Dennis Wheatley - The Satanist

Filled with happy anticipation, she set off for Mrs. Wardeel's and arrived there a little before eight o'clock. When she entered the lecture room neither Barney nor Ratnadatta had arrived. The latter did so just before the proceedings started, but Barney had still not put in an appearance.

The lecture that evening was on Maya religious beliefs and how they tied up with Theosophy, but she hardly took in a word of it. Every few minutes she looked towards the door, hoping that she would see Barney slip in and quietly take a seat at the back; but her hopes were disappointed.

She then tried to persuade herself that, having heard the subject of the lecture at the last meeting, he thought it would bore him, so meant to come later in time only to see another medium perform. But the lecture finished, the chairs were arranged in a circle, and still he did not come.

On this occasion the medium was a tall, thin man. Having taken his chair in the middle of the circle, he was wrapped up to the chin by Mrs. Wardeel in a voluminous sheet, then two members of the audience were chosen to assure the rest that no hidden wires or other apparatus had been connected in his vicinity. All the lights, except for one small bulb, were turned off, the spectators linked hands with their neighbours, there was a long, long silence during which nothing happened, then a gentle radiance in the neighbourhood of the medium's mouth became perceptible.

Gradually it increased until the whole of the lower part of his face could be seen by it. Opening his mouth wide he began to breathe stertorously and a pale yellow foam formed round the inside of his lips. The foam increased until it became a solid bubble, hiding both his upper and lower teeth and his tongue. For a while the bubble ballooned and deflated in time with his breathing, and as he strove to force it out the radiance was sufficient to show that sweat was streaming down his face. At last it lapped over, covering his chin then, looking like a thick band of dough, slowly made its way down the slope of the sheet that covered his chest until it reached the level of his stomach. There it stopped, but more and more of the stuff oozed down till a lump as large as a medium-sized melon had formed. The lump flattened out and five roundish points began to protrude from it. These lengthened until the whole thing had roughly the shape of a huge hand attached by a curved arm to the medium's mouth.

Mary had never before seen an occultist project ectoplasm, and cause it to take on the likeness of human limbs or a rudimentary human body; so normally she would have been much impressed by the strange exhibition. But having, three nights before, witnessed the far more hair-raising spectacle of the Great Ram conjuring up a cloud of smoke that turned into a perfectly formed manikin capable of movement, although unattached to him, she found the long slow performance somewhat wearisome. Moreover, her mind was still on Barney and his failure to attend the meeting.

When they had last dined together, he had frankly declared his disbelief in the genuineness of the medium they had seen the week before, so she thought it possible that scepticism about Mrs. Wardeel's parties as a whole had decided him against giving any more of his evenings to attending them. But she was more inclined to believe that, feeling certain she would be there, he had refrained from coming so as to avoid any possibility of being drawn into a resumption of their, so far, most unsatisfactory, tentative moves towards entering on an affair.

Her disappointment was naturally proportionate to the hours she had given to musing over the way in which that evening she would make Barney take a much better view of her, and those she had spent in preparing that delightful little supper. But by the time the medium had re-absorbed his ectoplasm she had made herself face up to it that, if it was to avoid meeting her again that Barney had failed to attend this meeting, the odds were all against his coming to the one next week, so she would be wise to write him off for good and all.

When the party moved into the dining-room for coffee, Ratnadatta sidled up to her, gave his toothy smile and said in a low voice: 'Mrs. Mauriac, I haf another person with weech I wish to talk here tonight. But I also wish to talk with you. As it ees private matter, better that we talk in street; so plees I walk part off way home with you.'

His friendly greeting at first confirmed her belief that she had nothing to fear from him; but his words sent a sudden chill through her. Perhaps he did know that she had spoken of the Brotherhood to Barney. If so, his proposal to walk home with her suggested that he wanted to get her on his own in a situation where he could do her some injury. Then, after a moment, she dismissed the idea as highly improbable, and reassured herself with the thought that, anyway, he would not be such a fool as to attempt to harm her while walking through a respectable district at an hour when there would still be plenty of people about on whom she could call for help.

Taking her consent for granted, he had left her at once and quickly attached himself to a heavily made up, middle-aged woman, wearing valuable jewels, whom Mary had not seen there before, and he remained talking to her for the next twenty minutes. Meanwhile a retired General, who had singled Mary out on a previous occasion, brought her a coffee and sought to entertain her with an account of marvels he had seen Fakirs perform in India many years before she was born.

When the party began to break up, the bejewelled lady took herself off, Ratnadatta rejoined Mary, listened with her to a final story by the General, then tactfully prised her away from him. Five minutes later they were walking side by side towards the central stretch of the Cromwell Road, and he said:

'I haf forgot to tell you that when we meet on Saturday you must wear no make-up. None at all, you understand? Scrub your face clean. Also your hair must be done as plainly as possible, scrag back flat with ends done as bun at back off head.'

Mary gave him an astonished look, then faltered: 'As a matter of fact, Mr. Ratnadatta, I... I've been thinking things over and I... well, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not really advanced enough to accept initiation yet.'

In turn he shot a surprised look at her. But his voice held no trace of anger as he replied: 'Initiation! You haf flatter yourself. At best some time must pass before you can hope for so much. First stage ees neophyte. Acceptance on probation only, after taking oath of loyalty to the Brotherhood. Next the neophyte must perform some act for token off willing service. ...'

He had been about to go on, but she cut in quickly, 'Do you mean that in the case of a woman it is then that she performs her service to the temple by, er- offering herself to a stranger?' 'No, no.' He shook his head. 'That does not come until initiation. It ees part off the initiation rite. By act off willingness I refer to performing satisfactorily some work for furtherance off aims off the Brotherhood weech the neophyte is giffen order to do by our High Priest Abaddon. Only by passing such test does a neophyte become qualified for initiation.'

They walked the next fifty yards in silence, while Mary was thinking, 'It looks, then, as if I could go with him again to the Temple next Saturday without having anything much to be afraid of. If they had designs on me the last thing they would want is for me to do my hair up in a bun and make myself look like a scarecrow. And it would give me one more chance to see if I can learn from them anything about Teddy.' Yet caution urged her to try to find out a little more before committing herself; so aloud she asked: 'What exactly would I have to do to be accepted as a neophyte?�

'I haf already tell you,' he replied a shade impatiently. 'You promise obedience to our High Priest and take oath to keep secrets off the Brotherhood. Then you are welcomed and well-wished by all present and ceremony is concluded. The rite takes only a quarter-of-an-hour - perhaps twenty minutes.'