After wading about for a little more than half an hour, Jimmy Kineslla’s lady went ashore. She rolled down the sleeves of her blouse and let her skirt fall about her ankles, but she did not put on her shoes and stockings. Jimmy Kinsella was summoned from his stone and launched his boat.
“I daresay,” said Priscilla, “that she thinks her rheumatism ought to be cured by now. That is to say, of course, if she really has rheumatism, and isn’t a nefarious spy. I rather like that word nefarious. Don’t you? I stuck it into an English comp. the other day and spelt it quite right, but it came back to me with a blue pencil mark under it. Sylvia Courtney said that I hadn’t used it in quite the ordinary sense. She thinks she knows, and very likely she does, though not quite as much as she imagines. Nobody can know everything; which is rather a comfort when it comes to algebra. I loath algebra and always did. Any right-minded person would, I think.”
“It looks to me,” said Frank, “as if they were coming over here.”
Jimmy Kinsella was heading his boat straight for the bank on which the Tortoise lay. In a few minutes she grounded on the edge of it. The lady stepped out and paddled across the mud towards the Tortoise. Seen at close quarters she was, without doubt, fat, and had a round good-humoured face. Her eyes sparkled pleasantly behind a pair of gold rimmed pince-nez.
“She is coming over to us,” said Priscilla. “The thing is for you to keep her in play and unravel her mystery, while I slip off and put a few straight questions to Jimmy Kinsella. Be as polite as you possibly can so as to disarm suspicion.”
Priscilla began the course of diplomatic politeness herself.
“We’re delighted to see you,” she said. “My name is Priscilla Lentaigne, and my cousin is Frank Mannix. We’re out for a picnic.”
“My name,” said the lady, “is Rutherford, Martha Rutherford. I’m out after sponges.”
“Sponges!” said Frank.
Priscilla winked at him. The statement about the sponges was obviously untrue. There is no sponge fishery in Rosnacree Bay. There never has been. Miss Rutherford, so to speak, intercepted Priscilla’s wink.