She looked startled. "Oh! Oh, I don't think so! I mean, I really have no idea! I suppose he was some kind of a financier. It didn't interest me: I never asked him."
"How long had you known him, Lady Nest?"
"I don't know - some time now. I never remember dates. I'm sorry!"
"Would it be a matter of months, my lady, or years?"
She gave her light laugh. "How persistent you are! Will anything I say be taken down and used in evidence? I shall be had up for perjury, or something dreadful. They used to say of me that I should end on the gallows, you know. Such a long time ago! You wouldn't think it - at least, I hope you wouldn't! - but I shall never see fifty again. So disheartening! The only thing is to make no secret of it. Terribly ageing to pretend to be younger than one really is!"
The Chief Inspector had called to interview Lady Nest more as a matter of routine than with any very real expectation of learning anything from her of value; but this speech made him suddenly alert. Not only was it artificial, but he did not think it was customary for ladies in her position to talk in that strain to police officers. She had cast the butt of her cigarette into the fire, and was already fitting another into a little jewelled holder. She had twice shifted the cushions behind her back and three times crossed and uncrossed her nylon-covered legs; her face twitched from time to time; and never were her hands still: one incessantly flicked ash from her cigarette; the other either pressed the feathery curls above her ears, or fidgeted with the row of pearls round her neck, or pleated a fold of her dress.
"Well, as a matter of fact I knew you must be over fifty, my lady, because I used to look at your photos in all the shiny papers," said Hemingway brazenly.
"No, did you? How sweet! What fun they were, those days! I sat for somebody's face-cream, once, which maddened all my family, poor darlings! They paid me the earth for it, but of course I wouldn't really have put the stuff on my feet!"
"I'm sure every lady bought the cream," said Hemingway. "Did you say it was years since you first met Mr. Seaton-Carew, my lady?"
"No, I didn't say anything, and well you know it! Must I be accurate? I don't think I can. I never have been: accurate people are such bores, and say, let me see, was it Wednesday, or Tuesday? just as though it mattered! Years. Oh dear, how many? I don't know! Three, perhaps. Or even longer. Not a bosom friend of mine, of course: devastatingly attractive, but just the teeniest bit off-white!"