The Countess flinched and sat up. She looked considerably more wide awake. "Ah!" she murmured. "I am here. Yes, I am here." "Take your time," said Bill. "Don't talk till you feel quite all right again." The Countess drew the folds of a very transparent négligé closer around her. "It is coming back to me," she murmured. "Yes, it is coming back." She looked at the little crowd grouped around her. Perhaps something in the attentive faces struck her as unsympathetic. In any case she smiled deliberately up at the one face which clearly displayed a very opposite emotion. "Ah, my big Englishman," she said very softly, "do not distress yourself. All is well with me." "Oh! I say, but are you sure?" demanded Bill anxiously. "Quite sure." She smiled at him reassuringly. "We Hungarians, we have nerves of steel." A look of intense relief passed over Bill's face. A fatuous look settled down there instead--a look which made Bundle earnestly long to kick him. "Have some water," she said coldly. The Countess refused water. Jimmy, kindlier to beauty in distress, suggested a cocktail. The Countess reacted favourably to this suggestion. When she had swallowed it, she looked round once more, this time with a livelier eye. "Tell me, what has happened?" she demanded briskly. "We were hoping you might be able to tell us that," said Superintendent Battle. The Countess looked at him sharply. She seemed to become aware of the big, quiet man for the first time. "I went to your room," said Bundle. "The bed hadn't been slept in and you weren't there." She paused--looking accusingly at the Countess. The latter closed her eyes and nodded her head slowly. "Yes, yes, I remember it all now. Oh, it was horrible!" She shuddered. "Do you want me to tell you?" Superintendent Battle said, "If you please" at the same moment that Bill said, "Not if you don't feel up to it." The Countess looked from one to the other, but the quiet, masterful eye of Superintendent Battle won the game. "I could not sleep," began the Countess. "The house--it oppressed me. I was all, as you say, on wires, the cat on the hot bricks. I knew that in the state I was in it was useless to think of going to bed. I walked about my room. I read. But the books placed there did not interest me greatly. I thought I would come down here and find something more absorbing." "Very natural," said Bill. "Very often done, I believe," said Battle. "So as soon as the idea occurred to me, I left my room and came down. The house was very still--" "Excuse me," interrupted the Superintendent, "but can you give me an idea of the time when this occurred?" "I never know the time," said the Countess superbly, and swept on with her story. "The house was very quiet. One could even hear the little mouse run, if there had been one. I come down the stairs--very quietly--" "Very quietly?"