She stiffened. Her eyes remained fixed on the notepaper, and she stopped fiddling with her cuff.
`No. I told you I didn't know him. The only woman's name I ever heard in connexion with him was on — the up-and-up. It was a little blonde. She used to come with a big thin bird with eyeglasses on. One day she stopped me as I was coming in and asked me how she could find the porter to get into his flat. There's no hall-porter; it's an automatic lift. She said her name was Sheila and she was his cousin. And that's all I ever heard.'
Hadley remained silent for a time.
`Now, about this afternoon, Mrs Larkin…. How did you happen to come to the Tower of London?'
`I've got a right to come here if I want to. I don't need to explain why I go to a public building, do I?’
'When, did you arrive?'
`Past two o'clock. Mind, I don't swear to that! I'm not under oath. That's what time I think it was.'
`Did you make the tour..go all round?'
`I went to two of them — Crown Jewels and Bloody Tower. Not the other one. Then I got tired and started out. They stopped me.'
Hadley went through the routine of questions, and elicited nothing. She had been deaf, dumb, and blind. There were other people about her… she remembered an American cursing the fog… but she had paid no attention to the others. At length he dismissed her, with the warning that he would probably have future questions.