At the mention of the doll, Mary had guessed what was coming, so she had time to glance away and repress a shudder at this confession of cold-blooded murder. Now happily launched on his life-story, the hook-nosed giant went on.

'Come the fall, the circus went into its winter quarters at Detroit. Gipsy, as was her custom, took a room for telling fortunes. She was mighty good at it. Could have done far better for herself that way all year round, but she had real gipsy blood in her and preferred a roving life. What I knew of magic put me wise to it that she was pulling in power from some source outside herself. One night I got out of her the how and why. She was an initiate of a Satanic Lodge there in the city. I made her take me along. That's how I became a Brother of the Ram.'

He poured Mary another cocktail, and resumed. 'It was by way of a guy I happened on in that Lodge that I got my first real break. He ran a big brothel. Seeing I was strong as a young bull, he asked me if I'd like to take a hand breaking in new girls. Most of those that get to the houses know what to expect; but there's some that don't, and make trouble. They have to have their heels rounded off, and it's strong men's work to do that. After I'd been at this dame busting game for a while it hit me that I was a sucker to do it for another guy when I might be doing it for myself.

'Gipsy was making enough to keep me, but I felt it would be good to have some extra dough to throw around; and setting up as a knife-thrower in a booth wouldn't have paid the sort of dividends I had in mind. Within three months I had a string of five girls working the streets for me. From then on I never looked back. I made Gipsy cut out the fortune-telling and set her up as the Madame in a place of our own. By the time I was nineteen I'd gone into the export business, and was shipping as many as eight judys a month down to S.A. The Feds were always after us, of course, but Gipsy had only to look at a girl to judge if she was too hot to handle, and as a seer myself I always got wise to it in advance if danger threatened our organization. Time war broke out I had tie-ups with all the big operators in the States and was one of the biggest shots in the racket.'

Revolting as his disclosures were, Mary had to simulate interest, so she said: 'No wonder you have lots of money. But this doesn't explain how you became a Colonel in the United States Air Force.'