"You are wasting my time, Miss Fawcett."
"Sorry!" said Dinah hastily. She folded her hands in her lap. "Go on, what have I got to remember? I'll do what I can for you, but I seem to have gone addled in the head all at once."
"It's important, Dinah, so do try! Did Mrs. Twining come to lunch on Monday by chance, or by invitation, or what?"
"All three," replied Dinah. "Pseudo-chance, so that Arthur shouldn't think it was a put-up job, and invitation because I invited her; and what, because of the row about Lola. She was at the fatal dinner-party on Saturday, and so she'd seen what was likely to happen. She rang up on Monday to hear the latest news, and when I told her that it was all pretty grim, she said that she thought she'd come over and see what she could do with Arthur."
"Did she seem to be worried about the situation?"
"N-no, I don't think so. Rather amused. To tell you the truth, I've never been able to make her out, quite. She's always cool and cynical, the sort of person you wouldn't expect to care two pins for anybody, but she really has taken a lot of trouble on Geoffrey's behalf. Of course, I know he's the sort of youth who appeals to sentimental matrons, but she isn't sentimental in the least. You can understand people like Mrs. Chudleigh falling for him, but not Mrs. Twining. She's too caustic."
"Does she give you the impression of being very fond of him?"
"Well, she does and she doesn't. Funnily enough I asked her that very question on Monday — I mean, whether she was very fond of him. She said she wasn't, but that she'd known him for so long she took an interest in him, or something. She and I had gone to find Fay — it was when she first arrived — and I was asking her what Geoffrey's mother was like."
"Were you? What did she say?"
"Nothing much, except that whatever she — Geoffrey's mother — had done that was rotten she'd had to pay for. Which rather snubbed me, because I'd said I thought it was rotten of his mother to have deserted him."