She flung open both windows, and George Lomax came into the room to find her standing erect with dancing eyes and windblown hair.
“I’ll shut them in a minute, George, but I felt the room ought to be aired. Did you fall over the blackmailer in the hall?”
“The what?”
“Blackmailer, George. B . l . a . c . k . m . a . i . l . e . r ? Blackmailer. One who blackmails.”
“My dear Virginia, you can’t be serious!”
“Oh, but I am, George.”
“But who did he come here to blackmail?”
“Me, George.”
“But, my dear Virginia, what have you been doing?”
“Well, just for once, as it happens, I hadn’t been doing anything. The good gentleman mistook me for someone else.”
“You rang up the police, I suppose?”
“No, I didn’t. I suppose you think I ought to have done so.”
“Well—” George considered weightily. “No, no, perhaps not—perhaps you acted wisely. You might be mixed up in some unpleasant publicity in connection with the case. You might even have had to give evidence—”
“I should have liked that,” said Virginia. “I would love to be summoned, and I should like to see if judges really do make all the rotten jokes you read about. It would be most exciting. I was at Vine Street the other day to see about a diamond brooch I had lost, and there was the most perfectly lovely inspector—the nicest man I ever met.”