Partners in Crime

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.’