But what a calendar of crimes lay at his door. Murder, rape, and the unlimited terrorization of innumerable people. His house, his coloured servants, the de luxe equipment of his kitchen, his gramophone records and champagne, were all still being paid for from the earnings of scores of unhappy women in the United States, and the shipping of scores of others, still more greatly to be pitied, to a living hell in the brothels of South America. As Mary thought of the misery she had suffered herself during her black year in Dublin, her blood boiled, and she knew that she must not even consider giving such a man an hour's warning, but do her utmost to ensure that, like the others, he was arrested with the least possible delay.

While these thoughts had been agitating her mind she had walked nearly two miles, but there was still no sign of a village. Another half mile of open road lay before her with hedges and fields on either side, except in one place a few hundred yards distant where, among a few fruit trees, she could see a cottage.

Suddenly she heard the blare of a klaxon horn in her rear. Looking back, she saw a large car hurtling towards her at seventy miles an hour. Another minute and, as she jumped to the side of the road, she caught a glimpse of the driver. He was the hooknosed giant that, two minutes before, she had been planning to have arrested. With a screech of tyres suddenly braked, the car pulled up fifty feet beyond her.

20.Wanted! A human victim for sacrifice

Mary had a moment only in which to make up her mind. Two courses were open to her. She could jump the ditch, scramble through the hedge and run for it across the fields, or stay where she was and accept capture. To do the former was to proclaim that she had deliberately set out to escape, whereas if she did not take to her heels she might still bluff it out.

Had he pulled up behind her she might have reached the cottage before he could catch her, but to do so from where she stood she would have to pass him. She could still get to it by making a detour through the hedge and round to its back, by way of the field, but, if she did succeed in outrunning him to it, there might not be anyone there to whom she could appeal for help. Realizing the small start she would have and the huge stride that his long legs would give him, with bitter reluctance she decided to stay where she was.

In a succession of violent swerves he backed the car until it came level with her, then demanded: 'Where in heck d'you think you're going?'

'To the village,' she replied, concealing her anger and disappointment with a nervous smile.