CHAPTER XXII IN THE RUINED ABBEY
For a moment Mary's heart stopped beating. Her mind reeled as it grasped the appalling situation which had so suddenly developed.
Now for the hundredth time she cursed her folly in not having let sleeping dogs lie. The early stages of her investigation had held for her only a spice of danger sufficient to intrigue, and her first successes with Ratnadatta had strengthened her resolution to ignore the warnings she had been given - until Barney had extracted a promise from her that she would have nothing more to do with the Satanists. But by then, through having become a neophyte, she had already forged a fatal link with them, and the sight of Teddy's shoes on Ratnadatta's feet had proved her undoing.
From that night, as a result of her own actions, she had become the plaything of Evil and exposed to one peril after another. That she had, after all, succeeded in securing concrete evidence against her husband's murderers was now small comfort. If these fiends with whom she had consorted dealt with Barney as they had with Teddy his death would lie at her door.
As her heart suddenly began to beat again she drew a sharp, rasping breath.
'Surprised you, eh, honey?' Wash commented grimly. 'Surprised me too, seein' you claimed to be well acquainted with this Doctor Dee. Tell what you know of him.'
His tone implied no suspicion of her, only curiosity; but she knew that she must exercise the greatest caution about every word she said. In a low voice she murmured, There's not much I can tell you. I believed him to be one of us and it's a nasty shock to hear that he's not.'
'Give, honey, give.' Wash's voice had suddenly become impatient. 'He's your boy friend, and came to these parts set on trying to snatch you off me. Fellers don't go that far unless they and the dame are pretty close to one another.'
Mary's mind was still a whirl of misery, but she managed to co-ordinate her thoughts sufficiently to reply. 'He is in love with me, of course; but he's never been my boy friend in the sense you mean. I met him only a few weeks ago at Mrs. Wardeel's. She is a woman who holds evenings for dabblers in the occult. Ratnadatta always goes to them to pick up anyone there who looks a likely convert to the True Faith. He was introduced to me as Lord Larne and...'
'Lord Larne,' Wash interrupted. 'He must have plenty gall to have taken a title for his front.'
Instantly Mary covered up for Barney by asserting, 'It wasn't a front. He is Lord Larne. No one's ever questioned that. Anyway, after some of the meetings he walked home with me. Then he asked me out to dine and dance, and twice I've given him supper at my flat. He was an amusing companion and we had the common interest that we both hoped to become initiates. We had started an affaire, and if things hadn't gone as they did the night you carried me off I expect that in due course he and I would have become lovers. His having come after me here shows only that he must have fallen harder for me than I thought.'
'So that's your side of it. Maybe, though, it's not hot pants that brought him here. Seeing he's a cop it's on the cards that he's been stringing you along for what he could get out of you, and followed your trail on a hunch that you'd give him the dope about what goes on in these parts.'
'Perhaps,' Mary admitted; and for a moment her misery was rendered even more intense by the thought that possibly that might be the truth. She had hardly yet had time to assimilate the idea that Barney was some sort of detective. If he was, that explained many things. On the assumption that he was a playboy whose time was his own, she had bitterly resented what she had believed to be his lies about his Kenya travel agency arrangements interfering with their meetings; but that, she realized now, could have been cover for periods when he had to perform certain duties. It also excused his taking a title as a pseudonym, as doing so would have made him more readily acceptable at Mrs. Wardeel's. It even made it probable that he had not deliberately let her down the previous week-end to go off with some other woman. As against that there did seem to be a possibility that from the very beginning he had been making use of her only because she had got in with Ratnadatta before he had, and had succeeded in penetrating the Satanic circle at Cremorne.
After only the briefest consideration Mary thrust that last idea aside. Had there been any foundation for it Barney would have urged her to go through with her initiation, then pumped her about what had taken place. As it was he had used his utmost endeavours to persuade her to have no more to do with the Satanists. So if he was a detective he had put her safety before his duty as an investigator. At this thought, in spite of the harsh words with which they had parted, her heart both warmed towards him and was wrung afresh with terrible visions of what lay in store for him.
Virtually a prisoner as she was, she could think of no way in which she could save him or help him to escape, until Wash remarked, 'There's times when you British can be mighty sly. Who'd have thought that for special missions Scotland Yard would have kept on its pay-roll a real live Lord?'
Seizing the opening given her, Mary said quickly, 'I can't believe they do. There's a mistake somewhere. There must be. This fellow is Lord Larne all right. If he had been a fake someone at Mrs. Wardeel's would have been certain to have found him out and exposed him. He is an Irish Earl and only on a visit to England. He has estates in Kenya and has lived there most of his life, so he can't possibly be a member of the British Police Force. The Great Ram must have mistaken him for someone else.'
Wash gave an ugly laugh. 'The Great Ram doesn't make mistakes, honey. Could be you're right about his coming from Kenya. If so, his tie-up with the police here is only temporary. Bui if the Great Ram says he's a spy, a spy he is. Had we the time we'd put him under hypnosis and get details about his assignment. As things are tonight we're working on too tight a schedule. Just have to bump him and get on with our own business.'
'You can't!' Mary cried in protest. 'You can't. Not without giving him some form of trial. At least you must give him a chance to show that this is all a terrible mistake.'
'Having liked the guy it's natural you should see things that way.' Wash put his big hand on her knee and gave it a friendly squeeze. 'I guess, too, maybe you'd been countin' on him making h you his Duchess or something; so him turning out a rat is a bad break for you. Still, none of us can expect the little old ivories to roll as we want all the time, and now you're my squaw I'll see you lack for nothing. At this point, though, I'll warn. When your Lord Larne is about to get his, no throwing a scene. The Great Ram wouldn't take that kindly, and it might make things mighty awkward for us both.'
For a few minutes Mary remained silent while the car sped on through the dark night, then she asked, 'Where are we going?'
'To the ruined Abbey I was telling you of last night. Place where I dumped the body of that floosie down the well.'
Mary shuddered. 'To ... to hold a Sabbat in such a place must be very different from holding one in the Temple at Cremorne.'
They've one thing in common: altars once used for Christian rites. That's a must in Christian countries. Leastways, they give ten times the potency to the conjurations of a priest of Our Lord Satan.
'I see. But after the ceremony? Surely it's too cold and uncomfortable for anyone to enjoy feasting, and that sort of thing, in an old ruin?'
He laughed. 'You'll not find it cold, honey. To alter temperature within a radius of a hundred yards is a simple magic. I create a fog belt round the ruin as a precaution against passing casuals seeing our lights from the road and getting a mind to snoop. Then I call off the rain - if need be - and ante-up the heat inside the magic circle to a degree that's pleasant.'