This thought fired a train of new ones. She need not become a Sister of the Ram, after all. By another visit to the Temple she could have hoped only to pick up a hint. No one there would tell her what had actually happened to Teddy until they knew her well enough to trust her fully. To get that far she would have to submit to initiation and attend several more meetings. Even then she might not secure anything approaching such concrete evidence as was provided by this exchange of shoes. A merciful God had taken her will for the deed, sparing her the ordeal of debasing herself and participating in further horrible blasphemies. The job she had set herself to do was as good as done. She need not even go again to the Temple that evening - if only she could manage to get away from Ratnadatta.

Better still - the idea sprang to her mind - have him arrested. As soon as she saw a policeman she would hammer on the taxi window for the driver to stop and shout to the policeman for help. When he came running up she would identify the shoes on Ratnadatta's feet as her husband's, denounce him as a murderer, and have him taken into custody.

The taxi had headed south down Collingham Road and was now running through the Boltons. It was a quiet residential district, but she hoped that she would sight a policeman either as they crossed, or turned into, the busy Fulham Road.

Before they reached it, another thought struck her. What if the policeman refused to believe her? Ratnadatta was no fool. It was certain he would say that she was suffering from delusions and he was taking her to a nursing home, or some such story. Could the policeman refuse to take them to the Station? That seemed unlikely. Yet he might. And, if he did, on that one cast she would have lost everything. She could refuse to re-enter the taxi with Ratnadatta but, before she could get hold of Colonel Verney, the Indian would have got rid of the tell-tale shoes and be calling on the Great Ram to exert his terrible powers against her.

Reluctantly she decided that she dared not risk such a gamble. She must free herself from Ratnadatta in some other way, so that he would have no suspicion that she was anything other than he believed her to be. Then she would go straight to Colonel Verney.