But I can guess.

One does not stay in hotel after hotel without getting a pretty shrewd idea of the way people talk about one.

I know the sort of things they have been saying here.

You would hear them yourself, no doubt, Captain Clephane, as soon as you arrived." I admitted that I had, but reminded Mrs.Lascelles that the first person I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel.

She paid no attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look that I could never quite see to read.
"And then," she went on, "you found out who it was, and you remembered all about me, and your worst fears were confirmed.