II
It was a quarter past twelve when I rang the bell at 62, Wilbraham Crescent. Mrs. Ramsay openedthe door. She hardly raised her eyes to look at me.
“What is it?” she said.
“Can I speak to you for a moment? I was here about ten days ago. You may not remember.”
She lifted her eyes to study me further. A faint frown appeared between her eyebrows¹.
“You came—you were with the police inspector², weren’t you?”
“That’s right, Mrs. Ramsay. Can I come in?”
“If you want to, I suppose. One doesn’t refuse to let the police in. They’d take a very poor viewof it if you did.”
She led the way into the sitting room, made a brusque gesture towards a chair and sat downopposite me. There had been a faint acerbity³ in her voice, but her manner now resumed⁴ alistlessness which I had not noted⁵ in it previously⁶.
I said:
“It seems quiet here today … I suppose your boys have gone back to school?”
“Yes. It does make a difference.” She went on, “I suppose you want to ask some morequestions, do you, about this last murder? The girl who was killed in the telephone box.”
“No, not exactly that. I’m not really connected with the police, you know.”
She looked faintly surprised.
“I thought you were Sergeant—Lamb, wasn’t it?”
“My name is Lamb, yes, but I work in an entirely⁷ different department.”
The listlessness vanished from Mrs. Ramsay’s manner. She gave me a quick, hard, direct stare.
“Oh,” she said, “well, what is it?”
“Your husband is still abroad?”
“Yes.”
“He’s been gone rather a long time, hasn’t he, Mrs. Ramsay? And gone rather a long way?”
“What do you know about it?”
“Well, he’s gone beyond the Iron Curtain, hasn’t he?”

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