`He asked me, then, into what church I intended having the child baptised. The question seemed natural enough coming from a parson, as at that time I took him to be. I had been brought up C. of E, myself, but Hettie was Chapel; and in spite of her flightiness as a single girl she thought a great deal of standing well with her own Chapel folk; so we'd been married Chapel and I took it for granted she'd want her brat christened there. I told the Canon how matters stood and he went on to talk about religion for a bit. Then he said
` “You know, Mr. Beddows, the little scene that you chanced to witness last week had nothing to do with sex. It was a religious ritual a sacrifice to a God far older than Christ, and one who was universally worshipped when the world was a much happier place than it is to day. He still exists, of course, since Gods cannot die; and he is still worshipped in secret by a few of us who understand his mysteries.”
`At that, the local gossip about old Mother Durnsford being the daughter of a witch, and a witch herself, came back to me. It all fitted in, so I said, “I suppose you are talking about the Devil?”
`He nodded; and as I've a first class memory for statements made to me, I can still recall pretty well word for word his reply, which was, “That is a name that was bestowed upon him in fear and opprobrium by the early ascetics, when they were still striving to win the nations over to the worship of the Jewish tyrant God, Jehovah; but he is more fittingly called the Lord of this World. In any case, while the God of the Christians offers nothing to His followers but the meagre possibilities of an austere heaven in a life to come, the God whom I serve rewards those who honour him with wealth and happiness here and now. There may or may not be a hereafter; but everything in this life is his to give. Even the Christian Church admits that; and it is only superstitious fear that prevents people from returning to the old faith. You should give it a trial, Mr. Beddows, for at little cost to yourself you could make an offering to my Master which would ensure his behaving most generously towards you.”
`Naturally I didn't get what he was driving at, then; neither could I make up my mind if he was really in earnest about this old religion. His saying that the cat had been a sacrifice certainly had the ring of truth, and he didn't sound as if he was goofy; but all that about getting riches in this life was a bit too much to swallow. More to see what replies he would make than anything else, I began to question him about it. His answers seemed logical enough, but even so I couldn't bring myself to believe him. Then he asked me if I would like him to reveal my future.
`Well, everyone likes having their fortune told, and I saw no harm in that. When I'd agreed, he took me through to the old part of The Priory and down into the crypt. It had evidently been used as a chapel at some time, but he had turned it into a sort of laboratory. There, he made me sit in front of a mirror. It wasn't made of glass, but of some highly polished metal, and it was pitted round the
edges as though it was very old. He gave me a big brass bowl to hold in my lap and put some cones of incense in it. When he had lit them he said to me as follows
“'Within certain limits all men have free will; therefore their futures are not irrevocably fixed, but depend upon the decisions they take at certain major crossroads in their lives. I am about to give you an idea what your future will be, should you decide to rely upon my guidance and become the servant of Prince Lucifer. Keep your eyes fixed on the mirror and through the smoke you will see pictures form upon it.” Then he began to chant in a sing song voice behind me, and I seemed to become a little drowsy.
`You will remember what it says in the Bible about Satan taking our ... our ... taking J. C. up on to the mountain and showing Him the kingdoms of the Earth. Well, me being just a chauffeur saddled with an unwanted wife and kid, it wasn't far off that. There were quite a number of pictures and afterwards they became a bit confused in my mind. The general impression was of myself, a little older, but not much, dressed in expensive clothes, wining and dining with other rich men, and having necking parties with lovely women in the luxury suites of big hotels. But a few of the scenes I saw remained clear cut. There was one of me walking through a great machine shop where hundreds of people were working, and from the respectful way they all looked up at me as I passed it was clear that I was the boss of the whole outfit. Another confirmed that it was the outside of my plant near Colchester pretty much as it stands to day; and blazoned across its front in letters six feet high were the words “BEDDOWS AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS”. The one that really got me, though, was myself in a check suit, standing in front of a long, low grey car. That car had something that no car in the time of which I am talking had got. Its rake was completely different. It was quite unlike anything that had so far been made and obviously an advance in design. It was something slap out of the future, and I knew that whatever else Copely Syle might have faked up to gull me he couldn't have faked up that.
`When the show was over I told him at once that he had made a convert, and asked what I must do to become the me in the pictures I had seen. He replied, “There is nothing very difficult about it, if you are prepared to forswear the gloomy Christian God and all His works. Prepare yourself for that by reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards every night from now on, and return here at the same hour a week from to day.”
`It wasn't until he was showing me out of the front door, a few minutes later, that I remembered the reason I had come to see him; and with a sudden feeling that somehow he had made a monkey out of me, I said pretty sharply, “We haven't settled anything about that five hundred pounds.”
` “No,” he said, “and if you've any sense we shan't need to. When you come here next week you'd better bring that dead cat with you as a first offering. If you don't I will buy it off you later, as we arranged this morning. But don't imagine that the money will do you any good. By taking it you will decree a very different future for yourself from the one I showed you. The choice is yours.”
`During the week that followed I was torn first one way, then the other. After all, the five hundred smackers was as good as a bird in the hand, and I hated the idea of giving it up; yet I couldn't get the image of that car of the future out of my mind, and as a sort of token payment towards it in advance I wrestled for half an hour each night with the tricky business of getting through the Lord's Prayer backwards. When the week ended I still hadn't made any definite decision; but, all the same, when I called again at The Priory I took the dead cat with me.
`That night Copely Syle took me straight to the crypt, and the first thing he did was to shove the cat into the furnace there. Then he said to me, “Now I propose to call upon Prince Lucifer in order that you may make your bargain with him.”
` “What bargain?” I asked, rather taken aback.
` “Why, the usual one, of course,” he replied a little sharply. “As Lord of this World he will give you every reasonable success, pleasure and gratification in it that you may desire; but for all that he naturally asks something in return. You must sign a pact making yourself over to him body and soul.”
`I didn't much like the idea of doing that, and I said so.
`He laughed then, and gave me a pat on the back. “Don't worry. You must sign it, and in your own blood; but you need never honour it. In your case it will merely be similar to a Life Insurance Policy lodged at a bank as security. You are lucky in having just had a little daughter. All you have to do is to have her baptised into the old faith, and undertake that should she reach the age of twenty one you will produce her here in this crypt on her twenty first birthday. In that way you may redeem your bond and it will be handed back to you.” '