"Thank you very much, but I don't think I need trouble you to do that," said Harding firmly.
She gathered up her handbag and gloves, and rose. "Then I think I will be getting home. Please tell Lady Billington-Smith that I was sorry she did not feel equal to seeing me, Geoffrey. Good morning, Inspector!" She favoured him with a stiff little bow, and walked out of the room, escorted by the grateful Geoffrey.
"It's a frightfully lucky thing you saw me," he confided, on the doorstep. "I mean, I had had a row with Father. and I suppose it did look rather black, really."
"I am only sorry that I didn't think to tell the Inspector sooner," said Mrs. Chudleigh, buttoning up her gloves. "No doubt had I been Mrs. Halliday I should have. You must have had a dreadfully worrying time."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I did, rather," admitted Geoffrey. "It's all been absolutely ghastly, because after the way she treated me I simply didn't want ever to set eyes on Lola again, and here we've been cooped up in the same house, and everybody thinking I'd broken it off just as a blind."
"Oh, have you broken it off?" said Mrs. Chudleigh. "Well, I'm sure that's very trying for you, Geoffrey, but you know I can't help feeling that Miss de Silva is hardly the kind of girl to make a good wife for you. Not that I have anything against her, but she seemed to me a most callous, immoral young woman, and I should not be at all surprised if I heard that she was no better than she should be."
Geoffrey looked a, little doubtful at this terrific pronouncement, and said: "Oh well, I don't know about that, quite, but she's utterly destroyed my faith in women.
"And I'm sure I don't wonder at it!" said Mrs. Chudleigh.
Geoffrey, having finally seen his saviour off the premises, hurried back to the terrace, where Fay and Dinah were sitting. Francis was also with them, lounging in a basket-chair. "I say, have you heard?" Geoffrey demanded. "Mrs. Chudleigh saw me on Monday, and it absolutely clears me! Isn't it simply marvellous luck that she happened to catch sight of me?"
"Too, too marvellous!" agreed Francis. "My poor ass, nobody's interested in your movements any longer. Attention is now concentrated on my unworthy self."