N or M_ - Agatha Christie [45]
The verdict was in accordance with the coroner’s summing up.
II
On the day following the inquest Mrs Blenkensop and Mr Meadowes met to compare notes.
‘Exit Vanda Polonska and a blank wall as usual,’ said Tommy gloomily.
Tuppence nodded.
‘Yes, they seal up both ends, don’t they? No papers, no hints of any kind as to where the money came from that she and her cousins had, no record of whom they had dealings with.’
‘Too damned efficient,’ said Tommy.
He added: ‘You know, Tuppence, I don’t like the look of things.’
Tuppence assented. The news was indeed far from reassuring.
The French Army was in retreat and it seemed doubtful if the tide could be turned. Evacuation from Dunkirk was in progress. It was clearly a matter of a few days only before Paris fell. There was a general dismay at the revelation of lack of equipment and of material for resisting the Germans’ great mechanised units.
Tommy said:
‘Is it only our usual muddling and slowness? Or has there been deliberate engineering behind this?’
‘The latter, I think, but they’ll never be able to prove it.’
‘No. Our adversaries are too damned clever for that.’
‘We are combing out a lot of the rot now.’
‘Oh, yes, we’re rounding up the obvious people, but I don’t believe we’ve got at the brains that are behind it all. Brains, organisation, a whole carefully thought-out plan–a plan which uses our habits of dilatoriness, and our petty feuds, and our slowness for its own ends.’
Tuppence said:
‘That’s what we’re here for–and we haven’t got results.’
‘We’ve done something,’ Tommy reminded her.
‘Carl von Deinim and Vanda Polonska, yes. The small fry.’
‘You think they were working together?’
‘I think they must have been,’ said Tuppence thoughtfully. ‘Remember I saw them talking.’
‘Then Carl von Deinim must have engineered the kidnapping?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘But why?’
‘I know,’ said Tuppence. ‘That’s what I keep thinking and thinking about. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Why kidnap that particular child? Who are the Sprots? They’ve no money–so it isn’t ransom. They’re neither of them employed by Government in any capacity.’
‘I know, Tommy. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.’
‘Hasn’t Mrs Sprot any idea herself?’
‘That woman,’ said Tuppence scornfully, ‘hasn’t got the brains of a hen. She doesn’t think at all. Just says it’s the sort of thing the wicked Germans would do.’
‘Silly ass,’ said Tommy. ‘The Germans are efficient. If they send one of their agents to kidnap a brat, it’s for some reason.’
‘I’ve a feeling, you know,’ said Tuppence, ‘that Mrs Sprot could get at the reason if only she’d think about it. There must be something–some piece of information that she herself has inadvertently got hold of, perhaps without knowing what it is exactly.’
‘Say nothing. Wait for instructions,’ Tommy quoted from the note found on Mrs Sprot’s bedroom floor. ‘Damn it all, that means something.’
‘Of course it does–it must. The only thing I can think of is that Mrs Sprot, or her husband, has been given something to keep by someone else–given it, perhaps, just because they are such humdrum ordinary people that no one would ever suspect they had it–whatever “it” may be.’
‘It’s an idea, that.’
‘I know–but it’s awfully like a spy story. It doesn’t seem real somehow.’
‘Have you asked Mrs Sprot to rack her brains a bit?’
‘Yes, but the trouble is that she isn’t really interested. All she cares about is getting Betty back–that, and having hysterics because she’s shot someone.’
‘Funny creatures, women,’ mused Tommy. ‘There was that woman, went out that day like an avenging fury, she’d have shot down a regiment in cold blood without turning a hair just to get her child back, and then, having shot the kidnapper by a perfectly incredible fluke, she breaks down and comes all over squeamish about it.’
‘The coroner exonerated her all right,’ said Tuppence.
‘Naturally. By Jove, I wouldn’t have risked firing when she did.’
Tuppence said:
‘No more would she,