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