Dennis Wheatley
THE IRISH WITCH
ARROW BOOKS
ARROW BOOKS LTD 3 Fitzroy Square, London Wi
An imprint of the Hutchinson Publishing Group
London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Wellington Johannesburg Cape Town and agencies throughout the world
First published by Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd 1973 Arrow edition 1975
© Dennis Wheatley Limited 1973
This book is published at a net price and supplied subject to the Publishers Association Standard Condition of Sale registered under
the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956
Made and printed in Great Britain by The Anchor Press Ltd Tiptree, Essex
isbn o 09 910440 7
For
Pat and Marise Derwent A small appreciation of their many kindnesses to Joan, myself and the children
Contents
1 Only a Few Days from Home 9
2 A Bitter Blow 20
3 A Lovers' Quarrel 28
4 The New Hell Fire Club 37
5 A Tangled Skein 66
6 The End of the Road 85
7 Disaster 103
8 News out of Portugal 121
9 The Power of the Frog 135
10 Plot to Supplant a Rival 158
11 Home Again! Home Again! 169
12 Seen in a Crystal 185
13 To Go, or not to Go 199
14 The Greatest Statesman of His Age 223
15 The War Reopens 242
16 A Hideous Affray 256
17 The Battle of the Nations 267
18 Fate Strikes Again 285
19 The House with the Red Shield 307
20
In the Toils Once More
321
21
The Last Campaign
338
22
Un Cri de Cceur
355
23
Lost, Stolen or Strayed
369
24
Blackmail
390
25
Render unto Satan
414
Epilogue
443
I
Only a Few Days from Home
On the last morning of the year 1812, in the chapel of the Royal Castle, Stockholm, Roger Brook married a girl he had first met nearly two years earlier. She had then been Lady Mary Ware.
When Roger had first become acquainted with his new wife she had been staying at the British Legation in Lisbon as the guest of the Minister's niece, who had been one of her friends at school. Lady Mary was an orphan with no close relatives, and very little money; for her father had been far from rich, and the greater part of his income was entailed so had gone with the Earldom to a distant cousin. Although no great beauty, little Mary had a piquant charm, and Roger had found her both intelligent and amusing. But he had not had the faintest intention of marrying her.
That was not because she lacked fortune and influence, as he had ample of both himself; and, when, having fallen desperately in love with him, she had plucked up the courage to ask him to make her his wife, he had told her gently that it would be disastrous for them to marry, because, for one thing, he was of an incurably roving disposition and, for another, as she was then only eighteen and he was just over forty, he was much too old for her..
But he had come to Portugal only to collect a legacy and, in fact, when he got home, intended to settle down for good; for he had high hopes of at last within a few years, marrying his adored Georgina, with whom he had been in love all his life. She had returned his love, ever since their teens; but a great part of his life, as Mr. Pitt's most resourceful secret agent, had had to be spent abroad, and it was not until the death of her last husband, the Baron von Haugwitz, that she had been free to agree to marry him.
Yet. alas, things had gone woefully wrong. In his second identity as Colonel Comte de Breuc, one of Napoleon's A.D.C.s, he had again got caught up in the Emperor's affairs and sent to Germany. In Berlin he had been falsely accused of the murder of Von Haugwitz, and condemned to death. A reprieve had led instead to several months in prison, but meanwhile Georgina had had seemingly incontestable evidence that he had been executed. Desperately distressed, and no longer caring what became of her, the beautiful Georgina had agreed to gratify the vanity of the old Duke of Kew by becoming his Duchess.
On Roger's escape and return to England, grieved beyond measure as the two life-long lovers were by this situation, they at least had the consolation that the Duke was in his mid-seventies and an habitually heavy drinker, which made it highly probable that, within two or three years at most, Georgina would again be a widow.
Alas for their hopes! When Roger got back from Portugal, he learned that the old Duke had had a stroke. Copious bleedings by his doctors had failed to revive or kill him, and his consumption of alcohol was now strictly limited. So the final opinion of the doctors was that he might, as a paralysed vegetable, live on into his nineties.
Faced now with the possibility that, for years to come, the lovers would be able to enjoy each other's company only when Georgina came up to London for the season, and for a few odd nights during the rest of the year, Georgina had urged Roger to marry again. He had been averse to doing so, but after a few months living on his own at Thatched House Lodge in Richmond Park—a grace and favour residence of which Mr. Pitt had given him a life tenancy—he had become so bored that he had agreed to go on a secret mission to the Crown Prince Bernadotte of Sweden. Bernadotte had persuaded him to go on as his emissary to the Czar, and that had led to his once more becoming involved with Napoleon, then in Moscow.
It was in October 1812 that, to Roger's amazement, he had again run into Mary, in St. Petersburg. On her return to London from Lisbon having no social background and very little money; she had married a merchant in the Baltic Trade, named Wicklow, and went to live in the City with him. Napoleon's Continental System had damaged British trade with Russia so severely that Mr. Wicklow was one of many who got into financial difficulties. As a last resort he had sold his house and possessions in London and, taking Mary with him, sailed on a final venture with goods for St. Petersburg. In the Gulf of Helsingfors his ship had been wrecked and he lost everything. After living on his wits for a while in the Russian capital, he had committed suicide, l...
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