From that moment, Mr. Meadowes seemed to have disappeared into space.
In Tuppence’s mind, two possibilities emerged from this.
When walking up the drive, Tommy may have seen Mrs. Perenna coming towards him, have slipped into the bushes and then have followed her. Having observed her rendezvous with some unknown person, he might then have followed the latter, whilst Mrs. Perenna returned to Sans Souci. In that case, he was probably very much alive, and busy on a trail. In which case the well-meant endeavours of the police to find him might prove most embarrassing.
The other possibility was not so pleasant. It resolved itself into two pictures—one that of Mrs. Perenna returning “out of breath and dishevelled”—the other, one that would not be laid aside, a picture of Mrs. O’Rourke standing smiling in the window, holding a heavy hammer.
That hammer had horrible possibilities.
For what should a hammer be doing lying outside?
As to who had wielded it, that was more difficult. A good deal depended on the exact time when Mrs. Perenna had reentered the house. It was certainly somewhere in the neighbourhood of half-past ten, but none of the bridge party happened to have noted the time exactly. Mrs. Perenna had declared vehemently that she had not been out except just to look at the weather. But one does not get out of breath just looking at the weather. It was clearly extremely vexing to her to have been seen by Mrs. Sprot. With ordinary luck the four ladies might have been safely accounted for as busy playing bridge.
What had the time been exactly?
Tuppence found everybody extremely vague on the subject.
If the time agreed, Mrs. Perenna was clearly the most likely suspect. But there were other possibilities. Of the inhabitants of Sans Souci, three had been out at the time of Tommy’s return. Major Bletchley had been out at the cinema—but he had been to it alone, and the way that he had insisted on retailing the whole picture so meticulously might suggest to a suspicious mind that he was deliberately establishing an alibi.
Then there was the valetudinarian Mr. Cayley who had gone for a walk all round the garden. But for the accident of Mrs. Cayley’s anxiety over her spouse, no one might have ever heard of that walk and might have imagined Mr. Cayley to have remained securely encased in rugs like a mummy in his chair on the terrace. (Rather unlike him, really, to risk the contamination of the night air so long.)
And there was Mrs. O’Rourke herself, swinging the hammer, and smiling. . . .
IV
“What’s the matter, Deb? You’re looking worried, my sweet.”
Deborah Beresford started, and then laughed, looking frankly into Tony Marsdon’s sympathetic brown eyes. She liked Tony. He had brains—was one of the most brilliant beginners in the coding department—and was thought likely to go far.
Deborah enjoyed her job, though she found it made somewhat strenuous demands on her powers of concentration. It was tiring, but it was worthwhile and it gave her a pleasant feeling of importance. This was real work—not just hanging about a hospital waiting for a chance to nurse.
She said:
“Oh, nothing. Just family! You know.”
“Families are a bit trying. What’s yours been up to?”
“It’s my mother. To tell the truth, I’m just a bit worried about her.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Well, you see, she went down to Cornwall to a frightfully trying old aunt of mine. Seventy-eight and completely gaga.”
“Sounds grim,” commented the young man sympathetically.
“Yes, it was really very noble of Mother. But she was rather hipped anyway because nobody seemed to want her in this war. Of course, she nursed and did things in the last one—but it’s all quite different now, and they don’t want these middle-aged people. They want people who are young and on the spot. Well, as I say, Mother got a bit hipped over it all, and so she went off down to Cornwall to stay with Aunt Gracie, and she’s been doing a bit in the garden, extra vegetable growing and all that.”
“Quite sound,” commented Tony.
“Yes, much the best thing she could do. She’s quite active still, you know,” said Deborah kindly.
“Well, that sounds all right.”
“Oh yes, it isn’t that. I was quite happy about her—had a letter only two days ago sounding quite cheerful.”
“What’s the trouble, then?”
“The trouble is that I told Charles, who was going down to see his people in that part of the world, to go and look her up. And he did. And she wasn’t there.”
“Wasn’t there?”
“No. And she hadn’t been there! Not at all apparently!”
Tony looked a little embarrassed.
“Rather odd,” he murmured. “Where’s—I mean—your father?”
“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 weekending 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 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 digs, 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 about the gas, she said hopefully.
But Deborah declined to believe that an emp
loyee of the Gas Co. 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. . . .”
Eleven
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 had 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 overheard 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 IRA 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 that’s why he hasn’t come back. He’s following up a lead. If I could only get something too. I wonder how. 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 BBC 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. That’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 recognised by one of Deborah’s young men just now. However, she could probably soon shake him off.
“I’m Anthony 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 can 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.