CHAPTER XI
Superintendent Mansus had a little office in Scotland Yard proper, which, he complained, was not so much a private bureau, as a waiting-room to which repaired every official of the police service who found time hanging on his hands. On the afternoon of Miss Holland's surprising adventure, a plainclothes man of “D” Division brought to Mr. Mansus's room a very scared domestic servant, voluble, tearful and agonizingly penitent. It was a mood not wholly unfamiliar to a police officer of twenty years experience and Mr. Mansus was not impressed.
“ If you will kindly shut up,” he said, blending his natural politeness with his employment of the vernacular, “and if you will also answer a few questions I will save you a lot of trouble. You were Lady Bartholomew's maid weren't you?”
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