The Devil Rides Out Read Free Page B

must come up one night and we’ll watch a few stars together.’ Something of the old warmth had crept into Simon’s tone and he was obviously in earnest as he offered the invitation, but the Duke was not deceived into believing that he was welcome on the present occasion.
    â€˜Thank you, I should enjoy that,’ he said promptly, while over Simon’s shoulder he studied the other two men who made up the party. One, a tall, fair fellow, stood talking to Mocata. His thin, flaxen hair brushed flatly back, and whose mysterious, light eyes proclaimed him an Albino; the other, a stout man dressed in a green plaid and ginger kilt, was walking softly up and down with his hands clasped behind his back, muttering to himself inaudibly. His wild, flowing white hair and curious costume suggested an Irish bard.
    â€˜Altogether a most unprepossessing lot,’ thought the Duke, and his opinion was not improved by three new arrivals. A grave-faced Chinaman wearing the robes of a Mandarin, whose eyes betrayed a cold, merciless nature: a Eurasian with only one arm, the left, and a tall, thin woman with a scraggy throat and beetling eyebrows which met across the bridge of her nose.
    Mocata received them as though he were the host, but as the tall woman bore down on Simon he promptly left the Duke, who guessed that the move was to get out of earshot. However, the lady’s greeting in a high-pitched, Middle Western accent came clearly to him.
    â€˜Well, Simon, all excitement about what we’ll learn tonight? It should help a heap, this being your natal conjunction.’
    â€˜Ha! Ha!’ said De Richleau to himself. ‘Now I begin to understand a little and I like this party even less.’ Then, with the idea of trying to verify his surmise, he turned towards the one-armed Eurasian, but Simon, apparently guessing his intention, quickly excused himself to the American woman, and cut off the Duke’s advance.
    â€˜So, my young friend,’ thought De Richleau, ‘you mean to prevent me from obtaining any further information about this strange gathering, do you? All right! I’ll twist your tail a little,’ and he remarked sweetly:
    â€˜Did you say that you were interested in Astronomy or Astrology, Simon? There is a distinct difference you know.’
    â€˜Oh, Astronomy, of course,’ Simon ran a finger down his long nose. ‘It
is
nice to see you again, have some more champagne?’
    â€˜Thank you, no, later perhaps.’ The Duke smothered a smile as he caught Mocata, who had overheard him, exchange a quick look with Simon.
    â€˜Wish this were an ordinary meeting,’ Simon said, a moment later, with an uneasy frown. ‘Then I’d ask you to stay, but we’re going through the Society’s annual balance-sheet tonight, and you and Rex not being members, you know …’
    â€˜Quite, quite, my dear fellow, of course,’ De Richleau agreed amicably, while to himself he thought. ‘That’s a nasty fence young sly-boots has put up for me, but I’ll be damned if I go before I find out for certain what I camefor’. Then he added in a cheerful whisper: ‘I should have gone before but Rex seems so interested in the young woman in green, I want to give him as long as possible.’
    â€˜My dear chap,’ Simon protested, ‘I feel horribly embarrassed at having to ask you to go at all.’
    A fat, oily-looking Babu in a salmon-pink turban and gown had just arrived and was shaking hands with Mocata; behind him came a red-faced Teuton, who suffered the deformity of a hare lip.
    Simon stepped quickly forward again as the two advanced, but De Richleau once more caught the first words which were snuffled out by the hare-lipped man.
    â€˜Well, Abraham, wie geht es?’ Then there came the fulsome chuckle of the fleshy Indian. ‘You must not call him that, it is unlucky to do so before the great night.’
    â€˜The devil it