The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie [reading comprehension books txt] 📗

this point, she made her way to the Ritz. On inquiry she learnt that Tommy had not yet returned. It was the answer she had expected, but it was another nail in the coffin of her hopes. She resolved to appeal to Mr. Carter, telling him when and where Tommy had started on his quest, and asking him to do something to trace him. The prospect of his aid revived her mercurial spirits, and she next inquired for Julius Hersheimmer. The reply she got was to the effect that he had returned about half an hour ago, but had gone out immediately.

Tuppence’s spirits revived still more. It would be something to see Julius. Perhaps he could devise some plan for finding out what had become of Tommy. She wrote her note to Mr. Carter in Julius’s sitting-room, and was just addressing the envelope when the door burst open.

“What the hell⁠—” began Julius, but checked himself abruptly. “I beg your pardon, Miss Tuppence. Those fools down at the office would have it that Beresford wasn’t here any longer⁠—hadn’t been here since Wednesday. Is that so?”

Tuppence nodded.

“You don’t know where he is?” she asked faintly.

“I? How should I know? I haven’t had one darned word from him, though I wired him yesterday morning.”

“I expect your wire’s at the office unopened.”

“But where is he?”

“I don’t know. I hoped you might.”

“I tell you I haven’t had one darned word from him since we parted at the depot on Wednesday.”

“What depot?”

“Waterloo. Your London and South Western road.”

“Waterloo?” frowned Tuppence.

“Why, yes. Didn’t he tell you?”

“I haven’t seen him either,” replied Tuppence impatiently. “Go on about Waterloo. What were you doing there?”

“He gave me a call. Over the phone. Told me to get a move on, and hustle. Said he was trailing two crooks.”

“Oh!” said Tuppence, her eyes opening. “I see. Go on.”

“I hurried along right away. Beresford was there. He pointed out the crooks. The big one was mine, the guy you bluffed. Tommy shoved a ticket into my hand and told me to get aboard the cars. He was going to sleuth the other crook.” Julius paused. “I thought for sure you’d know all this.”

“Julius,” said Tuppence firmly, “stop walking up and down. It makes me giddy. Sit down in that armchair, and tell me the whole story with as few fancy turns of speech as possible.”

Mr. Hersheimmer obeyed.

“Sure,” he said. “Where shall I begin?”

“Where you left off. At Waterloo.”

“Well,” began Julius, “I got into one of your dear old-fashioned first-class British compartments. The train was just off. First thing I knew a guard came along and informed me mighty politely that I wasn’t in a smoking-carriage. I handed him out half a dollar, and that settled that. I did a bit of prospecting along the corridor to the next coach. Whittington was there right enough. When I saw the skunk, with his big sleek fat face, and thought of poor little Jane in his clutches, I felt real mad that I hadn’t got a gun with me. I’d have tickled him up some.

“We got to Bournemouth all right. Whittington took a cab and gave the name of an hotel. I did likewise, and we drove up within three minutes of each other. He hired a room, and I hired one too. So far it was all plain sailing. He hadn’t the remotest notion that anyone was on to him. Well, he just sat around in the hotel lounge, reading the papers and so on, till it was time for dinner. He didn’t hurry any over that either.

“I began to think that there was nothing doing, that he’d just come on the trip for his health, but I remembered that he hadn’t changed for dinner, though it was by way of being a slap-up hotel, so it seemed likely enough that he’d be going out on his real business afterwards.

“Sure enough, about nine o’clock, so he did. Took a car across the town⁠—mighty pretty place by the way, I guess I’ll take Jane there for a spell when I find her⁠—and then paid it off and struck out along those pine-woods on the top of the cliff. I was there too, you understand. We walked, maybe, for half an hour. There’s a lot of villas all the way along, but by degrees they seemed to get more and more thinned out, and in the end we got to one that seemed the last of the bunch. Big house it was, with a lot of piny grounds around it.

“It was a pretty black night, and the carriage drive up to the house was dark as pitch. I could hear him ahead, though I couldn’t see him. I had to walk carefully in case he might get on to it that he was being followed. I turned a curve and I was just in time to see him ring the bell and get admitted to the house. I just stopped where I was. It was beginning to rain, and I was soon pretty near soaked through. Also, it was almighty cold.

“Whittington didn’t come out again, and by and by I got kind of restive, and began to mouch around. All the ground floor windows were shuttered tight, but upstairs, on the first floor (it was a two-storied house) I noticed a window with a light burning and the curtains not drawn.

“Now, just opposite to that window, there was a tree growing. It was about thirty foot away from the house, maybe, and I sort of got it into my head that, if I climbed up that tree, I’d very likely be able to see into that room. Of course, I knew there was no reason why Whittington should be in that room rather than in any other⁠—less reason, in fact, for the betting would be on his being in one of the reception-rooms downstairs. But I guess I’d got the hump from standing so long in the rain, and anything seemed better than going on doing nothing. So I started