General Mason's face had assumed a brickish hue, and a strangled noise issued from him.
`May I ask why you didn't use the other tickets, Mrs Bitton?'Hadley asked quickly.
'O Lord, how should I know? I changed my mind.' She slid her body about in the chair, seeming to have lost interest. But her eyes looked strained. `I did wander about a bit in that inner courtyard up there. And I talked to one nice old Beefeater.’
General Mason broke in with cold courtesy:
`Madam, may I, request you not to use that word? The guards at the Tower are called Yeoman Warders, not Beefeaters. The term is applied.. '
`I'm sorry. Of course I didn't know. You hear people talk, that's all. I pointed to that place where the stone slab is, where it says they used to chop people's heads off, you know, and I asked the Bee… the man, "Is that where Queen Elizabeth was executed?" And he nearly fainted. He cleared his throat a couple of times, and said, "Madam..er… Queen Elizabeth had not the honour to be… ah… I mean, Queen Elizabeth died in her bed." And then reeled off a list of people who got their heads chopped off there; and I said, "What did she die of?" and he said,
"Who, ma'am?" and I said, "Queen Elizabeth" and he made a sort of funny noise.'
Hadley was not impressed. `Please keep to the subject, Mrs Litton. When did you leave?' '
`My dear man, I don't carry a watch. But I know that I came down from the parade-ground under the arch of that big place called the Bloody Tower. And I saw a group of people standing over by the rail around these steps, and there was a Beefeater who asked me if I would mind going on. So I suppose it was after you found… Phil.'
`Did you run into Mr Driscoll at any time?'