`I am,' replied Molly firmly. `As an older woman I know better than you how to deal with a case like this. She will feel miserable and ashamed if, after having allowed herself to drink too much, she wakes up among comparative strangers and in a strange bed. I intend to take her back to her own villa.'
Jules could barely conceal his anger any longer. `Madame!' he snapped, `I will not be dictated to in this manner. She is in no condition to be driven anywhere. A doctor should see her, and I mean to send for one. I insist that she stays here.'
`Sorry, old chap!' John's voice was still quite good humored and level. `But my mother has known her for some time and is more or less responsible for her. So what she says goes.'
As he spoke he advanced towards Christina, took her firmly by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. Then he added quietly, `Give me a hand to get her to the lift, will you?'
Quite suddenly Jules' determination to keep her there seemed to collapse. With a tight little smile he stepped forward, took Christina's other arm, and helped John support her to the door. The Marquise asked Molly to telephone them next morning to let them know if Christina was all right, then the two older women exchanged polite adieus, and Molly followed the others out into the corridor.
There, at Jules' suggestion, she went down ahead of them in the lift, to bring the car round to a side door of the hotel, so that they should not have to take the half conscious girl right across the big lounge. By making a great effort, Christina could manage to walk a few steps at a time, as long as she was supported on both sides. Ten minutes later, with few people having seen them, they had her safely in the back seat of the car. Just as it was about to drive off, Jules leaned forward and said smoothly through the window to John
`My father will be so sorry to have missed you; but you must come over and see us again.'
`Thanks,' John replied, with the appearance of equal cordiality, `I should love to.'
Molly had overheard the exchange, and as the car ran down the drive she murmured, `I thought at one moment he was going to prove really troublesome. I wonder what caused him suddenly to change his mind.'
`I've no idea.' John shrugged. `Anyhow, we pulled it off. But what a bit of luck that she asked for that last cocktail. God alone knows how we should have got her away if it hadn't been for that.'
`Yes. That, and what I put in it.'
'Mumsie!' He turned to stare at her for a second. `What the devil do you mean?'
`I gave her a Micky Finn, darling.'
`You didn’t
'Well, to be accurate, only about a quarter of one, because I didn't want to knock her right out. ' Molly's voice was just a trifle smug. `I'm really rather pleased with myself. I've had some of those tablets in my museum for years. I souvenired them during the war, and I've always wanted to try them on someone, but a suitable 0opportunity has never arisen before. The way it worked was most gratifying.'
`How on earth did you manage to put it in her drink without anyone seeing you?'
Molly tittered with pleasure at the thought of her skilful coup. `I didn't. I put it in my own, and used the cherry stick to help dissolve it quickly. Then, when I had made you all look away from the table to the bookcase, I exchanged her glass for mine.'
`Well played, Mumsie!' John spoke with genuine admiration. `But you've let the cat out of the bag, you know. This night's work dispels my last lingering doubts about your having been Molly Polloffski, the beautiful spy.'
`No, Johnny. Really, I assure you I never did anything but work in an office.'
`Tell that one to the Marines!' he replied, closing the conversation.
As Christina had been given only a small dose of the powerful drug, she recovered fairly quickly from its worst effects, and when they got back to Molly's villa she was able to walk up the path to it unassisted. As soon as they reached the sitting room Molly sat her down in an armchair, then went upstairs and fetched her a bromoseltzer.
She was now fully conscious again, but in a curious mood, half tearful and half defiant. Several times she apologized for having made a fool of herself, and for having given them so much trouble. But she did not seem to realise that they had saved her from some very grave danger. Every now and then she harped back to the de Grasses' party and said how sorry she was to have missed it. In fact it soon became clear that she now resented their having prevented her remaining at the Capricorn until she recovered, so that there might" still have been a chance of her being able to go on the yacht.
At length Molly said, `I'm afraid, my dear, that this business has been getting on your nerves, and that you are no longer in a quite normal state. If you were, you would recall that it was at your own request, made earlier this evening, that we got you out of the clutches of the de Grasses.' Pausing for a moment she fished something out of her bag and concealed it in her hand; then she went on, `Our only wish is to get to the root of your trouble, and see you out of it. Here is something which may help us to
do that, and help you, too.'
As she finished speaking she threw the thing she was
holding towards Christina's lap, and cried, `Catch!' Christina cupped her hands and caught the spinning object. It was a small gold crucifix. The second it fell into her palms she gave a scream of pain. Then, as though seared by white hot metal, she thrust it from her.
`I feared as much!' Molly said grimly. `And now we know the worst ! Every night when darkness falls, you become possessed by the Devil.'
6
The Christina of the Dark Hours
With her eyes glaring, Christina sprang up from the armchair. Then, as though suddenly stricken by a fit, her long limbs grew rigid, she fell back into it, and little flecks of froth began to appear at the corners of her mouth.
Molly went quickly over to the side table on which stood the drinks, filled a tumbler half full of Perrier water and, turning about, sloshed its contents into the girl's face. She whimpered, the rigor passed, and she sat up, the water dripping from her brown hair and running down her pale cheeks. Laying a hand on her shoulder, Molly said kindly:
`God help you, child; but I am right, aren't I? You are only your real self in the day time, and at night you become possessed.'
With a moan, Christina buried her face in her hands, and burst into a flood of tears.
Turning to John, Molly said, `She had better stay here to night. Before we left I told Angele that we might be late for dinner, so we would have something cold. Slip out to the kitchen and tell her that we shan't be ready for it for another half hour, and that she is to go up at once and make the spare room ready.'
John was standing with his mouth a little open, staring at Christina. He could still hardly believe that he had not been the victim of a sudden amnesia and imagined the happenings of the last few moments. But he pulled himself together, nodded, and left the room.
For a few minutes Molly remained silently beside
Christina, then when the girl's weeping ceased she said, `My dear, you must be quite exhausted, and are in no state to talk further about this to night. I'm going to put you to bed here, and to morrow when you are feeling better we will decide what it is best for us to do.'
`There is nothing that you can do,' murmured Christina a little sullenly.
`Oh yes, there is,' countered Molly, in her most determined voice, `And we're going to do it; but it is not the time to go into that now.'
At that moment John returned; so his mother said to him, `You had better stay with her, while I go over to her villa and get her a few things for the night.'
Christina was now sitting staring at the floor. After another swift glance at her, John mixed himself a drink and, feeling extremely awkward, sat down some way from her on the edge of the sofa. For once he was completely out of his depth. The very idea of anyone in this modern world being possessed by the Devil struck him as utterly fantastic. Yet Christina had reacted to the touch of the crucifix as though she had been stung by a hornet, and there seemed no normal explanation for that. Moreover, she had made no attempt to explain it herself, or deny his mother's diagnosis of her case. In such extraordinary circumstances he could think of nothing whatever to say to her; but fortunately she did not seem to expect him to start a conversation; so they both remained sitting there in silence until Molly returned.