Partners in Crime (Tommy & Tuppence 2)

"Will you, sir? He's a clever devil, that Russian. Look at the cunning of this coup of his. But I know you'll do your best. Only-pray God it's not too late. They've got it in for us badly."

He left the Blitz Hotel and walked blindly along the street, hardly knowing where he was going. He felt completely paralyzed. Where to search? What to do?

He went into the Green Park, and dropped down upon a seat. He hardly noticed when someone else sat down at the opposite end, and was quite startled to hear a well known voice.

"If you please, sir, if I might make so bold-"

Tommy looked up.

"Hullo, Albert," he said dully.

"I know all about it, sir-but don't take on so."

"Don't take on-" He gave a short laugh. "Easily said, isn't it?"

"Ah, but think, sir. Blunt's Brilliant Detectives! Never beaten. And if you'll excuse my saying so, I happen to overhear what you and the Missus was ragging about this morning. Mr. Poirot, and his little grey cells. Well, sir, why not use your little grey cells, and see what you can do?"

"It's easier to use your little grey cells in fiction than it is in fact, my boy."

"Well," said Albert stoutly, "I don't believe anybody could put the Missus out, for good and all. You know what she is sir, just like one of those rubber bones you buy for little dorgs-guaranteed indestructible."

"Albert," said Tommy, "you cheer me."

"Then what about using your little grey cells, sir?"

"You're a persistent lad, Albert. Playing the fool has served us pretty well up to now. We'll try it again. Let us arrange our facts neatly, and with method. At ten minutes past two exactly, our quarry enters the lift. Five minutes later we speak to the lift man, and having heard what he says, we also go up to the third floor. At, say, nineteen minutes past two we enter the suite of Mrs. Van Snyder. And now, what significant fact strikes us?"

There was a pause, no significant fact striking either of them.

“There wasn't such a thing as a trunk in the room, was there?" asked Albert, his eyes lighting suddenly.

"Mon ami," said Tommy. "You do not understand the psychology of an American woman who has just returned from Paris. There were, I should say, about nineteen trunks in the room."

"What I meantersay is, a trunk's a handy thing if you've got a dead body about you want to get rid of-not that she is dead, for a minute."

"We searched the only two that were big enough to contain a body. What is the next fact in chronological order?"

"You've missed one out-when the Missus and the bloke dressed up as a Hospital Nurse passed the waiter in the passage."

"It must have been just before we came up in the lift," said Tommy. "They must have had a narrow escape of meeting us face to face. Pretty quick work, that. I-"

He stopped.

"What is it, sir?"

"Be silent, mon ami. I have the kind of little idea-colossal, stupendous-that always comes sooner or later to Hercule Poirot. But if so-if that's it-Oh! Lord, I hope I'm in time."

He raced out of the Park, Albert hard on his heels, inquiring breathlessly as he ran. "What's up, sir? I don't understand."

"That's all right," said Tommy. "You're not supposed to. Hastings never did. If your grey cells weren't of a very inferior order to mine, what fun do you think I should get out of this game? I'm talking damned rot-but I can't help it. You're a good lad, Albert. You know what Tuppence is worth-she's worth a dozen of you and me."

Thus talking breathlessly as he ran, Tommy reentered the portals of the Blitz. He caught sight of Evans, and drew him aside with a few hurried words. The two men entered the lift, Albert with them.

"Third floor," said Tommy.

At the door of No. 318 they paused. Evans had a pass key, and used it forthwith. Without a word of warning, they walked straight into Mrs. Van Snyder's bedroom. The lady was still lying on the bed, but was now arrayed in a becoming negligee. She stared at them in surprise.

"Pardon my failure to knock," said Tommy, pleasantly. "But I want my wife. Do you mind getting off that bed?"

"I guess you've gone plumb crazy," cried Mrs. Van Snyder.

Tommy surveyed her thoughtfully, his head on one side.

"Very artistic," he pronounced. "But it won't do. We looked under the bed-but not in it. I remember using that hiding-place myself when young. Horizontally across the bed, underneath the bolster. And that nice wardrobe trunk all ready to take away the body in later. But we were a bit too quick for you just now. You'd had time to dope Tuppence, put her under the bolster, and be gagged and bound by your accomplices next door, and I'll admit we swallowed your story all right for the moment. But when one came to think it out-with order and method-impossible to drug a girl, dress her in boy's clothes, gag and bind another woman, and change one's own appearance-all in five minutes. Simply a physical impossibility. The Hospital Nurse and the boy were to be a decoy. We were to follow that trail, and Mrs. Van Snyder was to be a pitied victim. Just help the lady off the bed, will you, Evans? You have automatic? Good."

Protesting shrilly, Mrs. Van Snyder was hauled from her place of repose. Tommy tore off the coverings and the bolster.

There, lying horizontally across the top of the bed was Tuppence, her eyes closed, and her face waxen. For a moment, Tommy felt a sudden dread, then he saw the slight rise and fall of her breast. She was drugged, not dead.