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was deplorably weak where his family was concerned.”
    Miss Silver allowed herself to be told all about Miss Mary Dugdale. It was a theme upon which her sister-in-law became quite animated.
    “Such a domineering person, and really terribly fatiguing. Breezy, her friends called it—‘Mary is so breezy!’ ” She shuddered. “I really don’t think my nerves have ever quite got over it. She stayed for three months, and always opened a window whenever she came into the room.”
    The atmosphere was so oppressive, so heavily impregnated with aromatic vinegar, a strongly-scented face-powder, and an occasional whiff of moth-ball that Miss Silver could not help feeling some sympathy with the breezy Miss Dugdale. Not that she had any partiality for draughts—on the contrary—but an invalid’s room should be regularly aired.
    When the last drop of self-pity had been distilled, and not till then, did a slight cough re-introduce the subject of Anna Ball’s employer.
    “I felt sure that you would sympathize with my young friend’s predicament. Perhaps your maid—what is her name— ah, yes, Postlethwaite—perhaps she can help us.”
    Mrs. Dugdale’s animation ceased. She closed her eyes and said she doubted it. But after a little tactful persuasion Miss Silver was allowed to ring the bell.
    “Two long and one short. And I am really afraid that I must not talk very much more. It has been very pleasant, but I shall pay for it. My head—”
    A description of the expected symptoms was still not complete when it was interrupted by the appearance of Postlethwaite, more like a wardress than ever, but mercifully not accompanied by Mother’s Boy. Even Miss Silver’s tact failed to penetrate the armour-plating. Postlethwaite made it perfectly plain that she had no intention of either remembering or attempting to remember anything to do with Miss Ball. As far as she was concerned, Anna Ball no longer existed.
    Mrs. Dugdale’s attitude was hardly a helpful one.
    “We don’t know Miss Ball’s address—do we, Postlethwaite?”
    “No, madam.”
    “Or where she has gone?”
    “No, madam.”
    Mrs. Dugdale closed her eyes.
    “Then I am afraid I must not talk any more.”
    The interview was plainly at an end. It was disappointing— very disappointing indeed. Miss Silver had perforce to take her leave.
    A faint hope arose at the discovery that it was no part of Postlethwaite’s duties to speed the departing guest. A single long trill of the electric bell summoned the middle-aged parlourmaid to discharge this task, and it was whilst discoursing to Agnes with bright amiability on her young friend’s predicament with regard to Miss Ball’s trunk that Miss Silver produced a five-pound note from her shabby bag. Telling Mrs. Harrison the cook about it afterwards, Agnes could hardly get the words out fast enough.
    “Well, I thought, it only just shows what I’ve always said, you never can tell. Mind you, I know a lady when I see one, and a lady she was. But old-fashioned—well, I ask you! One of those black cloth coats that don’t look as if they’d ever been anything else, and the sort of fur tie you’d expect to see in a second-hand clothes shop. Black wool stockings, and a hat the very moral of the one we saw in that film—now what was it called? You know, the one where the girl has that awful governess that wants to poison her.”
    Mrs. Harrison opined that governesses were always a trouble in the house, but there weren’t so many of them nowadays, and a good thing too.
    “Well, that’s what she looked like—one of those old-fashioned governesses, and when she took a five-pound note out of her bag you could have knocked me down with a feather. ‘My young friend,’ she says—that’s the one she’d been telling me about all the way down the stairs, not mentioning any names but just ‘My young friend,’ like that—‘well she’s very anxious to get rid of this trunk Miss Ball left with her, so she wants to know