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society; so ran the legend, and two burly
sergents de ville, with fixed bayonets and
cocked revolvers lying on the table before
them, superintended the revels. For in fact
Douglas had perceived that the apache
spent no money, and that it would pay
better to run the cellar as a show place for
Americans, Cockneys, Germans, and country
cousins from the provinces on a jaunt to
Paris, on the hunt for thrills. No one more
dangerous than a greengrocer had crossed
that threshold for many a long year, and the
visible Apaches, drinking and swearing,
dancing an alleged can-can and occasionally
throwing bottles and knives at each other,
were honest folk painfully earning the
exiguous salary which the "long firm" paid
them.
But beneath this cellar, unknown even to
the police, was a vault which had once
served for storing spirits. It was below the
level of the river; rats, damp, and stale
alcohol gave it an atmosphere happily
peculiar [266] to such abodes. There is no
place in the world more law-abiding than a
house of ill-fame, with the light of police
supervision constantly upon it; and the
astuteness of the sorcerer in choosing this
for his place of evocation was rewarded by
complete freedom from disturbance or
suspicion. Any one could enter at any hour
of day or night, with every precaution of
secrecy, without drawing more than a laugh
from the police on guard.
The entrance to the sorcerer's den was
similarly concealed -- by cunning, not by
more obvious methods.
A sort of cupboard-shelf, reached by a
ladder from the dancing cellar and by a few
steps from one of the bedrooms in the
house above, was called "Troppman's
refuge," it being said that that celebrated
murderer once had lain concealed there for
some days. His autograph, and some bad
verses (all contributed by an ingenious
cabaret singer) were shown upon the walls.
It was therefore quite natural and
unsuspicious for any visitor to climb up into
that room, which was so small that it would
only hold one man of average size. His non-
reappearance would not cause surprise; he
might have gone out the other way; in fact,
he would naturally do so. But in the
moment of his finding himself alone, he
could, if he knew the secret, press a
hidden lever which caused the floor to
descend bodily. Arrived below, a corridor
with three right-angled turns -- this could,
incidentally, be flooded at need, in a few
moments, -- led to the last of the defences,
a regular door such as is fitted to a strong
room. There was an emergency exit to the
cellar, equally ingenious; it was a sort of
torpedo-tube opening beneath the water of
the Seine. It was fitted with a compressed
air-chamber. Any one wishing to escape had
merely to introduce himself into a shell
made of thin cork, and shoot into the river.
Even the worst of swimmers [267] could be
sure to reach the neighbouring quay. But
the secret of this was known only to Douglas
and one other.
The very earliest steps in such
thoroughgoing sorcery as Douglas practised
require the student to deform and mutilate
his humanity by accustoming himself to such
moral crimes as render their perpetrator
callous and insensible to all such emotions
as men naturally cherish; in particular,
love. The Black Lodge put all its members
through regular practices of cruelty and
meanness. Guy de Maupassant wrote two of
the most revolting stories ever told; one of
a boy who hated a horse, the other of a
family of peasants who tortured a blind
relative that had been left to their charity.
Such vileness as is written there by the
divine hand of that great artist forbids
emulation; the reverent reference must
suffice.
Enough to say that stifling of all natural
impulse was a preliminary of the system of
the Black Lodge; in higher grades the pupil
took on the manipulation of subtler forces.
Douglas' own use of his wife's love to
vitriolize her heart was considered by the
best judges as likely to become a classic.
The inner circle, the fourteen men about
Douglas himself and that still more
mysterious person to whom even he was
responsible, a woman known only as "Annie"
or as "A.B.", were sealed to him by the
direst of all bonds. Needless are oaths in
the Black Lodge; honour being the first
thing discarded, their only use is to frighten
fools. But before joining the Fourteen,
known as the Ghaaghaael, it was obligatory
to commit a murder in cold blood, and to
place the proofs of it in the hands of
Douglas. Thus each step in sorcery is also a
step in slavery; and that any man should put
such power in the hands of another, no
matter for what hope of gain, is one of the
mysteries [268] of perverse psychology. The
highest rank in the Lodge was called
Thaumiel-Qeretiel, and there were two of
these, "Annie" and Douglas, who were alone
in possession of the full secrets of the
Lodge. Only they and the Fourteen had keys
to the cellar and the secret of the
combination.
Beginners were initiated there, and the
method of introducing them was
satisfactory and ingenious. They were taken
to the house in an automobile, their eyes
blinded by an ordinary pair of motor-
goggles, behind whose glass was a steel
plate.
The cellar itself was arranged as a
permanent place of evocation. It was a far
more complex device than that used by
Vesquit in Naples, for in confusion lay the
safety of the Lodge. The floor was covered
with symbols which even the Fourteen did
not wholly understand; any one of them,
crossed inadvertently, might be a magical
trap for a traitor; and as each of the
Fourteen was exactly that, in fact, had to
be so to qualify for supreme place, it was
with abject fear that this Unholy of Unholies
was guarded.
At the appointed hour Mr. Butcher
presented himself at the Count's apartment,
was furnished with the necessary
spectacles, and conducted to the Beth Chol,
or House of Horror, as the cellar was called
in the jargon of the Sorcerers.
Balloch, Cremers, Abdul Bey and the
wife of Douglas were already present.
The first part of the procedure consisted
in the formal renunciation by Mrs. Douglas
of the vows taken for her in her baptism, a
ceremonial apostacy from Christianity. This
was done in no spirit of hostility to that
religion, but to permit of her being
rebaptized into it under Lisa's maiden name.
The Turk was next called upon to renounce
Islam, and baptized by the name of the
Marchese la Giuffria.
The American priest next proceeded to
confirm [269] them in the Christian religion,
and to communicate the Sacrament.
Finally, they were married. In this long
profanation of the mysteries of the Church
the horror lay in the business-like simplicity
of the procedure.
One can imagine the Charity of a devout
Christian finding excuses for the Black Mass,
when it is the expression of the revolt of an
agonizing soul, or of the hysteria of a half-
crazed debauchee; he can conceive of
repentance and of grace following upon
enlightenment; but this cold-blooded abuse
of the most sacred rites, their quite casual
employment as the mere prelude to a crime
which is tantamount to murder in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]