Sir Arthur Merivale, very much intrigued by the summons, arrived at the flat in about half an hour's time. Tuppence came forward to greet hire.
“I must apologise for sending for you in such a peremptory fashion," she said. "But my husband and I have discovered something that we think you ought to know at once. Do sit down."
Sir Arthur sat down, and Tuppence went on.
"You are, I know, very anxious to clear your friend."
Sir Arthur shook his head sadly.
"I was, but even I have had to give in to the overwhelming evidence."
"What would you say if I told you that chance has placed in my hands a piece of evidence that will certainly clear him of all complicity?"
"I should be overjoyed to hear it, Mrs. Beresford."
"Supposing," continued Tuppence, "that I had come across a girl who was actually dancing with Captain Hale last night at twelve o'clock-the hour when he was supposed to be at the Ace of Spades."
"Marvellous," cried Sir Arthur. "I knew there was some mistake. Poor Vere must have killed herself after all."
"Hardly that," said Tuppence. "You forget the other man."
"What other man?"
"The one my husband and I saw leave the booth. You see, Sir Arthur, there must have been a second man dressed in newspaper at the Ball. By the way, what was your own costume?"
"Mine? I went as a seventeenth century executioner."
"How very appropriate," said Tuppence softly.
"Appropriate, Mrs. Beresford? What do you mean by appropriate?"
"For the part you played. Shall I tell you my ideas on the subject, Sir Arthur? The newspaper dress is easily put on over that of an executioner. Previously a little note has been slipped into Captain Hale's hand, asking him not to speak to a certain lady. But the lady herself knows nothing of that note. She goes to the Ace of Spades at the appointed time, and sees the figure she expects to see. They go into the booth. He takes her in his arms, I think, and kisses her-the kiss of a Judas, and as he kisses he strikes with the dagger. She only utters one faint cry and he covers that with a laugh. Presently he goes away-and to the last, horrified and bewildered, she believes her lover is the man who killed her.
"But she has torn a small fragment from the costume. The murderer notices that-he is a man who pays great attention to detail. To make the case absolutely clear against his victim the fragment must seem to have been torn from Captain Hale's costume. That would present great difficulties unless tale two men happened to be living in the same house. Then, of course, the thing would be simplicity itself. He makes an exact duplicate of the tear in Captain Hale's costume-then he burns his own and prepares to play the part of the loyal friend."
Tuppence paused.
"Well, Sir Arthur?"
Sir Arthur rose and made her a bow.
“The rather vivid imagination of a charming lady who reads too much fiction."
"You think so?" said Tommy.
"And a husband who is guided by his wife," said Sir Arthur. "I do not fancy you will find anybody to take the matter seriously."
He laughed out loud, and Tuppence stiffened in her chair.
"I would swear to that laugh anywhere," she said. "I heard it last in the Ace of Spades. And you are under a little misapprehension about us both. Beresford is our real name, but we have another."
She picked up a card from the table and handed it to him. Sir Arthur read it aloud.
"International Detective Agency . . ." He drew his breath sharply. "So that is what you really are! That was why Marriot brought me here this morning. It was a trap-"
He strolled to the window.
"A fine view you have from here," he said. "Right over London."
"Inspector Marriot," cried Tommy sharply.
In a flash the Inspector appeared from the communicating door in the opposite wall.
A little smile of amusement came to Sir Arthur's lips.
"I thought as much," he said. "But you won't get me this time, I'm afraid, Inspector. I prefer to take my own way out."
And, putting his hands on the sill, he vaulted clean through the window.
Tuppence shrieked and clapped her hands to her ears to shut out the sound she had already imagined-the sickening thud far beneath. Inspector Marriot uttered an oath.
“We should have thought of the window," he said. "Though, mind you, it would have been a difficult thing to prove, I'll go down and-and-see to things."
"Poor devil," said Tommy slowly. "If he was fond of his wife-"
But the Inspector interrupted him with a snort.
"Fond of her? That's as may be. He was at his wits' end where to turn for money. Lady Merivale had a large fortune of her own, and it all went to him. If she'd bolted with young Hale, he'd never have seen a penny of it."
"That was it, was it?"
"Of course, from the very start, I sensed that Sir Arthur was a bad lot, and that Captain Hale was all right. We know pretty well what's what at the Yard-but it's awkward when you're up against facts. I'll be going down now-I should give your wife a glass of brandy if I were you, Mr. Beresford-it's been upsetting like for her."
"Greengrowers," said Tuppence in a low voice as the door closed behind the imperturbable Inspector. "Butchers. Fishermen. Detectives. I was right, wasn't I? He knew."
Tommy, who had been busy at the sideboard, approached her with a large glass.
"Drink this."
"What is it? Brandy?"
"No, it's a large cocktail-suitable for a triumphant McCarty. Yes, Marriot's right all round-that was the way of it. A bold finesse for game and rubber."
Tuppence nodded.
"But he finessed the wrong way round."
"And so," said Tommy. "Exit the King."
9. THE CASE OF THE MISSING LADY
The buzzer on Mr. Blunt's desk (International Detective Agency, Manager, Theodore Blunt) uttered its warning call. Tommy and Tuppence both flew to their respective peepholes which commanded a view of the outer office. There it was Albert's business to delay the prospective clients with various artistic devices.
"I will see, sir," he was saying. "But I'm afraid Mr. Blunt is very busy just at present. He is engaged with Scotland Yard on the phone just now."
"I'll wait," said the visitor. "I haven't got a card with me, but my name is Gabriel Stavansson."
The client was a magnificent specimen of manhood, standing over six feet high. His face was bronzed and weather beaten, and the extraordinary blue of his eyes made an almost startling contrast to the brown skin.
Tommy swiftly made up his mind. He put on his hat, picked up some gloves, and opened the door. He paused on the threshold.
"This gentleman is waiting to see you, Mr. Blunt," said Albert.
A quick frown passed over Tommy's face. He took out his watch.
"I am due at the Duke's at a quarter to eleven," he said. Then he looked keenly at the visitor. "I can give you a few minutes if you will come this way."
The latter followed him obediently into the inner office where Tuppence was sitting demurely with pad and pencil.
"My confidential secretary, Miss Robinson," said Tommy. "Now, sir, perhaps you will state your business? Beyond the fact that it is urgent, that you came here in a taxi, and that you have lately been in the Arctic-or possibly the Antarctic, I know nothing."
The visitor stared at him in amazement.
"But this is marvellous," he cried. "I thought detectives only did such things in books! Your office boy did not even give you my name!"
Tommy sighed deprecatingly.
"Tut tut, all that was very easy," he said. "The rays of the midnight sun within the Arctic circle have a peculiar action upon the skin-the actinic rays have certain properties. I am writing a little monograph on the subject shortly. But all this is wide of the point. What is it that has brought you to me in such distress of mind?"
"To begin with, Mr. Blunt, my name is Gabriel Stavansson-',
"Ah! of course " said Tommy. "T
he well known explorer. You have recently returned from the region of the North Pole, I believe?"
"I landed in England three days ago. A friend who was cruising in Northern waters brought me back on his yacht. Otherwise I should not have got back for another fortnight. Now I must tell you, Mr. Blunt, that before I started on this last expedition two years ago, I had the great good fortune to become engaged to Mrs. Maurice Leigh Gordon-"
Tommy interrupted.
"Mrs. Leigh Gordon was, before her marriage-"
"The Honorable Hermione Crane, second daughter of Lord Lanchester," reeled off Tuppence glibly.
Tommy threw her a glance of admiration.
"Her first husband was killed in the War," added Tuppence.
Gabriel Stavansson nodded.
"That is quite correct. As I was saying, Hermione and I became engaged. I offered, of course, to give up this expedition, but she wouldn't hear of such a thing-bless her! She's the right kind of woman for an explorer's wife. Well, my first thought on landing was to see Hermione. I sent a telegram from Southampton, and rushed up to town by the first train. I knew that she was living for the time being with an aunt of hers, Lady Susan Clonray, in Pont Street, and I went straight there. To my great disappointment, I found that Hermy was away visiting some friends in Northumberland. Lady Susan was quite nice about it, after getting over her first surprise at seeing me. As I told you, I wasn't expected for another fortnight. She said Hermy would be returning in a few days' time. Then I asked for her address, but the old woman hummed and hawed-said Hermy was staying at one of two different places, and that she wasn't quite sure what order she was taking them in. I may as well tell you, Mr. Blunt, that Lady Susan and I have never got on very well. She's one of those fat women with double chins. I loathe fat women-always have-fat women and fat dogs are an abomination unto the Lord-and unfortunately they so often go together! It's an idiosyncracy of mine, I know-but there it is-I never can get on with a fat woman."
"Fashion agrees with you, Mr. Stavansson," said Tommy drily. "And everyone has their own pet aversion-that of the late Lord Roberts was cats."
"Mind you, I'm not saying that Lady Susan isn't a perfectly charming woman-she may be, but I've never taken to her. I've always felt, deep down, that she disapproved of our engagement, and I feel sure that she would influence Hermy against me if that were possible. I'm telling you this for what it's worth. Count it out as prejudice, if you like. Well, to go on with my story, I'm the kind of obstinate brute who likes his own way. I didn't leave Pont Street until I'd got out of her the names and addresses of the people Hermy was likely to be staying with. Then I took the mail train North."
"You are, I perceive, a man of action, Mr. Stavansson," said Tommy, smiling.
"The thing came upon me like a bombshell. Mr. Blunt, none of these people had seen a sign of Hermy. Of the three houses, only one had been expecting her-Lady Susan must have made a bloomer over the other two-and she had put off her visit there at the last moment by telegram. I returned post haste to London, of course, and went straight to Lady Susan. I will do her the justice to say that she seemed upset. She admitted that she had no idea where Hermy could be. All the same, she strongly negatived any idea of going to the police. She pointed out that Hermy was not a silly young girl, but an independent woman who had always been in the habit of making her own plans. She was probably carrying out some idea of her own.
"I thought it quite likely that Hermy didn't want to report all her movements to Lady Susan. But I was still worried. I had that queer feeling one gets when something is wrong. I was just leaving when a telegram was brought to Lady Susan. She read it with an expression of relief and handed it to me. It ran as follows: "Changed my plans Just off to Monte Carlo for a week Hermy."
Tommy held out his hand.
"You have got the telegram with you?"
"No, I haven't. But it was handed in at Maldon, Surrey. I noticed that at the time, because it struck me as odd. What should Hermy be doing at Maldon? She'd no friends there that I had ever heard of."
"You didn't think of rushing off to Monte Carlo in the same way that you had rushed North?"
"I thought of it, of course. But I decided against it. You see, Mr. Blunt, whilst Lady Susan seemed quite satisfied by that telegram, I wasn't. It struck me as odd that she should always telegraph, not write. A line or two in her own handwriting would have set all my fears at rest. But anyone can sign a telegram 'Hermy.' The more I thought it over, the more uneasy I got. In the end I went down to Maldon. That was yesterday afternoon. It's a fair sized place-good links there and all that-two hotels. I inquired everywhere I could think of, but there wasn't a sign that Hermy had ever been there. Coming back in the train I read your advertisement, and I thought I'd put it up to you. If Hermy has really gone off to Monte Carlo, I don't want to set the police on her track and make a scandal, but I'm not going to be sent off on a wild goose chase myself. I stay here in London, in case- in case there's been foul play of any kind."
Tommy nodded thoughtfully.
"What do you suspect exactly?"
"I don't know. But I feel there's something wrong."
With a quick movement, Stavansson took a case from his pocket and laid it open before them.
“That is Hermione," he said. "I will leave it with you."
The photograph represented a tan willowy woman, no longer in her first youth, but with a charming frank smile and lovely eyes.
"Now, Mr. Stavansson," said Tommy. “There is nothing you have omitted to tell me?"
"Nothing whatever."
"No detail, however small?"
"I don't think so."
Tommy sighed.
"That makes the task harder," he observed. "You must often have noticed, Mr. Stavansson, in reading of crime, how one small detail is all the great detective needs to set him on the track. I may say that this case presents some unusual features. I have, I think, practically solved it already, but time will show."
He picked up a violin which lay on the table, and drew the bow once or twice across the strings. Tuppence ground her teeth and even the explorer blenched. The performer laid the instrument down again.
"A few chords from Mosgovskensky," he murmured. "Leave me your address, Mr. Stavansson, and I will report progress to you."
As the visitor left the office, Tuppence grabbed the violin and putting it in the cupboard turned the key in the lock.
"If you must be Sherlock Holmes," she observed, "I'll get you a nice little syringe and a bottle labelled Cocaine, but for God's sake leave that violin alone. If that nice explorer man hadn't been as simple as a child, he'd have seen through you. Are you going on with the Sherlock Holmes touch?"
"I flatter myself that I have carried it through very well so far," said Tommy with some complacence. "The deductions were good, weren't they? I had to risk the taxi. After all, it's the only sensible way of getting to this place."
"It's lucky I had just read the bit about his engagement in this morning's Daily Mirror," remarked Tuppence.
"Yes, that looked well for the efficiency of Blunt's Brilliant Detectives. This is decidedly a Sherlock Holmes case. Even you cannot have failed to notice the similarity between it and the disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax."
"Do you expect to find Mrs. Leigh Gordon's body in a coffin?"
"Logically, history should repeat itself. Actually-well, what do you think?"
"Well," said Tuppence. "The most obvious explanation seems to be that for some reason or other Hermy, as he calls her, is afraid to meet her fiancé, and that Lady Susan is backing her up. In fact, to put it bluntly, she's come a cropper of some kind, and has got the wind up about it."
"That occurred to me also," said Tommy. "But I thought we'd better make pretty certain before suggesting that explanation to a man like Stavansson. What about a run down to Maldon, old thing? And it would do no harm to take some golf clubs with us."
Tuppence agreeing, the International Detective Agency was left in the charge
of Albert.
Maldon, though a well known residential place, did not cover a large area. Tommy and Tuppence, making every possible inquiry that ingenuity could suggest, nevertheless drew a complete blank. It was as they were returning to London that a brilliant idea occurred to Tuppence.
"Tommy, why did they put Maldon Surrey on the telegram?"
"Because Maldon is in Surrey, idiot."
"Idiot yourself-I don't mean that. If you get a telegram from-Hastings, say, or Torquay, they don't put the county after it. But from Richmond, they do put Richmond Surrey. That's because there are two Richmonds."
Tommy, who was driving, slowed up.
"Tuppence," he said affectionately. "Your idea is not so dusty. Let us make inquiries at yonder post office."
They drew up before a small building in the middle of a village street. A very few minutes sufficed to elicit the information that there were two Maldons. Maldon, Surrey, and Maldon, Sussex, the latter a tiny hamlet but possessed of a telegraph office.
"That's it," said Tuppence excitedly. "Stavansson knew Maldon was in Surrey, so he hardly looked at the word beginning with S. after Maldon."
"Tomorrow," said Tommy. "We'll have a look at Maldon, Sussex."
Maldon, Sussex, was a very different proposition to its Surrey namesake. It was four miles from a railway station, possessed two public houses, two small shops, a post and telegraph office combined with a sweet and picture postcard business, and about seven small cottages. Tuppence took on the shops whilst Tommy betook himself to the Cock and Sparrow. They met half an hour later.
"Well?" said Tuppence.
"Quite good beer," said Tommy, "but no information."
"You'd better try the King's Head," said Tuppence. "I'm going back to the post office. There's a sour old woman there, but I heard them yell to her that dinner was ready."
She returned to the place, and began examining postcards. A fresh-faced girl, still munching, came out of the back room.
"I'd like these, please," said Tuppence. "And do you mind waiting whilst I just look over these comic ones?"
She sorted through a packet, talking as she did so.
"I'm ever so disappointed you couldn't tell me my sister's address. She's staying near here and I've lost her letter. Leigh Wood, her name if."