Puckston looked vacant
"I was sure what it was." Again his hand mechanically brushed the table-cloth. "Anyway, I was pretty sure. But…"
"But you were glad Fleet was dead. And anyway you didn't want trouble, because you were scared of the nobs."
"Nice lot, aren't they? Lady Brayle.."
"Sure, Sophie's one of the bad examples. That's because she's so goddam cloth-headed. She ought to be either ousted or made popular. But when you sent that anonymous card with the fancy words 'pink flash'…"
Any reference to those cards, no matter with how gentle probing, seemed to send Puckston frantic
"Enid didn't know nothing about it" he pleaded. "It was only a lark, don't you see? She loved larks. That's how they got her up to Pentecost, because it was a lark. Because all the gossip was round they were looking for ghosts. Because…"
Puckston got up. He stumbled across to a kitchen dresser with an oil-cloth top, fumbled in a drawer, and brought out a table-cloth to dab at his eyes. Then he turned round.
"It was Enid," he said, "who thought of saying ‘pink flash.' I–I hemm'd and hawed." Puckston's freckled bald head stood out against the white-brick wall. His thin shoulders, square like a scarecrow's in the old blue-and-white shirt were humped up.
"I hemm'd and hawed, not wanting to say much. And Enid, she said, 'Well, Daddy, what did it look like?’ And I told her. And she thought for a minute and said, 'I know, Daddy! We'll call it a pink flash.' And she put it down,"