Dennis Wheatley - To The Devil A Daughter

C. B. ignored the remark and proceeded to give him an account of the events centering round Ellen that had taken place in the South of France. When he had done, Beddows said thoughtfully

`Copely Syle must have smelt a rat as soon as he learned that I had gone abroad so near the date. The odds are that he came to The Grange in our absence and managed to get hold of some of the girl's personal belongings; an old hairbrush or anything she had used for her toilet would enable him to overlook her and find out where she had gone.. Evidently the reason that he has so far made no move against me is because he has been too occupied with his

attempts to have her kidnapped. I'm grateful to you for all you've done to keep her out of his clutches, and I quite understand now your reasons for breaking in here; but all the same I'd be glad if you would leave me.'

`Oh come!' John protested. `Now you know the danger she is in surely you don't propose to ignore it?'

`Since you had this bright idea of having her arrested, she is no longer in danger. These crooks who are acting for the Canon will be far too scared of the police to attempt to abduct her from a French prison.'

`You are forgetting the Canon,' C. B. put in. `By using his occult powers he may be able to get her out; and it is as good as certain, now, that he will fly out there to morrow morning. We know that he'll stick at nothing to get hold of Ellen and he still has over forty hours to work in.'

`Well, there's nothing I can do about it.'

`Yes there is. You and he must have been mixed up in all sorts of queer business. It's a sure thing that a thoroughly unscrupulous man like Copely-​Syle has committed a number of criminal acts in order to carry on his sorcery and that you know of some of them. From time to time he must either have robbed churches or instigated others to do so, in order to get hold of Holy Communion wafers for desecration. We know, too, that he is having blood donors' gifts of blood stolen from hospitals to feed his homunculi. I want you to come with us to the police and make a statement. On that we'll get a warrant for his arrest, and even if he leaves for France in the morning I can get it executed there. That is the only way we can make absolutely certain of protecting Ellen until her maximum period of danger is past.'

Beddows gave a short, harsh laugh. `What the hell d'you take me for? A lunatic? Can't you see that now you've queered his pitch with Ellen by having her imprisoned, the odds are that he will round on me? As long as I remain in this pentacle I've good hopes of cheating Lucifer yet; but the moment I move out of it I'm liable at any time to have my soul snatched, and my body will spend the rest of its days in an asylum. No thank you!

'You got Ellen into this!' cried John angrily. `The very least you can do is to run some risk to get her out of it.'

`She's safe enough where she is! A darned sight safer than I am, anyway ! I did my best for her by taking the risk that I'm running already, instead of handing her over in accordance with my bond; and I'll do no more. Nothing you or anyone else can say is going to get me out of this pentacle within the next forty eight hours.'

`What is to prevent our smashing it up?'

`I can't; and if you do I'll be in hideous danger for a while. But better that than the far worse risk of going with you now and committing myself to having to face Copely Syle in open court as a witness against him to morrow. If you do bust the electric current, I can use candles instead, and the moment you've gone I'll make another pentacle. Besides, I've already paid your price for not interfering with this one by telling you what you came here to find out.'

For a further twenty minutes they argued and pleaded with Beddows, but in vain. Nothing would move him, and when C. B. found that they were repeating themselves over end over again he said at last

`It's no good, John. We must do what we can on our own. Let's get out of this and back to Colchester.'

With a curt good night to Beddows, they left him and, having eased the bonds of the ape a little, made their way downstairs. On slipping out of the window by which they had come in they found that it was no longer raining, and with heartfelt relief at leaving the dank, dark house, they gratefully breathed in the cool night air.

As they turned into the drive, John muttered, `The callous swine! I would have liked to strangle him.'

C. B. shrugged. `After having had the luck to run him to earth like that it was damnably disappointing that he should refuse to help us; but he's far from being a hundred per cent evil, otherwise he would not have tried to hide Ellen and be facing the music himself. Just think what an ordeal he undertook when he decided to coop himself up in that grim room for days on end and wait for some Frightful thing to come and attempt to get him! It can hardly be wondered at that he is half crazy from fear already.'

`All the same, he might at least have given us some pointer which would help us to lay the Canon by the heels. The very idea of a father selling his child to the Devil in the beginning is almost unbelievable, and for him to refuse to utter a word that might help to save her from being murdered now is fantastic.'

`Fantastic is the word for this whole horrible business, partner. What could be more so than the thought of Henry Beddows, a down to earth inventor of motor engines, who has constantly to deal with Trade Union officials, and is a power in the commercial world of Britain, sitting up there in a magic pentacle preparing to wrestle with demons for his soul; or a man who was, apparently, once a Canon of the Church of England planning to murder a girl in order to give a semblance of human life to a monster of his own creation? Nevertheless, we know these things to be actually happening.'

`I know, I know! But what are we going to do now?' `Get some sleep. I can do with it.'

It was getting on for three o'clock in the morning by the time they reached their hotel. By then they were too tired even to tip the night porter to get them a drink. On reaching their rooms they pulled off their clothes, flopped into bed and within a few moments were in the deep sleep of exhaustion.

Next morning they had their breakfasts sent up to C.B.’s room and while they ate them discussed the position to date. During the previous evening and night they had found out a great deal. They now knew more about Christina's past than she knew herself and the reason for her queer behaviour. They knew why the Canon was so anxious to get hold of her, and that if he succeeded it would cost her not only her freedom, but her life. They had traced her father and learned his reason for taking her to the South of France and abandoning her there; but he had positively refused to give them the aid they had expected from him. On the other hand it had been definitely verified that the danger in which she stood would be acute for only one day; since, should the Canon fail to carry out his abominable ritual on her twenty first birthday, there would

be no point whatever in his killing her afterwards. Therefore, their immediate problem boiled down to immobilizing the Canon for the next thirty six hours.

Their prospects of doing so seemed exceedingly slender, as it was a foregone conclusion that either he was already, or would very soon be, on his way to France. The fact that Upson had arrived at The Priory the previous night made it certain he had come by air. C. B, thought it probable that during the war Upson had served in Coastal Command and had been stationed in that area. In any case, as it had been intended that he should fly Christina home, it was evident that he was familiar with the Essex coast and had already reconnoitered some of the many lonely creeks to select a good illicit landing place. It was, therefore, long odds that when de Grasse had decided that his latest news was of too compromising a nature to convey by telephone, and sent it instead by personal messenger, Upson had travelled in his own seaplane and made a secret landing by last light somewhere along the coast not far from Little Bentford.