Dinah, gathering flowers on the other side of a clipped yew-hedge, heard him say earnestly: "Of course I realise you were only joking, but you know it might be frightfully serious for me if a story like that got about."
Gosh, what a fool he is! thought Miss Fawcett scornfully, and withdrew to the garden-hall with her basket.
Twenty minutes later she walked into the morning-room, carrying a bowl of sweet-peas, and found Inspector Harding standing in front of the bookcase wit I i a volume open in his hand. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said. "I didn't know you were here. May I just put these on the table?"
"You can do anything you like," said Harding, with a smile. "It isn't my house, you know!"
"Well, it isn't mine either, if it comes to that. I thought I might be disturbing you." She glanced at the book in his hand. "Hullo, doing a crossword puzzle," she inquired.
Harding returned Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary to its place on the shelf. "No," he replied. "Not a crossword puzzle. Another sort of puzzle. What has been happening to annoy you?"
Dinah looked sharply up at him. "You don't miss much, do you, Mr. Harding?" she said.
"I only thought you looked a trifle cross," explained Harding.
She grinned. "Well, as a matter of fact I'm fed up to the back teeth," she announced. "At any moment now I should think we shall all turn into a set of lunatics, and start gibbering at you."
"Oh no, don't!" begged Harding. "Tell me what's fed you up instead."