A fat, oily-looking Babu in a salmon-pink turban and gown had just arrived and was shaking hands with Mocata; behind him came a red-faced Teuton, who suffered the deformity of a hare lip.
Simon stepped quickly forward again as the two advanced, but De Richleau once more caught the first words which were snuffled out by the hare-lipped man.
‘Well, Abraham, wie geht es? Then there came the fulsome chuckle of the fleshy Indian. ‘You must not call him that, it is unlucky to do so before the great night.’
‘The devil it is!’ muttered the Duke to himself, but Simon had left the other two with almost indecent haste in order to rejoin him, so he said with a smile: ‘I gather you are about to execute Deed Poll, my friend?
Eh!’ Simon exclaimed with a slight start.
‘To change your name,’ De Richleau supplemented.
‘Ner.’ He shook his head rapidly as he uttered the curious negative that he often used. It came of his saying ‘No’ without troubling to close the lips of his full mouth. ‘Nerthat’s only a sort of joke we have between usa sort of initiation ceremony I’m not a full member yet.’
‘I see, then you have ceremonies in your Astronomical Society how interesting!
As he spoke De Richleau, out of the corner of his eye, saw Mocata make a quick sign to Simon and then glance at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece; so to save his host the awkwardness of having actually to request his departure, he exclaimed : ‘Dear me ! Twenty past eleven, I had no idea it was so late. I must drag Rex away from that lovely lady after all, I fear.’
‘Well, if you must go.’ Simon looked embarrassed and worried, but catching Mocata’s eye again, he promptly led the way over to his other unwelcome guest.
Rex gave a happy grin as they came up. ‘This is marvellous Simon. I’ve been getting glimpses of this lady in different continents these two years past, and she seems to recall having seen me too. It’s just great that we should become acquainted at last through you.’ Then he smiled quickly at the girclass="underline" ‘May I present my friend De Richleau? Duke, this is Miss Tanith.’
De Richleau bent over her long, almost transparent hand and raised it to his lips. ‘How unfortunate I am,’ he said with old-fashioned gallantry, ‘to be presented to you only in time to say good-bye, and perhaps gain your displeasure by taking your new friend with me as well.’
‘But,’ she regarded him steadily out of large, clear, amber eyes. ‘Surely you do not depart before the ceremony?’
‘I fear we must. We are not members of your er Circle you see, only old friends of Simon’s.’
A strange look of annoyance and uncertainty crept into her glance, and the Duke guessed that she was searching her mind for any indiscretions she might have committed in her conversation with Rex. Then she shrugged lightly and, with a brief inclination of the head which dismissed them both, turned coldly away.
The Duke took Simon’s arm affectionately, as the three friends left the salon. ‘I wonder,’ he said persuasively, ‘ if you could spare me just two minutes before we gono more I promise you.’
‘Rather, of course.’ Simon seemed now to have regained his old joviality. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for missing your dinner tonightthis wretched meetingand I’ve seen nothing of you for weeks. Now Rex is over we must throw a party together.’
‘We will, we will,’ De Richleau agreed heartily, ‘but listen; is not Mars in conjunction with Venus tonight?
‘Ner,’ Simon replied promptly. ‘With Saturn, that’s what they’ve all come to see.’
‘Ah, Saturn! My Astronomy is so rusty, but I saw some mention of it in the paper yesterday, and at one time I was a keen student of the Stars. Would it be asking too much my dear fellow, to have just one peep at it through your telescope? We should hardly delay your meeting for five minutes.’
Simon’s hesitation was barely perceptible before he nodded his bird-like head with vigorous assent. ‘Urn, that’s all rightthey haven’t all arrived yetlet’s go up.’ Then, with his hands thrust deep in the trouser pockets of his exceedingly well-cut dress suit, he led them hurriedly through the hall and up three flights of stairs.
De Richleau followed more slowly. Stairs were the one thing which ruffled his otherwise equable temper and he had no desire to lose it now. By the time he arrived in the lofty chamber, with Rex behind him, Simon had all the lights switched on.
‘Well you’ve certainly gone in for it properly,’ Rex remarked as he surveyed the powerful telescope slanting to the roof and a whole arsenal of sextants, spheres and other astrological impedimenta ranged about the room.
‘It’s rather an exact science you see,’ Simon volunteered.
‘Quite,’ agreed the Duke briefly. ‘But I wonder, a little, that you should consider charts of the Macrocosm necessary to your studies.’
‘Oh, those!’ Simon shrugged his narrow shoulders as he glanced around the walls. ‘They’re only for funrelics of the Alchemistic nonsense in the Middle Ages, but quite suitable for decoration.’
‘How clever of you to carry out your scheme of decoration on the floor as well’ The Duke was thoughtfully regarding a five-pointed star enclosed within two circles between which numerous mystic characters in Greek and Hebrew had been carefully drawn.
‘Yes, good idea, wasn’t it?’ Simon tittered into his hand. It was the familiar gesture which both his friends knew so well, yet somehow the chuckle had not quite its usual ring.
The silence that followed was a little awkward and in it, all three plainly heard a muffled scratching noise that seemed to come from a large wicker basket placed against the wall.
‘You’ve got mice here, Simon,’ said Rex casually, but De Richleau had stiffened where he stood. Then, before Simon could bar his way, he leapt towards the hamper and ripped open the lid.
‘Stop that!’ cried Simon angrily, and dashing forward he forced it shut again, but too late, for within the basket the Duke had seen two living pinioned fowlsa black cock and a white hen.
With a sudden access of bitter fury he turned on Simon, and seizing him by his silk lapels, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. ‘You fool,’ he thundered. ‘I’d rather see you dead than monkeying with Black Magic’
CHAPTER III
THE ESOTERIC DOCTRINE
Taketake your hands off me,’ Simon gasped.
His dark eyes blazed in a face that had gone deathly white and only a superhuman effort enabled him to keep his clenched fist pressed to his sides.
In another second he would have hit the Duke, but Rex, a head taller than either of them, laid a mighty hand on the shoulder of each and forced them apart.
‘Have a heart now, just what is all this?’ His quiet, familiar voice with its faint American intonation sobered the others immediately and De Richleau, swinging on his heel, strode to the other side of the observatory, where he stood for a moment, with his back towards them, regaining control of his emotions.
Simon, panting a little, gave a quick, nervous wriggle of his bird-like head and smoothed out the lapels of his evening coat.
‘NowI’ll tell you,’ he said jerkily. ‘I never asked either of you to come here tonight, and even my oldest friends have no right to butt in on my private affairs. I think you’d better go.’
The Duke turned, passing one hand over his greying hair. All trace of his astonishing outburst had disappeared and he was once more the handsome, distinguished figure that they knew so well.
‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ he said gravely. ‘But I felt as a father might who sees his child trying to pick live coals out of the fire.’
‘I’m not a child,’ muttered Simon, sullenly.