“Hello!” he said.
“Hullo!” said Jill.
It was not a very exalted note on which to pitch the conversation, but it had the merit of giving each of them a little more time to collect themselves.
“This is … I wasn’t expecting you!” said Wally.
“I wasn’t expecting you!” said Jill.
There was another pause, in which Wally, apparently examining her last words and turning them over in his mind found that they did not square with his preconceived theories.
“You weren’t expecting me?”
“I certainly was not!”
“But … but you knew I lived here?”
Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and then put his finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.