“It’s late,” said Tommy, looking at his watch. “Just on twelve o’clock. We’ve been a long time with the Chief. I hope we haven’t missed a particularly spicy case.”
“On the whole,” said Tuppence, “we’ve not done badly. I was tabulating results the other day. We’ve solved four baffling murder mysteries, rounded up a gang of counterfeiters, ditto gang of smugglers—”
“Actually two gangs,” interpolated Tommy. “So we have! I’m glad of that. ‘Gangs’ sounds so professional.”
Tuppence continued, ticking off the items on her fingers.
“One jewel robbery, two escapes from violent death, one case of missing lady reducing her figure, one young girl befriended, an alibi successfully exploded, and alas! one case where we made utter fools of ourselves. On the whole, jolly good! We’re very clever, I think.”
“You would think so,” said Tommy. “You always do. Now I have a secret feeling that once or twice we’ve been rather lucky.”
“Nonsense,” said Tuppence. “All done by the little grey cells.”
“Well, I was damned lucky once,” said Tommy. “The day that Albert did his lasso act! But you speak, Tuppence, as though it was all over?”
“So it is,” said Tuppence. She lowered her voice impressively. “This is our last case. When they have laid the superspy by the heels, the great detectives intend to retire and take to beekeeping or vegetable marrow growing. It’s always done.”
“Tired of it, eh?”
“Ye-es, I think I am. Besides, we’re so successful now—the luck might change.”
“Who’s talking about luck now?” asked Tommy triumphantly.
At that moment they turned in at the doorway of the block of buildings in which the International Detective Bureau had its offices, and Tuppence did not reply.
Albert was on duty in the outer office, employing his leisure in balancing, or endeavouring to balance, the office ruler upon his nose.
With a stern frown of reproof, the great Mr. Blunt passed into his own private office. Divesting himself of his overcoat and hat, he opened the cupboard, on the shelves of which reposed his classic library of the great detectives of fiction.
“The choice narrows,” murmured Tommy. “On whom shall I model myself today?”
Tuppence’s voice, with an unusual note in it, made him turn sharply.
“Tommy,” she said, “what day of the month is it?”
“Let me see—the eleventh—why?”
“Look at the calendar.”
Hanging on the wall was one of those calendars from which you tear a leaf every day. It bore the legend of Sunday the 16th. Today was Monday.
“By Jove, that’s odd. Albert must have torn off too many. Careless little devil.”
“I don’t believe he did,” said Tuppence. “But we’ll ask him.”
Albert, summoned and questioned, seemed very astonished. He swore he had only torn off two leaves, those of Saturday and Sunday. His statement was presently supported, for whereas the two leaves torn off by Albert were found in the grate, the succeeding ones were lying neatly in the wastepaper basket.
“A neat and methodical criminal,” said Tommy. “Who’s been here this morning, Albert? A client of any kind?”
“Just one, sir.”
“What was he like?”
“It was a she. A hospital nurse. Very upset and anxious to see you. Said she’d wait until you came. I put her in ‘Clerks’ because it was warmer.”
“And from there she could walk in here, of course, without your seeing her. How long has she been gone?”
“About half an hour, sir. Said she’d call again this afternoon. A nice motherly-looking body.”
“A nice motherly—oh, get out, Albert.”
Albert withdrew, injured.
“Queer start, that,” said Tommy. “It seems a little purposeless. Puts us on our guard. I suppose there isn’t a bomb concealed in the fireplace or anything of that kind?”
He reassured himself on that point, then he seated himself at the desk and addressed Tuppence.
“Mon ami,” he said, “we are here faced with a matter of the utmost gravity. You recall, do you not, the man who was No. 4. Him whom I crushed like an egg shell in the Dolomites—with the aid of high explosives, bien entendu. But he was not really dead—ah, no, they are never really dead, these supercriminals. This is the man—but even more so, if I may put it. He is the 4 squared—in other words, he is now the No. 16. You comprehend, my friend?”
“Perfectly,” said Tuppence. “You are the great Hercule Poirot.”
“Exactly. No moustaches, but lots of grey cells.”
“I’ve a feeling,” said Tuppence, “that this particular adventure will be called the ‘Triumph of Hastings.’ ”
“Never,” said Tommy. “It isn’t done. Once the idiot friend, always the idiot friend. There’s an etiquette in these matters. By the way, mon ami, can you not part your hair in the middle instead of one side? The present effect is unsymmetrical and deplorable.”
The buzzer rang sharply on Tommy’s desk. He returned the signal, and Albert appeared bearing a card.
“Prince Vladiroffsky,” read Tommy, in a low voice. He looked at Tuppence. “I wonder—Show him in, Albert.”
The man who entered was of middle-height, graceful in bearing, with a fair beard, and apparently about thirty-five years of age.
“Mr. Blunt?” he inquired. His English was perfect. “You have been most highly recommended to me. Will you take up a case for me?”
“If you will give me the details—?”
“Certainly. It concerns the daughter of a friend of mine—a girl of sixteen. We are anxious for no scandal—you understand.”
“My dear sir,” said Tommy, “this business has been running successfully for sixteen years owing to our strict attention to that particular principle.”
He fancied he saw a sudden gleam in the other’s eye. If so, it passed as quickly as it came.
“You have branches, I believe, on the other side of the Channel?”
“Oh, yes. As a matter of fact,” he brought out the word with great deliberation. “I myself was in Berlin on the 13th of last month.”
“In that case,” said the stranger, “it is hardly necessary to keep up the little fiction. The daughter of my friend can be conveniently dismissed. You know who I am—at any rate I see you have had warning of my coming.”
He nodded towards the calendar on the wall.
“Quite so,” said Tommy.
“My friends—I have come over here to investigate matters. What has been happening?”
“Treachery,” said Tuppence, no longer able to remain quiescent.
The Russian shifted his attention to her, and raised his eyebrows.
“Ah ha, that is so, is it? I thought as much. Was it Sergius?”
“We think so,” said Tuppence unblushingly.
“It would not surprise me. But you yourselves, you are under no suspicion?”
“I do not think so. We handle a good deal of bona fide business, you see,” explained Tommy.
The Russian nodded.
“That is wise. All the same, I think it would be better if I did not come here again. For the moment I am staying at the Blitz. I will take Marise—this is Marise, I suppose?”
Tuppence nodded.
“What is she known as here?”
“Oh, Miss Robinson.”
“Very well, Miss Robinson, you will return with me to the Blitz and lunch with me there. We will all meet at headquarters at three o’clock. Is that clear?” He looked at Tommy.
“Perfectly clear,” replied Tommy, wondering where on earth headquarters might be.
But he guessed that it was just those headquarters that Mr. Carter was so anxious to discover.
Tuppence rose and slipped on her long black coat with its leopardskin collar. Then, demurely, she declared herself ready to accompany the Prince.
They went out together, and Tommy was left behind,
a prey to conflicting emotions.
Supposing something had gone wrong with the dictaphone? Supposing the mysterious hospital nurse had somehow or other learnt of its installation, and had rendered it useless.
He seized the telephone and called a certain number. There was a moment’s delay, and then a well-known voice spoke.
“Quite O.K. Come round to the Blitz at once.”
Five minutes later Tommy and Mr. Carter met in the Palm Court of the Blitz. The latter was crisp and reassuring.
“You’ve done excellently. The Prince and the little lady are at lunch in the restaurant. I’ve got two of my men in there as waiters. Whether he suspects, or whether he doesn’t—and I’m fairly sure he doesn’t—we’ve got him on toast. There are two men posted upstairs to watch his suite, and more outside ready to follow wherever they go. Don’t be worried about your wife. She’ll be kept in sight the whole time. I’m not going to run any risks.”
Occasionally one of the Secret Service men came to report progress. The first time it was a waiter, who took their orders for cocktails, the second time it was a fashionable vacant-faced young man.
“They’re coming out,” said Mr. Carter. “We’ll retire behind this pillar in case they sit down here, but I fancy he’ll take her up to his suite. Ah, yes, I thought so.”
From their post of vantage, Tommy saw the Russian and Tuppence cross the hall and enter the lift.
The minutes passed, and Tommy began to fidget.
“Do you think, sir. I mean, alone in that suite—”
“One of my men’s inside—behind the sofa. Don’t worry, man.”
A waiter crossed the hall and came up to Mr. Carter.
“Got the signal they were coming up, sir—but they haven’t come. Is it all right?”
“What?” Mr. Carter spun round. “I saw them go into the lift myself. Just,” he glanced up at the clock—“four and a half minutes ago. And they haven’t shown up. . . .”
He hurried across to the lift which had just at that minute come down again, and spoke to the uniformed attendant.
“You took up a gentleman with a fair beard and a young lady a few minutes ago to the second floor.”
“Not the second floor, sir. Third floor the gentleman asked for.”
“Oh!” The Chief jumped in, motioning Tommy to accompany him. “Take us up to the third floor, please.”
“I don’t understand this,” he murmured in a low voice. “But keep calm. Every exit from the hotel is watched, and I’ve got a man on the third floor as well—on every floor, in fact. I was taking no chances.”
The lift door opened on the third floor and they sprang out, hurrying down the corridor. Half way along it, a man dressed as a waiter came to meet them.
“It’s all right, Chief. They’re in No. 318.”
Carter breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s all right. No other exit?”
“It’s a suite, but there are only these two doors into the corridor, and to get out from any of these rooms, they’d have to pass us to get to the staircase or the lifts.”
“That’s all right then. Just telephone down and find out who is supposed to occupy this suite.”
The waiter returned in a minute or two.
“Mrs. Cortlandt Van Snyder of Detroit.”
Mr. Carter became very thoughtful.
“I wonder now. Is this Mrs. VanSnyder an accomplice, or is she—”
He left the sentence unfinished.
“Hear any noise from inside?” he asked abruptly.
“Not a thing. But the doors fit well. One couldn’t hope to hear much.”
Mr. Carter made up his mind suddenly.
“I don’t like this business. We’re going in. Got the master key?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Call up Evans and Clydesly.”
Reinforced by the other two men, they advanced towards the door of the suite. It opened noiselessly when the first man inserted his key.
They found themselves in a small hall. To the right was the open door of a bathroom, and in front of them was the sitting room. On the left was a closed door and from behind it a faint sound—rather like an asthmatic pug—could be heard. Mr. Carter pushed the door open and entered.
The room was a bedroom, with a big double bed, ornately covered with a bedspread of rose and gold. On it, bound hand and foot, with her mouth secured by a gag and her eyes almost starting out of her head with pain and rage, was a middle-aged fashionably-dressed woman.
On a brief order from Mr. Carter, the other men had covered the whole suite. Only Tommy and his Chief had entered the bedroom. As he leant over the bed and strove to unfasten the knots, Carter’s eyes went roving round the room in perplexity. Save for an immense quantity of truly American luggage, the room was empty. There was no sign of the Russian or Tuppence.
In another minute the waiter came hurrying in, and reported that the other rooms were also empty. Tommy went to the window, only to draw back and shake his head. There was no balcony—nothing but a sheer drop to the street below.
“Certain it was this room they entered?” asked Carter peremptorily.
“Sure. Besides—” The man indicated the woman on the bed.
With the aid of a pen-knife, Carter parted the scarf that was half choking her and it was at once clear that whatever her sufferings they had not deprived Mrs. Cortlandt Van Snyder of the use of her tongue.
When she had exhausted her first indignation, Mr. Carter spoke mildly.
“Would you mind telling me exactly what happened—from the beginning?”
“I guess I’ll sue the hotel for this. It’s a perfect outrage. I was just looking for my bottle of ‘Killagrippe,’ when a man sprung on me from behind and broke a little glass bottle right under my nose, and before I could get my breath I was all in. When I came to I was lying here, all trussed up, and goodness knows what’s happened to my jewels. He’s gotten the lot, I guess.”
“Your jewels are quite safe, I fancy,” said Mr. Carter drily. He wheeled round and picked up something from the floor. “You were standing just where I am when he sprang upon you?”
“That’s so,” assented Mrs. Van Snyder.
It was a fragment of thin glass that Mr. Carter had picked up. He sniffed it and handed it to Tommy.
“Ethyl chloride,” he murmured. “Instant anaesthetic. But it only keeps one under for a moment or two. Surely he must still have been in the room when you came to, Mrs. Van Snyder?”
“Isn’t that just what I’m telling you? Oh! it drove me half crazy to see him getting away and me not able to move or do anything at all.”
“Getting away?” said Mr. Carter sharply. “Which way?”
“Through that door.” She pointed to one in the opposite wall. “He had a girl with him, but she seemed kind of limp as though she’d had a dose of the same dope.”
Carter looked a question at his henchman.
“Leads into the next suite, sir. But double doors—supposed to be bolted on each side.”
Mr. Carter examined the door carefully. Then he straightened himself up and turned towards the bed.
“Mrs. Van Snyder,” he said quietly, “do you still persist in your assertion that the man went out this way?”
“Why, certainly he did. Why shouldn’t he?”
“Because the door happens to be bolted on this side,” said Mr. Carter dryly. He rattled the handle as he spoke.
A look of the utmost astonishment spread over Mrs. Van Snyder’s face.
“Unless someone bolted the door behind him,” said Mr. Carter, “he cannot have gone out that way.”
He turned to Evans, who had just entered the room.
“Sure they’re not anywhere in this suite? Any other communicating doors?”
“No, sir, and I’m quite sure.”
Carter turned his gaze this way and that about the room. He opened the big hanging wardrobe, looked under the bed, up the chimney and behind all the curtains. Finally, struck b
y a sudden idea, and disregarding Mrs. Van Snyder’s shrill protests, he opened the large wardrobe trunk and rummaged swiftly in the interior.
Suddenly Tommy, who had been examining the communicating door, gave an exclamation.
“Come here, sir, look at this. They did go this way.”
The bolt had been very cleverly filed through, so close to the socket that the join was hardly perceptible.
“The door won’t open because it’s locked on the other side,” explained Tommy.
In another minute they were out in the corridor again and the waiter was opening the door of the adjoining suite with his pass key. This suite was untenanted. When they came to the communicating door, they saw that the same plan had been adopted. The bolt had been filed through, and the door was locked, the key having been removed. But nowhere in the suite was there any sign of Tuppence or the fair-bearded Russian and there was no other communicating door, only the one on the corridor.
“But I’d have seen them come out,” protested the waiter. “I couldn’t have helped seeing them. I can take my oath they never did.”
“Damn it all,” cried Tommy. “They can’t have vanished into thin air!”
Carter was calm again now, his keen brain working.
“Telephone down and find out who had this suite last and when.”
Evans who had come with them, leaving Clydesly on guard in the other suite, obeyed. Presently he raised his head from the telephone.
“An invalid French lad, M. Paul de Vareze. He had a hospital nurse with him. They left this morning.”
An exclamation burst from the other Secret Service man, the waiter. He had gone deathly pale.
“The invalid boy—the hospital nurse,” he stammered. “I—they passed me in the passage. I never dreamed—I had seen them so often before.”
“Are you sure they were the same?” cried Mr. Carter. “Are you sure, man? You looked at them well?”
The man shook his head.
“I hardly glanced at them. I was waiting, you understand, on the alert for the others, the man with the fair beard and the girl.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Carter, with a groan. “They counted on that.”
With a sudden exclamation, Tommy stooped down and pulled something from under the sofa. It was a small rolled-up bundle of black. Tommy unrolled it and several articles fell out. The outside wrapper was the long black coat Tuppence had worn that day. Inside was her walking dress, her hat and a long fair beard.”