“D’you know this Mrs. Mainwaring at all?”
“Not at all except from the illustrated papers.”
“Oh. So she’s what Zenith might call a Society Snake, is she? Well, well. Not a tennis champion or a plus-four person as well, is she?”
“Oh, no. I’m sure she isn’t. Mr. Gethryn, why all this curiosity?”
Anthony smiled. “Now don’t get scenting murderers in everything I say, will you. Merely my ’satiable curtiosity. I shall be punished for it one day. ‘And his tall aunt the ostrich spanked him with her hard, hard claw.’ That was for ’satiable curtiosity, you remember.” He turned to the door. “I really must go now.”
She stopped him, laying a hand on his arm. “Mr. Gethryn, one minute. Now that—owing to you—I’m happy again, I’m like the elephant’s child, too, simply bursting with curtiosity. Who did do it?”
Anthony laughed. “I haven’t the faintest idea—yet. On the subject of who didn’t do it I could talk for hours. ‘But whose the dastard hand that held the knife I know not; nor the reason for the strife.’ ”
“But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”
“I have hope, lady.”
The black eyes held the green ones for a long moment. “I think,” she said at last, “that you’re the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met. Some day, you must tell me how you knew everything I did last night. I believe you were watching me; only you couldn’t have been.”