took them from their cellophane covering she was delighted but, when she read the card that accompanied them, her face fell sadly. It was in a young woman's rounded hand, so obviously not even written by Barney, and it said only, 'Terribly sorry to have to put you off tonight, but have to be out of London on urgent business over week-end. Love, B.'
She felt it to be the most shocking let down. For a moment she was near bursting into tears; but, swiftly, her self-pity was overcome by angry resentment. Like a fool - like a sentimental ninny -like some little teenager who had hooked her first beau - for the past three and a half days she had been almost counting the moments until she should see Barney again. She knew that he had no right to a title, felt certain that the Kenya story was a myth, and all he said about starting up a travel agency there a pack of lies; yet, even so, she had allowed him to sell himself to her again. Those merry brown eyes, the mop of thick dark curly hair, the spontaneous grin that so frequently lit up his brown, healthy face, had bewitched her into believing that he had become a different person from the man she had known five years before. He had played on her loneliness by giving her the only good times she had known since her husband's death, and played on her fears by insisting that she needed his protection.
Looking back over the days since she had given him supper for the first time in her flat, she thought that she must have been out of her wits to accept without question his glib assertions that for eight out often evenings he had had long-standing engagements to dine with old friends. He had even left her on that excuse, after taking her down to Wisley the previous Sunday. To support himself he must have some sort of job, but no normal job entailed a man's having to leave London for the week-end at a moment's notice on a Saturday morning. The explanation was clear. He must have a mistress and quite probably was amusing himself with several other women. No doubt he had had a date with one of them on Sunday evening, and now quite unexpectedly one of them had let him know that morning that she was free to slip off for a week-end in the country with him. He had not changed by an iota, but was still the self-indulgent cynic who took his fun where he could find it and, for any woman who was not with him at the moment, it was a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'.
Angry and miserable, she ate her solitary lunch; but, by the time she finished it, she had decided that it was stupid to spend the rest of the day alternately fuming and moping. She would get out in the fresh air in the afternoon and go to a cinema in the evening.
Putting on her things she went out, walked down to the Earls Court Road, and took a bus to Wimbledon. A blustering wind was blowing which made it less pleasant than when she had last been there, but she strode determinedly across the Common and, after a two-hour walk, ate a hearty tea. By then the wind had dropped and a sunny evening bid fair to usher in good weather for early May, so she did not hurry home and it was getting on for seven o'clock when she got back to the Cromwell Road. Feeling much less depressed after her outing, she pushed open the front door of the house; and there, in the downstairs hall, she found Ratnadatta waiting for her.
CHAPTER XIII DEAD MEN'S SHOES
No steps having been taken by Ratnadatta to find out why she had failed to attend the last meeting at Mrs. Wardeel's had lulled Mary into a false sense of security; so suddenly to come upon him there was a most unpleasant shock. Her heart began to hammer wildly. Concealing her agitation as well as she could, she returned his 'Good evening'.
He had come to his feet and, fixing her with his round brown eyes, through the thick-lensed spectacles, he asked: 'Why haf you not come to Mrs. Wardeel's on Tuesday?'
In a voice that sounded firmer than she had expected, she replied: 'I couldn't. I ate something for lunch that day that upset me. It made me quite ill, and by the evening I was running a temperature.'
To her relief he did not appear to have detected that she was lying. Instead, he smiled his toothy smile and said: 'To hear that I am sorry. But I see you haf quite recovered. That ees good, very good; because I haf pleasant news for you. Soon now you are given the test weech ees the second stage towards your initiation.'
Mary strove to control her rising panic. Barney might be a rotten little twister, but he had convinced her that to have anything further to do with Ratnadatta would be asking for real trouble. She must get out of it somehow, give him the soft answer that turneth away wrath, then go into hiding before the date he had evidently come to make with her. Keeping her voice level she asked:
'When is it to be?'
'Why, tonight,' he replied in evident surprise that she had not understood that from what he had said. 'I telephone you this morning, I telephone you this afternoon, and both times you haf been out. So I come to fetch you. For this you receive instruction before the meeting. Perhaps we arrive a little early; but for me to go and come back for you in half-an-hour ees no point.'
'I... I've been out all day, and I'd like to change my clothes,' she faltered.
'It is unnecessary. You change at the Temple; bath too, if you wish. Come, plees, with me now.'
Desperately she sought in her mind for a way to get rid of him even for ten minutes so that she could make a bolt for it before he returned. But to say that she must go up to her flat before she went out was useless. He would wait for her down there in the hall. Yet she could think of nothing else.
Suddenly she remembered her crucifix. As Barney had suggested, she was carrying it in her handbag. He had been confident that using it would enable her to defy Ratnadatta. She must nerve herself to get it out, hold it in front of the Indian's face and order him to leave the house.
Opening her bag, she fumbled for it; but on looking down, her glance fell on the shoes Ratnadatta was wearing. They were of brown leather and hand-made; but, across the toe-cap of the left one, there was a dark scar that no amount of polishing had been able to remove.
Mary's downcast eyes dilated. For a moment they remained riveted upon the scarred toe-cap with the same fascinated horror that a bird's eyes are held by a snake.
'Come,' said Ratnadatta, a shade impatiently. 'There ees nothing for you to be frightened off. Why do you hesitate?'
Her fingers had found the crucifix but they did not grip it. With a supreme effort, she fought down an impulse to let her mouth open in a scream. She would have known anywhere the shoes that Ratnadatta had on. They had belonged to her dead husband.
Taking a sudden resolution, she withdrew her hand from the crucifix and closed her bag. Then, in a husky voice that belied her words, she said: 'I'm not frightened. It's only that I was not expecting you this evening. Let's get a taxi.'
Shoes had been one of Teddy's few extravagances. It had been his custom to have a pair made for him once a year by Lobb of St. James's Street, and this last pair had been spoiled by an infuriating accident. The second time he had had them on he had been putting a broken kitchen plate in the dustbin; the lid of the bin had dropped back
