Titherington ignored the second question.
“I hope so,” he said, “because if she’s the sort of girl who gets arrested, she’ll be most useful to us. She was quite on for annoying Vittie. She says she’s been looking up his speeches and that he’s one of the worst liars she ever came across. She’s quite right there.”
“I wish,” I said, “that you’d go and bail her out. Her father’s a clergyman and it will be a horrible thing if there’s any public scandal.”
“I hinted at that as delicately as I could. I didn’t actually mention bail, because I wasn’t quite sure that a Jun. Soph. Ord. mightn’t be something in the Probate and Divorce Court. She simply laughed at me and said she didn’t want any help. She told me that she and Hilda, whoever Hilda is, are sure to be all right, because the Puffin is always a lamb—I suppose the Puffin is some name they have for the magistrate—but that a Miss Harrison would probably be stuck.”
“She can’t have said Miss Harrison.”
“No. She said Selly, or Selby-Harrison, short for Selina I thought.”
“As a matter of fact, Selby-Harrison—it’s a hyphenated surname—is a man.”
“Oh, is it?” said Titherington, using the neuter pronoun because, I suppose, he was still uncertain about Selby-Harrison’s sex.
“I wish,” I said, “that I knew exactly what they’ve done.”
“It doesn’t in the least matter to us. So long as she’s the kind of young woman who does something we shall be satisfied.”