'You remember me. Your friend Iziah got the wrong idea and slugged me, but later I had supper with the Colonel. I've come back to talk to him again.'

Jim's eyes grew round. 'But he's not here, Boss. He left with you. He's gone off on leave, an' we're not looking to see him back for a fortnight. Didn't he tell you?'

Barney's hopes of catching the American and rescuing Mary were dashed, but he asked quickly, 'Where has he gone?'

'I wouldn't know, Boss,' came the obviously truthful reply. 'The Colonel don't go tell us boys how he's planning to spend his time.'

'All right,' Barney snapped. 'Perhaps I can find out by running over the house.'

The Inspector drew him aside and whispered, 'We haven't got a search warrant.'

'To hell with that!' retorted Barney. 'Stay outside if you like. I'm going in.' Fixing the coloured boy with a basilisk stare, he said to him, 'Go and get my gun. You'll find me in the sitting-room.'

Seeing that Barney was accompanied by a police inspector and that other policemen were standing about in the offing, Jim offered no opposition. Marching inside, Barney went straight to the telephone and got through to his office. He told the night-duty officer to ring the Chief and inform him that Sullivan had contacted Lothar Khune at a house near Fulgoham, in Cambridgeshire, in company with Mrs. Morden and an American Air Force Colonel named Henrick G. Washington, but had lost them and now had reason to believe that the trio were on their way to London.

He then helped himself to a whisky and soda and rang the bell. Jim appeared holding the little automatic. Barney took it, slipped it in his pocket and spent five minutes firing questions at him. But none of Jim's replies threw any light on whither his master might be bound. Barney sent for the other two boys, but his questions to them proved equally unrewarding.

He then spent half an hour going over the house. The sight of the black satin sheets on the bed in the principal bedroom aroused in him mingled feelings of nausea and homicidal jealousy, but he steeled himself to go through the drawers and cupboards. Neither there, in the sitting-room, nor anywhere else in the house did he discover any evidence which would have connected Colonel Washington with Satanist activities, and clearly his coloured servants regarded him as a quick-tempered, but generous, cheerful and entirely normal master.