a comic Frenchman in a revue. I can’t think why Flora insisted on bringing him

into the case. She never said a word to me about it. Just went off and did it on

her own. Flora is too independent. I am a woman of the world and her mother. She

should have come to me for advice first.”

 

I listened to all this in silence.

 

“What does he think? That’s what I want to know. Does he actually imagine I’m

hiding something? He—he—positively _accused_ me yesterday.”

 

I shrugged my shoulders.

 

“It is surely of no consequence, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said. “Since you are not

concealing anything, any remarks he may have made do not apply to you.”

 

Mrs. Ackroyd went off at a tangent, after her usual fashion.

 

“Servants are so tiresome,” she said. “They gossip, and talk amongst themselves.

And then it gets round—and all the time there’s probably nothing in it at all.”

 

“Have the servants been talking?” I asked. “What about?”

 

Mrs. Ackroyd cast a very shrewd glance at me. It quite threw me off my balance.

 

“I was sure _you’d_ know, doctor, if any one did. You were with M.