"What is her name?"
"No, I won't tell you that until I introduce you. You are supposed not to have heard of her, and it will be better if you really haven't."
They walked in silence along the trim front towards Holywell. Everything was trim, with that well-ordered trimness that is so typically Eastbourne. Even the sea was trim — and slightly exclusive. And Beachy Head had the air of having been set down there as a good finish off to the front, and of being perfectly conscious of the fact. They had not been walking for more than ten minutes when Grant said, "We'll go down to the beach now. I'm almost certain we passed the couple I want some time ago. They are down on the shingle."
They left the pavement and began a slow foot-slipping stroll back to the piers again. Presently they approached two women who were reclining in deck-chairs facing the sea. One, the slighter one, was curled up with her back to Miss Dinmont and the inspector, and was apparently reading. The other was snowed round with magazines, writing-pad, sunshade, and all the other recognized paraphernalia of an afternoon on the beach, but she was doing nothing and appeared to be half asleep. As they came abreast of the chairs the inspector let his glance fall casually on them and then stopped.
"Why, Mrs. Ratcliffe!" he said. "Are you down here recuperating? What glorious weather!"
Mrs. Ratcliffe, after one startled glance, welcomed him. "You remember my sister, Miss Lethbridge?"
Grant shook hands and said, "I don't think you know my cousin —"
But the gods were good to Grant that day. Before he could commit himself, Miss Lethbridge said in her pleasant drawl:
"Good heavens, if it isn't Dandie Dinmont! How are you, my dear woman?"
"Do you know each other, then?" asked Grant, feeling like a man who has opened his eyes to find that one more step would have taken him over a precipice.