“Tommy, how can you—”
“Aha! You’re beginning to see what I can do. That’s a nice girl in brown just getting up at the table behind you.”
“Snoo!” said Tuppence. “It’s a young man in grey.”
“Oh!” said Tommy, momentarily disconcerted.
And at that moment two men who had been sitting at a table not far away, and who had been watching the young pair with keen interest, got up and came across to the corner table.
“Excuse me,” said the elder of the two, a tall well dressed man with an eyeglass and a small grey moustache. “But you have been pointed out to me as Mr. Theodore Blunt. May I ask if that is so?”
Tommy hesitated a minute, feeling somewhat at a disadvantage. Then he bowed his head.
“That is so. I am Mr. Blunt.”
“What an unexpected piece of good fortune! Mr. Blunt, I was going to call at your offices after lunch. I am in trouble—very grave trouble. But—excuse me—you have had some accident to your eyes?”
“My dear sir,” said Tommy in a melancholy voice. “I am blind—completely blind.”
“What?”
“You are astonished. But surely you have heard of blind detectives?”
“In fiction. Never in real life. And I have certainly never heard that you were blind.”