Marie Lou’s eyes flickered and shut. With a shake of her head she jerked them open again. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said sleepily. ‘But I am tired, most awfully tired. What was it that you were talking about?’
Mocata’s eyes seemed enormous to her now, as they held her own with a solemn, dreamy look. ‘We shall not talk any more,’ he said. ‘You will sleep, and at four o’clock on the afternoon of 7th May, you will call on me at Simon’s house in St. John’s Wood.’
Marie Lou’s heavy lashes fell on her rounded cheeks again, but next second her eyes were wide open, for the door was flung back and Fleur came scampering into the room.
‘Darling, what is it?’ Marie Lou struggled wide awake and Mocata snapped his plump fingers with a little angry, disappointed gesture. The sudden entrance of the child had broken the current of delicate vibrations.
‘Mummymummy,’ Fleur panted. ‘Daddy-sent-me-to-find-you. We’se playing hosses in the garden, an’ Uncle Simon says he’s a dwagon, an’ not a hoss at all. Daddy says you’re to come and tell him diffwent.’
‘So this is your little daughter? What a lovely child,’ Mocata said amiably, stretching out a hand to Fleur. ‘Come here, my.…’
But Marie Lou cut short his sentence as full realisation of the danger to which she had exposed herself flooded her mind. ‘Don’t you touch her!’ she cried, snatching up the child with blazing eyes. ‘Don’t you dare!
‘Really, Mrs. Eaton,’ he raised his eyebrows in mild protest. ‘Surely you cannot think that I meant to hurt the child ? I thought, too, that we were beginning to understand each other so well.’
‘You beast,’ Marie Lou cried angrily as she jabbed her finger on the bell. ‘You tried to hypnotise me.’
‘What nonsense,’ he smiled good-humouredly. ‘You were a little tired, but I fear I bored you rather with a long dissertation upon things which can hardly interest a woman so young and charming as yourself. It was most stupid of me, and I hardly wonder that you nearly fell asleep.’
As Malin arrived on the scene she thrust Fleur into the astonished butler’s arms and gasped: ‘Fetch Mr. Eatonhe’s in the gardenquicklyat once.’
The butler hurried off with Fleur and Mocata turned on her. His eyes had gone cold and steely. ‘It is vital that I should at least see Simon before I leave this house.’
‘You shan’t,’ she stormed. ‘You had better go before my husband comes. D’you hear?’ Then she found herself looking at him again, and quickly jerked her head away so that she should not see his eyes, yet she caught his gesture as he stooped to pick up the glass of water from the table.
Furious now at the way she had been tricked into ordering it for him, and determined that he should not drink, she sprang forward and, before he could stop her, dashed the little table to the ground. The plate caught the carafe as it fell and smashed it into a dozen pieces, the biscuits scattered and the water spread round with an angry snarl. This small, sensuous, cat-like creature had cheated him at the last, and the placid, kindly expression of his face changed to one of hideous demoniacal fury. His eyes, muddied now with all the foulness of his true nature, stripped and flayed her, threatening a thousand unspeakable abominations in their unwinking stare as she faced him across the fallen table.
Suddenly, with a fresh access of terror, Marie Lou cowered back, bringing up her hands to shield her face from those revolting eyeballs. Then a quick voice in the doorway exclaimed : ‘Hello! What is all this?’
‘Richard,’ she gasped. ‘Richard, it’s Mocata! I saw him because I thought you’d better stay with Simon, but he tried to hypnotise me. Have him thrown out. Oh, have him thrown out.’
The muscles in Richard’s lean face tightened as he caught the look of terror in his wife’s eyes and thrusting her aside he took a quick step towards Mocata. ‘If you weren’t twice my age and in my house, I’d smash your face in,’ he said savagely. ‘And that won’t stop me either unless you get out thundering quick.’
With almost incredible swiftness Mocata had his anger under control. His face was benign and smiling once more, as he shrugged, showing no trace of panic. ‘I’m afraid your wife is a little upset,’ he said mildly. ‘It is this spring weather, and while we were talking together, she nearly fell asleep. Having heard all sorts of extraordinary things about me from your friends, she scared herself into thinking that I tried to hypnotise her. I apologise profoundly for having caused her one moment’s distress.’
‘I don’t believe one word of that,’ replied Richard. ‘Now kindly leave the house.’
Mocata shrugged again. ‘You are being very unreasonable, Mr. Eaton. I called this afternoon in order to take Simon Aron back to London.’
‘Well, you’re not going to.’
‘Please,’ Mocata held up a protesting hand. ‘Hear me for one moment. The whole situation has been most gravely misrepresented to you, as I explained to your wife, and if she hadn’t suddenly started to imagine things we should be discussing it quite amicably now. In fact, I even asked her to send for you, as she will tell you herself.’
‘It was a trick,’ cried Marie Lou angrily. ‘Don’t look at his eyes, Richard, and for God’s sake turn him out!’
‘You hear,’ Richard’s voice held a threatening note and his face was white. ‘You had better gobefore I lose my temper.’
‘It’s a pity that you are so pig-headed, my young friend,’ Mocata snapped icily. ‘By retaining Simon here, you are bringing extreme peril both on him and on yourself. But since you refuse to be reasonable and let me take him with me, let me at least have five minutes’ conversation with him alone.’
‘Not five seconds,’ Richard stood aside from the door and motioned through it for Mocata to pass into the hall.
‘All right! If that is your final word!’ Mocata drew himself up. He seemed to grow in size and strength even as he stood there. A terrible force and energy suddenly began to shake his obese body. They felt it radiating from him as his words came low and clear like the whispering splash of death-cold drops falling from icicles upon a frozen lake.
‘Then I will send the Messenger to your house tonight and he shall take Simon from you aliveor dead!
‘Get out,’ gritted Richard between his teeth. ‘Damn you get out!’
Without another word Mocata left them. Marie Lou crossed herself, and with Richard’s arm about her shoulder they followed him to the open door.
He did not turn or once look back, but plodded heavily, a very ordinary figure now, down the long, sunlit drive.
Richard suddenly felt Marie Lou’s small body tremble against him, and with a little cry of fright she buried her head on his shoulder. ‘Oh, darling,’ she wailed. ‘I’m frightened of that man frightened. Did you see?’
‘See what, my sweet?’ he asked, a little puzzled.
‘Why!’ sobbed Marie Lou. ‘He is walking in the sunshine but he has no shadow!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PRIDE OF PEACOCKS
The inn which served the village near Cardinals Folly was almost as old as the house. At one period it had been a hostelry of some importance, but the changing system of highways in the eighteenth century had left it denuded of the coaching traffic and doomed from then on to cater only for the modest wants of the small local population. It had been added to and altered many times; for one long period falling almost wholly into disrepair, since its revenue was insufficient for its upkeep, and so it had remained until a few years earlier upon the retirement of Mr. Jeremiah Wilkes, the ex-valet of a wealthy peer who lived not far distant.