II
Eileen Brandon had been fairly accurately¹ described by Poppy—allow-ing, that is to say, for Poppy’s own particular point of view. Her hair wasneither like a chrysanthemum², nor an unruly birds’ nest. It was wavedback close to her head, she wore the minimum of makeup³ and her feetwere encased in what is called, I believe, sensible shoes. Her husband hadbeen killed in a motor accident, she told us, and left her with two smallchildren. Before her present employment, she had been employed by afirm called Customers’ Reactions Classified for over a year. She had left ofher own accord as she had not cared for the type of work.
“Why didn’t you care for it, Mrs. Brandon?”
Lejeune asked the question. She looked at him.
“You’re a detective-inspector⁴ of police? Is that right?”
“Quite right, Mrs. Brandon.”
“You think there’s something wrong about that firm?”
“It’s a matter I’m inquiring into. Did you suspect something of that kind?
Is that why you left?”
“I’ve nothing definite to go upon. Nothing definite that I could tell you.”
“Naturally. We understand that. This is a confidential⁵ inquiry⁶.”
“I see. But there is really very little I could say.”
“You can say why you wanted to leave.”
“I had a feeling that there were things going on that I didn’t knowabout.”
“You mean you didn’t think it was a genuine concern?”
“Something of the kind. It didn’t seem to me to be run in a businesslikeway. I suspected that there must be some ulterior object behind it. Butwhat that object was I still don’t know.”
Lejeune asked more questions as to exactly what work she had beenasked to do. Lists of names in a certain neighbourhood had been handedout. Her job was to visit those people, ask certain questions, and notedown the answers.
“And what struck you as wrong about that?”
“The questions did not seem to me to follow up any particular line of re-search. They seemed

分享到：