“I say, what’s this bandbox doing in my cab? I thought I told Milly—”
“Sorry, sir; I forgot,” Mrs. Gigg interposed—“bein’ that flustered—”
“Well?”
“The woman what keeps the ’at-shop said as ’ow the ’at wasn’t to come back, sir. She said a young lidy bought it yestiddy ahfternoon and awsked to ’ave it sent you this mornin’ before nine o’clock.”
“The deuce she did!” said Staff blankly.
“An’ the young lidy said as ’ow she’d write you a note explynin’. So I tells Milly not to bother you no more abaht it, but put the ’at-box in the keb, sir—wishin’ not to ’inder you.”
“Thoughtful of you, I’m sure. But didn’t the—ah—woman who keeps the hat-shop mention the name of the—ah—person who purchased the hat?”
By the deepening of its corrugations, the forehead of Mrs. Gigg betrayed the intensity of her mental strain. Her eyes wore a far-away look and her lips moved, at first silently. Then—“I ain’t sure, sir, as she did nime the lidy, but if she did, it was somethin’ like Burnside, I fancy—or else Postlethwayt.”
“Nor Jones nor Brown? Perhaps Robinson? Think, Mrs. Gigg! Not Robinson?”
“I’m sure it may ’ave been eyether of them, sir, now you puts it to me pl’in.”