line drawn sideways with the totals the same at the bottom. I really know how to
do it when I think.”
“I’m sure you do. Well, good-bye, and good luck to you both.”
He shook hands with them, and in another minute they were descending the
steps of 27 Carshalton Terrace with their heads in a whirl.
“Tommy! Tell me at once, who is ‘Mr. Carter’?”
Tommy murmured a name in her ear.
“Oh!” said Tuppence, impressed.
“And I can tell you, old bean, he’s IT!”
“Oh!” said Tuppence again. Then she added reflectively,
“I like him, don’t you? He looks so awfully tired and bored, and yet you
feel that underneath he’s just like steel, all keen and flashing. Oh!” She
gave a skip. “Pinch me, Tommy, do pinch me. I can’t believe it’s real!”
Mr. Beresford obliged.
“Ow! That’s enough! Yes, we’re not dreaming. We’ve got a job!”
“And what a job! The joint venture has really begun.”
“It’s more respectable than I thought it would be,” said Tuppence
thoughtfully.
“Luckily I haven’t got your craving for crime! What time is it? Let’s have
lunch–oh!”
The same thought sprang to the minds of each. Tommy voiced it first.
“Julius P. Hersheimmer!”
“We never told Mr. Carter about hearing from him.”
“Well, there wasn’t much to tell–not till we’ve seen him. Come on, we’d
better take a taxi.”
“Now who’s being extravagant?”
“All expenses paid, remember. Hop in.”
“At any rate, we shall make a better effect arriving this way,” said
Tuppence, leaning back luxuriously. “I’m sure blackmailers never arrive in
buses!”
“We’ve ceased being blackmailers,” Tommy pointed out.
“I’m not sure I have,” said Tuppence darkly.
On inquiring for Mr. Hersheimmer, they were at once taken up to his suite.
An impatient voice cried “Come in” in answer to the page-boy’s knock, and the
lad stood aside to let them pass in.
Mr. Julius P. Hersheimmer was a great deal younger than either Tommy or
Tuppence had pictured him. The girl put him down as thirty-five. He was of
middle height, and squarely built to match his jaw. His face was pugnacious but
pleasant. No one could have mistaken him for anything but an American, though he
spoke with very little accent.
“Get my note? Sit down and tell me right away all you know about my
cousin.”
“Your cousin?”
“Sure thing. Jane Finn.”
“Is she your cousin?”
“My father and her mother were brother and sister,” explained Mr.
Hersheimmer meticulously.
“Oh!” cried Tuppence. “Then you know where she is?”
“No!” Mr. Hersheimmer brought down his fist with a bang on the table. “I’m
darned if I do! Don’t you?”
“We advertised to receive information, not to give it,” said Tuppence
severely.
“I guess I know that. I can read. But I thought maybe it was her back
history you were after, and that you’d know where she was now?”
“Well, we wouldn’t mind hearing her back history,” said Tuppence guardedly.
But Mr. Hersheimmer seemed to grow suddenly suspicious.
“See here,” he declared. “This isn’t Sicily! No demanding ransom or
threatening to crop her ears if I refuse. These are the British Isles, so quit
the funny business, or I’ll just sing out for that beautiful big British
policeman I see out there in Piccadilly.” Tommy hastened to explain.
“We haven’t kidnapped your cousin. On the contrary, we’re trying to find
her. We’re employed to do so.”
Mr. Hersheimmer leant back in his chair.
“Put me wise,” he said succinctly.
Tommy fell in with this demand in so far as he gave him a guarded version
of the disappearance of Jane Finn, and of the possibility of her having been
mixed up unawares in “some political show.” He alluded to Tuppence and himself
as “private inquiry agents” commissioned to find her, and added that they would
therefore be glad of any details Mr. Hersheimmer could give them.
That gentleman nodded approval.
“I guess that’s all right. I was just a mite hasty. But London gets my
goat! I only know little old New York. Just trot out your questions and I’ll
answer.”
For the moment this paralysed the Young Adventurers, but Tuppence,
recovering herself, plunged boldly into the breach with a reminiscence culled