'It's a little hard to explain,' I said.
'Yes, it is!' said the policeman.
'I was just--er--just having a look round, you know. Old friend of the
family, you understand.'
'How did you get in?'
'Through the window. Being an old friend of the family, if you follow
me.'
'Old friend of the family, are you?'
'Oh, very. Very. Very old. Oh, a very old friend of the family.'
'I've never seen him before,' said the parlourmaid.
* * * * *
I looked at the girl with positive loathing. How she could have
inspired affection in anyone, even a French cook, beat me. Not that she
was a bad-looking girl, mind you. Not at all. On another and happier
occasion I might even have thought her rather pretty. But now she
seemed one of the most unpleasant females I had ever encountered.
'No,' I said. 'You have never seen me before. But I'm an old friend of
the family.'
'Then why didn't you ring at the front door?'
'I didn't want to give any trouble.'
'It's no trouble answering front doors, that being what you're paid
for,' said the parlourmaid virtuously. 'I've never seen him before in
my life,' she added, perfectly gratuitously. A horrid girl.
'Well, look here,' I said, with an inspiration, 'the undertaker knows
me.'
'What undertaker?'
'The cove who was waiting at table when I dined here the night before
last.'
'Did the undertaker wait at table on the sixteenth instant?' asked the
policeman.
'Of course he didn't,' said the parlourmaid.
'Well, he looked like--By Jove, no. I remember now. He was the
greengrocer.'
'On the sixteenth instant,' said the policeman--pompous ass!--'did the
greengrocer--?'
'Yes, he did, if you want to know,' said the parlourmaid. She seemed
disappointed and baffled, like a tigress that sees its prey being
sneaked away from it. Then she brightened. 'But this fellow could
easily have found that out by asking round about.'
A perfectly poisonous girl.
'What's your name?' asked the policeman.
'Well, I say, do you mind awfully if I don't give my name, because--'
'Suit yourself. You'll have to tell it to the magistrate.'
'Oh, no, I say, dash it!'
'I think you'd better come along.'
'But I say, really, you know, I am an old friend of the family. Why, by
Jove, now I remember, there's a photograph of me in the drawing-room.
Well, I mean, that shows you!'
'If there is,' said the policeman.
'I've never seen it,' said the parlourmaid.