N or M?

  "I passed, didn't I?" said Mrs Sprot.

  They looked at Mrs Cayley, who was leaning forward listening. Miss Minton took up the tale.

  "Then Mrs Cayley said two hearts and I said three diamonds."

  "And I said three spades," said Tuppence.

  "Pass," said Mrs Sprot.

  Mrs Cayley sat in silence. At last she seemed to become aware that everyone was looking at her.

  "Oh, dear." She flushed. "I'm so sorry. I thought perhaps Mr Cayley needed me. I hope he's all right out there on the terrace."

  She looked from one to the other of them.

  "Perhaps, if you don't mind, I'd better just go and see. I heard rather an odd noise. Perhaps he's dropped his book."

  She fluttered out of the window. Tuppence gave an exasperated sigh.

  "She ought to have a string tied to her wrist," she said. "Then he could pull it when he wanted her."

  "Such a devoted wife," said Miss Minton. "It's very nice to see it, isn't it?"

  "Is it?" said Tuppence, who was feeling far from good-tempered.

  The three women sat in silence for a minute or two.

  "Where's Sheila tonight?" asked Miss Minton.

  "She went to the pictures," said Mrs Sprot.

  "Where's Mrs Perenna?" asked Tuppence.

  "She said she was going to do accounts in her room," said Miss Minton. "Poor dear. So tiring, doing accounts."

  "She's not been doing accounts all the evening," said Mrs Sprot, "because she came in just now when I was telephoning in the hall."

  "I wonder where she'd been," said Miss Minton, whose life was taken up with such small wonderments. "Not to the pictures, they wouldn't be out yet."

  "She hadn't got a hat on," said Mrs Sprot. "Nor a coat. Her hair was all anyhow and I think she'd been running or something. Quite out of breath. She ran upstairs without a word and she glared - positively glared at me - and I'm sure I hadn't done anything."

  Mrs Cayley reappeared at the window.

  "Fancy," she said. "Mr Cayley has walked all round the garden by himself. He quite enjoyed it, he said. Such a mild night."

  She sat down again.

  "Let me see - Oh, do you think we could have the bidding over again?"

  Tuppence suppressed a rebellious sigh. They had the bidding all over again and she was left to play three spades.

  Mrs Perenna came in just as they were cutting for the next deal.

  "Did you enjoy your walk?" asked Miss Minton.

  Mrs Perenna stared at her. It was a fierce and unpleasant stare. She said:

  "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, criticized 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 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 L.D.V. 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 most difficult. A good deal depended on the exact time Mrs Perenna had re-entered 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 worth while and it gave her a pleasant feeling of importance. This was real work - not 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 ga ga."

  "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?"

  "No. And she hadn't been there! Not at all apparently!"

&
nbsp; Tony looked a little embarrassed.

  "Rather odd," he murmured. "Where's - I mean - your father?"