The House of Lost Souls - F. G. Cottam [112]
‘It was unimportant, Nicholas.’
‘Tell us anyway. Knowledge is power.’
Lascalles smiled. ‘Faith, my son,’ he said, ‘is power.’
‘Nevertheless.’
The smile twitched on the priest’s face in mellow firelight. The flames from the grate were fading in their fierceness now. But Lascalles’ expression showed that his memory burned bright and undiminished. ‘His dugout was sturdily revetted. There was a cot with an army blanket, the card table between us and the chairs we sat in. He had books on one of two shelves. Cans of bully beef and coffee and his whisky bottle sat on the other. In the corner, on an upturned packing case, was a Victrola phonogram. In other circumstances, the scene might have seemed almost what you English describe as cosy. But even without the other factors present, the pervasive smells of cordite and lice powder, and the small breach in the roof planking from a recent mortar attack, would have prevented that smug illusion. And something else. Something shared the table he sat at, next to the cards displayed from his pack. It was a Webley revolver, the grips missing and the cylinder torn out of it. He must have been wearing the weapon when he was hit. There it lay, like some skeletal relic, mute proof of the power of an explosion no one mortal could have survived.
‘I wore the uniform of a captain during my secondment during the war. On entering Wheatley’s quarters, I had taken off my cape. There had been no invitation to do so. But I had been anxious to occupy as much of my subject’s time as possible. Anyway, the garment was hung on a peg. As I rose to put it back on, Wheatley did not, as would have been common courtesy among men of his rank, rise with me. He stayed slumped in his chair. Abruptly, the Victrola began to play.’
Seaton said, ‘Do you remember the music, Father?’
‘I recognised it instantly. I did so despite my incredulity. You must remember that, in 1917, gramophones were very primitive contrivances. Certainly they did not possess the capability to turn themselves on.’
‘What was the music?’
‘An obscure song by a Vatican composer, written in praise of the Almighty, rightly infamous as one of the few songs recorded by the last surviving castrato.’
Seaton said, ‘Did it sound normal?’
The priest scoffed. ‘If a castrato ever sounded normal. And then for a few bars only. The melody became corrupted by a sort of syncopation. I was fastening the collar of my cape, effecting to ignore this sinister pastiche. Satan’s little joke, you see. Choral music corrupted into what even I recognised as the American craze. It was music meant to be sacred, played as ragtime.’
Mason looked up at Lascalles. ‘You’ve been an adversary of the devil for a long time,’ he said.
But Lascalles did not comment on the observation. Instead he said, ‘Are you not curious about your baptism?’
‘I think I’ve guessed most of it. When my father was trading in Africa, I think he became involved in magic. Juju. Powerful magic. It’s why the house by the sea he bought in Whitstable is not the safe sanctuary from disturbance Paul thinks it ought to be. I think you saved my soul and I expect my father was grateful. But you believed he passed something to me. Let’s call it a capability. I think you have followed my career. Christ alone knows what influence was put to use to enable you to do it, but that’s what you’ve done. And I think what happened with the Kheddi was a sort of audition. You summoned me there. It was your little test.’
‘Not mine. Yours. And you passed it.’
‘Bullets killed the Kheddi, Father.’
‘Bullets fired from your gun. It was not bullets that destroyed the demon, Nicholas. You did that.’
‘I’m not as good at guessing games as Nicholas is,’ Seaton said. ‘I haven’t had the same expert grounding in subterfuge as our intrepid soldier boy. I can’t guess who Malcolm Covey is. Or what part he really plays in all this. I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me.’
Lascalles looked at him. And Seaton felt a flush of embarrassment. Absurdly,