Leslie Charteris - The Saint on the Spanish Main

He browsed through books until one o’clock, went out to lunch, and returned to read some more. The trouble was that he didn’t know what he was looking for. All he could do was expose himself to as many ideas as possible, and hope that the same one would catch his attention as must have caught Netlord’s.

And when the answer did strike him, it was so far-fetched and monstrous that he could not believe he was on the right track. He thought it would make an interesting plot for a story, but he could not accept it for himself. He felt an exasperating lack of accomplishment when the library closed for the day and he had to drive back up again to Kenscoff.

He headed straight for the bar of the Châtelet des Fleurs and the long relaxing drink that he had looked forward to all the way up. The waiter who was on duty brought him a note with it.

Dear Mr Templar,

I’m sorry your visit yesterday had to be so short. If it wouldn’t bore you too much, I should enjoy another meeting. Could you come to dinner tonight? Just send word by the bearer.

Sincerely,

Simon glanced up.

“Is someone still waiting for an answer?”

“Yes, sir. Outside.”

The Saint pulled out his pen and scribbled at the foot of the note:

Thanks. I’ll be with you about 7.

He decided, practically in the same instant in which the irresponsible impulse occurred to him, against signing himself with the little haloed stick figure which he had made famous. As he handed the note back to the waiter he reflected that, in the circumstances, his mere acceptance was bravado enough.

There were drums beating somewhere in the hills, faint and far-off, calling and answering each other from different directions, their sound wandering and echoing through the night so that it was impossible ever to be certain just where a particular tattoo had come from. It reached inside Netlord’s house as a kind of vague vibration, like the endless thin chorus of nocturnal insects, which was so persistent that the ear learned to filter it out and for long stretches would be quite deaf to it, and then, in a lull in the conversation, with an infinitesimal returning of attention, it would come back in a startling crescendo.

Theron Netlord caught the Saint listening at one of those moments, and said, “They’re having a brûler zin tonight.”

“What’s that?”

“The big voodoo festive ceremony which climaxes most of the special rites. Dancing, litanies, invocation, possession by loas , more dances, sacrifice, more invocations and possessions, more dancing. It won’t begin until much later. Right now they’re just telling each other about it, warming up and getting in the mood.”

Simon had been there for more than an hour, and this was the first time there had been any mention of voodoo.

Netlord had made himself a good if somewhat overpowering host. He mixed excellent rum cocktails, but without offering his guest the choice of anything else. He made stimulating conversation, salted with recurrent gibes at bureaucratic government and the Welfare State, but he held the floor so energetically that it was almost impossible to take advantage of the provocative openings he offered.

Simon had not seen Sibao again. Netlord had opened the door himself, and the cocktail makings were already on a side table in the living room. There had been subdued rustlings and clinkings behind a screen that almost closed a dark alcove at the far end of the room, but no servant announced dinner: presently Netlord had announced it himself, and led the way around the screen and switched on a light, revealing a damask-covered table set for two and burdened additionally with chafing dishes, from which he himself served rice, asparagus, and a savory chicken stew rather like coq au vin . It was during one of the dialogue breaks induced by eating that Netlord had caught Simon listening to the drums.

“ Brûler — that means ‘burn,’ ” said the Saint. “But what is zin ?”

“ The zin is a special earthenware pot. It stands on a tripod, and a fire is lighted under it. The mambo kills a sacrificial chicken by sticking her finger down into its mouth and tearing its throat open.” Netlord took a hearty mouthful of stew. “She sprinkles blood and feathers in various places, and the plucked hens go into the pot with some corn. There’s a chant:

“Later on she serves the boiling food right into the bare hands of the hounsis . Sometimes they put their bare feet in the flames too. It doesn’t hurt them. The pots are left on the fire till they get red hot and crack, and everyone shouts ‘Zin yo craqués!’ ”

“It sounds like a big moment,” said the Saint gravely. “If I could understand half of it.”

“You mean you didn’t get very far with your researches today?”

Simon felt the involuntary contraction of his stomach muscles, but he was able to control his hands so that there was no check in the smooth flow of what he was doing.

“How did you know about my researches?” he asked, as if he were only amused to have them mentioned.

“I dropped in to see Atherton Lee this morning, and asked after you. He told me where you’d gone. He said he’d told you about my interest in voodoo, and he supposed you were getting primed for an argument. I must admit, that encouraged me to hope you’d accept my invitation tonight.”

The Saint thought that that might well qualify among the great understatements of the decade, but he did not let himself show it. After their first reflex leap his pulses ran like cool clockwork.

“I didn’t find out too much,” he said, “except that voodoo is a lot more complicated than I imagined. I thought it was just a few primitive superstitions that the slaves brought with them from Africa.”

“Of course, some of it came from Dahomey. But how did it get there? The voodoo story of the Creation ties up with the myths of ancient Egypt. The Basin of Damballah — that’s a sort of font at the foot of a voodoo altar — is obviously related to the blood trough at the foot of a Mayan altar. Their magic uses the Pentacle — the same mystic figure that medieval European magicians believed in. If you know anything about it, you can find links with eighteenth-century Masonry in some of their rituals, and even the design of the vêvers —”

“Those are the sacred drawings that are supposed to summon the gods to take possession of their devotees, aren’t they? I read about them.”

“Yes, when the houngan draws them by dripping ashes and corn meal from his fingers, with the proper invocation. And doesn’t that remind you of the sacred sand paintings of the Navajos? Do you see how all those roots must go back to a common source that’s older than any written history?”

Netlord stared at the Saint challengingly, in one of those rare pauses where he waited for an answer.

Simon’s fingertips touched the hard shape of the little tin plaque that was still in his shirt pocket, but he decided against showing it, and again he checked the bet.

“I saw a drawing of the vêver of Erzulie in a book,” he said. “Somehow, it made me think of Catholic symbols connected with the Virgin Mary — with the heart, the stars, and the M over it.”

“Why not? Voodoo is pantheistic. The Church is against voodoo, not voodoo against the Church. Part of the purification prescribed for anyone who’s being initiated as a hounsis-canzo is to go to church and make confession. Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary are regarded as powerful intermediaries to the highest gods. Part of the litany they’ll chant tonight at the brûler zin goes: Grâce, Marie, grâce, Marie grâce, grâce, Marie grâce, Jésus, pardonnez-nous! ”