She gave all her attention to the car after that, while I, having nothing particular to say, lapsed into silence.
We found Lady Clevedon seated in the small parlour, a square, cheerful room, furnished evidently for comfort with couches and big arm-chairs. The old lady bade me sit down and then plunged with characteristic abruptness into the subject of the interview.
“What is your fee?” she demanded.
“My fee?” I echoed. “But I have no fee. I am neither a doctor nor a solicitor.”
“Nor a parson—you may as well complete the usual trio,” the old lady said dryly. “But you are a policeman.”
The word was so unexpected that I could not forbear a soft laugh in which, after a momentary hesitation, Miss Kitty Clevedon joined me. I expected her to label me detective; that she should call me policeman had all the elements of novelty that go to make up unconscious humour.
“But policemen are not allowed to take fees,” I replied. “They have their salaries—or is it wages?”
“Do you get a salary?” Lady Clevedon demanded.
“No, but then you see I am not a policeman; I am merely a writer of books.”
“But the Chief Constable of Peakborough—he is a cousin of mine, distant, but still a cousin, and a fool at that, or he would have found out before this who killed Sir Philip—told me you were a celebrated detective and that if I could get your help—now, who did murder Sir Philip Clevedon?”