“She says there isn’t.” If anything the voice of Miss Fur Coat had grown slower and cooler.
“I say there is.” The Inspector knew he was addressing a bona fide first-class passenger, all the same he was terribly inspectorial.
“Well perhaps you’ll find it for her.” The considered coolness was almost uncanny. “And then, perhaps, you’ll come back and show her where it is.”
The Inspector was obviously a little stunned by Miss Fur Coat’s suggestion, but he managed to blurt out, “And what about the train in the meantime?” Then he went for Miss Green Ulster with a truculence that verged on savagery. “Come on, madam. Come on out.”
“I don’t think I’d move if I were you.” The manner of the other lady was quite impersonal.
“Very well, then,”—the Inspector produced a portentous looking notebook—“I must have your name and address.”
It is quite certain that Miss Gray Eyes would have yielded to this awful threat of legal proceedings to follow had it not been for the further intervention of the good fairy or the evil genius opposite.
“You had better take mine, Inspector.” The voice was really inimitable. “My father, I believe, is a director of your company.”
Miss Fur Coat knew that her father was a director of a railway company. She didn’t know the name of it, nor did she know the name of the company by which she was traveling, nor was she a student of Hegel, or for that matter of any other philosopher, but there really seemed no reason at that moment why they should not be one and the same.
The Inspector turned to confront the occupant of the corner seat. It would be an abuse of language to say that he turned deferentially, but somehow his notebook and pencil certainly looked a shade less truculent.