Anthony Signs on for a New Job
“If you will go on, gentlemen, I will follow you in a minute,” said Anthony.
He waited whilst the others filed out, and then turned to where Superintendent Battle was standing apparently absorbed in examining the panelling.
“Well, Battle? Want to ask me something, don’t you?”
“Well, I do, sir, though I don’t know how you knew I did. But I always marked you out as being specially quick in the uptake. I take it that the lady who is dead was the late Queen Varaga?”
“Quite right, Battle. It’ll be hushed up, I hope. You can understand what I feel about family skeletons.”
“Trust Mr. Lomax for that, sir. No one will ever know. That is, a lot of people will know, but it won’t get about.”
“Was that what you wanted to ask me about?”
“No, sir—that was only in passing. I was curious to know just what made you drop your own name—if I’m not taking too much of a liberty?”
“Not a bit. I’ll tell you. I killed myself from the purest motives, Battle. My mother was English, I’d been educated in England, and I was far more interested in England than in Herzoslovakia. And I felt an absolute fool knocking about the world with a comic opera title tacked on to me.