“One red-haired woman in a crimson hat; three dark women in black hats; several nondescript women in those pull-on sort of dust-coloured hats; old women with grey hair, various; sixteen flappers without hats—hats on rack, I mean, but none of ’em crimson; two obvious brides in blue hats; innumerable fair women in hats of all colours; one ash-blonde dressed as a nurse, none of ’em our friend as far as I know. Thought I’d best just toddle along the train to make sure. There’s just one dark sort of female whose hat I can’t see because it’s tucked down beside her. Wonder if Mrs. Cropper would mind doin’ a little stagger down the corridor to take a squint at her.”
Mrs. Cropper, with some surprise, consented to do so.
“Right you are. ’Splain later. About four carriages along. Now, look here, Mrs. Cropper, if it should be anybody you know, I’d rather on the whole she didn’t spot you watching her. I want you to walk along behind me, just glancin’ into the compartments but keepin’ your collar turned up. When we come to the party I have in mind, I’ll make a screen for you, what?”
These manœuvres were successfully accomplished, Lord Peter lighting a cigarette opposite the suspected compartment, while Mrs. Cropper viewed the hatless lady under cover of his raised elbows. But the result was disappointing. Mrs. Cropper had never seen the lady before, and a further promenade from end to end of the train produced no better results.
“We must leave it to Bunter, then,” said his lordship, cheerfully, as they returned to their seats. “I put him on the trail as soon as you gave me the good word. Now, Mrs. Cropper, we really get down to business. First of all, we should be glad of any suggestions you may have to make about your sister’s death. We don’t want to distress you, but we have got an idea that there might, just possibly, be something behind it.”
“There’s just one thing, sir—your lordship, I suppose I should say. Bertha was a real good girl—I can answer for that absolutely. There wouldn’t have been any carryings-on with her young man—nothing of that. I know people have been saying all sorts of things, and perhaps, with lots of girls as they are, it isn’t to be wondered at. But, believe me, Bertha wouldn’t go for to do anything that wasn’t right. Perhaps you’d like to see this last letter she wrote me. I’m sure nothing could be nicer and properer from a girl just looking forward to a happy marriage. Now, a girl as wrote like that wouldn’t be going larking about, sir, would she? I couldn’t rest, thinking they was saying that about her.”
Lord Peter took the letter, glanced through it, and handed it reverently to Mr. Murbles.
“We’re not thinking that at all, Mrs. Cropper, though of course we’re very glad to have your point of view, don’t you see. Now, do you think it possible your sister might have been—what shall I say?—got hold of by some woman with a plausible story and all that, and—well—pushed into some position which shocked her very much? Was she cautious and up to the tricks of London people and all that?”
And he outlined Parker’s theory of the engaging Mrs. Forrest and the supposed dinner in the flat.
“Well, my lord, I wouldn’t say Bertha was a very quick girl—not as quick as me, you know. She’d always be ready to believe what she was told and give people credit for the best. Took more after her father, like. I’m Mother’s girl, they always said, and I don’t trust anybody further than I can see them. But I’d warned her very careful against taking up with women as talks to a girl in the street, and she did ought to have been on her guard.”