“Never mind which of you it was,” said Tuppence.
“I said it would be a jolly difficult thing to do. She disagreed—said it only wanted a bit of brain work. We got all hot and excited about it and in the end she said, ‘I will make you a sporting offer. What do you bet that I can produce an alibi that nobody can shake?’ ”
“‘Anything you like,’ I said, and we settled it then and there. She was frightfully cocksure about the whole thing. ‘It’s an odds on chance for me,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ I said. ‘Supposing you lose and I ask you for anything I like?’ She laughed and said she came of a gambling family and I could.”
“Well?” said Tuppence as Mr. Jones came to a pause and looked at her appealingly.
“Well, don’t you see? It is up to me. It is the only chance I have got of getting a girl like that to look at me. You have no idea how sporting she is. Last summer she was out in a boat and someone bet her she wouldn’t jump overboard and swim ashore in her clothes, and she did it.”
“It is a very curious proposition,” said Tommy. “I am not quite sure I yet understand it.”
“It is perfectly simple,” said Mr. Montgomery Jones. “You must be doing this sort of thing all the time. Investigating fake alibis and seeing where they fall down.”
“Oh—er—yes, of course,” said Tommy. “We do a lot of that sort of work.”
“Someone has got to do it for me,” said Montgomery Jones. “I shouldn’t be any good at that sort of thing myself. You have only got to catch her out and everything is all right. I dare say it seems rather a futile business to you, but it means a lot to me and I am prepared to pay—er—all necessary whatnots, you know.”
“That will be all right,” said Tuppence. “I am sure Mr. Blunt will take this case on for you.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Tommy. “A most refreshing case, most refreshing indeed.”
Mr. Montgomery Jones heaved a sigh of relief, pulled a mass of papers from his pocket and selected one of them. “Here it is,” he said. “She says, ‘I am sending you proof I was in two distinct places at one and the same time. According to one story I dined at the Bon Temps Restaurant in Soho by myself, went to the Duke’s Theatre and had supper with a friend, Mr. le Marchant, at the Savoy—but I was also staying at the Castle Hotel, Torquay, and only returned to London on the following morning. You have got to find out which of the two stories is the true one and how I managed the other.’ ”
“There,” said Mr. Montgomery Jones. “Now you see what it is that I want you to do.”
“A most refreshing little problem,” said Tommy. “Very naive.”
“Here is Una’s photograph,” said Mr. Montgomery Jones. “You will want that.”
“What is the lady’s full name?” inquired Tommy.
“Miss Una Drake. And her address is 180 Clarges Street.”
“Thank you,” said Tommy. “Well, we will look into the matter for you, Mr. Montgomery Jones. I hope we shall have good news for you very shortly.”
“I say, you know, I am no end grateful,” said Mr. Jones, rising to his feet and shaking Tommy by the hand. “It has taken an awful load off my mind.”
Having seen his client out, Tommy returned to the inner office. Tuppence was at the cupboard that contained the classic library.
“Inspector French,” said Tuppence.
“Eh?” said Tommy.
“Inspector French, of course,” said Tuppence. “He always does alibis. I know the exact procedure. We have to go over everything and check it. At first it will seem all right and then when we examine it more closely we shall find the flaw.”
“There ought not to be much difficulty about that,” agreed Tommy. “I mean, knowing that one of them is a fake to start with makes the thing almost a certainty, I should say. That is what worries me.”
“I don’t see anything to worry about in that.”
“I am worrying about the girl,” said Tommy. “She will probably be let in to marry that young man whether she wants to or not.”
“Darling,” said Tuppence, “don’t be foolish. Women are never the wild gamblers they appear. Unless that girl was already perfectly prepared to marry that pleasant, but rather empty-headed young man, she would never have let herself in for a wager of this kind. But, Tommy, believe me, she will marry him with more enthusiasm and respect if he wins the wager than if she has to make it easy for him some other way.”
“You do think you know about everything,” said her husband.
“I do,” said Tuppence.
“And now to examine our data,” said Tommy, drawing the papers towards him. “First the photograph—h’m—quite a nice looking girl—and quite a good photograph, I should say. Clear and easily recognisable.”
“We must get some other girls’ photographs,” said Tuppence.
“Why?”
“They always do,” said Tuppence. “You show four or five to waiters and they pick out the right one.”
“Do you think they do?” said Tommy—“pick out the right one, I mean.”
“Well, they do in books,” said Tuppence.
“It is a pity that real life is so different from fiction,” said Tommy. “Now then, what have we here? Yes, this is the London lot. Dined at the Bon Temps seven thirty. Went to Duke’s Theatre and saw Delphiniums Blue. Counterfoil of theatre ticket enclosed. Supper at the Savoy with Mr. le Marchant. We can, I suppose, interview Mr. le Marchant.”
“That tells us nothing at all,” said Tuppence, “because if he is helping her to do it he naturally won’t give the show away. We can wash out anything he says now.”
“Well, here is the Torquay end,” went on Tommy. “Twelve o’clock from Paddington, had lunch in the Restaurant Car, receipted bill enclosed. Stayed at Castle Hotel for one night. Again receipted bill.”
“I think this is all rather weak,” said Tuppence. “Anyone can buy a theatre ticket, you need never go near the theatre. The girl just went to Torquay and the London thing is a fake.”
“If so, it is rather a sitter for us,” said Tommy. “Well, I suppose we might as well go and interview Mr. le Marchant.”
Mr. le Marchant proved to be a breezy youth who betrayed no great surprise on seeing them.
“Una has got some little game on, hasn’t she?” he asked. “You never know what that kid is up to.”
“I understand, Mr. le Marchant,” said Tommy, “that Miss Drake had supper with you at the Savoy last Tuesday evening.”
“That’s right,” said Mr. le Marchant, “I know it was Tuesday because Una impressed it on me at the time and what’s more she made me write it down in a little book.”
With some pride he showed an entry faintly pencilled. “Having supper with Una. Savoy. Tuesday 19th.”
“Where had Miss Drake been earlier in the evening? Do you know?”
“She had been to some rotten show called Pink Peonies or something like that. Absolute slosh, so she told me.”
“You are quite sure Miss Drake was with you that evening?”
Mr. le Marchant stared at him.
“Why, of course. Haven’t I been telling you.”
“Perhaps she asked you to tell us,” said Tuppence.
“Well, for a matter of fact she did say something that was rather dashed odd. She said—what was it now? ‘You think you are sitting here having supper with me, Jimmy, but really I am having supper two hundred miles away in Devonshire.’ Now that was a dashed odd thing to say, don’t you think so? Sort of astral body stuff. The funny thing is that a pal of mine, Dicky Rice, thought he saw her there.”
“Who is this Mr. Rice?”
“Oh, just a friend of mine. He had been down in Torquay staying with an aunt. Sort of old bean who is always going to die and never does. Dicky had been down doing the dutiful nephew. He said, ‘I saw that Australian girl one day—Una something or other. Wanted to go and talk to her, but my aunt carried me off to chat with an old pussy in a bath chair.’ I said: ‘When was
this?’ and he said, ‘Oh, Tuesday about tea time.’ I told him, of course, that he had made a mistake, but it was odd, wasn’t it? With Una saying that about Devonshire that evening?”
“Very odd,” said Tommy. “Tell me, Mr. le Marchant, did anyone you know have supper near you at the Savoy?”
“Some people called Oglander were at the next table.”
“Do they know Miss Drake?”
“Oh yes, they know her. They are not frightful friends or anything of that kind.”
“Well, if there’s nothing more you can tell us, Mr. le Marchant, I think we will wish you good morning.”
“Either that chap is an extraordinarily good liar,” said Tommy as they reached the street, “or else he is speaking the truth.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “I have changed my opinion. I have a sort of feeling now that Una Drake was at the Savoy for supper that night.”
“We will now go to the Bon Temps,” said Tommy. “A little food for starving sleuths is clearly indicated. Let’s just get a few girls’ photographs first.”
This proved rather more difficult than was expected. Turning into a photographers and demanding a few assorted photographs, they were met with a cold rebuff.
“Why are all the things that are so easy and simple in books so difficult in real life,” wailed Tuppence. “How horribly suspicious they looked. What do you think they thought we wanted to do with the photographs? We had better go and raid Jane’s flat.”
Tuppence’s friend Jane proved of an accommodating disposition and permitted Tuppence to rummage in a drawer and select four specimens of former friends of Jane’s who had been shoved hastily in to be out of sight and mind.
Armed with this galaxy of feminine beauty they proceeded to the Bon Temps where fresh difficulties and much expense awaited them. Tommy had to get hold of each waiter in turn, tip him and then produce the assorted photographs. The result was unsatisfactory. At least three of the photographs were promising starters as having dined there last Tuesday. They then returned to the office where Tuppence immersed herself in an A.B.C.
“Paddington twelve o’clock. Torquay three thirty-five. That’s the train and le Marchant’s friend, Mr. Sago or Tapioca or something saw her there about tea time.”
“We haven’t checked his statement, remember,” said Tommy. “If, as you said to begin with, le Marchant is a friend of Una Drake’s he may have invented this story.”
“Oh, we’ll hunt up Mr. Rice,” said Tuppence. “I have a kind of hunch that Mr. le Marchant was speaking the truth. No, what I am trying to get at now is this. Una Drake leaves London by the twelve o’clock train, possibly takes a room at a hotel and unpacks. Then she takes a train back to town arriving in time to get to the Savoy. There is one at four forty gets up to Paddington at nine ten.”
“And then?” said Tommy.
“And then,” said Tuppence frowning, “it is rather more difficult. There is a midnight train from Paddington down again, but she could hardly take that, that would be too early.”
“A fast car,” suggested Tommy.
“H’m,” said Tuppence. “It is just on two hundred miles.”
“Australians, I have always been told, drive very recklessly.”
“Oh, I suppose it could be done,” said Tuppence. “She would arrive there about seven.”
“Are you supposing her to have nipped into her bed at the Castle Hotel without being seen? Or arriving there explaining that she had been out all night and could she have her bill, please?”
“Tommy,” said Tuppence, “we are idiots. She needn’t have gone back to Torquay at all. She has only got to get a friend to go to the hotel there and collect her luggage and pay her bill. Then you get the receipted bill with the proper date on it.”
“I think on the whole we have worked out a very sound hypothesis,” said Tommy. “The next thing to do is to catch the twelve o’clock train to Torquay tomorrow and verify our brilliant conclusions.”
Armed with a portfolio of photographs, Tommy and Tuppence duly established themselves in a first-class carriage the following morning, and booked seats for the second lunch.
“It probably won’t be the same dining car attendants,” said Tommy. “That would be too much luck to expect. I expect we shall have to travel up and down to Torquay for days before we strike the right ones.”
“This alibi business is very trying,” said Tuppence. “In books it is all passed over in two or three paragraphs. Inspector Something then boarded the train to Torquay and questioned the dining car attendants and so ended the story.”
For once, however, the young couple’s luck was in. In answer to their question the attendant who brought their bill for lunch proved to be the same one who had been on duty the preceding Tuesday. What Tommy called the ten-shilling touch then came into action and Tuppence produced the portfolio.
“I want to know,” said Tommy, “if any of these ladies had lunch on this train on Tuesday last?”
In a gratifying manner worthy of the best detective fiction the man at once indicated the photograph of Una Drake.
“Yes, sir, I remember that lady, and I remember that it was Tuesday, because the lady herself drew attention to the fact, saying it was always the luckiest day in the week for her.”
“So far, so good,” said Tuppence as they returned to their compartment. “And we will probably find that she booked at the hotel all right. It is going to be more difficult to prove that she travelled back to London, but perhaps one of the porters at the station may remember.”
Here, however, they drew a blank, and crossing to the up platform Tommy made inquiries of the ticket collector and of various porters. After the distribution of half crowns as a preliminary to inquiring, two of the porters picked out one of the other photographs with a vague remembrance that someone like that travelled to town by the four forty that afternoon, but there was no identification of Una Drake.
“But that doesn’t prove anything,” said Tuppence as they left the station. “She may have travelled by that train and no one noticed her.”
“She may have gone from the other station, from Torre.”
“That’s quite likely,” said Tuppence, “however, we can see to that after we have been to the hotel.”
The Castle Hotel was a big one overlooking the sea. After booking a room for the night and signing the register, Tommy observed pleasantly.
“I believe you had a friend of ours staying here last Tuesday. Miss Una Drake.”
The young lady in the bureau beamed at him.
“Oh, yes, I remember quite well. An Australian young lady, I believe.”
At a sign from Tommy, Tuppence produced the photograph.
“That is rather a charming photograph of her, isn’t it?” said Tuppence.
“Oh, very nice, very nice indeed, quite stylish.”
“Did she stay here long?” inquired Tommy.
“Only the one night. She went away by the express the next morning back to London. It seemed a long way to come for one night, but of course I suppose Australian ladies don’t think anything of travelling.”
“She is a very sporting girl,” said Tommy, “always having adventures. It wasn’t here, was it, that she went out to dine with some friends, went for a drive in their car afterwards, ran the car into a ditch and wasn’t able to get home till morning?”
“Oh, no,” said the young lady. “Miss Drake had dinner here in the hotel.”
“Really,” said Tommy, “are you sure of that? I mean—how do you know?”
“Oh, I saw her.”
“I asked because I understood she was dining with some friends in Torquay,” explained Tommy.
“Oh, no, sir, she dined here.” The young lady laughed and blushed a little. “I remember she had on a most sweetly pretty frock. One of those new flowered chiffons all over pansies.”
“Tuppence, this tears it,” said Tommy when they had been shown upstairs to their room.
“It does rather,” said Tuppen
ce. “Of course that woman may be mistaken. We will ask the waiter at dinner. There can’t be very many people here just at this time of year.”
This time it was Tuppence who opened the attack.
“Can you tell me if a friend of mine was here last Tuesday?” she asked the waiter with an engaging smile. “A Miss Drake, wearing a frock all over pansies, I believe.” She produced a photograph. “This lady.”
The waiter broke into immediate smiles of recognition.
“Yes, yes, Miss Drake, I remember her very well. She told me she came from Australia.”
“She dined here?”
“Yes. It was last Tuesday. She asked me if there was anything to do afterwards in the town.”
“Yes?”
“I told her the theatre, the Pavilion, but in the end she decided not to go and she stayed here listening to our orchestra.”
“Oh, damn!” said Tommy, under his breath.
“You don’t remember what time she had dinner, do you?” asked Tuppence.
“She came down a little late. It must have been about eight o’clock.”
“Damn, Blast, and Curse,” said Tuppence as she and Tommy left the dining room. “Tommy, this is all going wrong. It seemed so clear and lovely.”
“Well, I suppose we ought to have known it wouldn’t all be plain sailing.”
“Is there any train she could have taken after that, I wonder?”
“Not one that would have landed her in London in time to go to the Savoy.”
“Well,” said Tuppence, “as a last hope I am going to talk to the chambermaid. Una Drake had a room on the same floor as ours.”
The chambermaid was a voluble and informative woman. Yes, she remembered the young lady quite well. That was her picture right enough. A very nice young lady, very merry and talkative. Had told her a lot about Australia and the kangaroos.
The young lady rang the bell about half past nine and asked for her bottle to be filled and put in her bed, and also to be called the next morning at half past seven—with coffee instead of tea.