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 within 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
