Partners in Crime (Tommy & Tuppence 2)

"The blind Problemist. Let us see if he will solve this problem. I shall stand here with my pistol ready. If you raise your hands to your head to remove that eyeshade, I shoot. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear," said Tommy. He was rather pale, but determined. "I haven't got a dog's chance, I suppose?"

"Oh! that-" the other shrugged his shoulders.

"Damned ingenious devil, aren't you?" said Tommy. "But you've forgotten one thing. May I light a cigarette, by the way? My poor little heart's going pit a pat."

"You may light a cigarette-but no tricks. I am watching you, remember, with the pistol ready."

"I'm not a performing dog," said Tommy. "I don't do tricks." He extracted a cigarette from his case, then felt for a match box. "It's all right. I'm not feeling for a revolver. But you know well enough that I'm not armed. All the same, as I said before, you've forgotten one thing."

"What is that?"

Tommy took a match from the box, and held it ready to strike.

"I'm blind and you can see. That's admitted. The advantage is with you. But supposing we were both in the dark- eh? Where's your advantage then?"

He struck the match.

The 'Duke' laughed contemptuously.

"Thinking of shooting at the switch of the lights? Plunging the room into darkness? It can't be done."

"Just so," said Tommy. "I can't give you darkness. But extremes meet, you know. What about light?"

As he spoke, he touched the match to something he held in his hand, and threw it down upon the table.

A blinding glare filled the room.

Just for a minute, blinded by the intense white light, the 'Duke' blinked and fell back, his pistol hand lowered.

He opened his eyes again to feel something sharp pricking his breast.

"Drop that pistol," ordered Tommy. "Drop it quick. I agree with you that a hollow cane is a pretty rotten affair. So I didn't get one. A good sword stick is a very useful weapon, though. Don't you think so? Almost as useful as magnesium wire. Drop that pistol."

Obedient to the necessity of that sharp point, the man dropped it. Then, with a laugh, he sprang back.

"But I still have the advantage," he mocked. "For I can see, and you cannot."

"That's where you're wrong," said Tommy. "I can see perfectly. This eyeshade's a fake. I was going to put one over on Tuppence. Make one or two bloomers to begin with, and then put in some perfectly marvellous stuff towards the end of the lunch. Why, bless you, I could have walked to the door and avoided all the knobs with perfect ease. But I didn't trust you to play a sporting game. You'd never have let me get out of this alive. Careful now-"

For, with his face distorted with rage, the 'Duke' sprang forward, forgetting in his fury to look where he put his feet.

There was a sudden blue crackle of flame, and he swayed for a minute, then fell like a log. A faint odor of singed flesh filled the room, mingling with a stronger smell of ozone.

“Whew," said Tommy.

He wiped his face.

Then, moving gingerly, and with every precaution, he reached the walk and touched the switch he had seen the other manipulate.

He crossed the room to the door, opened it carefully, and looked out. There was no one about. He went down the stairs and out through the front door.

Safe in the street, he looked up at the house with a shudder, noting the number. Then he hurried to the nearest telephone box.

There was a moment of agonising anxiety, and then a well known voice spoke.

"Tuppence, thank goodness!"

"Yes, I'm all right. I got all your points. The Fee, Shrimp Come to the Blitz and follow the two strangers. Albert got there in time, and when we went off in separate cars, followed me in a taxi, saw where they took me, and rang up the police."

"Albert's a good lad," said Tommy. "Chivalrous. I was pretty sure he'd choose to follow you. But I've been worried, all the same. I've got lots to tell you. I'm coming straight back now. And the first thing I shall do when I get back is to write a thumping big cheque for St. Dunstan's. Lord, it must be awful not to be able to see."

11. THE MAN IN THE MIST

Tommy was not pleased with life. Blunt's Brilliant Detectives had met with a reverse, distressing to their pride if not to their pockets. Called in professionally to elucidate the mystery of a stolen pearl necklace at Adlington Hall, Adlington, Blunt's Brilliant Detectives had failed to make good. Whilst Tommy, hard on the track of a gambling Countess, was tracking her in the disguise of a Roman Catholic Priest, and Tuppence was 'getting off' with a nephew of the house on the golf links, the local Inspector of Police had unemotionally arrested the second footman who proved to be a thief well known at headquarters and who admitted his guilt without making any bones about it.

Tommy and Tuppence, therefore, had withdrawn with what dignity they could muster, and were at the present moment solacing themselves with cocktails at the Grand Adlington Hotel. Tommy still wore his clerical disguise.

"Hardly a Father Brown touch, that," he remarked gloomily. "And yet I've got just the right kind of umbrella."

"It wasn't a Father Brown problem," said Tuppence. "One needs a certain atmosphere from the start. One must be doing something quite ordinary, and then bizarre things begin to happen. That's the idea."

"Unfortunately," said Tommy, "we have to return to town. Perhaps something bizarre will happen on the way to the station."

He raised the glass he was holding to his lips, but the liquid in it was suddenly spilled, as a heavy hand smacked him on the shoulder, and a voice to match the hand boomed out words of greeting.

"Upon my soul, it is! Old Tommy! And Mrs. Tommy too. Where did you blow in from? Haven't seen or heard anything of you for years."

"Why, it's Bulger!" said Tommy, setting down what was left of the cocktail, and turning to look at the intruder, a big square-shouldered man of thirty years of age, with a round red beaming face, and dressed in golfing kit. "Good old Bulger!"

"But I say, old chap," said Bulger (whose real name by the way, was Mervyn Estcourt), "I never knew you'd taken orders. Fancy you a blinking parson."

Tuppence burst out laughing, and Tommy looked embarrassed. And then they suddenly became conscious of a fourth person.

A tall slender creature, with very golden hair and very round blue eyes, almost impossibly beautiful, with an effect of really expensive black topped by wonderful ermines, and very large pearl earrings. She was smiling. And her smile said many things. It asserted, for instance, that she knew perfectly well that she herself was the thing best worth looking at certainly in England, and possibly in the whole world. She was not vain about it in any way, but she just knew, with certainty and confidence, that it was so.

Both Tommy and Tuppence recognised her immediately. They had seen her three t

imes in "The Secret of the Heart," and an equal number of times in that other great success, "Pillars of Fire," and in innumerable other plays. There was, perhaps, no other actress in England who had so firm a hold on the British public, as Miss Gilda Glen. She was reported to be the most beautiful woman in England. It was also rumored that she was the stupidest.

"Old friends of mine, Miss Glen," said Estcourt, with a tinge of apology in his voice for having presumed, even for a moment, to forget such a radiant creature. "Tommy, and Mrs. Tommy, let me introduce you to Miss Gilda Glen."

The ring of pride in his voice was unmistakable. By merely being seen in his company, Miss Glen had conferred great glory upon him.

The actress was staring with frank interest at Tommy.

"Are you really a Priest?" she asked. "A Roman Catholic Priest, I mean? Because I thought they didn't have wives."

Estcourt went off in a boom of laughter again.

"That's good," he exploded. "You sly dog, Tommy. Glad he hasn't renounced you, Mrs. Tommy, with all the rest of the pomps and vanities."

Gilda Glen took not the faintest notice of him. She continued to stare at Tommy with puzzled eyes.

"Are you a Priest?" she demanded.

"Very few of us are what we seem to be," said Tommy gently. "My profession is not unlike that of a Priest. I don't give Absolution-but I listen to Confessions-I-"

"Don't you listen to him," interrupted Estcourt. "He's pulling your leg."

"If you're not a clergyman, I don't see why you're dressed up like one," she puzzled. "That is, unless-"

"Not a criminal flying from justice," said Tommy. "The other thing."

"Oh!" she frowned, and looked at him with beautiful bewildered eyes.

"I wonder if she'll ever get that," thought Tommy to himself. "Not unless I put it in words of one syllable for her, I should say."

Aloud he said:

"Know anything about the trains back to town, Bulger? We've got to be pushing for home. How far is it to the station?"