"
"Well--"
"Of course you must go. Indicate a rumour. Tell her it's probably
false, but you thought you owed it to her to warn her. Only for God's
sake don't mention me. We're not supposed to say anything, you know."
G.J. seemed to see his mission, and it challenged him.
Chapter 11
THE TELEGRAM
As soon as G.J. had been let into the abode by Concepcion's venerable
parlour-maid, the voice of Concepcion came down to him from above:
"G.J., who is your oldest and dearest friend?"
He replied, marvellously schooling his voice to a similar tone of
cheerful abruptness:
"Difficult to say, off-hand."
"Not at all. It's your beard."
That was her greeting to him. He knew she was recalling an old
declined suggestion of hers that he should part with his beard. The
parlour-maid practised an admirable deafness, faithfully to confirm
Concepcion, who always presumed deafness in all servants. G.J. looked
up the narrow well of the staircase. He could vaguely see Concepcion
on high, leaning over the banisters; he thought she was rather
fluffilly dressed, for her.
Concepcion inhabited an upper part in a street largely devoted to the
sale of grand pianos. Her front door was immediately at the top of a
long, straight, narrow stairway; so that whoever opened the door stood
one step higher than the person desiring entrance.
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