The Devil Rides Out (27 page)

‘As a matter of fact, I am rather an expert in the art of blending perfumes, and quite a number of my women friends have allowed me to make a special scent for them. It is a delicate art, and interesting, because each woman should have her own perfume made to conform to her aura and personality. You have an outstanding individuality, Mrs Eaton, and it would be a very great pleasure if you would allow me some time to see if I could not compound something really distinctive in that way for you.'

‘It sounds most interesting,' Marie Lou's voice was low and Mocata's eyes still held hers. Really, she felt, despite his bulk, he was a most attractive person, and she had been quite stupid to be a little frightened of him when he first entered the room. The May sunshine came in gently-moving shafts through the foliage of a tree outside the window, so that the dappled light played upon his face, and it was that, she thought, which gave her the illusion that his unblinking eyes were larger than when she had first looked into them.

‘When will the Duke be back?' he asked softly. ‘Unfortunately, my visit today must be a brief one, but I should so much have liked to talk this matter over quietly with him before I go.'

‘I don't know,' Marie Lou found herself answering. ‘But I'm afraid he won't be back before six.'

‘And our American friend–the young giant,' he prompted her.

‘I've no idea. He has gone down to the village.'

‘I see. What a pity, but of course your husband is here entertaining Simon, is he not?'

‘Yes, they are upstairs together.'

‘Well, presently I should like to explain to your husband, just as I have to you, how very important it is that I should take Simon back with me tonight, but I wonder first if I might beg a glass of water. Walking from the village has given me quite a thirst.'

‘Of course,' Marie Lou rose to her feet automatically and pressed the bell. ‘Wouldn't you prefer a cup of tea or a glass of wine and some biscuits?' she added, completely now under the strange influence that radiated from him.

‘You are most kind, but just a glass of water and a biscuit if I may.'

Malin already stood in the doorway and Marie Lou gave orders for these slender refreshments. Then she sat down again, and Mocata's talk flowed on easily and glibly, while her ears became more and more attuned to that faint, musical, lisping intonation.

The butler appeared with water and biscuits on a tray and set them down beside Mocata, but for the moment he took no notice of it. Instead he looked again at Marie Lou, and said: ‘I do hope you'll forgive me asking, but have you recently been ill? You are looking as though you were terribly run down and very, very tired.'

‘No,' said Marie Lou slowly. ‘I haven't been ill.' But at that moment her limbs seemed to relax where she was sitting and her heavy eyelids weighed upon her eyes. For some unaccountable reason, she felt an intense longing to shut them altogether and fall asleep.

Mocata watched her with a faint smile curving his full mouth. He had her under his dominance now and knew it. Another moment and she would be asleep. It would be easy to carry her into the next room and leave her there, ring for the servant, ask him to find his master and when Richard arrived, say that she had gone out into the garden to find him. Then another of those quiet little talks which he knew so well how to handle, even when people were openly antagonistic to him to begin with, and the master of the house would also pass into a quiet, untroubled sleep. Then he would simply call Simon by his will and they would leave the house together.

Marie Lou's eyes flickered and shut. With a shake of her head she jerked them open again. ‘I'm so sorry,' she said sleepily. ‘But I am tired, most awfully tired. What was it that you were talking about?'

Mocata's eyes seemed enormous to her now, as they held her own with a solemn, dreamy look. ‘We shall not talk any more,' he said. ‘You will sleep, and at four o'clock on the afternoon of 7th May, you will call on me at Simon's house in St. John's Wood.'

Marie Lou's heavy lashes fell on her rounded cheeks again, but next second her eyes were wide open, for the door was flung back and Fleur came scampering into the room.

‘Darling, what is it?' Marie Lou struggled wide awake and Mocata snapped his plump fingers with a little angry, disappointed gesture. The sudden entrance of the child had broken the current of delicate vibrations.

‘Mummy–mummy,' Fleur panted. ‘Daddy sent me to find you. We'se playing hosses in the garden, an' Uncle Simon says he's a dwagon, an' not a hoss at all. Daddy says you're to come and tell him diffwent.'

‘So this is your little daughter? What a lovely child,' Mocata said amiably,
stretching out a hand to Fleur. ‘Come here, my …'

But Marie Lou cut short his sentence as full realisation of the danger to which she had exposed herself flooded her mind. ‘Don't you touch her!' she cried, snatching up the child with blazing eyes. ‘Don't you dare!'

‘Really, Mrs Eaton,' he raised his eyebrows in mild protest. ‘Surely you cannot think that I meant to hurt the child? I thought too, that we were beginning to understand each other so well.'

‘You beast,' Marie Lou cried angrily as she jabbed her finger on the bell. ‘You tried to hypnotise me.'

‘What nonsense,' he smiled good-humouredly. ‘You were a little tired, but I fear I bored you rather with a long dissertation upon things which can hardly interest a woman so young and charming as yourself. It was most stupid of me, and I hardly wonder that you nearly fell asleep.'

As Malin arrived on the scene she thrust Fleur into the astonished butler's arms and gasped: ‘Fetch Mr Eaton–he's in the garden–quickly–at once.'

The butler hurried off with Fleur and Mocata turned on her. His eyes had gone cold and steely. ‘It is vital that I should at least see Simon before I leave this house.'

‘You shan't,' she stormed. ‘You had better go before my husband comes. D'you hear?' Then she found herself looking at him again, and quickly jerked her head away so that she should not see his eyes, yet she caught his gesture as he stooped to pick up the glass of water from the table.

Furious now at the way she had been tricked into ordering it for him, and determining that he should not drink, she sprang forward and before he could stop her, dashed the little table to the ground. The plate caught the carafe as it fell and smashed it into a dozen pieces, the biscuits scattered and the water spread in a shallow, widening lake upon the carpet. Mocata swung round with an angry snarl. This small, sensuous, catlike creature had cheated him at the last, and the placid, kindly expression of his face changed to one of hideous demoniacal fury. His eyes, muddled now with all the foulness of his true nature, stripped and flayed her, threatening a thousand unspeakable abominations in their unwinking stare as she faced him across the fallen table.

Suddenly, with a fresh access of terror, Marie Lou cowered back, bringing up her hands to shield her face from those revolting eyeballs. Then a quick voice in the doorway exclaimed: ‘Hello! What is all this?'

‘Richard,' she gasped. ‘Richard, it's Mocata! I saw him because I thought you'd better stay with Simon, but he tried to hypnotise me. Have him thrown out. Oh, have him thrown out.'

The muscles in Richard's lean face tightened as he caught the look of terror in his wife's eyes and, thrusting her aside, he took a quick step towards Mocata. ‘If you weren't twice my age and in my house, I'd smash your face in,' he said savagely. ‘And that won't stop me either unless you get out thundering quick.'

With almost incredible swiftness Mocata had his anger under control. His face was benign and smiling once more, as he shrugged, showing no trace of panic. ‘I'm afraid your wife is a little upset,' he said mildly. ‘It is this spring weather, and while we were talking together, she nearly fell asleep. Having heard all sorts of extraordinary things about me from your friends, she scared herself into thinking that I tried to hypnotise her. I apologise profoundly for having caused her one moment's distress.'

‘I don't believe one word of that,' replied Richard. ‘Now kindly leave the house.'

Mocata shrugged again. ‘You are being very unreasonable, Mr Eaton. I called this afternoon in order to take Simon Aron back to London.'

‘Well, you're not going to.'

‘Please,' Mocata held up his protesting hand. ‘Hear me for one moment. The whole situation has been most gravely misrepresented to you, as I explained to your wife, and if she hadn't suddenly started to imagine things we should be discussing it quite amicably now. In fact, I even asked her to send for you, as she will tell you herself.'

‘It was a trick,' cried Marie Lou angrily. ‘Don't look at his eyes, Richard, and for God's sake turn him out!'

‘You hear,' Richard's voice held a threatening note and his face was white. ‘You had better go–before I lose my temper.'

‘It's a pity that you are so pig-headed, my young friend,' Mocata snapped icily. ‘By retaining Simon here, you are bringing extreme peril on both him and on yourself. But since you refuse to be reasonable and let me take him with me, let me at least have five minutes' conversation with him alone.'

‘Not five seconds,' Richard stood aside from the door and motioned through it for Mocata to pass into the hall.

‘All right! If that is your final word!' Mocata drew himself up. He seemed to grow in size and strength even as he stood there. A terrible force and energy suddenly began to shake his obese body. They felt it radiating from him as his words came low and clear like the whispering splash of death-cold drops falling from icicles upon a frozen lake.

‘Then I will send the Messenger to your house tonight and he shall take Simon from you alive–or dead!'

‘Get out,' gritted Richard between his teeth. ‘Damn you–get out!'

Without another word Mocata left them. Marie Lou crossed herself, and with Richard's arm about her shoulder they followed him to the door.

He did not turn or once look back, but plodded heavily, a very ordinary figure now, down the long, sunlit drive.

Richard suddenly felt Marie Lou's small body tremble against him, and with a little cry of fright she buried her head on his shoulder. ‘Oh, darling,' she wailed. ‘I'm frightened of that man–frightened. Did you see?'

‘See what, my sweet?' he asked, a little puzzled.

‘Why!' sobbed Marie Lou. ‘He is walking in the sunshine–but he has no shadow!'

The inn which served the village near Cardinals Folly was almost as old as the house. At one period it had been a hostelry of some importance, but the changing system of highways in the eighteenth century had left it denuded of the coaching traffic and doomed from then on to cater only for the modest wants of the small local population. It had been added to and altered many times; for one long period falling almost wholly into disrepair, since its
revenue was insufficient for its upkeep, and so it had remained until a few years earlier upon the retirement of Mr Jeremiah Wilkes, the ex-valet of a wealthy peer who lived not far distant.

Only the fact that Mr Wilkes suffered from chronic sciatica, which rendered it impossible for him to travel any more with his old master, had made his retirement necessary. Through those long years of packing just the right garments that his lordship might need for Cowes, Scotland or the French Riviera, and exercising his incomparable facility for obtaining the most comfortable seats upon trains which were already full, he had always had it in the back of his mind that he would like to be the proprietor of a gentlemanly ‘house.'

When the question of his retirement had been discussed, and Jeremiah had named the ambition of his old age, his master had most generously suggested the purchase and restoration of the old inn, but voiced his doubts of Jeremiah's ability to run it at a profit; stating that capital was very necessary to the success of any business, and adding in his innocence that he did not feel Jeremiah could have saved a sufficient sum despite the long period in his employment.

In this, of course, his lordship was entirely wrong. Jeremiah's wage might have been a modest one but, while protecting his master from many generations of minor thieves, he had gathered in the time-honoured perquisites which were his due and, since he had stoutly resisted the efforts of his fellow servants to interest him in ‘the horses', he owned investments in property which would have considerably amazed his master.

Mr Wilkes, therefore, had modestly stated that he thought he might manage providing that his lordship would be good enough to send him such friends, or their retainers, as could not be accommodated at the Court when shooting parties and such like were in progress. This having been arranged satisfactorily, Mr Wilkes underwent the metamorphosis from a gentleman's gentleman to host of ‘The Pride of Peacocks.'

Very soon the old inn began to thrive again; quietly, of course, since it was no road-house for noisy motorists. But it became well known among a certain select few who enjoyed a peaceful weekend in lovely scenery, and Mr Wilkes' admirable attention to these, together with his wife's considerable knowledge of the culinary art, never caused them to question their Monday morning bill.

Jeremiah had further added to the attraction of the place by stocking a cellar with variety and taste from his lordship's London wine merchant on terms extremely advantageous to himself, and moreover to the added well-being of the neighbourhood. The hideous and childish tyranny of licensing hours never affected him in the least for the simple reason that all his customers were personal friends, including, of course, the magistrates upon the local bench, and had some officious policeman from the town ever questioned the fact that gentlemen were to be found there quite frequently in the middle of the afternoon taking a little modest refreshment, they would have quailed under the astonished and supercilious glance of the good Mr Wilkes, together with the freezing statement that this was no monetary transaction, but the gentlemen concerned were doing him the honour to give him their opinion upon his latest purchase in the way of port.