"She didn't have any folks here. 'Cept Mr. Stannaway, that is."
"No one!"
"Not a one. Once — it was when I was showing her the trick of flushing the W.C.; you have to pull hard and then let go smart-like — once she said: 'Do you ever, Mrs. Pitts, she said, 'get sick of the sight of people's faces? I said I got a bit tired of some. She said: 'Not some, Mrs. Pitts. All of them. Just sick of people. I said when I felt like that I took a dose of castor oil. She laughed and said it wasn't a bad idea. Only everyone should have one and what a good new world it would be in two days. 'Mussolini never thought of that one, she said."
"Was it London she came from?"
"Yes. She went up just once or twice in the three weeks she's been here. Last time was last weekend, when she brought Mr. Stannaway back." Again her glance dismissed Tisdall as something less than human. "Doesn't he know her address?" she asked.
"No one does," the sergeant said. "I'll look through her papers and see what I can find."
Mrs. Pitts led the way into the living room; cool, low-beamed, and smelling of sweet peas.
"What have you done with her — with the body, I mean?" she asked.
"At the mortuary."
This seemed to bring home tragedy for the first time.