Rita didn't comment on his rank or home country at all- it was probably reasonable to assume that if she'd recognised either she would have had something to say about it, and so it followed that they were from different worlds. Just the same as eighty percent of the people here, then.

It wasn't, however, until she began to speak about magic that the inspector realised just how different their worlds were- there it was again, open discussion of magic. By this point the topic was one that he'd desensitised his cynicism to, having seen it in action himself, but even then that was only through the understanding that it was that which simply hadn't been explained in rational terms yet.

The approach that Rita seemed to take to the matter both here and at home was a refreshing one, to say the least. "So the science of magic, in some way?" he asked. The smile returned, briefly; maybe this would help him get his head around what Edgar referred to so frequently. "I can appreciate that. I've had some difficulty in understanding it at all, since I arrived here."