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`Let's get out this way,' C. B. suggested, and, clambering up on the altar, they wriggled through the hole.

Outside the rain was sheeting down, and by the time they reached the car their outer garments were almost soaked through with it; but for the time being they could think of nothing except their delivery from the awful perils they had so recently encountered.

The car swiftly covered the mile back to The Grange. As they got out C. B. looked at his watch and said, `How long do you think we have been?'

`Goodness knows,' John muttered. `Two hours three perhaps.'

`No. It is now nineteen minutes past eleven. Allowing for going and coming back, and our reconnaissance round the house before we went in, we could not have been in the crypt much more than seven minutes.'

Two minutes later they were upstairs with Beddows. Until John showed him the Pact he could not believe that they had got it. At first he was overcome by astonishment at their success; then, as he looked at their haggard faces and realised what they had been through, his gratitude was pathetic.

C. B. took the rest of the papers from John with the remark, `I'll turn these in to Scotland Yard. They may be of use in tracing some of the Canon's associates; although I doubt if any of them could be persuaded to give evidence against him. Still, the people who signed these other Pacts will be informed that they have now been freed.'

He then stepped into the pentacle, removed the contents of the tea chest, turned it upside down, leant his broomstick cross upright against its back and set two of the unlit candles upon it, thus transforming it into a temporary altar. Having lit the candles, he said to Beddows

`Now, take the Pact in your right hand and burn it; then say these words after me.'

Beddows took the Pact, lit one corner of it, and repeated sentence by sentence as C. B. pronounced the abjuration:

`By this act I, Henry Beddows, renounce Satan and all his Works, now and for evermore, both on my own behalf and on that of my daughter Ellen. I have sinned grievously; but, trusting in the Divine Mercy promised by our Lord Jesus Christ to sinners who repent, I beg to be received back into God's grace. In the name of Christ I now call upon the Archangel Michael and his Host to protect my daughter, Ellen, this night; to guard her from all harmful thoughts and to deliver her from evil. Blessed be the names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost for evermore. Amen.'

John and C. B. then knelt down beside Beddows and prayed, giving thanks for the courage they had been granted and their safe delivery from the Valley of the Shadow.

When they all stood up, and Beddows stepped from the pentacle, they saw with amazement that an extraordinary change had taken place in his appearance. He seemed to have aged twenty years. His broad shoulders slumped, his hair and the bristles of his beard had turned white; and he had the look of an old man. Yet, after thanking his rescuers, he said firmly

`I shall leave for the South of France first thing in the morning. Ellen should be safe now; but I mean to hunt Copely Syle down, and see to it that he goes to the Hell to which he has led so many others.'

C. B. endeavoured to hide his surprise at the transformation in Beddows, which was evidently the first sign of the payment he would now have to make for the twenty one years of favour he had secured by unholy means: then he said to John, `The outside chance of the Canon's coming back to morrow is taken care of by the police. They will pinch him if he lands illegally in the marshes. There is nothing more we can do here now; so we'll go South too.'

Glancing again at Beddows, he added, `I think it would be best if you accompanied us back to Colchester, as we must make a very early start. They will find you a room at the Red Lion, then we can all drive up to London together.'

`That suits me,' Beddows agreed. `But I'll have to get into some clothes and pack a bag. I am feeling very weak, too, from my long semi fast. While I am getting dressed perhaps you would go down to the larder. Jutson asked me through the door this morning if I was all right, as he had seen that somebody had been up here; but he doesn't know why I locked myself in, or anything about this business. He is very well paid to ask no questions; but all the same, the less he knows, the better; so I'd rather not have him routed out. It would save time, too, if you'd open up a tin or two for me yourselves, and I'll leave a note for him before we go. You will find quite a selection of tinned stuff down there, but anything will do.'

Together they descended to the first floor: Beddows went into his bedroom and the others continued on downstairs to prepare a picnic meal. A quarter of an hour later, when he joined them in the dining room, they had ready a spread of sardines, cold ham and tinned peaches. After their ordeal C. B. and John also felt hungry; so they sat down with him and, while he ate ravenously, kept him company.

Soon after midnight they left the table and went out to the car. As Beddows stowed his suitcase in the back he said, `I've never done the Government down more than I've had to; but this is a case in which I have no scruples. It may need big money to finance bringing Copely Syle to book; so we can't afford to observe currency restrictions. Fortunately, I've always kept a tidy sum in my wall safe against an emergency; so I was able to pack the best part of three thousand pounds in fivers into a couple of pairs of shoes.'

C. B. smiled a little wryly. `I'd rather you hadn't told me that; but since you have, how about if the emigration authorities search your baggage?'

Beddows smiled. `They might if I went to and fro regular. But the odds are all on my getting away with it once.'

At twenty five past twelve the night porter let them into the Red Lion. He booked Beddows a room on the same floor as the others, and entered an order from C. B. to call them all at a quarter to five. Before they went upstairs C. B. telephoned his office and asked the night duty officer to ring Northolt, and use all the pull he could to secure three seats on the plane leaving for Nice at 7.16.

Then they went up to their rooms, got the worst of the dirt off themselves with a quick wash, and, mentally exhausted from the strain of the past few hours. fell asleep as soon as their heads touched their pillows.

When C.B.’s bedside telephone rang, he roused out of a deep sleep and picked up the receiver, It was the night porter, who said

`Your call, sir. It's a quarter to five and about half an hour ago I took a telephone message from your office. It was to report a telegram which reads “Special stop Despatched from Police Headquarters Nice at naught hours twenty stop Christina removed from prison without authority twenty three hours fifteen stop Has since disappeared without trace stop Signed Malouet.”'

`Thank you,' said C. B. quietly; but as he hung up, his face was grim. In a few minutes he would have to break it to John that, although they had braved such fearful perils during the earlier part of the night they had, after all, failed to save Christina. Beddows had abjured Satan at a little after half past eleven. By about eighteen minutes the Canon had beaten them to it again.

23

The Cave of the Bats

Over the cups of coffee that the night porter had made for them and on the long drive to the airport, John and his two companions spoke little. After learning the contents of Malouet's telegram they could only hope that by the time they got to Nice the police would have succeeded in tracing the vanished prisoner: in the meantime all speculation on their chances of rescuing Christina was futile.