“What an absurdity all this is!” she exclaimed.
“Maderstrom,” Captain Griffiths said thoughtfully, “was, curiously enough, an intimate college friend of your brother's. He was also a visitor at Wood Norton Hall. At neither place is there any trace of Mr. Hamar Lessingham. Perhaps you have made a mistake, Lady Cranston. Perhaps you have recognised the man and failed to remember his name. If so, now is the moment to declare it.”
“I am very much obliged to you,” Philippa retorted, “but I have never met or heard of this Mr. Maderstrom—”
“Baron Maderstrom,” he interrupted.
“Baron Maderstrom, then, in my life; whereas Mr. Lessingham I remember perfectly.”
“I am sorry,” Captain Griffiths said, setting down his empty teacup and rising slowly to his feet. “We cannot help one another, then.”
“If you want me to transfer Mr. Lessingham, whom I remember perfectly, into a German baron whom I never heard of,” Philippa declared boldly, “I am afraid that we can't.”
“Baron Maderstrom was a Swedish nobleman,” Captain Griffiths observed.
“Swedish or German, I know nothing of him,” Philippa persisted.
“There remains, then, nothing more to be said.”