mind was a blank. I had an idea I had written the name down somewhere, but I couldn’t have done, for it wasn’t on any of the papers in my pocket. No, it was no good. She was gone.”
“Why didn’t you make inquiries?”
“Well, the fact is, Bertie, I had forgotten her name.”
“Oh, no, dash it!” I said. This seemed a bit too thick even for Biffy. “How could you forget her name? Besides, you told it me a moment ago. Muriel or something.”
“Mabel,” corrected Biffy, coldly. “It was her surname I’d forgotten. So I gave it up and went to Canada.”
“But half a second,” I said. “You must have told her your name. I mean, if you couldn’t trace her, she could trace you.”
“Exactly. That’s what makes it all seem so infernally hopeless. She knows my name and where I live and everything, but I haven’t heard a word from her. I suppose, when I didn’t turn up at the hotel, she took it that that was my way of hinting delicately that I had changed my mind and wanted to call the thing off.”
“I suppose so,” I said. There didn’t seem anything else to suppose. “Well, the only thing to do is to whizz around and try to heal the wound, what? How about dinner tonight, winding up at the Abbaye, or one of those places?”
Biffy shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be any good. I’ve tried it. Besides, I’m