Sentence The Twentyfourth
Roxy looked up sharply from her deskfast; they were all eating around the table with Daphne and Maude's paperwork before them – Trixie and Leigh followed suit; all three stared at Maude, who was examining her fingernails; she smiled and asked, “does the name Jinty Moncrief mean anything to you” and looked from one to the other; Roxy gave a start, for Jinty Moncrief was the name of a friend of hers in the City Chambers – but that couldn't be right, she blushed to her roots – as Maude continued, not waiting for any response, “Jinty Moncrief is an ancestor of ours, of all of us, and among her many talents she was a Match-Maker,” at which Daphne chortled, adding that Jinty Moncrief had also been a supplier of Wet-Nurses to the gentry of Edinburgh and had her fingers in many other pies – she gave a knowing wink; Roxy ingurgitated the last of her meal, and mouth crammed full she was unable to speak as Maude continued, “and one of her talents was to be a detailed recorder of every patient, client, customer – or whatever she called them – and her diaries, well, Account Books I should say, are in the possession of our cousin Gregor Dumbiedykes, who is also a Great-Grandchild of Dr Dean and inherited his Library, or again, I should say were, for he loaned them to me late last night – on condition, needless to say, that they do not leave the possession of the family,” and she picked up a small pile of rather battered and worn volumes which had obviously been subjected to much use, and continued “and Gregor is not so hidebound as one might expect of a Writer to the Signet, and has offered us the use of his daughter, Elvira, who is a student at Heriot-Watt and just happens to have a lot of free time this week,” at which there was a cheer from the young cousins, who all knew and were fond of their cousin Elvira; and Roxy, half choking as she swallowed a piece of pie-crust burst out that she had just remembered what her friend, also named Jinty Moncrief had mentioned to her en passent during a gossipy telephone conversation late last night, which was that shortly before Daphne's experience of temporary imprisonment in the oubliette, Jinty had noticed what she described as a gunsel, a young gentleman of the road, standing together with his older friend and confidant hard by the close which leads, by way of many twists and turnings, gates, doorways and labyrinthine passages, to the tunnels in which Daphne had discovered Sister Evadne Eglantine's final prison, seeming to peruse a map or diagram and she was this morning intending to study the CCTV tapes to ascertain what they had been doing and, added Roxy, washing down the remains of her hasty meal with a glass of Water of Leith, “I promised to call her about now to find out if she has learned anything of use to us in identifying the dastardly devil who slid the bolts to trap Aunt Daphne!”
Roxy looked up sharply from her deskfast; they were all eating around the table with Daphne and Maude's paperwork before them – Trixie and Leigh followed suit; all three stared at Maude, who was examining her fingernails; she smiled and asked, “does the name Jinty Moncrief mean anything to you” and looked from one to the other; Roxy gave a start, for Jinty Moncrief was the name of a friend of hers in the City Chambers – but that couldn't be right, she blushed to her roots – as Maude continued, not waiting for any response, “Jinty Moncrief is an ancestor of ours, of all of us, and among her many talents she was a Match-Maker,” at which Daphne chortled, adding that Jinty Moncrief had also been a supplier of Wet-Nurses to the gentry of Edinburgh and had her fingers in many other pies – she gave a knowing wink; Roxy ingurgitated the last of her meal, and mouth crammed full she was unable to speak as Maude continued, “and one of her talents was to be a detailed recorder of every patient, client, customer – or whatever she called them – and her diaries, well, Account Books I should say, are in the possession of our cousin Gregor Dumbiedykes, who is also a Great-Grandchild of Dr Dean and inherited his Library, or again, I should say were, for he loaned them to me late last night – on condition, needless to say, that they do not leave the possession of the family,” and she picked up a small pile of rather battered and worn volumes which had obviously been subjected to much use, and continued “and Gregor is not so hidebound as one might expect of a Writer to the Signet, and has offered us the use of his daughter, Elvira, who is a student at Heriot-Watt and just happens to have a lot of free time this week,” at which there was a cheer from the young cousins, who all knew and were fond of their cousin Elvira; and Roxy, half choking as she swallowed a piece of pie-crust burst out that she had just remembered what her friend, also named Jinty Moncrief had mentioned to her en passent during a gossipy telephone conversation late last night, which was that shortly before Daphne's experience of temporary imprisonment in the oubliette, Jinty had noticed what she described as a gunsel, a young gentleman of the road, standing together with his older friend and confidant hard by the close which leads, by way of many twists and turnings, gates, doorways and labyrinthine passages, to the tunnels in which Daphne had discovered Sister Evadne Eglantine's final prison, seeming to peruse a map or diagram and she was this morning intending to study the CCTV tapes to ascertain what they had been doing and, added Roxy, washing down the remains of her hasty meal with a glass of Water of Leith, “I promised to call her about now to find out if she has learned anything of use to us in identifying the dastardly devil who slid the bolts to trap Aunt Daphne!”
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