‘Princess,’ he managed to stammer, ‘Princess.’ But further words would not come, and for once in his life he found himself powerless to deal with a situation.
Marie Lou just stood there motionless and staring, held rigid by such extreme distress that she could no longer think coherently.
With a tremendous effort De Richleau pulled himself together. He knew that he had earned any opprobrium that she and Richard might choose to heap upon him for having used their house as a refuge, stated that no harm could befall them if they followed his instructions, and yet been the means of perhaps causing the death of the child whom they both idolised. But it was no time to offer himself for the whipping-post now. They must act, and quickly.
‘Where is nurse?’ he shot out hoarsely.
‘Inin her room.’ Marie Lou turned to a door at the end of the room which stood ajar.
‘It’s extraordinary that she should not have woken with all this noise,’ De Richleau strode over and thrust it open.
In Fleur’s nursery a greyness blurred the outlines of the furniture and shadowed the corners of the room, but in the nurse’s bedroom the curtains being drawn, it was still completely dark.
The Duke jerked on the electric light and saw at once that Fleur’s nannie was lying peacefully asleep in bed. He walked over and touched her swiftly on the shoulder. ‘Wake up,’ he said, ‘wake up!’
She did not stir, and Marie Lou, who had followed him into the room, peered at the woman’s face anxiously, then cried on a louder note: ‘Wake up, nannie ! Wake up!
De Richleau shook the nurse roughly now, but her head rolled helplessly upon her shoulders and her eyes remained tightly shut.
‘She’s been drugged, I suppose,’ Marie Lou said miserably.
‘I don’t think so.’ The Duke bent over and sniffed. ‘There is no smell of chloroform or anything here. It’s more likely that Mocata plunged her into a deep hypnotic sleep directly he arrived. Best leave her,’ he added after a moment. ‘She’ll wake in due course, and obviously she cannot tell us anything if she has been in a heavy induced sleep all the time.’
They returned to the nursery and the Duke switched on the lights there to make a thorough examination. Almost at once his eye fell on a paper which lay at the foot of Fleur’s empty cot. He snatched it up and quickly scanned the close, typewritten lines.
Please do not worry about the little girl. She will be returned to you tomorrow morning providing that certain conditions are complied with. These are as follows:
In this exceptional case I have been compelled to resort to unusual methods which bring me within the scope of the law. I have no doubt, therefore, that one of you will suggest calling in the police to trace the child. Any such action might embarrass my operations and therefore you are not to even consider such a proceeding. You cannot doubt by now that I have ways and means of informing myself regarding all your actions and, in the event of your disobeying my injunction in this respect, I shall immediately take steps which will ensure that you never recover the child alive.
My failure last night was regrettable, since it has caused the death of a young woman recently discovered by me as an exceptional medium, for whom I might have had some further use. Mr. Van Ryn removed her body while I slept and it is now in your keeping; I am anxious that every care should be taken of it. You will leave the body just as it is in your library until further instructions and refrain from taking any steps towards a coroner’s examination or its burial. If you disobey me in this matter, I shall command certain forces at my disposal, of which Monsieur Le Duc de Richleau may be able to inform you, to take possession of it.
All of you will confine yourselves in the library during the coming day, giving such reasons as you choose to your servants that you are not to be disturbed.
Lastly, my friend Simon Aron is to rejoin me for the continuance of those experiments in which we are engaged. He will leave the house alone at mid-day and proceed on foot to the cross-roads which lie a mile and a half to the south-west of Cardinals Folly, where I shall arrange for him to be met, and, having surrendered himself to my representative, he must agree to give me his willing co-operation in the ritual to Satan tonight, which is necessary for the re-discovery of the Talisman of Set.
If any of these injunctions are disregarded in the least degree, you already know the penalty, but if they are carried out to my entire satisfaction, Simon Aron shall return to you sane and well after I have carried out my operations, and the child shall be restored as innocent and happy as she was yesterday.
Marie Lou read the document over De Richleau’s shoulder. ‘Oh, what are we to do?’ she wailed, wringing her hands together. ‘Greyeyes, this is too awful. What are we going to do?’
‘God knows,’ De Richleau muttered miserably. ‘He has the whip hand of us now with a vengeance. The devil of it is that I don’t trust his promise to return the child even if Simon is game to sacrifice himself.’
At that moment Simon’s head appeared above the window sill, and he scrambled up the last rungs of the ladder into the room.
‘Well!’ the Duke shot at him, but Simon shook his head.
‘The three of us have been round the grounds but in this filthy fog it’s impossible to see any distance. He’s got clean away by now.’
‘I feared as much,’ the Duke murmured despondently, and with a new access of miserable unhappiness, he watched Richard climb into the room.
‘Not a trace,’ Richard exclaimed hoarsely. ‘No footmarks, even on the flower beds, to show which way he went. Where the hell is nurse? I’ll sack that woman for her damned incompetence. With her door ajar, there’s no excuse for her not having heard Fleur cry out.’
‘It was not her fault,’ said De Richleau mildly. ‘Mocata threw her into a deep sleep and she is sleeping still.. Until the time he has set it will be impossible to rouse her.’
Rex followed the others through the window, muttering angrily: ‘This filthy mist! A dozen toughs might be racketing round the garden, but we’d never get a sight of them. Is it supposed to be daylight yet, or isn’t it?’
Simon glanced at the clock on the nursery mantelpiece. ‘According to this it’s only ten to five. Surely it must be later than that.’
‘It’s stopped,’ announced Richard, ‘but it can’t be much after half-past six, or the servants would be getting up, and when I ran round the far side of the house just now, there were no lights in their windows.’
‘All the better,’ said the Duke abruptly. ‘Mocata’s left a letter, Richard, with certain instructions which he orders us to carry out if Fleur is to remain unharmed.’
‘Let’s see it,’ Richard held out his hand.
De Richleau hesitated. ‘I’d rather you read it when we are downstairs again, if you don’t mind. It doesn’t help us for the present and there are certain things which we should do at once before the servants start moving about.’
‘Good Lord, man! I mean to have the lot of them out of bed inside five minutes. We shall need their help.’
‘I wish, instead, that while I connect the telephone again and see if I can find out anything from the inn, you would write a brief note to Malin saying that our experiments are still in progress and that we are to be left undisturbed in this wing of the house for the whole day.’
‘If you think I’m going to stay here twiddling my thumbs while Fleur’s in dangeryou’re crazy!’ cried Richard indignantly.
The Duke knew that his suggestion of continued inactivity must make this apparent negligence seem even worse, but he had never yet been known to lose his head in a crisis and he managed to keep his voice quiet and even.