“Which way?” I asked.
“Down the corridor,” she said. “First door to the left.”
I walked down the long carpeted corridor, turned to the left and entered a living-room.
The woman who sat in the wheel-chair was good-looking. Her hair was a rich shade of henna. The face was relatively unlined. The eyes were quick, alert and intelligent. If it hadn’t been for a little sag under the chin, she could well have been a lot younger than her years.
“How do you do, Mr. Lam,” she said. “I’m Amelia Jasper.”
“Mrs. Jasper,” I bowed. “It is a pleasure. I regret the intrusion at this hour, and on Sunday, but, you see, it’s the only day I have to gather material for the work I’m doing.”
“And what is your work, may I ask?”
I said, “I’m a free-lance writer.”
Her lips retained that fixed smile, but her eyes lost their cordiality. “A writer?” she asked coldly.
I said with some feeling. “I’m writing some articles on insurance and the way automobile insurance companies are operated. One thing I am attacking is the way they put a premium on committing perjury. When an accident takes place involving a car where one person, no matter how reputable, is the sole witness on one side, and several people on the other side are manifestly lying about what happened, the insurance company rarely takes the trouble to fight it out and…”