She woke up in bed, with a splitting headache.

Opening her eyes sleepily, she grasped the general geography of the room in a dazed sort of way. The blinds were drawn, and the only light came from a softly shaded reading lamp by the side of the bed. There was a dressing table in front of the window, and a washstand in one corner. Everything was unfamiliar. She couldn't make it out at first-- it didn't seem like her room.

Then she turned her head and saw the man who sat regarding her steadily, with a book on his knee, in the armchair beside the bed, and the memory of what had happened, before the drug she had inhaled overcome her, returned in its full horror. She sat up, throwing off the bedclothes, and found that she was still wearing the dress in which she had left the flat. Only her shoes had been removed.

The effort to rise made the room swim dizzily before her eyes, and her head felt as if it would burst.

"If you he still for a moment," said Raxel suavely, "the headache will pass in about ten minutes."

She put her hand to her forehead and tried to steady herself. All her strength seemed to have left her, and even the terror she felt could not give her back the necessary energy to leap out of bed and dash out of the door and out of the house.

"You'll be sorry about this," she said faintly. "You can't keep me here for ever, and when I get out and tell the police--"

"You will not tell the police," said Raxel soothingly, as one might point out the fallacies in the argument of a child. "In fact, I should think you will do your best to avoid them. You may not remember doing it, but you have killed a man. What is more, he was a detective.

She looked at him aghast.

"That man who was tied up?"