“Nurse Edith—left with a patient—I remember,” he muttered. “My God, to have been so near!”
Dr. Hall looked bewildered.
“I don’t understand. Is the young lady not with her aunt, after all?”
Tuppence shook her head. She was about to speak when a warning glance from Sir James made her hold her tongue. The lawyer rose.
“I’m much obliged to you, Hall. We’re very grateful for all you’ve told us. I’m afraid we’re now in the position of having to track Miss Vandemeyer anew. What about the nurse who accompanied her; I suppose you don’t know where she is?”
The doctor shook his head.
“We’ve not heard from her, as it happens. I understood she was to remain with Miss Vandemeyer for a while. But what can have happened? Surely the girl has not been kidnapped.”
“That remains to be seen,” said Sir James gravely.
The other hesitated.
“You do not think I ought to go to the police?”
“No, no. In all probability the young lady is with other relations.”
The doctor was not completely satisfied, but he saw that Sir James was determined to say no more, and realized that to try to extract more information from the famous K.C. would be mere waste of labour. Accordingly, he wished them good-bye, and they left the hotel. For a few minutes they stood by the car talking.
“How maddening,” cried Tuppence. “To think that Julius must have been actually under the same roof with her for a few hours.”
“I was a darned idiot,” muttered Julius gloomily.
“You couldn’t know,” Tuppence consoled him. “Could he?” She appealed to Sir James.
“I should advise you not to worry,” said the latter kindly. “No use crying over spilt milk, you know.”
“The great thing is what to do next,” added Tuppence the practical.
Sir James shrugged his shoulders.
“You might advertise for the nurse who accompanied the girl. That is the only course I can suggest, and I must confess I do not hope for much result. Otherwise there is nothing to be done.”
“Nothing?” said Tuppence blankly. “And—Tommy?”
“We must hope for the best,” said Sir James. “Oh yes, we must go on hoping.”
But over her downcast head his eyes met Julius’s, and almost imperceptibly he shook his head. Julius understood. The lawyer considered the case hopeless. The young American’s face grew grave. Sir James took Tuppence’s hand.
“You must let me know if anything further comes to light. Letters will always be forwarded.”
Tuppence stared at him blankly.
“You are going away?”
“I told you. Don’t you remember? To Scotland.”
“Yes, but I thought—” The girl hesitated.
Sir James shrugged his shoulders.
“My dear young lady, I can do nothing more, I fear. Our clues have all ended in thin air. You can take my word for it that there is nothing more to be done. If anything should arise, I shall be glad to advise you in any way I can.”
His words gave Tuppence an extraordinary desolate feeling.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Anyway, thank you very much for trying to help us. Good-bye.”
Julius was bending over the car. A momentary pity came into Sir James’s keen eyes, as he gazed into the girl’s downcast face.
“Don’t be too disconsolate, Miss Tuppence,” he said in a low voice. “Remember, holiday time isn’t always all playtime. One sometimes manages to put in some work as well.”
Something in his tone made Tuppence glance up sharply. He shook his head with a smile.
“No, I shan’t say anymore. Great mistake to say too much. Remember that. Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best. Understand? Good-bye.”
He strode away. Tuppence stared after him. She was beginning to understand Sir James’s methods. Once before he had thrown her a hint in the same careless fashion. Was this a hint? What exactly lay behind those last brief words? Did he mean that, after all, he had not abandoned the case: that secretly, he would be working on it still while—
Her meditations were interrupted by Julius, who adjured her to “get right in.”
“You’re looking kind of thoughtful,” he remarked as they started off. “Did the old guy say anything more?”
Tuppence opened her mouth impulsively, and then shut it again. Sir James’s words sounded in her ears: “Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.” And like a flash there came into her mind another memory. Julius before the safe in the flat, her own question and the pause before his reply, “Nothing.” Was there really nothing? Or had he found something he wished to keep to himself? If he could make a reservation, so could she.
“Nothing particular,” she replied.
She felt rather than saw Julius throw a sideways glance at her.
“Say, shall we go for a spin in the park?”
“If you like.”
For a while they ran on under the trees in silence. It was a beautiful day. The keen rush through the air brought a new exhilaration to Tuppence.
“Say, Miss Tuppence, do you think I’m ever going to find Jane?”
Julius spoke in a discouraged voice. The mood was so alien to him that Tuppence turned and stared at him in surprise. He nodded.
“That’s so. I’m getting down and out over the business. Sir James today hadn’t got any hope at all, I could see that, I don’t like him—we don’t gee together somehow—but he’s pretty cute, and I guess he wouldn’t quit if there was any chance of success—now, would he?”
Tuppence felt rather uncomfortable, but clinging to her belief that Julius also had withheld something from her, she remained firm.
“He suggested advertising for the nurse,” she reminded him.
“Yes, with a ‘forlorn hope’ flavour to his voice! No—I’m about fed up. I’ve half a mind to go back to the States right away.”
“Oh no!” cried Tuppence. “We’ve got to find Tommy.”
“I sure forgot Beresford,” said Julius contritely. “That’s so. We must find him. But after—well, I’ve been daydreaming ever since I started on this trip—and these dreams are rotten poor business. I’m quit of them. Say, Miss Tuppence, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“Yes.”
“You and Beresford. What about it?”
“I don’t understand you,” replied Tuppence with dignity, adding rather inconsequently: “And, anyway, you’re wrong!”
“Not got a sort of kindly feeling for one another?”
“Certainly not,” said Tuppence with warmth. “Tommy and I are friends—nothing more.”
“I guess every pair of lovers has said that some time or another,” observed Julius.
“Nonsense!” snapped Tuppence. “Do I look the sort of girl that’s always falling in love with every man she meets?”
“You do not. You look the sort of girl that’s mighty often getting fallen in love with!”
“Oh!” said Tuppence, rather taken aback. “That’s a compliment, I suppose?”
“Sure. Now let’s get down to this. Supposing we never find Beresford and—and—”
“All right—say it! I can face facts. Supposing he’s—dead! Well?”
“And all this business fiddles out. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Tuppence forlornly.
“You’ll be darned lonesome, you poor kid.”
“I shall be all right,” snapped Tuppence with her usual resentment of any kind of pity.
“What about marriage?” inquired Julius. “Got any views on the subject?”
“I intend to marry, of course,” replied Tuppence. “That is, if”—she paused, knew a momentary longing to draw back, and then stuck to her guns bravely—“I can find someone rich enough to make it worth my while. That’s frank, isn’t it? I daresay you despise me for it.”
“I never despise b
usiness instinct,” said Julius. “What particular figure have you in mind?”
“Figure?” asked Tuppence, puzzled. “Do you mean tall or short?”
“No. Sum—income.”
“Oh, I—haven’t quite worked that out.”
“What about me?”
“You?”
“Sure thing.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!”
“Why not?”
“I tell you I couldn’t.”
“Again, why not?”
“It would seem so unfair.”
“I don’t see anything unfair about it. I call your bluff, that’s all. I admire you immensely, Miss Tuppence, more than any girl I’ve ever met. You’re so darned plucky. I’d just love to give you a real, rattling good time. Say the word, and we’ll run round right away to some high-class jeweller, and fix up the ring business.”
“I can’t,” gasped Tuppence.
“Because of Beresford?”
“No, no, no!”
“Well then?”
Tuppence merely continued to shake her head violently.
“You can’t reasonably expect more dollars than I’ve got.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” gasped Tuppence with an almost hysterical laugh. “But thanking you very much, and all that, I think I’d better say no.”
“I’d be obliged if you’d do me the favour to think it over until tomorrow.”
“It’s no use.”
“Still, I guess we’ll leave it like that.”
“Very well,” said Tuppence meekly.
Neither of them spoke again until they reached the Ritz.
Tuppence went upstairs to her room. She felt morally battered to the ground after her conflict with Julius’s vigorous personality. Sitting down in front of the glass, she stared at her own reflection for some minutes.
“Fool,” murmured Tuppence at length, making a grimace. “Little fool. Everything you want—everything you’ve ever hoped for, and you go and bleat out ‘no’ like an idiotic little sheep. It’s your one chance. Why don’t you take it? Grab it? Snatch at it? What more do you want?”
As if in answer to her own question, her eyes fell on a small snapshot of Tommy that stood on her dressing table in a shabby frame. For a moment she struggled for self-control, and then abandoning all pretence, she held it to her lips and burst into a fit of sobbing.
“Oh, Tommy, Tommy,” she cried, “I do love you so—and I may never see you again. . . .”
At the end of five minutes Tuppence sat up, blew her nose, and pushed back her hair.
“That’s that,” she observed sternly. “Let’s look facts in the face. I seem to have fallen in love—with an idiot of a boy who probably doesn’t care two straws about me.” Here she paused. “Anyway,” she resumed, as though arguing with an unseen opponent, “I don’t know that he does. He’d never have dared to say so. I’ve always jumped on sentiment—and here I am being more sentimental than anybody. What idiots girls are! I’ve always thought so. I suppose I shall sleep with his photograph under my pillow, and dream about him all night. It’s dreadful to feel you’ve been false to your principles.”
Tuppence shook her head sadly, as she reviewed her backsliding.
“I don’t know what to say to Julius, I’m sure. Oh, what a fool I feel! I’ll have to say something—he’s so American and thorough, he’ll insist upon having a reason. I wonder if he did find anything in that safe—”
Tuppence’s meditations went off on another track. She reviewed the events of last night carefully and persistently. Somehow, they seemed bound up with Sir James’s enigmatical words. . . .
Suddenly she gave a great start—the colour faded out of her face. Her eyes, fascinated, gazed in front of her, the pupils dilated.
“Impossible,” she murmured. “Impossible! I must be going mad even to think of such a thing. . . .”
Monstrous—yet it explained everything. . . .
After a moment’s reflection she sat down and wrote a note, weighing each word as she did so. Finally she nodded her head as though satisfied, and slipped it into an envelope which she addressed to Julius. She went down the passage to his sitting room and knocked at the door. As she had expected, the room was empty. She left the note on the table.
A small page boy was waiting outside her own door when she returned to it.
“Telegram for you, miss.”
Tuppence took it from the salver, and tore it open carelessly. Then she gave a cry. The telegram was from Tommy!
Sixteen
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOMMY
From a darkness punctuated with throbbing stabs of fire, Tommy dragged his senses slowly back to life. When he at last opened his eyes, he was conscious of nothing but an excruciating pain through his temples. He was vaguely aware of unfamiliar surroundings. Where was he? What had happened? He blinked feebly. This was not his bedroom at the Ritz. And what the devil was the matter with his head?
“Damn!” said Tommy, and tried to sit up. He had remembered. He was in that sinister house in Soho. He uttered a groan and fell back. Through his almost-closed eyelids he reconnoitred carefully.
“He is coming to,” remarked a voice very near Tommy’s ear. He recognized it at once for that of the bearded and efficient German, and lay artistically inert. He felt that it would be a pity to come round too soon; and until the pain in his head became a little less acute, he felt quite incapable of collecting his wits. Painfully he tried to puzzle out what had happened. Obviously somebody must have crept up behind him as he listened and struck him down with a blow on the head. They knew him now for a spy, and would in all probability give him short shrift. Undoubtedly he was in a tight place. Nobody knew where he was, therefore he need expect no outside assistance, and must depend solely on his own wits.
“Well, here goes,” murmured Tommy to himself, and repeated his former remark.
“Damn!” he observed, and this time succeeded in sitting up.
In a minute the German stepped forward and placed a glass to his lips, with the brief command “Drink.” Tommy obeyed. The potency of the draught made him choke, but it cleared his brain in a marvellous manner.
He was lying on a couch in the room in which the meeting had been held. On one side of him was the German, on the other the villainous-faced doorkeeper who had let him in. The others were grouped together at a little distance away. But Tommy missed one face. The man known as Number One was no longer of the company.
“Feel better?” asked the German, as he removed the empty glass.
“Yes, thanks,” returned Tommy cheerfully.
“Ah, my young friend, it is lucky for you your skull is so thick. The good Conrad struck hard.” He indicated the evil-faced doorkeeper by a nod.
The man grinned.
Tommy twisted his head round with an effort.
“Oh,” he said, “so you’re Conrad, are you? It strikes me the thickness of my skull was lucky for you too. When I look at you I feel it’s almost a pity I’ve enabled you to cheat the hangman.”
The man snarled, and the bearded man said quietly:
“He would have run no risk of that.”
“Just as you like,” replied Tommy. “I know it’s the fashion to run down the police. I rather believe in them myself.”
His manner was nonchalant to the last degree. Tommy Beresford was one of those young Englishmen not distinguished by any special intellectual ability, but who are emphatically at their best in what is known as a “tight place.” Their natural diffidence and caution falls from them then like a glove. Tommy realized perfectly that in his own wits lay the only chance of escape, and behind his casual manner he was racking his brains furiously.
The cold accents of the German took up the conversation:
“Have you anything to say before you are put to death as a spy?”
“Simply lots of things,” replied Tommy with the same urbanity as before.
“Do you deny that you were listening at that door?”
“I do not. I must really apologize—but your conversation was so interesting that it overcame my scruples.”
“How did you get in?”
“Dear old Conrad here.” Tommy smiled deprecatingly at him. “I hesitate to suggest pensioning off a faithful servant, but you really ought to have a better watchdog.”
Conrad snarled impotently, and said sullenly, as the man with the beard swung round upon him:
“He gave the word. How was I to know?”
“Yes,” Tommy chimed in. “How was he to know? Don’t blame the poor fellow. His hasty action has given me the pleasure of seeing you all face to face.”
He fancied that his words caused some discomposure among the group, but the watchful German stilled it with a wave of his hand.
“Dead men tell no tales,” he said evenly.
“Ah,” said Tommy, “but I’m not dead yet!”
“You soon will be, my young friend,” said the German.
An assenting murmur came from the others.
Tommy’s heart beat faster, but his casual pleasantness did not waver.
“I think not,” he said firmly. “I should have a great objection to dying.”
He had got them puzzled, he saw that by the look on his captor’s face.
“Can you give us any reason why we should not put you to death?” asked the German.
“Several,” replied Tommy. “Look here, you’ve been asking me a lot of questions. Let me ask you one for a change. Why didn’t you kill me off at once before I regained consciousness?”
The German hesitated, and Tommy seized his advantage.
“Because you didn’t know how much I knew—and where I obtained that knowledge. If you kill me now, you never will know.”
But here the emotions of Boris became too much for him. He stepped forward waving his arms.
“You hellhound of a spy,” he screamed. “We will give you short shrift. Kill him! Kill him!”
There was a roar of applause.
“You hear?” said the German, his eyes on Tommy. “What have you got to say to that?”
“Say?” Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “Pack of fools. Let them ask themselves a few questions. How did I get into this place? Remember what dear old Conrad said—with your own password, wasn’t it? How did I get hold of that? You don’t suppose I came up those steps haphazard and said the first thing that came into my head?”