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 unexpectedly, knocking the pieces of plate from his hand, and the largest had fallen on the toe-cap, making an inch-long gash across the highly glazed leather. She had polished the shoe afterwards a dozen times in the hope of working the scar out, but it remained as a dark streak that there was no disguising, so he had said that he would take the shoe back to Lobb's and have a new toe-cap put on. That had been about a month before his death, and during those last weeks his mind had been so pre-occupied with the work on which he was engaged that he had never done so. And now Ratnadatta was wearing those shoes.

It was the proof of what Mary had long suspected. Teddy had met his death at the hands of the Brotherhood of the Ram. More, it showed that Ratnadatta had been personally concerned in his murder. The Indian must have noticed that Teddy had about the same size feet as himself, suddenly coveted the pair of fine, almost new, handmade shoes and exchanged them for his own before Teddy's body had been taken down to the docks.

In another moment Mary would have drawn the crucifix from her bag and defied Ratnadatta, but this sudden revelation caused an immediate change in her mental attitude. Fear of what might happen to her if she involved herself further with the Brotherhood, and an increasing sense of the hopelessness of pitting her wits against such a powerful organization, had determined her to keep her promise to Barney, for his having let her down had no bearing on that; but now, her five weeks of anxious probing had suddenly brought results so definite that she could not possibly ignore them. In less than a minute, she had nerved herself afresh to take up once more her dangerous task. No matter what befell her, she must continue her association with the Satanists and worm her way into their confidence until she obtained the full story of Teddy's murder.

Still in a daze, she accompanied Ratnadatta out into the street and, after waiting a few minutes, they got a passing taxi. Her previous visits to the Temple had been after dark, but they were on their way there much earlier now and it was still daylight; so he turned to her and said: