The_Satanist.pdf

THE SATANIST (V1.0)

DENNIS WHEATLEY

CHAPTER I

A DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT

Colonel Verney's office was on the top floor of a tall building in London. He was sitting

at his desk looking at a photograph of the naked body of a man of about thirty. Dark marks

on the wrists and ankles showed where they had been tightly bound; the head lolled back

and the neck was half severed by a horrible gash from ear to ear. Laying the photograph

down, the Colonel said:

'The Devil's behind this. I'm convinced of it.'

'Several devils, if you ask me, Sir,' replied Inspector Thompson, who was sitting opposite

him. 'Must have been, to have trussed poor Morden up like that before cutting his throat.'

'I didn't say "a devil" but "the Devil" - Lucifer, Satan, or whatever you care to call the

indestructible power of Evil that has sought to destroy mankind ever since the Creation.'

The Inspector had been transferred to the Special Branch only a few months before; so he

did not know much about the work of Colonel Verney's department. Like the other branches

of the Secret Service, its function was to secure information; it never took legal

proceedings. Whenever these were required the case was passed to Special Branch for

action. Morden had been one of Colonel Verney's young men, and Thompson had come over from

Scotland Yard to report on the case. The report was negative as, although it was over a

week since Morden's body had been found in an alley leading down to a Bermondsey dock, the

police had so far failed to secure a clue of any kind to the murder. But Thompson had also

brought with him the results of a second post-mortem held to answer certain specific

questions raised by the Colonel.

Now, he gave a slightly uneasy cough, and said: 'I should have thought it a pretty plain

case, Sir. Morden was after these Communist saboteurs, they rumbled him and knocked him

off. I can't see how the Devil comes into that. Not from the practical point of view,

anyhow. But, of course, if you've got any special theory we'd be only too happy to follow

it up.'

The Colonel shook his head. 'No, I've nothing you could work on, Thompson. I'm about to

brief another man to carry on in Morden's place. He might pick up something, and naturally

your people will continue to check up on all the roughnecks who might have been involved.

We can only hope that one of us will tumble on a lead. Thank you for coming over.'

As the Inspector stood up, the Colonel rose too. He was a rather thin man and tall above

the average, but his height was not immediately apparent on account of a slight stoop. His

hair was going grey, parted in the centre and brushed firmly back to suppress a tendency

to curl at the ends. His face was longish, with a firm mouth and determined chin; but the

other features were dominated by a big aggressive nose that had earned him the nickname of

Conky Bill - or, as most of his friends called him for short, C.B. His eyebrows were thick

and prawn-like. Below them his grey eyes had the quality of seeming to look right through

one. He usually spoke very quietly, in an almost confidential tone, and gave the

impression that there were very few things out of which he did not derive a certain amount

of amusement; but at the moment his thin face was grim.

Having politely seen the Inspector to the door, he paused on the threshold and said to his

secretary in the outer office, 'I'll see Mr. Sullivan now.' Then he returned to his desk.

Barney Sullivan was twenty-eight years of age, and, in contrast to his Chief, made the

most of his five foot nine inches by carrying himself very upright. He was broad-

shouldered, rather round-faced and had a nose that only just escaped being snub. His mouth

was wide, his brown eyes merry, and his hair a mass of short, irrepressible dark curls.

Those merry eyes, a healthy bronzed skin, and his swift movements, showed him to be a

young man endowed with abundant joie de vivre.

As he came in, Verney, now faintly smiling, waved him to the chair the Inspector had

vacated, offered his cigarette case, and asked:

'Well, young feller, how's the world treating you?'

With a word of thanks, Barney took one of C.B.'s specials -they were super-long Virginians

that he smoked occasionally as an alternative to his beloved thin-stemmed pipe - then he

replied.

'Not too badly, Sir. I had a grand run with the Pytchley on my day off last week. We

killed three times, Apart from that, only the usual complaint; too much desk work. I'm

sick of the sight of card-indexes.'

C.B. shrugged. 'Has to be done. Backbone of our job. But I've got something for you that

should mean your being out and about for quite a while. That is, if you care to take it.'

'Orders is orders, Sir.' Barney gave a wide-mouthed grin. 'All that matters is if you

think I'm up to it.'

'I do. Otherwise I wouldn't offer it to you. But I've never yet asked a man to gamble his

life with his eyes shut. The risk involved in this case is far greater than any of us are

expected to take in the normal course of our duties; so I'll not hold it against you if

you say you'd prefer to stick to routine work. Before you reply you'd better take a look

at that.'

Barney picked up the photograph that C.B. pushed across to him, stared at it a moment and

gave a low whistle. 'So that's what happened to poor Teddy Morden! I knew, of course, that

he was dead, but understood that he'd died of a heart attack.'

'We don't broadcast such matters,' remarked the Colonel quietly, 'or even let on about

them in the office to anyone who is not immediately concerned. Now; how about it?'

'I'll play, Sir.' Barney's reply came after only a second's hesitation. 'I hardly knew

Morden, except to pass the time of day with; but he was one of us and I'm game to have a

cut at the swine who did that to him.'

'Good show, Sullivan. I had a hunch that in you I'd picked the right man to carry on from

where Morden left off. The chance of your running down his murderers is pretty slender,

though. The police haven't got a clue. Of course, you might strike a lucky lead but,

anyway, that isn't really your job. I showed you that photograph only so that you should

know the sort of thing to which you will be exposing yourself by stepping into Morden's

shoes .'

C.B. got out his pipe and began to fill it. 'This is top-level stuff. Last December a

high-power meeting was held with the P.M. in be on honest chaps instead of saboteurs being

elected. Get the idea?'

'I certainly do, Sir.'

'Good! Then there's another angle to it. Since the war, Britain has been fighting for her

life economically. Industry has done marvels in increasing our exports, and the Government

did a wonderful job a while back in saving the pound. But the country has been

deliberately robbed of a big part of the benefit it should have derived from these

stupendous efforts.'

'By unofficial strikes,' hazarded Barney.

'You've said it, my lad. In the past ten years they've cost the country untold millions,

and at times thrown as many as a hundred thousand people, who had no part in the dispute,

out of work for several weeks. It's their repercussions that prove so costly and there

seems no way of altering the pattern they follow. A group of Reds get a dispute going on

some little point of procedure in a small plant where they have control. The installing of

a new machine, or an alteration in schedule to improve efficiency, is all they need to

start an argument. They persuade one category of workers that it may lead to their getting

smaller pay-packets, or cause redundancy, so they down tools. If it ended there that

wouldn't be a very serious matter. But it doesn't. The agitators get busy with the cry

that a threat to one category of workers is a threat to all, and out come other categories

in sympathy. Yet even that is not the worst. After a week or two the stoppage in that

factory begins to affect others. Nine times out of ten the thing it is making is not a

finished article, but a part or material essential for putting the completed product on

the market. That means far bigger plants have to put their hands on short time, or are

brought to a standstill.

'It's time everyone realized that every man who joins a strike that has not the approval

of his Union is a Public Enemy; because these wildcat stoppages eat into profits like rats

into corn, and profits mean taxes. If it had not been for all this downing of tools

without real justification, by now we could have doubled old-age pensions and child

allowances, and had a shilling off the income-tax into the bargain.'

'Bejesus, you're right, Sir!' The touch of Irish slipped out owing to Barney's spontaneous

agreement. 'Look at that B.O.A.C. strike. It must have cost the country millions; and

largely because the men let themselves be carried away by the brilliant oratory of Sid

Maitland - in spite of the fact that, according to the Press, he openly declared himself

to be a Communist. They just wouldn't listen to Jim Matthews but howled him down, and when

he tried to get them to accept the Union's ruling and rely on its negotiations they called

him a traitor. It's a shocking state of things when they won't be guided by their own

Union officials.'

'That's what is giving the responsible Labour leaders such a headache. For the past year

or so they have been doing their utmost both to oust the Communists from key positions in

the Unions and to get a firmer control over the shop stewards. But it is uphill work,

because it lays them open to accusations of attempting to browbeat the workers and of

being secretly in league with the Tory government; and it is difficult for them to

convince the rank and file that they are not.'

'Yes, I see that. They're between the devil and the deep blue sea; and owing to the size

of the Unions it is impossible for their top men to keep in personal touch with all their

tens of thousands of members. That is where the shop stewards have such a pull.'

The Colonel nodded. 'True enough. But don't run away with the idea that all the shop

stewards are bad hats. The great majority of them are good chaps doing a very valuable job

of work maintaining good relations between the management and their mates. The trouble is

that the bad ones are in a position to do an immense amount of damage by formenting these

wildcat strikes. Those are the boys we want to get the low-down on; so that we can expose

them and help the T.U.C. in its big campaign to purge the British Labour movement of

Russian influence.'

'And where do I come in on this, Sir?' Barney asked.

Again C.B.'s voice sank to a conspiratorial low. 'Sinews of war, young fellow. That's our

line of attack. Men who come out unofficially don't get strike pay. Yet some of these

unofficial strikes go on for months. Meantime the strikers have got to live and feed their

families. How do they do it? We know the answer to that one. At least we know it to apply

in some cases, and have good reason to suppose that it applies in many more. They are

given enough cash to keep going on the side from secret funds controlled by the Reds.'

'Don't some of the better types query where it comes from?'

'Those who do are told that it is from subscriptions raised among sympathizers.'

'But, in fact, it comes from Moscow.'

'For such considerable sums, that seems the only possible source of origin. One of

Russia's prime objects is to disrupt our industry, in order to create the unemployment and

discontent which always results in the spread of Communism; so they could hardly spend

their money to better purpose. Yet the fact remains that we have failed to uncover any

link between the leaders of these unofficial strikes and any of the Iron Curtain country

Embassies, or any other Soviet-controlled set-up.'

'Quite a number of the top Reds go to Russia from time to time, Sir.'

'Yes, and although they give out that they go there only for a holiday, I don't doubt they

return with plenty of ideas that don't do British industry much good; but they could not

bring back any considerable sums of money with them - not without our knowing about it.'

'And you want me to try to find out the source of supply?'

'That's it; then we could think up some way of cutting it off.' C.B. pulled at his pipe

for a moment, then said with a change of tone, 'Now, a word about yourself. What led you

to join this outfit?'

Barney grinned. 'I was broke. My creditors in Dublin had made Ireland too hot to hold me.

I decided that I'd got to take a steady job, but I knew that I'd never settle down to a

humdrum office routine. It had to be something that would provide me with a bit of

excitement now and then, and my uncle, General Sir Geoffrey Frobisher, got me in here.'

'So that was it, eh! Of course, I knew that old "Frosty" Frobisher had vouched for you,

and looking up your file the other day reminded me that you are the Earl of Larne. How

come that you have never used your title?'

'Well, it was this way, Sir. I've practically no family, only my mother's brother, the

General. Both my parents died when I was quite young and he became my guardian. He did

very little about it, though; but I can't really blame him for that. I lived in Ireland

and he lived in England. During most of the time I was at school he was up to his eyes in

the war. Then for the greater part of the next six years he was stationed abroad - doing

tours of duty in the Middle East, then in Germany. No one else had any right to call me to

account, so I'm afraid my high spirits led to my becoming rather a bad hat. I got sent

down from Trinity for leading a pretty hectic rag, but I had quite a generous allowance

and plenty of friends. The fathers of several of those with whom I used to stay in the

holidays reared bloodstock, and I've always been good with horses; so I naturally

gravitated to that as a means of earning a living. I won quite a few steeplechases and

received handsome presents from the owners. But it was a case of easy come easy go, and

most of what I made over the sticks I lost by backing losers on the flat.

'Thanks, Sir.' Barney took another of C.B.'s long cigarettes, lit it and went on. 'They

were an expensive crowd to live with, too, so I was soon up to my eyes in debt. But I was

in my last year at the University when I was sent down, and becoming twenty-one a year

later saved me from disaster. My father didn't leave me a fortune, only a few thousands,

and if I'd had any sense I should have pulled up then. As it was, like a young ass, I

started to really hit up the town. What with the gee-gees, the girls, and throwing

expensive parties, I got through the lot in a couple of years.'

'You would have been twenty-three by then. That's about the time you came into the title,

isn't it?’

'Yes, Sir. But I had never expected to. When my father died there were seven people

between myself and the Earldom, and we didn't even know that branch of the family. One was

drowned in 1939, two more were killed in the war, and another met his death while climbing

in Switzerland in 1951. That still left three; the late Lord Larne and his two sons. They

had lived in Kenya since before the war, so I'd never met any of them and never gave them

a thought until one day in 'fifty-four. I learned then that all three had crashed in their

private plane and been killed.'

'Didn't you come into any money with the title?'

'No. The place in Ireland had been sold way back in the 'twenties, and all the money Lord

Larne left went to his widow, who still lives in Kenya. All I came into were the heirlooms

-some good family silver and a few pictures - but unfortunately they weren't worth much.'

'What happened then?'

'The General sent for me. I came clean with him about my debts in Dublin and he said some

pretty caustic things to me; but, by and large, he behaved extremely well. He declared

that as I came of an ancient and honourable family, I was under a definite obligation not

to disgrace the title; that if I took it up, it would certainly lead to my continuing to

mix with people whose style of life I could not afford, and that, in any ordinary job, it

could only prove a handicap to me. Therefore, he argued, I ought not to use it until I had

lived down my raffish past. By then I had realized that if I did not turn over a new leaf

I was riding for a really nasty fall; so I agreed to forget the Earldom for the time

being, leave Ireland, and make a fresh start. He said that if I'd do that and promise to

go straight for five years before using my title, he would pay my debts and make me an

allowance of £300 a year until I got on my feet.'

'So that was the way of it.'

'Yes. Then we talked about all sorts of jobs and eventually he hit on the idea of getting

me in here. That appealed to me more than going off to one of the Dominions or into

industry. I went back to Dublin, hardened my heart about saying good-bye to any of my

friends so as not to have to lie to them about my future plans, packed up my things and

simply told my landlady that I was going to the United States. I imagine my sudden

disappearance was no more than a nine days' wonder, and I've never been back there since.

Naturally I missed the hectic parties, the racing, the girls and the champagne for a bit,

but I soon became so intrigued by the work here that I didn't miss them any more; and I

can never be sufficiently grateful to the General for what he did for me.'

C.B.'s long face broke into its most friendly smile. 'Yes, he certainly did the right and

handsome thing by you; but you've yourself to thank even more for having the guts to snap

out of the sort of life you had been living for so long. About this title of yours,

though? The five years are nearly up, aren't they?’

'Yes; only another three months to go.'

'Do you propose to use it then?'

'No, I don't think so. Having a title these days doesn't get one anywhere. It only costs

money and I'm not all that well off. I might if I married though, as the girl would

probably like it, so it wouldn't be fair to her not to.'

'Are you thinking of getting married?'

Barney grinned. 'No, Sir. I prefer to love them all a little bit.'

'Good. You're wrong, though, about a title never getting a man anywhere. There are times

when it can be very useful, and that might well prove the case, in certain circumstances,

during the course of this job I'm putting you on.'

'What! While I'm posing as a Red among manual workers and technicians?' Barney opened his

brown eyes wide in surprise. 'Surely not?'

'That will be your role for most of the time, of course, but there may turn out to be

another angle to the business. I'm not telling you about that at present, because it is

only a theory of my own and I don't want to start you off with preconceived ideas that

might both warp your judgment and be wrong. But if at any time you do feel that the use of

your title might help to open a door to you, use it. I'll take the responsibility for your

breaking your promise to the General and, if need be, square matters with him.'

'Very well. That's O.K. by me, Sir.'

C.B. pushed a thick file across the desk, and said: 'Here is all the dope we've got so

far. Take it to your office and spend the next two or three days going through it very

thoroughly. Naturally I have a dozen other members of the firm hard at it, ferreting out

the pasts of various' fellow-travellers, attending meetings, checking figures, and

generally gathering information, but you'll be the only one to be planted on the inside in

London as a real red-hot Red. Your line will be that you've just come over from Ireland.

We'll provide you with all the background stuff - a Party card, membership cards of half-

a-dozen Unions, and a list of the most promising branches at which to use them. Don't

start anything until you have mastered that file, and when you have, let me know. Can I

take it that you are clear on what I want you to do?'

'Yes, Sir. I've to get you all I can on the methods used by Communists to become officials

in the Unions, about rigged elections and where the money comes from to finance unofficial

strikes.'

'You've got it, young feller. Good luck to you.'

'Thank you, Sir.' Barney Sullivan tucked the file under his arm and, with his cheerful

face more serious than usual, left the room.

As Barney went out, Verney again picked up the photograph of Morden's body. With set mouth

he stared at it while thinking of the points that had emerged from the second autopsy, for

which he had asked.

Morden's ankles had been lashed together, but his wrists had not; they had been lashed

separately to thick pieces of wood or iron. The marks of the cords that had bound his

ankles did not make a straight line; they made a V pointing towards the feet, as though

pressure had been exerted between them to drag the cords down where they met in the

middle. Immediately below the point of the V there was severe bruising of both ankles, as

though a thick stake, or peg, had been thrust between them. There had been no blood on the

body when it was found, so obviously it had been washed after Morden's throat had been

cut; but the second autopsy had revealed that while there was no trace of blood on

Morden's body, there were still tiny particles of blood under his eyelids and in his hair.

Inspector Thompson had been aware that Colonel Verney had given most of his time before

the last war to checking up on the activities of Fascists, and that since the war he had

given most of it to checking up on those of Communists. What the Inspector had not known

was that, as C.B. was responsible for keeping tabs on all groups which might be engaged in

any anti-social activity, it had included a number of secret societies that practised

Black Magic. The knowledge that he had gained of such matters was, therefore,

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