personnel, special parts, and so on. They were sending one first thing tomorrow morning to bring back the American egg-head who is on a visit there. Instead, it is going to fly us down this afternoon and its pilot will remain there overnight. I said we'd be at Farnborough at three-thirty; so we've no need to hurry over lunch.'
While they ate a pleasant meal, they reviewed the extraordinary case of Otto Khune and his twin and, when they got to the cheese, rather gloomily contemplated the risk that would have to be run if Otto were allowed to hand over to Lothar the fuel formula in desolate moorland country at a spot that could be kept under observation only from a distance. But, as they rose from the table, they agreed that it was futile to attempt to assess how great the risk of Lothar getting away would be, until they were on the spot and could make a thorough reconnaissance of the proposed meeting place.
At the entrance to the Club, Verney's car was waiting and he told his chauffeur to drive them down to the Royal Air Force Experimental Establishment at Farnborough. There they were led out to a small six-seater passenger aircraft and, after a short delay for the usual last-minute testing of the engine, took off for Wales. For the greater part of the journey they were flying through cloud, but about five o'clock they could see below them crests in the chain of the Cambrian mountains and soon afterwards began to descend towards a stretch of rugged, desolate coast.
Along it for miles no buildings were to be seen, except those of the Rocket Experimental Station, but those were scattered over a wide area enclosed by a high lattice and barbed-wire topped, fence. The place had little resemblance to an Atomic Station as there were no great buildings housing reactors, and many were temporary structures that had been erected soon after the war when materials were still short.
As C.B. was aware, most of these had now fallen into disuse since. With the development of rockets, another Experimental Station had been established in the Hebrides, much of the personnel had been transferred to it and it was there that the great Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles were tried out. The experiments here in Wales were now confined to rocket weapons for tactical use, the development of metals having maximum heat resistance in ratio to weight and fuels with maximum power in relation to bulk.
As the landing strip was used only infrequently, its control tower was not kept permanently manned; but Farnborough had notified the Station to expect an arrival, so the staff responsible were on the look-out and, as the aircraft circled out over the sea, her pilot received the all clear signal to come in. Five minutes later, C.B. was being greeted by Forsby and introducing Barney to him.
The landing strip was some distance from the main group of buildings, so the Squadron-Leader had brought his car. In it he drove them past some abandoned hutments, a football ground and a row of hard tennis courts, to a wide quadrangle of well-kept lawn, two sides of which were flanked with modern steel and glass buildings, and a third, facing towards the sea, occupied by one of red brick in the neo-Georgian style. Pointing to it. Forsby said:
'That houses the H.Q., Admin., and the senior Mess; the residential quarters for single types are just behind it. The married quarters are some way away, down by the sea; quite nice little houses, each with a bit of garden.'
At the back of the red brick block there was an avenue with young trees planted on both sides in wide borders of grass, beyond which were two rows of bungalows. Near the end of the avenue an airman, wearing a security- police armlet, was standing. As the car pulled up, he saluted and Forsby said to him:
'Harlow, here are the two gentlemen you are to look after. The tall one is Mr. Smith and the short one Mr. Brown. Their bags are in the boot. They will be coming along for a wash before dinner, so you might unpack for them but, after that, I don't think they will need you till tomorrow morning.'
'Very good, Sir.' Harlow saluted again, and grinned as 'Mr. Smith' and 'Mr. Brown' nodded and smiled at him. When he had got their bags out, Forsby turned the car round and said to his guests:
'Sorry I can't put you up under my own roof, but we always keep a few of these quarters prepared for visitors, and Harlow is a good chap; I'm sure he'll see to it that you are comfortable.' Then he ran the car back about three hundred yards, they all got out and he led the way into his own bungalow.
It had a small hall, but a good big sitting-room which he had furnished with his own things, and a casual glance round it was enough to reveal his main interests. Two fishing rods, a creel and a gaff stood in one corner, and a high proportion of the books in a bookcase at the far end of the room were to do with birds. In the window there stood a gate-legged mahogany dining table which was already laid for dinner and, on the right of the door, a smaller table on which stood the usual selection of drinks. Waving a hand towards it, he asked:
'What will you have?' Then, while helping them to the drinks they chose, he went on, 'In the Mess tonight they are giving a special party for our visiting American. I didn't feel that you would particularly want to be in on that; and, anyhow, it might be better if you didn't meet Khune until you have decided what to do about him. So I've laid on dinner for us here.'
'Couldn't be better, Dick,' Verney nodded. 'We'll be able to natter on without interruption about this pretty kettle of fish with which we've been landed.'
Forsby gave him a far from happy look. 'It's the queerest business I've ever been involved in. I've handled plenty of spies and would-be traitors in my time; but I've never before found myself up against a Black Magician, and I suppose that is what you'd call this man Lothar.'
'You've said it, chum. He's a Black Magician all right,' Verney agreed. 'The way he has used his psychic powers on this wretched brother of his suggested that he might be, and Sullivan here, having discovered that the house in Cremorne where they were going to meet is a Satanic Temple, clinched the matter. The thing that infuriates me is that they didn't meet there at midday today as arranged. We had everything set to pick up Otto quietly as he came out. If Lothar had left the place we could have picked him up too. But Saturday is the night of the week that these degenerates meet to hold their orgies, and today is May Day eve, the biggest Satanic feast in the whole year; so we can be pretty sure that Lothar would have stayed on for that, and that it will be a bumper meeting. I'd been hoping to give them the surprise of their lives and get him and all the rest of the unholy crew in the bag by a Special Branch swoop at midnight.'
'Do you mean to have the swoop carried out anyhow?'
'No. I cancelled it, because there's a chance that if Lothar gives us the slip, he may use the place as a bolt hole. I'm having a round-the-clock watch kept on it, so if he does we'll know, and can go in and get him. His Satanist pals can't possibly be aware that we have tied him up with them; so, if we do pinch him here tomorrow and he uses his psychic powers to tell them that he's in the bag, they won't take alarm. We'll be able to go in and mop them up any Saturday.'
Little Forsby ran a hand over his greying hair. 'I must say I still find communication by psychic means a bit hard to take. I mean, not just odd snatches of telepathy, but when carried on with the same ease as two signallers miles apart could exchange thoughts through their morse buzzers.'
