"No, not particularly, though she's marrying an awful stodge. You like it, then?"
"Rather!" said Miss Lethbridge.
"Beautiful!" said her sister. "May I have a look at it?" She took the case in her hands, examined the brooch back and front, and handed it back. "Beautiful!" she said again. "And most uncommon. Can you get them ready-made, so to speak?"
Grant's infinitesimal shake of the head answered Miss Dinmont's cry for help. "No, we had it made," she said.
"Well, she's a lucky devil, Mary Raymond, and if she doesn't like it, she has very poor taste."
"Oh, if she doesn't like it," said Grant, "she can just fib and say she does, and we'll never be a bit the wiser. All women are expert fibbers."
"'Ark at 'im!" said Miss Lethbridge. "Poor disillusioned creature!"
"Well, isn't it true? Your social-life is one long series of fibs. You are very sorry — You are not at home — You would have come, but — You wish some one would stay longer. If you aren't fibbing to your friends, you are fibbing to your maids."
"I may fib to my friends," said Mrs. Ratcliffe, "but I most certainly do not fib to my maids!"
"Don't you?" said Grant, turning idly to look at her. No one, to see him there, with his hat tilted over his eyes and his body lounging, would have said that Inspector Grant was on duty. "You were going to the United States the day after the murder, weren't you?" She nodded calmly. "Well, why did you tell your maid that you were going to Yorkshire?"