“Whom, pray?” she demanded, her smile brightening expectantly.
“You—if you don’t mind,” I announced.
“Me!” She laughed deliriously for a moment.
“It’s hardly a laughing matter,” I said, with forced seriousness when she was still. “I’ve been working on this case for years.”
She sobered with a suddenness that suggested ugly thoughts, perchance remembering something of her kaleidoscopic past. The hazel eyes saddened a little. It was evident that she was rummaging among happenings which it gave her small pleasure to review. I waited. Maybe I was not quite the yokel she had thought me.
“Do you mean you’re a detective?” she presently asked.
“I mean just that, madam,” I said evenly.
“By whom are you employed?” she questioned tentatively.
“By Henry Fayne,” I casually replied.
“That is the lie of an impostor,” quickly asserted the woman; “Henry Fayne is dead.”