'Do you wish me to stay here?' Otto asked.

'Yes, you will have this office to yourself. Try to get into touch with Lothar again, and do your damnedest to find out whereabouts in Switzerland this cave is situated.' As Verney spoke he was already hurrying from the room, followed by Richter and Barney.

Two minutes later the American jumped into his Cadillac, and the other two set off for Storey's Gate. There they separated, Verney going through the back way into Downing Street, and Barney into the Ministry of Defence.

Barney was first back. In the P.A.' s office he found Inspector Thompson waiting to see his Chief. Unaware of the possibility that London might be blown to smithereens before the day was out, the Inspector was in high good humour. When they had exchanged greetings he said:

'I've fixed things for Tom Ruddy. He's back in the fight again.'

'Ruddy,' Barney repeated vaguely; then with an effort he brought his mind back to his work of the past two months, which now seemed to have little significance.

'Yes,' the Inspector went on, 'when we raided the place at Cremorne we found a score or more other photographs; different people, of course, but similar to the one they took of him. Last night I went down to Ruddy's place and had a talk with him. I suggested that he should show the whole lot to his missus, including the one of himself and Mrs. Morden, and that I'd vouch for it to her that the whole lot were fakes - composite photographs blended together by a gang of ordinary crooks for blackmail purposes. He agreed, and the old girl swallowed it. So he's standing again and I've not a doubt that he'll be elected as the new boss of his Union.'

'Well done,' Barney murmured. 'How about the bunch of Satanists you pulled in?'

The Inspector grinned. 'Oh boy, what a haul! A strangler who's been on the wanted list for five years, a bank-note forger whose goods we found in his wallet when we collected their clothes, a Czech secret agent that we didn't know was in the country, and a publisher who has distributed more poisonous literature than the Communist H.Q. itself. The rest of them are just degenerates, mostly rich people and well known. Now we've had a chance to check up we've found that it was them and the people in the blackmail photographs who have been paying the fat cheques into the so-called "Workers' Benevolent Institution". So this is going to put an end to one of the biggest sources of the funds used to sabotage British industry.'

'If a lot of them are important people this is going to create a first-class scandal,' Barney remarked.