The Automaton ( Part 4)

Tom came home just after five o'clock. She couldn’t wait to tell him what she’d discovered about the toy.

“That’s brilliant darling, so it is worth a few bob after all.”

“Tom, that’s not the point here. The toy may be worth money, yes, but it’s all the other things connected to it that makes it so fascinating. He died here in England Tom, had a relationship with the most notorious devil worshipper of all time and ended up going mad.”

“So what are we going to do with it then, keep it or see if we can sell it? Your call my darling?”

“I’m not sure yet, I’ll do some more research tomorrow, see if I can find out anything else.”

“Was there anything else on the web about the sect?”

Dianne shook her head and looked disappointed.

“Not really, only that it was a group of Satanists, with Demart and Crowley being the leaders of five others. But no one ever knew who the others were.”

“So why do you think the toy is here, in this house, with all the books and everything?”

“It's obvious Tom,either a collector or inventor of these types of toys lived here, or Jean Henri Demart himself actually lived her for a while.”

Tom made a face and waived his hands above his head.

“Spooky!”

His silly expression made her laugh so much she spilt her coffee.

For the rest of the evening they discussed Tom’s first day at the new depot. Apart from a few I.T. issues it had gone well. All vehicles had gone out on time but only eighty six percent of deliveries were delivered by their deadlines. Tom was confident that it could be easily sorted with better route planning.

They went to bed at ten o’clock and Dianne put the toy safely in one of the kitchen cupboards in case Ben decided to have another play with it, and woke them up with the ringing noise. They both slept soundly.

Tom was up and out again before six and Dianne had another hour’s sleep before she went downstairs at seven thirty. She was surprised to see the Toy on the kitchen table; obviously Tom had had a “play” with it before he went to work.

He could be such a child sometimes.

After coffee and toast she put Ben outside in the garden and switched on her laptop. She read as much as she could about Aleister Crowley. It made disturbing reading. The press of the day denounced him, calling him the “wickedest man in the world”. He actually called himself “The Great Beast 666”.

She decided to Google the house, “Gramley Hall, Derbyshire”. She found what she was expecting. It was described as the former home of inventor and occultist Jean Henri Demart.

She remembered the keys she’d found the day before, maybe they would hold some clues. She took them out of the cupboard drawer and held them up to the light from the window. There were five keys, all different sizes but all the same shape. The main difference between them was the size and amount of teeth on the barrels. She studied the biggest one first; it had around thirty spikey teeth, all different shapes and sizes. She studied it carefully.Engraved on the tip of the shaft was the letter T.

The next key had fewer teeth, and on its tip it had the letter O. The next, B. The next, O, and the last and smallest key, the letter R.

TOBOR.

The keys were obviously something to do with the sect “The Live Tobors.”

Next she decided to have another look at the reference books in the book case. She took them out one by one and placed them on the sofa. Twenty two books in all. She flicked through the pages of each of them hoping to find something about the sect. Inside a book called” Mysterious Cogs Of Life” she found a loose sheet of paper with hand writing on. It looked like a page torn from another book. Excitedly she started to read.
It had a date at the top of the page.

12th February 1928.

“Almost complete now, the tobors will be in place soon. AC is coming next week and then it will be time. We’ve waited long enough and we are almost there. With the strength of the dark one we can show the world the truth. They have to know, they have to understand his power. My work here will be done.”

As she read it she felt a cold breeze enter the room. She heard the familiar sound of the toy’s bell coming closer.

“Damn it Ben, not again!”

As soon as she said it she realised it couldn’t be him, he was still outside in the garden. She stood up and turned to face the door, the toy was on it’s way towards her, bell ringing as it did. The room started to move around her, she felt as though she was spinning. Then the darkness came.