AGATHA CHRISTIE
Partners in Crime

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1929

Copyright © 1929 Agatha Christie Ltd

Cover by www.juliejenkinsdesign.com © HarperCollins/Agatha Christie Ltd 2007

Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007111503

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007422678

Version: 2017-04-17

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

1. A Fairy in the Flat

2. A Pot of Tea

3. The Affair of the Pink Pearl

4. The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger

5. Finessing the King

6. The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper

7. The Case of the Missing Lady

8. Blindman’s Buff

9. The Man in the Mist

10. The Crackler

11. The Sunningdale Mystery

12. The House of Lurking Death

13. The Unbreakable Alibi

14. The Clergyman’s Daughter

15. The Red House

16. The Ambassador’s Boots

17. The Man Who Was No. 16

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

A Fairy in the Flat

Mrs Thomas Beresford shifted her position on the divan and looked gloomily out of the window of the flat. The prospect was not an extended one, consisting solely of a small block of flats on the other side of the road. Mrs Beresford sighed and then yawned.

‘I wish,’ she said, ‘something would happen.’

Her husband looked up reprovingly.

‘Be careful, Tuppence, this craving for vulgar sensation alarms me.’

Tuppence sighed and closed her eyes dreamily.

‘So Tommy and Tuppence were married,’ she chanted, ‘and lived happily ever afterwards. And six years later they were still living together happily ever afterwards. It is extraordinary,’ she said, ‘how different everything always is from what you think it is going to be.’

‘A very profound statement, Tuppence. But not original. Eminent poets and still more eminent divines have said it before – and if you will excuse me saying so, have said it better.’

‘Six years ago,’ continued Tuppence, ‘I would have sworn that with sufficient money to buy things with, and with you for a husband, all life would have been one grand sweet song, as one of the poets you seem to know so much about puts it.’

‘Is it me or the money that palls upon you?’ inquired Tommy coldly.

‘Palls isn’t exactly the word,’ said Tuppence kindly. ‘I’m used to my blessings, that’s all. Just as one never thinks what a boon it is to be able to breathe through one’s nose until one has a cold in the head.’

‘Shall I neglect you a little?’ suggested Tommy. ‘Take other women about to night clubs. That sort of thing.’

‘Useless,’ said Tuppence. ‘You would only meet me there with other men. And I should know perfectly well that you didn’t care for the other women, whereas you would never be quite sure that I didn’t care for the other men. Women are so much more thorough.’

‘It’s only in modesty that men score top marks,’ murmured her husband. ‘But what is the matter with you, Tuppence? Why this yearning discontent?’

‘I don’t know. I want things to happen. Exciting things. Wouldn’t you like to go chasing German spies again, Tommy? Think of the wild days of peril we went through once. Of course I know you’re more or less in the Secret Service now, but it’s pure office work.’

‘You mean you’d like them to send me into darkest Russia disguised as a Bolshevik bootlegger, or something of that sort?’

‘That wouldn’t be any good,’ said Tuppence. ‘They wouldn’t let me go with you and I’m the person who wants something to do so badly. Something to do. That is what I keep saying all day long.’

‘Women’s sphere,’ suggested Tommy, waving his hand.

‘Twenty minutes’ work after breakfast every morning keeps the flag going to perfection. You have nothing to complain of, have you?’

‘Your housekeeping is so perfect, Tuppence, as to be almost monotonous.’

‘I do like gratitude,’ said Tuppence.

‘You, of course, have got your work,’ she continued, ‘but tell me, Tommy, don’t you ever have a secret yearning for excitement, for things to happen?’

‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘at least I don’t think so. It is all very well to want things to happen – they might not be pleasant things.’

‘How prudent men are,’ sighed Tuppence. ‘Don’t you ever have a wild secret yearning for romance – adventure – life?’

‘What have you been reading, Tuppence?’ asked Tommy.

‘Think how exciting it would be,’ went on Tuppence, ‘if we heard a wild rapping at the door and went to open it and in staggered a dead man.’

‘If he was dead he couldn’t stagger,’ said Tommy critically.

‘You know what I mean,’ said Tuppence. ‘They always stagger in just before they die and fall at your feet, just gasping out a few enigmatic words. “The Spotted Leopard”, or something like that.’

‘I advise a course of Schopenhauer or Emmanuel Kant,’ said Tommy.

‘That sort of thing would be good for you,’ said Tuppence. ‘You are getting fat and comfortable.’

‘I am not,’ said Tommy indignantly. ‘Anyway you do slimming exercises yourself.’

‘Everybody does,’ said Tuppence. ‘When I said you were getting fat I was really speaking metaphorically, you are getting prosperous and sleek and comfortable.’

‘I don’t know what has come over you,’ said her husband.

‘The spirit of adventure,’ murmured Tuppence. ‘It is better than a longing for romance anyway. I have that sometimes too. I think of meeting a man, a really handsome man –’

‘You have met me,’ said Tommy. ‘Isn’t that enough for you?’

‘A brown, lean man, terrifically strong, the kind of man who can ride anything and lassoes wild horses –’

‘Complete with sheepskin trousers and a cowboy hat,’ interpolated Tommy sarcastically.

‘– and has lived in the Wilds,’ continued Tuppence. ‘I should like him to fall simply madly in love with me. I should, of course, rebuff him virtuously and be true to my marriage vows, but my heart would secretly go out to him.’

‘Well,’ said Tommy, ‘I often wish that I may meet a really beautiful girl. A girl with corn coloured hair who will fall desperately in love with me. Only I don’t think I rebuff her – in fact I am quite sure I don’t.’

‘That,’ said Tuppence, ‘is naughty temper.’

‘What,’ said Tommy, ‘is really the matter with you, Tuppence? You have never talked like this before.’

‘No, but I have been boiling up inside for a long time,’ said Tuppence. ‘You see it is very dangerous to have everything you want – including enough money to buy things. Of course there are always hats.’

‘You have got about forty hats already,’ said Tommy, ‘and they all look alike.’

‘Hats are like that,’ said Tuppence. ‘They are not really alike. There are nuances in them. I saw rather a nice one in Violette’s this morning.’

‘If you haven’t anything better to do than going on buying hats you don’t need –’

‘That’s it,’ said Tuppence, ‘that’s exactly it. If I had something better to do. I suppose I ought to take up good works. Oh, Tommy, I do wish something exciting would happen. I feel – I really do feel it would be good for us. If we could find a fairy –’

‘Ah!’ said Tommy. ‘It is curious your saying that.’

He got up and crossed the room. Opening a drawer of the writing table he took out a small snapshot print and brought it to Tuppence.

‘Oh!’ said Tuppence, ‘so you have got them developed. Which is this, the one you took of this room or the one I took?’

‘The one I took. Yours didn’t come out. You under exposed it. You always do.’

‘It is nice for you,’ said Tuppence, ‘to think that there is one thing you can do better than me.’

‘A foolish remark,’ said Tommy, ‘but I will let it pass for the moment. What I wanted to show you was this.’

He pointed to a small white speck on the photograph.

‘That is a scratch on the film,’ said Tuppence.

‘Not at all,’ said Tommy. ‘That, Tuppence, is a fairy.’

‘Tommy, you idiot.’

‘Look for yourself.’

He handed her a magnifying glass. Tuppence studied the print attentively through it. Seen thus by a slight stretch of fancy the scratch on the film could be imagined to represent a small winged creature on the fender.

‘It has got wings,’ cried Tuppence. ‘What fun, a real live fairy in our flat. Shall we write to Conan Doyle about it? Oh, Tommy. Do you think she’ll give us wishes?’

‘You will soon know,’ said Tommy. ‘You have been wishing hard enough for something to happen all the afternoon.’

At that minute the door opened, and a tall lad of fifteen who seemed undecided as to whether he was a butler or a page boy inquired in a truly magnificent manner.

‘Are you at home, madam? The front-door bell has just rung.’

‘I wish Albert wouldn’t go to the Pictures,’ sighed Tuppence, after she had signified her assent, and Albert had withdrawn. ‘He’s copying a Long Island butler now. Thank goodness I’ve cured him of asking for people’s cards and bringing them to me on a salver.’

The door opened again, and Albert announced: ‘Mr Carter,’ much as though it were a Royal title.

‘The Chief,’ muttered Tommy, in great surprise.

Tuppence jumped up with a glad exclamation, and greeted a tall grey-haired man with piercing eyes and a tired smile.

‘Mr Carter, I am glad to see you.’

‘That’s good, Mrs Tommy. Now answer me a question. How’s life generally?’

‘Satisfactory, but dull,’ replied Tuppence with a twinkle.

‘Better and better,’ said Mr Carter. ‘I’m evidently going to find you in the right mood.’

‘This,’ said Tuppence, ‘sounds exciting.’

Albert, still copying the Long Island butler, brought in tea. When this operation was completed without mishap and the door had closed behind him Tuppence burst out once more.

‘You did mean something, didn’t you, Mr Carter? Are you going to send us on a mission into darkest Russia?’

‘Not exactly that,’ said Mr Carter.

‘But there is something.’

‘Yes – there is something. I don’t think you are the kind who shrinks from risks, are you, Mrs Tommy?’

Tuppence’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

‘There is certain work to be done for the Department – and I fancied – I just fancied – that it might suit you two.’

‘Go on,’ said Tuppence.

‘I see that you take the Daily Leader,’ continued Mr Carter, picking up that journal from the table.

He turned to the advertisement column and indicating a certain advertisement with his finger pushed the paper across to Tommy.

‘Read that out,’ he said.

Tommy complied.

‘The International Detective Agency, Theodore Blunt, Manager. Private Inquiries. Large staff of confidential and highly skilled Inquiry Agents. Utmost discretion. Consultations free. 118 Haleham St, W.C.’

He looked inquiringly at Mr Carter. The latter nodded. ‘That detective agency has been on its last legs for some time,’ he murmured. ‘Friend of mine acquired it for a mere song. We’re thinking of setting it going again – say, for a six months’ trial. And during that time, of course, it will have to have a manager.’

‘What about Mr Theodore Blunt?’ asked Tommy.

‘Mr Blunt has been rather indiscreet, I’m afraid. In fact, Scotland Yard have had to interfere. Mr Blunt is being detained at Her Majesty’s expense, and he won’t tell us half of what we’d like to know.’

‘I see, sir,’ said Tommy. ‘At least, I think I see.’

‘I suggest that you have six months leave from the office. Ill health. And, of course, if you like to run a Detective Agency under the name of Theodore Blunt, it’s nothing to do with me.’

Tommy eyed his Chief steadily.

‘Any instructions, sir?’

‘Mr Blunt did some foreign business, I believe. Look out for blue letters with a Russian stamp on them. From a ham merchant anxious to find his wife who came as a refugee to this country some years ago. Moisten the stamp and you’ll find the number 16 written underneath. Make a copy of these letters and send the originals on to me. Also if any one comes to the office and makes a reference to the number 16, inform me immediately.’

‘I understand, sir,’ said Tommy. ‘And apart from these instructions?’

Mr Carter picked up his gloves from the table and prepared to depart.

‘You can run the Agency as you please. I fancied’ – his eyes twinkled a little – ‘that it might amuse Mrs Tommy to try her hand at a little detective work.’

Chapter 2

A Pot of Tea

Mr and Mrs Beresford took possession of the offices of the International Detective Agency a few days later. They were on the second floor of a somewhat dilapidated building in Bloomsbury. In the small outer office, Albert relinquished the role of a Long Island butler, and took up that of office boy, a part which he played to perfection. A paper bag of sweets, inky hands, and a tousled head was his conception of the character.

From the outer office, two doors led into inner offices. On one door was painted the legend ‘Clerks’. On the other ‘Private’. Behind the latter was a small comfortable room furnished with an immense business-like desk, a lot of artistically labelled files, all empty, and some solid leather-seated chairs. Behind the desk sat the pseudo Mr Blunt trying to look as though he had run a Detective Agency all his life. A telephone, of course, stood at his elbow. Tuppence and he had rehearsed several good telephone effects, and Albert also had his instructions.

In the adjoining room was Tuppence, a typewriter, the necessary tables and chairs of an inferior type to those in the room of the great Chief, and a gas ring for making tea.

Nothing was wanting, in fact, save clients.

Tuppence, in the first ecstasies of initiation, had a few bright hopes.

‘It will be too marvellous,’ she declared. ‘We will hunt down murderers, and discover the missing family jewels, and find people who’ve disappeared and detect embezzlers.’

At this point Tommy felt it his duty to strike a more discouraging note.

‘Calm yourself, Tuppence, and try to forget the cheap fiction you are in the habit of reading. Our clientèle, if we have any clientèle at all – will consist solely of husbands who want their wives shadowed, and wives who want their husbands shadowed. Evidence for divorce is the sole prop of private inquiry agents.’

‘Ugh!’ said Tuppence, wrinkling a fastidious nose. ‘We shan’t touch divorce cases. We must raise the tone of our new profession.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Tommy doubtfully.

And now a week after installation they compared notes rather ruefully.

‘Three idiotic women whose husbands go away for weekends,’ sighed Tommy. ‘Anyone come whilst I was out at lunch?’

‘A fat old man with a flighty wife,’ sighed Tuppence sadly. ‘I’ve read in the papers for years that the divorce evil was growing, but somehow I never seemed to realise it until this last week. I’m sick and tired of saying, “We don’t undertake divorce cases.”’

‘We’ve put it in the advertisements now,’ Tommy reminded her. ‘So it won’t be so bad.’

‘I’m sure we advertise in the most tempting way too,’ said Tuppence in a melancholy voice. ‘All the same, I’m not going to be beaten. If necessary, I shall commit a crime myself, and you will detect it.’

‘And what good would that do? Think of my feelings when I bid you a tender farewell at Bow Street – or is it Vine Street?’

‘You are thinking of your bachelor days,’ said Tuppence pointedly.

‘The Old Bailey, that is what I mean,’ said Tommy.

‘Well,’ said Tuppence, ‘something has got to be done about it. Here we are bursting with talent and no chance of exercising it.’

‘I always like your cheery optimism, Tuppence. You seem to have no doubt whatever that you have talent to exercise.’

‘Of course,’ said Tuppence, opening her eyes very wide.

‘And yet you have no expert knowledge whatever.’

‘Well, I have read every detective novel that has been published in the last ten years.’

‘So have I,’ said Tommy, ‘but I have a sort of feeling that that wouldn’t really help us much.’

‘You always were a pessimist, Tommy. Belief in oneself – that is the great thing.’

‘Well, you have got it all right,’ said her husband.

‘Of course it is easy in detective stories,’ said Tuppence thoughtfully, ‘because one works backwards. I mean if one knows the solution one can arrange the clues. I wonder now –’

She paused wrinkling her brows.

‘Yes?’ said Tommy inquiringly.

‘I have got a sort of idea,’ said Tuppence. ‘It hasn’t quite come yet, but it’s coming.’ She rose resolutely. ‘I think I shall go and buy that hat I told you about.’

‘Oh, God!’ said Tommy, ‘another hat!’

‘It’s a very nice one,’ said Tuppence with dignity.

She went out with a resolute look on her face.

Once or twice in the following days Tommy inquired curiously about the idea. Tuppence merely shook her head and told him to give her time.

And then, one glorious morning, the first client arrived, and all else was forgotten.

There was a knock on the outer door of the office and Albert, who had just placed an acid drop between his lips, roared out an indistinct ‘Come in.’ He then swallowed the acid drop whole in his surprise and delight. For this looked like the Real Thing.

A tall young man, exquisitely and beautifully dressed, stood hesitating in the doorway.

‘A toff, if ever there was one,’ said Albert to himself. His judgement in such matters was good.

The young man was about twenty-four years of age, had beautifully slicked back hair, a tendency to pink rims round the eyes, and practically no chin to speak of.

In an ecstasy, Albert pressed a button under his desk and almost immediately a perfect fusilade of typing broke out from the direction of ‘Clerks’. Tuppence had rushed to the post of duty. The effect of this hum of industry was to overawe the young man still further.

‘I say,’ he remarked. ‘Is this the whatnot – detective agency – Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives? All that sort of stuff, you know? Eh?’

‘Did you want, sir, to speak to Mr Blunt himself?’ inquired Albert, with an air of doubts as to whether such a thing could be managed.

‘Well – yes, laddie, that was the jolly old idea. Can it be done?’

‘You haven’t an appointment, I suppose?’

The visitor became more and more apologetic.

‘Afraid I haven’t.’

‘It’s always wise, sir, to ring up on the phone first. Mr Blunt is so terribly busy. He’s engaged on the telephone at the moment. Called into consultation by Scotland Yard.’

The young man seemed suitably impressed.

Albert lowered his voice, and imparted information in a friendly fashion.

‘Important theft of documents from a Government Office. They want Mr Blunt to take up the case.’

‘Oh! really. I say. He must be no end of a fellow.’

‘The Boss, sir,’ said Albert, ‘is It.’

The young man sat down on a hard chair, completely unconscious of the fact that he was being subjected to keen scrutiny by two pairs of eyes looking through cunningly contrived peep-holes – those of Tuppence, in the intervals of frenzied typing, and those of Tommy awaiting the suitable moment.

Presently a bell rang with violence on Albert’s desk.

‘The Boss is free now. I will find out whether he can see you,’ said Albert, and disappeared through the door marked ‘Private’.

He reappeared immediately.

‘Will you come this way, sir?’

The visitor was ushered into the private office, and a pleasant faced young man with red hair and an air of brisk capability rose to greet him.

‘Sit down. You wish to consult me? I am Mr Blunt.’

‘Oh! Really. I say, you’re awfully young, aren’t you?’

‘The day of the Old Men is over,’ said Tommy, waving his hand. ‘Who caused the war? The Old Men. Who is responsible for the present state of unemployment? The Old Men. Who is responsible for every single rotten thing that has happened? Again I say, the Old Men!’

‘I expect you are right,’ said the client, ‘I know a fellow who is a poet – at least he says he is a poet – and he always talks like that.’

‘Let me tell you this, sir, not a person on my highly trained staff is a day over twenty-five. That is the truth.’

Since the highly trained staff consisted of Tuppence and Albert, the statement was truth itself.

‘And now – the facts,’ said Mr Blunt.

‘I want you to find someone that’s missing,’ blurted out the young man.

‘Quite so. Will you give me the details?’

‘Well, you see, it’s rather difficult. I mean, it’s a frightfully delicate business and all that. She might be frightfully waxy about it. I mean – well, it’s so dashed difficult to explain.’

He looked helplessly at Tommy. Tommy felt annoyed. He had been on the point of going out to lunch, but he foresaw that getting the facts out of this client would be a long and tedious business.

‘Did she disappear of her own free will, or do you suspect abduction?’ he demanded crisply.

‘I don’t know,’ said the young man. ‘I don’t know anything.’

Tommy reached for a pad and pencil.

‘First of all,’ he said, ‘will you give me your name? My office boy is trained never to ask names. In that way consultations can remain completely confidential.’

‘Oh! rather,’ said the young man. ‘Jolly good idea. My name – er – my name’s Smith.’

‘Oh! no,’ said Tommy. ‘The real one, please.’

His visitor looked at him in awe.

‘Er – St Vincent,’ he said. ‘Lawrence St Vincent.’

‘It’s a curious thing,’ said Tommy, ‘how very few people there are whose real name is Smith. Personally, I don’t know anyone called Smith. But nine men out of ten who wish to conceal their real name give that of Smith. I am writing a monograph upon the subject.’

At that moment a buzzer purred discreetly on his desk. That meant that Tuppence was requesting to take hold. Tommy, who wanted his lunch, and who felt profoundly unsympathetic towards Mr St Vincent, was only too pleased to relinquish the helm.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, and picked up the telephone.

Across his face there shot rapid changes – surprise, consternation, slight elation.

‘You don’t say so,’ he said into the phone. ‘The Prime Minister himself? Of course, in that case, I will come round at once.’

He replaced the receiver on the hook, and turned to his client.

‘My dear sir, I must ask you to excuse me. A most urgent summons. If you will give the facts of the case to my confidential secretary, she will deal with them.’

He strode to the adjoining door.

‘Miss Robinson.’

Tuppence, very neat and demure with smooth black head and dainty collars and cuffs, tripped in. Tommy made the necessary introductions and departed.

‘A lady you take an interest in has disappeared, I understand, Mr St Vincent,’ said Tuppence, in her soft voice, as she sat down and took up Mr Blunt’s pad and pencil. ‘A young lady?’

‘Oh! rather,’ said St Vincent. ‘Young – and – and – awfully good-looking and all that sort of thing.’

Tuppence’s face grew grave.

‘Dear me,’ she murmured. ‘I hope that –’

‘You don’t think anything’s really happened to her?’ demanded Mr St Vincent, in lively concern.

‘Oh! we must hope for the best,’ said Tuppence, with a kind of false cheerfulness which depressed Mr St Vincent horribly.

‘Oh! look here, Miss Robinson. I say, you must do something. Spare no expense. I wouldn’t have anything happen to her for the world. You seem awfully sympathetic, and I don’t mind telling you in confidence that I simply worship the ground that girl walks on. She’s a topper, an absolute topper.’

‘Please tell me her name and all about her.’

‘Her name’s Jeanette – I don’t know her second name. She works in a hat shop – Madame Violette’s in Brook Street – but she’s as straight as they make them. Has ticked me off no end of times – I went round there yesterday – waiting for her to come out – all the others came, but not her. Then I found that she’d never turned up that morning to work at all – sent no message either – old Madame was furious about it. I got the address of her lodgings, and I went round there. She hadn’t come home the night before, and they didn’t know where she was. I was simply frantic. I thought of going to the police. But I knew that Jeanette would be absolutely furious with me for doing that if she were really all right and had gone off on her own. Then I remembered that she herself had pointed out your advertisement to me one day in the paper and told me that one of the women who’d been in buying hats had simply raved about your ability and discretion and all that sort of thing. So I toddled along here right away.’

‘I see,’ said Tuppence. ‘What is the address of her lodgings?’

The young man gave it to her.

‘That’s all, I think,’ said Tuppence reflectively. ‘That is to say – am I to understand that you are engaged to this young lady?’

Mr St Vincent turned a brick red.

‘Well, no – not exactly. I never said anything. But I can tell you this, I mean to ask her to marry me as soon as ever I see her – if I ever do see her again.’

Tuppence laid aside her pad.

‘Do you wish for our special twenty-four hour service?’ she asked in business-like tones.

‘What’s that?’

‘The fees are doubled, but we put all our available staff on to the case. Mr St Vincent, if the lady is alive, I shall be able to tell you where she is by this time tomorrow.’

‘What? I say, that’s wonderful.’

‘We only employ experts – and we guarantee results,’ said Tuppence crisply.

‘But I say, you know. You must have the most topping staff.’

‘Oh! we have,’ said Tuppence. ‘By the way, you haven’t given me a description of the young lady.’

‘She’s got the most marvellous hair – sort of golden but very deep, like a jolly old sunset – that’s it, a jolly old sunset. You know, I never noticed things like sunsets until lately. Poetry too, there’s a lot more in poetry than I ever thought.’

‘Red hair,’ said Tuppence unemotionally, writing it down. ‘What height should you say the lady was?’

‘Oh! tallish, and she’s got ripping eyes, dark blue, I think. And a sort of decided manner with her – takes a fellow up short sometimes.’

Tuppence wrote down a few words more, then closed her notebook and rose.

‘If you will call here tomorrow at two o’clock, I think we shall have news of some kind for you,’ she said. ‘Good-morning, Mr St Vincent.’

When Tommy returned Tuppence was just consulting a page of Debrett.

‘I’ve got all the details,’ she said succinctly. ‘Lawrence St Vincent is the nephew and heir of the Earl of Cheriton. If we pull this through we shall get publicity in the highest places.’

Tommy read through the notes on the pad.

‘What do you really think has happened to the girl?’ he asked.

‘I think,’ said Tuppence, ‘that she has fled at the dictates of her heart, feeling that she loves this young man too well for her peace of mind.’

Tommy looked at her doubtfully.

‘I know they do it in books,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never known any girl who did it in real life.’

‘No?’ said Tuppence. ‘Well, perhaps you’re right. But I dare say Lawrence St Vincent will swallow that sort of slush. He’s full of romantic notions just now. By the way, I guaranteed results in twenty-four hours – our special service.’

‘Tuppence – you congenital idiot, what made you do that?’

‘The idea just came into my head. I thought it sounded rather well. Don’t you worry. Leave it to mother. Mother knows best.’

She went out leaving Tommy profoundly dissatisfied.

Presently he rose, sighed, and went out to do what could be done, cursing Tuppence’s over-fervent imagination.

When he returned weary and jaded at half-past four, he found Tuppence extracting a bag of biscuits from their place of concealment in one of the files.

‘You look hot and bothered,’ she remarked. ‘What have you been doing?’

Tommy groaned.

‘Making a round of the hospitals with that girl’s description.’

‘Didn’t I tell you to leave it to me?’ demanded Tuppence.

‘You can’t find that girl single-handed before two o’clock tomorrow.’

‘I can – and what’s more, I have!’

‘You have? What do you mean?’

‘A simple problem, Watson, very simple indeed.’

‘Where is she now?’

Tuppence pointed a hand over her shoulder.

‘She’s in my office next door.’

‘What is she doing there?’

Tuppence began to laugh.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘early training will tell, and with a kettle, a gas ring, and half a pound of tea staring her in the face, the result is a foregone conclusion.

‘You see,’ continued Tuppence gently. ‘Madame Violette’s is where I go for my hats, and the other day I ran across an old pal of hospital days amongst the girls there. She gave up nursing after the war and started a hat shop, failed, and took this job at Madame Violette’s. We fixed up the whole thing between us. She was to rub the advertisement well into young St Vincent, and then disappear. Wonderful efficiency of Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives. Publicity for us, and the necessary fillip to young St Vincent to bring him to the point of proposing. Janet was in despair about it.’

‘Tuppence,’ said Tommy. ‘You take my breath away! The whole thing is the most immoral business I ever heard of. You aid and abet this young man to marry out of his class –’

‘Stuff,’ said Tuppence. ‘Janet is a splendid girl – and the queer thing is that she really adores that week-kneed young man. You can see with half a glance what his family needs. Some good red blood in it. Janet will be the making of him. She’ll look after him like a mother, ease down the cocktails and the night clubs and make him lead a good healthy country gentleman’s life. Come and meet her.’

Tuppence opened the door of the adjoining office and Tommy followed her.

A tall girl with lovely auburn hair, and a pleasant face, put down the steaming kettle in her hand, and turned with a smile that disclosed an even row of white teeth.

‘I hope you’ll forgive me, Nurse Cowley – Mrs Beresford, I mean. I thought that very likely you’d be quite ready for a cup of tea yourself. Many’s the pot of tea you’ve made for me in the hospital at three o’clock in the morning.’

‘Tommy,’ said Tuppence. ‘Let me introduce you to my old friend, Nurse Smith.’

‘Smith, did you say? How curious!’ said Tommy shaking hands. ‘Eh? Oh! nothing – a little monograph that I was thinking of writing.’

‘Pull yourself together, Tommy,’ said Tuppence.

She poured him out a cup of tea.

‘Now, then, let’s drink together. Here’s to the success of the International Detective Agency. Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives! May they never know failure!’

Chapter 3

The Affair of the Pink Pearl

‘What on earth are you doing?’ demanded Tuppence, as she entered the inner sanctum of the International Detective Agency – (Slogan – Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives) and discovered her lord and master prone on the floor in a sea of books.

Tommy struggled to his feet.

‘I was trying to arrange these books on the top shelf of that cupboard,’ he complained. ‘And the damned chair gave way.’

‘What are they, anyway?’ asked Tuppence, picking up a volume. ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles. I wouldn’t mind reading that again some time.’

‘You see the idea?’ said Tommy, dusting himself with care. ‘Half-hours with the Great Masters – that sort of thing. You see, Tuppence, I can’t help feeling that we are more or less amateurs at this business – of course amateurs in one sense we cannot help being, but it would do no harm to acquire the technique, so to speak. These books are detective stories by the leading masters of the art. I intend to try different styles, and compare results.’

‘H’m,’ said Tuppence. ‘I often wonder how these detectives would have got on in real life.’ She picked up another volume. ‘You’ll find a difficulty in being a Thorndyke. You’ve no medical experience, and less legal, and I never heard that science was your strong point.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Tommy. ‘But at any rate I’ve bought a very good camera, and I shall photograph footprints and enlarge the negatives and all that sort of thing. Now, mon ami, use your little grey cells – what does this convey to you?’

He pointed to the bottom shelf of the cupboard. On it lay a somewhat futuristic dressing-gown, a turkish slipper, and a violin.

‘Obvious, my dear Watson,’ said Tuppence.

‘Exactly,’ said Tommy. ‘The Sherlock Holmes touch.’

He took up the violin and drew the bow idly across the strings, causing Tuppence to give a wail of agony.

At that moment the buzzer rang on the desk, a sign that a client had arrived in the outer office and was being held in parley by Albert, the office boy.

Tommy hastily replaced the violin in the cupboard and kicked the books behind the desk.

‘Not that there’s any great hurry,’ he remarked. ‘Albert will be handing them out the stuff about my being engaged with Scotland Yard on the phone. Get into your office and start typing, Tuppence. It makes the office sound busy and active. No, on second thoughts you shall be taking notes in shorthand from my dictation. Let’s have a look before we get Albert to send the victim in.’

They approached the peephole which had been artistically contrived so as to command a view of the outer office.

The client was a girl of about Tuppence’s age, tall and dark with a rather haggard face and scornful eyes.

‘Clothes cheap and striking,’ remarked Tuppence. ‘Have her in, Tommy.’

In another minute the girl was shaking hands with the celebrated Mr Blunt, whilst Tuppence sat by with eyes demurely downcast, and pad and pencil in hand.

‘My confidential secretary, Miss Robinson,’ said Mr Blunt with a wave of his hand. ‘You may speak freely before her.’ Then he lay back for a minute, half closed his eyes and remarked in a tired tone: ‘You must find travelling in a bus very crowded at this time of day.’

‘I came in a taxi,’ said the girl.

‘Oh!’said Tommy aggrieved. His eyes rested reproachfully on a blue bus ticket protruding from her glove. The girl’s eyes followed his glance, and she smiled and drew it out.

‘You mean this? I picked it up on the pavement. A little neighbour of ours collects them.’

Tuppence coughed, and Tommy threw a baleful glare at her.

‘We must get to business,’ he said briskly. ‘You are in need of our services, Miss –?’

‘Kingston Bruce is my name,’ said the girl. ‘We live at Wimbledon. Last night a lady who is staying with us lost a valuable pink pearl. Mr St Vincent was also dining with us, and during dinner he happened to mention your firm. My mother sent me off to you this morning to ask you if you would look into the matter for us.’

The girl spoke sullenly, almost disagreeably. It was clear as daylight that she and her mother had not agreed over the matter. She was here under protest.

‘I see,’ said Tommy, a little puzzled. ‘You have not called in the police?’

‘No,’ said Miss Kingston Bruce, ‘we haven’t. It would be idiotic to call in the police and then find the silly thing had rolled under the fireplace, or something like that.’

‘Oh!’ said Tommy. ‘Then the jewel may only be lost after all?’

Miss Kingston Bruce shrugged her shoulders.

‘People make such a fuss about things,’ she murmured. Tommy cleared his throat.

‘Of course,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I am extremely busy just now –’

‘I quite understand,’ said the girl, rising to her feet. There was a quick gleam of satisfaction in her eyes which Tuppence, for one, did not miss.

‘Nevertheless,’ continued Tommy. ‘I think I can manage to run down to Wimbledon. Will you give me the address, please?’

‘The Laurels, Edgeworth Road.’

‘Make a note of it, please, Miss Robinson.’

Miss Kingston Bruce hesitated, then said rather ungraciously.

‘We’ll expect you then. Good-morning.’

‘Funny girl,’ said Tommy when she had left. ‘I couldn’t quite make her out.’

‘I wonder if she stole the thing herself,’ remarked Tuppence meditatively. ‘Come on, Tommy, let’s put away these books and take the car and go down there. By the way, who are you going to be, Sherlock Holmes still?’

‘I think I need practice for that,’ said Tommy. ‘I came rather a cropper over that bus ticket, didn’t I?’

‘You did,’ said Tuppence. ‘If I were you I shouldn’t try too much on that girl – she’s as sharp as a needle. She’s unhappy too, poor devil.’

‘I suppose you know all about her already,’ said Tommy with sarcasm, ‘simply from looking at the shape of her nose!’

‘I’ll tell you my idea of what we shall find at The Laurels,’ said Tuppence, quite unmoved. ‘A household of snobs, very keen to move in the best society; the father, if there is a father, is sure to have a military title. The girl falls in with their way of life and despises herself for doing so.’

Tommy took a last look at the books now neatly arranged upon the shelf.

‘I think,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that I shall be Thorndyke today.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought there was anything medico-legal about this case,’ remarked Tuppence.

‘Perhaps not,’ said Tommy. ‘But I’m simply dying to use that new camera of mine! It’s supposed to have the most marvellous lens that ever was or could be.’

‘I know those kind of lenses,’ said Tuppence. ‘By the time you’ve adjusted the shutter and stopped down and calculated the exposure and kept your eye on the spirit level, your brain gives out, and you yearn for the simple Brownie.’

‘Only an unambitious soul is content with the simple Brownie.’

‘Well, I bet I shall get better results with it than you will.’

Tommy ignored the challenge.

‘I ought to have a “Smoker’s Companion”,’ he said regretfully. ‘I wonder where one buys them?’

‘There’s always the patent corkscrew Aunt Araminta gave you last Christmas,’ said Tuppence helpfully.

‘That’s true,’ said Tommy. ‘A curious-looking engine of destruction I thought it at the time, and rather a humorous present to get from a strictly tee-total aunt.’

‘I,’ said Tuppence, ‘shall be Polton.’

Tommy looked at her scornfully.

‘Polton indeed. You couldn’t begin to do one of the things that he does.’

‘Yes, I can,’ said Tuppence. ‘I can rub my hands together when I’m pleased. That’s quite enough to get on with. I hope you’re going to take plaster casts of footprints?’

Tommy was reduced to silence. Having collected the corkscrew they went round to the garage, got out the car and started for Wimbledon.

The Laurels was a big house. It ran somewhat to gables and turrets, had an air of being very newly painted and was surrounded with neat flower beds filled with scarlet geraniums.

A tall man with a close-cropped white moustache, and an exaggeratedly martial bearing opened the door before Tommy had time to ring.

‘I’ve been looking out for you,’ he explained fussily. ‘Mr Blunt, is it not? I am Colonel Kingston Bruce. Will you come into my study?’

He let them into a small room at the back of the house.

‘Young St Vincent was telling me wonderful things about your firm. I’ve noticed your advertisements myself. This guaranteed twenty-four hours’ service of yours – a marvellous notion. That’s exactly what I need.’

Inwardly anathematising Tuppence for her irresponsibility in inventing this brilliant detail, Tommy replied: ‘Just so, Colonel.’

‘The whole thing is most distressing, sir, most distressing.’

‘Perhaps you would kindly give me the facts,’ said Tommy, with a hint of impatience.

‘Certainly I will – at once. We have at the present moment staying with us a very old and dear friend of ours, Lady Laura Barton. Daughter of the late Earl of Carrowway. The present earl, her brother, made a striking speech in the House of Lords the other day. As I say, she is an old and dear friend of ours. Some American friends of mine who have just come over, the Hamilton Betts, were most anxious to meet her. “Nothing easier,” I said. “She is staying with me now. Come down for the weekend.” You know what Americans are about titles, Mr Blunt.’

‘And others beside Americans sometimes, Colonel Kingston Bruce.’

‘Alas! only too true, my dear sir. Nothing I hate more than a snob. Well, as I was saying, the Betts came down for the weekend. Last night – we were playing bridge at the time – the clasp of a pendant Mrs Hamilton Betts was wearing broke, so she took it off and laid it down on a small table, meaning to take it upstairs with her when she went. This, however, she forgot to do. I must explain, Mr Blunt, that the pendant consisted of two small diamond wings, and a big pink pearl depending from them. The pendant was found this morning lying where Mrs Betts had left it, but the pearl, a pearl of enormous value, had been wrenched off.’

‘Who found the pendant?’

‘The parlourmaid – Gladys Hill.’

‘Any reason to suspect her?’

‘She has been with us some years, and we have always found her perfectly honest. But, of course, one never knows –’

‘Exactly. Will you describe your staff, and also tell me who was present at dinner last night?’

‘There is the cook – she has been with us only two months, but then she would have no occasion to go near the drawing-room – the same applies to the kitchenmaid. Then there is the housemaid, Alice Cummings. She also has been with us for some years. And Lady Laura’s maid, of course. She is French.’

Colonel Kingston Bruce looked very impressive as he said this. Tommy, unaffected by the revelation of the maid’s nationality, said: ‘Exactly. And the party at dinner?’

‘Mr and Mrs Betts, ourselves – my wife and daughter – and Lady Laura. Young St Vincent was dining with us, and Mr Rennie looked in after dinner for a while.’

‘Who is Mr Rennie?’

‘A most pestilential fellow – an arrant socialist. Good looking, of course, and with a certain specious power of argument. But a man, I don’t mind telling you, whom I wouldn’t trust a yard. A dangerous sort of fellow.’

‘In fact,’ said Tommy drily, ‘it is Mr Rennie whom you suspect?’

‘I do, Mr Blunt. I’m sure, holding the views he does, that he can have no principles whatsoever. What could have been easier for him than to have quietly wrenched off the pearl at a moment when we were all absorbed in our game? There were several absorbing moments – a redoubled no trump hand, I remember, and also a painful argument when my wife had the misfortune to revoke.’

‘Quite so,’ said Tommy. ‘I should just like to know one thing – what is Mrs Betts’s attitude in all this?’

‘She wanted me to call in the police,’ said Colonel Kingston Bruce reluctantly. ‘That is, when we had searched everywhere in case the pearl had only dropped off.’

‘But you dissuaded her?’

‘I was very averse to the idea of publicity and my wife and daughter backed me up. Then my wife remembered young St Vincent speaking about your firm at dinner last night – and the twenty-four hours’ special service.’

‘Yes,’ said Tommy, with a heavy heart.

‘You see, in any case, no harm will be done. If we call in the police tomorrow, it can be supposed that we thought the jewel merely lost and were hunting for it. By the way, nobody has been allowed to leave the house this morning.’

‘Except your daughter, of course,’ said Tuppence, speaking for the first time.

‘Except my daughter,’ agreed the Colonel. ‘She volunteered at once to go and put the case before you.’

Tommy rose.

‘We will do our best to give you satisfaction, Colonel,’ he said. ‘I should like to see the drawing-room, and the table on which the pendant was laid down. I should also like to ask Mrs Betts a few questions. After that, I will interview the servants – or rather my assistant, Miss Robinson, will do so.’

He felt his nerve quailing before the terrors of questioning the servants.

Colonel Kingston Bruce threw open the door and led them across the hall. As he did so, a remark came to them clearly through the open door of the room they were approaching and the voice that uttered it was that of the girl who had come to see them that morning.

‘You know perfectly well, Mother,’ she was saying, ‘that she did bring home a teaspoon in her muff.’

In another minute they were being introduced to Mrs Kingston Bruce, a plaintive lady with a languid manner. Miss Kingston Bruce acknowledged their presence with a short inclination of the head. Her face was more sullen than ever.

Mrs Kingston Bruce was voluble.

‘– but I know who I think took it,’ she ended. ‘That dreadful socialist young man. He loves the Russians and the Germans and hates the English – what else can you expect?’

‘He never touched it,’ said Miss Kingston Bruce fiercely. ‘I was watching him – all the time. I couldn’t have failed to see if he had.’

She looked at them defiantly with her chin up.

Tommy created a diversion by asking for an interview with Mrs Betts. When Mrs Kingston Bruce had departed accompanied by her husband and daughter to find Mrs Betts, he whistled thoughtfully.

‘I wonder,’ he said gently, ‘who it was who had a teaspoon in her muff?’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ replied Tuppence.

Mrs Betts, followed by her husband, burst into the room. She was a big woman with a determined voice. Mr Hamilton Betts looked dyspeptic and subdued.

‘I understand, Mr Blunt, that you are a private inquiry agent, and one who hustles things through at a great rate?’

‘Hustle,’ said Tommy, ‘is my middle name, Mrs Betts. Let me ask you a few questions.’

Thereafter things proceeded rapidly. Tommy was shown the damaged pendant, the table on which it had lain, and Mr Betts emerged from his taciturnity to mention the value, in dollars, of the stolen pearl.

And withal, Tommy felt an irritating certainty that he was not getting on.

‘I think that will do,’ he said, at length. ‘Miss Robinson, will you kindly fetch the special photographic apparatus from the hall?’

Miss Robinson complied.

‘A little invention of my own,’ said Tommy. ‘In appearance, you see, it is just like an ordinary camera.’

He had some slight satisfaction in seeing that the Betts were impressed.

He photographed the pendant, the table on which it had lain, and took several general views of the apartment. Then ‘Miss Robinson’ was delegated to interview the servants, and in view of the eager expectancy on the faces of Colonel Kingston Bruce and Mrs Betts, Tommy felt called upon to say a few authoritative words.

‘The position amounts to this,’ he said. ‘Either the pearl is still in the house, or it is not still in the house.’

‘Quite so,’ said the Colonel with more respect than was, perhaps, quite justified by the nature of the remark.

‘If it is not in the house, it may be anywhere – but if it is in the house, it must necessarily be concealed somewhere –’

‘And a search must be made,’ broke in Colonel Kingston Bruce. ‘Quite so. I give you carte blanche, Mr Blunt. Search the house from attic to cellar.’

‘Oh! Charles,’ murmured Mrs Kingston Bruce tearfully, ‘do you think that is wise? The servants won’t like it. I’m sure they’ll leave.’

‘We will search their quarters last,’ said Tommy soothingly. ‘The thief is sure to have hidden the gem in the most unlikely place.’

‘I seem to have read something of the kind,’ agreed the Colonel.

‘Quite so,’ said Tommy. ‘You probably remember the case of Rex v Bailey, which created a precedent.’

‘Oh – er – yes,’ said the Colonel, looking puzzled.

‘Now, the most unlikely place is in the apartment of Mrs Betts,’ continued Tommy.

‘My! Wouldn’t that be too cute?’ said Mrs Betts admiringly.

Without more ado she took him up to her room, where Tommy once more made use of the special photographic apparatus.

Presently Tuppence joined him there.

‘You have no objection, I hope, Mrs Betts, to my assistant’s looking through your wardrobe?’

‘Why, not at all. Do you need me here any longer?’

Tommy assured her that there was no need to detain her, and Mrs Betts departed.

‘We might as well go on bluffing it out,’ said Tommy. ‘But personally I don’t believe we’ve a dog’s chance of finding the thing. Curse you and your twenty-four hours’ stunt, Tuppence.’

‘Listen,’ said Tuppence. ‘The servants are all right, I’m sure, but I managed to get something out of the French maid. It seems that when Lady Laura was staying here a year ago, she went out to tea with some friends of the Kingston Bruces, and when she got home a teaspoon fell out of her muff. Everyone thought it must have fallen in by accident. But, talking about similar robberies, I got hold of a lot more. Lady Laura is always staying about with people. She hasn’t got a bean, I gather, and she’s out for comfortable quarters with people to whom a title still means something. It may be a coincidence – or it may be something more, but five distinct thefts have taken place whilst she has been staying in various houses, sometimes trivial things, sometimes valuable jewels.’

‘Whew!’ said Tommy, and gave vent to a prolonged whistle. ‘Where’s the old bird’s room, do you know?’

‘Just across the passage.’

‘Then I think, I rather think, that we’ll just slip across and investigate.’

The room opposite stood with its door ajar. It was a spacious apartment, with white enamelled fitments and rose pink curtains. An inner door led to a bathroom. At the door of this appeared a slim, dark girl, very neatly dressed.

Tuppence checked the exclamation of astonishment on the girl’s lips.

‘This is Elise, Mr Blunt,’ she said primly. ‘Lady Laura’s maid.’

Tommy stepped across the threshold of the bathroom, and approved inwardly its sumptuous and up-to-date fittings. He set to work to dispel the wide stare of suspicion on the French girl’s face.

‘You are busy with your duties, eh, Mademoiselle Elise?’

‘Yes, Monsieur, I clean Milady’s bath.’

‘Well, perhaps you’ll help me with some photography instead. I have a special kind of camera here, and I am photographing the interiors of all the rooms in this house.’

He was interrupted by the communicating door to the bedroom banging suddenly behind him. Elise jumped at the sound.

‘What did that?’

‘It must have been the wind,’ said Tuppence.

‘We will come into the other room,’ said Tommy.

Elise went to open the door for them, but the door knob rattled aimlessly.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Tommy sharply.

‘Ah, Monsieur, but somebody must have locked it on the other side.’ She caught up a towel and tried again. But this time the door handle turned easily enough, and the door swung open.

‘Voilà ce qui est curieux. It must have been stuck,’ said Elise.

There was no one in the bedroom.

Tommy fetched his apparatus. Tuppence and Elise worked under his orders. But again and again his glance went back to the communicating door.

‘I wonder,’ he said between his teeth – ‘I wonder why that door stuck?’

He examined it minutely, shutting and opening it. It fitted perfectly.

‘One picture more,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Will you loop back that rose curtain, Mademoiselle Elise? Thank you. Just hold it so.’

The familiar click occurred. He handed a glass slide to Elise to hold, relinquished the tripod to Tuppence, and carefully readjusted and closed the camera.

He made some easy excuse to get rid of Elise, and as soon as she was out of the room, he caught hold of Tuppence and spoke rapidly.

‘Look here, I’ve got an idea. Can you hang on here? Search all the rooms – that will take some time. Try and get an interview with the old bird – Lady Laura – but don’t alarm her. Tell her you suspect the parlourmaid. But whatever you do don’t let her leave the house. I’m going off in the car. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘All right,’ said Tuppence. ‘But don’t be too cock-sure. You’ve forgotten one thing.

‘The girl. There’s something funny about that girl. Listen, I’ve found out the time she started from the house this morning. It took her two hours to get to our office. That’s nonsense. Where did she go before she came to us?’

‘There’s something in that,’ admitted her husband. ‘Well, follow up any old clue you like, but don’t let Lady Laura leave the house. What’s that?’

His quick ear had caught a faint rustle outside on the landing. He strode across to the door, but there was no one to be seen.

‘Well, so long,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

II

Tuppence watched him drive off in the car with a faint misgiving. Tommy was very sure – she herself was not so sure. There were one or two things she did not quite understand.

She was still standing by the window, watching the road, when she saw a man leave the shelter of a gateway opposite, cross the road and ring the bell.

In a flash Tuppence was out of the room and down the stairs. Gladys Hill, the parlourmaid, was emerging from the back part of the house, but Tuppence motioned her back authoritatively. Then she went to the front door and opened it.

A lanky young man with ill-fitting clothes and eager dark eyes was standing on the step.

He hesitated a moment, and then said:

‘Is Miss Kingston Bruce in?’

‘Will you come inside?’ said Tuppence.

She stood aside to let him enter, closing the door.

‘Mr Rennie, I think?’ she said sweetly.

He shot a quick glance at her.

‘Er – yes.’

‘Will you come in here, please?’

She opened the study door. The room was empty, and Tuppence entered it after him, closing the door behind her. He turned on her with a frown.

‘I want to see Miss Kingston Bruce.’

‘I am not quite sure that you can,’ said Tuppence composedly.

‘Look here, who the devil are you?’ said Mr Rennie rudely.

‘International Detective Agency,’ said Tuppence succinctly – and noticed Mr Rennie’s uncontrollable start.

‘Please sit down, Mr Rennie,’ she went on. ‘To begin with, we know all about Miss Kingston Bruce’s visit to you this morning.’

It was a bold guess, but it succeeded. Perceiving his consternation, Tuppence went on quickly.

‘The recovery of the pearl is the great thing, Mr Rennie. No one in this house is anxious for – publicity. Can’t we come to some arrangement?’

The young man looked at her keenly.

‘I wonder how much you know,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Let me think for a moment.’

He buried his head in his hands – then asked a most unexpected question.

‘I say, is it really true that young St Vincent is engaged to be married?’

‘Quite true,’ said Tuppence. ‘I know the girl.’

Mr Rennie suddenly became confidential.

‘It’s been hell,’ he confided. ‘They’ve been asking her morning, noon and night – chucking Beatrice at his head. All because he’ll come into a title some day. If I had my way –’

‘Don’t let’s talk politics,’ said Tuppence hastily. ‘Do you mind telling me, Mr Rennie, why you think Miss Kingston Bruce took the pearl?’

‘I – I don’t.’

‘You do,’ said Tuppence calmly. ‘You wait to see the detective, as you think, drive off and the coast clear, and then you come and ask for her. It’s obvious. If you’d taken the pearl yourself, you wouldn’t be half so upset.’

‘Her manner was so odd,’ said the young man. ‘She came this morning and told me about the robbery, explaining that she was on her way to a firm of private detectives. She seemed anxious to say something, and yet not able to get it out.’

‘Well,’ said Tuppence. ‘All I want is the pearl. You’d better go and talk to her.’

But at that moment Colonel Kingston Bruce opened the door.

‘Lunch is ready, Miss Robinson. You will lunch with us, I hope. The –’

Then he stopped and glared at the guest.

‘Clearly,’ said Mr Rennie, ‘you don’t want to ask me to lunch. All right, I’ll go.’

‘Come back later,’ whispered Tuppence, as he passed her.

Tuppence followed Colonel Kingston Bruce, still growling into his moustache about the pestilential impudence of some people, into a massive dining-room where the family was already assembled. Only one person present was unknown to Tuppence.

‘This, Lady Laura, is Miss Robinson, who is kindly assisting us.’

Lady Laura bent her head, and then proceeded to stare at Tuppence through her pince-nez. She was a tall, thin woman, with a sad smile, a gentle voice, and very hard shrewd eyes. Tuppence returned her stare, and Lady Laura’s eyes dropped.

After lunch Lady Laura entered into conversation with an air of gentle curiosity. How was the inquiry proceeding? Tuppence laid suitable stress on the suspicion attaching to the parlourmaid, but her mind was not really on Lady Laura. Lady Laura might conceal teaspoons and other articles in her clothing, but Tuppence felt fairly sure that she had not taken the pink pearl.

Presently Tuppence proceeded with her search of the house. Time was going on. There was no sign of Tommy, and, what mattered far more to Tuppence, there was no sign of Mr Rennie. Suddenly Tuppence came out of a bedroom and collided with Beatrice Kingston Bruce, who was going downstairs. She was fully dressed for the street.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Tuppence, ‘that you mustn’t go out just now.’

The other girl looked at her haughtily.

‘Whether I go out or not is no business of yours,’ she said coldly.

‘It is my business whether I communicate with the police or not, though,’ said Tuppence.

In a minute the girl had turned ashy pale.

‘You mustn’t – you mustn’t – I won’t go out – but don’t do that.’ She clung to Tuppence beseechingly.

‘My dear Miss Kingston Bruce,’ said Tuppence, smiling, ‘the case has been perfectly clear to me from the start – I –’

But she was interrupted. In the stress of her encounter with the girl, Tuppence had not heard the front-door bell. Now, to her astonishment, Tommy came bounding up the stairs, and in the hall below she caught sight of a big burly man in the act of removing a bowler hat.

‘Detective Inspector Marriot of Scotland Yard,’ he said with a grin.

With a cry, Beatrice Kingston Bruce tore herself from Tuppence’s grasp and dashed down the stairs, just as the front door was opened once more to admit Mr Rennie.

‘Now you have torn it,’ said Tuppence bitterly.

‘Eh?’ said Tommy, hurrying into Lady Laura’s room. He passed on into the bathroom and picked up a large cake of soap which he brought out in his hands. The Inspector was just mounting the stairs.

‘She went quite quietly,’ he announced. ‘She’s an old hand and knows when the game is up. What about the pearl?’

‘I rather fancy,’ said Tommy, handing him the soap, ‘that you’ll find it in here.’

The Inspector’s eyes lit up appreciatively.

‘An old trick, and a good one. Cut a cake of soap in half, scoop out a place for the jewel, clap it together again, and smooth the join well over with hot water. A very smart piece of work on your part, sir.’

Tommy accepted the compliment gracefully. He and Tuppence descended the stairs. Colonel Kingston Bruce rushed at him and shook him warmly by the hand.

‘My dear sir, I can’t thank you enough. Lady Laura wants to thank you also –’

‘I am glad we have given you satisfaction,’ said Tommy. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t stop. I have a most urgent appointment. Member of the Cabinet.’

He hurried out to the car and jumped in. Tuppence jumped in beside him.

‘But Tommy,’ she cried. ‘Haven’t they arrested Lady Laura after all?’

‘Oh!’ said Tommy. ‘Didn’t I tell you? They’ve not arrested Lady Laura. They’ve arrested Elise.’

‘You see,’ he went on, as Tuppence sat dumb-founded, ‘I’ve often tried to open a door with soap on my hands myself. It can’t be done – your hands slip. So I wondered what Elise could have been doing with the soap to get her hands as soapy as all that. She caught up a towel, you remember, so there were no traces of soap on the handle afterwards. But it occurred to me that if you were a professional thief, it wouldn’t be a bad plan to be maid to a lady suspected of kleptomania who stayed about a good deal in different houses. So I managed to get a photo of her as well as of the room, induced her to handle a glass slide and toddled off to dear old Scotland Yard. Lightning development of negative, successful identification of finger-prints – and photo. Elise was a long lost friend. Useful place, Scotland Yard.’

‘And to think,’ said Tuppence, finding her voice, ‘that those two young idiots were only suspecting each other in that weak way they do it in books. But why didn’t you tell me what you were up to when you went off?’

‘In the first place, I suspected that Elise was listening on the landing, and in the second place –’

‘Yes?’

‘My learned friend forgets,’ said Tommy. ‘Thorndyke never tells until the last moment. Besides, Tuppence, you and your pal Janet Smith put one over on me last time. This makes us all square.’

Chapter 4

The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger

‘It’s been a darned dull day,’ said Tommy, and yawned widely.

‘Nearly tea time,’ said Tuppence and also yawned.

Business was not brisk in the International Detective Agency. The eagerly expected letter from the ham merchant had not arrived and bona fide cases were not forthcoming.

Albert, the office boy, entered with a sealed package which he laid on the table.

‘The Mystery of the Sealed Packet,’ murmured Tommy. ‘Did it contain the fabulous pearls of the Russian Grand Duchess? Or was it an infernal machine destined to blow Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives to pieces?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Tuppence, tearing open the package. ‘It’s my wedding present to Francis Haviland. Rather nice, isn’t it?’

Tommy took a slender silver cigarette case from her outstretched hand, noted the inscription engraved in her own handwriting, ‘Francis from Tuppence,’ opened and shut the case, and nodded approvingly.

‘You do throw your money about, Tuppence,’ he remarked. ‘I’ll have one like it, only in gold, for my birthday next month. Fancy wasting a thing like that on Francis Haviland, who always was and always will be one of the most perfect asses God ever made!’

‘You forget I used to drive him about during the war, when he was a General. Ah! those were the good old days.’

‘They were,’ agreed Tommy. ‘Beautiful women used to come and squeeze my hand in hospital, I remember. But I don’t send them all wedding presents. I don’t believe the bride will care much for this gift of yours, Tuppence.’

‘It’s nice and slim for the pocket, isn’t it?’ said Tuppence, disregarding his remarks.

Tommy slipped it into his own pocket.

‘Just right,’ he said approvingly. ‘Hullo, here is Albert with the afternoon post. Very possibly the Duchess of Perthshire is commissioning us to find her prize Peke.’

They sorted through the letters together. Suddenly Tommy gave vent to a prolonged whistle and held up one of them in his hand.

‘A blue letter with a Russian stamp on it. Do you remember what the Chief said? We were to look out for letters like that.’

‘How exciting,’ said Tuppence. ‘Something has happened at last. Open it and see if the contents are up to schedule. A ham merchant, wasn’t it? Half a minute. We shall want some milk for tea. They forgot to leave it this morning. I’ll send Albert out for it.’

She returned from the outer office, after despatching Albert on his errand, to find Tommy holding the blue sheet of paper in his hand.

‘As we thought, Tuppence,’ he remarked. ‘Almost word for word what the Chief said.’

Tuppence took the letter from him and read it.

It was couched in careful stilted English, and purported to be from one Gregor Feodorsky, who was anxious for news of his wife. The International Detective Agency was urged to spare no expense in doing their utmost to trace her. Feodorsky himself was unable to leave Russia at the moment owing to a crisis in the pork trade.

‘I wonder what it really means,’ said Tuppence thoughtfully, smoothing out the sheet on the table in front of her.

‘Code of some kind, I suppose,’ said Tommy. ‘That’s not our business. Our business is to hand it over to the Chief as soon as possible. Better just verify it by soaking off the stamp and seeing if the number 16 is underneath.’

‘All right,’ said Tuppence. ‘But I should think –’

She stopped dead, and Tommy, surprised by her sudden pause, looked up to see a man’s burly figure blocking the doorway.

The intruder was a man of commanding presence, squarely built, with a very round head and a powerful jaw. He might have been about forty-five years of age.

‘I must beg your pardon,’ said the stranger, advancing into the room, hat in hand. ‘I found your outer office empty and this door open, so I ventured to intrude. This is Blunt’s International Detective Agency, is it not?’

‘Certainly it is.’

‘And you are, perhaps, Mr Blunt? Mr Theodore Blunt?’

‘I am Mr Blunt. You wish to consult me? This is my secretary, Miss Robinson.’

Tuppence inclined her head gracefully, but continued to scrutinise the stranger narrowly through her downcast eyelashes. She was wondering how long he had been standing in the doorway, and how much he had seen and heard. It did not escape her observation that even while he was talking to Tommy, his eyes kept coming back to the blue paper in her hand.

Tommy’s voice, sharp with a warning note, recalled her to the needs of the moment.

‘Miss Robinson, please, take notes. Now, sir, will you kindly state the matter on which you wish to have my advice?’

Tuppence reached for her pad and pencil.

The big man began in rather a harsh voice.

‘My name is Bower. Dr Charles Bower. I live in Hampstead, where I have a practice. I have come to you, Mr Blunt, because several rather strange occurrences have happened lately.’

‘Yes, Dr Bower?’

‘Twice in the course of the last week I have been summoned by telephone to an urgent case – in each case to find that the summons has been a fake. The first time I thought a practical joke had been played upon me, but on my return the second time I found that some of my private papers had been displaced and disarranged, and now I believe that the same thing had happened the first time. I made an exhaustive search and came to the conclusion that my whole desk had been thoroughly ransacked, and the various papers replaced hurriedly.’

Dr Bower paused and gazed at Tommy.

‘Well, Mr Blunt?’

‘Well, Dr Bower,’ replied the young man, smiling.

‘What do you think of it, eh?’

‘Well, first I should like the facts. What do you keep in your desk?’

‘My private papers.’

‘Exactly. Now, what do those private papers consist of? What value are they to the common thief – or any particular person?’

‘To the common thief I cannot see that they would have any value at all, but my notes on certain obscure alkaloids would be of interest to anyone possessed of technical knowledge of the subject. I have been making a study of such matters for the last few years. These alkaloids are deadly and virulent poisons, and are in addition, almost untraceable. They yield no known reactions.’

‘The secret of them would be worth money, then?’

‘To unscrupulous persons, yes.’

‘And you suspect – whom?’

The doctor shrugged his massive shoulders.

‘As far as I can tell, the house was not entered forcibly from the outside. That seems to point to some member of my household, and yet I cannot believe –’ He broke off abruptly, then began again, his voice very grave.

‘Mr Blunt, I must place myself in your hands unreservedly. I dare not go to the police in the matter. Of my three servants I am almost entirely sure. They have served me long and faithfully. Still, one never knows. Then I have living with me my two nephews, Bertram and Henry. Henry is a good boy – a very good boy – he has never caused me any anxiety, an excellent hard-working young fellow. Bertram, I regret to say, is of quite a different character – wild, extravagant, and persistently idle.’

‘I see,’ said Tommy thoughtfully. ‘You suspect your nephew Bertram of being mixed up in this business. Now I don’t agree with you. I suspect the good boy – Henry.’

‘But why?’

‘Tradition. Precedent.’ Tommy waved his hand airily. ‘In my experience, the suspicious characters are always innocent – and vice versa, my dear sir. Yes, decidedly, I suspect Henry.’

‘Excuse me, Mr Blunt,’ said Tuppence, interrupting in a deferential tone. ‘Did I understand Dr Bower to say that these notes on – er – obscure alkaloids – are kept in the desk with the other papers?’

‘They are kept in the desk, my dear young lady, but in a secret drawer, the position of which is known only to myself. Hence they have so far defied the search.’

‘And what exactly do you want me to do, Dr Bower?’ asked Tommy. ‘Do you anticipate that a further search will be made?’

‘I do, Mr Blunt. I have every reason to believe so. This afternoon I received a telegram from a patient of mine whom I ordered to Bournemouth a few weeks ago. The telegram states that my patient is in a critical condition, and begs me to come down at once. Rendered suspicious by the events I have told you of, I myself despatched a telegram, prepaid, to the patient in question, and elicited the fact that he was in good health and had sent no summons to me of any kind. It occurred to me that if I pretended to have been taken in, and duly departed to Bournemouth, we should have a very good chance of finding the miscreants at work. They – or he – will doubtless wait until the household has retired to bed before commencing operations. I suggest that you should meet me outside my house at eleven o’clock this evening, and we will investigate the matter together.’

‘Hoping, in fact, to catch them in the act.’ Tommy drummed thoughtfully on the table with a paper-knife. ‘Your plan seems to me an excellent one, Dr Bower. I cannot see any hitch in it. Let me see, your address is –?’

‘The Larches, Hangman’s Lane – rather a lonely part, I am afraid. But we command magnificent views over the Heath.’

‘Quite so,’ said Tommy.

The visitor rose.

‘Then I shall expect you tonight, Mr Blunt. Outside The Larches at – shall we say, five minutes to eleven – to be on the safe side?’

‘Certainly. Five minutes to eleven. Good-afternoon, Dr Bower.’

Tommy rose, pressed a buzzer on his desk, and Albert appeared to show the client out. The doctor walked with a decided limp, but his powerful physique was evident in spite of it.

‘An ugly customer to tackle,’ murmured Tommy to himself. ‘Well, Tuppence, old girl, what do you think of it?’

‘I’ll tell you in one word,’ said Tuppence. ‘Clubfoot!’

‘What?’

‘I said Clubfoot! My study of the classics has not been in vain. Tommy, this thing’s a plant. Obscure alkaloids indeed – I never heard a weaker story.’

‘Even I did not find it very convincing,’ admitted her husband.

‘Did you see his eyes on the letter? Tommy, he’s one of the gang. They’ve got wise to the fact that you’re not the real Mr Blunt, and they’re out for our blood.’

‘In that case,’ said Tommy, opening the side cupboard and surveying his rows of books with an affectionate eye, ‘our role is easy to select. We are the brothers Okewood! And I am Desmond,’ he added firmly.

Tuppence shrugged her shoulders.

‘All right. Have it your own way. I’d as soon be Francis. Francis was much the more intelligent of the two. Desmond always gets into a mess, and Francis turns up as the gardener or something in the nick of time and saves the situation.’

‘Ah!’ said Tommy, ‘but I shall be a super Desmond. When I arrive at the Larches –’

Tuppence interrupted him unceremoniously.

‘You’re not going to Hampstead tonight?’

‘Why not?’

‘Walk into a trap with your eyes shut!’

‘No, my dear girl, walk into a trap with my eyes open. There’s a lot of difference. I think our friend, Dr Bower, will get a little surprise.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Tuppence. ‘You know what happens when Desmond disobeys the Chief’s orders and acts on his own. Our orders were quite clear. To send on the letters at once and to report immediately on anything that happened.’

‘You’ve not got it quite right,’ said Tommy. ‘We were to report immediately if any one came in and mentioned the number 16. Nobody has.’

‘That’s a quibble,’ said Tuppence.

‘It’s no good. I’ve got a fancy for playing a lone hand. My dear old Tuppence, I shall be all right. I shall go armed to the teeth. The essence of the whole thing is that I shall be on my guard and they won’t know it. The Chief will be patting me on the back for a good night’s work.’

‘Well,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t like it. That man’s as strong as a gorilla.’

‘Ah!’ said Tommy, ‘but think of my blue-nosed automatic.’

The door of the outer office opened and Albert appeared. Closing the door behind him, he approached them with an envelope in his hand.

‘A gentleman to see you,’ said Albert. ‘When I began the usual stunt of saying you were engaged with Scotland Yard, he told me he knew all about that. Said he came from Scotland Yard himself! And he wrote something on a card and stuck it up in this envelope.’

Tommy took the envelope and opened it. As he read the card, a grin passed across his face.

‘The gentleman was amusing himself at your expense by speaking the truth, Albert,’ he remarked. ‘Show him in.’

He tossed the card to Tuppence. It bore the name Detective Inspector Dymchurch, and across it was scrawled in pencil – ‘A friend of Marriot’s.’

In another minute the Scotland Yard detective was entering the inner office. In appearance, Inspector Dymchurch was of the same type as Inspector Marriot, short and thick set, with shrewd eyes.

‘Good-afternoon,’ said the detective breezily. ‘Marriot’s away in South Wales, but before he went he asked me to keep an eye on you two, and on this place in general. Oh, bless you, sir,’ he went on, as Tommy seemed about to interrupt him, ‘we know all about it. It’s not our department, and we don’t interfere. But somebody’s got wise lately to the fact that all is not what it seems. You’ve had a gentleman here this afternoon. I don’t know what he called himself, and I don’t know what his real name is, but I know just a little about him. Enough to want to know more. Am I right in assuming that he made a date with you for some particular spot this evening?’

‘Quite right.’

‘I thought as much. 16 Westerham Road, Finsbury Park – was that it?’

‘You’re wrong there,’ said Tommy with a smile. ‘Dead wrong. The Larches, Hampstead.’

Dymchurch seemed honestly taken aback. Clearly he had not expected this.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he muttered. ‘It must be a new layout. The Larches, Hampstead, you said?’

‘Yes. I’m to meet him there at eleven o’clock tonight.’

‘Don’t you do it, sir.’

‘There!’ burst from Tuppence.

Tommy flushed.

‘If you think, Inspector –’ he began heatedly.

But the Inspector raised a soothing hand.

‘I’ll tell you what I think, Mr Blunt. The place you want to be at eleven o’clock tonight is here in this office.’

‘What?’ cried Tuppence, astonished.

‘Here in this office. Never mind how I know – departments overlap sometimes – but you got one of those famous “Blue” letters today. Old what’s-his-name is after that. He lures you up to Hampstead, makes quite sure of your being out of the way, and steps in here at night when all the building is empty and quiet to have a good search round at his leisure.’

‘But why should he think the letter would be here? He’d know I should have it on me or else have passed it on.’

‘Begging your pardon, sir, that’s just what he wouldn’t know. He may have tumbled to the fact that you’re not the original Mr Blunt, but he probably thinks that you’re a bona fide gentleman who’s bought the business. In that case, the letter would be all in the way of regular business and would be filed as such.’

‘I see,’ said Tuppence.

‘And that’s just what we’ve got to let him think. We’ll catch him red-handed here tonight.’

‘So that’s the plan, is it?’

‘Yes. It’s the chance of a lifetime. Now, let me see, what’s the time? Six o’clock. What time do you usually leave here, sir?’

‘About six.’

‘You must seem to leave the place as usual. Actually we’ll sneak back to it as soon as possible. I don’t believe they’ll come here till about eleven, but of course they might. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and take a look round outside and see if I can make out anyone watching the place.’

Dymchurch departed, and Tommy began an argument with Tuppence.

It lasted some time and was heated and acrimonious. In the end Tuppence suddenly capitulated.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I give in. I’ll go home and sit there like a good little girl whilst you tackle crooks and hobnob with detectives – but you wait, young man. I’ll be even with you yet for keeping me out of the fun.’

Dymchurch returned at that moment.

‘Coast seems clear enough,’ he said. ‘But you can’t tell. Better seem to leave in the usual manner. They won’t go on watching the place once you’ve gone.’

Tommy called Albert and gave him instructions to lock up.

Then the four of them made their way to the garage near by where the car was usually left. Tuppence drove and Albert sat beside her. Tommy and the detective sat behind.

Presently they were held up by a block in the traffic. Tuppence looked over her shoulder and nodded. Tommy and the detective opened the right hand door and stepped out into the middle of Oxford Street. In a minute or two Tuppence drove on.

II

‘Better not go in just yet,’ said Dymchurch as he and Tommy hurried into Haleham Street. ‘You’ve got the key all right?’

Tommy nodded.

‘Then what about a bite of dinner? It’s early, but there’s a little place here right opposite. We’ll get a table by the window, so that we can watch the place all the time.’

They had a very welcome little meal, in the manner the detective had suggested. Tommy found Inspector Dymchurch quite an entertaining companion. Most of his official work had lain amongst international spies, and he had tales to tell which astonished his simple listener.

They remained in the little restaurant until eight o’clock, when Dymchurch suggested a move.

‘It’s quite dark now, sir,’ he explained. ‘We shall be able to slip in without any one being the wiser.’

It was, as he said, quite dark. They crossed the road, looked quickly up and down the deserted street, and slipped inside the entrance. Then they mounted the stairs, and Tommy inserted his key in the lock of the outer office.

Just as he did so, he heard, as he thought, Dymchurch whistle beside him.

‘What are you whistling for?’ he asked sharply.

‘I didn’t whistle,’ said Dymchurch, very much astonished. ‘I thought you did.’

‘Well, some one –’ began Tommy.

He got no further. Strong arms seized him from behind, and before he could cry out, a pad of something sweet and sickly was pressed over his mouth and nose.

He struggled valiantly, but in vain. The chloroform did its work. His head began to whirl and the floor heaved up and down in front of him. Choking, he lost consciousness …

He came to himself painfully, but in full possession of his faculties. The chloroform had been only a whiff. They had kept him under long enough to force a gag into his mouth and ensure that he did not cry out.

When he came to himself, he was half-lying, half-sitting, propped against the wall in a corner of his own inner office. Two men were busily turning out the contents of the desk and ransacking the cupboards, and as they worked they cursed freely.

‘Swelp me, guv’nor,’ said the taller of the two hoarsely, ‘we’ve turned the whole b––y place upside down and inside out. It’s not there.’

‘It must be here,’ snarled the other. ‘It isn’t on him. And there’s no other place it can be.’

As he spoke he turned, and to Tommy’s utter amazement he saw that the last speaker was none other than Inspector Dymchurch. The latter grinned when he saw Tommy’s astonished face.

‘So our young friend is awake again,’ he said. ‘And a little surprised – yes, a little surprised. But it was so simple. We suspect that all is not as it should be with the International Detective Agency. I volunteer to find out if that is so, or not. If the new Mr Blunt is indeed a spy, he will be suspicious, so I send first my dear old friend, Carl Bauer. Carl is told to act suspiciously and pitch an improbable tale. He does so, and then I appear on the scene. I used the name of Inspector Marriot to gain confidence. The rest is easy.’

He laughed.

Tommy was dying to say several things, but the gag in his mouth prevented him. Also, he was dying to do several things – mostly with his hands and feet – but alas, that too had been attended to. He was securely bound.

The thing that amazed him most was the astounding change in the man standing over him. As Inspector Dymchurch the fellow had been a typical Englishman. Now, no one could have mistaken him for a moment for anything but a well-educated foreigner who talked English perfectly without a trace of accent.

‘Coggins, my good friend,’ said the erstwhile Inspector, addressing his ruffianly-looking associate, ‘take your life-preserver and stand by the prisoner. I am going to remove the gag. You understand, my dear Mr Blunt, do you not, that it would be criminally foolish on your part to cry out? But I am sure you do. For your age, you are quite an intelligent lad.’

Very deftly he removed the gag and stepped back.

Tommy eased his stiff jaws, rolled his tongue round his mouth, swallowed twice – and said nothing at all.

‘I congratulate you on your restraint,’ said the other. ‘You appreciate the position, I see. Have you nothing at all to say?’

‘What I have to say will keep,’ said Tommy. ‘And it won’t spoil by waiting.’

‘Ah! What I have to say will not keep. In plain English, Mr Blunt, where is that letter?’

‘My dear fellow, I don’t know,’ said Tommy cheerfully. ‘I haven’t got it. But you know that as well as I do. I should go on looking about if I were you. I like to see you and friend Coggins playing hide-and-seek together.’

The other’s face darkened.

‘You are pleased to be flippant, Mr Blunt. You see that square box over there. That is Coggins’s little outfit. In it there is vitriol … yes, vitriol … and irons that can be heated in the fire, so that they are red hot and burn …’

Tommy shook his head sadly.

‘An error in diagnosis,’ he murmured. ‘Tuppence and I labelled this adventure wrong. It’s not a Clubfoot story. It’s a Bull-dog Drummond, and you are the inimitable Carl Peterson.’

‘What is this nonsense you are talking,’ snarled the other.

‘Ah!’ said Tommy. ‘I see you are unacquainted with the classics. A pity.’

‘Ignorant fool! Will you do what we want or will you not? Shall I tell Coggins to get out his tools and begin?’

‘Don’t be so impatient,’ said Tommy. ‘Of course I’ll do what you want, as soon as you tell me what it is. You don’t suppose I want to be carved up like a filleted sole and fried on a gridiron? I loathe being hurt.’

Dymchurch looked at him in contempt.

‘Gott! What cowards are these English.’

‘Common sense, my dear fellow, merely common sense. Leave the vitriol alone and let us come down to brass tacks.’

‘I want the letter.’

‘I’ve already told you I haven’t got it.’

‘We know that – we also know who must have it. The girl.’

‘Very possibly you’re right,’ said Tommy. ‘She may have slipped it into her handbag when your pal Carl startled us.’

‘Oh, you do not deny. That is wise. Very good, you will write to this Tuppence, as you call her, bidding her bring the letter here immediately.’

‘I can’t do that,’ began Tommy.

The other cut in before he had finished the sentence.

‘Ah! You can’t? Well, we shall soon see. Coggins!’

‘Don’t be in such a hurry,’ said Tommy. ‘And do wait for the end of the sentence. I was going to say that I can’t do that unless you untie my arms. Hang it all, I’m not one of those freaks who can write with their noses or their elbows.’

‘You are willing to write, then?’

‘Of course. Haven’t I been telling you so all along? I’m all out to be pleasant and obliging. You won’t do anything unkind to Tuppence, of course. I’m sure you won’t. She’s such a nice girl.’

‘We only want the letter,’ said Dymchurch, but there was a singularly unpleasant smile on his face.

At a nod from him the brutal Coggins knelt down and unfastened Tommy’s arms. The latter swung them to and fro.

‘That’s better,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Will kind Coggins hand me my fountain pen? It’s on the table, I think, with my other miscellaneous property.’

Scowling, the man brought it to him, and provided a sheet of paper.

‘Be careful what you say,’ Dymchurch said menacingly. ‘We leave it to you, but failure means – death – and slow death at that.’

‘In that case,’ said Tommy, ‘I will certainly do my best.’

He reflected a minute or two, then began to scribble rapidly.

‘How will this do?’ he asked, handing over the completed epistle.

Dear Tuppence,

Can you come along at once and bring that blue letter with you? We want to decode it here and now.

In haste,

Francis.

‘Francis?’ queried the bogus Inspector, with lifted eyebrows. ‘Was that the name she called you?’

‘As you weren’t at my christening,’ said Tommy, ‘I don’t suppose you can know whether it’s my name or not. But I think the cigarette case you took from my pocket is a pretty good proof that I’m speaking the truth.’

The other stepped over to the table and took up the case, read ‘Francis from Tuppence’ with a faint grin and laid it down again.

‘I am glad to find you are behaving so sensibly,’ he said. ‘Coggins, give that note to Vassilly. He is on guard outside. Tell him to take it at once.’

The next twenty minutes passed slowly, the ten minutes after that more slowly still. Dymchurch was striding up and down with a face that grew darker and darker. Once he turned menacingly on Tommy.

‘If you have dared to double-cross us,’ he growled.

‘If we’d had a pack of cards here, we might have had a game of picquet to pass the time,’ drawled Tommy. ‘Women always keep one waiting. I hope you’re not going to be unkind to little Tuppence when she comes?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Dymchurch. ‘We shall arrange for you to go to the same place – together.’

‘Will you, you swine,’ said Tommy under his breath.

Suddenly there was a stir in the outer office. A man whom Tommy had not yet seen poked his head in and growled something in Russian.

‘Good,’ said Dymchurch. ‘She is coming – and coming alone.’

For a moment a faint anxiety caught at Tommy’s heart.

The next minute he heard Tuppence’s voice.

‘Oh! there you are, Inspector Dymchurch. I’ve brought the letter. Where is Francis?’

With the last words she came through the door, and Vassilly sprang on her from behind, clapping his hand over her mouth. Dymchurch tore the handbag from her grasp and turned over its contents in a frenzied search.

Suddenly he uttered an ejaculation of delight and held up a blue envelope with a Russian stamp on it. Coggins gave a hoarse shout.

And just in that minute of triumph the other door, the door into Tuppence’s own office, opened noiselessly and Inspector Marriot and two men armed with revolvers stepped into the room, with the sharp command: ‘Hands up.’

There was no fight. The others were taken at a hopeless disadvantage. Dymchurch’s automatic lay on the table, and the two others were not armed.

‘A very nice little haul,’ said Inspector Marriot with approval, as he snapped the last pair of handcuffs. ‘And we’ll have more as time goes on, I hope.’

White with rage, Dymchurch glared at Tuppence.

‘You little devil,’ he snarled. ‘It was you put them on to us.’

Tuppence laughed.

‘It wasn’t all my doing. I ought to have guessed, I admit, when you brought in the number sixteen this afternoon. But it was Tommy’s note clinched matters. I rang up Inspector Marriot, got Albert to meet him with the duplicate key of the office, and came along myself with the empty blue envelope in my bag. The letter I forwarded according to my instructions as soon as I had parted with you two this afternoon.’

But one word had caught the other’s attention.

‘Tommy?’ he queried.

Tommy, who had just been released from his bonds, came towards them.

‘Well done, brother Francis,’ he said to Tuppence, taking both her hands in his. And to Dymchurch: ‘As I told you, my dear fellow, you really ought to read the classics.’

Chapter 5

Finessing the King

It was a wet Wednesday in the offices of the International Detective Agency. Tuppence let the Daily Leader fall idly from her hand.

‘Do you know what I’ve been thinking, Tommy?’

‘It’s impossible to say,’ replied her husband. ‘You think of so many things, and you think of them all at once.’

‘I think it’s time we went dancing again.’

Tommy picked up the Daily Leader hastily.

‘Our advertisement looks well,’ he remarked, his head on one side. ‘Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives. Do you realise, Tuppence, that you and you alone are Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives? There’s glory for you, as Humpty Dumpty would say.’

‘I was talking about dancing.’

‘There’s a curious point that I have observed about newspapers. I wonder if you have ever noticed it. Take these three copies of the Daily Leader. Can you tell me how they differ one from the other?’

Tuppence took them with some curiosity.

‘It seems fairly easy,’ she remarked witheringly. ‘One is today’s, one is yesterday’s, and one is the day before’s.’

‘Positively scintillating, my dear Watson. But that was not my meaning. Observe the headline, “Daily Leader.” Compare the three – do you see any difference between them?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Tuppence, ‘and what’s more, I don’t believe there is any.’

Tommy sighed and brought the tips of his fingers together in the most approved Sherlock Holmes fashion.

‘Exactly. Yet you read the papers as much – in fact, more than I do. But I have observed and you have not. If you will look at today’s Daily Leader, you will see that in the middle of the downstroke of the D is a small white dot, and there is another in the L of the same word. But in yesterday’s paper the white dot is not in DAILY at all. There are two white dots in the L of LEADER. That of the day before again has two dots in the D of DAILY. In fact, the dot, or dots, are in a different position every day.’

‘Why?’ asked Tuppence.

‘That’s a journalistic secret.’

‘Meaning you don’t know, and can’t guess.’

‘I will merely say this – the practice is common to all newspapers.’

‘Aren’t you clever?’ said Tuppence. ‘Especially at drawing red herrings across the track. Let’s go back to what we were talking about before.’

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