BODIE. Does that shed any light on the boxes, do you think?
POLICEMAN. She can’t keep them shut up in boxes.
BODIE. I don’t know. She is extraordinarily dogged. She knows a
number of German words.
POLICEMAN. That’s ugly.
BODIE. She asked me lately how one could send a letter to Germany
without Lord Haig knowing. By the way, do you, by any chance, know
anything against a firm of dressmakers called _Celeste et Cie._?
POLICEMAN. Celest A. C.? No, but it has a German sound.
BODIE. It’s French.
POLICEMAN. Might be a blind.
BODIE. I think she lives at Celeste’s. Now I looked up Celeste et
Cie. in the telephone book, and I find they are in Bond Street.
Immensely fashionable.
POLICEMAN. She lives in Bond Street? London’s full of romance, sir,
to them as knows where to look for it—namely, the police. Is she on
the premises?
BODIE (_reluctantly_). Sure to be; it isn’t six yet.
POLICEMAN (_in his most terrible voice_). Well, leave her to me.
BODIE. You mustn’t frighten her. I can’t help liking her. She’s so
extraordinarily _homely_ that you can’t be with her many minutes
before you begin thinking of your early days. Where were you born,
officer?
POLICEMAN. I’m from Badgery.
BODIE. She’ll make you think of Badgery.
POLICEMAN (_frowning_). She had best try no games on me.
BODIE. She will have difficulty in answering questions; she is so
used to asking them. I never knew a child with such an appetite for
information. She doesn’t search for it in books; indeed the only
book of mine I can remember ever seeing her read, was a volume of
fairy tales.
POLICEMAN (_stupidly_). Well, that don’t help us much. What kind of
questions?
BODIE. Every kind. What is the Censor? Who is Lord _Times_?—she has
heard people here talking of that paper and its proprietor, and
has mixed them up in the quaintest way; then again—when a tailor
measures a gentleman’s legs what does he mean when he says—26,
4—32, 11? What are doctors up to when they tell you to say 99? In
finance she has an almost morbid interest in the penny.
POLICEMAN. The penny? It’s plain the first thing to find out is
whether she’s the slavey she seems to be, or a swell in disguise.
BODIE. You won’t find it so easy.
POLICEMAN. Excuse me, sir; we have an infall_ay_ble way at Scotland
Yard of finding out whether a woman is common or a lady.
BODIE (_irritated_). An infallible way.
POLICEMAN (_firmly_). Infallayable.
BODIE. I should like to know what it is.
POLICEMAN. There is nothing against my telling you. (_He settles
down to a masterly cross-examination._) Where, sir, does a common
female keep her valuables when she carries them about on her person?
BODIE. In her pocket, I suppose.
POLICEMAN. And you suppose correctly. But where does a lady keep
them?
BODIE. In the same place, I suppose.
POLICEMAN. Then you suppose wrongly. No, sir, here. (_He taps his
own chest, and indicates discreetly how a lady may pop something
down out of sight._)
BODIE (_impressed_). I believe you are right, officer.
POLICEMAN. I am right—it’s infallayble. A lady, what with drink
and such like misfortunes, may forget all her other refinements,
but she never forgets that. At the Yard it’s considered as sure as
finger-marks.
BODIE. Strange! I wonder who was the first woman to do it. It
couldn’t have been Eve this time, officer.
POLICEMAN (_after reflecting_). I see your point. And now I want
just to have a look at the party unbeknownst to her. Where could I
conceal myself?
BODIE. Hide?
POLICEMAN. Conceal myself.
BODIE. That small door opens on to my pantry, where she washes up.
POLICEMAN (_peeping in_). It will do. Now bring her up.