"Carrot Top? Oh, he's in Scotland somewhere. In one of those dreadful Ministries where they file papers in triplicate all day long."
"Your mother hasn't gone to join him perhaps?"
"She can't. He's in one of those area things where wives can't go."
"Oh - er - well, I suppose she's just sloped off somewhere."
Tony was decidedly embarrassed now - especially with Deborah's large worried eyes fixed plaintively upon him.
"Yes, but why? It's so queer. All her letters - talking about Aunt Gracie and the garden and everything."
"I know, I know," said Tony hastily. "Of course, she'd want you to think - I mean - nowadays - well, people do slope off now and again, if you know what I mean -"
Deborah's gaze, from being plaintive, became suddenly wrathful.
"If you think mother's just gone off week-ending with someone you're absolutely wrong. Absolutely. Mother and father are devoted to each other - really devoted. It's quite a joke in the family. She'd never -"
Tony said hastily:
"Of course not. Sorry. I really didn't mean -"
Deborah, her wrath appeased, creased her forehead.
"The odd thing is that someone the other day said they'd seen mother in Leahampton, of all places, and of course I said it couldn't be her because she was in Cornwall, but now I wonder -"
Tony, his match held to a cigarette, paused suddenly and the match went out.
"Leahampton?" he said sharply.
"Yes. Just the last place you could imagine mother going off to. Nothing to do and all old Colonels and maiden ladies."
"Doesn't sound a likely spot, certainly," said Tony.
He lit his cigarette and asked casually:
"What did your mother do in the last war?"
Deborah answered mechanically:
"Oh, nursed a bit and drove a General - army, I mean, not a bus. All the usual sort of things."
"Oh, I thought perhaps she'd been like you - in the Intelligence."
"Oh, mother would never have had the head for this sort of work. I believe, though, that after the war she and father did do something in the sleuthing line. Secret papers and master spies - that sort of thing. Of course, the darlings exaggerate it all a good deal and make it all sound as though it had been frightfully important. We don't really encourage them to talk about it much because you know what one's family is - the same old story over and over again."
"Oh, rather," said Tony Marsdon heartily. "I quite agree."
It was on the following day that Deborah, returning to her lodging house, was puzzled by something unfamiliar in the appearance of her room.
It took her a few minutes to fathom what it was. Then she rang the bell and demanded angrily of her landlady what had happened to the big photograph that always stood on the top of the chest of drawers.
|Mrs Rowley was aggrieved and resentful.
She couldn't say, she was sure. She hadn't touched it herself. Maybe Gladys -
But Gladys also denied having removed it. The man had been there about the gas, she said hopefully.
But Deborah declined to believe that an employee of the Gas Company would have taken a fancy to and removed the portrait of a middle-aged lady.
Far more likely, in Deborah's opinion, that Gladys had smashed the photograph frame and had hastily removed all traces of the crime to the dustbin.
Deborah didn't make a fuss about it. Sometime or other she'd get her mother to send her another photo.
She thought to herself with rising vexation:
"What's the old darling up to? She might tell me. Of course, it's absolute nonsense to suggest, as Tony did, that she's gone off with someone, but all the same it's very queer..."
Chapter 11
It was Tuppence's turn to talk to the fisherman on the end of the pier.
She had hoped against hope that Mr Grant might have some comfort for her. But her hopes were soon dashed. He stated definitely that no news of any kind had come from Tommy.
Tuppence said, trying her best to make her voice assured and businesslike:
"There's no reason to suppose that anything has - happened to him?"
"None whatever. But let's suppose it has."
"What?"
"I'm saying - supposing it has. What about you?"
"Oh, I see - I - carry on, of course."
"That's the stuff. There is time to weep after the battle. We're in the thick of the battle now. And time is short. One piece of information you brought us has been proved correct. You overhead a reference to the fourth. The fourth referred to is the fourth of next month. It's the date fixed for the big attack on this country."
"You're sure?"
"Fairly sure. They're methodical people, our enemies. All their plans neatly made and worked out. Wish we could say the same of ourselves. Planning isn't our strong point. Yes, the Fourth is the Day. All these raids aren't the real thing - they're mostly reconnaissance - testing our defences and our reflexes to air attack. On the fourth comes the real thing."
"But if you know that -"
"We know the Day is fixed. We know, or think we know, roughly, where... (But we may be wrong there.) We're as ready as we can be. But it's the old story of the siege of Troy. They knew, as we know, all about the forces without. It's the forces within we want to know about. The men in the Wooden Horse! For they are the men who can deliver up the keys of the fortress. A dozen men in high places, in command in vital spots, by issuing conflicting orders, can throw the country into just that state of confusion necessary for the German plan to succeed. We've got to have inside information in time."
Tuppence said despairingly:
"I feel so futile - so inexperienced."
"Oh, you needn't worry about that. We've got experienced people working, all the experience and talent we've got - but when there's treachery within we can't tell who to trust. You and Beresford are the irregular forces. Nobody knows about you. That's why you've got a chance to succeed - that's why you have succeeded up to a certain point."
"Can't you put some of your people on to Mrs Perenna? There must be some of them you can trust absolutely?"
"Oh, we've done that. Working from 'information received that Mrs Perenna is a member of the I.R.A. with anti-British sympathies.' That's true enough, by the way - but we can't get proof of anything further. Not of the vital facts we want. So stick to it, Mrs Beresford. Go on, and do your darndest."
"The fourth," said Tuppence. "That's barely a week ahead?"
"It's a week exactly."
Tuppence clenched her hands.
"We must get something! I say we because I believe Tommy is on to something, and that's why he hasn't come back. He's following up a lead. If I could only get something too. I wonder now. If I -"
She frowned, planning a new form of attack.
II
"You see, Albert, it's a possibility."
"I see what you mean, Madam, of course. But I don't like the idea very much, I must say."
"I think it might work."
"Yes, Madam, but it's exposing yourself to attack - that's what I don't like - and I'm sure the master wouldn't like it."
"We've tried all the usual ways, That is to say, we've done what we could keeping under cover. It seems to me that now the only chance is to come out into the open."
"You are aware, Madam, that thereby you may be sacrificing an advantage?"
"You're frightfully B.B.C. in your language this afternoon, Albert," said Tuppence, with some exasperation.
Albert looked slightly taken aback and reverted to a more natural form of speech.
"I was listening to a very interesting talk on pond life last night," he explained.
"We've no time to think about pond life now," said Tuppence.
"Where's Captain Beresford, that's what I'd like to know?"
"So should I," said Tuppence, with a pang.
"Don't seem natural, his disappearing without a word. He ought to have tipped you the wink by now. Tha
t's why -"
"Yes, Albert?"
"What I mean is, if he's come out in the open, perhaps you'd better not."
He paused to arrange his ideas and then went on.
"I mean, they've blown the gaff on him, but they mayn't know about you - and so it's up to you to keep under cover still."
"I wish I could make up my mind," sighed Tuppence.
"Which way were you thinking of managing it, Madam?"
Tuppence murmured thoughtfully:
"I thought I might lose a letter I'd written - make a lot of fuss about it, seem very upset. Then it would be found in the hall and Beatrice would probably put it on the hall table. Then the right person would get a look at it."
"What would be in the letter?"
"Oh, roughly - that I'd been successful in discovering the identity of the person in question and that I was to make a full report personally tomorrow. Then, you see, Albert, N or M would have to come out in the open and have a shot at eliminating me."
"Yes, and maybe they'd manage it, too."
"Not if I was on my guard. They'd have, I think, to decoy me away somewhere - some lonely spot. That's where you'd come in - because they don't know about you."
"I'd follow them up and catch them red-handed, so to speak?"
Tuppence nodded.
"That's the idea. I must think it out carefully - I'll meet you tomorrow."
III
Tuppence was just emerging from the local lending library with what had been recommended to her as a "nice book" clasped under her arm when she was startled by a voice saying:
"Mrs Beresford."
She turned abruptly to see a tall, dark young man with an agreeable but slightly embarrassed smile.
He said:
"Er - I'm afraid you don't remember me?"
Tuppence was thoroughly used to the formula. She could have predicted with accuracy the words that were coming next.
"I - er - came to the flat with Deborah one day."
Deborah's friends! So many of them, and all, to Tuppence, looking singularly alike! Some dark like this young man, some fair, an occasional red-haired one - but all cast in the same mould - pleasant, well-mannered, their hair, in Tuppence's view, just slightly too long. (But when this was hinted, Deborah would say, "Oh, mother, don't be so terribly 1916. I can't stand short hair.")
Annoying to have run across and been recognized by one of Deborah's young men just now.
However, she could probably soon shake him off.
"I'm Antony Marsdon," explained the young man.
Tuppence murmured mendaciously, "Oh, of course," and shook hands.
Tony Marsdon went on:
"I'm awfully glad to have found you, Mrs Beresford. You see, I'm working at the same job as Deborah, and as a matter of fact something rather awkward has happened."
"Yes?" said Tuppence. "What is it?"
"Well, you see, Deborah's found out that you're not down in Cornwall as she thought, and that makes it a bit awkward, doesn't it, for you?"
"Oh, bother," said Tuppence, concerned. "How did she find out?"
Tony Marsdon explained. He went on rather diffidently:
"Deborah, of course, has no idea of what you're really doing."
He paused discreetly, and then went on:
"It's important, I imagine, that she shouldn't know. My job, actually, is rather the same line. I'm supposed to be just a beginner in the Coding Department. Really my instructions are to express views that are mildly Fascist - admiration of the German system, insinuations that a working alliance with Hitler wouldn't be a bad thing - all that sort of thing - just to see what response I get. There's a good deal of rot going on, you see, and we want to find out who's at the bottom of it."
"Rot everywhere," thought Tuppence.
"But as soon as Deb told me about you," continued the young man, "I thought I'd better come straight down and warn you so that you could cook up a likely story. You see, I happen to know what you are doing and that it's of vital importance. It would be fatal if any hint of who you are got about. I thought perhaps you could make it seem as though you'd joined Captain Beresford in Scotland or wherever he is. You might say that you'd been allowed to work with him there."
"I might do that, certainly," said Tuppence thoughtfully.
Tony Marsdon said anxiously:
"You don't think I'm butting in?"
"No, no, I'm very grateful to you."
Tony said rather inconsequentially:
"I'm - well - you see - I'm rather fond of Deborah."
Tuppence flashed him an amused quick glance.
How far away it seemed, that world of attentive young men and Deb with her rudeness to them that never seemed to put them off. This young man was, she thought, quite an attractive specimen.
She put aside what she called to herself "peace time thoughts" and concentrated on the present situation.
After a moment or two she said slowly:
"My husband isn't in Scotland."
"Isn't he?"
"No, he's down here with me. At least he was! Now - he's disappeared."
"I say, that's bad - or isn't it? Was he on to something?"
Tuppence nodded.
"I think so. That's why I don't think that his disappearing like this is really a bad sign. I think, sooner or later, he'll communicate with me - in his own way." She smiled a little.
Tony said, with some slight embarrassment:
"Of course, you know the game well, I expect. But you ought to be careful."
Tuppence nodded.
"I know what you mean. Beautiful heroines in books are always easily decoyed away. But Tommy and I have our methods. We've got a slogan." She smiled. "Penny Plain and Tuppence coloured."
"What?" The young man stared at her as though she had gone mad.
"I ought to explain that my family nickname is Tuppence."
"Oh, I see." The young man's brow cleared. "Ingenious - what?"
"I hope so."
"I don't want to butt in - but couldn't I help in anyway?"
"Yes," said Tuppence thoughtfully, "I think perhaps you might."
Chapter 12
After long aeons of unconsciousness, Tommy began to be aware of a fiery ball swimming in space. In the centre of the fiery ball was a core of pain, the universe shrank, the fiery ball swung more slowly - he discovered suddenly that the nucleus of it was his own aching head.
Slowly he became aware of other things - of cold cramped limbs, of hunger, of an inability to move his lips.
Slower and slower swung the fiery ball... It was now Thomas Beresford's head and it was resting on solid ground. Very solid ground. In fact on something suspiciously like stone.
Yes, he was lying on hard stones, and he was in pain, unable to move, extremely hungry, cold and uncomfortable.
Surely, although Mrs Perenna's beds had never been unduly soft, this could not be -
Of course - Haydock! The wireless! The German waiter! Turning in at the gates of Sans Souci...
Someone, creeping up behind him, had struck him down. That was the reason of his aching head.
And he'd thought he'd got away with it all right! So Haydock, after all, hadn't been quite such a fool?
Haydock? Haydock had gone back into Smugglers' Rest and closed the door. How had he managed to get down the hill and be waiting for Tommy in the grounds of Sans Souci?
It couldn't be done. Not without Tommy seeing him.
The manservant, then? Had he been sent ahead to lie in wait? But surely, as Tommy had crossed the hall, he had seen Appledore in the kitchen of which the door was slightly ajar. Or did he only fancy he had seen him? Perhaps that was the explanation.
Anyway it didn't matter. The thing to do was to find out where he was now.
His eyes, becoming accustomed to the darkness, picked out a small rectangle of dim light. A window or small grating. The air smelled chill and musty. He was, he fancied, lying in a cellar. His hands and feet were tied and a gag in his mouth
was secured by a bandage.