Lilla had gone out, but half an hour later she drove up to the door in a small open car. The manner in which she pulled up showed her to be a good driver. The inhabitants of the whole block of flats—those houses piled upon one another, which are admittedly cheap to run, but which are so very expensive from a health point of view—were asleep when, assisted by the two women, and treading softly, they placed Durrant in the car, heavy and unconscious owing to the drug which had been given him. Lilla then mounted to the driver’s seat, and, leaving Ena to close the flat and return to Upper Brook Street as best she could, Boyne and his wife, with their unconscious victim in the bottom of the car, sped out across Hampstead Heath, and northward upon the Great North Road. Not till forty-eight hours afterwards did Gerald Durrant slowly and painfully awake to a knowledge of his surroundings. By that time Marigold and the others had been reassured by the telegrams. Gerald’s first impression was of a strange, rather healthful smell—a smell of tar. He looked around. The ceiling of the room was low—a ceiling which badly required whitewashing. Before him was a small square window—a very small window. And he was lying fully dressed upon a narrow iron bedstead. Apparently the house was an old cottage, but quite unfamiliar. He tried to think, but his brain was addled. His memory refused to serve him. The sun was shining in at the window, and the little room seemed close and stuffy. It was the sunset, he gathered. Try how he would, he could recollect absolutely nothing. All he could recollect were the faces of those two women whom he had assisted in their distress. He strove to think. At last, he recollected how Mrs. Evans had given him that glass of good port, and how afterwards they had chatted together. Then all was blank. Of time he had no idea. What, he wondered, would Marigold think of his absence? And what would they think at the office? His first impulse was to wire to Wimbledon Park and to Mincing Lane. Yes, it was imperative that he should do so. Yet he knew not where he was, for as he raised himself upon his elbow from the bed, he saw that the only look-out from the small window was a high brick wall, apparently the wall of a warehouse. The room was dusty and uncleanly. There was no carpet—nothing save a very ragged square of black-and-white linoleum. He got up and, dazed as he was, he tried the door. It was strongly bolted from without! He shouted—yelled at the top of his voice, but nobody came. Upon the little deal table he saw something which told him that he was a prisoner—a jug containing some water, and a plate with some unwholesome-looking cooked meat and some bread.