Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair

The girl’s glance rested first on the old woman, and then went on to Marion. The glance held neither surprise nor triumph, and not much interest.

“Yes, these are the women,” she said.

“You have no doubt about it?” Grant asked her, and added: “It is a very grave accusation, you know.”

“No, I have no doubt. How could I?”

“These two ladies are the women who detained you, took your clothes from you, forced you to mend linen, and whipped you?”

“Yes, these are the women.”

“A remarkable liar,” said old Mrs.

Sharpe, in the tone in which one says: “A remarkable likeness.”

“You say that we took you into the kitchen for coffee,” Marion said.

“Yes, you did.”

“Can you describe the kitchen?”

“I didn’t pay much attention. It was a big one – with a stone floor, I think – and a row of bells.”

“What kind of stove?”

“I didn’t notice the stove, but the pan the old woman heated the coffee in was a pale blue enamel one with a dark blue edge and a lot of chips off round the bottom edge.

”

“I doubt if there is any kitchen in England that hasn’t a pan exactly like that,” Marion said. “We have three of them.”

“Is the girl a virgin?” asked Mrs. Sharpe, in the mildly interested tone of a person inquiring: “Is it a Chanel?”

In the startled pause that this produced Robert was aware of Hallam’s scandalised face, the hot blood running up into the girl’s, and the fact that there was no protesting “Mother!” from the daughter as he unconsciously, but confidently, expected.

He wondered whether her silence was tacit approval, or whether after a lifetime with Mrs. Sharpe she was shock-proof.

Grant said in cold reproof that the matter was irrelevant.

“You think so?” said the old lady. “If I had been missing for a month from my home it is the first thing that my mother would have wanted to know about me. However. Now that the girl has identified us, what do you propose to do? Arrest us?”

“Oh, no.

Things are a long way from that at the moment. I want to take Miss Kane to the kitchen and the attic, so that her descriptions of them can be verified. If they are, I report on the case to my superior and he decides in conference what further steps to take.”

“I see. A most admirable caution, Inspector.” She rose slowly to her feet. “Ah, well, if you will excuse me I shall go back to my interrupted rest.