On that same Saturday, all unsuspecting of what fate had in store for Mary, Barney went to his lunch appointment with his Chief at the Army and Navy Club. The hall porter told him that he would find Colonel Verney in the smoking-room so, having parked his bag, he walked quickly up the splendid staircase. As it was a Saturday the big room, with its leather-covered sofas and scores of easy chairs, was almost empty. Verney was sitting at a table near a window with a pink gin and a pint of Pimm’s in front of him. He made it a rule never to lunch alone, as he considered that to do so would have been wasting what often turned out to be the most valuable part of the day. On days when he had no appointment to lunch with officers in the Intelligence Departments of the Service Ministries, or senior Civil Servants, he always took one of his own young men to lunch at his Club, because doing so enabled him both to get to know them better and encouraged them to regard him as a friend as well as their master.
‘Here’s how!’ he said, picking up the pink gin as Barney sat down. Barney reached for the Pimm’s and grinned. ‘What a memory you’ve got, Sir, to have ordered my favourite tipple.’
‘It’s just part of the Austin Reed service,’ C.B. replied laconically. ‘Talking of “service”, Farnborough have fixed us up. About twice a week they send an aircraft down to Wales to facilitate the exchange of secret documents, personnel, special parts, and so on. They were sending one first thing tomorrow morning to bring back the American egg-head who is on a visit there. Instead, it is going to fly us down this afternoon and its pilot will remain there overnight. I said we’d be at Farnborough at three-thirty; so we’ve no need to hurry over lunch.’
While they ate a pleasant meal, they reviewed the extraordinary case of Otto Khune and his twin and, when they got to the cheese, rather gloomily contemplated the risk that would have to be run if Otto were allowed to hand over to Lothar the fuel formula in desolate moorland country at a spot that could be kept under observation only from a distance. But, as they rose from the table, they agreed that it was futile to attempt to assess how great the risk of Lothar getting away would be, until they were on the spot and could make a thorough reconnaissance of the proposed meeting place.
At the entrance to the Club, Verney’s car was waiting and he told his chauffeur to drive them down to the Royal Air Force Experimental Establishment at Farnborough. There they were led out to a small six-seater passenger aircraft and, after a short delay for the usual last-minute testing of the engine, took off for Wales. For the greater part of the journey they were flying through cloud, but about five o’clock they could see below them crests in the chain of the Cambrian mountains and soon afterwards began to descend towards a stretch of rugged, desolate coast.
Along it for miles no buildings were to be seen, except those of the Rocket Experimental Station, but those were scattered over a wide area enclosed by a high lattice and barbed-wire topped, fence. The place had little resemblance to an Atomic Station as there were no great buildings housing reactors, and many were temporary structures that had been erected soon after the war when materials were still short.
As C.B. was aware, most of these had now fallen into disuse since. With the development of rockets, another Experimental Station had been established in the Hebrides, much of the personnel had been transferred to it and it was there that the great Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles were tried out. The experiments here in Wales were now confined to rocket weapons for tactical use, the development of metals having maximum heat resistance in ratio to weight and fuels with maximum power in relation to bulk.
As the landing strip was used only infrequently, its control tower was not kept permanently manned; but Farnborough had notified the Station to expect an arrival, so the staff responsible were on the look-out and, as the aircraft circled out over the sea, her pilot received the all clear signal to come in. Five minutes later, C.B. was being greeted by Forsby and introducing Barney to him.
The landing strip was some distance from the main group of buildings, so the Squadron-Leader had brought his car. In it he drove them past some abandoned hutments, a football ground and a row of hard tennis courts, to a wide quadrangle of well-kept lawn, two sides of which were flanked with modern steel and glass buildings, and a third, facing towards the sea, occupied by one of red brick in the neo-Georgian style. Pointing to it. Forsby said:
‘That houses the H.Q., Admin., and the senior Mess; the residential quarters for single types are just behind it. The married quarters are some way away, down by the sea; quite nice little houses, each with a bit of garden.’
At the back of the red brick block there was an avenue with young trees planted on both sides in wide borders of grass, beyond which were two rows of bungalows. Near the end of the avenue an airman, wearing a security-police armlet, was standing. As the car pulled up, he saluted and Forsby said to him:
‘Harlow, here are the two gentleman you are to look after. The tall one is Mr. Smith and the short one Mr. Brown. Their bags are in the boot. They will be coming along for a wash before dinner, so you might unpack for them but, after that, I don’t think they will need you till tomorrow morning.’
‘Very good, Sir.’ Harlow saluted again, and grinned as ‘Mr. Smith’ and ‘Mr. Brown’ nodded and smiled at him. When he had got their bags out, Forsby turned the car round and said to his guests:
‘Sorry I can’t put you up under my own roof, but we always keep a few of these quarters prepared for visitors, and Harlow is a good chap; I’m sure he’ll see to it that you are comfortable.’ Then he ran the car back about three hundred yards, they all got out and he led the way into his own bungalow.
It had a small hall, but a good big sitting-room which he had furnished with his own things, and a casual glance round it was enough to reveal his main interests. Two fishing rods, a creel and a gaff stood in one corner, and a high proportion of the books in a bookcase at the far end of the room were to do with birds. In the window there stood a gate-legged mahogany dining table which was already laid for dinner and, on the right of the door, a smaller table on which stood the usual selection of drinks. Waving a hand towards it, he asked:
‘What will you have?’ Then, while helping them to the drinks they chose, he went on, ‘In the Mess tonight they are giving a special party for our visiting American. I didn’t feel that you would particularly want to be in on that; and, anyhow, it might be better if you didn’t meet Khune until you have decided what to do about him. So I’ve laid on dinner for us here.’
‘Couldn’t be better, Dick,’ Verney nodded. ‘We’ll be able to natter on without interruption about this pretty kettle of fish with which we’ve been landed.’
Forsby gave him a far from happy look. ‘It’s the queerest business I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve handled plenty of spies and would-be traitors in my time; but I’ve never before found myself up against a Black Magician, and I suppose that is what you’d call this man Lothar.’
‘You’ve said it, chum. He’s a Black Magician all right,’ Verney agreed. ‘The way he has used his psychic powers on this wretched brother of his suggested that he might be, and Sullivan here, having discovered that the house in Cremorne where they were going to meet is a Satanic Temple, clinched the matter. The thing that infuriates me is that they didn’t meet there at midday today as arranged. We had everything set to pick up Otto quietly as he came out. If Lothar had left the place we could have picked him up too. But Saturday is the night of the week that these degenerates meet to hold their orgies, and today is May Day eve, the biggest Satanic feast in the whole year; so we can be pretty sure that Lothar would have stayed on for that, and that it will be a bumper meeting. I’d been hoping to give them the surprise of their lives and get him and all the rest of the unholy crew in the bag by a Special Branch swoop at midnight.’
‘Do you mean to have the swoop carried out anyhow?’
‘No. I cancelled it, because there’s a chance that if Lothar gives us the slip, he may use the place as a bolt hole. I’m having a round-the-clock watch kept on it, so if he does we’ll know, and can go in and get him. His Satanist pals can’t possibly be aware that we have tied him up with them; so, if we do pinch him here tomorrow and he uses his psychic powers to tell them that he’s in the bag, they won’t take alarm. We’ll be able to go in and mop them up any Saturday.’
Little Forsby ran a hand over his greying hair. ‘I must say I still find communication by psychic means a bit hard to take. I mean, not just odd snatches of telepathy, but when carried on with the same ease as two signallers miles apart could exchange thoughts through their morse buzzers.’
‘Like everything else it’s largely a matter of practice; that is, of course, given that the people concerned have the right apparatus – psychic sensitivity in this case – to start with. Anyhow, I should have thought the tape recordings that you have taken during the past ten days of Otto’s, well - for the lack of a better word – nightmares, would have accustomed you to the idea by now.’
‘They have, in a way. But at times, when I play them back, I’m almost inclined to believe that I’m imagining them; that I’ve taken to drink through having been cooped up for so long between the sea and the mountains, and have got D.T.s, or something! They send shivers down my spine.’
Verney nodded. ‘I can well believe it. All the same, I’d like you to run them through for us after dinner.’
‘Of course. I was expecting that you would want to hear them. I’m sorry that it should be necessary, and that you should have had to make this trip; but hearing a playover of the recordings may help you to decide how best to tackle the situation.’
‘This Lone Tree Hill,’ C.B. asked, ‘whereabouts is it, and what is it like?’
‘It is about four miles to north-eastward of the Station, and quite a well-known landmark in these parts. To reach it one leaves by the main gate and drives for some three miles until reaching a side road, leading north across a bridge that spans a small river. I quite often fish there. Beyond the bridge is moorland with a certain amount of stony outcrop and the ground slopes up fairly steeply. The track does not go up the hill but goes round it to a farm that lies on the far side, a good two-and-a-half miles from the main road. The hill is easy to climb and its top is rounded with just this one big pine on its crest. The tree must be a hundred years old by now, or more, as most of its branches are dead. Beyond it, about two hundred yards down the farther slope, there is a wood, and beyond that another, steeper hill. That’s as good a description as I can give you, but I’ll take you there tomorrow morning.’
‘What is the ground like – the open part from the bridge on? Are there gorse bushes and gullies, or is it just flat heather land?’
‘There is a certain amount of gorse, and some gullies. Those and the lumps of outcrop would provide a fair degree of cover, if you are thinking of putting a cordon round it.’
‘It’s that I have in mind. If I do decide to risk it, how is the personnel situation? How many could you muster?’
‘I’ve a score of R.A.F. police, and, if you were agreeable to my having a quiet word with certain other people, I could probably raise double that number.’
‘No; we had better confine this to the police, your assistants and ourselves. That should give us twenty-five or so; enough, if they understand how to handle a rifle. What sort of marksmen are they?’
Forsby shook his head. ‘Sorry, C.B., but I wouldn’t know. I suppose by admitting that I’m putting up a black, because in theory I should be able to tell you. But you know how things go in peacetime. They are allowed five rounds per annum apiece to bang off on a range and, if they miss the target altogether, what can one do about it? Does your question mean that you would order my boys to fire on Lothar?’
‘I would, if Otto had given him the formula and he looked like getting away with it. The thing I have to decide is whether we dare risk even giving him a chance to do so.’
‘Better leave that until you’ve made a recce of the ground for yourself tomorrow morning.’ The Squadron-Leader stood up. ‘How about a breath of air before dinner? As you are here, it might interest you both to have a look round the Station.’
They agreed, finished their drinks and went out with him. He took them down to the foreshore where, just above springtide level, there were steel and concrete platforms for launching various types of rocket; then to a covered gun-park, lined up in which stood half-a-dozen pieces of artillery, all of experimental types designed either to fire rockets from ground to air targets, or for tactical use with small atomic warheads against ground troops. Towards one end of the curving bay he pointed out the cluster of villas that gave the married quarters the appearance of a small village; then led them in the opposite direction to a much nearer long, low building that was the Station Club. In it there were a dance-hall, cinema, library, lounge, writing-room and bar, provided by the Ministry of Supply with the intention of relieving from boredom, as far as that was possible, the men and women stationed in this lonely spot.
After the best part of an hour’s walk, Forsby brought them back to ‘Bachelors Avenue’ and the bungalow they were to occupy for the night. There they found that Harlow had unpacked their bags and put everything ready for them. When they had freshened themselves up with a wash, they walked down to Forsby’s bungalow and drank a glass of good dry Sherry with him while his man set out the grape fruit that was the first course for their dinner.
Over it, owing to Forsby’s insistence, Verney talked about the Black Art and gave them an account of a most desperate affair in which, a few years before, he had found himself up against a most powerful Black Magician in the South of France. However, he declared that he really knew very little about the subject, apart from the principles on which it worked; but he assured them that the occasions on which his job had brought him up against Satanic groups had given him ample proof that it did work if operated by a really knowledgeable occultist who was well-versed in its mysteries. He added that, in his opinion, most cases of reported Black Magic were nothing of the kind, but clever trickery skilfully put over by highly intelligent gangs of crooks who, by such measures, got wealthy credulous people who were interested in the occult into their clutches for the purpose of blackmail; but he left them in no doubt that he believed Lothar Khune to be a genuine member of the Devil’s fraternity.
When the table had been cleared, Forsby produced the tape recorder and, as they settled down in the easy chairs, he said; ‘You will appreciate that for the greater part of each night the tapes recorded nothing. They have been cut to retain only the parts which will play back sound. Much of the stuff you’ll find quite unintelligible; at least, I have. But now and then there occur conversations which it is easy to follow. I don’t pretend to understand it, but during these nightmares, or whatever they are, Otto Khune speaks with two different voices: his own and, presumably, Lothar’s. One can only assume that they carry on a sort of argument, in which Lothar uses Otto’s vocal chords to express his views alternately with Otto voicing protests in his own. I should warn you that it will be a pretty long session, as there is an awful lot about the state the world is in and what could be done to better it.’
‘I take it you mean by that,’ Verney remarked, ‘Lothar producing all the old arguments about how much better it would be for the masses if every country accepted Communism?’
‘No,’ Forsby replied, and on his face there was a puzzled frown. That is what one would expect, but somehow the line he takes does not strike me in that way. He says more than once that he is fed up with the Communists and regards their impetus as burnt out. That may be bluff, of course, with the idea of inclining Otto more readily to do the swap of data on secret fuels with him. But he insists that he wants the results of the work done by Otto’s team only to carry out some experiment of his own, which will bring about a new state of things and relieve people on both sides of the Iron Curtain from their fears of being blown to blazes by H-bombs. Anyhow, you can judge for yourself. Here goes.’
He switched on the machine, refilled their glasses with a pleasant Tawny Port, and sat down in his own chair. Then, for the next hour and a half, while he changed the tapes from time to time, they listened, almost without comment. The recordings all began with grunts, shouts, curses and protests, often followed by an unintelligible rigmarole, but then settled down into arguments during which two different voices were clearly perceptible – Otto’s in English, as spontaneous and unaccented as though he had spoken no other tongue since his birth; Lothar’s, also speaking fluent English, but with a faintly nasal twang. Otto’s was almost always angry; Lothar’s persuasive and sweetly reasonable, except for occasional outbursts in the later recordings when he resorted to violent threats.
At length the recordings were over, and Forsby mixed his guests and himself whiskies and sodas before they got down to discussing them.
Verney said: ‘You are right, Dick, about Lothar giving the impression that he is fed up with Moscow. If one can believe what he says it seems that he hoped the Russians would launch a war against the N.A.T.O. Powers and established a New Order, more or less on Nazi lines, in Western Europe and later in the United States. But he has come to the conclusion that the Kremlin is not prepared to play it that way and prefers a policy aimed at bringing the democracies to ruin by gradually gaining control of the whole of Asia and Africa and closing all the markets in them to the nations of the West.’
‘To me, Lothar sounded like a megalomaniac,’ Barney remarked. ‘My guess is that personal power is what he is after. He wants to see some sort of drastic upheaval before he is too old to play a part in it.’
‘I don’t altogether agree,’ Forsby countered. ‘You may be right to the extent that he no longer sees eye to eye with his Russian masters because he thinks that he’ll be dead before their policy of peaceful penetration begins to pay really big dividends; but to me his aim seems to be to bring about a completely new world order. When I was in Spain during the Civil War there, I talked with quite a number of anarchists, and some of the things he says tally with the views they expressed. It’s a topsy-turvy sort of doctrine based on the old idea that out of evil cometh good. They want to destroy all forms of government and start again from scratch.’
‘He is a destroyer, all right,’ said C.B. grimly. ‘But I think we must regard all this “good of mankind – brotherhood of nations” stuff as eye-wash. Whatever he may say, there’s not much question about his being a Soviet agent.’
‘I suppose so,’ Forsby agreed, a shade doubtfully. ‘Although, in one passage, he did say that having left Russia he did not mean ever to go back there.’
‘Come, come, Dick. If he is not a secret agent, what reason could he have for wanting to get hold of this fuel formula? And if he is a secret agent, knowing his background as we do, what country would he be working for other than Russia?’
‘It’s a hundred to one you’re right, Sir,’ Barney put in. ‘But, as he is a scientist and worked first in the States, then in Germany, then in Russia, there is just a possibility that he’s got some box of tricks of his own and wants our fuel to try it out with – a flying saucer, or something.’
‘You’re off the mark there, young feller. Such formulae are extraordinarily complicated things, and no private person could get one of them made up.’
Forsby shook his head. ‘I don’t agree with you there, C.B. The ingredients are all procurable from any big manufacturer of chemicals. The only secret is in the combination and proportions. It would be expensive, of course; but I’m pretty sure he could get the job done without being brought to book for having illegal possession of the formula in any of several countries outside the N.A.T.O. group – Sweden, Switzerland or Spain, for example. And if he has the money, there would be nothing to stop him from having built to his own designs some revolutionary type of aircraft as Sullivan suggests.
Verney offered round his case of long cigarettes, took one himself, and said: ‘Maybe you’re right; but we’re wasting our time with these academical speculations. Let’s get back to earth. Whatever Lothar’s future intentions may be, he is endeavouring to secure a top-secret document, and coming here tomorrow to receive it from his brother. As their arrangements have all been made by telepathic communication, we have not got a scrap of evidence against either of them. The tape recordings would justify our holding Otto in preventative arrest, but what a man says in his nightmares cuts no ice in a court of law, except in support of something much more definite. So unless the document is actually handed over, Lothar will be able to cock a snook at us, walk off, and plan a further attempt to get hold of it which we may not be fortunate enough to find out about. As against that, if we do let Otto hand it over and Lothar manages to get away with it, quite apart from having let down our side, it will be bowler hats for all of us. Now, any suggestions?’
Barney held up his hand. ‘Yes, Sir. Otto has had a lousy deal all through. He’s resisted Lothar’s demands until he has been driven off his chump, and he seems a very decent sort of chap. If you let the show go on you’ll have to pinch him as well as Lothar and, whatever we may say afterwards about extenuating circumstances, he’ll have committed a treasonable act, so he’ll get a prison sentence. That strikes me as damnably unfair.’
‘I agree,’ Verney nodded, ‘and I couldn’t be sorrier for the poor devil. But, if we are to get the goods on Lothar, I see no way of letting Otto out. Still, if you’ve had a brainwave, let’s hear it.’
‘It is that you should see Otto tomorrow morning, tell him we know what is going on and offer him the chance both to keep in the clear himself and get his own back on his brother. If he agreed to play, instead of taking the real formula to the meeting he would hand over a dud one. If Lothar gets away, there would be no harm done; but, if we catch him, you’ll have a clear case to put him away for a good long stretch.’
C.B. shook his head. ‘You are forgetting the psychic angle. Lothar checked up on Otto last night. That’s how he learnt that the meeting they had arranged for today was off. He may check up again tonight and again tomorrow, to make certain that Otto isn’t slipping and likely to let him down at the last moment. How far he can see into Otto’s mind, we don’t know. It’s not far enough, thank God, to register scientific experiments or he wouldn’t need to go to so much trouble to secure a written formula; but he must be highly sensitive to Otto’s vibrations. If he sensed a change of mind, suggesting that Otto was helping to lay a trap for him, he would not turn up and, if we miss this chance to catch him, we may never get another.’
‘All the same,’ said Forsby, ‘I agree with Sullivan that we ought to try to think of some way to protect Otto from himself.’
‘I only wish we could, Dick. But wait!’ C.B. suddenly sat forward and put his first finger alongside his big nose. ‘I believe I’ve got it, boys. Why shouldn’t we detain Otto just before he’s due to leave the Station, borrow the old raincoat and beret that Otto has been told to use as signs of his identity, dress up in them whichever of the Air Force police we have selected earlier as having a figure most like his, and send this chap to the rendezvous with a dud formula?’
The other two considered his suggestion for a moment, then Forsby objected. ‘When Lothar got near enough to see that it was not his brother he would realise that he was walking into a trap and turn and bolt for it. Remember, we couldn’t pinch him unless he had actually accepted the document.’
‘If he as much as touches it, that, backed up by the fact that he came to the rendezvous agreed on in the recordings, for a felonious purpose, will be all I need to cook his goose; and I believe that, with a little titivating, my idea might be made to work. There must be a path up to the top of the hill. Our phoney Otto could sit with his back to it and his head in his hands, as though feeling frightful at the thought of the treachery he is about to commit. He’d pretend not to hear Lothar approach until he was only a few feet off, then suddenly break into muttered curses and throw the envelope at him,’
That’s it, C.B.!’ Barney exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘Sorry, Sir, I mean. If only the Squadron-Leader can produce an Air Force police type with hair the same colour as Otto’s, and long enough so that we can trim it to make it look like his and…’
He got no further. The electric front-door bell shrilled through the bungalow, cutting him short.
As Forsby got up he shook his head. ‘It’s pretty wild, C.B. My chaps aren’t trained actors, you know. I’m afraid Lothar would smell a rat. Still, all’s fair in love and war, and I’d have no scruples in swearing that from a hideout I’d seen him pick up the document. Excuse me a minute while I answer the door and get rid of my caller. I expect it is someone who’s been at the dinner then had the idea of taking a nightcap off me.’
On going out to the hall he left the sitting-room door ajar, so when he opened his front door the others heard an agitated voice say, ‘Forsby … Squadron-Leader … I’m in trouble … serious trouble. I want to talk to you about it. May I come in?’
‘Please do,’ came Forsby’s reply. After a slight shuffling of feet, the sitting-room door swung back and there stood framed in it a tall, slim, fair-haired man of about forty. He had a fine head, heavy-lidded black eyes, a thin high nose, indrawn lips, a heavy jowl and forceful chin that was cleft in the centre.
At seeing other people there he became rigid, and he did not attempt to conceal his surprise and annoyance. But Forsby, who was behind him, blocking his retreat, said: ‘Mr. Khune, I’d like to introduce you to two friends of mine. Both of them are officers of the Security Service.’
Verney and Barney had risen from their chairs. The Colonel said: ‘Mr. Khune, I’m very glad to have this opportunity of a talk with you. Anything that you intended to say to Squadron-Leader Forsby you may also say to my colleague and myself; although, actually, I don’t think you can tell us much that we don’t already know. You may regard it as unethical but there are times when, for the safety of the Realm, we have to adopt unorthodox measures. A copy was taken of the long statement you wrote and we have read it with understanding and deep sympathy. Also, recordings have been taken of your conscious or unconscious nightly – er, arguments, over the past ten days with your brother Lothar. So we know about your proposed meeting with him on Lone Tree Hill tomorrow. It is to prevent your needlessly incriminating yourself, and to prevent him from securing information the use of which would be contrary to this country’s interests, that we have come down from London.’
After a moment a nervous smile twitched at Otto Khune’s thin lips. ‘If that is the situation, gentlemen, it looks as if I’m to be saved a lot of talking. And, to be truthful, I was a little afraid that the Squadron-Leader here might not take what I had to say seriously; or, rather, might get the idea that I was well on the way to becoming a candidate for a straight-jacket.’
‘No,’ Forsby assured him, pulling out a chair. ‘We have been worrying about you for quite a time; but not with any thought that we might have to send you to a loony bin. Learning about the strange relationship which exists between you and your brother, and the use he hopes to make of it, have been much nearer driving me in that direction.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Otto gave another nervous smile. ‘But the thought that I can now speak freely about these things is a great relief to me.’
‘Whisky and soda?’ Forsby asked.
‘Thanks,’ the scientist replied.
As the Squadron-Leader mixed one he asked, ‘When you arrived here just now, what had you in mind to say to me?’
Khune took a gulp of his whisky, and shrugged. ‘I meant to tell you what, apparently, you already know.’
‘And then?’ prompted Verney.
‘See if we couldn’t devise some means of trapping this villainous brother of mine.’
‘Good for you.’ C.B.’s thin face showed his pleasure and relief at this offer of co-operation.
Forsby touched the scientist gently on the shoulder, and asked, ‘Tell me, Khune, why did you wait until almost the last minute before coming to me like this? You could have saved yourself hours of mental torture if you had confided in me soon after the trouble started.’
Khune put a hand over his blue eyes for a moment, then gave himself a little shake. ‘Of course I ought to have. But it meant disclosing the past; telling you about Lothar’s visit to London in 1950. He had entered this country illegally and was acting as a Soviet agent then. It was my duty to have reported him to the police at once, but I didn’t. I was afraid that if that went on my record I’d be graded at the Ministry as unreliable and transferred to non-secret work. That may not mean very much to you people, but to a scientist like myself, who has spent years on a special type of research, it would have been heart-breaking.’
Verney stretched out his long legs. ‘Yes, I understand that; but later, when Lothar began to really plague you, surely…’
‘It was my battle,’ Khune broke in impatiently. ‘After what Lothar did to me last time, he hadn’t a hope in hell of persuading me to believe that his intentions were anything but evil; and I never even contemplated giving way to him. I’m not a traitor! And you’ve no right to infer that I am just because I didn’t come to Forsby earlier.’
‘I didn’t infer that.’ C.B.’s voice was as quiet as ever. ‘But you did give way to him, didn’t you? If it hadn’t been for the visit of this American you would have met him in London today.’
‘Yes, the pressure he was exerting on me was too great. By Thursday night things had reached a point where I knew that I had to do something about it or I’d no longer be responsible for my actions. But I had no intention of taking the formula to London with me. I intended only to see Lothar at a house in Cremorne and have a show-down with him.’
‘Why should you have supposed that you would have a better chance of making him agree to leave you alone when face to face than during these arguments you have with him on the astral?’
Khune gave a faint smile. ‘Our psychic bond cuts both ways. There are times when I can overlook him and, when his mind is occupied with something else, he doesn’t know that I am doing so. He has become a Satanist. I’m convinced of that. I’ve seen him in a Satanic Temple with a lot of naked women crowding round him. He was seated on a throne dressed in black and wearing a big horned mask; and he had a small imp standing at his side.’
‘Bejasus!’ Barney exclaimed. ‘Then he is the Great Ram!’
The others looked at him enquiringly. ‘You remember, Sir?’ He turned towards C.B. ‘Ratnadatta’s circle is a Lodge of the Brotherhood of the Ram, and Mrs. M. described the Great Ram to me after her first visit to the place. This means that Lothar is the big shot of the whole outfit.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Khune remarked. ‘From his boyhood on he put an immense amount of effort into developing his occult powers, and he has a tremendously strong personality.’
Verney nodded. ‘Knowing what we do about him, I’m not surprised either. But please go on with what you were saying. Why did you feel that you would stand a better chance of overcoming him by going up to London?’
‘I felt almost certain that the Satanic Temple was in the house at Cremorne, but Lothar had given me a vision only of its outside; so I couldn’t be certain without making a check up. The sight of its front hall would have been enough and, if I’d been right, that would have given me the card I wanted. I could have told Lothar that to rid myself of him I would no longer have to admit to the police that I had been in communication with a Russian agent. I could give them his description, lay an information that he was running a brothel there, and have it raided. I could have said that unless he agreed to let me alone that’s what I meant to do; then, instead of being a High Priest with a harem, he would find himself a wanted criminal on the run.’
‘To protect his secret, he might quite well have had your throat cut.’
‘I had planned to leave a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Police with the hall porter at my Club, before going to see Lothar; and I should have left instructions with the hall porter that, if I had not returned to collect the letter by four o’clock in the afternoon, he was to send it along to Scotland Yard by hand. Even a crew of Satanists would baulk at murdering a man when told that he had left a letter for the police saying that they might.’
‘True. And what if the place had turned out not to be the one in which you had seen the Temple?’
‘I’d have been no worse off than before. I’d have told him that I’d see him in hell sooner than let him have the formula.’
‘Yet last night, when he learned that you were still here, and turned on the heat, you gave way again and agreed to meet him tomorrow. Was that because he threatened to put a curse on you if you didn’t?’
‘Well, partly.’
‘If you meant to turn up without the formula, you must have expected that he would curse you just the same. And, as you have had no chance to check up on the interior of the house in Cremorne, you’d have had nothing with which to threaten him. So what did you expect to gain by agreeing to this meeting?’
Khune hesitated a second, then his blue eyes suddenly blazed, and he burst out, ‘The chance to kill him and get away with it. The odds against my being able to do so in London were too heavy. But, when he demanded that I should meet him down here, I felt that he was playing into my hands. Out there on the moor, I could have done the job and buried the body in some gully. In these Welsh hills it would have been ten thousand to one against anyone finding it in my lifetime, and I’d have been free of him for good and all.’
‘I see,’ Verney nodded. ‘Having read your statement it had occurred to me that when you came face to face with him you might be tempted to adopt drastic measures, or even plan them in advance. Would you tell us now why you changed your mind tonight, and decided instead to confide in Forsby?’
The scientist began to twist his long knobbly-knuckled hands together. ‘Because a quick death is too good for the swine. He has always loathed discomfort, poor food, ugly clothes, and physical labour. Even more, to be baulked in his ambitions and condemned to a mind-rotting routine, with only common criminals as companions, would be a foretaste of hell for him. I can’t get him a long prison sentence; but you can. That is why I’m here instead of thinking out the most painful way to kill him.’
They all recalled the account Khune had given of the break-up of his marriage, and realised how greatly he must have suffered at his brother’s hands; yet, even so, the seething hatred with which he spoke left them silent for a minute. Then Verney said:
‘It is essential that he should be caught with some document on him that he has received from you, or at least receive such a document within sight of a witness, even if he throws it away afterwards. I take it you are willing to make out a dud formula, go to the rendezvous, and give it to him?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Good. We shall draw a cordon round the place and, unless we are very unlucky, catch him within a few minutes of his leaving you. I must say, though, I wish you hadn’t chosen such an exposed position as this Lone Tree Hill, because it means that, to keep under cover until the meeting has taken place, Forsby’s men will have to take up positions a good half mile away.’
Khune shrugged. ‘That can’t be helped. There are limits to what one can convey on the astral, and it had to be some place that he could easily identify. I had nothing of this kind in mind at the time, but I meant to tell him that up there some bird-watcher might chance to see us through a pair of binoculars; so, before I handed him the paper, it would be best for us to walk down to the wood on the far side of the slope. It was there that I meant to kill him.’
‘I’d like you still to carry out that idea as, about fifty yards inside the wood, we could arrange an ambush and he would have much less chance of slipping through our fingers.’
When Khune had agreed, they continued to talk about Lothar for a further quarter of an hour; then it was settled that they should all meet at half past nine next morning and go out to reconnoitre Lone Tree Hill. Forsby accompanied the others out into the avenue and, when they had said good night to Khune outside his bungalow, walked on with the visitors to theirs. As they halted in the doorway, C.B. said:
‘Well, Dick, we’ve had a lucky break. I’m very much happier about this job than when I arrived here this afternoon.’
‘So am I.’ Forsby nodded. ‘In the worst case now, if Lothar does get away, it will be only with a useless bit of paper. All I hope is that he doesn’t get wind of what is in the air and fail to turn up.’
‘I regard that as much less likely than I did an hour ago. He can’t be as sensitive as I feared to what goes on in Otto’s mind, otherwise he would have tumbled to it on Thursday night, when Otto agreed to go to London, that he didn’t mean to bring the formula with him, and instead had cooked up an idea for doing him dirt.’
‘That’s true, Sir,’ Barney commented. ‘All the same, wouldn’t it be best to leave Otto behind when we make our reconnaissance tomorrow? If Lothar took it into his head to have a look at him, and saw him with us selecting hideouts from which to trap him, it’s a certainty that he’d call his visit off.’
‘Good for you, young feller.’ Verney turned to the Squadron-Leader. ‘Sullivan’s right, Dick. We can’t be too careful. Slip along to Otto now. Tell him to try to put tomorrow’s business out of his mind before he goes to sleep, and that you are going to reinstall the old tape recorder just in case Lothar comes through to him during the night. And that tomorrow we would like him to remain in his bungalow till lunch time.’
On that, they exchanged good nights and Forsby left them. Tired after their long day, they fell asleep within a few minutes of getting into bed and did not wake until Harlow called them with cups of tea and told them he would be bringing them breakfast in half an hour.
At half past nine Forsby came along to them with the most welcome news that Klune had spent his first untroubled night for nearly a fortnight and that the tape on the recorder remained completely blank. They then set out in Forsby’s car on their reconnaissance.
Between the Station and Lone Tree Hill there lay a stretch of wooded high ground, so they did not come in sight of the hill until they were within a mile of it; but then they could see that on three sides it was surrounded by open moorland. Turning off the main road, Forsby drove across the bridge and some way along the track that skirted the base of the hill till he reached a path that wound up it. Getting out, they walked the half mile to its summit, had a good look round, then made their way through the knee-deep heath and young bracken down to the wood.
By eleven o’clock they were on the way back to the Station and had made their plan. Verney was to lie in wait in the wood, with six of the police, and the remainder were to be posted at intervals in two semi-circles round the hill behind such boulders and gorse bushes as offered the best cover. As it seemed obvious that Lothar must arrive by car and would approach the hill from the road, that segment of the circle was, to begin with, to be left open. But Forsby and Barney were to keep the bridge under observation from the wooded rise between the hill and the Station. When they saw Lothar cross the bridge they were to drive down the road in Forsby’s car, get out and, with his two rods, start fishing in the stream. By that time Lothar should be sideways on to them and half way up the hill, so could hardly fail to see them. This stratagem they hoped would serve the dual purpose of cutting off his retreat to the road and inducing him readily to accept Otto’s suggestion that, before he handed over the paper, they should move down the far side of the hill into the wood, and so be out of sight of the fishermen.
At midday they had some sandwiches in Forsby’s bungalow and at half past he went to the police quarters to brief Ms men. The importance of the affair was impressed upon them and the necessity to remain absolutely still in their cover until they heard two blasts of a whistle. They were then to spring up and, if any running figure was in view, make for it, otherwise to remain stationary. Then were they issued with one round blank and four of ball cartridge apiece, but told that they were not to fire upon the wanted man unless he either threatened then with a weapon or, having broken through the cordon, looked like getting away unless he was brought down.
Soon after one o’clock Verney, in a jeep driven by Harlow, collected Khune, who was waiting ready dressed in his old raincoat and blue beret. A lorry with Forsby on its box transported the rest of the security police, and Barney, driving Forsby’s car, brought up the rear of the procession as far as the wooded slope.
By half past one the men were all in position and getting down into their cover. Verney and Forsby took a last look round from the top of the hill, then left Khune there - the one to disappear into the wood, the other to drive back in the lorry and join Barney. Harlow followed in the jeep and reversed it under the trees so that, should Lothar succeed in getting back to his car, he could be pursued by road without a moment’s delay.
As is so often the case in early May, the weather was pleasant and warm enough to have spent this Sunday afternoon dozing among the ling on the moor, but from two o’clock onwards over twenty very wakeful pairs of eyes kept watch on either the road or the hill-top. Between a quarter past two and a quarter to three, four car-loads carrying families of picnickers passed from the Station on their way inland towards the foothills of the rugged mountains that formed the skyline in the distance, but the majority of the Station’s personnel preferred to laze at home, tend their gardens, or spend their afternoon on the beach. No car approached from the other direction.
By three o’clock all those concerned were beginning to feel the strain of watching; by half past, Verney was beginning to fear that Lothar did not, after all, mean to keep the appointment he had made for between two o’clock and four. By four o’clock he had resigned himself to disappointment, but he decided to give Lothar another half hour. That half hour dragged interminably, yet even after it he held his hand for a further five minutes before blowing his whistle.
As soon as Forsby saw movement on the hillside, he ordered up the lorry. The security police were collected and the Squadron-Leader, with Barney beside him, picked up Verney and Khune. As they got into his car, he said resignedly, ‘Well, it’s not the first time that I’ve had that sort of wait for nothing, and I don’t suppose it will be the last. Lothar must have smelt a rat.’
‘You’ve said it, partner,’ agreed C.B.
‘I wonder what his next move will be,’ Barney hazarded.
‘God alone knows!’ For once Verney’s voice was a shade petulant. ‘Anyhow, there’s no point now in our remaining here. We’ll get back to London as soon as possible.’
‘It will take some while to get your aircraft ready,’ Forsby told him, ‘and you had only sandwiches for lunch, so to fill in time I propose to give you a good solid tea at the Club.’
‘Thanks, Dick. I must say it would be welcome.’
When they turned into Bachelors Avenue the little Squadron-Leader again broke the gloomy silence. ‘I’m going to get out here. Sullivan can take over the wheel again and Khune will show him the quickest way to the Club. Meanwhile I’ll get on the blower, locate your pilot, and tell him you want to get off. Then I’ll have Harlow pack your bags and I’ll bring them along to the Club in about half an hour’s time. You’ll act as host to our friends until I can join you, won’t you, Khune?’
‘Of course. It will be a pleasure,’ replied the scientist.
The change over was made and Barney drove off round the Headquarters building. As they came out alongside the quadrangle of lawn in front of it, Khune said:
‘It will be an hour at least before they have found your pilot and got your aircraft ready. It always is. Would it interest you to spend ten minutes having a look at my laboratory, and seeing the sort of stuff my swine of a brother is so keen to get his hands on?’
‘Yes, I’d like to,’ Verney replied. ‘Although it may be only a jelly to look at, the thought of the way it can propel tons of metal at thousand of miles an hour through the air is fascinating.’
Khune directed Barney to drive the car round to the back of one of the big steel and glass blocks, and at an entrance to it that had above the doorway, in bold lettering, ‘A FIVE’, they all got out.
As it was a Sunday the door was shut, but Khune pressed a bell-push and after a few minutes it was opened by a portly elderly man, in a dark blue uniform. He gave Khune one look, then his eyes grew round and he exclaimed:
‘Lord alive, Sir! Did you have a crash?’
‘Crash! What d‘you mean?’ Khune frowned.
‘Why, for the moment I thought you was a ghost. Can’t be more than an hour and a half since you left for Scotland.’
‘Scotland?’
‘Yes, Sir. You came here round half past two. Special order, you said. Needed urgent for our place in the ‘Ebrides. I got hold of Tommy Carden and we loaded twenty drums out of the store on to a runabout. He drove you with it out to the airstrip and when he got back he told me you meant to deliver it yourself and had gone off with it in a plane. Leastways, that’s what I thought he said.’
Verney, Khune and Barney stared at the man dumbfounded. The same awful thought was in all their minds. Lothar had never intended to keep the appointment on Lone Tree Hill. He had made it only to get Otto out of the Station for the afternoon. He had arrived there in an aeroplane and impersonated his brother. He had not got the formula, but he had done far better. He had made off with twenty drums of the fuel all ready for use.