“What same man?”
“The same man who wanted to buy it before. Oh! I’m sure I’m right.”
“But why shouldn’t it be?”
“You don’t understand. The two men were quite different, different name and everything. The first man was quite young, a spruce dark young man of thirty odd. Dr. O’Neill is about fifty, he has a grey beard and wears glasses and stoops. But when he talked I saw a gold tooth on one side of his mouth. It only shows when he laughs. The other man had a tooth in just the same position, and then I looked at his ears. I had noticed the other man’s ears, because they were a peculiar shape with hardly any lobe. Dr. O’Neill’s were just the same. Both things couldn’t be a coincidence, could they? I thought and thought and finally I wrote and said I would let him know in a week. I had noticed Mr. Blunt’s advertisement some time ago-as a matter of fact in an old paper that lined one of the kitchen drawers. I cut it out and came up to town.”
“You were quite right,” said Tuppence, nodding her head with vigor. “This needs looking into.”
“A very interesting case, Miss Deane,” observed Tommy. “We shall be pleased to look into this for you-eh, Miss Sheringham?”
“Rather,” said Tuppence, “and we’ll get to the bottom of it too.”
“I understand, Miss Deane,” went on Tommy, “that the household consists of you and your mother and a servant. Can you give me any particulars about the servant?”
“Her name is Crockett. She was with my aunt about eight or ten years. She is an elderly woman, not very pleasant in manner, but a good servant. She is inclined to give herself airs because her sister married out of her station. Crockett has a nephew whom she is always telling us is ‘quite the gentleman.’ ”
“H’m,” said Tommy, rather at a loss how to proceed.
Tuppence had been eyeing Monica keenly, now she spoke with sudden decision.
“I think the best plan would be for Miss Deane to come out and lunch with me. It’s just on one o’clock. I can get full details from her.”
“Certainly, Miss Sheringham,” said Tommy. “An excellent plan.”
“Look here,” said Tuppence when they were comfortably ensconced at a little table in a neighboring restaurant, “I want to know. Is there any special reason why you want to find out about all this?”
Monica blushed.
“Well, you see-”
“Out with it,” said Tuppence encouragingly.
“Well-there are two men who-who-want to marry me.”
“The usual story, I suppose? One rich, one poor, and the poor one is the one you like!”
“I don’t know how you know all these things,” murmured the girl.
“That’s a sort of law of Nature,” explained Tuppence. “It happens to everybody. It happens to me.”
“You see, even if I sell the house, it won’t bring us enough to live on. Gerald is a dear, but he’s desperately poor-though he’s a very clever engineer and if only he had a little capital, his firm would take him into partnership. The other, Mr. Partridge, is a very good man, I am sure-and well off, and if I married him it would be an end of all our troubles. But-but-”
“I know,” said Tuppence sympathetically. “It isn’t the same thing at all. You can go on telling yourself how good and worthy he is, and adding up his qualities as though they were an addition sum-and it all has a simply refrigerating effect.”
Monica nodded.
“Well,” said Tuppence, “I think it would be as well if we went down to the neighborhood and studied matters upon the spot. What is the address?”
“The Red House, Stourton in the Marsh.”
Tuppence wrote down the address in her note book.
“I didn’t ask you,” Monica began-“about terms-” she ended, blushing a little.
“Our payments are strictly by results,” said Tuppence gravely. “If the secret of the Red House is a profitable one, as seems possible from the anxiety displayed to acquire the property, we should expect a small percentage, otherwise-nothing!”
“Thank you very much,” said the girl gratefully.
“And now,” said Tuppence, “don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right. Let’s enjoy lunch and talk of interesting things.”