Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met.  Audrey gazed at him steadily.  There was no smile in Audrey’s eyes, but there was a smile glimmering mysteriously behind them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar.  Audrey had the terrible and god-like sensation of lifting a hired servant to equality with herself.  She imagined that she would never again be able to treat him as Aguilar, and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease to hate him.  At the same time she observed slight signs of incertitude in the demeanour of the detective.

Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the police: 

“If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing my name up with any scandal about females, I’ll have him up for slander and libel and damages as sure as I stand here.”

Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the detective—­as if for support in peril.

“Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven’t got a woman hidden in the house at this very moment?” the detective demanded.

“I’ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Aguilar.  “Or I’ll take ye outside and knock yer face sideways.  Pardon me, madam.  Of course I ain’t got no woman concealed on the premises.  And mark ye, if I lose my place through this ye’ll hear of it.  And I shall put a letter in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, too.”

“Well, ye can go,” the detective responded.

“Yes,” sneered Aguilar.  “I can go.  Yes, and I shall go.  But not so far but what I can protect my interests.  And I’ll make this village too hot for Keeble before I’ve done, police or no police.”

And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight at his lady after a joust, Aguilar turned to leave the room.

“Aguilar,” Audrey rewarded him.  “You needn’t be afraid about your place.”

“Thank ye, m’m.”

“May I ask what your name is?” Audrey inquired of the detective as soon as Aguilar had shut the door.

“Hurley,” replied the detective.

“I thought it might be,” said Audrey, sitting down, but not offering seats.  “Well, Mr. Hurley, after all your running after Miss Susan Foley, don’t you think it’s rather unfair to say horrid things about a respectable man like Aguilar?  You were funny about that stout wife of yours last time I saw you, but you must remember that Aguilar can’t be funny about his wife, because he hasn’t got one.”

“I really don’t know what you’re driving at, miss,” said Mr. Hurley simply.

“Well, what were you driving at when you followed me all the way to London the other day?”

“Madam,” said Mr. Hurley, “I didn’t follow you to London.  I only happened to arrive at Charing Cross about twenty seconds after you, that was all.  As a matter of fact, nearly half of the way you were following me.”

“Well, I hope you were satisfied.”