The Satanist

'Hey! Wait a mo', lady.' Conky Bill gestured her back into the chair. He was trying desperately to think of some way in which he could dissuade her from entering on an investigation that, at best, would mean months of futile endeavour and, at worst, the chance that she would run up against real trouble which would end in her becoming a lovely corpse.

'Well!' she smiled suddenly. 'Are you thinking of changing your mind?'

'No, M'am,' he replied promptly, getting to his feet. 'And I'm not likely to in a matter like this. I'm just going to make you a cup of tea.'

'That's nice of you,' she conceded, and her smile broadened, showing two rows of strong, even teeth.

He rather prided himself as a brewer of a good cup of tea, and some minutes later he emerged from his kitchenette with a tray on which reposed a pot of Earl Grey, milk, lemon, sugar and a plate of shortbread biscuits. Setting it down he said, 'You must be "mother". Lemon for me and three lumps of sugar.'

As she poured out, he went on, 'So you're going to play the lone wolf, eh? Or rather the unshorn lamb going into the forest to put the fear of God into the great big hairy bears. I've had the best part of thirty years at the game, but most times I've gone in a tank with plenty of air cover. All the same, I still look on myself as a learner, and I'd be awfully interested to hear how you propose to set about it.'

She passed him his cup. 'Elementary, my dear Watson! I shall find out all I can about everyone with whom Teddy had anything to do these past few months.'

'Did he tell you anything about the job he was on?'

'No, not a thing. He was terribly security-minded.'

'Then that won't get you anywhere; because you can have no line on the people he was after.'

'You can't be certain that it won't. And I have got one line that might lead to something. It wasn't at all in keeping with his character, but some time back he suddenly became deeply interested in Spiritualism.'

Had it not been for his long training at suppressing all signs of emotion while interrogating people, C.B. might well have dropped his tea-cup. As it was his long face remained impassive as he said, 'Really; and he made no secret about that?'

'He would have, but a mutual friend of ours happened to see him at a seance, and told me about it. When I tackled him he came clean and admitted that he had been to several. I tried to persuade him to drop it. After all, his work took him out at night often enough without his spending an evening or two a week attending seances. Besides, I am a Roman Catholic. Not a very good one, I'm afraid. In fact, we were married at a Registry Office and I haven't been inside a church for years. All the same, I still believe in its teaching, and that Spiritualism is wrong. Teddy knew that, of course; otherwise he would probably have suggested my going with him. As it was, he seemed absolutely fascinated by this new interest. He wouldn't listen to me and continued to go to the meetings in spite of all I could say.'

'But what leads you to think that his interest in Spiritualism had any bearing on his death?'

Mary Morden's fair eyelashes fluttered and for a moment veiled her deep blue eyes as she replied, a shade uncomfortably: 'Because there was something behind it - something very unpleasant.'

C.B. had to keep a tight hold on himself in order not to show the intense interest which gripped him as he asked in his low voice: 'What sort of thing?'

'I don't really know. Teddy used to talk in his sleep. He never gave away any office secrets, and mostly it was incoherent muttering. But during the last few weeks he began to have nightmares. He seemed to be struggling in a sort of medieval hell. He raved about the Devil taking the form of a small black imp, and of a Temple where animals were sacrificed. An Indian was mixed up in it, and someone whom he referred to as "the Master". When he woke from these nightmares, or I woke him, he was drenched in sweat. But he wouldn't tell me their cause. He used to shrug them off by saying that he was making a study of the occult and had been reading a lot about the bad side of it.'

'That may have been true. On the other hand, one can't rule out the possibility that he had got in with some bad hats at these seances and that they introduced him into a Black Magic circle.'

'That's what I think.'

'And you intend to follow this up?'

'Yes.'

For a moment C.B. was silent. All she had said fitted in so well with his own theory of what lay behind Morden's death that he was greatly tempted to tell her to go ahead. Yet few people knew better than he did the terrible danger to which she would be exposing herself if she did. Having decided that he must do his best to stop her, he said:

'Listen, lady. In my work I've been up against this sort of thing before; yet I've never succeeded in bringing a big Black to justice. They are incredibly cunning and utterly unscrupulous. If I, with all the resources of my department, can't get the goods on them, how can you, a woman working on her own, hope to? Supposing you are right, you'll get no further than the fringe of it; then they'll catch you out, and the odds are that you'll end up as poor Teddy did. It isn't on! You've got to put this idea right out of your head.'

She gave a slight shrug. 'Of course there's a risk. I know that. But in my case I think you exaggerate. If these people did kill Teddy, it must have been because one of them found out that he was working for you. As you have turned me down that could not apply to me. Anyway, I'm a free agent, and, if I choose to do this, you can't stop me.'

'No, I can't. But I can give you some idea of the sort of situation you will be faced with from the very start.'

'I'd be interested to hear it.'

'Well, all Black Magic rituals are based on sex or, to use more appropriate words, unbridled lust, perversion and obscenity. If you ever succeed in getting inside a Satanic Temple, you will be expected to witness and applaud acts which would turn the stomach of a member of the vice-squad, let alone a decent young woman like yourself. But that would be only after your own initiation. And that's the hurdle you'd have to take before you could get anywhere. You don't need me to tell you what a lovely person you are, and they are not going to give you a ring-side seat for nowt. Your entry ticket would be having to give yourself to the man who introduced you into the circle.'

Mary Morden dropped her eyes again. 'I can only hope that he wouldn't be too repulsive.'

'What!' C.B. sat forward suddenly. 'D'you mean you would?'

'Yes.' She looked up and met his glance squarely. 'I'd better be frank with you, Colonel Verney. I grew up in the back streets of Dublin and became a cabaret girl. For reasons with which I won't bother you there came a time when I had to have more money than my pay. Cabaret girls get plenty of opportunities to earn money the so-called easy way, and those who do don't think of themselves as prostitutes. But, to be brutally honest, that's what I was for the best part of a year. And, believe me, even with girls such as I was, who don't have to go to bed with every man who asks them to, it's not easy money. There are times when men who seem to be decent sorts turn out to be absolute swine, and to earn a few pounds that way is like suddenly finding oneself in hell.

'Four years ago Teddy took me out of that. He knew the sort of life I had been leading, but all the same he married me. I'm not going to tell you that he was my one great love. The fact is, I've never had one; but I was terribly fond of him. He gave me security, a decent home, respectability, everything that any reasonable woman could want except a child, and I made him a good and faithful wife.

'But now that is all over. I've no family. I'm on my own again. With his pension and a little capital he inherited from an uncle I'll be free from want; but by killing Teddy some fiend robbed the world of an honest, decent, kindly man, and robbed me of everything that made life worth while. So I'll not stick at using my looks, and my body too, if need be, in an attempt to get even with his murderer.'