The Complete Tommy & Tuppence Collection (82 page)

“I've not been out.”

“Oh—oh—I thought Mrs. Sprot said you'd come in just now.”

Mrs. Perenna said:

“I just went outside to look at the weather.”

Her tone was disagreeable. She threw a hostile glance at the meek Mrs. Sprot, who flushed and looked frightened.

“Just fancy,” said Mrs. Cayley, contributing her item of news. “Mr. Cayley walked all round the garden.”

Mrs. Perenna said sharply:

“Why did he do that?”

Mrs. Cayley said:

“It is such a mild night. He hasn't even put on his second muffler and he
still
doesn't want to come in. I do
hope
he won't get a chill.”

Mrs. Perenna said:

“There are worse things than chills. A bomb might come any minute and blow us all to bits!”

“Oh, dear, I hope it won't.”

“Do you?
I
rather wish it would.”

Mrs. Perenna went out of the window. The four bridge players stared after her.

“She seems very
odd
tonight,” said Mrs. Sprot.

Miss Minton leaned forward.

“You don't think, do you—” She looked from side to side. They all leaned nearer together. Miss Minton said in a sibilant whisper:

“You don't suspect, do you, that she drinks?”

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Cayley. “I wonder now? That would explain it. She really is so—so unaccountable sometimes. What do you think, Mrs. Blenkensop?”

“Oh, I don't
really
think so. I think she's worried about something. Er—it's your call, Mrs. Sprot.”

“Dear me, what shall I say?” asked Mrs. Sprot, surveying her hand.

Nobody volunteered to tell her, though Miss Minton, who had been gazing with unabashed interest into her hand, might have been in a position to advise.

“That isn't Betty, is it?” demanded Mrs. Sprot, her head upraised.

“No, it isn't,” said Tuppence firmly.

“She felt that she might scream unless they could get on with the game.

Mrs. Sprot looked at her hand vaguely, her mind still apparently maternal. Then she said:

“Oh, One Diamond, I
think.
”

The call went round. Mrs. Cayley led.

“When in doubt lead a Trump, they say,” she twittered, and laid down the Nine of Diamonds.

A deep genial voice said:

“'Tis the curse of Scotland that you've played there!”

Mrs. O'Rourke stood in the window. She was breathing deeply—her eyes were sparkling. She looked sly and malicious. She advanced into the room.

“Just a nice quiet game of bridge, is it?”

“What's that in your hand?” asked Mrs. Sprot, with interest.

“'Tis a hammer,” said Mrs. O'Rourke amiably. “I found it lying in the drive. No doubt someone left it there.”

“It's a funny place to leave a hammer,” said Mrs. Sprot doubtfully.

“It is that,” agreed Mrs. O'Rourke.

She seemed in a particularly good humour. Swinging the hammer by its handle she went out into the hall.

“Let me see,” said Miss Minton. “What's trumps?”

The game proceeded for five minutes without further interruption, and then Major Bletchley came in. He had been to the pictures and proceeded to tell them in detail the plot of
Wandering Minstrel,
laid in the reign of Richard the First. The Major, as a military man, criticised at some length the crusading battle scenes.

The rubber was not finished, for Mrs. Cayley, looking at her watch, discovered the lateness of the hour with shrill little cries of horror and rushed out to Mr. Cayley. The latter, as a neglected invalid, enjoyed himself a great deal, coughing in a sepulchral manner, shivering dramatically and saying several times:

“
Quite
all right, my dear. I hope you enjoyed your game. It doesn't matter about
me
at all. Even if I
have
caught a severe chill, what does it really matter? There's a war on!”

II

At breakfast the next morning, Tuppence was aware at once of a certain tension in the atmosphere.

Mrs. Perenna, her lips pursed very tightly together, was distinctly acrid in the few remarks she made. She left the room with what could only be described as a flounce.

Major Bletchley, spreading marmalade thickly on his toast, gave vent to a deep chuckle.

“Touch of frost in the air,” he remarked. “Well, well! Only to be expected, I suppose.”

“Why, what has happened?” demanded Miss Minton, leaning forward eagerly, her thin neck twitching with pleasurable anticipation.

“Don't know that I ought to tell tales out of school,” replied the Major irritatingly.

“Oh! Major Bletchley!”

“
Do
tell us,” said Tuppence.

Major Bletchley looked thoughtfully at his audience: Miss Minton, Mrs. Blenkensop, Mrs. Cayley and Mrs. O'Rourke. Mrs. Sprot and Betty had just left. He decided to talk.

“It's Meadowes,” he said. “Been out on the tiles all night. Hasn't come home yet.”

“What?”
exclaimed Tuppence.

Major Bletchley threw her a pleased and malicious glance. He enjoyed the discomfiture of the designing widow.

“Bit of a gay dog, Meadowes,” he chortled. “The Perenna's annoyed. Naturally.”

“Oh dear,” said Miss Minton, flushing painfully. Mrs. Cayley looked shocked. Mrs. O'Rourke merely chuckled.

“Mrs. Perenna told me already,” she said. “Ah, well, the boys will be the boys.”

Miss Minton said eagerly:

“Oh, but surely—perhaps Mr. Meadowes has met with an accident. In the blackout, you know.”

“Good old blackout,” said Major Bletchley. “Responsible for a lot. I can tell you, it's been an eye opener being on patrol in the LDV. Stopping cars and all that. The amount of wives ‘just seeing their husbands home.' And different names on their identity cards! And the wife or the husband coming back the other way alone a few hours later. Ha ha!” He chuckled, then quickly composed his face as he received the full blast of Mrs. Blenkensop's disapproving stare.

“Human nature—a bit humorous, eh?” he said appeasingly.

“Oh, but Mr. Meadowes,” bleated Miss Minton. “He may really have met with an accident. Been knocked down by a car.”

“That'll be his story, I expect,” said the Major. “Car hit him and knocked him out and he came to in the morning.”

“He may have been taken to hospital.”

“They'd have let us know. After all, he's carrying his identity card, isn't he?”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Cayley, “I wonder what Mr. Cayley will say?”

This rhetorical question remained unanswered. Tuppence, rising with an assumption of affronted dignity, got up and left the room.

Major Bletchley chuckled when the door closed behind her.

“Poor old Meadowes,” he said. “The fair widow's annoyed about it. Thought she'd got her hooks into him.”

“Oh, Major
Bletchley,
” bleated Miss Minton.

Major Bletchley winked.

“Remember your Dickens?
Beware of widders, Sammy.
”

III

Tuppence was a little upset by Tommy's unannounced absence, but she tried to reassure herself. He might possibly have struck some hot trail and gone off upon it. The difficulties of communication with each other under such circumstances had been foreseen by them both, and they had agreed that the other one was not to be unduly perturbed by unexplained absences. They had arranged certain contrivances between them for such emergencies.

Mrs. Perenna had, according to Mrs. Sprot, been out last night. The vehemence of her own denial of the fact only made that absence of hers more interesting to speculate upon.

It was possible that Tommy had trailed her on her secret errand and had found something worth following up.

Doubtless he would communicate with Tuppence in his special way, or else turn up, very shortly.

Nevertheless, Tuppence was unable to avoid a certain feeling of uneasiness. She decided that in her role of Mrs. Blenkensop it would be perfectly natural to display some curiosity and even anxiety. She went without more ado in search of Mrs. Perenna.

Mrs. Perenna was inclined to be short with her upon the subject. She made it clear that such conduct on the part of one of her lodgers was not to be condoned or glossed over. Tuppence exclaimed breathlessly:

“Oh, but he may have met with an
accident.
I'm sure he
must
have done. He's not at all that sort of man—not at all loose in his ideas, or
anything
of that kind. He must have been run down by a car or something.”

“We shall probably soon hear one way or another,” said Mrs. Perenna.

But the day wore on and there was no sign of Mr. Meadowes.

In the evening, Mrs. Perenna, urged on by the pleas of her boarders, agreed extremely reluctantly to ring up the police.

A sergeant called at the house with a notebook and took particulars. Certain facts were then elicited. Mr. Meadowes had left Commander Haydock's house at half-past ten. From there he had walked with a Mr. Walters and a Dr. Curtis as far as the gate of Sans Souci, where he had said goodbye to them and turned into the drive.

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?
”