I had a couple of
five-pound notes and a sovereign on me, no visiting cards or any other
means of identification, and no idea as to who I am. I can only hazily
recollect that I have a title; I am Lady Somebody--beyond that my mind is
a blank."
"Hadn't you any luggage with you?" asked Jerton.
"That is what I didn't know. I knew the name of this hotel and made up
my mind to come here, and when the hotel porter who meets the trains
asked if I had any luggage I had to invent a dressing-bag and
dress-basket; I could always pretend that they had gone astray. I gave
him the name of Smith, and presently he emerged from a confused pile of
luggage and passengers with a dressing-bag and dress-basket labelled
Kestrel-Smith. I had to take them; I don't see what else I could have
done."
Jerton said nothing, but he rather wondered what the lawful owner of the
baggage would do.
"Of course it was dreadful arriving at a strange hotel with the name of
Kestrel-Smith, but it would have been worse to have arrived without
luggage. Anyhow, I hate causing trouble."
Jerton had visions of harassed railway officials and distraught Kestrel-
Smiths, but he made no attempt to clothe his mental picture in words. The
lady continued her story.
"Naturally, none of my keys would fit the things, but I told an
intelligent page boy that I had lost my key-ring, and he had the locks
forced in a twinkling. Rather too intelligent, that boy; he will
probably end in Dartmoor.
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