Miss Blow dined alone. After dinner she waited another half-hour. Then she rang the bell for Bridgy.
“Has Mr. Goddard come back yet?”
“Well, I don’t know, miss.”
“Are the other gentlemen in the hotel?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Go and find out, then,” said Miss Blow.
Bridgy went downstairs and summoned Jimmy O’Loughlin from behind the bar.
“The young lady above,” she said, “is asking me this two hours if Mr. Goddard is come back.”
“You know as well as I do,” said Jimmy, “that he hasn’t, and, what’s more, won’t.”
“Sure, I do know that. Didn’t I see him making off out of the yard by the back gate the way she wouldn’t see him go?”