Tuppence must be avenged.
Still, it was kind of the old fellow.
“Better answer it, I suppose.” He went across to the writing-table.
With the usual perversity of bedroom stationery, there were innumerable envelopes and no paper.
He rang.
No one came.
Tommy fumed at the delay. Then he remembered that there was a good supply in Julius’s sitting-room.
The American had announced his immediate departure, there would be no fear of running up against him.
Besides, he wouldn’t mind if he did.
He was beginning to be rather ashamed of the things he had said.
Old Julius had taken them jolly well.
He’d apologize if he found him there.
But the room was deserted.
Tommy walked across to the writing-table, and opened the middle drawer.
A photograph, carelessly thrust in face upwards, caught his eye.
For a moment he stood rooted to the ground.
Then he took it out, shut the drawer, walked slowly over to an arm-chair, and sat down still staring at the photograph in his hand.
What on earth was a photograph of the French girl Annette doing in Julius Hersheimmer’s writing-table?
CHAPTER XXII. IN DOWNING STREET
THE Prime Minister tapped the desk in front of him with nervous fingers.
His face was worn and harassed.
He took up his conversation with Mr. Carter at the point it had broken off.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Do you really mean that things are not so desperate after all?”
“So this lad seems to think.”
“Let’s have a look at his letter again.”
Mr. Carter handed it over. It was written in a sprawling boyish hand.
“DEAR MR. CARTER,
“Something’s turned up that has given me a jar.
Of course I may be simply making an awful ass of myself, but I don’t think so. If my conclusions are right, that girl at Manchester was just a plant.
The whole thing was prearranged, sham packet and all, with the object of making us think the game was up—therefore I fancy that we must have been pretty hot on the scent.
“I think I know who the real Jane Finn is, and I’ve even got an idea where the papers are.
That last’s only a guess, of course, but I’ve a sort of feeling it’ll turn out right.
Anyhow, I enclose it in a sealed envelope for what it’s worth.
I’m going to ask you not to open it until the very last moment, midnight on the 28th, in fact.
You’ll understand why in a minute.
You see, I’ve figured it out that those things of Tuppence’s are a plant too, and she’s no more drowned than I am.
The way I reason is this: as a last chance they’ll let Jane Finn escape in the hope that she’s been shamming this memory stunt, and that once she thinks she’s free she’ll go right away to the cache.
Of course it’s an awful risk for them to take, because she knows all about them—but they’re pretty desperate to get hold of that treaty.
But if they know that the papers have been recovered by us, neither of those two girls’ lives will be worth an hour’s purchase.
I must try and get hold of Tuppence before Jane escapes.
“I want a repeat of that telegram that was sent to Tuppence at the Ritz.
Sir James Peel Edgerton said you would be able to manage that for me.
He’s frightfully clever.
“One last thing—please have that house in Soho watched day and night.
“Yours, etc., “THOMAS BERESFORD.”
The Prime Minister looked up.
“The enclosure?”
Mr. Carter smiled dryly.
“In the vaults of the Bank.