'But why?' asked Victoria. 'Why must you move?'
'Turn you out. Neighbours talk and then the landlord's conscience begins to prick him,' grumbled Duckie from the sofa.
'Oh, I see,' said Victoria. 'But when they turn you out what do you do?'
'Go somewhere else, softy,' said Duckie.
'But then what good does it do?'
All the women laughed.
'Law, who cares?' said Duckie. 'I dunno.'
'It is perfectly simple,' began Zoé in her precise foreign English. 'You see the landlord he will not let flats to ladies. When the police began to watch it would cause him des ennuis. So he lets to a gentleman who sublets the flats, you see? When the trouble begins, he doesn't know.'
'But what about the man who sublets?' asked the novice.
'Him? Oh, he's gone when it begins,' said Lissa. 'But they arrest the hall porter.'