"I'd rather not say. I've no proof, and - she's dead!"
"Yes, and I'm trying to find out who killed her," said Hemingway.
She stared at him for a moment. "I know you are," she replied slowly. "And if anything I said - caused you to discover her murderer -" She paused, and then added defiantly: "I should be sorry!"
"Never mind that!" said Timothy. "Your private sympathies don't come into it. I can guess what you suspected, and so, I fancy, can Hemingway. Had she any sort of a hold over Lady Nest Poulton?"
She regarded her clenched hands. "Yes. I think so. I once overheard something that was said. I couldn't help it: they were both standing in the back drawing-room, and I came into the front half of the room. They stopped as soon as they realised I was there, of course."
"What was said?" asked Hemingway.
She answered reluctantly: "Lady Nest said, I'm damned if I will! and Mrs. Haddington gave that hateful laugh of hers, and replied, I thinkyou'll do exactly what I askyou to do, dear Nest, because you'll certainly be damned ifyou don't!"
"Thank you," said Hemingway.
"It mightn't have meant what I thought it meant!" she said quickly.
"Never mind what it meant! That's my headache! Now, when you were sent to the late Seaton-Carew, you were sent by someone who didn't believe you'd been shopped, weren't you? Someone who thought you belonged to the criminal classes?"