Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Rides Out

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

BY

DENNIS WHEATLEY

Copyright 1935

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I desire to state that I, personally, have never assisted at, or participated in, any ceremony connected with Magic — Black or White.

The literature of occultism is so immense that any conscientious writer can obtain from it abundant material for the background of a romance such as this.

In the present case I have spared no pains to secure accuracy of detail from existing accounts when describing magical rites or formulas for protection against evil, and these have been verified in conversation with certain persons, sought out for that purpose, who are actual practitioners of the Art.

All the characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary but, in the inquiry necessary to the writing of it, I found ample evidence that Black Magic is still practised in London, and other cities, at the present day.

Should any of my readers incline to a serious study of the subject, and thus come into contact with a man or woman of Power, I feel that it is only right to urge them, most strongly, to refrain from being drawn into the practice of the Secret Art in any way. My own observations have led me to an absolute conviction that to do so would bring them into dangers of a very real and concrete nature.

Dennis Wheatley

CHAPTER I

THE INCOMPLETE REUNION

The Duke de Richleau and Rex Van Ryn had gone into dinner at eight o’clock, but coffee was not served till after ten.

An appetite in keeping with his mighty frame had enabled Van Ryn to do ample justice to each well-chosen course and, as was his custom each time the young American arrived in England, the Duke had produced his finest wines for this, their reunion dinner at his flat.

A casual observer might well have considered it a strange friendship, but despite their difference in age and race, appearance and tradition, a real devotion existed between the two.

Some few years earlier Rex’s foolhardiness had landed him in a Soviet prison, and the elderly French exile had put aside his peaceful existence as art connoisseur and dilettante to search for him in Russia. Together they had learned the dangerous secret of ‘The Forbidden Territory’ and travelled many thousand verts pursued by the merciless agents of the Ogpu.

There had been others too in that strange adventure; young Richard Eaton, and the little Princess Marie Lou whom he had brought out of Russia as his bride; but as Rex accepted a long Hoyo de Monterrey from the cedar cabinet which the Duke’s man presented to him his thoughts were not of the Eatons, living now so happily with their little daughter Fleur in their lovely old country home near Kidderminster. He was thinking of that third companion whose subtle brain and shy, nervous courage had proved so great an aid when they were hunted like hares through the length and breadth of Russia, the frail narrow-shouldered English Jew—Simon Aron.

‘What could possibly have kept Simon from being with them tonight,’ Rex was wondering. He had never failed before to make a third at these reunion dinners, and why had the Duke brushed aside his inquiries about him in such an off-hand manner. There was something queer behind De Richleau’s reticence, and Rex had a feeling that for all his host’s easy charm and bland, witty conversation something had gone seriously wrong.

He slowly revolved some of the Duke’s wonderful old brandy in a bowl-shaped glass, while he watched the servant preparing to leave the room. Then, as the door closed, he set it down and addressed De Richleau almost abruptly.

‘Well, I’m thinking it’s about time for you to spill the beans.’

The Duke inhaled the first cloud of fragrant smoke from another of those long Hoyos which were his special pride, and answered guardedly. ‘Had you not better tell me Rex, to what particular beans you refer?’

‘Simon of course! For years now the three of us have dined together on my first night, each time I’ve come across, and you were too mighty casual to be natural when I asked about him before dinner. Why isn’t he here?’

‘Why, indeed, my friend?’ the Duke repeated, running the tips of his fingers down his lean handsome face. ‘I asked him, and told him that your ship had docked this morning, but he declined to honour us tonight.’

‘Is he ill then?’

‘No, as far as I know he’s perfectly well—at all events he was at his office today.’

‘He must have had a date then that he couldn’t scrap, or some mighty urgent work. Nothing less could induce him to let us down on one of these occasions. They’ve become—well, in a way, almost sacred to our friendship.’

‘On the contrary he is at home alone tonight. He made his apologies of course, something about resting for a Bridge Tournament that starts–’

‘Bridge Tournament my foot!’ exclaimed Rex angrily. ‘He’d never let that interfere between us three—it sounds mighty fishy to me. When did you see him last?’

‘About three months ago.’

‘What! But that’s incredible. Now look here!’ Rex thrust the onyx ash-tray from in front of him, and leaned across the table. ‘You haven’t quarrelled—have you?’

De Richleau shook his head. ‘If you were my age, Rex, and had no children, then met two younger men who gave you their affection, and had all the attributes you could wish for in your sons, how would it be possible for you to quarrel with either of them ?’

‘That’s so, but three months is a whale of a while for friends who are accustomed to meet two or three times a week. I just don’t get this thing at all, and you’re being a sight too reticent about it. Come on now—what do you know?’

The grey eyes of almost piercing brilliance which gave such character to De Richleau’s face lit up. ‘That,’ he said suddenly, ‘is just the trouble. I don’t know anything.’

‘But you fear that, to use his own phrase, Simon’s “in a muddle —a really nasty muddle,” eh? And you’re a little hurt that he hasn’t brought his worry to you.’

‘To whom else should he turn if not to one of us—and you were in the States.’

‘Richard maybe, he’s an even older friend of Simon’s than we are.’

‘No. I spent last week-end at Cardinals Folly and neither Richard nor Marie Lou could tell me anything. They haven’t seen him since he went down to stay last Christmas and arrived with a dozen crates of toys for Fleur.’

‘How like him!’ Rex’s gargantuan laugh rang suddenly through the room. ‘I might have known the trunkful I brought over would be small fry if you and Simon have been busy on that child.’

‘Well I can only conclude that poor Simon is “in a muddle” as you say, or he would never treat us all like this.’

‘But what sort of muddle?’ Rex brought his leg-of-mutton fist crashing down on the table angrily. ‘I can’t think of a thing where he wouldn’t turn to us.’

‘Money,’ suggested the Duke, ‘is the one thing that with his queer sensitive nature he might not care to discuss with even his closest friends.’

‘I doubt it being that. My old man has a wonderful opinion of Simon’s financial ability and he handles a big portion of our interests on this side. I’m pretty sure we’d be wise to it if he’d burned his fingers on the market. It sounds as if he’d gone bats about some woman to me.’

De Richleau’s face was lit by his faintly cynical smile for a moment. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘A man in love turns naturally to his friends for congratulation or sympathy as his fortune with a woman proves good or ill. It can’t be that.’

For a little the two friends sat staring at each other in silence across the low jade bowl with its trailing sprays of orchids: Rex, giant-shouldered, virile and powerful, his ugly, attractive, humorous young face clouded with anxiety, the Duke, a slim, delicate-looking man, somewhat about middle height, with slender, fragile hands and greying hair, but with no trace of weakness in his fine, distinguished face. His aquiline nose, broad forehead and grey ‘devil’s’ eyebrows might well have replaced those of the cavalier in the Van Dyck that gazed down from the opposite wall. Instead of the conventional black, he wore a claret-coloured vicuna smoking suit, with silk lapels and braided fastenings; this touch of colour increased his likeness to the portrait. He broke the silence suddenly.