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 eye 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 upward 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 upward 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 outwards 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, of 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.
‘Hehe’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 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 the Gross 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 the 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.’
‘Is it?’ 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 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 or 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 seance 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 youwho’ve read a sight too many booksand seemed to have stored up all the old wives’ tales your nurse told you in your cradleget 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 term it magic, would they not?’
‘Sure.’
‘Then to go a step further. If, by a great 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.’