"And you first got wind of them on Earth about three thousand years ago?"
"A little more than that, actually," Bor Mellistos said, "if you don't mind the correction."
"Not at all," Forrester said, looking at the fangs of the Detective Inspector.
"We were alerted after the radiations had been coming in for some time. The search for this group wasn't nearly as urgent then."
"And that's why they had to go into hiding?" Diana asked.
"Correct, miss," Bor Mellistos said. "The only one we managed to catch was the woman calling herself Aphrodite, or Venus." He looked at the substitute Venus. "That's the one you replaced, miss."
"How did you catch her?" Forrester pursued.
"Well," Bor Mellistos said, turning a faint shade of orange with embarrassment, "she was—ah—engaged in a secret liaison with a mortal at the time. Knowing that two of the other gentlemen would be furious with her if they discovered this fact—"
"Mars and Vulcan," Forrester supplied.
"Quite correct, sir," Bor Mellistos said. "Knowing, as I say, that they would be furious, she had taken special pains to hide herself. When the alarm reached the others that we were coming, they could not warn her. As a result, when she returned to Mount Olympus, we were waiting for her."