On that we parted and I returned to Farnborough. As can be imagined, I was greatly worried. It did not occur to me that, living in hiding as he was, he was capable of upsetting the well-ordered life I was leading, but I did fear that he would use the occult link between us to badger me and make me miserable. To my surprise the contrary proved the case and for a whole week I remained free from those mental invasions of my consciousness by him with which I had been afflicted from the beginning of the month.

This lulled me into a false sense of security. I began to believe that his threats had been only idle ones, and that he had resigned himself to my refusal to go to Russia with him. I was to learn differently.

I belonged to a group of scientists who met once a month for an informal dinner - for which, as a number of us came up from the country, we did not change - at the Connaught Rooms. A distinguished guest always addressed us on some subject of interest and there was a debate afterwards. Sometimes the debates were of such interest that a number of us congregated in the downstairs bar after the meeting had broken up to continue the discussion. If I joined the party in the bar, lingering there made it too late for me to catch the last train back to Farnborough; so I had formed the habit of taking up an overnight bag with me as I had found that I could always get a room at one or other of the small Bloomsbury hotels if need be. Governed, therefore, by my degree of interest in the subject discussed, and how I chanced to be feeling, I either stayed the night in town or got home soon after midnight.

It so happened that a week after my meeting with Lothar, I attended one of these dinners, and stayed on afterwards talking to some of my friends. When I went to the cloakroom to get my night-bag the attendant declared that I had already collected it. In vain I produced my ticket and vowed that I had not. The attendant protested that I had said I had mislaid my ticket, and that on my giving my name, which was on a label attached to the bag, and signing a slip, the bag had been handed to me. She also produced another attendant to confirm that I was the gentleman to whom the bag had been given.

Supposing that a professional thief had impersonated me, I registered a complaint and, as it was by then too late to catch the last train, after trying several hotels that were full I secured a room at one in which I had stayed only once before, and slept in my underclothes.