Dennis Wheatley - Gateway To Hell (Hutchinson, 1970: Arrow, 1972, 1974, etc.)
Blurb:
The Duke de Richleau and his friends had faced many dangers in Russia, Spain and Nazi Germany. Now a new and unexpected menace confronts them: the fourth, Rex van Ryn is missing -and he has made off with more than a million dollars from the, Buenos Aires branch of his family bank.
Behind the conventional courtesy of Argentinian society lies a conspiracy of terror and silence -and a trail that leads straight to the Devil himself...One Long Spoiler
Begins on New Years Eve with a sumptuous feast at Simon Aran's place. All of the old friends are in attendance save for Rex van Ryn - who has embezzled £1 million from his bank and disappeared in Buenos Aires!
For some reason the Duc doesn't immediately go out gallivanting on the astral, but sends Simon and Richard Eaves to physically locate their missing colleague. After much food and travel (Wheatley seems to fancy himself as Egon Ronay this time around), the duo learn that he's been seeing a film star, Silvia, and befriended a former SS
Gruppenfuhrer, Baron Von Thumm. On the romantic front, soft-hearted Si has fallen for the blind recluse Miranda - judging by his track record to date, this guy should never go anywhere near a woman. Anyway, they've figured out that Rex is going to put in an appearance at what is euphemistically referred to as 'The Barbecue' ...
As mentioned, DW seems obsessed with matters wining and dining this time out and Simon must have blown up to
Slob-like proportions before he finally succumbs to a moody nectarine he bought from a street trader. Richard saw it coming:
"... God alone knows by what filthy fingers they have been handled. You had better take several Enterovioform pills right away."
I've just reached p.80 and it looks like we're going to witness a Black Mass which should get things moving.
On the 'How many of his own books will he get to plug this time?' front, I'm happy to report that our man is in championship form. By the end of page 3, Wheatley has managed to name-drop
The Forbidden Territory,
The Prisoner In The Mask,
Vendetta,
The Second Seal,
The Golden Spaniard,
Strange Conflict and
Codeword - Golden Fleece (
The Devil Rides Out has to wait until p.70 before he thinks to plug it).
Best line. Simon (about Haag the Bank manager who, through no fault of his own, can't provide them with a lead as to Rex's whereabouts);
"Typical Dutch-American middle class mentality. No imagination and puts everybody into categories." (!!!)
******
"Guards! Guards! Stop that cat! She must not be allowed to get away!" For this reader, Chapters 7 and 8 are the big ones in that they sum up both everything I like and all I cringe at in Dennis Wheatley's writing.
As Simon and Richard feared, the 'Barbecue' turns out to be a Sabbat. Wheatley describes the activities with some exuberance and there is a moment of sheer horror when Simon realises what he thinks they are about to sacrifice but is helpless to intervene. The festivities degenerate into a no holes barred orgy - sodomy, lesbianism, the works: bloody perves! - but one girl can take no more and runs screaming from the field of play, straight toward Aron and Eatons' hiding place. They make a run for their waiting car as armed guards close in and - in one of Wheatley's most eerie sequences - the Satanists try and lure them back by diabolical means. It's a close thing, but soon they are free and head off to their new friend (and potential bad hat) Don Caesar's place to get the girl a change of costume. While Richard is negotiating with Caesar, the girl, Nella, is weeping out her story to fellow Jew, kindly Si. She is not a Satanist, but a Civil Rights Worker, holed up in Chile with a colony of like-minded freedom fighters. Unfortunately, two of these Black Power militants had conned her into attending a party - the same night's 'Barbecue' - where she was drugged, raped and threatened with a knife before escaping. When he hears all this, Richard is furious.
"But you're a sight too soft-hearted, Simon. The silly b*tch has brought this on herself. From what you tell me, she is a typical do-gooder, and it's those people who run around carrying torches for this and that who stir up half the trouble in the world. It's interesting about this Black Power thing, though. Such a movement might cause endless trouble. We must get out of her everything she knows about it"Nella's arguments prove no match for Richard. He predicts Civil unrest in the 'sixties, culminating in a race war, Armageddon ... (the novel is set in 1954, but I very much doubt it was written then ...).
"Without realising it, you have been fighting on the Devil's side. His one objective ever since the Creation has been to bring about disruption. One of his names is 'The Lord of Misrule'. And what could possibly be better calculated to bring about disruption than this Black Power movement? It is Satan's most powerful weapon in his remorseless fight to dominate mankind. Now, you really must tell us all you have learned about it."Needless to say, "the little schoolmarm do-gooder who got herself taken for a ride" has no answer to this except soppy gurly tears! Women, eh?
"I'm only just beginning to realise how stupid I've been. And thank you both. Thank you for everything."She's going to be a huge loss to the Civil Rights movement then. Weird how she found the strength to bear up to resentment and ostracism for her beliefs in the town where she grew up, but is reduced to a contrite, simpering little girl by Richard's *ahem* "well reasoned" arguments. I guess getting shagged for the first time must have made her brainy all of a sudden.
Nella retires to her room for the night. To die horribly.
******
Still gamely plodding on, but I don't seem to be making much progress.
Simon and Richard languish in jail, accused of the murder of Nella. Fortunately, de Richleau learns of their plight in a dream, bombs it over from Corfu, fabricates a piece of convenient 'evidence' that no one in their right minds would fall for, and the case versus our heroes is dimissed in a couple of paragraph's.
Now they've been captured by zombies while attempting to take nazi-boy hostage, and herded off to Silvia the 50-a-day film starlet's place where they eat a lot and debate the in's and out's of the Old Religion with their hostess. The Satanists want de Richleau on their side. Their leader, Don Salvador "The Prince" Marino is a miles better Magician than the duke, and enters the room in a purple mist. He seems to have copped some unhealthy idea's from Charles Manson, because the big plan is to start a race war and the survivors will respect each other more and realise it's in their mutual interests to work in harmony - or that's his cover story. I've Just finished a chapter in which everybody seems to get to recite an essay at each other.
Sylvia stubbed out her cigarette and lit another, then she asked, "Did you know that more than half the foods the world eats today were first developed by Inca agriculturalists? They irrigated great areas which had previously been desert, and grew an amazing variety of vegetables. They had two hundred and forty varieties of potatoes and twenty of maize. We owe to them many kinds of beans, tapioca, peanuts, squash, cashews, pineapples, chocolate, avocados, tomatoes and paw-paws. And, may I remind you, this wonderful civilisation was utterly destroyed by the zealots of the Christian Church." De Richleau, Simon and Richard are too busy stuffing their faces for a change (or rather, doing "full justice to a meal ending with a savoury of flamingo tongues") to bother replying.
Oh, now Rex has just walked in the door, so perhaps we'll find out the deal about the £1 million.
******
The Duke being resolute in his refusal to team up with the Satanist-spearheaded Black Power Movement, the Prince flies into a rage and has our heroes banished to the Hall of Divination. De Richleau hastily constructs a pentagram from the contents of a stolen salt-shaker, and the friends spend a grim night being tormented by a vast assortment of minor demons in terrible guises. It's all very exciting and the Prince throws in some real shockers to lure them from the circle, including a vision of Richard's wife being raped, but then:
"Half past eleven", muttered Richard, "And we've had no dinner. Although we had a good lunch I could eat a horse."
Right on cue, Vachelli, who "had looked after them in the twenties at the Berkely", strides in, maneuvering a trolley piled high with "smoked salmon and lobster, jellied eggs, a tongue, a York ham, trays of hors d'oeuvres, avocados, globe artichokes, snipe, pheasants, a duck, a baron of beef, steak and kidney and chicken pies, and a fine variety of puddings."
This all but does for Richard and Simon, and de Richleau has to shout "You fools!" to stop the pair breaking the circle for the sake of a ghostly feast.
Eventually, Rex enters and helps them escape in a plane where they make a start on the tinned goods. It transpires that he isn't really a black, but he's been working undercover all along and he only swiped the cash to convince the Prince that he was sincere. The Satanist is furious at their escape and sends a hurricane to kill them but, when that doesn't work, he kidnaps Miranda instead and threatens her with an unpleasant death unless they fly back to his commune. Only there do they learn of his plans for them: Simon and the virgin Miranda are to be united in Satanic Wedlock and everybody has to give her one on the altar!
Will the Powers of Light intervene, or will these despicable fiends open the way for the Lord of Misrule via their hijacking the namby pamby do-gooders' Civil Rights movement? Can they save Miranda from a fate worse than death?
Well, it's a thing of peaks and troughs as far as I'm concerned, and nowhere near as involving as
The Devil Rides Out and
Strange Conflict. There's so much build-up to the finale that, when it's dispensed with so abruptly in very
Plague Of The Zombies fashion, I couldn't help but feel disappointed, especially as the oozing, leprous pit and its denizens - the best thing in there - get less column inches than the few million descriptions of what everybody's having to eat (I swear Richard must have a tapeworm: it's the only logical explanation). And if anybody has the luck of the Devil on their side, it's the self-styled 'Four Musketeers.' In the previous books, they only escaped because their enemies got overconfident and messed up their rituals. This time, it's down to the unlikely self-sacrifice of one of the leading Satanists.
The weird thing is, this would probably have made a great Hammer film!
Bob Rothwell (The Duke) Others agreed with you and it got as far as a filmscript, but regetably no further.
Congratulations, also on your perseverance.
Franklin MarshJust reread your hysterically brilliant thoughts on GTH Dem. I picked up a copy recently, but I think They Used Dark Forces must come first as we haven't covered that one yet. I still haven't turned up Strange Conflict, but now have the other 7 official Black Magic stories (For the record Goat 4 Flame Babe 2 Other 1 - The Goat wins hands down). Apart from the enormous quantities of food eaten I think you'd find The Haunting Of Toby Jugg similar to this in the peaks and troughs department.