Detectives and Young Adventurers: The Complete Short Stories

‘Certainly, Miss Sheringham,’ said Tommy. ‘An excellent plan.’

‘Look here,’ said Tuppence, when they were comfortably ensconced at a little table in a neighbouring restaurant, ‘I want to know: Is there any special reason why you want to find out about all this?’

Monica blushed.

‘Well, you see –’

‘Out with it,’ said Tuppence encouragingly.

‘Well – there are two men who – who – want to marry me.’

‘The usual story, I suppose? One rich, one poor, and the poor one is the one you like!’

‘I don’t know how you know all these things,’ murmured the girl.

‘That’s a sort of law of Nature,’ explained Tuppence. ‘It happens to everybody. It happened to me.’

‘You see, even if I sell the house, it won’t bring us in enough to live on. Gerald is a dear, but he’s desperately poor – though he’s a very clever engineer; and if only he had a little capital, his firm would take him into partnership. The other, Mr Partridge, is a very good man, I am sure – and well off, and if I married him, it would be an end to all our troubles. But – but –’

‘I know,’ said Tuppence sympathetically. ‘It isn’t the same thing at all. You can go on telling yourself how good and worthy he is, and adding up his qualities as though they were an addition sum – and it all has a simply refrigerating effect.’

Monica nodded.

‘Well,’ said Tuppence, ‘I think it would be as well if we went down to the neighbourhood and studied matters upon the spot. What is the address?’

‘The Red House, Stourton-in-the-Marsh.’

Tuppence wrote down the address in her notebook.

‘I didn’t ask you,’ Monica began – ‘about terms –’ she ended, blushing a little.

‘Our payments are strictly by results,’ said Tuppence gravely. ‘If the secret of the Red House is a profitable one, as seems possible from the anxiety displayed to acquire the property, we should expect a small percentage, otherwise – nothing!‘

‘Thank you very much,’ said the girl gratefully. ‘And now,’ said Tuppence, ‘don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right. Let’s enjoy lunch and talk of interesting things.’

The Red House

‘Well,’ said Tommy, looking out of the window of the Crown and Anchor, ‘here we are at Toad in the Hole – or whatever this blasted village is called.’

‘Let us review the case,’ said Tuppence.

‘By all means,’ said Tommy. ‘To begin with, getting my say in first, I suspect the invalid mother!’

‘Why?’

‘My dear Tuppence, grant that this poltergeist business is all a put-up job, got up in order to persuade the girl to sell the house, someone must have thrown the things about. Now the girl said everyone was at dinner – but if the mother is a thoroughgoing invalid, she’d be upstairs in her room.’

‘If she was an invalid she could hardly throw furniture about.’

‘Ah! but she wouldn’t be a real invalid. She’d be shamming.’

‘Why?’

‘There you have me,’ confessed her husband. ‘I was really going on the well-known principle of suspecting the most unlikely person.’

‘You always make fun of everything,’ said Tuppence severely. ‘There must be something that makes these people so anxious to get hold of the house. And if you don’t care about getting to the bottom of this matter, I do. I like that girl. She’s a dear.’

Tommy nodded seriously enough.

‘I quite agree. But I never can resist ragging you, Tuppence. Of course, there’s something queer about the house, and whatever it is, it’s something that’s difficult to get at. Otherwise a mere burglary would do the trick. But to be willing to buy the house means either that you’ve got to take up floors or pull down walls, or else that there’s a coal mine under the back garden.’

‘I don’t want it to be a coal mine. Buried treasure is much more romantic.’

‘H’m,’ said Tommy. ‘In that case I think that I shall pay a visit to the local Bank Manager, explain that I am staying here over Christmas and probably buying the Red House, and discuss the question of opening an account.’

‘But why –?’

‘Wait and see.’

Tommy returned at the end of half an hour. His eyes were twinkling.

‘We advance, Tuppence. Our interview proceeded on the lines indicated. I then asked casually whether he had had much gold paid in, as is often the case nowadays in these small country banks – small farmers who hoarded it during the war, you understand. From that we proceeded quite naturally to the extraordinary vagaries of old ladies. I invented an aunt who on the outbreak of war drove to the Army and Navy Stores in a four-wheeler, and returned with sixteen hams. He immediately mentioned a client of his own, who had insisted on drawing out every penny of money she had – in gold as far as possible, and who also insisted on having her securities, bearer bonds and such things, given into her own custody. I exclaimed on such an act of folly, and he mentioned casually that she was the former owner of the Red House. You see, Tuppence? She drew out all this money, and she hid it somewhere. You remember that Monica Deane mentioned that they were astonished at the small amount of her estate? Yes, she hid it in the Red House, and someone knows about it. I can make a pretty good guess who that someone is too.’

‘Who?’

‘What about the faithful Crockett? She would know all about her mistress’s peculiarities.’

‘And that gold-toothed Dr O’Neill?’

‘The gentlemanly nephew, of course! That’s it. But whereabouts did she hide it. You know more about old ladies than I do, Tuppence. Where do they hide things?’

‘Wrapped up in stockings and petticoats, under mattresses.’

Tommy nodded.

‘I expect you’re right. All the same, she can’t have done that because it would have been found when her things were turned over. It worries me – you see, an old lady like that can’t have taken up floors or dug holes in the garden. All the same it’s there in the Red House somewhere. Crockett hasn’t found it, but she knows it’s there, and once they get the house to themselves, she and her precious nephew, they can turn it upside down until they find what they’re after. We’ve got to get ahead of them. Come on, Tuppence. We’ll go to the Red House.’

Monica Deane received them. To her mother and Crockett they were represented as would-be purchasers of the Red House, which would account for their being taken all over the house and grounds. Tommy did not tell Monica of the conclusions he had come to, but he asked her various searching questions. Of the garments and personal belongings of the dead woman, some had been given to Crockett and the others sent to various poor families. Everything had been gone through and turned out.

‘Did your aunt leave any papers?’

‘The desk was full, and there were some in a drawer in her bedroom, but there was nothing of importance amongst them.’

‘Have they been thrown away?’

‘No, my mother is always very loath to throw away old papers. There were some old-fashioned recipes among them which she intends to go through one day.’

‘Good,’ said Tommy approvingly. Then, indicating an old man who was at work upon one of the flower beds in the garden, he asked: ‘Was that old man the gardener here in your aunt’s time?’