Dennis Wheatley - To The Devil A Daughter

`I don't believe it!' Beddows panted. `I don't believe it! How did you get up here? Jutson or his wife must have let you in, and told you about the trap and the ape. In spite of all their promises they've sold me out to Copely Syle.'

`Oh no they haven't. We broke in.'

Beddows gave a sudden snarl. `If that's true I'll have the law on you.'

`No you won't. Not unless you are prepared to have a full description of how we found you to night come out in court. How would your shareholders react to that, eh? Can't you imagine the headlines in the papers: “Chairman of Directors found sealed in magic pentacle. Satanic rituals practised in Essex manor house,” and so on?'

`Damn you!' Beddows gave a mighty heave, and nearly succeeded in breaking away.

`Steady!' C. B. shifted his grip and pressed down with his full weight on him again. `Don't be a fool, Beddows. Just now you tried to hurl yourself out of the pentacle. That wouldn't be a very clever thing to do, would it? As long as you are inside it you are safe, but once you leave it all sorts of unpleasant things might succeed in getting hold of you.'

Beddows relaxed. For a moment he lay silent, then he let out something between a sigh and a moan and said, `What the hell do you want of me?'

Sensing that his resistance was lessening, C. B. said firmly, `We want the truth about your association with Canon Copely Syle.'

`That has nothing to do with you.'

`Yes it has. Fountain and I came all the way from the South of France specially to talk to you about it.' `It's none of your business.'

`It is our business. It is the business of every decent person to lend a hand in scotching the sort of devilry that Copely Syle is engaged in. And you've got to help us.'

'No! No! I won't talk about him! I daren’t! The danger I am in from him is bad enough as it is.'

C. B. loosened his hold a little and took a more persuasive tone. `Come! Pull yourself together, man. You're not the only one in danger. How about your daughter Ellen?'

`Ellen!' Beddows repeated miserably. `I . . . I thought I had managed to keep her out of this.'

`Far from it. She has been in very grave danger indeed, and is a long way from being safely out of the wood yet.'

Now that Beddows was no longer actually being held down, he struggled up into a sitting position and demanded, `What has been happening to her?'

`The Canon is after her blood. I mean that literally, and I'll bet any money you know what he would do with her blood if he got it. That's why we came back to England to hunt you out. You've got to tell us everything you know about the Canon.'

'No! I'm not talking!'

`Damn it, man!' John cried. `Think of your daughter! How can you possibly refuse to help us free her from the influence that devil exerts over her?'

`No!' Beddows repeated doggedly. `I did my best for her. I can't do more. She must take her chance now. I'm not talking. It's too dangerous.'

`Yes, you are going to talk,' said C. B. quietly. `Do you know what I mean to do if you persist in your refusal?' `What?' faltered Beddows uneasily? `What will you do?' `I shall smash this pentacle to pieces; then Fountain and I will leave you here alone.'

'No! No ! You can't do that.'

`I can and I will. Either you are going to answer any

questions or I'll make hay of your astral defences.' For a moment Beddows sat there panting heavily, then he muttered, `All right. What do you want to know?' `How long have you known Copely Syle?' `A bit over twenty years.'

`Where did you first meet him?'

`Here.'

C. B. raised his eyebrows. `I thought you bought this place only in 1949?'

`That's so.' Beddows now seemed to have resigned himself to talking freely, and went on in a normal voice, `I'd been wanting to for a long time, but the stiff necked old bitch who owned the place wouldn't sell. Even after the war had reduced her to scraping in order to stay on here she still refused my offers; so I had to wait till she died. Her name was Durnsford the Honourable Mrs. Bertram Durnsford and I was her chauffeur from 1927 to 1931.'

`I see; so it was while you were employed here as chauffeur that you first met the Canon?'

`That's right. When I said I had known him for twenty years, it's really nearer twenty five; but to begin with it was only as a servant knows his mistress's visitors. He was a great chum of the old girl's, and from the time I took the place he was often here.'

`Was she a witch?'

`Yes. There's a lot of it still goes on in Essex. Parts of it are so isolated that modern influences are slower to penetrate than in most other places. She had been mistress here so long that she always thought of herself as one of the gentry; but she wasn't. She started life as daughter of the village witch and, so they say, put a spell on the young squire here to marry her. It's said, too, that as soon as she got tired of him she used a wax image to cause him to sicken and die. After that she acted the high mightiness and ruled the village with a rod of iron. She was over eighty when she died and more or less bedridden for the last few years; so she had lost much of her occult power and with it most of her money; but she still had enough power by such means to keep me from getting her out after she had refused my offers to buy.'

`Why were you so keen to own The Grange?' John asked.

`Sentiment,' came the unexpected reply. `I came here as a young man of twenty three. I er formed an attachment soon after I took the job, and one of the few really decent things I have got out of life are the memories of it. I wanted the place on that account. I suppose, too, the idea of owning the big house in which I had once been a servant appealed to my vanity. But it was wanting to live where she had lived that made me determined to have it.'

`Let's get back to Copely Syle.' said C. B. `How did it happen that you got to know him more intimately than as one of your mistress's visitors?'

Beddows gave a heavy sigh, then shrugged resignedly. `Well, since you insist, I suppose I had better give you the whole story from the beginning.'

19

The Saga of a Satanist

After a moment Beddows started to talk in a flat, low monotone, more as if he were talking to himself than to them. He began

`It can't be news to you that I'm a self made man. I've never sought to conceal it. I was born less than a dozen miles from here as the son of a farm labourer, and I started life myself as a farmer's boy. But for all that I was born ambitious. I soon made up my mind that two ten a week and work in all weathers wasn't good enough. Knowing about machines seemed to me the one way out; so instead of spending my pennies on the pictures and trashy novelettes, I bought the weeklies from which I could learn about the insides of motors. That way I picked up enough to get a job in a garage.

`Later they let me drive one of their hire cars; then one of their customers, who was a doctor, took me on as his private chauffeur. I stayed with Doc for eighteen months, and while I was with him I attended evening classes at the Colchester Technical College. You see, by then I'd made up my mind to become an engineer. I got a lot out of those classes, but nothing like as much as I should have if I'd had more time for home study; and by the nature of things, a doctor's chauffeur is far harder worked than most. That's why I left him and came here. Mrs. Durnsford was already over sixty and didn't go out very much. In fact, sometimes during the winter months a whole week would pass without her using the car at all; so the job offered just the easy hours

I wanted to go in for correspondence courses and study for exams.

`For a year or so I did quite well in that way, then my thoughts were taken right off engineering. I don't propose to go into the details of what happened, but for a long time I never opened one of my books. As I told you just now, I formed an attachment for a certain person, and afterwards . . . well, afterwards I simply hadn't the heart to start work again.