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Updated: May 2, 2025
"I've brought you some tea." Mrs. Vandemeyer did not reply. Tuppence put down the cup on the table by the bed and went across to draw up the blinds. When she turned, Mrs. Vandemeyer still lay without a movement. With a sudden fear clutching at her heart, Tuppence ran to the bed. The hand she lifted was cold as ice.... Mrs. Vandemeyer would never speak now.... Her cry brought the others.
Vandemeyer passed her tongue over her dried lips. "You don't know him," she reiterated hoarsely. "He's ah!" With a shriek of terror she sprang to her feet. Her outstretched hand pointed over Tuppence's head. Then she swayed to the ground in a dead faint. Tuppence looked round to see what had startled her. In the doorway were Sir James Peel Edgerton and Julius Hersheimmer.
"Ah!" said Tommy, imbibing a long draught of beer, "I feel better. Where's the next draw?" The notebook lay on the table between them. Tuppence picked it up. "Mrs. Vandemeyer," she read, "20 South Audley Mansions. Miss Wheeler, 43 Clapington Road, Battersea. She's a lady's maid, as far as I remember, so probably won't be there, and, anyway, she's not likely."
Oh, don't make me drink it" her voice rose to a shriek "don't make me drink it!" Mrs. Vandemeyer, glass in hand, looked down with a curling lip at this sudden collapse. "Get up, you little idiot! Don't go on drivelling there. How you ever had the nerve to play your part as you did I can't think." She stamped her foot. "Get up, I say."
Vandemeyer was sweet as honey to me. She'd had her orders, I guess. She spoke to me in French told me I'd had a shock and been very ill. I should be better soon. I pretended to be rather dazed murmured something about the 'doctor' having hurt my wrist. She looked relieved when I said that. "By and by she went out of the room altogether. I was suspicious still, and lay quite quiet for some time.
"At Holyhead I tried to get into a carriage with people that looked all right, but in a queer way there seemed always to be a crowd round me shoving and pushing me just the way I didn't want to go. There was something uncanny and frightening about it. In the end I found myself in a carriage with Mrs. Vandemeyer after all.
"So thought it better to come home and have a quiet evening." Mrs. Vandemeyer said nothing, but she drew back and let Tuppence pass into the hall. "How unfortunate for you," she said coldly. "You had better go to bed." "Oh, I shall be all right in the kitchen, ma'am. Cook will " "Cook is out," said Mrs. Vandemeyer, in a rather disagreeable tone. "I sent her out.
What I really want to know is what you meant by what you said to me the other day? Did you mean to warn me against Mrs. Vandemeyer? You did, didn't you?" "My dear young lady, as far as I recollect I only mentioned that there were equally good situations to be obtained elsewhere." "Yes, I know. But it was a hint, wasn't it?" "Well, perhaps it was," admitted Sir James gravely.
"What about?" said Mrs. Vandemeyer sullenly. Tuppence eyed her thoughtfully for a minute. She was remembering several things. Boris's words, "I believe you would sell us!" and her answer, "The price would have to be enormous," given lightly, it was true, yet might not there be a substratum of truth in it? Long ago, had not Whittington asked: "Who's been blabbing? Rita?"
Already it may be too late. They say Peel Edgerton can SMELL a criminal! How do we know what is at the bottom of his sudden interest in you? Perhaps even now his suspicions are aroused. He guesses " Mrs. Vandemeyer eyed him scornfully. "Reassure yourself, my dear Boris. He suspects nothing. With less than your usual chivalry, you seem to forget that I am commonly accounted a beautiful woman.
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