The Quest of Julian Day (1939) by Dennis Wheatley
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Readers unfamiliar with The Quest of Julian Day may wish read my note only after reading the novel
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The Quest of Julian Day
What is the quest?
The novel apparently covers 1938 to 1939 in the memoirs of Mr. Day (not his real name), who has been cashiered from the F. O. when a close friend and colleague commits suicide over suspected espionage.
The quest begins with Day going under cover for private revenge on the author of his misfortunes: O’Kieff. O’Kieff is both a noted occultist and one of the tops in the globe-spanning criminal syndicate: the Big Seven.
Day tracks him to Egypt, where he gets framed for murder, infiltrates a Cairo dope gang, and is cleared of all charges. In the process, he catches the eye of the Egyptian Princess Oonas. The kidnapping of a friend's adult daughter leads him and a squad of police busting up an O’Kieff white slavery redoubt South of Cairo.
Whew!
The second half of the novel concerns Day and a team of UK archaeologists racing O’Kieff to find a lost Army of Ancient Egypt in the Egyptian desert. Along the way we get a kind of ChatGPT version of ancient history, and some romantic interludes.
* * *
I tuned down the lamp to a glimmer and had picked up my coat to put it on, knowing that later the night air would grow chilly, when the curtains parted again and Oonas appeared framed between them.
Her face did not give the least indication as to whether she was amused, contemptuous or angry. She just said quietly:
‘You haven’t done your exercises yet.’
‘Aha!’ I exclaimed, utterly taken aback. ‘Exercises!’
‘Yes. I do mine every night. Don’t you?’
‘Er, no. I’m afraid I don’t,’ I replied a little weakly.
‘You should, then; they are excellent for the figure. If we had foils we could fence for a few minutes, as that is the best exercise of all, but as we haven’t, running will serve instead.’
‘Running!’ I echoed. ‘But you can’t run here, in the marquee, and …’
‘Can’t I?’ she cut me short. ‘You just watch me. Over the chairs, under the table, round and round, bending, jumping, tumbling sideways and running on again. That’s just the thing to keep you fit. Anyhow I’m going to.’
‘Well,’ I murmured, utterly amazed at this entirely new side of herself that Oonas was presenting to me. ‘If you feel that way I wouldn’t dream of stopping you.’
She moved forward, coming right up to me. She had very little on but I was hardly conscious of that as she looked me calmly in the face and said, ‘I’m fitter than you are. I bet you couldn’t catch me.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ I laughed, and I instinctively made a grab at her but she slipped away and dodged round to the other side of the table where I could not get at her.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I challenge you.’
‘Right!’ I cried. ‘I’d get you or any woman within two minutes in the confines of this tent.’
With a little laugh she leaned forward and, blowing down its chimney, put out the lamp. Next moment her voice came mocking and alluring from the far side of the tent:
‘Try it! Catch me! Catch me if you can!’
In all the days of my life I have never experienced greater excitement than in that chase. Perhaps it was the primeval hunting instinct, which is still strong in the roots of every man, coming out in me; but I knew that I had to get her or for ever be dishonoured in my own estimation.
Oonas was not an athlete; physical exertion is anathema to her type, and I doubt if she had run a mile in the last five years; but she was extraordinarily quick and agile. Again and again I nearly caught her but she slipped through my outstretched hands. There were no corners to the marquee so I could not drive her into one and when she came up against the central dividing curtain she slid under it, so I had to follow her to the other side. She seemed to sense the obstacles in the dark better than I did and I was constantly barking my legs against the chair as I made wild rushes forward. For twenty seconds at a time I would lose her completely and stand trying to hush my panting as I listened for her softer breath, until her mocking voice came from just up against the wall of the tent, but she had evidently pulled off her dressing-gown as she flung it in my face and eluded me while I was struggling to free myself of its folds. A moment later I touched her back and grabbed her nightdress but the flimsy chiffon tore from top to bottom as she wrenched herself away, and I was left with a yard or so of the filmy material dangling from my hand. The whiff of her perfume I got from it nearly drove me insane and I knew that she was now standing there in the darkness only a few feet away from me without a stitch of clothing on.
Eventually I caught her, although I half-believe she allowed me to in the end, and when I did she turned suddenly, flung herself into my arms and glued her mouth to mine. I could feel her heart hammering in her chest just beneath my own and I crushed her warm, palpitating little body to me. All the scruples I had had were now cobwebs in the wind. Like Jurgen and countless others before me I did the manly thing. Picking her up in my arms I carried her to bed.
Later I knew that I ought to have suspected something from the beginning. Even if the way in which Oonas had deliberately delayed our return to the boat had not made me think, the handsomely-appointed marquee and the supply of champagne should have done so; but there is no doubt about it that she had practised a mild form of hypnosis on me. I knew quite well that I was not really in love with her, yet her beauty exercised such a fascination over me that in her presence I was capable of thinking of little else.
* * *
The novel ends in the Libyan desert, at a dig for the remains of a lost Egyptian army.
Our hero and his fellow musketeers are fallen upon by O’Kieff, though his airborne ambush is spiked by the happy arrival of a gibli. Plenty of time for future sword-crossings, and perhaps even workout sessions with Princess Oonas.
* * *
The Quest of Julian Day is a sluggish novel. One senses the starting and stopping indicates an authorial need to constantly rebuild enthusiasm.
Jay
15 November 2014
