Rita feverishly renewed her old quest, seeking in all directions for some less extortionate purveyor.  But none was to be found.  The selfishness and secretiveness of the drug slave made it difficult for her to learn on what terms others obtained Kazmah’s precious goods; but although his prices undoubtedly varied, she was convinced that no one of all his clients was so cruelly victimized as she.

Mollie Gretna endeavored to obtain an extra supply to help Rita, but Kazmah evidently saw through the device, and the endeavor proved a failure.

She demanded to see Kazmah, but Rashid, the Egyptian, blandly assured her that “the Sheikh-el-Kazmah” was away.  She cast discretion to the winds and wrote to him, protesting that it was utterly impossible for her to raise so much ready money as he demanded, and begging him to grant her a small supply or to accept the letter as a promissory note to be redeemed in three months.  No answer was received, but when Rita again called at old Bond Street, Rashid proposed one of the few compromises which the frenzied woman found herself unwilling to accept.

“The Sheikh-el-Kazmah say, my lady, your friend Mr. Gray never come to him.  If you bring him it will be all right.”

Rita found herself stricken dumb by this cool proposal.  The degradation which awaits the drug slave had never been more succinctly expounded to her.  She was to employ Gray’s foolish devotion for the commercial advantage of Kazmah.  Of course Gray might any day become one of the three wealthiest peers in the realm.  She divined the meaning of Kazmah’s hitherto incomprehensible harshness (or believed that she did); she saw what was expected of her.  “My God!” she whispered.  “I have not come to that yet.”

Rashid she knew to be incorruptible or powerless, and she turned away, trembling, and left the place, whose faint perfume of frankincense had latterly become hateful to her.

She was at this time bordering upon a state of collapse.  Insomnia, which latterly had defied dangerously increased doses of veronal, was telling upon nerve and brain.  Now, her head aching so that she often wondered how long she could retain sanity, she found herself deprived not only of cocaine, but also of malourea.  Margaret Halley was her last hope, and to Margaret she hastened on the day before the tragedy which was destined to bring to light the sinister operations of the Kazmah group.

Although, perhaps mercifully, she was unaware of the fact, representatives of Spinker’s Agency had been following her during the whole of the preceding fortnight.  That Rita was in desperate trouble of some kind her husband had not failed to perceive, and her reticence had quite naturally led him to a certain conclusion.  He had sought to win her confidence by every conceivable means and had failed.  At last had come doubt—­and the hateful interview with Spinker.

As Rita turned in at the doorway below Margaret’s flat, then, Brisley was lighting a cigarette in the shelter of a porch nearly opposite, and Gunn was not far away.