Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Rides Out

He did not turn or once look back, but plodded heavily, a very ordinary figure now, down the long, sunlit drive.

Richard suddenly felt Marie Lou’s small body tremble against him, and with a little cry of fright she buried her head on his shoulder. ‘Oh, darling,’ she wailed. ‘I’m frightened of that man —frightened. Did you see?’

‘See what, my sweet?’ he asked, a little puzzled.

‘Why!’ sobbed Marie Lou. ‘He is walking in the sunshine— but he has no shadow!’

CHAPTER XXIII

THE PRIDE OF PEACOCKS

The inn which served the village near Cardinals Folly was almost as old as the house. At one period it had been a hostelry of some importance, but the changing system of highways in the eighteenth century had left it denuded of the coaching traffic and doomed from then on to cater only for the modest wants of the small local population. It had been added to and altered many times; for one long period falling almost wholly into disrepair, since its revenue was insufficient for its upkeep, and so it had remained until a few years earlier upon the retirement of Mr. Jeremiah Wilkes, the ex-valet of a wealthy peer who lived not far distant.

Only the fact that Mr. Wilkes suffered from chronic sciatica, which rendered it impossible for him to travel any more with his old master, had made his retirement necessary, and through those long years of packing just the right garments that his lordship might need for Cowes, Scotland or the French Riviera and exercising his incomparable facility for obtaining the most comfortable seats upon trains which were already full, he had always had it in the back of his mind that he would like to be the proprietor of a gentlemanly ‘house’.

When the question of his retirement had been discussed, and Jeremiah had named the ambition of his old age, his master had most generously suggested the purchase and restoration of the old inn, but voiced his doubts of Jeremiah’s ability to run it at a profit; stating that capital was very necessary to the success of any business, and adding in his innocence that he did not feel Jeremiah could have saved a sufficient sum despite the long period of his employment.

In this, of course, his lordship was entirely wrong. Jeremiah’s wage might have been a modest one but, while protecting his master from many generations of minor thieves, he had gathered in the time-honoured perquisites which were his due and, since he had stoutly resisted the efforts of his fellow servants to interest him in ‘the horses’, he owned investments in property which would have considerably amazed his master.

Mr. Wilkes, therefore, had modestly stated that he thought he might manage providing that his lordship would be good enough to send him such friends or their retainers as could not be accommodated at the Court when shooting parties and suchlike were in progress. This having been arranged satisfactorily, Mr. Wilkes underwent the metamorphosis from a gentleman’s gentleman to host of The Pride of Peacocks.

Very soon the old inn began to thrive again; quietly, of course, since it was no road-house for noisy motorists. But it became well known among a certain select few who enjoyed a peaceful week-end in lovely scenery, and Mr. Wilkes’s admirable attention to these, together with his wife’s considerable knowledge of the culinary art, never caused them to question their Monday morning bill.

Jeremiah had further added to the attraction of the place by stocking a cellar with variety and taste from his lordship’s London wine merchant on terms extremely advantageous to himself, and moreover to the added well-being of the neighbourhood. The hideous and childish tyranny of licensing hours never affected him in the least for the simple reason that all his customers were personal friends, including, of course, the magistrates upon the local bench, and had some officious policeman from the town ever questioned the fact that gentlemen were to be found there quite frequently in the middle of the afternoon taking a little modest refreshment, they would have quailed under the astonished and supercilious glance of the good Mr. Wilkes, together with the freezing statement that this was no monetary transaction, but the gentlemen concerned were doing him the honour to give him their opinion upon his latest purchase in the way of port.

In short, it will be gathered that this ancient hostelry could provide all the comfort which any reasonable person might demand, and was something a little out of the ordinary for a village inn. Rex, of course, knew the place well from his previous visits to Cardinals Folly and, a little out of breath from the pace at which he had come, hurried into the low, comfortably furnished lounge, the old oak beams of which almost came down to his head.

Tanith was there alone. Immediately she saw him she jumped up from her chair and ran to meet him, gripping both his hands in hers with a strength surprising for her slender fingers.

She was pale and weary. Her green linen dress was stained and mired from her terrible journey on the previous night, although obviously she had done her best to tidy herself. Her eyes were shadowed from strain and lack of sleep, seeming unnaturally large, and she trembled slightly as she clutched at him.

‘Oh, thank God you’ve come!’ she cried.

‘But how did you know I was at Cardinals Folly?’ he asked her quickly.

‘My dear,’ she sank down in the chair again, drawing her hand wearily across her eyes. ‘I am terribly sorry about last night. I think I was mad when I stole your car and tried to get to the Sabbat. I crashed, of course, but I expect you will have heard about that—and then I did the last five miles on foot’

‘Good God! Do you mean to say you got there after all?’

She nodded and told him of that nightmare walk from Easterton to the Satanic Festival. As she came to the part in her story where, against her will, she had been drawn down into the valley, her eyes once more expressed the hideous terror which she had felt.

‘I could not help myself,’ she said. ‘I tried to resist with all my mind but my feet simply moved against my will. Then, for a moment, I thought that the heavens had opened and an angry God had suddenly decided to strike those blasphemous people dead. There was a noise like thunder and two giant eyes like those of some nightmare monster seemed to leap out of the darkness right at me. I screamed, I think, and jumped aside. I remember falling and springing up again. The power that had held my feet seemed to have been suddenly released and I fled up the hill in absolute panic. When I got to the top I tripped over something and then I must have fainted.’

Rex smiled. ‘That was us in the car,’ he said. ‘But how did you know where to find me?’

‘It was not very difficult,’ she told him. ‘When I came to, I was lying on the grass and there wasn’t a sound to show that there was a living soul within miles of me. I started off at a run without the faintest idea where I was going—my only thought being to get away from that terrible valley. Then when I was absolutely exhausted I fell again, and I must have been so done in that I slept for a little in a ditch.

‘When I woke up, it was morning and I found that I was quite near a main road. I limped along it not knowing what I should come to and then I saw houses and a straggling street and, after a little, I discovered that I had walked into Devizes.

‘I went into the centre of the town and was about to go into an hotel when I realised that I had no money; but I had a brooch, so I found a jeweller’s and sold it to them—or rather, they agreed to advance me twenty pounds, because I didn’t want to part with it and it must be worth at least a hundred. An awfully nice old man there agreed to keep it as security until I could send him the money on from London. Then I did go to the hotel, took a room and tried to think things over.