Chapter 24 of 27 · 3'49"
A scarred woman at Euston offers Sir Wilfrid letters she says Christine wrote to another man. She will not give her name and does not care how she got them: "What's the difference so long as she gets what's coming?"
❝ Monologue · 6 lines The Woman Who Waited for Revenge
Sir Wilfrid and Mayhew meet a scarred woman in an Euston pub. She claims to hold letters written by Christine to another man and asks ten pounds for them. She refuses to give her name, says she has waited to pay Christine back, and hands over the bundle for cash.
On the surface this is a simple purchase. Underneath, two people are using each other. The woman needs money and, more than that, revenge; Sir Wilfrid needs evidence to break Christine's testimony. She spells out her motive without shame—"I waited me time to pay 'er back. And it's come now."—and shrugs off how she got the letters: "What's the difference so long as she gets what's coming?" That line is the heart of the scene. The letters may be genuine, but they arrive through a witness with a grudge, and Sir Wilfrid knows a jury will notice. He buys them anyway, because a liar caught in her own hand is worth the risk. The scene turns the defence's problem into a weapon, while quietly warning that this kind of help always carries a price.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“No need for mine. If did give you a name it mightn't be the right one, might it?”
She turns a simple question about her name into a move that keeps her in control of the deal.
Informal
“You realise that you're duty-bound to give any evidence that you might have?”
It sounds like a polite check but quietly puts the weight of the law on her.
Formal
“But I waited me time to pay 'er back. And it's come now.”
It shows a grudge kept alive for years and a patience that is finally about to pay off.
Informal
“It wasn't 'is fault. It was all 'ers, gettin' 'im away from me, turnin' 'im against me.”
Street dialect and repetition; the whole grudge is laid out before she names her price.
Informal
Not 'er, the chap I was going with. He was a bit younger than me but I loved 'im. Then she come along, started seeing 'im on the sly. Then one day he cleared out. I found 'em together. I said what I thought of 'er and he cut me face up proper. - Did you go to the police about it? - Who, me? Not likely. It wasn't 'is fault. It was all 'ers, gettin' 'im away from me, turnin' 'im against me. But I waited me time to pay 'er back. And it's come now.
Up next · 25a pack of liesThe scene: Sir Wilfrid's Blue Letter TrapShe says that if she did give a name, it might not be the right one anyway. It signals she is not a respectable witness but someone working outside the law.
She wants revenge on Christine, not justice. She says she waited for her time to pay Christine back, and selling the letters is how she does it.
They are in Christine's hand and read as passionate letters to a man who is not Leonard. Sir Wilfrid and Mayhew treat them as proof that Christine lied.
She says the man she loved cut her face when she confronted him and Christine together. It is why she has been waiting to get even.
