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It was opened for me with a sudden jerk. I was taken roughly by the arm from the side and propelled into the center of the vast circular space I remembered, as in a nightmare, from my previous visit. Over against the fireplace, on the raised stone area, seated like some kind of petty potentate, was Manfred Bannerhoff, aka Freddie Bain. Near him on the couch sat Diantha, her face drawn and worried.

“Welcome, welcome, Mr. de Ratour. You’re just in time for breakfast. We’ve been expecting you, haven’t we, Diantha. That’s okay, Fang, you can let him go. He’s not going to do anything.”

“Norman!” Diantha cried, rising as though from a deathbed trance.

“Diantha.” I started toward her.

“Stay where you are, both of you, unless …”

I stopped. It wasn’t only the mesmeric powers in his striking eyes. Fang, whom I recognized as the delivery boy from the Jade Stalk, and two well-muscled young men hovered in the background.

Bain pointed to a large television screen next to the fireplace. “We have been enjoying the show, Norman. A jolly good show.” He flicked at a remote control. A moment later I appeared on the screen, emerging from the woods above the building. “Such a hero. Such a fool.” I was looking down with my binoculars. “We’ve all had a great laugh, Norman. There you are. Now we can’t see you. You must be behind the rock, getting ready for your assault.” I watched, glanced over to Diantha. Are you all right? I mouthed silently. She nodded. I turned back to the monitor. At least they hadn’t seen me making the phone call.

“Now here’s the best part,” my awful host announced. On the screen I was trying to get down the steep, windblown slope of iced-over snow. Suddenly, I fall and tumble over several times before I stop myself. The view cuts to a wide angle, and the dog can be seen making its way up to the doctored meat. “Poor Mitzi,” Freddie Bain said. “What did you put in the meat, Norman?”

“Morphine,” I said.

Bain laughed his mean laugh. “She overdosed, like so many of my good friends.” Then his laugh died to a snarl. He came toward me. “Mitzi was my friend. She took good care of me. You killed her. And I’m going to kill you, old man, with my bare hands. But first, did you bring the tape?”

“I have it.”

“Give it to me.”

“I will leave it in the foyer as Diantha and I leave.”

Madness showed in his face. “You old fool! You give it now or … I will kill both of you with my bare hands.” He laughed. “Or should we inject them with enough of our new potion and let them go at it in the cage, eh, Fang?”

Fang, who had moved away from me, gave a sycophantic laugh along with the other two.

As much to stall for time, I said, “Is that what you did with Ossmann and Woodley?”

“I’m afraid so. Professor Ossmann proved uncooperative in the end.”

“So you’re the one behind the whole deadly business?”

“Business is right.” He smiled wickedly. “When I see a business opportunity, I take it.”

“From whom did you take it?”

“Oh, from poor Ossmann, of course. But he, I’m sure, took it from someone else. Now, give me the tape …”

“What do you plan to do with the … potion?”

“Free trade, mon vieux, free trade. I will ship it by the carload to the Far East, and, of course, bring back various controlled substances by the carload …”

“A regular businessman, I see.”

His smile became a scowl. He started toward me and stopped. “No, Herr Directkor, not a regular businessman. I will be a force to be reckoned with. I will wreak my vengeance.”

“On whom?”

A thin smile shaped his lips. “On history, my friend, on history.”

“I thought you said history comes and goes.” Though fearful I had botched everything, that Diantha and I were both doomed, I still had this compulsion to argue with him.

“Yes. And I will make it stop.”

“Make history stop? Of course, that is the essence of despotism, isn’t it?”

“I am not in the mood for dialectical diversions, old man. Now the tape. I paid good money for it. Give it here.”

“First —”

“No first!” he shouted. “You are not here to dictate terms. Perhaps if we started on Miss Lowe