Dennis Wheatley - To The Devil A Daughter

`It wasn't till after last Walpurgis Night that I began to worry a bit. Attending the great Sabbat brought it home to me with something of a shock that I had only just over ten months to go before I was due to hand over Ellen. But even then I didn't think about it much, as a hundred and one urgent business matters drove it into the back of my mind. Then, just before Christmas, Ellen came home for good, and that gave me a real jolt.

`I don't think I've mentioned it, but poor Hettie committed suicide while Ellen was still only a little girl. I've never married again, but I took several women to live with me for various periods, and that was one of the reasons why I sent Ellen away to boarding school at the age of eight. The other was an instinctive feeling that, anyhow until she was grown up, I ought to keep her away from Copely Syle. Of course I could not prevent her from meeting him now and then, but she has never been at home for long enough at a time to fall under his influence. It was for that reason, too,, that when she was too old to stay at boarding schools any longer I sent her to a finishing place in Paris. Her two and a half years there came to an end last December, and her return brought me face to face with the fact that my twenty one years of having everything for nothing were darn' near up.

`Ellen has been at home so little in all this time that I hardly know her; so I'm not going to pretend that I suffered frightful pangs of remorse at having sold her to Lucifer when she was a baby. She has meant practically nothing in my life, and I imagined that all that would happen when she was twenty one was that she would be initiated as a witch. I reckoned that by having kept her away from Copely Syle and seeing to it that she was educated by decent people I was doing the best I could for her in the circumstances. Naturally, I disliked the idea of having to hand her over to the Canon, but that was all I had undertaken to do, and it seemed to me that at the age of twenty one she would be perfectly capable of telling him to go to blazes if she felt that way. If she liked the idea of becoming a witch, that was her look out. If not, they couldn't make her practice witchcraft against her will. Anyhow I'd quieted my conscience with the idea that I could honour my bond, while ensuring that when she had to take her decision she should do so with an unprejudiced mind.

`Had I been right in my belief that there was no more to it than that, I should be taking her to The Priory on the evening of her birthday; but purely by chance I found out that I had been fooling myself. Ever since I've been in business in a fairly big way I've given Copely Syle sound financial tips from time to time, and he has quite a bit invested in my companies. A few months ago I wanted to tip him off to sell out from one of my subsidiaries. Instead of dropping him a line, as I usually did, I called in at The Priory one evening on my way home. After we had had a drink his vanity got the better of his discretion, or perhaps he thought that I know less about magical operations than I do. Anyhow, he took me to his crypt and showed me his homunculi.

`Apparently he has been working on them for years, although I was unaware of that. He has got one there now as near perfect as any magician is ever likely to produce. To enable it to leave its jar and function like a normal human being it needs only one thing the lifeblood of a twenty one year old virgin.

`Naturally he never hinted that to me; but it so happened that I knew it. In a flash I realised what he was planning to do with Ellen. It solved, too, a question that had vaguely puzzled me for a long time. He had never pressed me to give him an opportunity to get to know Ellen, and had most heartily endorsed my policy of keeping her at school until she was grown up. I saw then that he had done so to lessen the risk of her meeting some young man and being seduced, or getting married, before she was twenty one.

`Well, I knew then that I was up against it. Although I had no special love for the girl I couldn't let that happen. After a lot of thought I decided that there was only one thing for it both Ellen and I must go into hiding for a time and remain so till after the fateful day.

`It may sound queer to you, but it is a fact that Prince Lucifer is quite a sportsman. He has always been willing to match cunning with cunning. There are plenty of cases in which people have enjoyed his gifts and managed to cheat him in the end. Ellen was used to doing what she was told without argument; so I decided to get her out of the way. She had a nasty sore throat just after Christmas; so as a first step I fixed it for her to have her tonsils out, and whisked her off to a nursing home at Brighton. Then I made arrangements to get her out of the country and park her in the South of France, under an assumed name.

`On my failure to produce her, my bond made me liable to act as forfeit in her place, and as Copely Syle held my bond it would be up to him to enforce it. I could not hope to escape him by taking a plane to the United States or Australia; because with me he has occult links which would enable him to find me on the astral, wherever I was; so I made up my mind to tell my office that I had gone abroad, then dig myself in here. Only here could I hope for the absolute privacy necessary to protect myself. The trap on the landing and the ape were designed to prevent Copely Syle getting in to me in the flesh and using the cunning that Lucifer has given him to wheedle out of me where I had hidden Ellen. The pentacle, as you evidently know, is my defence against his getting me on the astral.

`He hasn't attempted to do either yet. That may be because he is occupied with other matters. Some while ago, you said that he was after Ellen's blood. As you know that, and why, you probably know what he has been up to this past week. I shut myself in here as soon as I returned from taking Ellen down to the Riviera; so about what has happened since you must be better informed than I am. Anyhow, I can give you no further information.'

Suddenly Beddows' voice changed, rising to an hysterical note, as he added, `If I were a free agent I'd hand the two of you over to the police for having broken in here. As I am not, and you threatened to expose me to the most frightful peril, I've told you everything there is to tell about my awful situation.

Everything, d'you understand? Everything! Now get out! And leave me unencumbered to fight my own battle.'

Silence descended on the room like a curtain of draped black velvet.

Neither C. B. nor John had dared to interrupt Beddows' long monologue. Both of them had been acutely conscious that although he was definitely not possessed, he was, all the same, in a quite abnormal state. From the toneless voice in which he had spoken for most of the time it was clear that he was using them only as a focus at which to pour out his own story; and it was reasonable to suppose that in all the twenty one years since he had made his pact with the Devil he had never told it to anyone before. To have cut in at any point with question, or even comment, might well have checked the flow and deprived them of hearing the all important latter part of the revelations.

A good half minute elapsed before C. B, said, `We are very grateful to you for having been so frank with us; and I can only repeat that we are here as friends who want to help. We got drawn into this thing because John Fountain's mother lives in the villa next door to that which you rented for Ellen. I had better tell you what has happened since you left her there; then we shall better be able to decide between us on a plan of campaign for overcoming our mutual enemy.'

`I can give you no help in that.' Beddows' voice was sharp. `I'll have my work cut out to protect myself as it is, without inviting further trouble.'