It was not yet quite midnight so the buses were still running. After a wait of five minutes she got one, and as she looked round at her fellow passengers she wondered what they would think if they knew how she had spent the evening. Had she told them, she knew that they would never believe her, and would put her down as mad. But she was not mad, and the possession of such a secret gave her a feeling of superiority over them. All the same, by the time the bus set her down in Cromwell Road, the excitement that had buoyed her up for the past two hours was rapidly draining away.
Making as little noise as possible she crept upstairs and on reaching her little flat made herself a cup of coffee. As she drank it she visualized again the extraordinary things she had witnessed. On a sudden impulse she gave her arm a hard pinch to make certain that she was not dreaming.
She was not. That hideous black imp and the pregnant woman had not been part of a nightmare. She had really seen them. And she had arranged to go to the temple again with Ratnadatta next Saturday. If she did, she would have to submit to initiation. While the Indian had been talking to her about it that had not seemed too high a price to pay for the chance of identifying Teddy's murderers. But now, at the thought of those evil near-naked servants of the Devil, with whom she would have to feast and dance, a wave of panic and revulsion swept through her. Teddy was dead. Nothing she could do would bring him back to life. It was madness to place herself in the power of such people for the slender hope of being able to revenge him. Her nerve would break and she would give herself away. Suddenly she reversed her recent decision. She would not go on Saturday; or to Mrs. Wardeel's on Tuesday, either. She would make a clean break while there was still time, and try to forget the whole awful business as soon as possible.
CHAPTER VII AN UNFORTUNATE - ACCIDENT (?)
On Sunday morning Mary lay late in bed. The emotions that had agitated her the previous night had taken a lot out of her, and she felt tired and listless. As she thought over all that Ratnadatta had told her of the ancient cult, she had to admit to herself that many of his arguments in its favour were logical and, perhaps, contained a sub- stratum of truth. Yet that did not alter the fact that the advantages obtained by its few unscrupulous adherents must be gained at the expense of many honest decent people, and its amoral teachings be a menace to family life, high principles, and everything that went to make a well-ordered world.
But, in any case, she had not been seeking to obtain power for herself, and her resolution to be done with Ratnadatta and all to do with the occult remained unchanged.
That left her with a new problem. What was she now to do with herself? She could not yet pick up the threads of her old life where she had left them, because before leaving Wimbledon she had gone to an estate agent, told him she was going to Ireland, given him the keys of her flat and asked him to let it furnished for her for three months for the best price he could get.
Thinking of the flat turned her thoughts to Teddy. It was now six weeks since his death, yet, at times, she still missed him terribly. It was not that he had ever been for her the world's great heart-throb, but he had been gentle, generous and reliable and she had come to count on his companionship. He had been quite good-looking, too, a very adequate if not terribly exciting lover, and always most appreciative of all she did to make their home a place to which he could be proud to bring his friends.
Since he had had so many fine qualities, she wondered now why she had never felt more deeply about him, and decided that probably it was because he had been too transparently good to keep a woman intrigued for long by his personality. It seemed a sad commentary on life that the best men often failed to do so, whereas gay, irresponsible deceivers like Barney Sullivan could so often make women adore them.
It occurred to her then that at least she had Barney left over as a legacy from her abortive investigation into Teddy's murder. Planning the moves for her revenge on him would give her something to think about between the occasional jobs she was getting as a model. She would be seeing him again that night and this time she would give him some encouragement, anyhow to the extent of letting him kiss her.
At midday she got up and cooked herself an egg dish in the tiny kitchenette. It was very sparsely equipped and as she stood at the minute gas-stove she wished, not for the first time, that she were back in her own well- furnished kitchen at Wimbledon. It gave her the idea of going out there. Not to the flat, as by this time it was certain to be occupied by strangers; but she loved the Common. It was a sunny day and now that it was mid-April the silver birches would be putting out their tender young green leaves. The chance of her running into anyone she knew was small; and, suddenly recalling the way in which she had completely changed her appearance, she realized that they would not know her if she did. Anyway, now she had decided to stop playing the detective it was no longer necessary to avoid all contacts with life as Mrs. Morden.
As usual she took ample time to make herself up and dress with care, then she went out and took a bus up to the Green Man on the corner of Putney Heath. Owing to the fine weather there were quite a lot of people about, and twice single men driving slowly by in cars attempted to pick her up. But she was used to such unwelcome attentions when alone and, ignoring them, struck out with her long firm stride across the common. In turn she visited all her favourite spots; the old Windmill, the dell where William Pitt the younger, while Prime Minister, was said to have fought a duel, and the ponds on which the children were sailing their boats.
The fresh air and the long walk did her a power of good, the healthy sights and sounds around her drove from her mind haunting thoughts of the Great Ram, and after making a hearty tea at a little place just off the Common, to which she had been on a few previous occasions, she returned to London in excellent form for her next encounter with Barney.
They had arranged to meet at seven-thirty, and when she arrived at the Hungaria there he was in the foyer looking as devil-may-care as ever, but with an eye-shade over his left eye, and the curve of his cheek below it badly discoloured.
With a slightly amused grimace she said: 'It looks as if you have been mixed up in a fight.'
'I have,' he laughed. 'I'll tell you all about it when you've parked your coat.'
When she came out of the cloakroom he took her downstairs to the cocktail lounge and, as soon as they had ordered drinks, she asked, 'Now! What have you been up to?' 'I hit a man smaller than myself, and got the worst of it!' 'Then you deserved your lesson,' she said, although she did not believe him. He might be a thoroughly bad hat where women were concerned, but she felt certain he was not the type of man to do anything cowardly. All the same, it intrigued her that, instead of producing some cooked-up story about having defended a child or a dog against ill-treatment by a gang of toughs, he should elect to pretend to have been in the wrong.
'As a matter of fact,' he told her with a lopsided grin, 'I got it in a free-for-all. Last night some pals of mine suggested that we should try our luck at a gambling joint that one of them knew of up in St. John's Wood. After a bit of a binge we went along there and played chemi for a while. Of course the game was rigged, as it always is in those sort of places; but the bloke who runs it made it a bit too obvious that he took us all for suckers. When we caught him out red-handed, we decided to break the place up. By ill luck I found myself up against the chucker-out. He was only a little runt of a man, but I suppose he had served in the Commandoes or something. Anyhow, before I knew what was happening, he had given me this whopper, and a couple of minutes later he bundled me out into the
