The Secret Adversary

‘Whittington?’

‘Yes. I’d recognize him anywhere.’

‘Hum,’ said Tommy doubtfully. ‘I don’t call that much of a clue. You don’t know where to look for him, and it’s about a thousand to one against your running against him by accident.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ replied Tuppence thoughtfully. ‘I’ve often noticed that once coincidences start happening they go on happening in the most extraordinary way. I dare say it’s some natural law that we haven’t found out. Still, as you say, we can’t rely on that. But there are places in London where simply everyone is bound to turn up sooner or later. Piccadilly Circus, for instance. One of my ideas was to take up my stand there every day with a tray of flags.’

‘What about meals?’ inquired the practical Tommy.

‘How like a man! What does mere food matter?’

‘That’s all very well. You’ve just had a thundering good breakfast. No one’s got a better appetite than you have, Tuppence, and by tea-time you’d be eating the flags, pins and all. But, honestly, I don’t think much of the idea. Whittington mayn’t be in London at all.’

‘That’s true. Anyway, I think clue No. 2 is more promising.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘It’s nothing much. Only a Christian name—Rita. Whittington mentioned it that day.’

‘Are you proposing a third advertisement: Wanted, female crook, answering to the name of Rita?’

‘I am not. I propose to reason in a logical manner. That man, Danvers, was shadowed on the way over, wasn’t he? And it’s more likely to have been a woman than a man—’

‘I don’t see that at all.’

‘I am absolutely certain that it would be a woman, and a good-looking one,’ replied Tuppence calmly.

‘On these technical points I bow to your decision,’ murmured Mr Beresford.

‘Now, obviously, this woman, whoever she was, was saved.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘If she wasn’t, how would they have known Jane Finn had got the papers?’

‘Correct. Proceed, O Sherlock!’

‘Now there’s just a chance, I admit it’s only a chance, that this woman may have been “Rita”.’

‘And if so?’

‘If so, we’ve got to hunt through the survivors of the Lusitania till we find her.’

‘Then the first thing is to get a list of the survivors.’

‘I’ve got it. I wrote a long list of things I wanted to know, and sent it to Mr Carter. I got his reply this morning, and among other things it encloses the official statement of those saved from the Lusitania. How’s that for clever little Tuppence?’

‘Full marks for industry, zero for modesty. But the great point is, is there a “Rita” on the list?’

‘That’s just what I don’t know,’ confessed Tuppence.

‘Don’t know?’

‘Yes, look here.’ Together they bent over the list. ‘You see, very few Christian names are given. They’re nearly all Mrs or Miss.’

Tommy nodded.

‘That complicates matters,’ he murmured thoughtfully.

Tuppence gave her characteristic ‘terrier’ shake.

‘Well, we’ve just got to get down to it, that’s all. We’ll start with the London area. Just note down the addresses of any of the females who live in London or roundabout, while I put on my hat.’

Five minutes later the young couple emerged into Piccadilly, and a few seconds later a taxi was bearing them to The Laurels, Glendower Road, N.7., the residence of Mrs Edgar Keith, whose name figured first in a list of seven reposing in Tommy’s pocket-book.

The Laurels was a dilapidated house, standing back from the road with a few grimy bushes to support the fiction of a front garden. Tommy paid off the taxi, and accompanied Tuppence to the front door bell. As she was about to ring it, he arrested her hand.

‘What are you going to say?’

‘What am I going to say? Why, I shall say—Oh dear, I don’t know. It’s very awkward.’

‘I thought as much,’ said Tommy with satisfaction. ‘How like a woman! No foresight! Now just stand aside, and see how easily the mere male deals with the situation.’ He pressed the bell. Tuppence withdrew to a suitable spot.

A slatternly-looking servant, with an extremely dirty face and a pair of eyes that did not match, answered the door.

Tommy had produced a notebook and pencil.

‘Good morning,’ he said briskly and cheerfully. ‘From the Hampstead Borough Council. The New Voting Register. Mrs Edgar Keith lives here, does she not?’

‘Yaas,’ said the servant.

‘Christian name?’ asked Tommy, his pencil poised.

‘Missus’s? Eleanor Jane.’

‘Eleanor,’ spelt Tommy. ‘Any sons or daughters over twenty-one?’

‘Naow.’

‘Thank you.’ Tommy closed the notebook with a brisk snap. ‘Good morning.’

The servant volunteered her first remark:

‘I thought perhaps as you’d come about the gas,’ she observed cryptically, and shut the door.

Tommy rejoined his accomplice.

‘You see, Tuppence,’ he observed. ‘Child’s play to the masculine mind.’