The others looked at him enquiringly. 'You remember, Sir?' He turned towards C.B. 'Ratnadatta's circle is a Lodge of theBrotherhood of the Ram, and Mrs. M. described the Great Ram to me after her first visit to the place. This means that Lothar is the big shot of the whole outfit.'

'That doesn't surprise me,' Khune remarked. 'From his boyhood on he put an immense amount of effort into developing his occult powers, and he has a tremendously strong personality.'

Verney nodded. 'Knowing what we do about him, I'm not surprised either. But please go on with what you were saying. Why did you feel that you would stand a better chance of overcoming him by going up to London?'

'I felt almost certain that the Satanic Temple was in the house at Cremorne, but Lothar had given me a vision only of its outside; so I couldn't be certain without making a check up. The sight of its front hall would have been enough and, if I'd been right, that would have given me the card I wanted. I could have told Lothar that to rid myself of him I would no longer have to admit to the police that I had been in communication with a Russian agent. I could give them his description, lay an information that he was running a brothel there, and have it raided. I could have said that unless he agreed to let me alone that's what I meant to do; then, instead of being a High Priest with a harem, he would find himself a wanted criminal on the run.'

'To protect his secret, he might quite well have had your throat cut.'

'I had planned to leave a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Police with the hall porter at my Club, before going to see Lothar; and I should have left instructions with the hall porter that, if I had not returned to collect the letter by four o'clock in the afternoon, he was to send it along to Scotland Yard by hand. Even a crew of Satanists would baulk at murdering a man when told that he had left a letter for the police saying that they might.'

'True. And what if the place had turned out not to be the one in which you had seen the Temple?'

'I'd have been no worse off than before. I'd have told him that I'd see him in hell sooner than let him have the formula.'

'Yet last night, when he learned that you were still here, and turned on the heat, you gave way again and agreed to meet him tomorrow. Was that because he threatened to put a curse on you if you didn't?'

'Well, partly.'