“L’Invocation des Anges is just what you need,” said the Reverend Taylor, a little breathless. “But this book will help you identify each of the twelve other devils in turn and call an appropriate angel to dismiss it. Did Father Anton mention the seven tests to you?”
“You mean the seven tests of a devil’s identity? Yes, he did.”
The Reverend Taylor nodded gravely. “A brilliant man, Father Anton. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that he’s gone. Well, he was absolutely right. When you find the devils you must identify each in turn, and use your book L’Invocation des Anges to send them away. They are French devils, you see, and French dismissals will have a greater effect on them.”
Madeleine said, “If we dismiss them, will that prevent them from summoning Adramelech?”
The Reverend Taylor looked at her seriously. “One hopes so, my dear. But of course devils are devils, and one can never quite predict how they are going to behave, or what tricks they are going to use. Take this terrible beast Elmek, for example—”
The curtains covering the windows suddenly flapped, as if they were being blown by a wind that we couldn’t even feel. I turned towards the window in fright, and I was sure that for one second I glimpsed, in the darkness outside, the evil slanting eyes of the demon of knives. Above us, the lights went dim and sickly, until we could hardly see each other, and a sour smell of decay flowed through the room.
The Reverend Taylor shivered. Then he raised his hand and drew the sign of the cross in the air, and called, “Devil, begone! I adjure thee, O vile spirit, to go out! God the Father, in His name, leave our presence! God the Son, in His name, make thy departure! God the Holy Ghost, in His name, quit this place! Tremble and flee, O impious one, for it is—”
There was a howl so loud that I jumped in terror. It sounded as if a fearsome beast was actually devouring the whole room. The curtains lifted and flapped again, and a whole row of books toppled like dominoes and splayed across the carpet. Madeleine clutched my arm in fear, and the Reverend Taylor raised both his hands to protect himself from the rushing sound of demonic hate.
“It is God who commands thee!” shouted the Reverend Taylor. “It is I who command thee!”
The windows burst in a cloud of tumbling, spraying, razor-sharp glass. Fragments flew across the room and hit the Reverend Taylor in a glittering explosion that sliced into his upraised hands, ripped the ecclesiastical cloth from his arms and chest, and slashed his face and hands right down to the raw nerves. Before he collapsed, I saw the whiteness of his forearm bones, laid bare amidst the chopped meat of his flesh.
Miraculously, or devilishly, the glass passed Madeleine and me and left us almost unscratched. We watched in horror as the Reverend Taylor sank to the floor, ripped into bloody pieces, and Madeleine pressed her face into my shoulder, gagging with horror.
The last fragments of glass tinkled on to the floor, and a freezing wind blew in through the window. Holding Madeleine close, I said, “Elmek.”
There was no answer.
“Elmek!” I said, louder.
Outside, in the darkness, there was a dry, laughing sound. It could have been laughing or it could have been the swish of the trees as the wind moaned through their leafless branches.
The door of the sitting-room opened and I froze in fright. But then a red-faced woman in a turquoise overcoat and a turban hat peered around the door and said: “What a commotion! Is everything all right? I thought I heard glass.”
The Sussex Constabulary kept us at Lewes Police Station for almost three hours. Most of the time, we sat on hard wooden seats in a green-painted corridor and read the same crime-prevention posters over and over. An unsmiling superintendent with a clipped black moustache and shoes that were polished beyond human reason asked us questions and examined our passports, but we knew from the start that the Reverend Taylor’s hideous death could only look like an accident. A freak accident, of course. But an accident all the same.
Elmek, in his lead-and-copper trunk, was not going to be delayed or thwarted, especially by the procedures of the British police.
At five minutes to midnight, the superintendent came out of his office and handed us our passports.
“Does this mean we can go?” I asked him.
“For the moment, sir. But we’d like a forwarding address. You may have to give evidence at the inquest.”
“Well, okay. The Hilton Hotel.”
The superintendent took out a silver propelling-pencil and wrote that down. “All right, sir. Thanks for your help. we’re advising your embassy of what’s happened, just as a matter of courtesy.”
“That’s all right by me.”
The superintendent tucked away his pencil and regarded us for a moment with eyes that looked as if they’d been pickled in bleach. I knew that he didn’t really understand how the Reverend Taylor’s window had blown in with such devastating force, or how Madeleine and I had escaped with nothing but superficial cuts. But there was no sign of explosives, no sign of weapons, no motive, and no possibility that we could have cut him to shreds ourselves with thousands of fragments of glass. I had already heard one constable muttering to his sergeant about “peculiar vacuums” and “thousand-to-one chances”, and I guessed that they were going to put the Reverend Taylor’s death down to some wild peculiarity of the English weather.
“You won’t be leaving the country, sir?” asked the superintendent. “Not for a few days, anyway?”
“No, no. We’ll stick around.”
“Very well, sir. That’ll be all for now, sir. I’ll bid you goodnight.”
We left the police station and walked across the road to the sloping car park. The Citröen, silent and dark, was the only car there. We climbed into it warily, and sat back in the rigid little seats. Madeleine yawned, and pulled her fingers through her dark blonde hair. I glanced back at the devil’s chest, and said, “If Elmek’s going to let us, I think it’s time we had some rest. I didn’t sleep last night, and I don’t suppose we’re going to get ourselves a lot of relaxation tomorrow.”
There was no answer from the dull medieval box. Either the devil was sleeping itself (although I didn’t know if devils slept or not) or else it was silently granting me permission to rest. I started up the car, and we went in search of somewhere to stay.
We spent half an hour driving around the streets of Lewes in the dark before Madeleine spotted a bed-and-breakfast sign on the outskirts of town, on a gateway just opposite the forbidding flint walls of Lewes prison. Set back from the road in a driveway of laurel bushes was a red-brick Victorian mansion, and someone was watching a black-and-white television in the front downstairs room. I turned the Citröen into the driveway, parked it, and went to the front door to knock.
I was answered, after a long and frosty wait, by a small hunched old woman in a pink candlewick dressing-gown and paper curlers. She said: “It’s very late, you know. Did you want a room?”
I tried my best not to look like a dishevelled madman or an escaped convict from across the road. “If that’s possible. We’ve come from France today and we’re pretty well bushed.”
“Well, I can’t charge you the full rate. You’ve missed three hours’ sleep already.”
I looked at her in disbelief for a moment, and all I could say was, “That’s okay. That’s wonderful. But I’ll pay the full rate if you want me to.”
I called Madeleine, and the old woman let us into the house. She took us up a cold flight of stairs to a landing laid with green-and-cream linoleum, where a painting of ducks by Peter Scott hung under a frayed and dusty lampshade. She unlocked a door for us, and showed us into a typically freezing British bedroom, with a high double bed of cream-painted iron, a cheap varnished wardrobe, a cracked sink and a gas fire with half of its fireclay missing.