[1] Iris Carr, a young English society woman, is staying at a small hotel in ‘a remote corner of Europe’.

After going for a long walk and getting lost in the local mountains, Iris decides to leave also, but waiting at the railway station, she is struck or hit on the back of the head and loses consciousness.

Iris's fellow hotel guests the Reverend Mr and Mrs Barnes and the Misses Flood-Porter are also aboard the train.

She spies a heavily bandaged body in another compartment, supervised by a sinister-looking doctor apparently taking an accident victim to hospital in Trieste.

Miss Froy confides that she has most recently been teacher to the children of the ‘Leader of the Opposition’, understood to be part of a nascent Communist faction.

Iris eventually finds two Englishmen who speak the local language; Max Hare, a young engineer and his travelling companion, 'the Professor'.

The doctor convinces Max to surreptitiously administer a sleeping-draught to Iris; as it takes effect, she summons the strength to enter the next compartment and rip off the bandages from the 'victim'.