C. B. watched the performance with detached interest, pulled on his pipe, and said with a suggestion of a smile, `It's no good swearing at me; and cursing de Grasse can do your case nothing but harm.'
At his quiet words the Canon's fury subsided as swiftly as it had arisen. He took a gulp of his drink and muttered, `You are right. This is no fault of yours, and curses should be used only with solemn intent.'
`Exactly; so if you are hoping that de Grasse may yet pull the chestnuts out of the fire for you, it's silly to hamper his efforts with even the most casual vibrations of ill wishing.'
Copely Syle gave him a half furtive glance, and asked, `What do you know of such matters?'
`Oh, quite a bit.' C. B. shrugged the question aside. Having sown the seed, and feeling that enough had now passed between them for him to begin his probe without arousing suspicion, he said, `I can understand your being annoyed at young Fountain having thrown a spanner in the works; but surely the girl being temporarily in prison scarcely justifies your getting into such a tizzy? The odds are that she'll be out before the end of the week; then de Grasse's boys should have little trouble in collecting her for you.'
`The end of the week!' Copely Syle threw up his plump hands and the little veins in the whites of his eyes became suffused with blood from the intensity of his annoyance. `That's no good! No earthly good! This matter is one of the utmost urgency. Surely I cannot have failed to make that plain to de Grasse?'
C. B. felt that he was getting warm, and nodded with becoming solemnness. `Yes, I feel sure you did. That must be why he was so upset this morning. Of course, I'm not in on this thing, except as an old friend whom he knew he could trust to bring you an account of what has happened to date. I know only the bare outline of the affair merely that you are anxious to get this young woman back to England. But why the frantic haste?'
`Because to day is the 4th. I must have her here by the 6th.'
`Can't you possibly rearrange your plans so that a few days' delay won't make any difference?'
`You might as well suggest that I should attempt to stop the stars in their courses,' snapped the Canon. `The 6th of March is her birthday. At nine forty five that evening she comes of age. If she is not under my control by then the hopes that I have cherished for years will be dashed.'
`Oh, I see; this is a family affair and a case of a young woman having kicked over the traces,' remarked C. B., deliberately misunderstanding. `Naturally, then, you are anxious to have her back in time to bury the hatchet on her twenty first birthday. May I ask what relationship she bears you?'
`None; but I have known her since birth, and am, in a sense, her guardian.'
`Has she given you this sort of trouble before, or behaved like a flighty type generally?'
`On the contrary. She has lived a very retired life, and shown no inclination to do otherwise.'
The quiet indifference of C.B.’s tone when he made his next remark did much to lessen its impertinence. `Then, as she didn't run away with a man, there's some hope of her still being a virgin?'
The Canon's pale eyes narrowed a trifle and he said quickly, `What leads you to speculate on that?'
`The thought automatically came into my mind that a combination of three times seven years and virginity have immense mystical significance. In fact, there is no state which even approaches its tremendous potence for good or evil; and that if ... But no, this is your affair and nothing to do with me.'
`If what?’ the Canon insisted.
`Why, that if the hesitant manner in which you admit your guardianship of this young woman is due to your status being unofficial; er like, shall we say, one who prefers to remain in shadow. ..'
Copely Syle had slowly risen to his feet. As he did so he seemed to increase in stature. His plump face lost all trace of babyishness. It looked old now, but extraordinarily strong and menacing. Suddenly he burst out harshly:
`You have said either too much or too little. Explain yourself, or it will be the worse for you.'
C.B.’s work brought him into touch with all types of tough customers; so, although he knew that he was on exceptionally dangerous ground, he remained outwardly imperturbable, and even smiled slightly as he replied
`Hold your horses, Canon. There's nothing to get excited about. I thought I had made it clear that I'm not one of de Grasse's thugs, and that our association is simply that of two people who have been of use to one another from time to time. You have no need to fear that he suspects the reason for your interest in the girl and may start trying to blackmail you. I shouldn't have suspected it myself but for what you've just told me and the fact that, although you may not remember it, we've met before.'
`Have we? Where?'
`I can't remember exactly, but I know it was with Aleister Crowley.'
`That charlatan! I hardly knew him.'
With the object of passing himself off as a brother initiate in the Black Art, C. B. had risked a shot in the dark. He had felt confident that anyone of Copely Syle's age and interests must have come into contact with the infamous Crowley at one time or another, and, although the Canon's reactions were disappointing, he could not now go back on his statement. To get on firmer ground, he began to reminisce about the dead magician.
`If you had known Aleister as well as I did, you certainly wouldn't dub him a charlatan. Of course in his later years he couldn't have harmed a rabbit; everyone knew that. The poor old boy degenerated into a rather pathetic figure, and was reduced to sponging on all and sundry in order to keep body and soul together. But when he was a young man it was a very different story. He unquestionably had power, and there were very few things of this world that he could not get with it. Even as an undergraduate he showed how far advanced he was along the Left Hand Path. You must have heard about the Master of John's refusing to let him put on a bawdy Greek play, and how he revenged himself. He made a wax image of the master and took it out to a meadow one night with some friends when the moon was at the full. They formed the usual circle and Crowley recited the incantation. He was holding the needle and meant to jab it into the place that was the equivalent of the image's liver, but at the critical moment one of his pals got the wind up and broke the circle. Crowley's hand was deflected and the needle pierced the image's left ankle. That was a bit of luck for the master of John's. Instead of dying of a tumor on the liver, he only slipped and broke his left ankle when coming down the college steps next day. Up to then Crowley's friends had regarded the whole business as a joke spiced with a vague sort of wickedness; but afterwards they were scared stiff of him, and naturally they were much too impressed to keep their mouths shut; so the facts are known beyond any shadow of doubt.'
Copely Syle shrugged slightly. `Of course, it's perfectly possible, ,and I do remember hearing about it now. But the story can be no more than hearsay as far as you are concerned. You are much too young to have been up at Cambridge with Crowley.'
`Oh yes. I didn't meet him till years later, when he was in middle life and at the height of his powers.' After pausing for a moment C. B. added the glib lie, `I was initiated by him at the Abbaye de Thelema.'
`Really? I was under the impression that Crowley did no more than use his reputation as a mystic to lure young neurotics there, and kept the place going as a private brothel for his own enjoyment.'
`Most of its inmates were young people, and as the whole of his teaching was summed up in “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” a state of general promiscuity naturally followed from it. New brothers and sisters soon lost their shyness, and after that he had little difficulty in persuading them to participate in sexual orgies when the stars were propitious for the performance of special rites. But you can take it from me that he knew his stuff, and that the perversions practised under his auspices were only a means to an end. You must know as well as I do that certain types of Satanic entity feed upon the emanations given out by humans while engaged in the baser forms of eroticism. As far as Crowley was concerned the orgies were simply the bait that lured such entities to the Abbaye and enabled him to gain power over them.'
The Canon had sat down again. He now appeared deeply interested as he said, `You are really convinced that he conducted Satanic rituals with intent, and not merely performed some mumbo jumbo as an excuse to possess a series of young women?'
`Each of his rituals was performed with a definite intention. Of that I am certain, and I know that many of them produced the desired result. He always insisted on everyone present behaving with the greatest solemnity, and when celebrating pagan rites he was most impressive.
He could even render the receiving of the osculam in fame
a gesture of some dignity, and his memory was prodigious; so he experienced no difficulty at all in reciting the lines of the Roman communion backwards.'
`In Christian countries there are few ceremonies more potent than the Black Mass; but from my memory of him I am much surprised to learn from you that he ever proved capable of celebrating that mystery.'
`I have never seen it better done,' C. B. averred seriously. `Although, of course, he was not able to fulfill the
