon—right now!’

‘I’m glad,’ said De Richleau quietly, ‘you feel like that, because I ordered the car for half past ten. Shall we go?’

CHAPTER II

THE CURIOUS GUESTS OF MR. SIMON ARON

As De Richleau’s Hispano drew up at the dead end of the dark cul-de-sac in St. John’s Wood, Rex slipped out of the car and looked about him. They were shut in by the high walls of neighbouring gardens and, above a blank expanse of brick in which a single, narrow door was visible, the upper stories of Simon’s house showed vague and mysterious among whispering trees.

‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed with a little shudder as a few drops splashed upon his face from the dark branches overhead. ‘What a dismal hole—we might be in a graveyard.’

The Duke pressed the bell, and turning up the sable collar of his coat against a slight drizzle which made the April night seem chill and friendless, stepped back to get a better view of the premises. ‘Hello! Simon’s got an observatory here,’ he remarked. ‘I didn’t notice that on my previous visit.’

‘So he has.’ Rex followed De Richleau’s glance to a dome that crowned the house, but at that moment an electric globe suddenly flared into life about their heads, and the door in the wall swung open disclosing a sallow-faced manservant in dark livery.

‘Mr. Simon Aron?’ inquired De Richleau, but the man was already motioning them to enter, so they followed him up a short, covered path and the door in the wall clanged to behind them.

The vestibule of the house was dimly lit, but Rex, who never wore a coat or hat in the evening, noticed that two sets of outdoor apparel lay, neatly folded, on a long console table as the silent footman relieved De Richleau of his wraps. Evidently friend Simon had other visitors.

‘Maybe Mr. Aron’s in conference and won’t want to be disturbed,’ he said to the sallow-faced servant with a sudden feeling of guilt at their intrusion. Perhaps, after all, their fears for Simon were quite groundless and his neglect only due to a prolonged period of intense activity on the markets, but the man only bowed and led them across the hall.

‘The fellow’s a mute,’ whispered the Duke. ‘Deaf and dumb, I’m certain.’ As he spoke the servant flung open a couple of large double doors and stood waiting for them to enter.

A long, narrow room, opening into a wide salon, stretched before them. Both were decorated in the lavish magnificence of the Louis Seize period, but for the moment the dazzling brilliance of the lighting prevented them taking in the details of the parquet floors, the crystal mirrors, the gilded furniture and beautifully wrought tapestries.

Rex was the first to recover and with a quick intake of breath he clutched De Richleau’s arm. ‘By Jove she’s here!’ he muttered almost inaudibly, his eyes riveted on a tall, graceful girl who stood some yards away at the entrance of the salon talking to Simon.

Three times in the last eighteen months he had chanced upon that strange, wise, beautiful face, with the deep eyes beneath heavy lids that seemed so full of secrets and gave the lovely face a curiously ageless look—so that despite her apparent youth she was as old as—‘Yes, as old as sin,’ Rex caught himself thinking.

He had seen her first in a restaurant in Budapest; months later again, in a traffic jam when his car was wedged beside hers in New York, and then, strangely enough, riding along a road with three men, in the country ten miles outside Buenos Ayres. How extraordinary that he should find her here—and what luck. He smiled quickly at the thought that Simon could not fail to introduce him.

De Richleau’s glance was riveted upon their friend. With an abrupt movement Simon turned towards them. For a second he seemed completely at a loss, his full, sensual mouth hung open to twice its normal extent and his receding jaw almost disappeared behind his white tie, while his dark eyes were filled with amazement and something suspiciously like fear, but he recovered almost instantly and his old smile flashed out as he came forward to greet them.

‘My dear Simon,’ the Duke’s voice was a silken purr. ‘How can we apologise for breaking in on you like this?’

‘Sure, we hadn’t a notion you were throwing a party,’ boomed Rex, his glance following the girl who had moved off to join another woman and three men who were talking together in the inner room.