should be the very corpse that Vesquit most needed; as Douglas himself said,
with a certain grim humour in which he excelled, he was, morally speaking,
an executed criminal; while, being in actual magical contact with Grey and
his friends, so much so that he had evidently been killed by them, he was an
ideal magical link.
Vesquit's task was, if possible, to learn from Gates exactly what had
happened, and so expert a necromancer had no fear of the result. He was also
to create a semi-material ghost of Gates from the remains, and send it to the
person who had dealt out death to that unlucky wizard.
On his arrival at Naples, there was no difficulty in the way of the Black
Lodge; the authorities were only too glad to return a formal verdict of death
by misadventure, and to hand over the corpse to the rejoicing Vesquit.
Gates had fortunately left memoranda, a rough diary of the various
procedures hitherto adopted; so that Vesquit was not committed to the task of
acquiring information from Arthwait, which might easily have occupied a
season; and from these notes the old necromancer came to the conclusion that
the enemy was to be respected. Gates had done pretty well in the matter of
the pigeons, at first; his procedure was not to be compared with his
colleague's pedantic idiocies; but the first touch of riposte had been indeed
deadly. Gates had been the clairvoyant of the party; he had gauged clearly
enough the result of his operation; but naturally he had left no note of the last
act, and neither Arthwait nor Abdul Bey had been able to do anything.
Arthwait had been scared badly until his pompous vanity came to the rescue,
and showed him that accidents of that kind must be expected when one is
handicapped with an assistant of inferior ability.
Vesquit decided that the battle should be properly [175] prepared, and no
trouble spared to make it a success. His fondness for corpses had not gone to
the length of desiring to become one.
In him there had been the makings of a fairly strong man; and, with
Douglas to push him on, he was still capable of acting with spirit and
determination. Also, he had the habit of authority. He set Arthwait to worrk
on the Grimoire; for, in a operation of this importance, one must make all
one's instruments.
Beginning with a magic knife, which one is allowed to buy, one cuts the
magic wand from a hazel, the magic quill from a goose, and so on. The idea
is to confirm the will to perform the operation by a long series of acts ad hoc.
It is even desirable to procure parchment by killing a consecrated animal with