"No, I'm bloody well not! Don't you go saddling me with outworn titles! I'm Trix Guisborough! Neither more nor less! Try the title-stuff on my brother: he'll lap it up! Give him time, and he'll be one of the pillars of the Tory party, poor little sap! Are you one of his nice new respectable pals? Strictly speaking, this is my party, but make yourself at home! You'll find Lance in that mob." She jerked her head towards the door into the studio, which stood open, and revealed a glimpse of many people seen through a thick haze of tobacco-smoke.
Hemingway produced his card, and handed it to her. It took her a moment or two to get it into focus, and he wondered how many more slightly inebriated young women he was destined to meet that evening. When she had succeeded in deciphering it, she gave a laugh, and exclaimed: "God, I shall dine out on this one! A whole, live Chief Inspector at one of my parties!"
"And very nice too, I've no doubt," said Hemingway. "But I haven't come to the party, miss, thanking you all the same. What I want is a few words with your brother."
"I shouldn't think they'd do you much good: he's well away!" she replied. "If you want to call me anything, call me CoMr..ade, not miss! What do you want with Lance?"
"I'll tell him, if you'll be so good as to fetch him along," said Hemingway.
"But why?" she argued. "If it's about the murder the other night, Lance can't tell you anything! The man you want is Butter-wick. If you don't recognise the description, I mean a God-awful little pansy-boy, with curly hair and long eyelashes! You take a look at him, and you'll know why the privileged classes are doomed! And I don't want any dirty cracks about Lance!" she added fiercely. "He's got himself into a rotten set, that's all that's the matter with him! He's got a bourgeois streak which makes him think it's the hell of a thing to be a peer of the realm, but he'll get over it! Trust me!"
"Listen, CoMr..ade!" said Hemingway. "If you were to carry on like this in Russia, keeping the police hanging about instead of hopping to it double-quick, you'd wake up to find yourself in a salt-mine, and not such a bad thing either! You go and tell this bourgeois brother ol yours I want to speak to him, and don't waste your time blasting the privileged classes to me, because, for one thing, I don't belong to them, and, for another, I don't like corny stories! That one was stale before the War!"
"Damn your eyes, how dare you speak to me like that?" demanded Miss Guisborough furiously.
"Yes, I thought it wouldn't be long before we stopped being coMr..ades," said Hemingway. "When I was a lot younger than what I am now, it was one of my jobs to move your sort along, and try to stop you spoiling everyone's fun by chucking yourselves in front of leading horses, and a lot of other silly tricks of the same nature. Now, I've had a long day, and I'm not in the mood to listen to what they call stump-oratory. You go and fetch that brother of yours, and while I'm talking to him you can tell that crowd in there how to suck eggs! My old grandmother showed me the proper way before you were born!"
Fortunately for the peace of the evening's entertainment one of Miss Guisborough's guests came out of the studio at that moment. He had a pleasant face, but was otherwise distinguished only by his evident predilection for good tailors and barbers. He slid an arm round Miss Guisborough's waist, and demanded to be told what was eating her.