“Cheer up, old thing, it can’t be helped.”
“Can’t it, though!” Tuppence’s little chin shot out defiantly. “Do you think this is the end?
If so, you’re wrong.
It’s just the beginning!”
“The beginning of what?”
“Of our adventure!
Tommy, don’t you see, if they are scared enough to run away like this, it shows that there must be a lot in this Jane Finn business!
Well, we’ll get to the bottom of it.
We’ll run them down!
We’ll be sleuths in earnest!”
“Yes, but there’s no one left to sleuth.”
“No, that’s why we’ll have to start all over again.
Lend me that bit of pencil.
Thanks.
Wait a minute—don’t interrupt.
There!” Tuppence handed back the pencil, and surveyed the piece of paper on which she had written with a satisfied eye:
“What’s that?”
“Advertisement.”
“You’re not going to put that thing in after all?”
“No, it’s a different one.”
She handed him the slip of paper. Tommy read the words on it aloud:
“WANTED, any information respecting Jane Finn.
Apply Y. A.”
CHAPTER IV. WHO IS JANE FINN?
THE next day passed slowly.
It was necessary to curtail expenditure.
Carefully husbanded, forty pounds will last a long time.
Luckily the weather was fine, and “walking is cheap,” dictated Tuppence.
An outlying picture house provided them with recreation for the evening.
The day of disillusionment had been a Wednesday.
On Thursday the advertisement had duly appeared. On Friday letters might be expected to arrive at Tommy’s rooms.
He had been bound by an honourable promise not to open any such letters if they did arrive, but to repair to the National Gallery, where his colleague would meet him at ten o’clock.
Tuppence was first at the rendezvous.
She ensconced herself on a red velvet seat, and gazed at the Turners with unseeing eyes until she saw the familiar figure enter the room.
“Well?”
“Well,” returned Mr. Beresford provokingly. “Which is your favourite picture?”
“Don’t be a wretch.
Aren’t there any answers?”
Tommy shook his head with a deep and somewhat overacted melancholy.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you, old thing, by telling you right off.
It’s too bad.
Good money wasted.” He sighed. “Still, there it is.
The advertisement has appeared, and—there are only two answers!”
“Tommy, you devil!” almost screamed Tuppence. “Give them to me.
How could you be so mean!”
“Your language, Tuppence, your language!
They’re very particular at the National Gallery.
Government show, you know.
And do remember, as I have pointed out to you before, that as a clergyman’s daughter——”
“I ought to be on the stage!” finished Tuppence with a snap.