'Naturally that got him worried, so she suggested that he should consult someone who had greater occult powers than herself and gave him the address of a man named Biernbaum, who is in practice in the West End as a psycho-analyst. Biernbaum gave Ruddy a lot of gupp about seeing into the future really being a science which was understood by the ancients and is only now being rediscovered, and how it had recently been proved that they were right to use pure young girls as priestesses in the temples because nubile virgins were the best vehicles for conveying the voices of unseen powers; then he said that, for a fee, he could take Ruddy to a house in which a young woman who had been trained to prophesy invariably produced the goods. Ruddy agreed to cough up five pounds and was told to report at Biernbaum's consulting room again on Saturday evening.'
'Saturday evening,' Barney repeated. 'That's the night the Satanists meet. Did this chap Biernbaum take him along to the house in Cremorne?�
C.B. nodded. 'You've hit it, partner. At least I'm pretty certain that is where they went. Biernbaum must have put Ruddy under a light hypnosis because after they got into a taxi he doesn't remember the streets through which they passed, or those by which they returned about an hour later; but his description of the approach to the place, and of its outside, tallies. He says the inside was like that of a nobleman'3 mansion, as seen on the films, but he was received by an elderly bald-headed doctor, who runs the place, and a fine looking woman who was dressed as a nurse. They told him that their most gifted girl had been taken ill but, as the appointment had been made, she had agreed all the same to prophesy for him. Then they took him up to a luxurious bedroom where a lovely girl was lying in bed with her eyes shut and the sheets up to her chin.'
Barney grinned suddenly. 'This sounds more fun than getting a blowsy old woman to peer into a crystal. Did the lovely prove a good oracle?'
'Yes, she prophesied all right. In fact, so plausibly that she shook poor Ruddy to his buttoned boots. She described the chap who was supposed to be going to do him dirt, and unmistakably she was seeing young Sir Hamish McFadden.'
�The chap whose father left him about ten million pounds worth of shipping, and is now regarded as quite a big shot among the Socialist intelligentsia?'
"That's right. But even if he is ass enough to believe in their old fashioned theories, he at least has the sense to realize the Communist danger, and he has been spending quite a lot of money lately to finance the campaigns of honest Trade Unionists like Ruddy, who want to oust the Reds. Ruddy was going down to lunch with him at his place in Kent last Sunday, to fix the final details about I.T.V. appearances, leaflets, and other anti-Communist propaganda for which Sir Hamish is footing the bill. But the prophecy decided Ruddy to call his visit off.'
'So that's how they worked it.' Barney made a grimace. 'I suppose by Monday Ruddy and Sir Hamish had quarrelled violently and, after the break, Ruddy felt that, without the financial support he had been promised, he no longer stood a chance?'
'Good Lord, no! With, or without Sir Hamish, Ruddy could still romp home. He has thrown his hand in on personal grounds: on account of his family. The lovely oracle predicted for him, despite everything, a smashing victory. She even got so enthusiastic about it that, although she was as naked as when her mother bore her, she suddenly sat up in bed and threw an arm round his neck. It was at that moment that from some camouflaged point of vantage someone took a photograph of them.' 'Blackmail!' exclaimed Barney.
'That's it. On Monday a man who was a complete stranger to Ruddy brought him a copy, gave it to him and said: 'We thought you might like to have this as a souvenir. We have plenty more and either you lay off standing for Secretary-General, or your wife gets one tomorrow.' 'What swine these people are!'
'Of course. Communists are of two kinds only. Gadarene Swine whose wits have been taken from them so that they rush headlong down the slope to their own destruction, and ordinary voracious swine who, if you were standing in their sty, had a heart-attack and fell among them, would instantly set upon and devour you - just as did the pigs in T. F. Powys' novel, "Mr. Tasker's Gods".'
'I know, Sir. But this sort of thing really is frightful. Did poor old Ruddy cave in right away?'
'I gather so. He told Thompson that he had been happily married for twenty-four years and counted his wife his greatest blessing; but she was not the sort of woman who would even tolerate his dancing twice in an evening with the good-looking wife of another chap at a Trade Union social and that once she had made his life a misery for a couple of months because she had found out that, while she was on holiday at the seaside with the children, he had taken a pretty typist to a movie. He said that the sight of the photograph would be a terrible shock to her. He felt sure that her principles would prove stronger than her affections: that, filled with righteous indignation, she would leave him, taking their two unmarried daughters with her, and that no political success he might achieve could compensate a man of his age for the loss of his family.'
'Couldn't he explain?' Barney asked. 'Surely if his wife loves him, and he told the truth, she would believe him?�
'Put yourself in his shoes, or hers.' C.B. gave a short hard laugh and tossed across the desk a photograph. 'Take a look at that. Thompson asked Ruddy to let him have the loan of it so that Scotland Yard could try to identify the woman, and Ruddy said he was glad to get it out of the house, provided it was destroyed afterwards. Can you see yourself endeavouring to persuade a middle-aged, narrow-minded and distrustful wife that you had gone to the bedroom of this naked lady for no other reason than the hope that she would predict for you the winner of the Derby?'
I Barney had picked up the photograph and was staring at it as though his eyes might pop out of their sockets. It showed the stalwart grey-haired Tom Ruddy leaning forward on the far side of a richly furnished bed. Sitting up in the bed, nude to the thighs, an inviting smile on her lips, an encouraging hand on Ruddy's shoulder, was the beautiful prophetess. Almost choking with mixed emotions, he stammered:
'But... damn it... this is Margot Mauriac! How ... how could she have lent herself to this sort of thing? How could she?
Verney raised his prawn-like eyebrows. 'Really! Is she, now? Perhaps I ought to have guessed, but somehow I didn't. Her real name isn't Mauriac, though; it's Mary Morden.'
CHAPTER XVIII 'WHEN ROGUES FALL OUT...'
What!' exclaimed Barney, dropping the photographs. 'Teddy Morden's widow! Bejasus! Well, that explains a lot of things. The last time I saw her she confessed to me that her reason for wanting to become a Satanist was to have it in her power to be avenged on somebody. I understand that now. She must have believed, just as I did, that a link existed somewhere between Mrs. Wardeel's set-up and Morden's murder, decided that Ratnadatta was the link and that it was his crew of Satanists that had done Morden in; then made up her mind to become one herself as the only way of getting evidence against his killers.'
'That's right; or, at all events, it's the line she said she intended to follow when she came to see me before starting on the job.'
'Hang it all, Sir! Since you knew that she and I were working along the same lines, why didn't you tell me about her?'
C.B. shrugged. 'In our work it often pays better to let two people carry on an investigation unknown to one another. Otherwise, if one gets on the wrong track and tells the other, both may follow it, with the result that both of them waste a lot of time. That is why I said nothing to you about Mrs. Morden when she told me what she meant to do.'
'But later, Sir. My reports made it clear that both of us were on the right track. If only ...'
'No; you are off the mark there. When you told me that an attractive young woman had begun to attend Mrs. Wardeel's evenings a little before yourself, and of her having persuaded Ratnadatta to take her along to his Satanic circle, it did occur to me that she might be Mary Morden. If you remember, I questioned you very closely about her, but the description you gave me of Mrs. Mauriac was so totally unlike that of the Mrs. Morden I knew that
I concluded they must be different women.' Picking up the photograph, C.B. went on, 'I told her that she would be wise to disguise herself, but I didn't credit her with being able to do the job so thoroughly. In this, her hair, eyebrows and mouth are entirely changed from when I last saw her. In fact, it wasn't until I began to study the photograph carefully that I recognized her.'
'I see. She hasn't been reporting to you in person, then, but in writing.'
'She hasn't been reporting to me at all. She offered her services but I told her that I couldn't possibly take her on officially.'
Barney's brown eyes smouldered. 'D'you mean that you let her go into this filthy business on her own, without either guidance or protection?�
'I did my best to argue her out of her idea, but she refused to be put off. I told her then that it would be better for her not to communicate with this office or myself unless she secured definite evidence which might give us a case against her husband's murderers because, if they learned that she had any connection with us, she might be murdered herself. But all this happened over seven weeks ago and, to tell the truth, I'd forgotten all about her till Thompson produced this photograph this morning.'
'Forgotten all about her!' Barney repeated angrily. 'Good God, Sir; I'd never have thought it of you. To let a lovely girl like her, with no experience of the game, go butting her head into a nest of the vilest crooks imaginable and never even give her a thought....'
'Steady on; steady on!' Verney cut in, but his voice remained as low and even as ever. 'Don't let your sense of chivalry run away with you; and try for a moment to appreciate what it means to occupy this chair. I gave you a key role in an important mission, but you are only one of a score of my people who are engaged on it. I have to receive all their reports as well as yours. And that is only one of my jobs. I have to supervise the watch that is maintained in every port in the kingdom against undesirables entering it; I'm responsible for security in all secret Scientific Establishments; I am having at least fifty potential spies or saboteurs either hunted or kept under observation. Even that is no more than half of it. I have to attend conferences at half-a-dozen Ministries and quite frequently others that take me abroad. This afternoon, for example, I shall be flying to Bonn at the invitation of my opposite number there, for a two-day visit to compare our methods with those in use by the West German Security Services. So your suggestion that I can find the time to keep a private eye upon any young woman who elects, against my advice, to play at being an amateur detective is really rather foolish.' 'I'm sorry, Sir. I'm afraid I hadn't thought of it like that, but...' 'That's all right, Barney. But if you are to go up the ladder here, as you show good promise of doing, you must train yourself to keep a sense of proportion. If it is any comfort to you, I did tell Mary Morden that should she find herself in danger she was to let me know, and I would at once come to her assistance.'
'But she is in danger. That's what I've been wanting to tell you. Of course, I should have told you what I'd heard about Ruddy when I saw you but, to be honest, I'd temporarily forgotten all about him. I came here this morning to tell you about Margot -Mary, I mean. She has been kidnapped by these fiends.' 'Kidnapped? How d'you know?'
'I was to have taken her out on Saturday evening, but I had to put her off because of our going down to Wales. As soon as we got back on Monday I tried to get in touch with her, but couldn't. I tried again several times yesterday, but it was no go; so I kept watch outside the house she lives in last night, hoping to catch her when she came in. By two a.m. she was still not back, so first thing this morning I did an illegal entry job on her flat.' 'You'd have been in a fine mess if you had been caught.' 'No. We know through Otto that Lothar is the Great Ram. Margot - Mary, I mean - has actually seen the Great Ram; which is more than we have. She told me so; even though she went back on it afterwards. My case would have been that I was searching for evidence of a connection between her and a wanted criminal that might lead us to him; and you would have told the police to lay off me.'
C.B. gave a grim little smile. 'Good line that. One up to you. I expect I should have hauled you out anyhow, but don't count on that as carte blanche to ride rough-shod over the law in future. Well, what did you find?'
'That she had been absent from Sunday, if not longer, and her clothes and luggage still being there showed that she had not gone off on a holiday. I went downstairs and questioned the woman who acts for the landlord. She had not seen Margot - damn it, Mary-since midday Saturday, and on Saturday evening Ratnadatta called, asked for Mary and, on learning that she was out, said he would wait in the downstairs hall till she returned. When she did come back, he must have hypnotized her or used some threat to make her go off with him. Anyhow, it's certain that he is at the bottom of her disappearance.'
'But she hasn't disappeared, much less been kidnapped.' Verney declared. 'We know from Ruddy that this photograph was taken on Saturday night, and his description of the house to which Biernbaum took him tallies with the one at Cremorne. It is a fair bet, too, that if Ratnadatta collected her an hour or two earlier that is where he would have taken her. So we have a double check on where she went to and no evidence whatever to suggest that she did not go there willingly.'
Barney frowned. 'Even if she did, it's impossible to believe that she played the part that she is reported to have willingly. She must have been coerced.'
'I'm afraid I can't agree about that.' Verney tapped the photograph. 'Take another look at her. Far from appearing to be acting under coercion, she is all smiles. Ruddy says he was left alone with her for several minutes. If she had not been a willing agent, she would have found some way of tipping him off that her prophecy act was a fraud.'
'You forget, Sir, that, as they were photographed without Ruddy's knowledge, they were being watched the whole time. She must have known that and did not dare to alter the lines she had been given to say from fear of what they might do to her afterwards.'
'You've got the wrong angle on this, Sullivan. You don't seem to have yet caught up with the fact that we are talking not about Margot Mauriac but about Mary Morden, and the two are poles apart. The woman you have been seeing a lot of has presented herself to you as a nice respectable girl, fascinated by the occult to a degree that for the sake of a little excitement she was prepared to play with fire. Having taken a liking to her and believing yourself to know better than she did the risks she would be running, you have naturally done your utmost to prevent her from getting herself badly burned, and now you are afraid that she has landed herself right in the middle of the fire. But the real woman is the widow of Teddy Morden and, although warned by me, she went into this thing with her eyes open. By getting herself accepted into the Satanic circle she has done far better than I ever expected; and we must not hold it against her that she led poor Ruddy up the garden path. Obviously they picked her for the job because she is very good-looking, but the fact that they asked her to play prophetess shows that they trust her; and, since she did it so well, they will now trust her even further. There is no question whatever of her having been kidnapped or coerced. On the contrary, every move she made has been deliberate and, with a little luck now, she is going to step right out of the fire, bringing the chestnuts with her.'
'Maybe you are right about Saturday night,' Barney admitted, reluctantly, 'but that doesn't account for her continued absence from her flat. If she had meant to stay away several nights she would have taken a suitcase and some clothes.'
'Not necessarily. At that place in Cremorne I don't doubt they have all sorts of exotic raiments to dress themselves up in.'
'That does not explain her not having taken her toilet things,' Barney argued. 'No woman would go off to stay anywhere without her own tooth brush, scent, powder and that sort of thing. I'll bet every cent I've got that she intended to return home in the early hours of Sunday morning. But having got her there they wouldn't let her, and they are holding her there against her will.' C.B. shrugged. 'Then I think you would lose your money. If she i
s still there all the odds are that they asked her to stay on and she agreed to because she thought it would prove worth her while. But, say that you are right and that she is no longer a free agent, what do you expect me to do about it?'
'Why, have the place raided, of course. We have ample grounds on which to apply for a search warrant. Have the place raided and get her out.'
'Nothing doing, young feller.' Verney shook his head. 'There is still a chance that Lothar might return there, although I'm afraid now that is unlikely.'
'Does that mean that you have had news of him?' Barney asked quickly.
'Well, hardly news. Otto has been doing his utmost to get a line on him. He seems to be able to look down on him without much difficulty, but to locate him is a very different matter. All Otto is certain about is that Lothar is somewhere among high mountains that have snow on their tops. At times he actually goes up one of them to a great cave in its side. Otto says there is a cable railway up to the cave, and that he can feel it vibrating when Lothar goes up there. Of course, all this may be Otto's imagination playing him tricks, but if he is right it sounds as though Lothar was in Switzerland or Norway, or perhaps even the Caucasus. Anyhow, these visions give some grounds for supposing that he has left this country and, as he has got the fuel that he came for, there seems no reason why he should return.'
'Then why not raid the house at Cremorne tonight?' . 'Be your age, Sullivan. Lothar or no Lothar, to bag this nest of Satanists with Communist affiliations will be a fine feather in the cap of the department, and for having unearthed it most of the credit will go to you. But Thompson tells me that his men who have been keeping the place under observation report that hardly anyone goes in or out of it during the week. To raid it while it is nine-tenths empty would be a crazy thing to do. We must wait now until all these boys and girls have gathered there for their Saturday orgy; that's the time to pounce.'
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