he
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. The Kestrel-Smith toilet tools aren't up to
much, but they are better than nothing."

"If you feel sure that you have a title," said Jerton, "why not get hold
of a peerage and go right through it?"

"I tried that. I skimmed through the list of the House of Lords in
'Whitaker,' but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little to
one, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your identity
you might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who your
were. I'm going on another tack; I'm trying to find out by various
little tests who I am _not_--that will narrow the range of uncertainty
down a bit. You may have noticed, for instance, that I'm lunching
principally off lobster Newburg."

Jerton had not ventured to notice anything of the sort.

"It's an extravagance, because it's one of the most expensive dishes on
the menu, but at any rate it proves that I'm not Lady Starping; she never
touches shell-fish, and poor Lady Braddleshrub has no digestion at all;
if I am _her_ I shall certainly die in agony in the course of the
afternoon, and the duty of finding out who I am will devolve on the press
and the police and those sort of people; I shall be past caring. Lady
Knewford doesn't know one rose from another and she hates men, so she
wouldn't have spoken to you in any case; and Lady Mousehilton flirts with
every man she meets--I haven't flirted with you, have I?"

Jerton hastily gave the required assurance.

"Well, you see," continued the lady, "that knocks four off the list at
once."

"It'll be rather a lengthy process bringing the list down to one," said
Jerton.

"Oh, but, of course, there are heaps of them that I couldn't possibly
be--women who've got grandchildren or sons old enough to have celebrated
their coming of age. I've only got to consider the ones about my own
age.