The clues that they chiefly uncover are in the manner of character evidence, and Tey supplies a colourful variety. Examples include the facts that Betty has an eidetic memory; when Betty returns home after the alleged kidnapping, the only item she has with her is lipstick; she tells the Wynns about her abduction not right away, but in various details over a few days; Betty's mother was promiscuous, "a bad mother and a bad wife", according to a neighbour; Mrs. Tilsit, the aunt, tells Blair that Betty spent most of her holiday time not with her aunt and uncle, but in unsupervised freedom: going to the cinema, using buses, and eating lunch away from home; Betty had befriended a teenage girl who had once worked for the Sharpes as a cleaner, whom Betty had bullied. She is described by a couple of people as demure and looking as though "butter wouldn't melt in her mouth"; one of them, a restaurant waiter, tells Blair that Betty came in for tea several times, looking wholesome: "And then one day she picked up the man at the next table. You could have knocked me over with a feather."