Gradually recollection returned. The blind dwarf: the dead man: the gambling den. And now where the devil was he? He sat up: his shoes had been removed. And into his still bemused brain came a sudden light. He was in the cell of a police station.
In his mouth was a foul taste, the significance of which he realised only too well. Once, in his extreme youth, he had been shanghaied out east, and the after-taste of a drug can never be mistaken for anything else. After he had been throttled into insensibility, dope of sorts had been forced down his throat: so much was obvious.
He glanced at the window: the sun was streaming in. Then he looked for his watch only to find it had been taken away.
"Awake, are you? What we might describe as some blind--what?"
The man's tone was good-humoured and
