“I see. She’s a sort of decoy who gets to know the victim.”

“Know him! Well, I should say she did, miss—it would be much easier to tell you everything if you was ma’am.”

“Well, imagine I am,” smiled Diana. “She gets to know him very well?”

Mr. Superbus nodded.

“I should say so! She starts a hand-holding friendship, if I might describe it.”

“But surely not always?” interrupted Bobbie. “She didn’t catch old Mendlesohn that way? He must be sixty-five!”

Mr. Superbus was amused.

“Sixty-five! Why, of course she did! The sixty-fivers are the worst. They’re easy. Mind you, there’s nothing more than a high-class friendship in it, if I may use the word. The people she likes to get hold of are the thinkers—she’s got a classy line of language. You know the sort of stuff that highbrows talk.

“A soul, in fact?” smiled Diana. “Does she represent herself as being married?”

He nodded.