The Crackler: An Agatha Christie Short Story

‘To return to that gang you were talking about,’ said Tommy. ‘In spite of my extensive private practice – duchesses, millionaires, and all the best charwomen – I might, perhaps, condescend to look into the matter for you. I don’t like to see Scotland Yard at fault. You’ll have the Daily Mail after you before you know where you are.’

‘As I said before, you must have your bit of fun. Well, it’s like this.’ Again he hitched his chair forward. ‘There’s any amount of forged notes going about just now – hundreds of ’em! The amount of counterfeit Treasury notes in circulation would surprise you. Most artistic bit of work it is. Here’s one of ’em.’

He took a one pound note from his pocket and handed it to Tommy.

‘Looks all right, doesn’t it?’

Tommy examined the note with great interest.

‘By Jove, I’d never spot there was anything wrong with that.’

‘No more would most people. Now here’s a genuine one. I’ll show you the differences – very slight they are, but you’ll soon learn to tell them apart. Take this magnifying glass.’

At the end of five minutes’ coaching both Tommy and Tuppence were fairly expert.

‘What do you want us to do, Inspector Marriot?’ asked Tuppence. ‘Just keep our eyes open for these things?’

‘A great deal more than that, Mrs Beresford. I’m pinning my faith on you to get to the bottom of the matter. You see, we’ve discovered that the notes are being circulated from the West End. Somebody pretty high up in the social scale is doing the distributing. They’re passing them the other side of the Channel as well. Now there’s a certain person who is interesting us very much. A Major Laidlaw – perhaps you’ve heard the name?’