N or M_ - Agatha Christie [53]
He was in the hall…he had opened the front door…
Through the door on the right he caught a glimpse of Appledore setting the breakfast things ready on a tray for the morning. (The damned fools were going to let him get away with it!)
The two men stood in the porch, chatting–fixing up another match for next Saturday.
Tommy thought grimly: ‘There’ll be no next Saturday for you, my boy.’
Voices came from the road outside. Two men returning from a tramp on the headland. They were men that both Tommy and the Commander knew slightly. Tommy hailed them. They stopped. Haydock and he exchanged a few words with them, all standing at the gate, then Tommy waved a genial farewell to his host and stepped off with the two men.
He had got away with it.
Haydock, damned fool, had been taken in!
He heard Haydock go back to his house, go in and shut the door. Tommy tramped carefully down the hill with his two new-found friends.
Weather looked likely to change.
Old Monroe was off his game again.
That fellow Ashby refused to join the LDV. Said it was no damned good. Pretty thick, that. Young Marsh, the assistant caddy master, was a conscientious objector. Didn’t Meadowes think that matter ought to be put up to the committee. There had been a pretty bad raid on Southampton the night before last–quite a lot of damage done. What did Meadowes think about Spain? Were they turning nasty? Of course, ever since the French collapse–
Tommy could have shouted aloud. Such good casual normal talk. A stroke of providence that these two men had turned up just at that moment.
He said goodbye to them at the gate of Sans Souci and turned in.
He walked up the drive whistling softly to himself.
He had just turned the dark corner by the rhododendrons when something heavy descended on his head. He crashed forward, pitching into blackness and oblivion.
Chapter 10
‘Did you say Three Spades, Mrs Blenkensop?’
Yes, Mrs Blenkensop had said Three Spades. Mrs Sprot, returning breathless from the telephone: ‘And they’ve changed the time of the ARP exam, again, it’s too bad,’ demanded to have the bidding again.
Miss Minton, as usual, delayed things by ceaseless reiterations.
‘Was it Two Clubs I said? Are you sure? I rather thought, you know, that it might have been one No Trump–Oh yes, of course, I remember now. Mrs Cayley said One Heart, didn’t she? I was going to say one No Trump although I hadn’t quite got the count, but I do think one should play a plucky game–and then Mrs Cayley said One Heart and so I had to go Two Clubs. I always think it’s so difficult when one has two short suits–’
‘Sometimes,’ Tuppence thought to herself, ‘it would save time if Miss Minton just put her hand down on the table to show them all. She was quite incapable of not telling exactly what was in it.’
‘So now we’ve got it right,’ said Miss Minton triumphantly. ‘One Heart, Two Clubs.’
‘Two Spades,’ said Tuppence.
‘I passed, didn’t I?’ said Mrs Sprot.
They looked at Mrs Cayley, who was leaning forward listening. Miss Minton took up the tale.
‘Then Mrs Cayley said Two Hearts and I said Three Diamonds.’
‘And I said Three Spades,’ said Tuppence.
‘Pass,’ said Mrs Sprot.
Mrs Cayley sat in silence. At last she seemed to become aware that everyone was looking at her.
‘Oh dear,’ she flushed. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought perhaps Mr Cayley needed me. I hope he’s all right out there on the terrace.’
She looked from one to the other of them.
‘Perhaps, if you don’t mind, I’d better just go and see. I heard rather an odd noise. Perhaps he’s dropped his book.’
She fluttered out of the window. Tuppence gave an exasperated sigh.
‘She ought to have a string tied to her wrist,’ she said. ‘Then he could pull it when he wanted her.’
‘Such a devoted wife,’ said Miss Minton. ‘It’s very nice to see, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ said Tuppence, who was feeling far from good-tempered.
The three women sat in silence for a minute or two.
‘Where’s Sheila tonight?’ asked Miss Minton.
‘She went to the pictures,’ said Mrs Sprot.
‘Where’s Mrs Perenna?’ asked Tuppence.
‘She said she was