“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.”