Sally Baxter's psychiatrist's falling dream comes true--Dr. Maher is found dead on the sidewalk. From then on Sally is paranoically pursued by the idea that she has killed her which is vaguely connected with an episode in her childhood when she tried to commit suicide at a French convent and by the nightmares attended by soundless screams. This begins in a London nursing home, carries on (wildly) on the continent where she is followed by a most attentive new psychiatrist and the police. A distraught distraction.