She pressed her desk buzzer twice, then went impatiently to the door and called to a girl who was passing.

‘Find Julia Upjohn for me, will you, Paula?’

‘Yes, Miss Bulstrode.’

‘I’d better go before the girl comes,’ Adam said. ‘It wouldn’t be natural for me to assist in the inquiries the Inspector is making. Ostensibly he’s called me in here to get the low down on me. Having satisfied himself that he’s got nothing on me for the moment, he now tells me to take myself off.’

‘Take yourself off and remember I’ve got my eye on you!’ growled Kelsey with a grin.

‘By the way,’ said Adam, addressing Miss Bulstrode as he paused by the door, ‘will it be all right with you if I slightly abuse my position here? If I get, shall we say, a little too friendly with some members of your staff?’

‘With which members of my staff?’

‘Well—Mademoiselle Blanche, for instance.’

‘Mademoiselle Blanche? You think that she—?’

‘I think she’s rather bored here.’

‘Ah!’ Miss Bulstrode looked rather grim. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Anyone else?’

‘I shall have a good try all round,’ said Adam cheerfully. ‘If you should find that some of your girls are being rather silly, and slipping off to assignations in the garden, please believe that my intentions are strictly sleuthial—if there is such a word.’

‘You think the girls are likely to know something?’

‘Everybody always knows something,’ said Adam, ‘even if it’s something they don’t know they know.’

‘You may be right.’

There was a knock on the door, and Miss Bulstrode called—‘Come in.’

Julia Upjohn appeared, very much out of breath.

‘Come in, Julia.’

Inspector Kelsey growled.

‘You can go now, Goodman. Take yourself off and get on with your work.’

‘I’ve told you I don’t know a thing about anything,’ said Adam sulkily. He went out, muttering ‘Blooming Gestapo.’

‘I’m sorry I’m so out of breath, Miss Bulstrode,’ apologized Julia. ‘I’ve run all the way from the tennis courts.’

‘That’s quite all right. I just wanted to ask you your mother’s address—that is, where can I get in touch with her?’

‘Oh! You’ll have to write to Aunt Isabel. Mother’s abroad.’

‘I have your aunt’s address. But I need to get in touch with your mother personally.’

‘I don’t see how you can,’ said Julia, frowning. ‘Mother’s gone to Anatolia on a bus.’

‘On a bus?’ said Miss Bulstrode, taken aback.

Julia nodded vigorously.

‘She likes that sort of thing,’ she explained. ‘And of course it’s frightfully cheap. A bit uncomfortable, but Mummy doesn’t mind that. Roughly, I should think she’d fetch up in Van in about three weeks or so.’

‘I see—yes. Tell me, Julia, did your mother ever mention to you seeing someone here whom she’d known in her war service days?’

‘No, Miss Bulstrode, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure she didn’t.’

‘Your mother did Intelligence work, didn’t she?’

‘Oh, yes. Mummy seems to have loved it. Not that it sounds really exciting to me. She never blew up anything. Or got caught by the Gestapo. Or had her toe nails pulled out. Or anything like that. She worked in Switzerland, I think—or was it Portugal?’