“Don’t try,” he said, taking the jack from her hands, “but if you are very anxious to remember, I am called Holland.”
She said nothing whilst he was raising the car. When he was knocking the torn wheel free, she said:
“I am out rather late, I have been to a party.”
There was light enough for him to see that she was dressed very plainly and that the shoes she wore were heavy and serviceable. He would have gone farther and said that she was dressed poorly. Inside the car on the seat by her side was a square black case, smaller but deeper than a suit-case. Perhaps she had changed her clothes—but for all their surprising agility in this direction, actresses do not change their clothes to go home from a party.
“I have been to a party too,” he said, jerking off the wheel and rolling it to the front of the car, “a surprise party with fireworks.”
“A dance?”
Tab smiled to himself.
“I only danced once,” he said, “I saw the gentleman taking aim with the shot-gun and danced right merrily yo ho!”
He heard the quick intake of her breath.
“Oh, yes, it was the Pole. We heard the shots and I knew that he had taken refuge in his house before I left the theatre.”