Free N or M by Agatha Christie Page A

was I bought the place when it came into the market,” continued the Commander, not to be sidetracked from his pet story. “Come in and have a look round, Meadowes?”
    “Thanks. I'd like to.”
    Commander Haydock was as full of zest as a boy as he did the honours of the establishment. He threw open the big safe in the dining room to show where the secret wireless had been found. Tommy was taken out to the garage and was shown where the big petrol tanks had been concealed, and finally, after a superficial glance at the two excellent bathrooms, the special lighting, and the various kitchen “gadgets,” he was taken down the steep concreted path to the little cove beneath, whilst Commander Haydock told him all over again how extremely useful the whole layout would be to an enemy in wartime.
    He was taken into the cave which gave the place its name, and Haydock pointed out enthusiastically how it could have been used.
    Major Bletchley did not accompany the two men on their tour, but remained peacefully sipping his drink on the terrace. Tommy gathered that the Commander's spy hunt with its successful issue was that good gentleman's principal topic of conversation, and that his friends had heard it many times.
    In fact, Major Bletchley said as much when they were walking down to Sans Souci a little later.
    “Good fellow, Haydock,” he said. “But he's, not content to let a good thing alone. We've heard all about that business again and again until we're sick of it. He's as proud of the whole bag of tricks up there as a cat of its kittens.”
    The simile was not too far-fetched, and Tommy assented with a smile.
    The conversation then turning to Major Bletchley's own successful unmasking of a dishonest bearer in 1923, Tommy's attention was free to pursue its own inward line of thought punctuated by sympathetic “Not reallys?” - “You don't say so?” and “What an extraordinary business!” which was all Major Bletchley needed in the way of encouragement.
    More than ever now, Tommy felt that when the dying Farquhar had mentioned Sans Souci he had been on the right track. Here, in this out of the world spot, preparations had been made a long time beforehand. The arrival of the German Hahn and his extensive installation showed clearly enough that this particular part of the coast had been selected for a rallying point, a focus of enemy activity.
    That particular game had been defeated by the unexpected activity of the suspicious Commander Haydock. Round One had gone to Britain. But supposing that Smugglers' Rest had been only the first outpost of a complicated scheme of attack? Smugglers' Rest, that is to say, had represented sea communications. Its beach, inaccessible save for the path down from above, would lend itself admirably to the plan. But it was only a part of the whole.
    Defeated on that part of the plan by Haydock, what had been the enemy's response? Might not he have fallen back upon the next best thing - that is to say, Sans Souci? The exposure of Hahn had come about four years ago. Tommy had an idea, from what Sheila Perenna had said, that it was very soon after that that Mrs Perenna had returned to England and bought Sans Souci. The next move in the game?
    It would seem, therefore, that Leahampton was definitely an enemy center - that there were already installations and affiliations in the neighborhood.
    His spirits rose. The depression engendered by the harmless and futile atmosphere of Sans Souci disappeared. Innocent as it seemed, that innocence was no more than skin deep. Behind that innocuous mask things were going on.
    And the focus of it all, so far as Tommy could judge, was Mrs Perenna. The first thing to do was to know more about Mrs Perenna, to penetrate behind her apparently simple routine of running her boarding establishment. Her correspondence, her acquaintances, her social or war working activities - somewhere in all these must lie the essence of her real activities. If Mrs Perenna was the