Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Rides Out

For the first time Castelnau’s face showed a trace of fear.

‘You can’t,’ he muttered quickly. ‘I won’t let you.’

De Richleau shrugged. ‘Your opposition will make it slightly more difficult, but I shall do it, nevertheless. However, as it may take some time, we will make fresh arrangements in order to ensure that we are not disturbed. Press the bell, and when your servant comes, give him definite instructions that as we shall be engaged in a long conference, upon no pretext whatsoever are you to be disturbed.’

‘And if I refuse?’ Castelnau’s dark eyes suddenly flashed rebellion.

‘Then you will never live again to give another order. The affair we are engaged upon is desperate, and whatever the consequences may be, I shall shoot you like the rat you are. Now ring.’ De Richleau put the pistol in his pocket but still held the banker covered, and after a moment’s hesitation Castelnau pressed the bell.

‘You, Richard,’ the Duke said in a sharp whisper, ‘will leave us when the servant has taken his instructions. Wait for us with Marie Lou in the entrance hall. You have your gun. Prevent anyone leaving the apartment until we have finished. Open the door to anyone who rings yourself, and if Mocata arrives, as he may at any moment, don’t argue—shoot. I take all responsibility.’

‘I am only waiting for the chance,’ said Richard grimly, just as the servant entered.

Castelnau gave his orders in an even voice, with one eye upon the Duke’s pocket, then Richard, in his normal voice, remarked casually:

‘Well, since the matter is confidential, I had better wait outside with my wife until you are through,’ and followed the elderly alpaca-coated man out into the hall.

‘Rex,’ De Richleau lost not an instant once the door was closed. ‘Take that telephone receiver off its stand so that we are not interrupted by any calls. And you,’ he turned to the banker, ‘sit down in that chair.’

‘I won’t!’ exclaimed Castelnau furiously. ‘This is abominable. You invade my apartment like brigands. I give you such information as I can, but what you are about to do will bring me into danger, and I refuse—I refuse, I tell you.’

‘I shall neither argue with you nor kill you,’ De Richleau answered frigidly. ‘You are too valuable to me alive. Rex, knock him out!’

Castelnau swung round and threw up his arms in a gesture of defence, but Rex broke through his guard. The young American’s mighty fist caught him on the side of the jaw and he crumpled up, a still heap on his own hearth-rug.

When the banker came to he found himself sitting in a straight chair; his hands were lashed to the back and his ankles to the legs with the curtain cords. His head ached abominably and he saw De Richleau standing opposite to him, smiling relentlessly down int6 his face.

‘Now,’ said the Duke, ‘look into my eyes. The sooner we get this business over the sooner you will be able to get to bed and nurse your sore head. I am about to place you under, and you are going to tell us what you do when you go to these Satanic meetings.’

For answer Castelnau quickly closed his eyes and lowered his head on to his chest, resisting De Richleau’s powerful suggestion with all the force of his will.

‘This doesn’t look to me as though it’s going to be any too easy,’ Rex muttered dubiously. ‘I’ve always thought that it was impossible to hypnotise people if they were unwilling. You’d better let me put the half-Nelson on him until he becomes more amenable and sees reason.’

‘That might make him agree verbally,’ De Richleau replied, ‘but it won’t stop him lying to us afterwards, and it is quite possible to hypnotise people against their will. It is often done to lunatics in asylums. Get behind him now, hold back his head and lift his eyelids with your fingers so that he cannot close them. We’ve got to find out about this place. It is our only hope of getting on to Mocata.’

Rex did as he was bid. The Duke stood before the chair, his steel-grey eyes fastened without a flicker upon those of the unwilling Satanist.

Time passed, and every now and then De Richleau’s voice broke the silence of the quiet, dimly-lit room. ‘You are tired now, you will sleep. I command you.’ But all his efforts were unavailing. The Satanist sat there rigid and determined not to succumb.

The ormolu clock upon the mantelpiece ticked with a steady, monotonous note, until Rex was filled with the mad desire to throw something at it. The hands crawled round the white enamelled dial; its silvery chime rang out, marking the hours eleven, twelve, one. Still the Frenchman endured De Richleau’s steady gaze. He knew that they were expecting Mocata to arrive at his apartment. Mocata was immensely powerful. If only he could hold out until then the whole position might be saved. With a fixed determination not to give in, his eyelids held back by Rex’s forefingers, he stared blankly at De Richleau’s chin.

Outside, on the sofa of Cordova leather, Richard and Marie Lou sat side by side. It seemed to her again that she must be dreaming. The whole fantastic business of this flight to Paris and their dinner at the Vert Galant had been utterly unreal. It could not be real now that Mocata was somewhere in this city preparing to kill her darling Fleur in some ungodly rite, while she sat there with Richard in that strange, silent apartment and the night hours laboured on.

She thought that she slept a little, but she was not certain. Ever since she had fainted in the pentacle and come to with the sensation that she was above Cardinals Folly, floating in the soundless ether, all her movements had been automatic and her vision of their doings distorted, so that whole sections of time were blotted out from her mind, and only these glimpses of strange places and faces seemed to register.

The black-coated servant appeared once at the far end of the corridor, but seeing them still there, disappeared again.

Almost the whole of that long wait Richard sat with his eyes glued to the front door, his hand clasped ready on the pistol in his pocket, expecting the ring that would announce Mocata’s arrival.

He too felt that somehow this person, grown desperate from an unbearable injury and lusting with the desire to kill, regardless of laws and consequences, could not possibly be himself.

With every movement that he made he expected to wake and find himself safely in bed at Cardinals Folly, with Marie Lou snuggled down against him and Fleur peacefully asleep only a few doors away.

Had he wholly believed that Fleur had been taken from him and that he was never to see her again, he could not possibly have endured those dreary hours of enforced idleness while the Duke battled with Castelnau. He would have been forced to interrupt them or at least leave his post to watch their proceedings, for his inactivity would have become unbearable.

In the richly furnished salon, Rex and the Duke continued their long-sustained effort without a second’s intermission. The clock struck two, and as Rex stood behind the Frenchman’s chair, shifting his weight from foot to foot now and then, he seemed at times to drop off into a sort of half-sleep where he stood.

At last, a little after two, he was roused to a fresh attention by a sudden sob breaking from the dry lips of the banker.

‘I will not let you, I will not,’ he cried hysterically, and then began to struggle violently with the curtain cords that tied him to the chair.

‘You will,’ De Richleau told him firmly, the pupils of his grey eyes now distended and gleaming with an unnatural light.

Castelnau suddenly ceased to struggle; a cold sweat broke out on his bony forehead, and his head sagged on his neck, but Rex held it firmly and continued to press back his eyelids so that it was impossible for him to escape the Duke’s relentless stare.