Nor was this the only circumstance that made my eyes start, and my hair stand on end. From beneath the towel I heard sounds—first a heavy sigh, and then a tiny, pleading voice, crying: “If you please, sir! Oh, my preserver, my noble friend! Let me out, I beseech! Let me out in the name of Ahriman, the All Powerful!”
What would you have done? I acted without an instant of indecision. Not, I assure you, from excess of daring, but from a vastly greater positive influence—from curiosity. I was in the room of our astrologer-Hall Don, and it lay in my power to discover some of his strange secrets. I tore away the soaking towel. But of course the box was locked.
“The key,” cried the tiny voice. “The key is under his pillow!” It was the work of an instant to find it, to unlock the box, and—what did my eyes behold?
Inside, cradled in velvet, was a globular crystal bottle, from which the blue radiance flooded the room. I lifted it, and it appeared to be filled with a mesh of deep golden threads. But as I gazed, there peeped through the golden wire, as I took it to be, a tiny face, like a piece of exquisitely carved old ivory. Its expression was imploring, and close to it two pretty little hands were clasped in anguish.
All prudence cried Watch your step! But all curiosity said Uncork him! So I did.
There was a rushing as of a mighty wind. A blue radiance shot upward to the ceiling, and there, on the desk before me appeared a little man, no bigger than a child of two, and I saw that the golden threads were a superb golden beard, that hung to his waist.
“A thousand thanks!” he cried. “And of course, the usual reward. What’s your will?”
“Great Scot,” I exclaimed. (I was, of course, invoking the spirit of Michael Scot, the mediaeval expert on magic and the occult, whose works are my favourite bedside reading.) “Are you a genie?”
An expression of absurd vanity overspread the mannikin’s face, and he combed his fingers through the luxuriant beard. “Indeed,” said he; “I am the Genie With the Light Brown Hair. My name is Asmodeus.”
“The Devil on Two Sticks,” I cried, in amazement, for he was not a person I had ever expected to see in Massey College.
“As you may observe, I am slightly lame,” he said, ruefully, displaying two little ivory crutches which he had kept hidden beneath his robe. “Now, dear friend, how may I reward you?”
My senses swam. Should I then and there deliver the College from all future care by asking for a generous addition to our endowment fund—something in the order of a few million lakhs of rupees, or perhaps a conveniently located emerald mine? But I knew my Michael Scot, and I knew what tricky fellows these genies could be. Caution, caution, I whispered to myself.
“Before we talk of that, may I not have the inestimable boon of a few minutes’ conversation?” I asked. “We are quite accustomed to distinguished visitors here, but the Never-Too-Highly-To-Be-Esteemed Asmodeus, the Devil on Two Sticks himself, is a catch even for us. Now I know you won’t be offended if I ask for some identification?”
“Ask what you please,” said he. “I know you academics; you love oral examinations. Fire away.”
“Well then,” said I, “just as a starter, tell me the precise number of angels in the Heavenly Host.”
“The figure is 301,655,722,” said he, with satisfaction.
“You mean, that was the figure in the fourteenth century,” said I.
“I am essentially a fourteenth-century genie,” said he. “Have I passed?”
“Not so fast,” I countered. “Suppose you tell me the interpretation and origin of the word Abracadabra.”
“It is from the Hebrew,” said he, “and it is a corruption of abreq ad habra. It means Hurl your thunderbolt even unto death. Have I passed?”
“Not yet,” said I. “I am devoted to the old Three Question Formula, so familiar in folklore and magic. But you are doing well, and it is our humane custom in this university to give the examinee a short break at half time. Perhaps you would like a drink?”
I had perceived that the absent Hall Don had left an Italian wine bottle on one of his shelves, in which, through some oversight, a few drops remained. I was about to offer it to my guest, but he murmured, “No, no; allow me,” and produced from the air a very fancy bottle of something purple, and two richly chased golden goblets. So I accepted some of that, and although it had a typically Oriental sweetness, it wasn’t at all bad.
“I am wondering what your next question will be,” said Asmodeus, smiling with a corresponding Oriental sweetness as he filled our glasses for the second time.
“So am I,” I said frankly. “It is rarely that I have a chance to ask questions of someone so well informed as I am sure you must be. You devils know everything, and I want to know everything, so where am I to begin?”
He laughed, and, presumably because of the wine, it was like the sound of little silver bells heard through some mucilaginous substance, like molasses—charming but gummy. “Oh, I assure you we devils don’t know everything,” said he. “We have to confine ourselves very much to our own departments, which are growing all the time.”
“You mean you have departments of evil,” said I.
“I wish you wouldn’t call it evil, in that narrow, ignorant way,” said he. “You people of this world would be very badly off without what you speak of as evil. But of course Hell is heavily departmentalized, and no single devil—except, naturally, our Great Master, Ahriman—can know everything. We have an elaborate and rapidly growing Uncivil Service, composed of departments and sub-departments, and bureaux and special committees of investigation, and all the apparatus of government. We are very busy. Now I give my attention to the Law. Indeed, all legal knowledge is summed up in me.” His eyes darted around our Hall Don’s room, and they were dark with fear. “That is how I was so foolish as to fall under the power of—him.”
“He argued you to a standstill?” I asked.
Asmodeus lowered his eyes in shame. “You have heard of arguing the hind leg off a donkey? Something of the sort happened to me. Hence these crutches, and my pitiful imprisonment.”
I was overwhelmed by vulgar curiosity. I have always wanted to know more about Hell. “Do you, yourself, do much tormenting?” I asked.
“Tormenting?” said he, apparently at a loss.
“Of the damned souls,” I said. “Do you spend much time prodding them with pitchforks, or snatching glasses of ice-water from their burning lips? Do you do much in that line?”
He seemed to recover his spirits, and laughed the silvery, but gummy laugh. “What a baby you are,” he said. “Haven’t I told you we have an Uncivil Service? The damned are kept busy, toiling away in rooms where there is only artificial light, and the only ventilation is entirely with conditioned air, doing all sorts of dismal jobs which permit them to pay the taxes that maintain the Uncivil Service. And—this is the cream of it—they are quite unable to strike.”
“But have you no lake of burning pitch?” said I. “And how about the Conqueror Worm That Dieth Not?”
“That is very old-fashioned thinking,” said he. “The lake of burning pitch gave place long ago to a system of committees; every damned soul is a member of several interlocking committees, and the worst of them have what they call working lunches, where they are made to devour bad food and drink disgusting coffee while discussing projects from which all hope has been drained away. As for the Conqueror Worm That Dieth Not, we have banquets at which people make speeches that have no foreseeable end, about ideas that have no foreseeable application.”
“It sounds horribly familiar,” said I, in wonderment.
“It is,” said he. “We in Hell are always ready to learn—”
“Stop,” I cried. “You needn’t go on—I know what you are going to say. You also have Study Groups, Symposiums, and Weekend Seminars, don’t you?”
“Of course,” said he; “where would Hell learn more than from the universities? And we are splendidly thorough. We learn all there is to be learned. For instance, I am sure I
know more about this College than you do.”
“I should not be in the least surprised,” said I. “It has never been one of my delusions that I knew much about this place. I am sure all sorts of things go on here that never reach my ears.”
“You underestimate yourself,” said he. “They reach your ears, but you don’t know how to interpret them. And that may be just as well, for if you did, sleep would become a stranger to your pillow. For instance, you know that Junior Fellow of whom you have been tempted to think well, because he appears in Chapel whenever Communion is celebrated.”
“I do,” said I.
“Would you think so well of him if you knew that he conceals the Communion wafer under his tongue, and carries it back to his room, unconsumed?” said he.
I turned pale. “And what does he do with it then?” I asked.
“The same thing that he did with the palms he removed from the Chapel on last Palm Sunday,” said Asmodeus.
“Surely you are going to tell me what that was?” said I.
“Why surely? Because I am a devil, do you suppose I have no honour? Our code is very strict—stricter than yours—and I shan’t tell you a thing.”
He was getting somewhat above himself, as devils are apt to do. But I am not wholly without experience of devils, and I know a trick or two—and a word or two that they fear. I looked meaningly toward the bottle, and wondered if I would utter a word which would make him squeeze himself back inside it. He must have read my thoughts, for he immediately became all compliance.
“You mustn’t mind my little bit of fun,” he said, with a cringe. “Of course I shall tell you anything you want to know. And this is such a very peculiar college that no one could possibly keep up with all the strange happenings here. Shall we make a little tour? You would find it of the most unusual interest.”
Should I have refused? Yes, I should never have let him leave the room where the bottle was. My control of the situation meant control of the bottle. But curiosity—ah, fatal curiosity! I nodded, and in an instant I felt myself wafted out of the window, seemingly wrapped in the little demon’s robe, and we floated around the quadrangle most comfortably, looking in the windows. What we saw was pretty much what you would expect. There were Junior Fellows working, and Junior Fellows not working, and people playing cards, and people talking earnestly, and one or two scenes from which a modest man would have averted his eyes—but modesty has never been one of my foibles. There were rooms that looked like jungles, because the inhabitants were fond of potted plants: and there were rooms, usually those of mathematicians, as bare of any signs of human habitation as a Massey College room can be. In one room a young man was stirring a variety of little test tubes, which he warmed from time to time over a candle. I knew the man; he was a young immunologist.
“You see, he is making his perfume essence,” said Asmodeus, “and he will sell it as do-it-yourself perfume kits: simply add gin and stir. Makes the wearer irresistible, especially to lovers of gin. That is how he pays his way through the university.”
From the window of another room floated a rich mingling of aromas—of soaps and langorously scented unguents. “That is the room of your next Hall Don—the Conservative one,” said Asmodeus; “he is devoted to the pleasure of the bath. It is the only weakness in a character of Roman austerity.”
I was surprised to hear him speak of another Hall Don, but I nodded in agreement. “You do not suggest that there is anything unusual about any of this, do you?” I asked.
“Not this,” said he; “but there is much more to the College than what may be seen through these windows. Look here.”
Without knowing it, I had been wafted inside the building, into a chamber unknown to me, and icy cold. Then I knew where I was; it was the large freezer, adjacent to the kitchens. On every side were trays of cold meat, and from a number of large hooks hung full sides of what I assumed to be carcasses that had not yet been cut up.
“Now this is a place of special interest,” said Asmodeus. He tapped one of the hanging slabs of meat, and it gave out a dull sound, unlike either meat or wood, unpleasant to the ear. “Who would you suppose that was?” he asked.
“Who?” said I, with sinking heart.
His deferential smile turned to an evil leer. “Who—or what?” said he. “Hard to say, isn’t it?”
“You cannot mean—” cried I, and whether it was horror, or the dreadful cold of the place, my voice died in my throat.
“I don’t mean anything, in particular,” said he, enjoying himself immensely. “But it is a commonplace of legal knowledge that murder is more often committed by cooks than any other profession. Don’t you ever wonder what became of that Junior Fellow who was here last year, and who wrote such unpleasant things about the food in the Suggestion Book?”
“He left to study elsewhere. In the States, I believe,” said I.
“Of course that is what you believe. But you don’t know,” said Asmodeus.
“Give me your word that that is baby beef,” I demanded.
“Very well; I give you my word,” said he, with a subtle smile. And that was when I realized with dismay that the bottle to which I could so easily have returned him was still in the Hall Don’s room, and that I had been out-generalled. Or, to be more accurate, out-devilled.
“Your teeth are chattering,” said he, “and it is a sound I never could abide. Let us leave this place.” And in a flash we were somewhere else—somewhere very high above the quadrangle. We were, indeed, on the top of the clock-tower. Ill-natured critics of this building have said that the ornament on the top of our tower looks like a large diningroom chair, and indeed, there I was, sitting on it, with Asmodeus cuddled snugly in my lap.
How was I to get down? I knew that such a devil as Asmodeus might cast me down. I must be very careful to do nothing that might provoke my nasty little guest.
“Yes, indeed you must,” said Asmodeus, and once again I understood that my thoughts were an open book to him.
And then I thought of Douglas Baines, and his desire for a scientific ghost story. “Can’t we be scientific about this whole affair?” said I; “surely you and I can arrive at some arrangement that does not involve my being cast down from this high place?”
“We can be as scientific as you please,” said he. “We can even use the language of science. Let’s try computer science: it’s very much in vogue. Let us establish the parameters of our problem. Then let’s extrapolate. Here we sit—I comfortably and you uncomfortably—indulging in meaningful interface on the top of the College tower. You don’t like me. I heard you think so. If we are to reach a conclusion agreeable to us both, you must immediately cease this negative input, and embrace a more positive modality. If you were to fall in the pool from here, it would not go well with you. You are a man of heavy frame and unathletic habit of life. The world would assume that, like so many academics, you had wearied of working lunches and self-perpetuating committees, and had taken flight to a quarter where you foolishly believed that they no longer existed.”
“I know,” I said; “they would suppose that my abundant Jupiter influence had at last put itself squarely behind my malign Saturnian influence, and I had committed suicide.”
“What’s all that about your Jupiter and your Saturn?” said Asmodeus, pricking up his ears.
I told him. “The man who had you in the bottle told me that,” said I. “And as he is an astrologer, I suppose he ought to know.”
Asmodeus laughed as I never expected to hear a devil laugh. He laughed until the tinkling of silver bells found the resonating note of the great St. Catharine bell in our tower, and it seemed to be laughing too, and the whole quadrangle resounded with Tinkle-Boom, Tinkle-Boom. The resonance of the great bell struck upward through the block of masonry on which I sat and at every Boom a disagreeable thrill ravished my person. Several of the Junior Fellows threw open their windows to see what was happening, but of course they never thought of looking so high as where I sat, in that terrib
le chair.
When he could speak, he said: “He is not an astrologer, only an apprentice. If he were a fully-trained astrologer he would already be Leader of the NDP. I shall tell you a secret, though I realize it weakens my own hold over you. He has quite overlooked the fact that you are a Double Virgo.”
“I am?” said I. “Is that good?”
“Oh, very good,” said Asmodeus. “Jolly good, I should say. You see, he reckoned your horoscope from the instant of your birth. Good enough, so far as it goes. But the horoscopes of the Children of the Double Sign—to which special group it would be clear to a more experienced astrologer that you belong—must be reckoned from the instant of the Second Birth, which is to say, from the hour of your Baptism. And that is quite a different pair of pyjamas. By your true horoscope, you appear as a man powerfully under the protection of Mercurius, which brings you good fortune and a deliverance from all adversity. After a while, that’s to say. You always have quite a spell of adversity first.”
“So what do you see in store for me?” said I.
“You will shortly be working with a new Hall Don,” said he. “A delightful fellow, a committed Conservative, the soul of reason, and extremely clean in his personal habits.”
He smiled, as if he had given me a great gift. But I had another point to make. “I don’t imagine that the Benevolent Mercurius will allow you to throw me down from this tower,” I said, and looked him right in the eye.
He looked back, just as steadily. “No, that is so,” he said, “but I am not obliged to fly you down to earth, either. Good-bye!”
“Wait,” I cried; “where are you going?”
“Oh, now that I am free once again,” said Asmodeus, “I shall raise hell in the Law School, instead of being the exclusive slave of your Hall Don.” And he rose lightly from my lap, and with his two little crutches tucked under his robe, he flew off into the night, in the direction of the Law School.