“I tried that. I skimmed through the list of the House of Lords in Whitaker , but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little to one, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your identity you might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who your were. I’m going on another tack; I’m trying to find out by various little tests who I am not ⁠—that will narrow the range of uncertainty down a bit. You may have noticed, for instance, that I’m lunching principally off lobster Newburg.”

Jerton had not ventured to notice anything of the sort.