The Secret Adversary. Агата Кристи
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ate Sister Westhaven’s egg! Grand row! Wardmaid clearly to blame! Inattention in such important matters cannot be too highly censured. Mop and pail again! How are the mighty fallen! Ninth month: Promoted to sweeping out wards, where I found a friend of my childhood in Lieutenant Thomas Beresford (bow, Tommy!), whom I had not seen for five long years. The meeting was affecting! Tenth month: Reproved by matron for visiting the pictures in company with one of the patients, namely: the aforementioned Lieutenant Thomas Beresford. Eleventh and twelfth months: Parlourmaid duties resumed with entire success. At the end of the year left hospital in a blaze of glory. After that, the talented Miss Cowley drove successively a trade delivery van, a motor-lorry and a general. The last was the pleasantest. He was quite a young general!’
‘What blighter was that?’ inquired Tommy. ‘Perfectly sickening the way those brass hats drove from the War Office to the Savoy, and from the Savoy to the War Office!’
‘I’ve forgotten his name now,’ confessed Tuppence. ‘To resume, that was in a way the apex of my career. I next entered a Government office. We had several very enjoyable tea parties. I had intended to become a land girl, a post-woman, and a bus conductress by way of rounding off my career—but the Armistice intervened! I clung to the office with the true limpet touch for many long months, but, alas, I was combed out at last. Since then I’ve been looking for a job. Now then—your turn.’
‘There’s not so much promotion in mine,’ said Tommy regretfully, ‘and a great deal less variety. I went out to France again, as you know. Then they sent me to Mesopotamia, and I got wounded for the second time, and went into hospital out there. Then I got stuck in Egypt till the Armistice happened, kicked my heels there some time longer, and, as I told you, finally got demobbed. And, for ten long, weary months I’ve been job hunting! There aren’t any jobs! And, if there were, they wouldn’t give ’em to me. What good am I? What do I know about business? Nothing.’
Tuppence nodded gloomily.
‘What about the colonies?’ she suggested.
Tommy shook his head.
‘I shouldn’t like the colonies—and I’m perfectly certain they wouldn’t like me!’
‘Rich relations?’
Again Tommy shook his head.
‘Oh, Tommy, not even a great-aunt?’
‘I’ve got an old uncle who’s more or less rolling, but he’s no good.’
‘Why not?’
‘Wanted to adopt me once. I refused.’
‘I think I remember hearing about it,’ said Tuppence slowly. ‘You refused because of your mother—’
Tommy flushed.
‘Yes, it would have been a bit rough on the mater. As you know, I was all she had. Old boy hated her—wanted to get me away from her. Just a bit of spite.’
‘Your mother’s dead, isn’t she?’ said Tuppence gently.
Tommy nodded.
Tuppence’s large grey eyes looked misty.
‘You’re a good sort, Tommy. I always knew it.’
‘Rot!’ said Tommy hastily. ‘Well, that’s my position. I’m just about desperate.’
‘So am I! I’ve hung out as long as I could. I’ve touted round. I’ve answered advertisements. I’ve tried every mortal blessed thing. I’ve screwed and saved and pinched! But it’s no good. I shall have to go home!’
‘Don’t you want to?’
‘Of course I don’t want to! What’s the good of being sentimental? Father’s a dear—I’m awfully fond of him—but you’ve no idea how I worry him! He has that delightful early Victorian view that short skirts and smoking are immoral. You can imagine what a thorn in the flesh I am to him! He just heaved a sigh of relief when the war took me off. You see, there are seven of us at home. It’s awful! All housework and mothers’ meetings! I have always been the changeling. I don’t want to go back, but—oh, Tommy, what else is there to do?’
Tommy shook his head sadly. There was a silence, and then Tuppence burst out:
‘Money, money, money! I think about money morning, noon and night! I dare say it’s mercenary of me, but there it is!’
‘Same here,’ agreed Tommy with feeling.
‘I’ve thought over every imaginable way of getting it too,’ continued Tuppence. ‘There are only three! To be left it, to marry it, or to make it. First is ruled out. I haven’t got any rich elderly relatives. Any relatives I have are in homes for decayed gentlewomen! I always help old ladies over crossings, and pick up parcels for old gentlemen, in case they should turn out to be eccentric millionaires. But not one of them has ever asked me my name—and quite a lot never said “Thank you.”’
There was a pause.
‘Of course,’ resumed Tuppence, ‘marriage is my best chance. I made up my mind to marry money when I was quite young. Any thinking girl would! I’m not sentimental, you know.’ She paused. ‘Come now, you can’t say I’m sentimental,’ she added sharply.
‘Certainly not,’ agreed Tommy hastily. ‘No one would ever think of sentiment in connexion with you.’
‘That’s not very polite,’ replied Tuppence. ‘But I dare say you mean it all right. Well, there it is! I’m ready and willing—but I never meet any rich men! All the boys I know are about as hard up as I am.’
‘What about the general?’ inquired Tommy.
‘I fancy he keeps a bicycle shop in time of peace,’ explained Tuppence. ‘No, there it is! Now you could marry a rich girl.’
‘I’m like you. I don’t know any.’
‘That doesn’t matter. You can always get to know one. Now, if I see a man in a fur coat come out of the Ritz I can’t rush up to him and say: “Look here, you’re rich. I’d like to know you.”’
‘Do you suggest that I should do that to a similarly garbed female?’
‘Don’t be silly. You tread on her foot, or pick up her handkerchief, or something like that. If she thinks you want to know her she’s flattered, and will manage it for you somehow.’
‘You overrate my manly charms,’ murmured Tommy.
‘On the other hand,’ proceeded Tuppence, ‘my millionaire would probably run for his life! No—marriage is fraught with difficulties. Remains—to make money!’
‘We’ve tried that, and failed,’ Tommy reminded her.
‘We’ve tried all the orthodox ways, yes. But suppose we try the unorthodox. Tommy, let’s be adventurers!’
‘Certainly,’ replied Tommy cheerfully. ‘How do we begin?’
‘That’s the difficulty. If we could make ourselves known, people might hire us to commit crimes for them.’
‘Delightful,’ commented Tommy. ‘Especially coming from a clergyman’s daughter!’
‘The moral guilt,’ Tuppence pointed out, ‘would be theirs—not mine. You must admit that there’s a difference between stealing a diamond necklace for yourself and being hired to steal it?’
‘There wouldn’t be the least difference if you were caught!’
‘Perhaps not. But I shouldn’t be caught. I’m so clever.’
‘Modesty always was your besetting sin,’ remarked Tommy.
‘Don’t rag. Look here, Tommy, shall we really? Shall we form a business partnership?’
‘Form a company for the stealing of diamond necklaces?’
‘That