N or M_ - Agatha Christie [69]
It was certainly true that two enemy aircraft had passed over the downs, circling low before making off, and they could have noted the nurse’s lonely figure walking across country.
Tony, with the expert policewoman, had driven off in the opposite direction and had made a big detour before approaching Leatherbarrow and taking up his position in St Asalph’s Road. Everything was now set.
‘The arena doors open,’ murmured Tuppence. ‘Enter one Christian en route for the lions. Oh, well, nobody can say I’m not seeing life.’
She crossed the road and rang the bell, wondering as she did so exactly how much Deborah liked that young man. The door was opened by an elderly woman with a stolid peasant face–not an English face.
‘Dr Binion?’ said Tuppence.
The woman looked her slowly up and down.
‘You will be Nurse Elton, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you will come up to the doctor’s surgery.’
She stood back, the door closed behind Tuppence, who found herself standing in a narrow linoleum-lined hall.
The maid preceded her upstairs and opened a door on the first floor.
‘Please to wait. The doctor will come to you.’
She went out, shutting the door behind her.
A very ordinary dentist’s surgery–the appointments somewhat old and shabby.
Tuppence looked at the dentist’s chair and smiled to think that for once it held none of the usual terrors. She had the ‘dentist feeling’ all right–but from quite different causes.
Presently the door would open and ‘Dr Binion’ would come in. Who would Dr Binion be? A stranger? Or someone she had seen before? If it was the person she was half expecting to see–
The door opened.
The man who entered was not at all the person Tuppence had half fancied she might see! It was someone she had never considered as a likely starter.
It was Commander Haydock.
Chapter 14
A flood of wild surmises as to the part Commander Haydock had played in Tommy’s disappearance surged through Tuppence’s brain, but she thrust them resolutely aside. This was a moment for keeping all her wits about her.
Would or would not the Commander recognise her? It was an interesting question.
She had so steeled herself beforehand to display no recognition or surprise herself, no matter whom she might see, that she felt reasonably sure that she herself had displayed no signs untoward to the situation.
She rose now to her feet and stood there, standing in a respectable attitude, as befitted a mere German woman in the presence of a Lord of creation.
‘So you have arrived,’ said the Commander.
He spoke in English and his manner was precisely the same as usual.
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, and added, as though presenting her credentials: ‘Nurse Elton.’
Haydock smiled as though at a joke.
‘Nurse Elton! Excellent.’
He looked at her approvingly.
‘You look absolutely right,’ he said kindly.
Tuppence inclined her head, but said nothing. She was leaving the initiative to him.
‘You know, I suppose, what you have to do?’ went on Haydock. ‘Sit down, please.’
Tuppence sat down obediently. She replied:
‘I was to take detailed instructions from you.’
‘Very proper,’ said Haydock. There was a faint suggestion of mockery in his voice.
He said:
‘You know the day?’
‘The fourth.’
Haydock looked startled. A heavy frown creased his forehead.
‘So you know that, do you?’ he muttered.
There was a pause, then Tuppence said:
‘You will tell me, please, what I have to do?’
Haydock said:
‘All in good time, my dear.’
He paused a minute, and then asked:
‘You have heard, no doubt, of Sans Souci?’
‘No,’ said Tuppence.
‘You haven’t?’
‘No,’ said Tuppence firmly.
‘Let’s see how you deal with this one!’ she thought.
There was a queer smile on the Commander’s face. He said:
‘So you haven’t heard of Sans Souci? That surprises me very much–since I was under the impression, you know, that you’d been living there for the last month…’
There was a dead silence. The Commander said:
‘What about that, Mrs Blenkensop?’