N or M? Read online

  "I'm exaggerating a little - but you know what I mean. You believe in the British Empire - and - and - the stupidity of dying for one's country."

  "My country," said Tommy drily, "doesn't seem particularly anxious to allow me to die for it."

  "Yes, but you want to. And it's so stupid! Nothing's worth dying for. It's all an idea - talk - froth - high flown idiocy. My country doesn't mean anything to me at all."

  "Some day," said Tommy, "you'll be surprised to find that it does."

  "No. Never. I've suffered - I've seen -"

  She broke off - then turned suddenly and impetuously upon him.

  "Do you know who my father was?"

  "No?" Tommy's interest quickened.

  "His name was Patrick Maguire, He - he was a follower of Casement in the last war. He was shot as a traitor! All for nothing! For an idea - he worked himself up with those other Irishmen. Why couldn't he just stay at home quietly and mind his own business? He's a martyr to some people and a traitor to others. I think he was just - stupid!"

  Tommy could hear the note of pent-up rebellion coming out into the open. He said:

  "So that's the shadow you've grown up with?"

  "Shadow's right. Mother changed her name. We lived in Spain for some years. She always says that my father was half a Spaniard. We always tell lies wherever we go. We've been all over the Continent. Finally we came here and started this place. I think this is quite the most hateful thing we've done yet."

  Tommy asked:

  "How does your mother feel about - things?"

  "You mean - about my father's death?" Sheila was silent a moment frowning, puzzled. She said slowly: "I've never really known... she never talks about it. It's not easy to know what mother feels or thinks."

  Tommy nodded his head thoughtfully.

  Sheila said abruptly:

  "I - I don't know why I've been telling you this. I got worked up. Where did it all start?"

  "A discussion on Edith Cavell."

  "Oh, yes - patriotism. I said I hated it."

  "Aren't you forgetting Nurse Cavell's own words?"

  "What words?"

  "Before she died. Don't you know what she said?"

  He repeated the words:

  "Patriotism is not enough... I must have no hatred in my heart."

  "Oh." She stood there stricken for a moment.

  Then, turning quickly, she wheeled away into the shadow of the garden.

  II

  "So you see, Tuppence, it would all fit in."

  Tuppence nodded thoughtfully. The beach around them was empty. She herself leaned against a breakwater, Tommy sat above her, on the breakwater itself, from which post he could see anyone who approached along the esplanade. Not that he expected to see anyone, having ascertained with a fair amount of accuracy where people would be this morning. In any case his rendezvous with Tuppence had borne all the signs of a casual meeting, pleasurable to the lady and slightly alarming to himself.

  Tuppence said:

  "Mrs Perenna?"

  "Yes. M, not N. She satisfies the requirements."

  Tuppence nodded thoughtfully again.

  "Yes. She's Irish - as spotted by Mrs O'Rourke - won't admit the fact. Has done a good deal of coming and going on the continent. Changed her name to Perenna, came here and started this boarding house. A splendid bit of camouflage, full of innocuous bores. Her husband was shot as a traitor - she's got every incentive for running a Fifth Column show in this country. Yes, it fits. Is the girl in it, too, do you think?"

  Tommy said finally:

  "Definitely not. She'd never have told me all this otherwise. I - I feel a bit of a cad, you know."

  Tuppence nodded with complete understanding

  "Yes, one does. In a way it's a foul job, this."

  "But very necessary."

  "Oh, of course."

  Tommy said, flushing slightly:

  "I don't like lying any better than you do -"

  Tuppence interrupted him.

  "I don't mind lying in the least. To be quite honest I get a lot of artistic pleasure out of my lies. What gets me down is those moments when one forgets to lie - the times when one is just oneself - and gets results that way that you couldn't have got any other." She paused and went on: "That's what happened to you last night - with the girl. She responded to the real you - that's why you feel badly about it."

  "I believe you're right, Tuppence."

  "I know. Because I did the same thing myself - with the German boy."

  Tommy said:

  "What do you think about him?"

  Tuppence said quickly:

  "If you ask me, I don't think he's got anything to do with it."

  "Grant thinks he has."

  "Your Mr Grant!" Tuppence's mood changed. She chuckled. "How I'd like to have seen his face when you told him about me."

  "At any rate, he's made the amende honorable. You're definitely on the job."

  Tuppence nodded, but she looked a trifle abstracted.

  She said: "Do you remember after the last war - when we were hunting down Mr Brown? Do you remember what fun it was? How excited we were?"

  Tommy agreed, his face lighting up.

  "Rather!"

  "Tommy - why isn't it the same now?"

  He considered the question, his quiet ugly face grave. Then he said:

  "I suppose it's really - a question of age."

  Tuppence said sharply:

  "You don't think - we're too old?"

  "No, I'm sure we're not. It's only that - this time - it won't be fun. This is the second war we've been in - and we feel quite different about this one."

  "I know - we see the pity of it and the waste - and the horror. All the things we were too young to think about before."

  "That's it. In the last war I was scared every now and then - and had some pretty close shaves, and went through hell once or twice, but there were good times, too."

  Tuppence said:

  "I suppose Derek feels like that?"

  "Better not think about him, old thing," Tommy advised.

  "You're right." Tuppence set her teeth. "We've got a job. We're going to do that job. Let's get on with it. Have we found what we're looking for in Mrs Perenna?"

  "We can at least say that she's strongly indicated. There's no one else, is there, Tuppence, that you've got your eye on?"

  Tuppence considered.

  "No, there isn't. The first thing I did When I arrived, of course, was to size them all up and assess, as it were, possibilities. Some of them seem quite impossible."

  "Such as?"

  "Well, Miss Minton, for instance, the 'compleat' British spinster, and Mrs Sprot and her Betty, and the vacuous Mrs Cayley."

  "Yes, but nitwittishness can be assumed."

  "Oh, quite, but the fussy spinster and the absorbed young mothers are parts that would be fatally easy to overdo - and these people are quite natural. Then, where Mrs Sprot is concerned, there's the child."

  "I suppose," said Tommy, "that even a secret agent might have a child."

  "Not with her on the job," said Tuppence. "It's not the kind of thing you'd bring a child into. I'm quite sure about that, Tommy. I know. You'd keep a child out of it."

  "I withdraw," said Tommy. "I'll give you Mrs Sprot and Miss Minton, but I'm not so sure about Mrs Cayley."

  "No, she might be a possibility. Because she really does overdo it. I mean there can't be many women quite as idiotic as she seems."

  "I have often noticed that being a devoted wife saps the intellect," murmured Tommy.

  "And where have you noticed that?" demanded Tuppence.

  "Not from you, Tuppence. Your devotion has never reached those lengths."

  "For a man," said Tuppence kindly, "you don't really make an undue fuss when you are ill."

  Tommy reverted to a survey of possibilities.

  "Cayley," said Tommy thoughtfully. "There might be something fishy about Cayley."

  "Yes, there might. Then there's
Mrs O'Rourke."

  "What do you feel about her?"

  "I don't quite know. She's disturbing. Rather fee fo fum, if you know what I mean."

  "Yes, I think I know. But I rather fancy that's just the predatory note. She's that kind of woman."

  Tuppence said slowly:

  "She - notices things."

  She was remembering the remark about knitting.

  "Then there's Bletchley," said Tommy.

  "I've hardly spoken to him. He's definitely your chicken."

  "I think he's just the ordinary pukka old school tie. I think so."

  "That's just it," said Tuppence, answering a stress rather than actual words. "The worst of this sort of show is that you look at quite ordinary everyday people and twist them to suit your morbid requirements."

  "I've tried a few experiments on Bletchley," said Tommy.

  "What sort of thing? I've got some experiments in mind myself."

  "Well - just gentle ordinary little traps - about dates and places - all that sort of thing."

  "Could you condescend from the general to the particular?"

  "Well, say we're talking of duck shooting. He mentions the Fayum - good sport there such and such a year, such and such a month. Some other time I mention Egypt in quite a different connection. Mummies, Tutankhamen, something like that - has he seem that stuff? When was he there? Check up on the answers. Or P.& O. boats - I mention the names of one or two, say so-and-so was a comfortable boat. He mentions some trip or other, later I check that. Nothing important, or anything that puts him on his guard - just a check up on accuracy."

  "And so far he hasn't slipped up in any way?"

  "Not once. And that's a pretty good test, let me tell you, Tuppence."

  "Yes, but I suppose if he was N, he would have his story quite pat."

  "Oh, yes - the main outlines of it. But it's not so easy not to trip up on unimportant details. And then occasionally you remember too much - more, that is, than a bona fide person would do. An ordinary person doesn't usually remember offhand whether they took a certain shooting trip in 1926 or 1927. They have to think a bit and search their memory."

  "But so far you haven't caught Bletchley out?"

  "So far he's responded in a perfectly normal manner."

  "Result - negative."

  "Exactly."

  "Now," said Tuppence. "I'll tell you some of my ideas."

  And she proceeded to do so.

  III

  On her way home, Mrs Blenkensop stopped at the post office. She bought stamps and on her way out, went into one of the public call boxes. There she rang up a certain number, and asked for "Mr Faraday." This was the accepted method of communication with Mr Grant. She came out smiling and walked slowly homewards, stopping on the way to purchase some knitting wool.

  It was a pleasant afternoon with a light breeze. Tuppence curbed the natural energy of her own brisk trot to that leisurely pace that accorded with her conception of the part of Mrs Blenkensop. Mrs Blenkensop had nothing on earth to do with herself except knit (not too well) and write letters to her boys. She was always writing letters to her boys - sometimes she left them about half finished.

  Tuppence came slowly up the hill towards Sans Souci. Since it was not a through road (it ended at Smugglers' Rest, Commander Haydock's house) there was never much traffic - a few tradesmen's vans in the morning. Tuppence passed house after house, amusing herself by noting their names. Bella Vista (inaccurately named, since the merest glimpse of the sea was to be obtained, and the main view was the vast Victorian bulk of Edenholme on the other side of the road). Karachi was the next house. After that came Shirley Tower. Then Sea View (appropriate this time), Castle Clare (somewhat grandiloquent, since it was a small house), Trelawny, a rival establishment to that of Mrs Perenna, and finally the vast maroon bulk of Sans Souci.

  It was just as she came near to it that Tuppence became aware of a woman standing by the gate peering inside. There was something tense and vigilant about the figure.

  Almost unconsciously. Tuppence softened the sound of her own footsteps, stepping cautiously upon her toes.

  It was not until she was close behind her, that the woman heard her and turned. Turned with a start.

  She was a tall woman, poorly, even meanly dressed, but her face was unusual. She was not young - probably between forty and fifty - but there was a contrast between her face and the way she was dressed. She was fair-haired, with wide cheekbones and had been - indeed still was - beautiful. Just for a minute Tuppence had a feeling that the woman's face was somehow familiar to her, but the feeling faded. It was not, she thought, a face easily forgotten.

  The woman was obviously startled, and the flash of alarm that flitted across her face was not lost on Tuppence. (Something odd here?)

  Tuppence said:

  "Excuse me, are you looking for someone?"

  The woman spoke in a slow foreign voice, pronouncing the words carefully as though she had learned them by heart.

  "This 'ouse is Sans Souci?"

  "Yes. I live here. Did you want someone?"

  There was an infinitesimal pause, then the woman said:

  "You can tell me, please. There is a Mr Rosenstein there, no?"

  "Mr Rosenstein?" Tuppence shook her head. "No. I'm afraid not. Perhaps he has been there and left. Shall I ask for you?"

  But the strange woman made a quick gesture of refusal. She said:

  "No - no. I make mistake. Excuse, please."

  Then, quickly, she turned and walked rapidly down the hill again.

  Tuppence stood staring after her. For some reason, her suspicions were aroused. There was a contrast between the woman's manner and her words. Tuppence had an idea that "Mr Rosenstein" was a fiction, that the woman had seized at the first name that came into her head.

  Tuppence hesitated a minute, then she started down the hill after the other. What she could only describe as a "hunch" made her want to follow the woman.

  Presently, however, she stopped. To follow would be to draw attention to herself in a rather marked manner. She had clearly been on the point of entering Sans Souci when she spoke to the woman; to reappear on her trail would be to arouse suspicion that Mrs Blenkensop was something other than appeared on the surface - that is to say if this strange woman was indeed a member of the enemy plot.

  No, at all costs Mrs Blenkensop must remain what she seemed.

  Tuppence turned and retraced her steps up the hill. She entered Sans Souci and paused in the hall. The house seemed deserted, as was usual early in the afternoon. Betty was having her nap, the elder members were either resting or had gone out.

  Then, as Tuppence stood in the dim hall thinking over her recent encounter, a faint sound came to her ears. It was a sound she knew quite well - the faint echo of a ting.

  The telephone at Sans Souci was in the hall. The sound that Tuppence had just heard was the sound made when the receiver of an extension is taken off or replaced. There was one extension in the house - in Mrs Perenna's bedroom.

  Tommy might have hesitated. Tuppence did not hesitate for a minute. Very gently and carefully she lifted off the receiver and put it to her ear.

  Someone was using the extension. It was a man's voice. Tuppence heard:

  "- everything going well. On the Fourth, then, as arranged."

  A woman's voice said: "Yes, carry on."

  There was a click as the receiver was replaced.

  Tuppence stood there frowning. Was that Mrs Perenna's voice? Difficult to say with only those three words to go upon. If there had been only a little more to the conversation. It might, of course, be quite an ordinary conversation - certainly there was nothing in the words she had overheard to indicate otherwise.

  A shadow obscured the light from the door. Tuppence jumped and replaced the receiver as Mrs Perenna spoke.

  "Such a pleasant afternoon. Are you going out, Mrs Blenkensop, or have you just come in?"

  So it was not Mrs Perenna who had been speaking from Mrs Pe
renna's room. Tuppence murmured something about having had a pleasant walk and moved to the staircase.

  Mrs Perenna moved along the hall after her. She seemed bigger than usual. Tuppence was conscious of her as a strong athletic woman.