Detectives and Young Adventurers: The Complete Short Stories. Agatha Christie

the wild gamblers they appear. Unless that girl was already perfectly prepared to marry that pleasant, but rather empty-headed young man, she would never have let herself in for a wager of this kind. But, Tommy, believe me, she will marry him with more enthusiasm and respect if he wins the wager than if she has to make it easy for him some other way.’

      ‘You do think you know about everything,’ said her husband.

      ‘I do,’ said Tuppence.

      ‘And now to examine our data,’ said Tommy, drawing the papers towards him. ‘First the photograph – h’m – quite a nice looking girl – and quite a good photograph, I should say. Clear and easily recognisable.’

      ‘We must get some other girls’ photographs,’ said Tuppence.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘They always do,’ said Tuppence. ‘You show four or five to waiters and they pick out the right one.’

      ‘Do you think they do?’ said Tommy – ‘pick out the right one, I mean.’

      ‘Well, they do in books,’ said Tuppence.

      ‘It is a pity that real life is so different from fiction,’ said Tommy. ‘Now then, what have we here? Yes, this is the London lot. Dined at the Bon Temps seven-thirty. Went to Duke’s Theatre and saw Delphiniums Blue. Counterfoil of theatre ticket enclosed. Supper at the Savoy with Mr le Marchant. We can, I suppose, interview Mr le Marchant.’

      ‘That tells us nothing at all,’ said Tuppence, ‘because if he is helping her to do it he naturally won’t give the show away. We can wash out anything he says now.’

      ‘Well, here is the Torquay end,’ went on Tommy. ‘Twelve o’clock from Paddington, had lunch in the Restaurant Car, receipted bill enclosed. Stayed at Castle Hotel for one night. Again receipted bill.’

      ‘I think this is all rather weak,’ said Tuppence. ‘Anyone can buy a theatre ticket, you need never go near the theatre. The girl just went to Torquay and the London thing is a fake.’

      ‘If so, it is rather a sitter for us,’ said Tommy. ‘Well, I suppose we might as well go and interview Mr le Marchant.’

      Mr le Marchant proved to be a breezy youth who betrayed no great surprise on seeing them.

      ‘Una has got some little game on, hasn’t she?’ he asked. ‘You never know what that kid is up to.’

      ‘I understand, Mr le Marchant,’ said Tommy, ‘that Miss Drake had supper with you at the Savoy last Tuesday evening.’

      ‘That’s right,’ said Mr le Marchant, ‘I know it was Tuesday because Una impressed it on me at the time and what’s more she made me write it down in a little book.’

      With some pride he showed an entry faintly pencilled. ‘Having supper with Una. Savoy. Tuesday 19th.’

      ‘Where had Miss Drake been earlier in the evening? Do you know?’

      ‘She had been to some rotten show called Pink Peonies or something like that. Absolute slosh, so she told me.’

      ‘You are quite sure Miss Drake was with you that evening?’

      Mr le Marchant stared at him.

      ‘Why, of course. Haven’t I been telling you.’

      ‘Perhaps she asked you to tell us,’ said Tuppence.

      ‘Well, for a matter of fact she did say something that was rather dashed odd. She said – what was it now? “You think you are sitting here having supper with me, Jimmy, but really I am having supper two hundred miles away in Devonshire.” Now that was a dashed odd thing to say, don’t you think so? Sort of astral body stuff. The funny thing is that a pal of mine, Dicky Rice, thought he saw her there.’

      ‘Who is this Mr Rice?’

      ‘Oh, just a friend of mine. He had been down in Torquay staying with an aunt. Sort of old bean who is always going to die and never does. Dicky had been down doing the dutiful nephew. He said, “I saw that Australian girl one day – Una something or other. Wanted to go and talk to her, but my aunt carried me off to chat with an old pussy in a bath chair.” I said: “When was this?” and he said, “Oh, Tuesday about tea time.” I told him, of course, that he had made a mistake, but it was odd, wasn’t it? With Una saying that about Devonshire that evening?’

      ‘Very odd,’ said Tommy. ‘Tell me, Mr le Marchant, did anyone you know have supper near you at the Savoy?’

      ‘Some people called Oglander were at the next table.’

      ‘Do they know Miss Drake?’

      ‘Oh yes, they know her. They are not frightful friends or anything of that kind.’

      ‘Well, if there’s nothing more you can tell us, Mr le Marchant, I think we will wish you good-morning.’

      ‘Either that chap is an extraordinarily good liar,’ said Tommy as they reached the street, ‘or else he is speaking the truth.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘I have changed my opinion. I have a sort of feeling now that Una Drake was at the Savoy for supper that night.’

      ‘We will now go to the Bon Temps,’ said Tommy. ‘A little food for starving sleuths is clearly indicated. Let’s just get a few girls’ photographs first.’

      This proved rather more difficult than was expected. Turning into a photographers and demanding a few assorted photographs, they were met with a cold rebuff.

      ‘Why are all the things that are so easy and simple in books so difficult in real life,’ wailed Tuppence. ‘How horribly suspicious they looked. What do you think they thought we wanted to do with the photographs? We had better go and raid Jane’s flat.’

      Tuppence’s friend Jane proved of an accommodating disposition and permitted Tuppence to rummage in a drawer and select four specimens of former friends of Jane’s who had been shoved hastily in to be out of sight and mind.

      Armed with this galaxy of feminine beauty they proceeded to the Bon Temps where fresh difficulties and much expense awaited them. Tommy had to get hold of each waiter in turn, tip him and then produce the assorted photographs. The result was unsatisfactory. At least three of the photographs were promising starters as having dined there last Tuesday. They then returned to the office where Tuppence immersed herself in an A.B.C.

      ‘Paddington twelve o’clock. Torquay three thirty-five. That’s the train and le Marchant’s friend, Mr Sago or Tapioca or something saw her there about tea time.’

      ‘We haven’t checked his statement, remember,’ said Tommy. ‘If, as you said to begin with, le Marchant is a friend of Una Drake’s he may have invented this story.’

      ‘Oh, we’ll hunt up Mr Rice,’ said Tuppence. ‘I have a kind of hunch that Mr le Marchant was speaking the truth. No, what I am trying to get at now is this. Una Drake leaves London by the twelve o’clock train, possibly takes a room at a hotel and unpacks. Then she takes a train back to town arriving in time to get to the Savoy. There is one at four-forty gets up to Paddington at nine-ten.’

      ‘And then?’ said Tommy.

      ‘And then,’ said Tuppence frowning, ‘it is rather more difficult. There is a midnight train from Paddington down again, but she could hardly take that, that would be too early.’

      ‘A fast car,’ suggested Tommy.

      ‘H’m,’ said Tuppence. ‘It is just on two hundred miles.’

      ‘Australians, I have always been told, drive very recklessly.’

      ‘Oh, I suppose it could be done,’ said Tuppence. ‘She would arrive there about seven.’

      ‘Are you supposing her to have nipped into her bed at the Castle Hotel without being seen? Or arriving there explaining that she