Agatha Christie - N or M

Tuppence said despairingly:

"I feel so futile - so inexperienced."

"Oh, you needn't worry about that. We've got experienced people working, all the experience and talent we've got - but when there's treachery within we can't tell who to trust. You and Beresford are the irregular forces. Nobody knows about you. That's why you've got a chance to succeed - that's why you have succeeded up to a certain point."

"Can't you put some of your people on to Mrs Perenna? There must be some of them you can trust absolutely?"

"Oh, we've done that. Working from 'information received that Mrs Perenna is a member of the I.R.A. with anti-British sympathies.' That's true enough, by the way - but we can't get proof of anything further. Not of the vital facts we want. So stick to it, Mrs Beresford. Go on, and do your darndest."

"The fourth," said Tuppence. "That's barely a week ahead?"

"It's a week exactly."

Tuppence clenched her hands.

"We must get something! I say we because I believe Tommy is on to something, and that's why he hasn't come back. He's following up a lead. If I could only get something too. I wonder now. If I -"

She frowned, planning a new form of attack.

II

"You see, Albert, it's a possibility."

"I see what you mean, Madam, of course. But I don't like the idea very much, I must say."

"I think it might work."

"Yes, Madam, but it's exposing yourself to attack - that's what I don't like - and I'm sure the master wouldn't like it."

"We've tried all the usual ways, That is to say, we've done what we could keeping under cover. It seems to me that now the only chance is to come out into the open."

"You are aware, Madam, that thereby you may be sacrificing an advantage?"

"You're frightfully B.B.C. in your language this afternoon, Albert," said Tuppence, with some exasperation.

Albert looked slightly taken aback and reverted to a more natural form of speech.

"I was listening to a very interesting talk on pond life last night," he explained.

"We've no time to think about pond life now," said Tuppence.

"Where's Captain Beresford, that's what I'd like to know?"

"So should I," said Tuppence, with a pang.

"Don't seem natural, his disappearing without a word. He ought to have tipped you the wink by now. That's why -"

"Yes, Albert?"

"What I mean is, if he's come out in the open, perhaps you'd better not."

He paused to arrange his ideas and then went on.

"I mean, they've blown the gaff on him, but they mayn't know about you - and so it's up to you to keep under cover still."

"I wish I could make up my mind," sighed Tuppence.

"Which way were you thinking of managing it, Madam?"

Tuppence murmured thoughtfully:

"I thought I might lose a letter I'd written - make a lot of fuss about it, seem very upset. Then it would be found in the hall and Beatrice would probably put it on the hall table. Then the right person would get a look at it."

"What would be in the letter?"

"Oh, roughly - that I'd been successful in discovering the identity of the person in question and that I was to make a full report personally tomorrow. Then, you see, Albert, N or M would have to come out in the open and have a shot at eliminating me."

"Yes, and maybe they'd manage it, too."

"Not if I was on my guard. They'd have, I think, to decoy me away somewhere - some lonely spot. That's where you'd come in - because they don't know about you."

"I'd follow them up and catch them red-handed, so to speak?"

Tuppence nodded.

"That's the idea. I must think it out carefully - I'll meet you tomorrow."

III

Tuppence was just emerging from the local lending library with what had been recommended to her as a "nice book" clasped under her arm when she was startled by a voice saying:

"Mrs Beresford."

She turned abruptly to see a tall, dark young man with an agreeable but slightly embarrassed smile.

He said:

"Er - I'm afraid you don't remember me?"

Tuppence was thoroughly used to the formula. She could have predicted with accuracy the words that were coming next.

"I - er - came to the flat with Deborah one day."

Deborah's friends! So many of them, and all, to Tuppence, looking singularly alike! Some dark like this young man, some fair, an occasional red-haired one - but all cast in the same mould - pleasant, well-mannered, their hair, in Tuppence's view, just slightly too long. (But when this was hinted, Deborah would say, "Oh, mother, don't be so terribly 1916. I can't stand short hair.")

Annoying to have run across and been recognized by one of Deborah's young men just now.

However, she could probably soon shake him off.

"I'm Antony Marsdon," explained the young man.

Tuppence murmured mendaciously, "Oh, of course," and shook hands.

Tony Marsdon went on:

"I'm awfully glad to have found you, Mrs Beresford. You see, I'm working at the same job as Deborah, and as a matter of fact something rather awkward has happened."

"Yes?" said Tuppence. "What is it?"

"Well, you see, Deborah's found out that you're not down in Cornwall as she thought, and that makes it a bit awkward, doesn't it, for you?"

"Oh, bother," said Tuppence, concerned. "How did she find out?"

Tony Marsdon explained. He went on rather diffidently:

"Deborah, of course, has no idea of what you're really doing."

He paused discreetly, and then went on:

"It's important, I imagine, that she shouldn't know. My job, actually, is rather the same line. I'm supposed to be just a beginner in the Coding Department. Really my instructions are to express views that are mildly Fascist - admiration of the German system, insinuations that a working alliance with Hitler wouldn't be a bad thing - all that sort of thing - just to see what response I get. There's a good deal of rot going on, you see, and we want to find out who's at the bottom of it."

"Rot everywhere," thought Tuppence.

"But as soon as Deb told me about you," continued the young man, "I thought I'd better come straight down and warn you so that you could cook up a likely story. You see, I happen to know what you are doing and that it's of vital importance. It would be fatal if any hint of who you are got about. I thought perhaps you could make it seem as though you'd joined Captain Beresford in Scotland or wherever he is. You might say that you'd been allowed to work with him there."

"I might do that, certainly," said Tuppence thoughtfully.

Tony Marsdon said anxiously:

"You don't think I'm butting in?"

"No, no, I'm very grateful to you."

Tony said rather inconsequentially:

"I'm - well - you see - I'm rather fond of Deborah."

Tuppence flashed him an amused quick glance.

How far away it seemed, that world of attentive young men and Deb with her rudeness to them that never seemed to put them off. This young man was, she thought, quite an attractive specimen.

She put aside what she called to herself "peace time thoughts" and concentrated on the present situation.

After a moment or two she said slowly:

"My husband isn't in Scotland."

"Isn't he?"

"No, he's down here with me. At least he was! Now - he's disappeared."

"I say, that's bad - or isn't it? Was he on to something?"

Tuppence nodded.

"I think so. That's why I don't think that his disappearing like this is really a bad sign. I think, sooner or later, he'll communicate with me - in his own way." She smiled a little.

Tony said, with some slight embarrassment:

"Of course, you know the game well, I expect. But you ought to be careful."

Tuppence nodded.

"I know what you mean. Beautiful heroines in books are always easily decoyed away. But Tommy and I have our methods. We've got a slogan." She smiled. "Penny Plain and Tuppence coloured."