Castelnau did not even blink an eyelid as Rex gagged him. They left him there and hurried out to the others.
‘Come on!’ cried the Duke.
‘What about Mocata?’ Richard asked. ‘If we leave here we may miss him.’
‘We must chance that’ De Richleau pulled open the door and made for the stairs.
As they dashed down the long flights he flung over his shoulder: ‘Tanith may have been wrong. Messages from the astral plane are often unreliable about time. As it does not exist there, they have difficulty in judging it. She may have seen him here a week hence or in the past even. It’s so late now that I doubt if he will turn up tonight. Anyhow, we got out of Castelnau the place where he’s most likely to beand God knows what he may be doing if he is there. We’ve got to hurry!’ They fled after him out of the silent building.
Round the corner they managed to pick up a taxi and, at the promise of a big tip, the man got every ounce out of his engine as he whirled the four harassed-looking people away through the murky streets up towards the Boulevard de Clichy. Topping the hill, they descended again towards the Seine, crossed the river and entered Asnieres.
In that outlying slum of Paris with its wharves and warehouses, narrow, sordid-looking streets and dimly-lit passages, there was little movement at that hour of the morning. They paid off the taxi outside a closed cafe which faced upon a dirty-looking square. A market wagon rumbled past with its driver huddled on his seat above the horses, his cape drawn close to protect him from the damp mist rising from the river. The bedraggled figure of a woman was huddled upon the steps of a shop with ‘Tabac’ in faded blue letters above it, but otherwise there was no sign of life.
Turning up the collars of their coats and shivering afresh from the damp chill of the drifting fog, they followed the Duke’s lead along an evil-looking street of tumbledown dwelling-houses.
Then, between two high walls, along a narrow passage where the rays of a solitary lamp, struggling through grimy glass, were barely sufficient to dispel a small circle of gloom in its own area. When they had passed it the rest was darkness, foul smells, greasy mud squishing from beneath their feet, and wisps of mist curling cold about their faces.
At the end of that long dark alley-way they came out upon a deserted wharf. De Richleau turned to the left and the others followed. To one side of them the steep face of a tall brick building, from which chains and pulleys hung in slack festoons, towered up into the darkness. On the other, a few feet away, the river surged, oily, turgid, yellow and horrible as it turned to the sea.
As if in a fresh phase of their nightmare, they stumbled forward over planks, hawsers and pieces of old iron, the neglected debris of the riverside, until fifty yards farther on De Richleau halted.
‘This is it,’ he announced, fumbling with a rusty padlock. ‘Castelnau hadn’t got a key and so we’ll have to break this thing. Hunt around, and see if you can find a piece of iron that we can use as a jemmy. The longer the better. It will give us more purchase.’
They rummaged round in the semi-darkness, broken only by a riverside light some distance away along the wharf and the masthead lanterns of a few long barges anchored out on the swiftly flowing waters.
‘This do?’ Richard pulled a rusty lever from a winch and, grabbing it from him, the Duke thrust the narrow end into the hoop of the padlock.
‘Now then,’ he said, as he gripped the cold, moist iron, ‘steady pressure isn’t any good. It needs a violent jerk, so when I say “go!” we must all throw our weight on the bar together. Ready? Go!’
They heaved downwards. There was a sudden snap. The tongue of the padlock had been wrenched out of the lock. De Richleau removed it from the chain and in another moment they had the tall wooden door open.
Once inside, De Richleau struck a match, and while he shaded it with his hands the others looked about them. From what little they could see, the place appeared to be empty. They moved quickly forward, striking more matches as they went, in the direction where Castelnau had told them they would find a trap-door leading to the cellars.
In a far corner they halted. ‘Stand back all of you,’ whispered Rex, and while the Duke held up a light he pulled at the second in a row of upright iron girders, apparently built in to strengthen the wall. As Castelnau had said in his trance, it was a secret lever to operate the trap. The girder came forward and a large square of flooring lifted noiselessly on well-oiled hinges.
De Richleau blew out his match and produced the small automatic which he had taken from the banker. ‘I will go first,’ he said, ‘and you, Rex, follow me. Richard, you have the other gun so you had better come last. You can look after Marie Lou and protect our rear. No noise now, because if we’re lucky our man is here.’
Feeling about with his foot he ascertained that a flight of stairs led downwards. His shoes made no noise, and it was evident that they were covered with a thick carpet. Swiftly but cautiously he began to descend the flight and the others followed him down into the pitchy darkness.
At the bottom of the stairs they groped their way along a tunnel until the Duke was brought up sharply by a wooden partition at which it seemed to end. He fumbled for the handle, thinking it was a door. The sides were as smooth and polished as the centre, yet it moved gently under his touch, and after a moment he found it to be a sliding panel. With the faintest click of ball bearings it slid back on its runners.
Straining their eyes they peered into the great apartment upon which it opened. A hundred feet long at least and thirty wide, it stretched out before them. Two lines of thick pillars, acting as supports to the roof above, and rows of chairs divided in the centre by an aisle which led up to a distant altar, gave it the appearance of a big private chapel. It was lit by one solitary lamp which hung suspended before the altar, and that distant beacon did not penetrate to the shadows in which they stood.
On tiptoe and with their weapons ready they moved forward along the wall. De Richleau peered from side to side as he advanced, his pistol levelled. Rex crept along beside him, the iron winch lever which they had used to smash the padlock gripped tight in his big fist. At any moment they expected their presence to be discovered.
As they crept nearer to the hanging lamp, they saw that the place had been furnished with the utmost luxury and elegance for the unholy meetings. It was, indeed, a superbly equipped temple for the worship of the Devil. Above the altar a great and horrible presentation of the Goat of Mendes, worked in the loveliest coloured silks, leered down at them; its eyes were two red stones which had been inset in the tapestry. They flickered with dull malevolence in the dim light of the solitary lamp.
On the side walls were pictures of men, women and beasts practising obscenities only possible of conception in the brain of a mad artist. Below the enormous central figure, which had hideous, distorted, human faces protruding from its elbows, knees and belly, was a great altar of glistening red stone, worked and inlaid with other coloured metals in the Italian fashion. Upon it reposed the ancient ‘devil’s bibles’ containing all the liturgies of hell; broken crucifixes and desecrated chalices stolen from churches and profaned here at the meetings of the Satanists.
Luxurious armchairs upholstered in red velvet and gold with elaborate canopies of lace above, such as High Prelates use in cathedrals when assisting at important ceremonies, flanked the altar on either side. Below the steps to the short chancel, on a level with where they stood, were arranged rows and rows of cushioned prie-dieu for the accommodation of the worshippers.
No sound of movement disturbed the stillness of the heavy incense-laden air and with a sinking of the heart De Richleau knew that they had lost their man. He had gambled blindly upon Tanith’s message and she had proved wrong as to time. Mocata might not be in Paris for days to come; perhaps he had divined their journey and, knowing that he would be unmolested while they were abroad, returned to Simon’s house where, even now, he might be foully murdering little Fleur. It seemed that their last hope had gone.