"Scotland Yard, I said," corrected Rolfe, "not Scotland."
"Is it not the same?" Mademoiselle Chiron looked at him helplessly.
"Scotland Yard—is it not in Scotland? What is the difference?"
Rolfe, with a Londoner's tolerance for foreign ignorance, painstakingly explained the difference. She looked so puzzled that he felt sure she did not understand him. But that, he reflected, was not his fault.
"So you see, mademoiselle, my business with Mrs. Holymead is important, therefore I'll be obliged if you will tell me where I can find her," he said. "In what part of the country is she?"
Mademoiselle Chiron looked distressed. "Really, monsieur, I cannot tell you. She is motoring, and I should have been with her but that I have un gros rhume"—she produced a tiny scrap of lace handkerchief and held it to her nose as though in support of her statement—"and she rings me on the telephone from different places and tells me the things she does need, and I do send them on to her."
"Where does she ring you up from?" asked Rolfe, eyeing Mademoiselle
Chiron's handkerchief intently.
"From Brighton—from Eastbourne—wherever she stops."
"What place was she stopping at when you heard from her last?"
"Eastbourne, monsieur."
"And when will she return here?"