‘That’s very good of you. As a matter of fact I wanted to ask you about Mr Campion. I understood that he’s a friend of yours. Excuse me, but have you known him long?’
‘Albert Campion?’ said Anne blankly. ‘Oh, he’s not a friend of mine at all. I just gave him a lift down here in “Fido” – that’s my car.’
Abbershaw looked puzzled.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand,’ he said. ‘Did you meet him at the station?’
‘Oh no.’ The girl was amused. ‘I brought him all the way down. You see,’ she went on cheerfully, ‘I met him the night before we came down at the “Goat on the Roof” – that’s the new night-club in Jermyn Street, you know. I was with a party, and he sort of drifted into it. One of the lads knew him, I think. We were all talking, and quite suddenly it turned out that he was coming down here this week-end. He was fearfully upset, he said: he’d just run his bus into a lorry or something equally solid, so he couldn’t come down in it. So I offered him a lift – naturally.’
‘Oh, er – naturally,’ said Abbershaw, who appeared to be still a little bewildered. ‘Wyatt invited him, of course.’
The girl in pyjamas looked at him, and a puzzled expression appeared on her doll-like face.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so – in fact I’m sure he didn’t, because I introduced them myself. Not properly, you know,’ she went on airily. ‘I just said, “Hullo, Wyatt, this thing is Albert Campion,” and “Albert, this is the man of the house,” but I could swear they didn’t know each other. I think he’s one of the Colonel’s pals – how is the poor old boy, by the way?’
Neither Abbershaw nor Meggie spoke, but remained looking dubiously ahead of them, and Anne shivered.
‘Here, I’m getting cold,’ she said. ‘Is that all you wanted to know? Because if it is, I’ll get in, if you don’t mind. Sunrises and dabbling in the dew aren’t in my repertoire.’