It's not just context, it really is that.
The kanji on page 9 is 'watashi' (私が...) yeah it's badly drawn.
And page 10 is actually LADY レディ (it's not shi, it's kana re) also you missed the little と to the right which make the line, as a continuation of his line in page 9 "was what this lady..." with implied 'said'
Oh wow, now that makes sense, lol. Thing is, I couldn't tell what was written, so, correction - "it
looked to me from context".
私 - So it was 禾 radical after all 🙃 Never would've guessed the other one was supposed to be 厶, though.
レディ - ouch, of course it's katakana "re", instead of hiragana "shi"
I've looked up "shi" on jisho, found it could mean Mrs/Miss (kanji: 氏), and, i guess, got fixated on this.
And yeah, i've seen that と over there, and i knew it was used as an indirect speech particle, so i didn't mention it.