Making the acquaintance of the Laidlaws proved an easy affair. Tommy and Tuppence, young, well dressed, eager for life and with apparently money to burn, were soon made free of that particular coterie in which the Laidlaws had their being.
Major Laidlaw was a tall fair man, typically English in appearance, with a hearty sportsmanlike manner, slightly belied by the hard lines round his eyes and the occasional quick sideways glance that assorted oddly with his supposed character.
He was a very dexterous card player, and Tommy noticed that when the stakes were high he seldom rose from the table a loser.
Marguerite Laidlaw was quite a different proposition. She was a charming creature, with the slenderness of a wood nymph and the face of a Greuze picture. Her dainty broken English was fascinating, and Tommy felt that it was no wonder most men were her slaves. She seemed to take a great fancy to Tommy from the first, and playing his part, he allowed himself to be swept into her train.
“My Tommee,” she would say. “But positively I cannot go without my Tommee. His ’air, eet ees the color of the sunset, ees eet not?”
Her father was a more sinister figure. Very correct, very upright, with his little black beard and his watchful eyes.
Tuppence was the first to report progress. She came to Tommy with ten one pound notes.
“Have a look at these. They’re wrong ’uns, aren’t they?”
Tommy examined them and confirmed Tuppence’s diagnosis.