"Of course she took a risk," Robert said. "She had to. But I don't think it was as big a gamble as you think."
"No?"
"No. What you are saying is that for all the girl knew there might be a large household of young people and three maid-servants at The Franchise."
"Yes."
"But I think she knew quite well that there was no such thing."
"How could she?"
"Either she gossiped with the bus-conductor, or-and I think this is the more likely-she overheard comment from her fellow-passengers. You know the kind of thing: 'There are the Sharpes. Fancy living alone in a big house like that, just the two of them. And no maids willing to stay in a lonely place so far from shops and the pictures— and so on. It is very much a 'local' bus, that Larborough-Milford one. And it is a lonely route, with no wayside cottages, and no village other than Ham Green. The Franchise is the only spot of human interest for miles. It would be more than human nature is capable of to pass the combined interest of the house, the owners, and their car without comments of some kind."
"I see. Yes, that makes sense."
"I wish, in a way, it had been through chatting with the conductor that she learned about you. That way, he would be more likely to remember her. The girl says she was never in Milford and doesn't know where it is. If a conductor remembered her, we could at least shake her story to that extent."
"If I know anything of the young person she would open those child-like eyes of hers and say: 'Oh, was that Milford? I just got on a bus and went to the terminus and back. "