Mary had barely made up her mind to take anything that might be coming to her during the next hour and a half in order to achieve this master stroke, when the taxi turned away from the river, ran for a few hundred yards up a side-street, and slowed to a stop. Since the night on which she had been received as a neophyte she had realized that the Temple could not be so far away from Sloane Square as North London but, all the same, she was surprised to find that it was actually within ten minutes' drive of Cromwell Road. Having taken her resolve, she made no demur about getting out and, after Ratnadatta had paid off the taxi, walking with him through the mean streets to the entrance to the alley which was now familiar to her.

In the courtyard at its end no cars were yet parked and, now that she saw the front of the mansion for the first time in daylight, she realized more fully how abandoned it appeared. Obviously none of its windows had been opened for many years. Some of the panes of glass were cracked and others missing. In the corners, generations of spiders had spun their webs and, in two places where panes were missing, sparrows had built nests. Behind all the grimy windows were stout wooden shutters that had once been painted white, but were now grey with dirt and mottled where the paint was peeling from them.

As Mary went up the cracked stone steps with Ratnadatta, she was intrigued to see at one side of the front door a small board on which faded capitals announced 'kemson's depository for title deeds', and underneath in script, 'Antiquarian Society for Estate Research. Meetings Saturdays 9.00 p.m.' It struck her as a clever cover for the permanently closed windows - as a casual observer would have assumed that behind them were rooms stacked high with dusty files - and for the Satanists who gathered there on Saturday nights since, despite the derelict appearance of the house, people in the immediate neighbourhood must have known that it was occupied and that on certain evenings both cars and pedestrians turned down the cul-de-sac to it.