“But where were you-in a room, on a bed? What district?”

“Some room, some bed. Some hostel for indigents, I suppose. I didn’t linger to find out. I stole a robe and some slippers from a cubby in the washroom and I tottered out the door. I found myself in the city of Shiz in northern Oz. I appeared older than most of the sentient life that waddled or cycled or ambled by.”

“Did you remember your name?”

“Those who don’t have a name can’t remember it, can they? Sir Brrr? If I’d had a name before, I didn’t know it anymore. So I had to name myself. In a marketplace stall I found a portfolio of rotogravure prints and I examined the pages. The collection advertised itself as artistic interpretations of characters of folklore. I saw gnarled old Kumbricia, I saw the fairy queen, Lurline, and her sidekick, Preenella. I saw the dragon who dreams the world and the tiny pixie-mites who afflict the undeserving with plague. Then I came across a page showing an elderly dame with a walking stick and a jackal on a leash. She carried the moon in a basket on her back. It was pretty. The script said ‘Yackle Snarling,’ and though I didn’t know the story she features in, nor any story, I liked her name. Yackle. I didn’t know if ‘Snarling’ was her second name or her occupation, so I left it off.”

“Didn’t you see a doctor? Anyone propose it might have been a stroke?” He wasn’t being tender, just comprehensive. “Probably your mental gears just slipped. It happens to the feeble.”

“Those who don’t know the concept of medicine don’t think to consult physicians.”

He tried a more soothing voice. It came out snide. “A little therapy, or a stiff drink, and maybe the memory of your past life would return.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “But I don’t believe in past lives.”

“Any twinges about your lost childhood? Snatches of déjà vu, that sort of thing? Did you ever pick up something silly and common like, oh, bootlaces or, or…butter rolls…and stare at them in case they jogged your mind about your past?”

“I didn’t imagine the past, yet, so I didn’t miss it. It was as if I was freshly minted as a senior. Some are born blind, some cranky, some superior. Some”and she waggled a finger at him“are born green. I was born old. Old I came into the world, and older still will I leave it, if I can ever figure out how.”

He wrote in his notebook: Claims to have amnesia about her youth. Dotty? Honest? Clever? Canny strategy to avoid her legal liabilities?

“We’re here to do some discovery about your relationship with the Thropps,” he said. “Can we continue?”

“I thought you said it was Madame Morrible’s connections you were tracking down.”

“Madame Morrible. The Thropp sisters. There is some overlap, as you bloody well know. Now just start where you can, and I’ll cut you off if you ramble.”