Detectives and Young Adventurers: The Complete Short Stories

There was no fight. The others were taken at a hopeless disadvantage. Dymchurch’s automatic lay on the table, and the two others were not armed.

‘A very nice little haul,’ said Inspector Marriot with approval, as he snapped the last pair of handcuffs. ‘And we’ll have more as time goes on, I hope.’

White with rage, Dymchurch glared at Tuppence.

‘You little devil,’ he snarled. ‘It was you put them on to us.’

Tuppence laughed.

‘It wasn’t all my doing. I ought to have guessed, I admit, when you brought in the number sixteen this afternoon. But it was Tommy’s note clinched matters. I rang up Inspector Marriot, got Albert to meet him with the duplicate key of the office, and came along myself with the empty blue envelope in my bag. The letter I forwarded according to my instructions as soon as I had parted with you two this afternoon.’

But one word had caught the other’s attention.

‘Tommy?’ he queried.

Tommy, who had just been released from his bonds, came towards them.

‘Well done, brother Francis,’ he said to Tuppence, taking both her hands in his. And to Dymchurch: ‘As I told you, my dear fellow, you really ought to read the classics.’

Chapter 4

Finessing the King

‘Finessing the King’, combining the later book chapter ‘The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper’, was first published in The Sketch, 8 October 1924. McCarty and Riordan were created by Isobel Ostrander (1885–1924).

It was a wet Wednesday in the offices of the International Detective Agency. Tuppence let the Daily Leader fall idly from her hand.

‘Do you know what I’ve been thinking, Tommy?’

‘It’s impossible to say,’ replied her husband. ‘You think of so many things, and you think of them all at once.’

‘I think it’s time we went dancing again.’

Tommy picked up the Daily Leader hastily.

‘Our advertisement looks well,’ he remarked, his head on one side. ‘Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives. Do you realise, Tuppence, that you and you alone are Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives? There’s glory for you, as Humpty Dumpty would say.’

‘I was talking about dancing.’

‘There’s a curious point that I have observed about newspapers. I wonder if you have ever noticed it. Take these three copies of the Daily Leader. Can you tell me how they differ one from the other?’

Tuppence took them with some curiosity.

‘It seems fairly easy,’ she remarked witheringly. ‘One is today’s, one is yesterday’s, and one is the day before’s.’

‘Positively scintillating, my dear Watson. But that was not my meaning. Observe the headline, “Daily Leader.” Compare the three – do you see any difference between them?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Tuppence, ‘and what’s more, I don’t believe there is any.’

Tommy sighed and brought the tips of his fingers together in the most approved Sherlock Holmes fashion.

‘Exactly. Yet you read the papers as much – in fact, more than I do. But I have observed and you have not. If you will look at today’s Daily Leader, you will see that in the middle of the downstroke of the D is a small white dot, and there is another in the L of the same word. But in yesterday’s paper the white dot is not in DAILY at all. There are two white dots in the L of LEADER. That of the day before again has two dots in the D of DAILY. In fact, the dot, or dots, are in a different position every day.’

‘Why?’ asked Tuppence.

‘That’s a journalistic secret.’

‘Meaning you don’t know, and can’t guess.’

‘I will merely say this – the practice is common to all newspapers.’

‘Aren’t you clever?’ said Tuppence. ‘Especially at drawing red herrings across the track. Let’s go back to what we were talking about before.’

‘What were we talking about?’

‘The Three Arts Ball.’

Tommy groaned.

‘No, no, Tuppence. Not the Three Arts Ball. I’m not young enough. I assure you I’m not young enough.’

‘When I was a nice young girl,’ said Tuppence, ‘I was brought up to believe that men – especially husbands – were dissipated beings, fond of drinking and dancing and staying up late at night. It took an exceptionally beautiful and clever wife to keep them at home. Another illusion gone! All the wives I know are hankering to go out and dance, and weeping because their husbands will wear bedroom slippers and go to bed at half-past nine. And you do dance so nicely, Tommy dear.’

‘Gently with the butter, Tuppence.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Tuppence, ‘it’s not purely for pleasure that I want to go. I’m intrigued by this advertisement.’

She picked up the Daily Leader again and read it out.

‘I should go three hearts. 12 tricks. Ace of Spades. Necessary to finesse the King.’

‘Rather an expensive way of learning bridge,’ was Tommy’s comment.

‘Don’t be an ass. That’s nothing to do with bridge. You see, I was lunching with a girl yesterday at the Ace of Spades. It’s a queer little underground den in Chelsea, and she told me that it’s quite the fashion at these big shows to trundle round there in the course of the evening for bacon and eggs and Welsh rarebits – Bohemian sort of stuff. It’s got screened-off booths all around it. Pretty hot place, I should say.’

‘And your idea is –?’

‘Three hearts stands for the Three Arts Ball, tomorrow night, 12 tricks is twelve o’clock, and the Ace of Spades is the Ace of Spades.’

‘And what about its being necessary to finesse the King?’

‘Well, that’s what I thought we’d find out.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder if you weren’t right, Tuppence,’ said Tommy magnanimously. ‘But I don’t quite see why you want to butt in upon other people’s love affairs.’

‘I shan’t butt in. What I’m proposing is an interesting experiment in detective work. We need practice.’

‘Business is certainly not too brisk,’ agreed Tommy. ‘All the same, Tuppence, what you want is to go to the Three Arts Ball and dance! Talk of red herrings.’