"He didn't operate that peepshow console in the basement?"

"It's largely self-operative. Charles merely saw to it."

"Did Charles install the cameras and the other gadgets?"

"Install them?" She shook her head. "Oh no, not the original equipment. That was all done quite some time before Charles came to us."

"And when did he come to you?"

She wrinkled her brow and replied, "Some months back. Three, perhaps four."

"Was that before or after the blackmail started?"

"Oh it was after. I'm positive of that. It was because of that trouble that the Major decided to have a full time watchman about the place. Charles lived in, you see. Had his own flat in the cellar."

"And how did the Major happen to pick Charles for the job?"

Her eyes blanked and she said, "I haven't the foggiest notion."

Bolan sighed and stretched toward the night stand to crush the cigarette into an ashtray. When he straightened, Ann was lying back on the bed, her legs dangling over the edge. He stared at her for a thoughtful moment, then told her, "I've no intention of ditching you, Ann."

"Thanks," she replied in a half whisper. "But I'm releasing you. You have no obligations to me."

"It isn't a matter of obligation," he said.

Her face took on a warm glow. Her eyes half closed and she whispered, "It isn't?"

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. It's a matter of safety. Yours. Whoever did it to Charles might decide to do it to you, too."

"Why me?" she gasped.

He shrugged. "Why Charles?"

She said, "But that's ridiculous!" Her face, though, showed that the idea was not entirely ridiculous.

"Just what is your job at de Sade?" Bolan asked her.

She closed her eyes and flung an arm across the top of her head. One foot came up on the bed and she wriggled about in discomfort.

Bolan said, "Dammit, it's important. Now what do you do over there?"

"I plan the parties," she replied, her voice barely audible. "I stage the shows and see to the decorations and make arrangements for the food and beverages. I am in complete charge of all party arrangements."

Bolan said, "What's involved in staging a show?"

"Many things," she replied listlessly. "Foremost is a thorough understanding of the members' various idiosyncracies. First I must determine precisely which members will be attending. Then I simply build the show around the sort of things that give mem enjoyment."

"Where do you get the actors?"

"They're a repertory company, under contract to the club. They are well paid and quite content with the working conditions. Also some of them, I suspect, have idiosyncracies of their own."

"How about you?"

"What?"

"Idiosyncracies."

Her face flamed. "I have a huge one."

"Tell me."

She sighed. Her eyes remained closed and she said, "Utter revulsion. I find the entire thing abominable and revolting."

"Then why do you stick on with it?"

Following a long silence, she replied, "I once thought that I stayed because of the Major. We're not exactly a father and daughter item, you know, nothing like that. I believe that the Major is constitutionally unsuited for the father role. But he did take over my upbringing when my aunt died. He's a very cold man, as you may have noticed, but he does have a sense of duty. I suppose that he instilled that in me, also. He saw to my problems for a number of years. I suppose that, when I came of age, I felt a need to see to his problems. But the Major released me last year… even askedme to go… so I haven't that excuse to fall back on any more, have I?"

"So what are you saying?" Bolan probed on.

She came up to one elbow, tossed her head to one side, and opened her eyes to fix them on Bolan. "I'm saying that I don't know why I stay on. Perhaps I have become fixated on abomination and revulsion." She looked away from him then and asked, "Do you find me revolting?"

"Not at all," he murmured.

"I'm a damn virgin, did you know that?"

It was time for Bolan to look the other way. He was curiously embarrassed by the admission. "No, I hadn't noticed," he muttered.

"And I'm twenty-six years in this world. Now isn't thatsome sort of an anachronism in this flaming age." She said it quite bitterly.

Bolan wanted to leave the subject. He said, "Did you stage the show for last night's party?"

"Yes."

"Did it include a torture scene in the cell where Charles died?"

Her eyes flared as she replied, "Yes, but not thatone."

"What was scheduled for that room?"

"Jimmy Thomas."

"And what is Jimmy Thomas?"

Her faced again flamed. She said, "Jimmy Thomas is a sodomist… a—a passive, a vessel."

"I don't get you."

She had to close her eyes to explain. "He—he… well, you saw the device, I'm sure. He bends himself into the locks and… receives."

Bolan's mouth was dry. He said, "Yeah. So why wasn't Jimmy Thomas in there receiving, instead of the old man?"

She explained, "The Major said that he'd received a request from one of the members to… to…"

"To do what?"

"One of the members desired Jimmy's personal company during the party."

"And when was this?"

"At the last moment, I suppose. I had to leave early. Remember, I was meeting you at Soho Psyche."

"Supposedly the Major was, too," Bolan pointed out.

"He was there," she said. "He told me that he knocked into you just outside the dining room."

Bolan said, "Yeah, about twenty minutes late."

"But he said that he'd explained that to you. The gangsters were following him. He was trying to shake them loose."

Bolan decided that he did not wish to tell her differently, not at the moment. He sighed and asked her, "Just how emotionally attached are you to Major Stone, Ann?"

She replied, "Not at all. I've explained all that, I'd thought."

He said, "Suppose it turns out that Major Stone is the one who killed the old man."

Her eyeslashes fluttered rapidly. "That's preposterous."

"Is it?"

"Utterly."

"Well just for the sake of argument, suppose he did. How would you feel about that?"

Her voice dropped into low key again as she said, "Then I would fear that he had gone quite mad. I would feel the deepest pity for him."

"If he did do it, Ann, I'll probably have to zap him."

"You'll have to what?"

"There's something smelly about this whole setup, and I'm not talking about sexual perversion. Something very rotten and very evil is underlying this entire mishmash, and I'm betting that Edwin Charles did not die at some madman's spur of the moment whim. He died for some damn good reason. I believe that this reason somehow is related to my presence in London, and I'm betting that the killer and I will have a showdown before it's all over. When that happens, Ann, I will probably kill him."

She murmured, "And you believe that this shadowy 'someone' could possibly be Major Stone."

"It's more than a possibility," he told her.

The girl pulled herself erect. She crossed her legs, Indian fashion as she sat on the bed. She gazed steadily at Bolan for a thoughtful moment, then said, "But suppose that Charles was actually in on the blackmail plot?"

"That could change things," Bolan admitted. "Do you think he was?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I hardly know what to think at this point." She got off the bed and went to the window, pulled back the blinds, and stared somberly outside. "It's daylight," she announced quietly. "What a difference twenty-four hours can bring."

Bolan wanted to get things firmly understood. He told her, "The point of it all, Ann… I may turn out to be your very worst enemy."

"You could never be that," she murmured, still gazing out the window.

"A few minutes ago you were ready to blow my head off," he reminded her.