‘What’s amusing you?’ ‘I was just thinking that I’d like to have seen you and Albert discovering secret drawers in Aunt Ada’s desk.’ ‘All the credit goes to Albert. He positively delivered a lecture on the subject. He learnt all about it in his youth from an antique dealer.’ ‘Fancy your Aunt Ada really leaving a secret document like that, all done up with seals all over. She didn’t actually know anything, but she was ready to believe there was somebody in Sunny Ridge who was dangerous. I wonder if she knew it was Miss Packard.’ ‘That’s only your idea.’ ‘It’s a very good idea flits a criminal gang we’re looking for.
They’d need a place like Sunny Ridge, respectable and well run , with a competent criminal to run it. Someone properly qualified to have access to drugs whenever she needed them.
And by accepting any deaths that occurred as quite natural, it would influence a doctor to think they were quite all right.’ ‘You’ve got it all taped out, but actually the real reason you started to suspect Miss Packard was because you didn’t like her teeth ‘ ‘The better to eat you with,’ said Tuppence meditatively.
‘FII tell you something else, Tommy – Supposing this picture – the picture of the Canal House – never belonged to Mrs Lancaster at all ‘ ‘But we know it did.’ Tommy stared at her.
‘No, we don’t. We only know that Miss Packard said so – It was Miss Packard who said that Mrs Lancaster gave it to Aunt Ada.’ ‘But why should -‘ Tommy stopped ‘Perhaps that’s why Mrs Lancaster was taken away – so that she shouldn’t tell us that the picture didn’t belong to her, and that she didn’t give it to Aunt Ada.’ ‘I think that’s a very far-fetched idea.
‘Perhaps – But the picture was painted in Sutton Chancellor – The house in the picture is a house in Sutton Chancellor -We’ve reason to believe that that house is – or was – used as one of their hidey-holes by a criminal association – Mr Eccles is believed to be the man behind this gang. Mr Eccles was the man responsible for sending Mrs Johnson to remove Mrs Lancaster. I don’t believe Mrs Lancaster was ever in Sutton Chancellor, or was ever in the Canal House, or had a picture of it – though I think she heard someone at Sunny Ridge talk about it – Mrs ocoa perhaps? So she started chattering, and that was dangerous, so she had m be removed. And one day I shall fred her! Mark my words, Tommy.’ ‘You look remarkably well, if I may say so, Mrs Tommy,’ said Mr Ivor Smith.
‘I’m feeling perfectly well again,’ said Tuppence. ‘Silly of me to let myself get knocked out, I suppose.’
‘You deserve a medal – Especially for this doll business.
How you get on to these things, I don’t know?
‘She’s the perfect terrier,’ said Tommy. ‘Puts her nose down on the trail and off she goes.’
‘You’re not keeping me out of this party tonight,’ said Tuppence suspiciously.
‘Certainly not. A certain amount of things, you know, have been cleared up. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you two.
We were getting somewhere, mind you, with this remarkably clever assodation of criminals who have been responsible for a stupendous amount of robberies over the last five or six years.
As I told Tommy when he came to ask me if I knew anything about our clever legal gentleman, Mr Ecdes, we’ve had our suspicions of him for a long time but he’s not the man you’ll easily get evidence against. Too careful by far. He practises as a solicitor – an ordinary genuine business with perfectly genuine clients.
‘As I told Tommy, one of the important points has been this chain of houses. Genuine respectable houses with quite genuine respectable people living in them, living there for a short time – then leaving.
‘Now, thanks to you, Mrs Tommy, and your investigation of chimneys and dead birds, we’ve found quite certainly one of those houses. The house where a particular amount of the spoil was concealed. It’s been quite a clever system, you know, getting jewels or various things of that kind changed into packets of rough diamonds, hiding them, and then when the time comes they are flown abroad, or taken abroad in fishing boats, when all the hue and cry about one particular robbery has died down.’ ‘What about the Perrys? Are they – I hope they’re not mixed up in it?’ ‘One can’t be sure,’ said Mr Smith. ‘No, one can’t be sure.