“Two beautiful white evening dresses,” said Julie, “and two opera cloaks of red and mauve silk all covered with lovely embroidery and lace. Of course I could never have worn them and it seemed a pity to cut them up. I simply couldn’t have burned them. The shop only gave me five pounds for the lot, but that will keep me for some time till I have decided what to do. Still, Bert says I ought not to have sold them.”
“By the way,” said Gimblet, “who is Bert?”
The girl flushed. “He’s just a boy I know,” she said. “He used to go to school with me, and he is always good to me. I shouldn’t like to annoy him or to hurt his feelings, and I ought not to have spoken of him, because when he advised me not to go to the police, and I wouldn’t promise, he said that I should see that harm would come of it. And so I told him that if my mother came back and blamed me for having spoken of her absence, as he seems to think she would, I would say that he had urged me not to. And then he got quite angry and told me to do as I pleased, but not to mix him up in it, and so I said of course I’d never mention his name if he didn’t like; but now I’ve done it.” She stopped, breathless.
“Well, give Bert a message from me,” said Gimblet; “tell him I agree with him so far, and think you have no need to go to the police yet awhile. But you had better not tell him I have anything to do with them, as he seems to dislike them so much. Shall you see him soon?”
“Yes, I expect he will come this evening when he leaves off work; he generally does. And I think I shan’t tell him anything about you. Really, it isn’t his business and I don’t like being always lectured.”
“I think you are quite right,” said Gimblet. “Now one question. Have you any idea as to the man with whom you think your mother may have gone off? Had you any suspicion before that she was thinking of marrying again?”
The girl hesitated a moment. “No,” she said, “I have no idea at all who it could be.”