"Oh, never mind!" Queenie dismissed with rough impatience any further pretense. "What is it to you?"
If she mentioned murder they would both panic, and deny with their last breath any knowledge of the coat. She knew well, thanks to her father's monologues, the petty offender's horror of major crime. They would go to almost any lengths to avoid being mixed up, even remotely, in a capital charge.
"It's to get Hart out of trouble," she said. "He shouldn't have left the car unattended. The owner is coming back tomorrow, and if the coat isn't found by then Hart will lose his job."
"Who's Art?" asked the woman. "Your brother?"
"No. Our chauffeur."
"Chauffeur!" Harry gave a high skirl of laughter that had little amusement in it. "That's a good one. I suppose you have two Rolls-Royces and five Bentleys." His little red eyes ran over her worn and outgrown clothes.
"No. Just a Lanchester and my old Morris." As their disbelief penetrated: "My name is Erica Burgoyne. My father is Chief Constable."
"Ye'? My name is John D. Rockefeller, and my father was the Duke of Wellington."
Erica whipped up her short tweed skirt, gripped the elastic waistband of the gym knickers she wore summer and winter, and pushed the inner side of it towards him on an extended thumb.
"Can you read?" she said.