“Well, let us hear some of them.”
Tinkerton said: “The young ladies and gentlemen came up.”
“Of course,” said Alleyn amiably, “you would discuss the family. Naturally.”
“They came up,” Tinkerton repeated guardedly.
“In what connection?”
“Mrs. Burnaby brought them up,” said Tinkerton, as if Nanny had suffered from a surfeit of Lampreys and had taken an emetic for it. “Miss Friede’s theatricals. I should,” added Tinkerton, “have said ‘Lady Friede.’ Pardon.”
“I suppose you are all very interested in her theatricals?”
A slightly acid tinge crept over Tinkerton’s face as she agreed that they were.
“And in all the family’s doings, I expect. Did Lord and Lady Wutherwood often pay visits to this flat?”
Not very often it seemed. Alleyn began to feel as if Tinkerton was a bad cork and himself an inefficient corkscrew, drawing out unimportant fragments, while large lumps of testimony fell into the wine and were lost.