My parents did not know how to respond to this without either compromising themselves or causing offence, so there was a silence. It was broken by de Walter's suggestion that he take us on a tour of the house.
The rooms were luxuriously furnished in an opulent Edwardian style with heavy brocades and potted palms. On side-tables of dark polished wood were ranged treasures of the kind that used to be called «curios» — ostrich eggs mounted in silver, meerschaum pipes whose bowls were shaped like mermaids or wicked bearded heads, little wild animals carved in green nephrite by Faberge. On a side-table was a gold cigarette case of exquisite workmanship with the letter «E» emblazoned in diamonds upon it. De Walter opened the case for us. Resting in its glittering interior was a charred and withered tube of white paper that might once have been a cigarette.
"I'd blush to tell you how I got hold of this little item, or what I paid for it," he said. "This case once belonged to a very beautiful and tragic lady, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria. And that little scrap of paper was the last cigarette she ever smoked. I have the documents to prove it. She was assassinated, you know. Stabbed by an Italian anarchist in Switzerland of all places. Ghastly people, the Italians: blub over a bambino while holding a knife to your guts under the table."
The books that lined the whole of one wall of what he called his «saloon» were nearly all leather-bound and had curious titles which I did not recognize. They were not like the miscellaneous collection of classics and popular novels to be found in our house.
"Here's something that might amuse you, old man," said de Walter to my father, pulling out a gilt-tooled volume in red leather. "Crebillon Fils. The engravings are contemporary."
I saw my father open the book at random. The right-hand page was an engraved illustration of some sort, but he shut it too rapidly for me to see what it was.
My eye was attracted to a group of silver framed photographs on a bureau. Several of them featured younger versions of the de Walters, which showed that they must once have been elegant if not exactly handsome. Others were of strangers, presumably relatives or friends, usually formal portraits, and of these one stood out. It was an old photograph, pre-war at a guess, of a bald man with a short nose, determined mouth and a fierce stare. He looked straight out menacingly at the camera and, it would seem, at us. It was like no photograph I had ever seen before.
"Know who that is, young feller-me-lad?" De Walter asked me.
"I do," said my mother with evident distaste.
"Yes," said de Walter, sensitive to her reaction but unruffled. "He had a certain reputation. The Great Beast, and all that. Queer chap, but he knew a thing or two. Know what he said? Remember this, young 'un. 'Resolute imagination is the key to all successful magical working.' That's what he said. Well, Crowley had the imagination all right. Trouble was, he lacked the resolve. Drugs and other beastliness got in the way. I'm afraid he wasn't quite a gentleman, you see.
"I visited him once or twice during his last days in Hastings. He was in a bad way because the drugs had caught up with him, as they always do. Ghastly, but useful. Got some handy stuff out of him, about the homunculus. Ever heard of that, little man?" he said with a wink. I said I hadn't.
"It means 'little man', little man. Except he doesn't come out of a mother's tummy, he comes out of an egg. But it's a special alchemical egg." I was baffled, but I took comfort from the fact that my parents seemed to be equally puzzled. De Walter went on: "Making the egg. That's the hard part. Now, here's another. Have you heard of a puerculus, my boy?" And he winked again. I shook my head. "Well now, use your nous. Puer in Latin means-?"
"Boy."
"Good. Right ho, then. So if homunculus means little man, then puerculus means —»
"Hugh, dear, hadn't we better be getting on?" said Mrs de Walter.
"Ha! Yes! Call to order from the lady wife!" De Walter led us out of the room and down a whitewashed corridor towards a stout ironbound oak door with a Gothic arch to it quite unlike the others in the house.
"Now then," said de Walter, putting his hand on a great black key that protruded from the door's lock, "my grand finale. The wine cellars! This way, boys and girls!"
My mother, who had become increasingly nervous throughout the trip, suddenly burst into a stream of agitated speech: "No really, that's awfully kind of you, but we must be on our way. Do forgive us. It's been really delightful, but there's a bus from the village in ten minutes — I consulted the man, you see — which we will just be able to catch. Thank you so much, but —»
"Enough, dear lady, enough!" said de Walter. He seemed more amused than offended, though even then I recognized the amusement of the bully who has successfully humiliated his victim.
When we were safely on the bus, among a troupe of uniformed schoolchildren and three black-clad old women who were carrying cages of hens into Estoril, my mother said: "Never again!"
My father, whose courteous soul, I thought, might have been offended by our hastily-contrived departure, said nothing. I think he even nodded slightly.
One Sunday morning, a year or so after our holiday in Portugal, my parents and I were sitting over breakfast in the kitchen. Sunday papers were, as usual, spread everywhere.
One of my father's indulgences, excused on the grounds of professional interest, was to take a large number of the Sunday papers, including the less «quality» ones, like The People and the News of the World. I noticed that my father always picked up the latter first and often read it with such avid attention that my mother had to address him several times before he would comply with a simple request, like passing the butter. I had no interest in newspapers at that time and frequently, with my mother's permission, took a book to the breakfast table.
On this occasion I happened to notice my father turn a page of the News of the World and give a sudden start. My mother asked if anything was the matter. "I'll tell you later," he said and left the kitchen, taking the paper with him.
When, later that morning, I found the News of the World abandoned in the sitting room, I noticed that the centre pages were missing. However, my father had failed to observe that among the exciting list of contents to be found on the front page were the words: HORROR AT THE VILLA MONTE ROSA.
I forget how I managed to get hold of another copy of that paper, but I did that day, and I made sure that my parents did not know about it. These little discretions and courtesies were part of the fabric of our life together.
Across the centre page spread was sprawled the familiar headline: HORROR AT THE VILLA MONTE ROSA.
Much of the space was occupied by a large but fuzzy photograph, probably taken with a long lens from a nearby vantage point, of three people being escorted down the drive of the villa by several Portuguese policemen. Two of them I could clearly make out. They were Mr and Mrs de Walter, their expressions stony and sullen. The third, a woman in an overall, had bowed her head and was covering her face with both hands. I guessed this to be their housekeeper, Maria, an assumption that was confirmed by the text.
The article itself was short on detail, but long on words such as «horror», «gruesome», «grisly» and «sinister». The few clear facts that I could ascertain were as follows. Over the course of about eight or nine years a number of boys, all Portuguese, aged between ten and twelve had disappeared from the Monte Rosa district.