The Complete Tommy & Tuppence Collection (68 page)

“Oh no. My breakfast I have already had it. I am on my way to work.”

“Work?”

“I am a research chemist.”

“So that's what you are,” thought Tuppence, stealing a quick glance at him.

Carl von Deinim went on, his voice stiff:

“I came to this country to escape Nazi persecution. I had very little money—no friends. I do now what useful work I can.”

He stared straight ahead of him. Tuppence was conscious of some undercurrent of strong feeling moving him powerfully.

She murmured vaguely:

“Oh yes, I see. Very creditable, I am sure.”

Carl von Deinim said:

“My two brothers are in concentration camps. My father died in one. My mother died of sorrow and fear.”

Tuppence thought:

“The way he says that—as though he had learned it by heart.”

Again she stole a quick glance at him. He was still staring ahead of him, his face impassive.

They walked in silence for some moments. Two men passed them. One of them shot a quick glance at Carl. She heard him mutter to his companion:

“Bet you that fellow is a German.”

Tuppence saw the colour rise in Carl von Deinim's cheeks.

Suddenly he lost command of himself. That tide of hidden emotion came to the surface. He stammered:

“You heard—you heard—that is what they say—I—”

“My dear boy,” Tuppence reverted suddenly to her real self. Her voice was crisp and compelling. “Don't be an idiot. You can't have it both ways.”

He turned his head and stared at her.

“What do you mean?”

“You're a refugee. You have to take the rough with the smooth. You're alive, that's the main thing. Alive and free. For the other—realise that it's inevitable. This country's at war. You're a German.” She smiled suddenly. “You can't expect the mere man in the street—literally the man in the street—to distinguish between bad Germans and good Germans, if I may put it so crudely.”

He still stared at her. His eyes, so very blue, were poignant with suppressed feeling. Then suddenly he too smiled. He said:

“They said of Red Indians, did they not, that a good Indian was a dead Indian.” He laughed. “To be a good German I must be on time at my work. Please. Good morning.”

Again that stiff bow. Tuppence stared after his retreating figure. She said to herself:

“Mrs. Blenkensop, you had a lapse then. Strict attention to business in future. Now for breakfast at Sans Souci.”

The hall door of Sans Souci was open. Inside, Mrs. Perenna was conducting a vigorous conversation with someone.

“And you'll tell him what I think of that last lot of margarine. Get the cooked ham at Quillers—it was twopence cheaper last time there, and be careful about the cabbages—” She broke off as Tuppence entered.

“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Blenkensop, you are an early bird. You haven't had breakfast yet. It's all ready in the dining room.” She added, indicating her companion: “My daughter Sheila. You haven't met her. She's been away and only came home last night.”

Tuppence looked with interest at the vivid, handsome face. No longer full of tragic energy, bored now and resentful. “My daughter Sheila.” Sheila Perenna.

Tuppence murmured a few pleasant words and went into the dining room. There were three people breakfasting—Mrs. Sprot and her baby girl, and big Mrs. O'Rourke. Tuppence said “Good morning” and Mrs. O'Rourke replied with a hearty “The top of the morning to you” that quite drowned Mrs. Sprot's more anaemic salutation.

The old woman stared at Tuppence with a kind of devouring interest.

“ 'Tis a fine thing to be out walking before breakfast,” she observed. “A grand appetite it gives you.”

Mrs. Sprot said to her offspring:

“
Nice
bread and milk, darling,” and endeavoured to insinuate a spoonful into Miss Betty Sprot's mouth.

The latter cleverly circumvented this endeavour by an adroit movement of her head, and continued to stare at Tuppence with large round eyes.

She pointed a milky finger at the newcomer, gave her a dazzling smile and observed in gurgling tones: “Ga—ga bouch.”

“She likes you,” cried Mrs. Sprot, beaming on Tuppence as on one marked out for favour. “Sometimes she's so shy with strangers.”

“Bouch,” said Betty Sprot. “Ah pooth ah bag,” she added with emphasis.

“And what would she be meaning by that?” demanded Mrs. O'Rourke, with interest.

“She doesn't speak awfully clearly yet,” confessed Mrs. Sprot. “She's only just over two, you know. I'm afraid most of what she says is just bosh. She can say Mama, though, can't you, darling?”

Betty looked thoughtfully at her mother and remarked with an air of finality:

“Cuggle bick.”

“ 'Tis a language of their own they have, the little angels,” boomed out Mrs. O'Rourke. “Betty, darling, say Mama now.”

Betty looked hard at Mrs. O'Rourke, frowned and observed with terrific emphasis: “Nazer—”

“There now, if she isn't doing her best! And a lovely sweet girl she is.”

Mrs. O'Rourke rose, beamed in a ferocious manner at Betty, and waddled heavily out of the room.

“Ga, ga, ga,” said Betty with enormous satisfaction, and beat with a spoon on the table.

Tuppence said with a twinkle:

“What does Na-zer really mean?”

Mrs. Sprot said with a flush: “I'm afraid, you know, it's what Betty says when she doesn't like anyone or anything.”

“I rather thought so,” said Tuppence.

Both women laughed.

“After all,” said Mrs. Sprot, “Mrs. O'Rourke means to be kind but she is rather alarming—with that deep voice and the beard and—and everything.”

With her head on one side Betty made a cooing noise at Tuppence.

“She has taken to you, Mrs. Blenkensop,” said Mrs. Sprot.

There was a slight jealous chill, Tuppence fancied, in her voice. Tuppence hastened to adjust matters.

“They always like a new face, don't they?” she said easily.

The door opened and Major Bletchley and Tommy appeared. Tuppence became arch.

“Ah, Mr. Meadowes,” she called out. “I've beaten you, you see. First past the post. But I've left you just a
little
breakfast!”

She indicated with the faintest of gestures the seat beside her.

Tommy, muttering vaguely: “Oh—er—rather—thanks,” sat down at the other end of the table.

Betty Sprot said
“Putch!”
with a fine splutter of milk at Major Bletchley, whose face instantly assumed a sheepish but delighted expression.

“And how's little Miss Bo Peep this morning?” he asked fatuously. “Bo Peep!” He enacted the play with a newspaper.

Betty crowed with delight.

Serious misgivings shook Tuppence. She thought:

“There must be some mistake. There
can't
be anything going on here. There simply can't!”

To believe in Sans Souci as a headquarters of the Fifth Column needed the mental equipment of the White Queen in
Alice.

Three

O
n the sheltered terrace outside, Miss Minton was knitting.

Miss Minton was thin and angular, her neck was stringy. She wore pale sky-blue jumpers, and chains or bead necklaces. Her skirts were tweedy and had a depressed droop at the back. She greeted Tuppence with alacrity.

“Good morning, Mrs. Blenkensop. I do hope you slept well.”

Mrs. Blenkensop confessed that she never slept very well the first night or two in a strange bed. Miss Minton said, Now, wasn't that curious? It was exactly the same with
her.

Mrs. Blenkensop said, “What a coincidence, and what a very pretty stitch that was.” Miss Minton, flushing with pleasure, displayed it. Yes, it was rather uncommon, and really quite simple. She could easily show it to Mrs. Blenkensop if Mrs. Blenkensop liked. Oh, that was very kind of Miss Minton, but Mrs. Blenkensop was so stupid, she wasn't really very good at knitting, not at following patterns, that was to say. She could only do simple things like Balaclava helmets, and even now she was afraid she had gone wrong somewhere. It didn't look
right,
somehow, did it?

Miss Minton cast an expert eye over the khaki mass. Gently she pointed out just what had gone wrong. Thankfully, Tuppence handed the faulty helmet over. Miss Minton exuded kindness and patronage. Oh, no, it wasn't a trouble at all. She had knitted for so many years.

“I'm afraid I've never done any before this dreadful war,” confessed Tuppence. “But one feels so terribly, doesn't one, that one must do
something.
”

“Oh yes, indeed. And you actually have a boy in the Navy, I think I heard you say last night?”

“Yes, my eldest boy. Such a splendid boy he is—though I suppose a mother shouldn't say so. Then I have a boy in the Air Force and Cyril, my baby, is out in France.”

“Oh dear, dear, how terribly anxious you must be.”

Tuppence thought:

“Oh Derek, my darling Derek . . . Out in the hell and mess—and here I am playing the fool—acting the thing I'm really feeling. . . .”

She said in her most righteous voice:

“We must all be brave, mustn't we? Let's hope it will all be over soon. I was told the other day on very high authority indeed that the Germans can't possibly last out more than another two months.”

Miss Minton nodded with so much vigour that all her bead chains rattled and shook.

“Yes, indeed, and I believe”—(her voice lowered mysteriously)—“that Hitler is suffering from a
disease
—absolutely fatal—he'll be raving mad by August.”

Tuppence replied briskly:

“All this Blitzkrieg is just the Germans' last effort. I believe the shortage is something frightful in Germany. The men in the factories are very dissatisfied. The whole thing will crack up.”

“What's this? What's all this?”

Mr. and Mrs. Cayley came out on the terrace, Mr. Cayley putting his questions fretfully. He settled himself in a chair and his wife put a rug over his knees. He repeated fretfully:

“What's that you are saying?”

“We're saying,” said Miss Minton, “that it will all be over by the autumn.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Cayley. “This war is going to last at least six years.”

“Oh, Mr. Cayley,” protested Tuppence. “You don't really think so?”

Mr. Cayley was peering about him suspiciously.

“Now I wonder,” he murmured. “Is there a draught? Perhaps it would be better if I moved my chair back into the corner.”

The resettlement of Mr. Cayley took place. His wife, an anxious-faced woman who seemed to have no other aim in life than to minister to Mr. Cayley's wants, manipulating cushions and rugs, asking from time to time: “Now how is that, Alfred? Do you think that will be all right? Ought you, perhaps, to have your sunglasses? There is rather a glare this morning.”

Mr. Cayley said irritably:

“No, no. Don't fuss, Elizabeth. Have you got my muffler? No, no, my silk muffler. Oh well, it doesn't matter. I dare say this will do—for once. But I don't want to get my throat overheated, and wool—in this sunlight—well, perhaps you
had
better fetch the other.” He turned his attention back to matters of public interest. “Yes,” he said. “I give it six years.”

He listened with pleasure to the protests of the two women.

“You dear ladies are just indulging in what we call wishful thinking. Now I know Germany. I may say I know Germany extremely well. In the course of my business before I retired I used to be constantly to and fro. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, I know them all. I can assure you that Germany can hold out practically indefinitely. With Russia behind her—”

Mr. Cayley plunged triumphantly on, his voice rising and falling in pleasurably melancholy cadences, only interrupted when he paused to receive the silk muffler his wife brought him and wind it round his throat.

Mrs. Sprot brought out Betty and plumped her down with a small woollen dog that lacked an ear and a woolly doll's jacket.

“There, Betty,” she said. “You dress up Bonzo ready for his walk while Mummy gets ready to go out.”

Mr. Cayley's voice droned on, reciting statistics and figures, all of a depressing character. The monologue was punctuated by a cheerful twittering from Betty talking busily to Bonzo in her own language.

“Truckle—truckly—pah bat,” said Betty. Then, as a bird alighted near her, she stretched out loving hands to it and gurgled. The bird flew away and Betty glanced round the assembled company and remarked clearly:

“Dicky,” and nodded her head with great satisfaction.

“That child is learning to talk in the most wonderful way,” said Miss Minton. “Say ‘Ta ta,' Betty. ‘Ta ta.' ”

Betty looked at her coldly and remarked:

“Gluck!”

Then she forced Bonzo's one arm into his woolly coat and, toddling over to a chair, picked up the cushion and pushed Bonzo behind it. Chuckling gleefully, she said with terrific pains:

“Hide! Bow wow. Hide!”

Miss Minton, acting as a kind of interpreter, said with vicarious pride:

“She loves hide-and-seek. She's always hiding things.” She cried out with exaggerated surprise:

“
Where
is Bonzo? Where
is
Bonzo? Where
can
Bonzo have gone?”

Betty flung herself down and went into ecstasies of mirth.

Mr. Cayley, finding attention diverted from his explanation of Germany's methods of substitution of raw materials, looked put out and coughed aggressively.

Mrs. Sprot came out with her hat on and picked up Betty.

Attention returned to Mr. Cayley.

“You were saying, Mr. Cayley?” said Tuppence.