My heart began to beat so loudly with hope that I could hardly hear my own voice as I asked, ‘How . . . how soon can you come?’

‘To-morrow, if you like,’ she answered casually.  ’I’ve ’ad a row with the friend I’m stayin’ with and I can’t abide living-in with folks I’ve fallen out with.’

I struggled to reconstruct this sentence and then, remembering what was required of me, I remarked, ‘And your references?’

She gave me the address of her last place.

’Are they on the ‘phone?’ I questioned eagerly.  ’If so, I’ll settle the thing at once.’  It seemed they were.  I tottered to the telephone.  My call was answered by a woman with a thin, sharp voice.

‘I am sorry,’ she said in answer to my query, ’I must refuse to answer any questions concerning Elizabeth Renshaw.’

‘But you only need say “yes” or “no.”  Is she honest?’

‘I am not in a position to give you a reply.’

‘Am I to understand that she isn’t sober?’

‘I cannot answer that question.’

‘Look here, she hasn’t murdered any one, has she?’

‘I am not in a position——­’

‘Oh, hang the woman,’ I muttered, jerking up the receiver.  But I felt the situation was an awkward one.  What sinister and turbid happenings were connected with Elizabeth and her last place?  I meditated.  If she were not sober it was, after all, no business of mine so long as she got through her work.  And if she didn’t we should be no worse off than we were at present.

If she were dishonest it might be awkward, certainly, but then there was nothing of very much value in the house, Henry and I merely being writers by profession.  Most of our friends are writers, too, so we have not the usual array of massive silver wedding gifts about the place, but quite a lot of autograph photos and books instead.  The value of these might not be apparent to the casual pilferer.  My meditations got no further.  I decided to lock up my silk stockings and best handkerchiefs and engage Elizabeth without delay.  As a matter of fact, I afterwards discovered that her career had been blameless, while she had every foundation for her favourite declaration, ’I wouldn’t take a used postage stamp, no, nor a rusty nail that wasn’t my own.’

I do not condemn the woman I interviewed on the telephone, reprehensible as was her conduct.  Perhaps she, too, was living on eggs and it had warped her better nature.

‘I suppose you can cook all right?’ I asked Elizabeth as ten minutes later, all arrangements made, I accompanied her to the door.

’Me?  I’m a rare ‘and at cookin’.  My friend’s ’usband ses ’e’s never come across any one who can cook a steak like I can.’

‘A steak,’ I murmured ecstatically, ’richly brown with softly swelling curves——­’

‘Rather underdone in the middle,’ supplemented Elizabeth, ’just a little bit o’ fat, fairly crisp, a lump o’ butter on the top, and I always ‘old that a dash o’ fried onion improves the flavour.’