"I won't waste time offering sympathy, Miss Blacklog," he said.
"As a matter of fact I feel pretty bad about Miss Bunner's death.
We ought to have been able to prevent it."
"I don't see what you could have done."
"No - well, it wouldn't have been easy.
But now we've got to work fast.
Who's doing this, Miss Blacklog?
Who's had two shots at killing you, and will probably, if we don't work fast enough, soon have another?"
Letitia Blacklog shivered.
"I don't know, Inspector - I don't know at all!"
"I've checked up with Mrs. Goedler.
She's given me all the help she can.
It wasn't very much.
There are just a few people who would definitely profit by your death.
First Pip and Emma.
Patrick and Julia Simmons are the right age, but their background seems clear enough.
Anyway, we can't concentrate on these two alone.
Tell me, Miss Blacklog, would you recognise Sonia Goedler if you saw her?"
"Recognise Sonia?
Why, of course -" she stopped suddenly.
"No," she said slowly, "I don't know that I would.
It's a long time.
Thirty years...
She'd be an elderly woman now."
"What was she like when you remember her?"
"Sonia?" Miss Blacklog considered for some moments.
"She was rather small, dark..."
"Any special peculiarities?
Mannerisms?"
"No - no, I don't think so.
She was gay - very gay."
"She mayn't be so gay now," said the Inspector.
"Have you got a photograph of her?"
"Of Sonia?
Let me see - not a proper photograph.
I've got some old snapshots - in an album somewhere - at least I think there's one of her."
"Ah.
Can I have a look at it?"
"Yes, of course.
Now where did I put that album?"
"Tell me, Miss Blacklog, do you consider it remotely passible that Mrs. Swettenham might be Sonia Goedler?"
"Mrs. Swettenham?"
Miss Blacklog looked at him in lively astonishment.
"But her husband was in the Government Service - in India first, I think, and then in Hong Kong."
"What you mean is, that that's the story she's told you.
You don't, as we say in the Courts, know it of your own knowledge, do you?"
"No," said Miss Blacklog slowly.
"When you put it like that, I don't... But Mrs. Swettenham?
Oh, it's absurd!"
"Did Sonia Goedler ever do any acting?