Carter, he and I wish each other good morning as is customary. He then says: “Please take a seat, Mr – er?” To which I reply promptly and significantly: “Edward Whittington!” whereupon Mr Carter turns purple in the face and gasps out: “How much?” Pocketing the usual fee of fifty pounds, I rejoin you in the road outside, and we proceed to the next address and repeat the performance.’
‘Don’t be absurd, Tommy. Now for the other letter. Oh, this is from the Ritz!’
‘A hundred pounds instead of fifty!’
‘I’ll read it:
‘Dear Sir,
‘Re your advertisement, I should be glad if you would call round somewhere about lunch-time.
‘Yours truly,
‘Julius P. Hersheimmer.’
‘Ha!’ said Tommy. ‘Do I smell a Boche? Or only an American millionaire of unfortunate ancestry? At all events we’ll call at lunch-time. It’s a good time – frequently leads to free food for two.’
Tuppence nodded assent.
‘Now for Carter. We’ll have to hurry.’
Carshalton Terrace proved to be an unimpeachable row of what Tuppence called ‘ladylike looking houses.’ They rang the bell at No. 27, and a neat maid answered the door. She looked so respectable that Tuppence’s heart sank. Upon Tommy’s request for Mr Carter, she showed them into a small study on the ground floor, where she left them. Hardly a minute elapsed, however, before the door opened, and a tall man with a lean hawklike face and a tired manner entered the room.
‘Mr Y.A.?’ he said, and smiled. His smile was distinctly attractive. ‘Do sit down, both of you.’
They obeyed. He himself took a chair opposite to Tuppence and smiled at her encouragingly. There was something in the quality of his smile that made the girl’s usual readiness desert her.
As he did not seem inclined to open the conversation, Tuppence was forced to begin.
‘We wanted to know – that is, would you be so kind as to tell us anything you know about Jane Finn?’
‘Jane Finn? Ah!’ Mr Carter appeared to reflect. ‘Well, the question is, what do you know about her?’
Tuppence drew herself up.
‘I don’t see that that’s got anything to do with it.’
‘No? But it has, you know, really it has.’ He smiled again in his tired way, and continued reflectively. ‘So that brings us down to it again. What do you know about Jane Finn?’
‘Come now,’ he continued, as Tuppence remained silent. ‘You must know something to have advertised as you did?’ He leaned forward a little, his weary voice held a hint of persuasiveness. ‘Suppose you tell me …’
There was something very magnetic about Mr Carter’s personality. Tuppence seemed to shake herself free of it with an effort, as she said:
‘We couldn’t do that, could we, Tommy?’
But to her surprise, her companion did not back her up. His eyes were fixed on Mr Carter, and his tone when he spoke held an unusual note of deference.
‘I dare say the little we know won’t be any good to you, sir. But such as it is, you’re welcome to it.’
‘Tommy!’ cried out Tuppence in surprise.
Mr Carter slewed round in his chair. His eyes asked a question.
Tommy nodded.
‘Yes, sir, I recognized you at once. Saw you in France when I was with the Intelligence. As soon as you came into the room, I knew –’
Mr Carter held up his hand.
‘No names, please. I’m known as Mr Carter here. It’s my cousin’s house, by the way. She’s willing to lend it to me sometimes when it’s a case of working on strictly unofficial lines. Well, now,’ – he looked from one to the other – ‘who’s going to tell me the story?’
‘Fire ahead, Tuppence,’ directed Tommy. ‘It’s your yarn.’
‘Yes, little lady, out with it.’
And obediently Tuppence did out with it, telling the whole story from the forming of the Young Adventurers, Ltd., downwards.
Mr Carter listened in silence with a resumption of his tired manner. Now and then he passed his hand across his lips as though to hide a smile. When she had finished he nodded gravely.
‘Not much. But suggestive. Quite suggestive. If you’ll excuse me saying so, you’re a curious young couple. I don’t know – you might succeed where others have failed … I believe in luck, you know – always have …’
He paused a moment and then went on.
‘Well, how about it? You’re out for adventure. How would you like to work for me? All quite unofficial, you know. Expenses paid, and a moderate screw?’
Tuppence gazed at him, her lips parted, her eyes growing wider and wider. ‘What should we have to do?’ she breathed.
Mr Carter smiled.
‘Just go on with what you’re doing now. Find Jane Finn.’
‘Yes, but – who is Jane Finn?’
Mr Carter nodded gravely.
‘Yes, you’re entitled to know that, I think.’
He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, brought the tips of his fingers together, and began in a low monotone:
‘Secret diplomacy (which, by the way, is nearly always bad policy!) does not concern you. It will be sufficient to say that in the early days of 1915 a certain document came into being. It was the draft of a secret agreement – treaty – call it what you like. It was drawn up ready for signature by the various representatives, and drawn up in America – at that time a neutral country. It was dispatched to England by a special messenger selected for that purpose, a young fellow called Danvers. It was hoped that the whole affair had been kept so secret that nothing would have leaked out. That kind of hope is usually disappointed. Somebody always talks!
‘Danvers sailed for England on the Lusitania. He carried the precious papers in an oilskin packet which he wore next his skin. It was on that particular voyage that the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk. Danvers was among the list of those missing. Eventually his body was washed ashore, and identified beyond any possible doubt. But the oilskin packet was missing!
‘The question was, had it been taken from him, or had he himself passed it on into another’s keeping? There were a few incidents that strengthened the possibility of the latter theory. After the torpedo struck the ship, in the few moments during the launching of the boats, Danvers was seen speaking to a young American girl. No one actually saw him pass anything to her, but he might have done so. It seems to me quite likely that he entrusted the papers to this girl, believing that she, as a woman, had a greater chance of bringing them safely to shore.
‘But if so, where was the girl, and what had she done with the papers? By later advice from America it seemed likely that Danvers had been closely shadowed on the way over. Was this girl in league with his enemies? Or had she, in her turn, been shadowed and either tricked or forced into handing over the precious packet?
‘We set to work to trace her out. It proved unexpectedly difficult. Her name was Jane Finn, and it duly appeared among the list of the survivors, but the girl herself seemed to have vanished completely. Inquiries into her antecedents did little to help us. She was an orphan, and had been what we should call over here a pupil teacher in a small school out West. Her passport had been made out for Paris, where she was going to join the staff of a hospital. She had offered her services voluntarily, and after some correspondence they had been accepted. Having seen her name in the list of the