I had not remained there more than a couple of minutes before a youngish woman of perhaps thirty or so entered, with a rather distant bow. She was severely dressed in black; dark-haired, and not very prepossessing. Her lips were too thick to be beautiful, and her top row of teeth seemed too much in evidence. Her face was not exactly ugly, but she was by no means good-looking.
“I have to apologise,” I said, rising and bowing. “I understand that Mrs Anson has let her house, and I thought you would kindly give me her address. I wish to see her on a most pressing personal matter.”
She regarded me with some suspicion, I thought.
“If you are a friend of Mrs Anson’s, would it not be better if you wrote to her and addressed the letter here? Her letters are always forwarded,” she answered.
She was evidently a rather shrewd and superior person.
“Well, to tell the truth,” I said, “I have reasons for not writing.”
“Then I must regret, sir, that I am unable to furnish you with her address,” she responded, somewhat stiffly.
“I have been absent from London for six years,” I exclaimed. “It is because of that long absence that I prefer not to write.”
“I fear that I cannot assist you,” she replied briefly.
There was a strange, determined look in her dark-grey eyes. She did not seem a person amenable to argument.