that nice explorer man hadn’t been as simple as a child, he’d have seen through you. Are you going on with the Sherlock Holmes touch?”
“I flatter myself that I have carried it through very well so far,” said Tommy with some complacence. “The deductions were good, weren’t they? I had to risk the taxi. After all, it’s the only sensible way of getting to this place.”
“It’s lucky I had just read the bit about his engagement in this morning’s Daily Mirror ,” remarked Tuppence.
“Yes, that looked well for the efficiency of Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives. This is decidedly a Sherlock Holmes case. Even you cannot have failed to notice the similarity between it and the disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.”
“Do you expect to find Mrs. Leigh Gordon’s body in a coffin?”
“Logically, history should repeat itself. Actually—well, what do you think?”
“Well,” said Tuppence. “The most obvious explanation seems to be that for some reason or other Hermy, as he calls her, is afraid to meet her fiancé, and that Lady Susan is backing her up. In fact, to put it bluntly, she’s come a cropper of some kind, and has got the wind up about it.”
“That occurred to me also,” said Tommy. “But I thought we’d better make pretty certain before suggesting that explanation to a man like Stavansson. What about a run down to Maldon, old thing? And