taxi afterwards, when he had tried to kiss her, she had accused him of treating her like a tart. Her then seemingly unreasonable outburst was now explained, and with bitter cynicism he recalled the saying that there was 'no prude so great as a reformed whore'. Yet she had been far from prudish on that last evening when they had been up in her flat together and, as they lay embraced upon the sofa for a while, she had returned his caresses with a fervour equal to his own.
Even so, C.B.'s horrible revelation did provide the basis for the intense sympathy she had shown for girls whom men paid to make use of without a thought of what might happen to them afterwards should they get in the family way, and it now caused Barney to wonder if such a misfortune had ever befallen her. It was certainly a possibility and, if so, as from the secret report on Morden's death he knew that Teddy had been married for four years, she must have been very young at the time, anyway not more than nineteen.
Visualizing her at that age in such straits wrung his heart with pity, and he recalled C.B.'s remarking that she had 'come up the hard way'. In an intelligent woman, given a reasonable amount of money, present appearances were nothing to go by, and her natural alertness of mind would have enabled her to make the best of any education she had been given. But perhaps she had been brought up in a slum and driven on to the streets by a drunken father before she was old enough to stand up for herself.
But no, that did not fit in with her having been a cabaret girl, and C.B. had made it clear that she had been not actually a professional prostitute, but a glamour-girl who needed a bit of extra money. That implied that she had not exposed herself to such depths of degradation but, theoretically at least, was guilty of a greater degree of moral turpitude; and Barney could not make up his mind if that made matters better or worse.
As far as the present was concerned, he had to acknowledge the justice of C.B.'s defence of her. 'Coming up the hard way' implied that she had derived little enjoyment from her youthful promiscuity; so it was fair to assume that anything of a similar nature that she might have let herself in for with a crew of depraved Satanists would mean for her a highly disagreeable experience. Yet she did not stand to better herself from it in any way. She had gone into the ring prepared to face this punishment in a gallant fight against evil and for no other reason.
For that, who could blame her? He certainly had no right to do so. They had met on the 5th April, barely a month ago, and the affaire on which they had tentatively entered had not developed into anything worthy of the name until the previous week. There had not yet been a hint on either side that she might soon consent to become his mistress, much less that they should become engaged; so she was perfectly free to dispose of herself as she saw fit and he had not the faintest grounds for thinking of her as being unfaithful to him.
After blindly walking the streets for over an hour he pulled himself together and decided that he must get her out of his mind by throwing himself headlong into his routine work. On Saturday he must take part in the raid. He would see her then, and would have to do so on several occasions afterwards while the papers concerning the prosecutions arising out of the raid were prepared. At such times he would endeavour to mask the mixed emotions it was certain she would arouse in him by a display of cheerful friendliness; but he would excuse himself on the plea of urgent work from making any further private dates with her. Then as soon as the case was over, he would no longer have to see her at all, so the sooner he practised forgetting her, the better.
But he could not forget her. For the rest of that day, and on the Thursday and Friday, and for the best part of the nights in between, she was never out of his mind for more than a few moments. At times he thought of her as a cold, callous, young harlot, slipping out of bed to pick the pockets of half-drunken men who had fallen asleep beside her; at others, as the innocent victim of some hulking brute who bullied her unmercifully and lived upon her immoral earnings. In his waking dreams there were times when he saw her with the Satanists, her mouth dripping from spilled red wine and her eyes brilliant from the aphrodisiacs they would have given her, revelling with wanton delight in their debaucheries; at others, waging a losing battle to hide her disgust and terror as they forced her to join them in unmentionable obscenities.
And through it all he knew he loved her. More than anything in the world he now wanted to gaze into her deep blue eyes again, to hear her laugh, to watch her, carrying herself so erectly, as she walked with her firm springy step, to hear her voice with its faint familiar touch of Irish brogue, to hold her in his arms.
All this he could do, and more; providing only that she had not given herself away, so was still safe when the raid took place on Saturday. There was nothing to stop him resuming his affaire with her, and on an even better footing, as he would then be free to use Verney's name as a link between them. Explanations would follow, and there would no longer be any necessity for them to deceive one another. She liked him; judging from their last meeting, more than liked him. With her past there could be no question of her having moral scruples. He would only have to go all out for her to make her his mistress.
But what then? He knew in his bones that this was different from his other affaires; not just a delightful pastime that could be entered on lightly and dropped with equal casualness. She had got under his skin, into his blood, captured his mind. If once he lived with her he would want to be with her always. How long would she be content to go on like that? A time would inevitably come when he would either have to marry or lose her.
Well, why shouldn't he marry her? If Verney had said nothing of her past he might have done so; and, unless she had told him of it herself, the odds were that he would never have known anything about it. But the awful thing was that he did know. It was only on very rare occasions that the thought of his ancestors crossed his mind, but at this point in his tortured deliberations he saw them rising up out of their graves and screaming at him, 'You cannot! You cannot! You cannot make an ex-prostitute a Countess of Larne!'
At midday on Saturday, looking tired and ill, he reported at the office. Verney told him that he had seen Otto that morning, and the scientist was convinced that Lothar had now returned to England. For a moment Barney feared that might mean a postponement of the raid; but C.B. said he meant to go through with it for two reasons. If Lothar was in England it was quite on the cards that he would attend the Saturday orgy in Cremorne and, unless the place was raided, should he use a really clever disguise in going to, and coming away, from it the police might not spot him and so the chance of catching him would be lost. Secondly, even if they did not get him in the bag, by raiding the place they might secure papers which would inform them of other hideouts of his in England, in one of which he might be laid by the heels in the early hours of the morning.
Inspector Thompson arrived a few minutes later. All the arrangements for the raid were then completed and afterwards Barney, knowing that he would be up most of the night, returned to Warwick Square with the intention of making a light lunch and spending the afternoon dozing on his bed.
For half an hour he lay there, turning restlessly from side to side, once more a prey to the harassing speculations that had repeated themselves over and over again in his mind during the past three days. It then occurred to him that since early on Wednesday morning he had not been down to Cromwell Road; so there was just a possibility that Mary might have returned there. He knew it to be a forlorn hope but, to while away an hour or so of the time still to go before the raid, any action was better than lying there doing nothing. Slipping off the bed he put on his tie, coat, shoes and a light mackintosh and went out to find a taxi.
As usual during the day-time, the front door of the house in Cromwell Road was on the latch, so he walked straight in and upstairs. Using his little instrument he again picked the lock of the door to Mary's flat. The sight of his unopened letter still lying face upwards on the mat told him at once that she had not been back there. Closing the door behind him he spent some minutes in having another look round. The rooms were just as he had left them, except that the roses had used up nearly all their water and were now drooping.
