After an hour had passed and night had fallen, Dick knew he was hopelessly lost. His loud shouts of "hello" brought no response. He knew he would be safe if he could find the road, so he began walking in a direction that he thought would lead out of the woods. Twice, in the stillness of the night, the sound of dogs came. Once, he stumbled upon a herd of pigs and was forced to climb a tree to get away from an enraged boar. The pig snorted and clawed the ground, and stared up with baleful red eyes. Twice, its yellow tusks gleaming in the moonlight, the animal charged the tree. A persistent bastard, it remained there for almost an hour.
When it finally ambled off, so did Dick!
It was almost eleven before he found the road and began walking. He had walked almost three miles before a black figure came hurtling out of the night at him. He leaped aside and shouted, "You idiot. You almost ran over me." The figure on a bicycle turned around to stare, then wobbled crazily, and crashed into the ditch.
"Now, you see what you've done," the Irish voice complained. "You've wrecked me new bike. And me wife will think I did it because of drink."
Dick, feeling foolish because he had been half-frightened out of his wits, was immediately contrite. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm lost. You seared hell out of me – coming over the top of the hill that way, without lights. I thought Old Nick had finally caught up with me."
The Irishman rubbed the seat of his pants where he had landed after the crash. He looked at Dick. "You've a right to be worried about the Devil on this road. He's been seen many the time by those who were sober." He shuddered, then bent down to pick up his wheel. "It looks in fair shape. Perhaps no harm's been done at that. Where are ye bound this time of night?"
"I'm lost. I went hunting… got separated from my party. I'm staying at Castle Fleur."
The Irishman tensed. "Will then, I guess you have no need to fear the Devil. Good night, sir."
Dick was puzzled by the man's attitude, but he let it pass. "Can you tell me how to get back?"
The Irishman jerked his head in the direction Dick was headed. "Three miles up the road and turn to the right." He hesitated, then said in a more friendly manner, "And good luck to ye. A friend of the owner's?"
"No… merely a guest. Why?"
The man took a deep breath and drew himself up; when he exhaled, it was obvious that he had been drinking. "You look a bright lad. Are you honeymooning?"
"Yes."
"Then take my advice and leave. Strange things happen in that wicked place. People complain of strange dreams in which the Devil takes part. Only this Spring a new bride of only four days leaped to her death from the towers. And none of the local girls will work there. And more than one young couple has come together and departed separately… or much earlier than planned." He threw a leg over the bike's seat. "One thing I know, I'd never leave my bride there… alone." He rode quickly off into the darkness.
Dick stared after him. What a lot of nonsense, he thought. "Strange things", "suicides", and "strange dreams", typical superstitious clap-trap, from an Irishman who has had too much to drink.
He had taken half a dozen paces before he stopped and said aloud, "Strange dreams?" He abruptly recalled the dreams about Nora before he finally found himself in the sack with her. Come to think of it, Sue had been acting oddly all day… almost as if she had been worried about something. He quickened his pace and, by the time he reached the turn-off, he was actually jogging.
It was midnight when he arrived; the castle was completely dark except for lights shining from the windows of their suite. "Thank God," he breathed, "Sue's up… and okay."
Rather than awaken the house by going to the front door and ringing the bell, he decided to go around to the servants entrance and enter through the storage area. Once inside, the darkness was oppressive. He fumbled his way through the room, and was relieved to find a door which lead to the dimly lighted hallway. Quickly he made his way up the servants back stairs. When he reached the third floor, he turned toward what he thought was his suite. He was halfway down the corridor, in front of a statue of a knight in armour, when he suddenly discovered he was in the wrong wing. There, in front of him, was the room he had come from last night… when he had mysteriously awakened next to Nora. He spun around, and as he did so, his jacket sleeve caught on the handle of the knight's sword. There was a whispering noise and a door silently opened in the blank wall.
Dick stepped back in surprise and momentary fright, tensed and waiting for someone to come through. When no one appeared, his eyes narrowed and he reached out to push the sword and scabbard. The door closed. He pushed up on the sword; the door swung open again.
Peering around to make sure no one was watching, Dick quickly stepped through the opening. It whispered shut behind him. He spun rapidly, feeling trapped, but as the door closed, the lights came on automatically. Alongside the door was a lever. He touched it; the lights went out, the door opened. He closed the door again and, as the lights came up, he began an inspection.
At one turning, he saw what appeared to be a pane of clear glass. Someone was moving behind the glass. When he got closer, he realized it must be some sort of trick mirror, for it was obvious that the weeping and wildly gesticulating nude Lady Margaret had no idea that he was there. The nude Irish maid was screeching at Lady Margaret. Suddenly, her temper boiling, the girl picked up a broad leather belt and began beating the older woman who rolled and pleaded on the floor. "A couple of lesbians fighting, serves the old bitch right," was his disinterested comment. He walked on until he came to what seemed to be almost a theater lounge with several leather chairs placed strategically in front of another window. There was a tripod standing there also. When Dick looked down through the glass, he almost passed out from the sudden shock. He could see Nora, her hair in curlers, reading a book in bed. Even as he watched, she yawned, closed the book, took a drink of water from the night glass, and turned off the light.
Oh, my God! he thought in sudden dismay. Was anyone up here last night when she and I…?
Suspicion was piling up on suspicion. It was with a pounding heart and oppressive feeling of apprehension that Dick began moving back toward the secret passage. He made a wrong turn once, opened a door, and found himself in a well-equipped modern darkroom. Several rolls of film hung from a drying line. Quickly he exited, and a moment later was outside in the wing hallway again. He closed the door, then stood there for a moment trying to catch his thoughts. What kind of crazy operation was this anyway? Lesbians. Trick mirrors? Were Morgan and Nora some kind of perverts who got their kicks out of watching other people make love? He thought about what Nora had said concerning his demand for oral sex. Had anyone seen that? "Oh, my God," he repeated, this time with more than desperation in his voice.
"We've got to get out of this loony bin tonight," he said aloud, making an immediate decision. He didn't know what he'd tell Sue, but if necessary he would force her to pack at once.
All the lights were on in their suite when he entered. Sue, looking pale and distraught, was dressed in her travelling clothes. Her bags were packed. She turned to him and her composure disintegrated; she began weeping as soon as she saw him.
"Sue? What's wrong?" he asked, suddenly very frightened and positive that someone had told her about Nora. He started toward her.
"Dick, don't touch me. Don't come near me. I'm leaving you. I would have gone earlier, but there was no way of getting to the railway unless you drove me."
"Sue…" it was a plea, wrenched out of him. "What are you talking about?"
"I can't stay with you."
Dick swallowed. So… she did know about his adulterous behavior with Nora. He could barely speak because of the sudden tightness in his throat. "It was something I did?" the question croaked out of him.
Huge tears boiled up in her eyes; she refused to look at him. Finally she took a deep shuddering breath and answered, "No, my darling. Nothing you've done."
"Then what?"
She shook her head. Dick, suddenly angry at the uncertainty of the whole situation, darted across the room and roughly grabbed her shoulders. "You just can't leave like that. I'm your husband. You're my wife. I demand to know what's wrong," the last was shouted.
Sue closed her eyes, the tears continued to stream down her face. Her shoulders slumped. "All right. You're entitled to know exactly what kind of a person you married. You made a mistake! Go home. Get an annulment. You thought I was decent. I'll show you. I'll show you what you married. It is going to hurt you. If you kill me I won't complain. I deserve it. Your hurt from seeing this will go away in time, but I'll have to live with it festering inside me for the rest of my life."
"What in hell are you talking about?"
Shuddering, Sue reached into her purse and pulled out the manila envelope. She gave it to him.
Dick unfastened the clasp and withdrew the photographs. His eyes widened in horror and disgust as he looked at the first one. He looked sick by the time he had rifled through the stack. His mind was whirling; he didn't believe it. This was all a mad dream… a dream? And knowing beyond a doubt that someone somewhere in the castle had photographs of him too, he mumbled, "Oh… God!"
Sue collapsed, weeping. Between sobs she managed to say, "You see… why I can't stay married to you?"
There were things to be done. The first thing he wanted to do was kill Lord Medwell and Tom Morgan. The second? The second… No, there was something far more important than revenge. Sue!
He put his hand gently under the chin and lifted her sweet face. She tried to turn away from him, but he wouldn't let her go. "Darling. Listen to me," he pleaded. "Did you know you were doing this? I mean… did you dream you were doing it?"
Sobbing, she merely nodded. "In my dream I was doing it with you… and it was so… beautiful and right."
"You couldn't help doing this. You were drugged… or, more likely, under hypnotic suggestion or something."
"Dick, those pictures were taken last night. Tonight, though, I wasn't hypnotized. I did everyone of those things all over again tonight. They made me. They said they would give me the photographs if I did it. They said I had to do it or they would show you the pictures. They were going to send copies to my mother, to everyone in my address book…"
"Blackmail."
"Yes," her body shuddered. "But they made me… they did things to me that made me… lose control of myself." She looked up, her eyes filled with shame. "You should know the truth. They made me beg… and I begged. Don't you understand? They called me a slut and a whore… and I am… because they did things to me that made me want to… I wanted to… to…" She closed her eyes, and all the life drained out of her. "When they gave me the photographs, it was only then that they told me I would have to do 'other' things for the negatives."
The word "negative" did it for Dick. He suddenly realized what his mind – his memory! – had been trying to tell him for minutes. The dark room! Of course! The negative would be there. And, if there were negatives of Sue, there would be others of other people. Enough negatives to let the police know what was going on. There might even be negatives of the girl who committed suicide. And, abruptly, Dick knew he didn't really want to kill Morgan and Lord Medwell; that was too easy – much too good – for them. They enjoyed their little games with innocent people. Cage them both up in prison – without sex – for long years and it would be, literally, a fate worse than death.
Dick turned to his sobbing wife. "Sue," he snapped, "now listen to me. No more talk about annulment or leaving me. We… you and I… are getting out of here right now. And we're taking the negatives with us. If you still want a divorce or annulment after we get away from this place, I won't stop you. But we are leaving together. Right now. Understand? Pack my bags. Do it quickly. Take them downstairs and out the back way to the garage. Be very quiet. Will you do as I say?"
For the first time since he had entered there was a shadow of hope in her eyes. "But how could you stand to live with me, knowing what I am?"
"We'll talk about that later. Just do as I say."
Wide-eyed, Sue nodded, slowly at first and then with increasing hope. When Dick left the room a minute later, she was already opening his dresser drawer.
He went surely through the walls, hesitating only when he reached the Morgan's wing. No one stirred. He moved the sword and the door opened. A second later, he passed the window overlooking Lady Margaret's room. The maid had tied Lady Margaret to the bedpost. A long black whip lay on the bedspread and the Irish maid, screaming obscenities at the tearfully pleading butch dyke, was viciously sodomizing her with the ten-inch dildoe. The girl apparently had squeezed the hot-water balls because a thin stream of defecation and water ran down the inner thighs of both of them.
Dick didn't pause to watch the lewd spectacle; truly, he thought, this was the "Devil's castle" just as his Irish friend had said.
Once in the darkroom, he gave silent thanks for Morgan's scientific method of operation. Every print was numbered in a negative book, so it took only a minute to discover that six prints had been made of Sue. Those would be the six prints given to her.
There had been, much to his chagrin, five prints made of him. Where were they? That was the question. Who had them? Then he caught sight of the small notation, "To N." So Nora had them? The negative book also showed that there had been a total of seven rolls of film shot of Sue and him. He looked up on the drying line; there were seven stripes of film hanging there. He scanned them in the light; yes, they were the right ones. Two of the rolls were of Nora down on him in fellatio, of him performing cunnilingus on her, of the two of them indulging in soixante-neuf, and of wild frenzied fucking between the two of them. He shoved the negatives in his pockets, then buttoned the pockets to make sure the film did not fall out.
The negative book was a very interesting document. There were names and dates and – in a few places – even sums of money listed. Dick decided it would make excellent evidence for the police… that, together with the other negatives. There were two filing cases loaded with them. Many of the pictures obviously went back to the time when Morgan had operated in London as a gynecologist. No wonder he had been able to buy the castle!
It took Dick four trips to carry all of the negatives to the car. When he completed the fourth trip, Sue was sitting in the front seat waiting for him. "What are all those boxes," she asked.
"Photographic negatives, darling, of poor ignorant unsuspecting people like you and me." When he said "me", Dick realized he had almost forgotten the photographs delivered to Nora.
"Be very quiet," he said. "I'll be back in ten minutes or so." He had made his way halfway across the courtyard when the dogs came at him barking. A moment later, the lights came on in the courtyard, and Morgan opened his window on the third floor to shout down, "Who's there?"
Dick was caught. There was no way he could escape notice. He stepped boldly out into the light and looked up. "Hi, Tom. It's me. I got lost… had a helluva time finding my way back."
Morgan shouted, "Thank God, you're safe. We'll call off the search. We've been looking everywhere for you. We were frantic with worry."
"You lying son of a bitch," Dick said under his breath, then shouted up, "Don't bother to come down. I'll let myself in… and go right to bed. Boy, am I ever tired."
"Good show. See you tomorrow."
"Make it late, will you. Don't have anyone wake us up early. I want to sleep in. I've walked five hundred miles tonight, it seems."
"Right-o." The courtyard went out. Dick looked back toward the car; Sue's face was only a white blur in the dimness. He held up his finger to his mouth in a charade of silence.
The racket probably had awakened Nora, he thought; if so, we'll just have to bluff it. When he reached the third floor landing, he listened carefully and then slowly tip-toed toward Nora's room. Quietly he pushed the door open; the room was dark, and it smelled of Nora's perfume. He could hear her rhythmic breathing; she was asleep.
It took him almost ten agonizing minutes before he found the packet of photographs in a drawer beneath her undergarments. Quickly he counted the pictures; they were all there. With the treasure safely inside his coat pocket, he relaxed enough to lose some of his caution. That was when he knocked over the table lamp.
"Who's there?" Nora sat bolt upright in bed.
"Shhhh," Dick whispered. "It's me."
"Dick?" she hissed. "What are you doing here?"
"Why do you think? I can't go to sleep without you. I keep remembering how you felt… how you taste."
He heard her breath expel in animal eagerness. "Have you been to your room yet?" she asked, almost breathlessly.
"Yes. Sue's asleep. She won't miss me. She won't miss this long hard thing I've got for you."
Nora groaned deep in her throat; obviously her body was rapidly coming to life. "You're sure you want me?" she asked.
"I want you so badly that I'm going to get down on my hands and knees in front of you and I'm going to… going to…"
"Yes… Yes! Don't talk about it. Do it. Do it. Do it!" He could hear her panting; the heat had come on her that quickly. She threw the blanket and sheet from her and began struggling out of her gown.
Dick tried to sound equally excited; he made short gasps of what he hoped would pass as impatience. Then he said, "Oh, damn!"
"What is it? What is it?"
"Nora, I have to go back to the room for a second. I felt the water running. I'll be right back."
"God-damnit, hurry then!" In the dim glow of her illuminated clock he could see her fumbling with her curlers.
"I will… meanwhile you just think about what it's going to feel like when I start biting, when I slip this thing into you." He saw her legs clench together in passionate impatience, and then he quickly left the room.
He reached the top of the stairs and turned back to look in the direction of Nora's bedroom. He grinned. He tossed her a kiss. "Just keep thinking about it, baby. Think about it… all night… long."
The dogs met him at the front door, but they remained silent this time, wagging their tails and frolicking alongside him. They continued to play with him while he pushed the car down the road, and through the front gates, and across the little stone bridge. Then they were rolling free down a small incline. When he reached the turn in the road hiding them from the castle, Dick put the car in gear and started the engine.
They drove up… up… up the hill, then swung around a curve. For a moment, the moon glittered and skipped on the lake, while the castle looked as though it were some ghostly apparition from the past… then it disappeared from sight.
Sue fought it, but began weeping again.
Dick patted her knee. He had never felt more sure of himself in his life. What he planned to do might be a horrible mistake; but he knew it was their only chance. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a manila envelope. "Here. These probably won't make you feel any better, but they may change your mind about a lot of things."
He heard her gasp as she saw the first picture, then additional intakes of breath as she came across each new scene. She turned to him, her eyes full of questions… and uncertainty. "Dick? You look as if… like you were…"
"Enjoying it?"
"Yes."
"I was."
"But how could you?"
"Simple. I thought I was giving pleasure to you… just as you thought you were giving pleasure to me."
Sue was silent as she put the pictures back in the envelope. She remained silent, pensive, as they drove down the hill toward the lights of a small village. She said nothing when Dick stopped in front of the police station and roused the area Chief Constable out of a sound sleep. Vaguely, through churning emotions, she heard Dick say once to the Chief Constable, "I think you'll find the reason for a girl's suicide at Castle Fleur six months ago… plus I'm sure the London police and Scotland Yard will be very interested in the older photographs together with the sums of money indicated."
She sat there dazed, as Dick engaged the clutch and drove off. In the East, the sky was lightening as a new day approached.
They stopped twice: once to barn their photographs and the rolls of film shot of them. The ashes were thrown into the cleansing waters of a lake and disappeared from sight.
The second stop was equally memorable… for Sue was to discover that dreams and things that happen under duress can never be equated with the real thing. And when the boy and the girl had finally rolled away from each other, they discovered the dawn had come and a new day was there… full of promise and untold, coming delight.