The Secret Adversary

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only thought was to get out in the corridor as quick as ever I could. I
got up, trying to look natural and easy. Perhaps they saw something--I
don't know--but suddenly Mrs. Vandemeyer said 'Now,' and flung something
over my nose and mouth as I tried to scream. At the same moment I felt a
terrific blow on the back of my head...."

She shuddered. Sir James murmured something sympathetically. In a minute
she resumed:

"I don't know how long it was before I came back to consciousness. I
felt very ill and sick. I was lying on a dirty bed. There was a
screen round it, but I could hear two people talking in the room. Mrs.
Vandemeyer was one of them. I tried to listen, but at first I couldn't
take much in. When at last I did begin to grasp what was going on--I was
just terrified! I wonder I didn't scream right out there and then.

"They hadn't found the papers. They'd got the oilskin packet with the