"I suppose so," she said, rather drearily. "I thought she believed what I told her."
"Highly unlikely. But when he saw you, Seaton-Carew found you weren't the sort of girl he was after. That's what you told me, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Did you get any idea of the sort of job he did want a young lady like you for?"
"Not then. Only when I thought it over afterwards, and remembered the questions he'd asked me - not that there was anything in them, taken by themselves - I began to wonder if I was to have been a sort of informant."
Hemingway nodded. "Any reason to think he and Mrs. Haddington were in partnership?"
"I can't answer that. I honestly don't know. They were very intimate, that's all I can say."
He shut his notebook, and restored it to his pocket. "All right; I shan't keep you any longer tonight, Miss Birtley. I'm going to hand you over to your legal adviser, and I won't conceal from you that while he's giving you a bite of supper, I'm going to send one of my men to check up on your story. That's routine, as Mr.. Harte will tell you. I've got to be certain those accounts are where you say they are. I've no wish to start a lot of talk, so if you like to write a note to your landlady, authorising her to let the bearer take the books and the bills out of your bureau, he won't have to show her his card."
She got up, and went to the desk. "Thank you. Decent of you! I'll do that, only I can't leave this house before Miss Pickhill gets here. Cynthia Haddington might come in at any moment, and somebody ought to be here, besides the servants. Miss Pickhill has to come from Putney, you see."
The telephone-bell sounded as she picked up a pen. She made as if to lift the receiver, and then checked herself, looking enquiringly at Hemingway.