Chapter Ten
Night Thoughts

“Hatred and vengeance, my external portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution.”

COWPER

For Geoffrey, the afternoon was spent first taking a choir practice, and then in playing Evensong. The choir was as well-trained, and the organ as excellent as he had expected, and no special difficulties arose. The moments of respite afforded by lessons and collects he occupied in considering the account Fen had given him of his interview with Josephine. Even at secondhand, it seemed an appalling business. And Fen had said it was actuated by pure malice and had nothing to do with the murders—though how he could know this Geoffrey was unable to imagine. There remained Dallow to be seen—the affected, slightly epicene little Chancellor who was an expert on witchcraft. What was it Frances had said?—“takes rather more than a scholarly interest in the subject.” There should, at all events, be something of interest and importance here.

Dinner was over before they set out for his house. Fen had spent the afternoon meandering about the countryside in search of insects, and was in high spirits. He walked at his usual exhausting pace, talking incessantly all the while. Josephine had been taken away from Tolnbridge for expert treatment, he said, out of harm’s way.

“She’ll recover all right,” he added. “Though she won’t enjoy herself for the first few weeks. But I shall be interested to discover which of all these people has the sort of mentality which regards the systematic drugging of a child of fifteen as an entertainment.”

Sir John Dallow lived in one of the new, large, expensive villas overlooking the estuary. And no sooner had the servant opened the door than the extreme and depressing fastidiousness of the man became apparent. There was something more, too: the study into which they were shown exhibited tastes so depressingly morbid as to be almost incomprehensible outside a madhouse. A repellent little vampire-sketch by Fuseli hung on one wall; beyond it, an elaborate drawing by Beardsley of the fifth circle of the Dantean inferno; and dominating the whole room, over the fireplace, a meticulous, distorted painting of a torture-scene by an early German master. A bad reproduction of Dürer’s Melancholia, which completed the decorations, did, however, contrive to lend his miniature chamber of horrors a respectable, even a conventional air. The bookshelves were loaded, and as Sir John had not yet put in an appearance, Fen and Geoffrey inspected them fairly thoroughly, and with a growing sense of depression. Certainly there was an almost unparalleled collection of works on witchcraft: the Daemonolatreia of Nicholas Rémy in the original edition of 1595; a modern private printing of the Malleus Maleficarum; Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World; the Sadducismus Triumphatus; and inevitably, all the standard text-books on the subject. But there were also other books which suggested a propensity to enjoy as well as to study the night-side of Nature: Toulet’s scabrous study of sadism, Monsieur du Paur, de Sade’s Justine, and many other recondite volumes of perverted semi-pornography. Fen regarded them thoughtfully.

“At least he doesn’t keep them in cupboards,” he said. “And I somehow fancy that people who enjoy that sort of thing in books never do much harm in real life. The fact that they go to books at all suggests something very like impotence. Still, one never knows.”

In another minute Dallow minced into the room, his wispy white hair straggling chaotically all over his head. “My de-ear Professor! And Mr. Vintner! But this is charming! And I cannot apologise too much for my disgraceful negligence in not being here to greet you. I have been toying—toying—with the most depressing cheese soufflé you ever saw. Nothing more important than that. My foolish woman didn’t tell me you were here. But you must make yourselves at home.”

The furniture was modern and luxurious. Geoffrey sank with some relief into an armchair. Dallow gabbled on:

“But you’ve no idea the life I lead here—so lonely. Visitors are really a treat to me. Mr. Vintner, how did you find the choir?’

“Admirable, thank you,” said Geoffrey “No difficulties at all.”

“Good. Good.” Primly, Dallow folded his hands. “The boys are not what they were in the days when there was a choir-school, of course.”

Probably not, thought Geoffrey, with a headmaster whose reading was de Sade; but perhaps Dallow had been different then.

Fen roused himself from a sort of stupor to say: “We’re making an unofficial enquiry into Butler’s death. Would you care to co-operate?”

“But of course—delighted.” None the less, Dallow’s tone was more guarded now. “How can I help?”

“It’s about your movements.”

“My movements.” Dallow giggled foolishly, crossed and uncrossed his legs, and unnecessarily straightened his tie. “The good Inspector has already examined me on the subject, so you see, I have my story ready. I have an alibi, my dear Professor, for six o’clock. I was here, and talking to my servant, at precisely that hour. But at ten-fifteen—no. I left that foolish meeting and went straight to discuss some business with a local contractor. Unhappily, he was out, and I had my long tramp for nothing. I arrived back here at, I suppose, half past the hour.”

“What hour?”

“But ten—of course.” Dallow twisted his lips into a thin phantom of a smile. “I dined about seven, alone here. At five-fifteen I went down to the hospital to visit Brooks, but they wouldn’t let me see him. That must have been about the time he recovered his reason. It was then, by the way, that the excellent Inspector gave me the clergy-house key to the cathedral to bring back.”

“Ah, yes, there’s a point there. To whom did you return it?’

“Strictly, I suppose, to dear Frances. And she put it back in the vestibule, where normally it hangs. I saw her do it.”

“That seems clear enough. Have you any ideas about Butler’s murder?”

“None,” said Dallow definitely. “Except that it was a blessing we had not dared to hope for.”

“Blessing?” Fen stared. “You disliked him, then?”

“If we are to be candid, my de-ear Professor, I disliked him intensely. The man was a fool—neither scholar, nor artist, nor priest. More accurately, he was nothing, devoid of all talent and interest. And besides, he threw contempt on my studies. Human vanity being what it is, the last is the obvious motive for my detestation of our lamented friend.” Dallow was slightly and absurdly flushed with annoyance.

“And Brooks?”

“Ah, Brooks I liked. He was a musician to his fingertips. He made those boys sing as I have never heard boys sing before. He, my de-ear Professor, was an Artist.” Dallow got up and paced lightly about the room. “O ces voix d’enfants,” he exclaimed, “chantant dans la coupole!”

But Fen waved this Mallarméan ecstasy a trifle brusquely aside. “Why should anyone murder Brooks?’ he enquired.

The Chancellor paused to finger one of three huge orchids in a Chinese vase. “I dare say,” he murmured, “that Butler was responsible.”

“No.”

“As you say.” Dallow resumed his pacing with an elaborate shrug. “Brooks had no enemies that one knew of, Butler, on the other hand, had a great many, myself included. But as to who killed them, I haven’t an idea.”

He was at least frank, thought Geoffrey. But oh, the permutations of frankness and deceit—the double, triple, quadruple bluffs that were possible! Moreover, Dallow was quite intelligent enough to put on an act. The poseur so successfully hides his real self that he makes falsehood difficult to detect; where there is no apparent truth, there can be no obvious lie.

Fen, however, who had little of the traditional persistence of the investigator, was becoming bored. He shuffled his feet impatiently about and shifted the conversational ground. “Is St. Ephraim a revenant?” he asked.

Dallow stared, for the moment uncomprehending. “St. Ephraim?”

“I gather there have been rumours locally about the curious method of Butler’s murder—the tomb.”

Dallow's face fit up with understanding. He suddenly clapped his hands with childish glee. “I see! No, St. Ephraim has never, as far as is known, disturbed the peace of the living. The most active spirit in the neighbourhood is, of course, Bishop John—that excellent ghost.”

Outside, a soft warm rain had begun to fall. Beads of water gathered on the window-pane, joined, parted, joined again. Fen stared abstractedly out at the garden.

Geoffrey looked perplexed. “I wish I knew something more about it.”

“Spitshuker,” said Fen, “told us you could give us some information about the Bishop. The bare fact that he caused a number of unfortunate young women to be burned, we know. But his spirit, it appears, rests uneasily in his odd tomb, and seems likely to be more uneasy still after having it desecrated.”

Dallow was plainly delighted at the turn the conversation had taken. “So the people believe,” he said. “I have heard rumours of it already—and very possibly it is true. The story of why he chose to be buried in Bishop’s Gallery is curious. It seems he could not bear the idea of being, in death, completely enclosed—a sort of posthumous claustrophobia.” Dallow giggled. “The Gallery provided, as it were, an outlet into the world—and not one person, but many, have seen him hovering behind its parapet. He—and a woman.”

The rainclouds were obscuring the light, and the room was darker now. Geoffrey shifted uncomfortably. This was a waste of time, and yet… And yet not for all the world would he have missed hearing more about Bishop John Thurston. He scented mystery. And he was not mistaken.

“The tale,” said Dallow, “is an interesting one. The Bishop was only twenty-five when he came here in 1688. As was so often the case in those days, such positions were obtained by influence, and the suitability or experience of the candidate hardly canvassed at all. Certainly that must have been so in his case. He was a curious problem of a man—an inconsequent mingling of rakehell and Puritan. His father had been one of Cromwell’s men, and had made a late marriage with a woman of good position in a Cavalier family. And there was something of both parents in the boy: the father’s severity and dull moralism; and the mother’s light-headed looseness of character. He went to Eton and then to King’s College, Cambridge, and entered the priesthood at the age of twenty-three. He remained, as was normal in those days, unmarried, but when his parents died and left him considerable means, he was able to buy his sexual pleasures out of a glutted market, and there seems little reason to suppose that he restrained himself in any way. Such, in brief, was his history when he arrived here. I ought perhaps to have said that he was no fool—that he was, in fact, a man of considerable education and ability.”

Dallow was absorbed; his affectation and self-consciousness were gone. It occurred to Geoffrey that he was probably a born romancer; except that this was not fiction…

“Curiously enough,” Dallow went on, “it was not from Thurston that the persecution of the witches began in the first place, but from the townspeople themselves, who saw, or fancied they saw, the black art being carried on in every hole and corner. And there seems little doubt that several covens were operating in the district. Why, one wonders? Why at one particular time and in one particular place? Why in Salem? Why in Bamberg? Why in Tolnbridge? And yet it was so. And recusant priests of the diocese were involved, as it is said they must be, in the celebration of the Black Mass. That brought the ecclesiastical authorities, chief among them Thurston, to the centre of the persecution. Suspicions and accusations multiplied, because the best defence against suspicion of oneself was to accuse another. There’s no evidence that the Bishop, in the first instance, particularly encouraged or enjoyed the proceedings. But soon there came a change.” Dallow paused. Fen was fighting a third cigarette from the end of the second; he seemed more than usually thoughtful.

“You must know,” Dallow continued, “that it was the custom to torture witches in order to extort confessions from them—though it often happened that they confessed without torture. And it was necessary, at least, that the confession should be reaffirmed without torture. But there was slow, methodical flogging and the hot witch’s chair, and thumb-screwing and leg-crushing and hoisting by weights. And it came to be observed that Bishop John Thurston was more frequently—though always unobtrusively—present at these scenes than his office warranted. He was present, too, at the executions, and it was said that it was he who had instituted the custom of burning as opposed to hanging the malefactors. Certainly some extraordinary legal quiddity must have been involved—though I have never succeeded yet in properly discovering what the legal position was—because elsewhere in England witches were invariably hanged and not burned. And one has no means of telling whether or not the imputation was correct. At all events, Bishop John was beginning to read Glanvill, and the Malleus. And one sees how this ready-made, well-sanctified moral issue would appeal to his underlying Puritanism—and how the methods used in dealing with it would appeal to his sensuality. For many of the women were young, and some beautiful. So it was in 1704, the year before he died.”

Dallow went to the cupboard, and took from it one of several thick, leather-bound books. Reverently he opened it, and turned over the pages.

“Here,” he said, “is the Bishop’s personal diary, for the last months of his life.”

Even Fen showed signs of intelligence at this.

“It is,” Dallow continued, “one of the most complete first-hand records of a haunting in existence, and there seems no doubt of its authenticity. The Bishop left orders that the diary was to be destroyed at his death—unread. But such is human curiosity, and so extraordinary was his account of the last months, that it passed into the keeping of the then Chancellor, and so came to me. Mr. Vintner”—Dallow crossed to Geoffrey’s chair—“perhaps you would care to look at it—to read it to us, even. I never tire of hearing the story. And the diary itself gives the whole thing, without any need for commentary. You are not in a hurry, Mr. Fen?”

Fen shook his head, and Dallow gave the book to Geoffrey. It was heavy, and the writing was neat, large, and fastidious. Leaning over Geoffrey’s shoulder, Dallow turned the pages, and at last pointing to an entry:

“You might perhaps begin here.

So Geoffrey read, as the rain hissed softly on to the garden, and the yellow, veiled light of the sun came and went, cloud-driven, across the stiff, thick pages.

“27 Febr. A⁰ 1705. We are advis’d in one of those Sermons of Dr. Donne of St. Paul’s that have so justly been rever’d as sound Doctrine, that the pleasures of the Senses are right to be employ’d insofar as they interpose no veil between the soul and its Maker; that is to say, moderately employ’d. Yet Donne himself was a notorious Rakehell in that earlier part of his life that preceded his reception in the bosom of the Church of Christ, a man of great profligacy and extravagancies, an associate of London whores and conycatchers. If therefore in Youth a man may overtop the limits of moderation and yet be due to Repentance and Charity later defy the pains of Hell, why should I being yet in ye flower of mine age and full of natural energies be hinder’d through exercise of my Holy Office from the relaxations that are everywhere enjoy’d by common men? It is written that even the Sons of God lusted after the daughters of men. True it is that their Desire was Impiety by the disparity in Kind between the Angelic Substance and the bodies of those Jewish Women; but let there be no such disparity, and where is the sin? If we believe, our crimes are expiated as soon as committed.

“Often upon my pillow I think of my youth in London, of the Playhouses and those comedies of Mr Wycherley, and the darkness and the smell of the women’s hair and the gleam of their naked throats; and take out sometimes the Ars Amatoris, to read that Passage that concerns the wooing of a woman in the Playhouse (thus inaccurately paraphrased by Mr. Dryden.) These things for me are past by, but I desire them still. Here I am among Bumkins, having neither Wit nor Grace of body or mind. Their women are like sacks.

“See that this be regularly lock’d away, after perusal.

“4 Mar. Have seen her come twice this week into Matins, most modestly veil’d; but was able to perceive the extraordinary Texture and richness of her Hair.

“6 Mar. I have found that she is nam’d Elizabeth Pulteney, being niece of a woman burn’d last year by my order as a Witch. Her bodily perfection and Grace of carriage argue a higher origin than in that low station to which as I am assur’d she belongs. She is devout, yet there have been accusations against her. Four Women were burn’d this week. The crowds grow less continuously.

“21 Mar. Return’d from the flogging of a woman to extort confession. It was not long. She was stripp’d and beaten with triple knotted thongs of leather. The screams were unusually piercing. I took no pleasure in it, as I should do, were I properly concern’d with the chastening of Satan through this punishment. My thoughts were continually elsewhere.

“26 Mar. Spoke to her this morning for the first time. Her Skin is remarkably soft and fine. She is meek and reverent. I have offer’d her regular spiritual Guidance. She will come to me often now. To chasten that Submissiveness into active pain! But these are idle Fancies.”

(Here Geoffrey omitted a number of entries dealing with the work of the diocese. The next reference to Elizabeth Pulteney was dated April 23rd.)

“Tonight her fourth visit. I stress’d to her the need of Absolute submission to those set in Authority over her, and set her the test of unclothing straightaway before me. She demurr’d greatly and it was long before I persuaded her (by various Means) to do it. Her modesty excited me beyond all caution. Learn’d she is but seventeen years of age, but remarkably well-form’d, and the tresses of her Hair coiling long and golden about her… Milton, in his great religious Poem, tells of the naked beauty of Eve and of her hair. So also Donne in that Elegie.

“She realis’d my purposes early, and seem’d afraid. I twisted the Hair about her throat and pretended to be about to kill her. She is a foolish child, with her talk about being the Bride of Christ. As I said to her, is not the Church Itself that? But the threat of Persecution as a Witch silenc’d her.

“Feel unusually depress’d. The house is over-silent, and it is not good to be alone. Must get to my bed and drive these thoughts and scruples away with recollections of the Pleasure I have had. But first to lock this away downstairs. The house has echoes, and I have always hated the dark. I dare not leave it here. The Servants have long since retir’d.

“13 Aug. All goes well, and I have not had sufficient Leisure to write in here previously. Since I must to myself be honest, I have fear’d to face the doubts which have lain about me. I have reason’d with my self and see no cause for fear in my actions. If I have chasten’d her body, there is Authority and Precedent enough, as in the history of the early Church. She grows very silent and unresponsible, and my interest dies. I shall not see her again. Why do I feel so continuously the enormity of my acts, when Reason itself does not condemn them?

“15 Aug. The worst has happen’d, and she is with child by me. But the threat of burning will keep her silent.

“16 Aug. Met her this day secretly, in the coppice beyond Slatter’s Close. She is recalcitrant, and will own the parent of her child. It seems that even the Threat of torture as a Witch does not deter her. But there is no other course. Her Ravings against me will be held the evidence of demoniac Possession. She is resign’d, as it seems, to penitence and Expiation. Oh, the Follies of these religious women! I would spit upon their hateful Piety.

“23 Aug. The Danger is pass’d. Her accusations against me were as I had anticipated an added condemnation of her self. It was Madness ever to fear that she would be believ’d. Today the thumbscrews to extort Confession. When that fail’d, hoisting by weights. The Confession ready Circumstantial, led me to suppose her in fact a Witch. And what more likely than that the Devil through her employ’d his arts to surprize my steadfastness? I am convinc’d that this is the Truth.

“Throughout her eyes fix’d upon me, though she no longer spoke against me. I do not like the Memory of that.

“29 Aug. Deus misericorde me. Today she bum’d. I thought it might last for ever. Her hair was first shav’d, and burn’d separate. There was some Cavill and Murmuring in the crowd, that the Sergeants were forc’d to employ their Authority in the maintenance of a due silence and respect. Adjur’d to confess publickly, she kept obstinate silence, only as she came by me saying ‘Keep fast your doors against those that will wish to visit you.’ Then was hurried to the Stake, bound, and the Faggots kindl’d. She seem’d little more than a Child.

“I know not what she mean’d by this, but the house is cold, and I were better in bed. Without doubt I acted rightly, and she was a Witch.

“4 Sept. We are cruel punish’d for our Follies, and I, most miserable sinner, with hardest stripes. As I lay in bed last night, the curtains of the bed drawn upon three sides, and the fourth open to admit the light of the candles set upon my table, that fourth curtain (no Person being in the room) was drawn sudden in upon me, when I was left in the darkness.

And some Creature of the Night, moving without, seem’d trying to crawl beneath the curtains, and plucking at the bedclothes, so that I scream’d out loud, and one of the Servants came running, but nothing was there. Had him stay with me the remnant of the night, in great fear and perturbation of mind, with every light burning. Shall see that all doors be fast lock’d but I fear ’twill make no difference. I dare confide in nobody. But, Christ the Lord will protect me against the consequence of my Evil.

“5 Sept. Today went about the house, setting the Pentagram upon the sills and thresholds, after repeating the rite of Exorcism. With these cares, I shall live long and happy. She shall not filch from me the time to expiate my sins. Though the Autumn is cold and windy, the house grows uncomfortably warm. Being just come in from Matins, ask’d one of the servants if he had notic’d this, but he said no. Seeing he seem’d surpriz’d at my appearance, ask’d him the reason. ‘Why sure,’ said he, ‘I thought your Grace was in the Studdy, for not ten minutes hence I heard someone walking to and fro there.’ When I went up no one was there.

“10 Sept. I have seen It for the first time, and pray I may never again. God have mercy on my Soul, and rescue me from the horror. Hell is not Anguish, but Fear, such as this. Tonight late in going to my Chamber, pass’d by the Studdy door, and there saw one of the serving-maids (as I thought) bending to make up the fire. I went in to reprove her for not being retir’d to her own quarters, when the Thing straighten’d suddenly and put its arms about me. I fell to the floor in a Faint, but one of the men happening to be by, came to my assistance, but saw no thing. I cannot write more. Christ, have mercy on me.

“13 Sept. There is Whispering in the town that all is not well here, and Whispering against my own Person. Seven of the servants have left. Burning coals found scatter’d about the library, though there was no fire there. The warmth grows insufferable.

“19 Sept, A servant today found all the hangings of my closet ablaze. The conflagration was hard to extinguish.

“2 Dec. Praise be to God for all His mercies! Two months gone and no Incident, and the heat likewise evaporated. That Devils minion Elizabeth Pulteney sent at last to her right Account. Virtue can command even the Powers of Hell. My mind is at last at rest, and I can apply my self with renew’d vigour to the affairs of the Diocese. God has allow’d this as a Testing of my Faith, and I am emerg’d triumphant. The evil Phantasms are gone.

“3 Dec. I shall not see Christmas. This morning enter’d one of the Sextons to tell me that a woman would see me by the North Transept of the cathedral. Poor fellow, he knew not what manner of thing it was bade him fetch me forth. As I stood looking about me for the Woman, I saw it crouching in the shadow of a buttress. The skin is like parchment, peeling from the Skull, that shows through in white patches. There are no Eyes. The Hair is still beautiful, beautiful. But I must not see it again…”

The writing trailed away. Geoffrey turned on; the rest of the book was blank. There was a long silence. Geoffrey looked enquiringly at Dallow.

“The night of the twenty-fourth,” said the Chancellor softly, “was cold and windy, and on Christmas morning there was snow. They found Bishop John Thurston lying in his bed. There were burns on his face, and he had died of suffocation. There was no sign of a struggle, but his mouth was full of hair.”

Geoffrey closed the book and put it on the table beside him. He made no comment.

“An ugly, frightening tale,” said Fen, who had let his cigarette go out and was now relighting it. “The history of Tolnbridge Cathedral is evidently more lurid than I’d imagined.” He turned to Dallow. “Is there devil-worship in Tolnbridge now? I’ve reason to believe there may be.”

To Geoffrey’s surprise Dallow nodded. “A singularly childish cult of demonolatry exists—in no sense, you understand, a continuation of the tradition, but merely a trumped-up, unspontaneous affair. It appears to give certain people a mild frisson of excitement.”

“I think,” said Fen, who was beginning to fidget and shuffle his feet, “that it may have some remote connection with the murder of Butler. You don’t run it yourself, I suppose? From the contemptuous way in which you referred to it, I should imagine not.”

“You imagine rightly, my de-ear Professor. I have been once or twice to the Black Mass, but much of it was always so incompetent and—if I may use the word—uncanonical, that I have recently discontinued my attendance.”

“You never thought of reporting it to the police? It is illegal, you know.”

“But so harmless! If you could only see the poor dears—” Dallow stopped, glanced at his watch, and suddenly beamed. “Half-past eight. And yesterday was Thursday. Now, does Friday come after or before Thursday? After, isn’t it?”

“Why?” Really, thought Geoffrey, this amiable posturing was a little much.

“Because I think it is on Fridays that they devil-worship. Every Friday—just like a churchwardens’ meeting, my dear sirs. If we were to go to their place of resort we might find them at it. Would you like that?” Dallow might have been organising a Sunday School treat.

“It seems a good idea,” said Fen. “Let’s visit them. But first tell me more. Who runs the racket?”

“My de-ear Professor, I haven’t—I really haven’t—the least notion.”

“You don’t know?” Geoffrey exclaimed.

“It may be the Bishop himself!” Dallow giggled irritatingly, and balanced himself on the tips of his toes, looking for a moment like a drawing by Edward Lear. “Both celebrants and participants are masked, you understand. Identification of your neighbour is made virtually impossible. And that reminds me that we too shall have to be masked.” He went to a cupboard, and took three weird contraptions from it. “Animal masks, you see. Rather beautifully designed. They are of Hindu origin. They will do.” The masks were of a pig, a cow, and a goat.

Fen put on the cow’s mask. His pale blue eyes stared disconcertingly from the eyeholes. Geoffrey took the pig, and Dallow the goat. They surveyed one another without enthusiasm.

“You both look pretty silly,” said Fen. He mooed experimentally, and then, seeming pleased with the sound, did it again. He continued to moo all the way to their destination.

There were times when Fen could be very irritating indeed.

The Black Mass proved to be in progress in an old wooden Scout hut, situated in a deserted spot a little way off the road from Tolnbridge to Tolnmouth. It still bore traces of its former occupancy, in the shape of cardboard beavers, otters, and other amorphous-looking fauna pinned to various parts of the hall, and which stared down at the goat, pig and cow which came and settled themselves at the back. They looked very absurd, but no one took any notice of them.

There were quite a number of people present, all masked, and mostly women. Two masked and black-robed figures pottered ineffectually about by an improvised altar. There was no talking. Presently the business of the evening commenced, and very dull it was. It consisted, as far as Geoffrey could judge, of the ordinary Latin Mass, with the Confiteor and Gloria omitted. Geoffrey, Dallow and Fen made no attempt to communicate, and no one seemed to expect them to. There were no diabolic ecstasies—but then, Geoffrey reflected, there were seldom any noticeable ecstasies at the Divine Mass. There was no human sacrifice, or obscene ritual. Geoffrey had seldom spent a less interesting half-hour. Fen became very fidgety indeed, and could scarcely be restrained from stalking out. Geoffrey wondered how it would end; perhaps they would play God Save the King, or the Doxology, upside down.

Eventually, however, things seemed somehow or other to come to a stop. The Celebrant and Acolyte departed to a room at the back of the hut, and the participants, after a little whispering and sniggering together, melted away into the growing dusk.

“I thought they always had an orgy after the Mass,” complained Fen, removing his mask.

“An orgy.” A trace of humour appeared in Dallow’s voice. He waved a hand at the surroundings. “Hardly the right milieu, do you think? One would require to be very determined indeed to have a satisfactory orgy here.”

The hall, except for themselves, was now completely empty. Geoffrey went to the altar, and examined the Cup and the Host. The latter, he found, was a large section of turnip painted black, apparently with creosote.

“That is traditional,” Dallow explained. “I expect they got it out of a book,” he added contemptuously.

The Cup proved to be a revolting concoction with a basis, it seemed, of quinine.

“Keep them healthy, anyway,” said Fen cheerfully. “I’m going to interview the priests of these rites,” he added, making for the door into the back room.

“Then I shall leave you,” said Dallow pleasantly, “to your investigations. I think you may have difficulty. The rule of secrecy is very strictly observed, and—for obvious reasons—particularly by the Celebrant. However, I wish you luck. You may catch me up—I am a slow walker. In case not, a very good evening to you, with a murderer behind every door.” He giggled, and with a limp wave of the hand left the hut.

Fen turned the handle of the door, and pushed it open. It was ill-fitting and scraped on the floor. They found themselves in a room structurally identical with the one they had just left, only much smaller. It was unfurnished, except for a single cheap table and chair.

The Acolyte had gone, but the Celebrant was unrobing, his back turned towards them. When he heard them come in, he replaced his mask unhurriedly: then faced them.

“Well, gentlemen?” The voice was clearly disguised. But Geoffrey found it impossible to identify the original.

“We hoped to be able to make your acquaintance,” said Fen.

“I’m afraid that that’s impossible. Absolute anonymity is the rule. You yourselves should be masked.”

“That’s rather absurd.”

The Celebrant made a gesture which might have been humorous resignation. What he actually did was to take an automatic from beneath his robes and fire it at Fen.