'Surprised you, eh, honey?' Wash commented grimly. 'Surprised me too, seein' you claimed to be well acquainted with this Doctor Dee. Tell what you know of him.'

His tone implied no suspicion of her, only curiosity; but she knew that she must exercise the greatest caution about every word she said. In a low voice she murmured,

'There's not much I can tell you. I believed him to be one of us and it's a nasty shock to hear that he's not.'

'Give, honey, give.' Wash's voice had suddenly become impatient. 'He's your boy friend, and came to these parts set on trying to snatch you off me. Fellers don't go that far unless they and the dame are pretty close to one another.'

Mary's mind was still a whirl of misery, but she managed to co-ordinate her thoughts sufficiently to reply. 'He is in love with me, of course; but he's never been my boy friend in the sense you mean. I met him only a few weeks ago at Mrs. Wardeel's. She is a woman who holds evenings for dabblers in the occult. Ratnadatta always goes to them to pick up anyone there who looks a likely convert to the True Faith. He was introduced to me as Lord Larne and . . .'

'Lord Larne,' Wash interrupted. 'He must have plenty gall to have taken a title for his front.'

Instantly Mary covered up for Barney by asserting, 'It wasn't a front. He is Lord Larne. No one's ever questioned that. Anyway, after some of the meetings he walked home with me. then he asked me out to dine and dance, and twice I've given him supper at my flat. He was an amusing companion and we had the common interest that we both hoped to become initiates. We had started an affaire, and if things hadn't gone as they did the night you carried me off I expect that in due course he and I would have become lovers. His having come after me here shows only that he must have fallen harder for me than I thought.'

'So that's your side of it. Maybe, though, it's not hot pants that brought him here. Seeing he's a cop it's on the cards that he's been stringing you along for what he could get out of you, and followed your trail on a hunch that you'd give him the dope about what goes on in these parts.'