The aristocratic Duke de Richleau faces new, sinister challenges in this macabre tale of the dark arts. When his good friend Simon Aron's naïve curiosity is tested, the Duke, along with his ever-patient friends Rex Van Ryn, and Richard Eaton, must intricately plot a means of both physical and spiritual rescue. But with Van Ryn's affections for abeautiful woman caught in the web of Satanists, and Eaton's ongoing scepticism, they all risk being brought to the verge of madness through dabbling with the powers of evil.
From London to the West Country, the slums of Paris to a Christian monastery, the action of this powerful occult thriller moves with fantastic, compelling force.
1
The Incomplete Reunion
The Duke de Richleau and Rex Van Ryn had gone in to dinner at eight o’clock, but coffee was not served till after ten.
An appetite in keeping with his mighty frame had enabled Van Ryn to do ample justice to each well-chosen course and, as was his custom each time the young American arrived in England, the Duke had produced his finest wines for this, their reunion dinner at his flat.
A casual observer might well have considered it a strange friendship, but despite their difference in age and race, appearance and tradition, a real devotion existed between the two.
Some few years earlier Rex’s foolhardiness had landed him in a Soviet prison, and the elderly French exile had put aside his peaceful existence as art connoisseur and dilettante to search for him in Russia. Together they had learned the dangerous secret of ‘The Forbidden Territory’ and travelled many thousand verts pursued by the merciless agents of the Ogpu.
There had been others too in that strange adventure; young Richard Eaton, and the little Princess Marie Lou whom he had brought out of Russia as his bride; but as Rex accepted a long Hoyo de Monterrey from the cedar cabinet, which the Duke’s man presented to him, his thoughts were not of the Eatons, living now so happily with their little daughter Fleur in their lovely country home. He was thinking of that third companion whose subtle brain and shy, nervous courage had proved so great an aid when they were hunted like hares through the length and breadth of Russia, the frail, narrow-shouldered Englishman, Simon Aron.
‘What could possibly have kept Simon from being with them tonight?’ Rex was wondering. He had never failed before to make these reunion dinners, and why had the Duke brushed aside his inquiries about him in such an offhand manner? There was something odd behind De Richleau’s reticence, and Rex had a feeling that for all his host’s easy charm and bland, witty conversation something had gone seriously wrong.
He slowly revolved some of the Duke’s wonderful old brandy in a bowl-shaped glass, while he watched the servant preparing to leave the room. Then, as the door closed, he set it down and addressed De Richleau almost abruptly.
‘Well, I’m thinking it’s about time for you to spill the beans.’
The Duke inhaled the first cloud of fragrant smoke from another of those long Hoyos and answered guardedly. ‘Had you not better tell me, Rex, to what particular beans you refer?’
‘Simon of course! For years now the three of us have dined together on my first night, each time I’ve come across, and you were too mighty casual to be natural when I asked about him before dinner. Why isn’t he here?’
‘Why, indeed, my friend?’ the Duke repeated, running the tips of his fingers down his lean, handsome face. ‘I asked him, and told him that your ship docked this morning, but he declined to honour us tonight.’
‘Is he ill then?’
‘No, as far as I know he’s perfectly well. At all events he was at his office today.’
‘He must have had a date then that he couldn’t scrap, or some mighty urgent work. Nothing less could induce him to let us down on one of these occasions. They’ve become, well, in a way, almost sacred to our friendship.’
‘On the contrary he is at home alone tonight. He made his apologies of course, something about resting for a Bridge Tournament that starts …’
‘Bridge Tournament my foot!’ exclaimed Rex angrily. ‘He’d never let that interfere between us three. It sounds mighty fishy to me. When did you see him last?’
‘About three months ago.’
‘What! But that’s incredible. Now look here!’ Rex thrust the onyx ashtray from in front of him, and leaned across the table. ‘You haven’t quarrelled, have you?’
De Richleau shook his head. ‘If you were my age, Rex, and had no children, then met two younger men who gave you their affection, and had all the attributes you could wish for in your sons, how would it be possible for you to quarrel with either of them?’
‘That’s so, but three months is a whale of a while for friends who are accustomed to meet two or three times a week. I just don’t get this thing at all, and you’re being a sight too reticent about it. Come on now, what do you know?’
The grey eyes of piercing brilliance which gave such character to De Richleau’s face, lit up. ‘Is he ill then?’
‘No, as far as I know he’s perfectly well. At all events he was at his office today.’
‘He must have had a date then that he couldn’t scrap, or some mighty urgent work. Nothing less could induce him to let us down on one of these occasions. They’ve become, well, in a way, almost sacred to our friendship.’
‘On the contrary he is at home alone tonight. He made his apologies of course, something about resting for a Bridge Tournament that starts …’
‘Bridge Tournament my foot!’ exclaimed Rex angrily. ‘He’d never let that interfere between us three. It sounds mighty fishy to me. When did you see him last?’
‘About three months ago.’
‘What! But that’s incredible. Now look here!’ Rex thrust the onyx ashtray from in front of him, and leaned across the table. ‘You haven’t quarrelled, have you?’
De Richleau shook his head. ‘If you were my age, Rex, and had no children, then met two younger men who gave you their affection, and had all the attributes you could wish for in your sons, how would it be possible for you to quarrel with either of them?’
‘That’s so, but three months is a whale of a while for friends who are accustomed to meet two or three times a week. I just don’t get this thing at all, and you’re being a sight too reticent about it. Come on now, what do you know?’
The grey eyes of piercing brilliance which gave such character to De Richleau’s face, lit up. ‘That,’ he said suddenly, ‘is just the trouble. I don’t know anything.’
‘But you fear that, to use his own phrase, Simon’s “in a muddle—a really nasty muddle” eh? And you’re a little hurt that he hasn’t brought his worry to you.’
‘To whom else should he turn if not to one of us—and you were in the States.’
‘Richard maybe, he’s an even older friend of Simon’s than we are.’
‘No. I spent last weekend at Cardinals Folly and neither Richard nor Marie Lou could tell me anything. They haven’t seen him since he went down to stay last Christmas and arrived with a dozen crates of toys for Fleur.’
‘How like him!’ Rex’s gargantuan laugh rang suddenly through the room. ‘I might have known the trunkful I brought over would be small fry if you and Simon have been busy on that child.’
‘Well I can only conclude that poor Simon is “in a muddle” as you say, or he would never treat us all like this.’
‘But what sort of a muddle?’ Rex brought his leg-of-mutton fist crashing down on the table angrily. ‘I can’t think of a thing where he wouldn’t turn to us.’
‘Money,’ suggested the Duke, ‘is the one thing that with his sensitive nature he might not care to discuss with even his closest friends.’
‘I doubt it being that. My old man has a wonderful opinion of Simon’s financial ability and he handles a big portion of our interests on this side. I’m pretty sure we’d be wise to it if he’d burned his fingers on the market. It sounds as if he’d gone bats about some woman to me.’
De Richleau’s face was lit by his faintly cynical smile for a moment. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘A man in love turns naturally to his friends for congratulation or sympathy as his fortune with a woman proves good or ill. It can’t be that.’
For a little the two friends sat staring at each other in silence across the low jade bowl with its trailing sprays of orchids: Rex, giant shouldered, virile and powerful, his ugly, attractive, humorous young face clouded with anxiety; the Duke, a slim, delicate-looking man, with slender, fragile hands and greying hair, but with no trace of weakness in his fine, distinguished face. His aquiline nose, broad forehead and grey ‘devil’s’ eyebrows might well have replaced those of the cavalier in the Van Dyck that gazed down from the opposite wall. Instead of the conventional black, he wore a claret-coloured vicuna smoking suit, with silk lapels and braided fastenings; this touch of colour increased his likeness to the portrait. He broke the silence suddenly.
‘Have you by any chance ever heard of a Mr Mocata, Rex?’
‘Nope. Who is he anyway?’
‘A new friend of Simon’s who has been staying with him these last few months.’
‘What, at his Club?’
‘No–no, Simon no longer lives at his Club. I thought you knew. He bought a house last February, a big, rambling old place tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac off one of those quiet residential streets in St John’s Wood.’
‘Why, that’s right out past Regent’s Park, isn’t it? What’s he want with a place out there when there are any number of nice little houses to let in Mayfair?’
‘Another mystery, my friend.’ The Duke’s thin lips creased into a smile. ‘He said he wanted a garden, that’s all I can tell you.’
‘Simon! A garden!’ Rex chuckled. ‘That’s a good story I’ll say. Simon doesn’t know a geranium from a fuchsia. His botany is limited to an outsized florist’s bill for bunching his women friends from shops, and why should a bachelor like Simon start running a big house at all?’
‘Perhaps Mr Mocata could tell you,’ murmured De Richleau mildly, ‘or the servant that he has imported.’
‘Have you ever seen this bird, Mocata I mean?’
‘Yes, I called one evening about six weeks ago. Simon was out so Mocata received me.’
‘And what did you make of him?’
‘I disliked him intensely. He’s a pot-bellied, bald-headed man of about sixty, with large, protuberant, fishy eyes, limp hands, and a most unattractive lisp. He reminded me of a large white slug.’
‘What about this servant that you mention?’
‘I only saw him for a moment when he crossed the hall, but he reminded me in a most unpleasant way of the Bogey Man with whom I used to be threatened in my infancy.’
‘Why, is he a black?’
‘Yes. A Malagasy I should think.’
Rex frowned. ‘Now what in heck is that?’
‘A native of Madagascar. They are a curious people, half-Negro and half-Polynesian. This great brute stands about six foot eight, and the one glimpse I had of his eyes made me want to shoot him on sight.’
‘Do you know any more about these people?’ asked Rex grimly.
‘Not a thing.’
‘Well, I’m not given to worry, but I’ve heard quite enough to get me scared for Simon. He’s in some jam or he’d never be housing people like that.’
The Duke gently laid the long, blue-grey ash of his cigar in the onyx ashtray. ‘There is not a doubt,’ he said slowly, ‘that Simon is involved in some very business, but I have been stifling my anxiety until your arrival. You see I wanted to hear your views before taking the very exceptional step of, yes butting in, is the expression, on the private affairs of even so intimate a friend. The question is now—what are we to do?’
‘Do!’ Rex thrust back his chair and drew himself up to his full magnificent height. ‘We’re going up to that house to have a little heart-to-heart talk with Simon-right now!’
‘I’m glad you feel like that’, said De Richleau quietly, ‘because I ordered the car for half past ten. Shall we go?’
Release Date: July 20, 1968
Release Time: 95 minutes
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast:
Christopher Lee as Nicholas, Duc de Richleau
Charles Gray as Mocata
Niké Arrighi as Tanith Carlisle
Leon Greene as Rex Van Ryn (dubbed by Patrick Allen)
Patrick Mower as Simon Aron
Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Countess
Sarah Lawson as Marie Eaton
Paul Eddington as Richard Eaton
Rosalyn Landor as Peggy Eaton
Russell Waters as Malin
😈👰Note: US title - The Devil's Bride👰😈
Author Bio:
Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897–1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories. Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. During his life, he wrote more than 70 books which sold over 50 million copies.
Cast:
Christopher Lee as Nicholas, Duc de Richleau
Charles Gray as Mocata
Niké Arrighi as Tanith Carlisle
Leon Greene as Rex Van Ryn (dubbed by Patrick Allen)
Patrick Mower as Simon Aron
Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Countess
Sarah Lawson as Marie Eaton
Paul Eddington as Richard Eaton
Rosalyn Landor as Peggy Eaton
Russell Waters as Malin
😈👰Note: US title - The Devil's Bride👰😈
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Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897–1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories. Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. During his life, he wrote more than 70 books which sold over 50 million copies.
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