N or M? Read online

  "The late Vanda Polonska?"

  "Yes. The first time I saw her her face seemed vaguely familiar."

  "Do you think you had come across her somewhere else?"

  "No, I'm sure I hadn't."

  "Mrs Perenna and Sheila are a totally different type."

  "Oh, yes, it wasn't them. You know. Tommy, about those two. I've been thinking."

  "To any good purpose?"

  "I'm not sure. It's about that note - the one Mrs Sprot found on the floor in her room when Betty was kidnapped."

  "Well?"

  "All that about its being wrapped round a stone and thrown through the window is rubbish. It was put there by someone - ready for Mrs Sprot to find - and I think it was Mrs Perenna who put it there."

  "Mrs Perenna, Carl, Vanda Polonska - all working together."

  "Yes. Did you notice how Mrs Perenna came in just at the critical moment and clinched things - not to ring up the police? She took command of the whole situation."

  "So she's still your selection for M?"

  "Yes, isn't she yours?"

  "I suppose so," said Tommy slowly.

  "Why, Tommy, have you got another idea?"

  "It's probably an awfully dud one."

  "Tell me."

  "No, I'd rather not. I've nothing to go on. Nothing whatever. But if I'm right, it's not M we're up against, but N."

  He thought to himself.

  "Bletchley. I suppose he's all right. Why shouldn't he be? He's a true enough type - almost too true, and after all, it was he who wanted to ring up the police. Yes, but he could have been pretty sure that the child's mother wouldn't stand for the idea. The threatening note made sure of that. He could afford to urge the opposite point of view -"

  And that brought him back again to the vexing, teasing problem to which as yet he could find no answer.

  Why kidnap Betty Sprot?

  III

  There was a car standing outside Sans Souci bearing the word Police on it.

  Absorbed in her own thoughts Tuppence took little notice of that. She turned in at the drive and entering the front door went straight upstairs to her own room.

  She stopped, taken aback, on the threshold, as a tall figure turned away from the window.

  "Dear me," said Tuppence. "Sheila?"

  The girl came straight towards her. Now Tuppence saw her more clearly, saw the blazing eyes deep set in the white tragic face.

  Sheila said:

  "I'm glad you've come. I've been waiting for you."

  "What's the matter?"

  The girl's voice was quiet and devoid of emotion. She said:

  "They have arrested Carl!"

  "The police?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, dear," said Tuppence. She felt inadequate to the situation. Quiet as Sheila's voice had been, Tuppence was under no misapprehension as to what lay behind it.

  Whether they were fellow conspirators or not, this girl loved Carl von Deinim, and Tuppence felt her heart aching in sympathy with this tragic young creature.

  Sheila said:

  "What shall I do?"

  The simple forlorn question made Tuppence wince. She said helplessly:

  "Oh, my dear."

  Sheila said, and her voice was like a mourning harp:

  "They've taken him away. I shall never see him again."

  She cried out:

  "What shall I do? What shall I do?" And flinging herself down on her knees by the bed, she wept her heart out.

  Tuppence stroked the dark head. She said presently, in a weak voice:

  "It - it may not be true. Perhaps they are only going to intern him. After all, he is an enemy alien, you know."

  "That's not what they said. They're searching his room now."

  Tuppence said slowly, "Well, if they find nothing -"

  "They will find nothing, of course! What should they find?"

  "I don't know. I thought perhaps you might?"

  "I?"

  Her scorn, her amazement were too real to be feigned. Any suspicions Tuppence had had that Sheila Perenna was involved died at this moment. The girl knew nothing, had never known anything.

  Tuppence said:

  "If he is innocent -"

  Sheila interrupted her.

  "What does that matter? The police will make a case against him."

  Tuppence said sharply:

  "Nonsense, my dear child, that really isn't true."

  "The English police will do anything. My Mother says so."

  "Your Mother may say so, but she's wrong. I assure you that it isn't so."

  Sheila looked at her doubtfully for a minute or two. Then she said:

  "Very well. If you say so. I trust you."

  Tuppence felt very uncomfortable. She said sharply:

  "You trust too much, Sheila. You may have been unwise to trust Carl."

  "Are you against him, too? I thought you liked him. He thinks so, too."

  Touching young things - with their faith in one's liking for them. And it was true - she had liked Carl - she did like him.

  Rather wearily she said:

  "Listen, Sheila, liking or not liking has nothing to do with facts. This country and Germany are at war. There are many ways of serving one's country. One of them is to get information - and to work behind the lines. It is a brave thing to do, for when you are caught, it is -" her voice broke a little - "the end."

  Sheila said:

  "You think Carl -" "Might be working for his country that way? It is a possibility, isn't it?"

  "No," said Sheila.

  "It would be his job, you see, to come over here as a refugee, to appear to be violently anti-Nazi and then to gather information."

  Sheila said quietly:

  "It's not true. I know Carl. I know his heart and his mind. He cares most for science - for his work - for the truth and the knowledge in it. He is grateful to England for letting him work here. Sometimes, when people say cruel things, he feels German and bitter. But he hates the Nazis always, and what they stand for - their denial of freedom."

  Tuppence said: "He would say so, of course."

  Sheila turned reproachful eyes upon her.

  "So you believe he is a spy?"

  "I think it is -" Tuppence hesitated - "a possibility."

  Sheila walked to the door.

  "I see. I'm sorry I came to ask you to help us."

  "But what did you think I could do, dear child?"

  "You know people. Your sons are in the Army and Navy and I've heard you say more than once that they knew influential people. I thought perhaps you could get them to - to do - something?"

  Tuppence thought of those mythical creatures, Douglas and Raymond and Cyril.

  "I'm afraid," she said, "that they couldn't do anything."

  Sheila flung her head up. She said passionately:

  "Then there's no hope for us. They'll take him away and shut him up, and one day, early in the morning, they'll stand him against a wall and shoot him - and that will be the end."

  She went out, shutting the door behind her.

  "Oh, damn, damn, damn the Irish!" thought Tuppence in a fury of mixed feelings. "Why have they got that terrible power of twisting things until you don't know where you are? If Carl von Deinim's a spy, he deserves to be shot. I must hang on to that, not let that girl with her Irish voice bewitch me into thinking it's the tragedy of a hero and a martyr!"

  She recalled the voice of a famous actress speaking a line from 'Riders to the Sea':

  "It's the fine quiet time they'll be having..."

  Poignant... carrying you away on a tide of feeling...

  She thought, "If it weren't true. Oh, if only it weren't true..."

  Yet, knowing what she did, how could she doubt?

  IV

  The fisherman on the end of the Old Pier cast in his line and then reeled it cautiously in.

  "No doubt whatever, I'm afraid," he said.

  "You know," said Tommy, "I'm sorry about it. He's - well, he's a nice
chap."

  "They are, my dear fellow, they usually are. It isn't the skunks and the rats of a land who volunteer to go to the enemy's country. It's the brave men. We know that well enough. But there it is, the case is proved."

  "No doubt whatever, you say?"

  "No doubt at all. Among his chemical formulae was a list of people in the factory to be approached, as possible Fascist sympathizers. There was also a very clever scheme of sabotage and a chemical process that, applied to fertilizers, would have devastated large areas of food stocks. All well up Master Carl's street."

  Rather unwillingly, Tommy said, secretly anathematizing Tuppence who had made him promise to say it:

  "I suppose it's not possible that these things could have been planted on him?"

  Mr Grant smiled, rather a diabolical smile. "Oh," he said. "Your wife's idea, no doubt."

  "Well - er - yes, as a matter of fact it is."

  "He's an attractive lad," said Mr Grant tolerantly.

  Then he went on.

  "No, seriously, I don't think we can take that suggestion into account. He'd got a supply of secret ink, you know. That's a pretty good clinching test. And it wasn't obvious as it would have been if planted. It wasn't 'the mixture to be taken when required' on the washstand or anything like that. In fact, it was damned ingenious. Only come across the method once before and then it was waistcoat buttons. Steeped in the stuff, you know. When the fellow wants to use it, he soaks a button in water. Carl von Deinim's wasn't buttons. It was a shoe-lace. Pretty neat."

  "Oh!" Something stirred in Tommy's mind - vague - wholly nebulous...

  Tuppence was quicker. As soon as he retailed the conversation to her, she seized on the salient point.

  "A shoelace? Tony, that explains it!"

  "What?"

  "Betty, you idiot! Don't you remember that funny thing she did in my room, taking out my laces and soaking them in water. I thought at the time it was a funny thing to think of doing. But, of course, she'd seen Carl do it and was imitating him. He couldn't risk her talking about it, and he arranged with that woman for her to be kidnapped."

  Tommy said, "Then that's cleared up."

  "Yes. It's nice when things begin to fall into shape. One can put them behind you and get on a bit."

  "We need to go on."

  Tuppence nodded.

  The times were gloomy indeed. France had astonishingly and suddenly capitulated - to the bewilderment and dismay of her own people.

  The destination of the French Navy was in doubt.

  Now the coasts of France were entirely in the hands of Germany, and the talk of invasion was no longer a remote contingency.

  Tommy said:

  "Carl von Deinim was only a link in the chain. Mrs Perenna's the fountain head."

  "Yes, we've got to get the goods on her. But it won't be easy."

  "No. After all, if she's the brains of the whole thing one can't expect it to be."

  "So M is Mrs Perenna?"

  Tommy supposed she must be. He said slowly:

  "You really think the girl isn't in this at all?"

  "I'm quite sure of it."

  Tommy sighed.

  "Well, you should know. But if so, it's tough luck on her. First the man she loves - and then her mother. She's not going to have much left, is she?"

  "We can't help that."

  "Yes, but supposing we're wrong - that M or N is someone else?"

  Tuppence said rather coldly.

  "So you're still harping on that? Are you sure it isn't a case of wishful thinking?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Sheila Perenna - that's what I mean."

  "Aren't you being rather absurd, Tuppence?"

  "No, I'm not. She's got round you, Tommy, just like any other man -"

  Tommy replied angrily.

  "Not at all. It's simply that I've got my own ideas."

  "Which are?"

  "I think I'll keep them to myself for a bit. We'll see which of us is right."

  "Well, I think we've got to go all out after Mrs Perenna. Find out where she goes, whom she meets - everything. There must be a link somewhere. You'd better put Albert on to her this afternoon."

  "You can do that. I'm busy."

  "Why, what are you doing?"

  Tommy said:

  "I'm playing golf."

  Chapter 9

  "Seems quite like old times, doesn't it, Madam?" said Albert. He beamed happily. Though now in his middle years, running somewhat to fat, Albert had still the romantic boy's heart which had first led him into associations with Tommy and Tuppence in their young and adventurous days.

  "Remember how you first came across me?" demanded Albert. "Cleanin' of the brasses, I was in those top notch flats. Coo, wasn't that hall porter a nasty bit of goods? Always on to me, he was. And the day you come along and strung me a tale! Pack of lies it was, too, all about a crook called Ready Rita. Not but what some of it didn't turn out to be true. And since then, as you might say, I've never looked back. Many's the adventure we had afore we all settled down, so to speak."

  Albert sighed, and by a natural association of ideas Tuppence inquired after the health of Mrs Albert.

  "Oh, the Missus is all right - but she doesn't take to the Welsh much, she says. Thinks they ought to learn proper English, and as for raids - why, they've had two there already, and holes in the field what you could put a motor-car in, so she says. So - how's that for safety? Might as well be in Kensington, she says, where she wouldn't have to see all them melancholy trees and could get good clean milk in a bottle."

  "I don't know," said Tuppence, suddenly stricken, "that we ought to get you into this, Albert."

  "Nonsense, Madam," said Albert. "Didn't I try and join up and they was so haughty they wouldn't look at me. Wait for my age group to be called up, they said. And me in the pink of health and only too eager to get at them perishing Germans - if you'll excuse the language. You just tell me how I can put a spoke in their wheel and spoil their goings on - and I'm there. Fifth Column, that's what we're up against, so the papers say - though what's happened to the other four they don't mention. But the long and short of it is, I'm ready to assist you and Captain Beresford in any way you like to indicate."

  "Good. Now I'll tell you what we want you to

  II

  "How long have you known Bletchley?" asked Tommy, as he stepped off the tee and watched with approval his ball leaping down the centre of the fairway.

  Commander Haydock, who had also done a good drive, had a pleased expression on his face as he shouldered his clubs and replied:

  "Bletchley? Let me see. Oh! About nine months or so. He came here last Autumn."

  "Friend of friends of yours, I think you said?" Tommy suggested mendaciously.

  "Did I?" The Commander looked a little surprised. "No, I don't think so. Rather fancy I met him here at the Club."

  "Bit of a mystery man, I gather?"

  The Commander was clearly surprised this time.

  "Mystery man? Old Bletchley?" He sounded frankly incredulous.

  Tommy sighed inwardly. He supposed he was imagining things.

  He played his next shot - and topped it. Haydock had a good iron shot that stopped just short of the green. As he rejoined the other, he said:

  "What on earth makes you call Bletchley a mystery man? I should have said he was a painfully prosaic chap - typical Army. Bit set in his ideas and all that - narrow life, an Army life - but, mystery!"

  Tommy said vaguely:

  "Oh, well, I just got the idea from something somebody said -"

  They got down to the business of putting. The Commander won the hole.

  "Three up and two to play," he remarked with satisfaction.

  Then, as Tommy had hoped, his mind, free of the preoccupation of the match, harked back to what Tommy had said.