'I am right. I know I'm right. And you must raid the place, C.B.' Barney argued desperately. 'This girl has put up a wonderful show. She has displayed magnificent courage; but now she is in the soup. You can't just leave her there. And some of these swine must live in the place. Just think what they may be doing to her.'

'If I am thinking of the same thing as you are, she'll come to no harm from it. She probably won't even mind very much.'

'What the hell d'you mean?'

C.B. sighed. 'I'm sorry to have to disillusion you but, to set your mind at rest, it is best that you should know the truth. Before her marriage, Mary Morden was a prostitute.'

Barney rose slowly to his feet. The blood had suffused his cheeks and his eyes had become unnaturally bright. Suddenly he blurted out, 'I don't believe it! You're lying! You're lying for some purpose of your own.'

'Sit down!' Verney's voice, for once, was sharp. 'I am not in the habit of lying to the members of my staff. Perhaps the word prostitute was a little strong; but I used it deliberately in order to bring you back to a truer sense of values. If I remember rightly, she said she was a cabaret girl. Anyhow, she told me herself that she had come up the hard way and had had to throw her morals overboard in order to earn a living. And that, within the meaning of the act, is prostitution. She told me this in reply to my telling her that the Satanist creed was the glorification of sex, and that she would not stand a dog's chance of getting anywhere with her investigation unless she was prepared to go to bed with at least one man, and probably more, whom she would have no reason whatever to like. She said that she had done that before and was ready to do it again, if that would give her a chance to nail her husband's murderers. So, you see, you have no need to harrow yourself with visions of her being held down and raped.'

For a long minute Barney remained silent, then he said: 'I suppose you are right. But what you've just told me came as a bit of a shock, and it is going to take me a little time to get used to the idea of her being so very different from what I thought her.' Then he stood up, and added, 'Well, I'd better be going, Sir, and get down to some work.'

'That's the spirit,' C.B. nodded. 'I shall be back on Friday night. Come in on Saturday at midday and I'll let you know about the final arrangements for the raid. I'll have you sworn as a temporary Special Constable so that you can take part in it.'