The Complete Tommy & Tuppence Collection

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Authors: Agatha Christie
you? It is absolutely essential that we should without delay map out a plan of campaign.”
    â€œHear, hear!”
    â€œWell, let’s do it.”
    Tommy laid his paper finally aside. “There’s something of the simplicity of the truly great mind about you, Tuppence. Fire ahead. I’m listening.”
    â€œTo begin with,” said Tuppence, “what have we to go upon?”
    â€œAbsolutely nothing,” said Tommy cheerily.
    â€œWrong!” Tuppence wagged an energetic finger. “We have two distinct clues.”
    â€œWhat are they?”
    â€œFirst clue, we know one of the gang.”
    â€œWhittington?”
    â€œYes. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
    â€œHum,” said Tommy doubtfully. “I don’t call that much of a clue. You don’t know where to look for him, and it’s about a thousand to one against your running against him by accident.”
    â€œI’m not so sure about that,” replied Tuppence thoughtfully. “I’ve often noticed that once coincidences start happening they go on happening in the most extraordinary way. I daresay it’s some natural law that we haven’t found out. Still, as you say, we can’t rely on that. But there are places in London where simply everyone is bound to turn up sooner or later. Piccadilly Circus, for instance. One of my ideas was to take up my stand there every day with a tray of flags.”
    â€œWhat about meals?” inquired the practical Tommy.
    â€œHow like a man! What does mere food matter?”
    â€œThat’s all very well. You’ve just had a thundering good breakfast. No one’s got a better appetite than you have, Tuppence, and by teatime you’d be eating the flags, pins and all. But, honestly, I don’t think much of the idea. Whittington mayn’t be in London at all.”
    â€œThat’s true. Anyway, I think clue No. 2 is more promising.”
    â€œLet’s hear it.”
    â€œIt’s nothing much. Only a Christian name—Rita. Whittington mentioned it that day.”
    â€œAre you proposing a third advertisement: Wanted, female crook, answering to the name of Rita?”
    â€œI am not. I propose to reason in a logical manner. That man, Danvers, was shadowed on the way over, wasn’t he? And it’s more likely to have been a woman than a man—”
    â€œI don’t see that at all.”
    â€œI am absolutely certain that it would be a woman, and a good-looking one,” replied Tuppence calmly.
    â€œOn these technical points I bow to your decision,” murmured Mr. Beresford.
    â€œNow, obviously, this woman, whoever she was, was saved.”
    â€œHow do you make that out?”
    â€œIf she wasn’t, how would they have known Jane Finn had got the papers?”
    â€œCorrect. Proceed, O Sherlock!”
    â€œNow there’s just a chance, I admit it’s only a chance, that this woman may have been ‘Rita.’ ”
    â€œAnd if so?”
    â€œIf so, we’ve got to hunt through the survivors of the Lusitania till we find her.”
    â€œThen the first thing is to get a list of the survivors.”
    â€œI’ve got it. I wrote a long list of things I wanted to know, and sent it to Mr. Carter. I got his reply this morning, and among other things it encloses the official statement of those saved from the Lusitania. How’s that for clever little Tuppence?”
    â€œFull marks for industry, zero for modesty. But the great point is, is there a ‘Rita’ on the list?”
    â€œThat’s just what I don’t know,” confessed Tuppence.
    â€œDon’t know?”
    â€œYes, look here.” Together they bent over the list. “You see, very few Christian names are given. They’re nearly all Mrs. or Miss.”
    Tommy nodded.
    â€œThat complicates matters,” he murmured thoughtfully.
    Tuppence gave her characteristic “terrier”

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