"Great Scott, Bernie! Your brain is wonderful!" exclaimed Ena in admiration. "How can you think out all these details in such a short space of time?"
"When one is in danger one takes due precaution—and at once. I always do so," he laughed. "This fellow and his girl have tried to spy upon us—and we have to deal with them as they would deal with us. If they discovered anything they would at once tell the police, and very soon our game would be up. Hence, we have to put matters square at the least possible risk to ourselves," he added.
He took up the glass from which Gerald had drunk the excellent port, and carried it into the small kitchen, where he carefully washed it. Afterwards Ena handed him a small phial which he also carefully washed, and then half filled it with something he took from his pocket. The bottle was full of that cheap, but pungent, perfume—oil of verbena. When he had half filled the small bottle, he corked it and placed it in a cupboard in the kitchen, thus removing all trace of the deleterious liquid which the little phial had previously contained.
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.