N or M_ - Agatha Christie [47]
‘That’s not what they said. They’re searching his room now.’
Tuppence said slowly, ‘Well, if they find nothing–’
‘They will find nothing, of course! What should they find?’
‘I don’t know. I thought perhaps you might?’
‘I?’
Her scorn, her amazement were too real to be feigned. Any suspicions Tuppence had had that Sheila Perenna was involved died at this moment. The girl knew nothing, had never known anything.
Tuppence said:
‘If he is innocent–’
Sheila interrupted her.
‘What does it matter? The police will make a case against him.’
Tuppence said sharply:
‘Nonsense, my dear child, that really isn’t true.’
‘The English police will do anything. My mother says so.’
‘Your mother may say so, but she’s wrong. I assure you that it isn’t so.’
Sheila looked at her doubtfully for a minute or two. Then she said:
‘Very well. If you say so. I trust you.’
Tuppence felt very uncomfortable. She said sharply:
‘You trust too much, Sheila. You may have been unwise to trust Carl.’
‘Are you against him too? I thought you liked him. He thinks so too.’
Touching young things–with their faith in one’s liking for them. And it was true–she had liked Carl–she did like him.
Rather wearily she said:
‘Listen, Sheila, liking or not liking has nothing to do with facts. This country and Germany are at war. There are many ways of serving one’s country. One of them is to get information–and to work behind the lines. It is a brave thing to do, for when you are caught, it is’–her voice broke a little–‘the end.’
Sheila said:
‘You think Carl–’
‘Might be working for his country that way? It is a possibility, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ said Sheila.
‘It would be his job, you see, to come over here as a refugee, to appear to be violently anti-Nazi and then to gather information.’
Sheila said quietly:
‘It’s not true. I know Carl. I know his heart and his mind. He cares most for science–for his work–for the truth and the knowledge in it. He is grateful to England for letting him work here. Sometimes, when people say cruel things, he feels German and bitter. But he hates the Nazis always, and what they stand for–their denial of freedom.’
Tuppence said: ‘He would say so, of course.’
Sheila turned reproachful eyes upon her.
‘So you believe he is a spy?’
‘I think it is’–Tuppence hesitated–‘a possibility.’
Sheila walked to the door.
‘I see. I’m sorry I came to ask you to help us.’
‘But what did you think I could do, dear child?’
‘You know people. Your sons are in the Army and Navy, and I’ve heard you say more than once that they knew influential people. I thought perhaps you could get them to–to do–something?’
Tuppence thought of those mythical creatures, Douglas and Raymond and Cyril.
‘I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘that they couldn’t do anything.’
Sheila flung her head up. She said passionately:
‘Then there’s no hope for us. They’ll take him away and shut him up, and one day, early in the morning, they’ll stand him against a wall and shoot him–and that will be the end.’
She went out, shutting the door behind her.
‘Oh, damn, damn, damn the Irish!’ thought Tuppence in a fury of mixed feelings. ‘Why have they got that terrible power of twisting things until you don’t know where you are? If Carl von Deinim’s a spy, he deserves to be shot. I must hang on to that, not let this girl with her Irish voice bewitch me into thinking it’s the tragedy of a hero and a martyr!’
She recalled the voice of a famous actress speaking a line from Riders to the Sea:
‘It’s the fine quiet time they’ll be having…’
Poignant…carrying you away on a tide of feeling…
She thought: ‘If it weren’t true. Oh, if only it weren’t true…’
Yet, knowing what she did, how could she doubt?
IV
The fisherman on the end of the Old Pier cast in his line and reeled it cautiously in.
‘No doubt whatever, I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘You know,’ said Tommy, ‘I’m sorry about it. He’s–well, he’s a nice chap.’
‘They are, my dear fellow, they usually are. It isn’t the skunks and the rats of a land who volunteer to go to the enemy’s country. It’s the brave men. We know that