One of the men jerked the dagger from his master’s back, and lifted him groaning to a sofa, whilst the other rushed to the telephone. In his agitation the Italian who was endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood from the wound, jabbered unintelligibly at the girl, but she did not hear him, and would not have understood him if she had. Like one in a dream she walked slowly from the room, through the hall, and into the open. Raphael Willings’s car was drawn up some distance from the front of the house, and the chauffeur had left it unattended. She looked round; there was nobody in sight; then all her energies awakened, and she sprang into the driver’s seat and pressed the plug of the starter. With a whine and a splutter the engines started up, and she sent the car flying down the drive--but here was an obstacle. The iron gates at the end were closed, and she remembered that the chauffeur had had to get down to unlock them. There was no time to be lost. She backed the car, then sent it full speed at the gates. There was a smashing of glass, a crash as the gates broke, and she was in the road with a damaged radiator, lamps twisted beyond recognition, and a mudguard that hung in shreds. But the car was moving, and she set it spinning in the direction of London. The hall porter of the flats in which she lived did not recognise her, she looked so wild and changed. “Aren’t you well, miss?” he asked as he took her up in the lift. She shook her head. Once behind the door of her flat she went straight to the telephone and gave a number, and to the man who answered, she poured forth such a wild, incoherent story, a story so punctuated by sobs, that he found it difficult to discover exactly what had happened. “I’m through, I’m through,” she gasped. “I can do no more! I will do no more! It was horrible, horrible!” She hung up the receiver, and staggered to her room, feeling that she was going to faint unless she took tight hold of herself; hours passed before she was normal. And it was in that condition that Mr. Derrick Yale found her when he called that evening--her old calm, insolent self. “This is an unexpected honour,” she said coolly, “and who is your friend?” She looked at the man who was standing behind Yale. “Thalia Drummond,” said Yale sternly. “I have a warrant for your arrest.” “Again?” she raised her eyebrows. “I seem always to be in the hands of the police. What is the charge?” “Attempted murder,” said Yale. “The attempted murder of Mr. Raphael Willings. I caution you that what you now say may be taken down, and used in evidence against you.” The second man stepped forward and took her arm. Thalia Drummond spent that night in the cells of Marylebone Police Station. Chapter XXXIX. A Prison Diet