After a moment a nervous smile twitched at Otto Khune's thin lips. 'If that is the situation, gentlemen, it looks as if I'm to be saved a lot of talking. And, to be truthful, I was a little afraid that the Squadron-Leader here might not take what I had to say seriously; or, rather, might get the idea that I was well on the way to becoming a candidate for a straight-jacket.'
'No,' Forsby assured him, pulling out a chair. 'We have been worrying about you for quite a tune; but not with any thought that we might have to send you to a loony bin. Learning about the strange relationship which exists between you and your brother, and the use he hopes to make of it, have been much nearer driving me in that direction.'
'I'm sorry.' Otto gave another nervous smile. 'But the thought that I can now speak freely about these things is a great relief to me.'
'Whisky and soda?' Forsby asked. 'Thanks,' the scientist replied.
As the Squadron-Leader mixed one he asked, 'When you arrived here just now, what had you in mind to say to me?�
Khune took a gulp of his whisky, and shrugged. 'I meant to tell you what, apparently, you already know.' 'And then?' prompted Verney.
'See if we couldn't devise some means of trapping this villainous brother of mine.'
'Good for you.' C.B.'s thin face showed his pleasure and relief at this offer of co-operation.
Forsby touched the scientist gently on the shoulder, and asked, 'Tell me, Khune, why did you wait until almost the last minute before coming to me like this? You could have saved yourself hours of mental torture if you had confided in me soon after the trouble started.'
Khune put a hand over his blue eyes for a moment, then gave himself a little shake. 'Of course I ought to have. But it meant disclosing the past; telling you about Lothar's visit to London in 1950. He had entered this country illegally and was acting as a Soviet agent then. It was my duty to have reported him to the police at once, but I didn't. I was afraid that if that went on my record I'd be graded at the Ministry as unreliable and transferred to non-secret work. That may not mean very much to you people, but to a scientist like myself, who has spent years on a special type of research, it would have been heart-breaking.'
Verney stretched out his long legs. 'Yes, I understand that; but later, when Lothar began to really plague you, surely...'
'It was my battle,' Kiune broke in impatiently. 'After what Lothar did to me last time, he hadn't a hope in hell of persuading me to believe that his intentions were anything but evil; and I never even contemplated giving way to him. I'm not a traitor! And you've no right to infer that I am just because I didn't come to Forsby earlier.'
'I didn't infer that.' C.B.'s voice was as quiet as ever. 'But you did give way to him, didn't you? If it hadn't been for the visit of this American you would have met him in London today.'
'Yes, the pressure he was exerting on me was too great. By Thursday night things had reached a point where I knew that I had to do something about it or I'd no longer be responsible for my actions. But I had no intention of taking the formula to London with me. I intended only to see Lothar at a house in Cremorne and have a show-down with him.'
'Why should you have supposed that you would have a better chance of making him agree to leave you alone when face to face than during these arguments you have with him on the astral?'
Khune gave a faint smile. 'Our psychic bond cuts both ways. There are times when I can overlook him and, when his mind is occupied with something else, he doesn't know that I am doing so. He has become a Satanist. I'm convinced of that. I've seen him in a Satanic Temple with a lot of naked women crowding round him. He was seated on a throne dressed in black and wearing a big horned mask; and he had a small black imp standing at his side.'
'Bejasus!' Barney exclaimed. 'Then he is the Great Ram!'
The others looked at him enquiringly. 'You remember, Sir?' He turned towards C.B. 'Ratnadatta's circle is a Lodge of the Brotherhood of the Ram, and Mrs. M. described the Great Ram to me after her first visit to the place. This means that Lothar is the big shot of the whole outfit.'
'That doesn't surprise me,' Khune remarked. 'From his boyhood on he put an immense amount of effort into developing his occult powers, and he has a tremendously strong personality.'
Verney nodded. 'Knowing what we do about him, I'm not surprised either. But please go on with what you were saying. Why did you feel that you would stand a better chance of overcoming him by going up to London?�
'I felt almost certain that the Satanic Temple was in the house at Cremorne, but Lothar had given me a vision only Of its outside; so I couldn't be certain without making a check up. The sight of its front hall would have been enough and, if I'd been right, that would have given me the card I wanted. I could have told Lothar that to rid myself of him I would no longer have to admit to the police that I had been in communication with a Russian agent. I could give them his description, lay an information that he was running a brothel there, and have it raided. I could have said that unless he agreed to let me alone that's what I meant to do; then, instead of being a High Priest with a harem, he would find himself a wanted criminal on the run.'
'To protect his secret, he might quite well have had your throat cut.'
'I had planned to leave a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Police with the hall porter at my Club, before going to see Lothar; and I should have left instructions with the hall porter that, if I had not returned to collect the letter by four o'clock in the afternoon, he was to send it along to Scotland Yard by hand. Even a crew of Satanists would baulk at murdering a man when told that he had left a letter for the police saying that they might.'
'True. And what if the place had turned out not to be the one in which you had seen the Temple?�
'I'd have been no worse off than before. I'd have told him that I'd see him in hell sooner than let him have the formula.'
'Yet last night, when he learned that you were still here, and turned on the heat, you gave way again and agreed to meet him tomorrow. Was that because he threatened to put a curse on you if you didn't?'
'Well, partly.'
'If you meant to turn up without the formula, you must have expected that he would curse you just the same. And, as you have had no chance to check up on the interior of the house in Cremorne, you'd have had nothing with which to threaten him. So what did you expect to gain by agreeing to this meeting?�
Khune hesitated a second, then his blue eyes suddenly blazed, and he burst out, 'The chance to kill him and get away with it. The odds against my being able to do so in London were too heavy. But, when he demanded that I should meet him down here, I felt that he was playing into my hands. Out there on the moor, I could have done the job and buried the body in some gully.
In these Welsh hills it would have been ten thousand to one against anyone finding it in my lifetime, and I'd have been free of him for good and all.'
'I see,' Verney nodded. 'Having read your statement it had occurred to me that when you came face to face with him you might be tempted to adopt drastic measures, or even plan them in advance. Would you tell us now why you changed your mind tonight, and decided instead to confide in Forsby?�
The scientist began to twist his long knobbly-knuckled hands together. 'Because a quick death is too good for the swine. He has always loathed discomfort, poor food, ugly clothes, and physical labour. Even more, to be baulked in his ambitions and condemned to a mind-rotting routine, with only common criminals as companions, would be a foretaste of hell for him. I can't get him a long prison sentence; but you can. That is why I'm here instead of thinking out the most painful way to kill him.'
They all recalled the account Khune had given of the break-up of his marriage, and realized how greatly he must have suffered at his brother's hands; yet, even so, the seething hatred with which he spoke left them silent for a minute. Then Verney said:
'It is essential that he should be caught with some document on him that he has received from you, or at least receive such a document wi
thin sight of a witness, even if he throws it away afterwards. I take it you are willing to make out a dud formula, go to the rendezvous, and give it to him?'
'Certainly.'
'Good. We shall draw a cordon round the place and, unless we are very unlucky, catch him within a few minutes of his leaving you. I must say, though, I wish you hadn't chosen such an exposed position as this Lone Tree Hill, because it means that, to keep under cover until the meeting has taken place, Forsby's men will have to take up positions a good half mile away.'
Khune shrugged. 'That can't be helped. There are limits to what one can convey on the astral, and it had to be some place that he could easily identify. I had nothing of this kind in mind at the time, but I meant to tell him that up there some birdwatcher might chance to see us through a pair of binoculars; so, before I handed him the paper, it would be best for us to walk down to the wood on the far side of the slope. It was there that I meant to kill him.'
'I'd like you still to carry out that idea as, about fifty yards inside the wood, we could arrange an ambush and he would have much less chance of slipping through our fingers.'
When Khune had agreed, they continued to talk about Lothar for a further quarter of an hour; then it was settled that they should all meet at half past nine next morning and go out to reconnoitre Lone Tree Hill. Forsby accompanied the others out into the avenue and, when they had said good night to Khune outside his bungalow, walked on with the visitors to theirs. As they halted in the doorway, C.B. said:
'Well, Dick, we've had a lucky break. I'm very much happier about this job than when I arrived here this afternoon.'
'So am I.' Forsby nodded. 'In the worst case now, if Lothar does get away, it will be only with a useless bit of paper. All I hope is that he doesn't get wind of what is in the air and fail to turn up.'
'I regard that as much less likely than I did an hour ago. He can't be as sensitive as I feared to what goes on in Otto's mind, otherwise he would have tumbled to it on Thursday night, when Otto agreed to go to London, that he didn't mean to bring the formula with him, and instead had cooked up' an idea for doing him dirt.'
'That's true, Sir,' Barney commented. 'All the same, wouldn't it be best to leave Otto behind when we make our reconnaissance tomorrow? If Lothar took it into his head to have a look at him, and saw him with us selecting hideouts from which to trap him, it's a certainty that he'd call his visit off.'
'Good for you, young feller.' Verney turned to the Squadron-Leader. 'Sullivan's right, Dick. We can't be too careful. Slip along to Otto now. Tell him to try to put tomorrow's business out of his mind before he goes to sleep, and that you are going to reinstall the old tape recorder just in case Lothar comes through to him during the night. And that tomorrow we would like him to remain in his bungalow till lunch time.'
On that, they exchanged good nights and Forsby left them. Tired after their long day, they fell asleep within a few minutes of getting into bed and did not wake until Harlow called them with cups of tea and told them he would be bringing them breakfast in half an hour.
At half past nine Forsby came along to them with the most welcome news that Khune had spent his first untroubled night for nearly a fortnight and that the tape on the recorder remained completely blank. They then set out in Forsby's car on their reconnaissance.
Between the Station and Lone Tree Hill there lay a stretch of wooded high ground, so they did not come in sight of the hill until they were within a mile of it; but then they could see that on three sides it was surrounded by open moorland. Turning off the main road, Forsby drove across the bridge and some way along the track that skirted the base of the hill till he reached a path that wound up it. Getting out, they walked the half mile to its summit, had a good look round, then made their way through the knee-deep heath and young bracken down to the wood.
By eleven o'clock they were on the way back to the Station and had made their plan. Verney was to lie in wait in the wood, with six of the police, and the remainder were to be posted at intervals in two semi-circles round the hill behind such boulders and gorse bushes as offered the best cover. As it seemed obvious that Lothar must arrive by car and would approach the hill from the road, that segment of the circle was, to begin with, to be left open. But Forsby and Barney were to keep the bridge under observation from the wooded rise between the hill and the Station. When they saw Lothar cross the bridge they were to drive down the road in Forsby's car, get out and, with his two rods, start fishing in the stream. By that time Lothar should be sideways on to them and half way up the hill, so could hardly fail to see them. This stratagem they hoped would serve the dual purpose of cutting off his retreat to the road and inducing him readily to accept Otto's suggestion that, before he handed over the paper, they should move down the far side of the hill into the wood, and so be out of sight of the fishermen.
At midday they had some sandwiches in Forsby's bungalow and at half past he went to the police quarters to brief his men. The importance of the affair was impressed upon them and the necessity to remain absolutely still in their cover until they heard two blasts of a whistle. They were then to spring up and, if any running figure was in view, make for it, otherwise to remain stationary. Then were they issued with one round blank and four of ball cartridge apiece, but told that they were not to fire upon the wanted man unless he either threatened them with a weapon or, having broken through the cordon, looked like getting away unless he was brought down.
Soon after one o'clock Verney, in a jeep driven by Harlow, collected Khune, who was waiting ready dressed in his old raincoat and blue beret. A lorry with Forsby on its box transported the rest of the security police, and Barney, driving Forsby's car, brought up the rear of the procession as far as the wooded slope.
By half past one the men were all in position and getting down into their cover. Verney and Forsby took a last look round from the top of the hill, then left Khune there - the one to disappear into the wood, the other to drive back in the lorry and join Barney. Harlow followed in the jeep and reversed it under the trees so that, should Lothar succeed in getting back to his car, he could be pursued by road without a moment's delay.
As is so often the case in early May, the weather was pleasant and warm enough to have spent this Sunday afternoon dozing among the ling on the moor, but from two o'clock onwards over twenty very wakeful pairs of eyes kept watch on either the road or the hill-top. Between a quarter past two and a quarter to three, four car-loads carrying families of picnickers passed from the Station on their way inland towards the foothills of the rugged mountains that formed the skyline in the distance, but the majority of the Station's personnel preferred to laze at home, tend their gardens, or spend their afternoon on the beach. No car approached from the other direction.
By three o'clock all those concerned were beginning to feel the strain of watching; by half past, Verney was beginning to fear that Lothar did not, after all, mean to keep the appointment he had made for between two o'clock and four. By four o'clock he had resigned himself to disappointment, but he decided to give Lothar another half hour. That half hour dragged interminably, yet even after it he held his hand for a further five minutes before blowing his whistle.
As soon as Forsby saw movement on the hillside, he ordered up the lorry. The security police were collected and the Squadron-Leader, with Barney beside him, picked up Verney and Khune. As they got into his car, he said resignedly, 'Well, it's not the first time that I've had that sort of wait for nothing, and I don't suppose it will be the last. Lothar must have smelt a rat.'
'You've said it, partner,' agreed C.B.
'I wonder what his next move will be,' Barney hazarded.
'God alone knows!' For once Verney's voice was a shade petulant. 'Anyhow, there's no point now in our remaining here. We'll get back to London as soon as possible.'
'It will take some while to get your aircraft ready,' Forsby told him, 'and you had only sandwiches for lunch, so to fill in time I propose to give you a good solid tea at
the Club.'
'Thanks, Dick. I must say it would be welcome.'
When they turned into Bachelors Avenue the little Squadron-Leader again broke the gloomy silence. 'I'm going to get out here. Sullivan can take over the wheel again and Khune will show him the quickest way to the Club. Meanwhile I'll get on the blower, locate your pilot, and tell him you want to get off. Then I'll have Harlow pack your bags and I'll bring them along to the Club in about half an hour's time. You'll act as host to our friends until I can join you, won't you, Khune?�
'Of course. It will be a pleasure,' replied the scientist.
The change over was made and Barney drove off round the Headquarters building. As they came out alongside the quadrangle of lawn in front of it, Khune said:
'It will be an hour at least before they have found your pilot and got your aircraft ready. It always is. Would it interest you to spend ten minutes having a look at my laboratory, and seeing the sort of stuff my swine of a brother is so keen to get his hands on?�
'Yes, I'd like to,' Verney replied. 'Although it may be only a jelly to look at, the thought of the way it can propel tons of metal at thousands of miles an hour through the air is fascinating.'
Khune directed Barney to drive the car round to the back of one of the big steel and glass blocks, and at an entrance to it that had above the doorway, in bold lettering, 'a five', they all got out.
As it was a Sunday the door was shut, but Khune pressed a bell-push and after a few minutes it was opened by a portly elderly man, in a dark blue uniform. He gave Khune one look, then his eyes grew round and he exclaimed:
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