N or M? by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie [Christie, Agatha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Fiction
ISBN: 9780553350722
Google: u5DQ3XtgZgsC
Amazon: B007XJ73NS
Barnesnoble: B007XJ73NS
Goodreads: 7783693
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1973-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

WE HAVE GOT YOUR CHILD IN SAFEKEEPING. YOU WILL BE TOLD WHAT TO DO IN DUE COURSE. IF YOU GO TO THE POLICE YOUR CHILD WILL BE KILLED. SAY NOTHING. WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS. IF NOT—

It was signed with a skull and crossbones.

Mrs. Sprot was moaning faintly:

“Betty—Betty—”

Everyone was talking at once. “The dirty murdering scoundrels” from Mrs. O’Rourke. “Brutes!” from Sheila Perenna. “Fantastic, fantastic—I don’t believe a word of it. Silly practical joke” from Mr. Cayley. “Oh, the dear wee mite” from Miss Minton. “I do not understand. It is incredible” from Carl von Deinim. And above everyone else the stentorian voice of Major Bletchley.

“Damned nonsense. Intimidation. We must inform the police at once. They’ll soon get to the bottom of it.”

Once more he moved towards the telephone. This time a scream of outraged motherhood from Mrs. Sprot stopped him.

He shouted:

“But my dear madam, it’s got to be done. This is only a crude device to prevent you getting on the track of these scoundrels.”

“They’ll kill her.”

“Nonsense. They wouldn’t dare.”

“I won’t have it, I tell you. I’m her mother. It’s for me to say.”

“I know. I know. That’s what they’re counting on—your feeling like that. Very natural. But you must take it from me, a soldier and an experienced man of the world, the police are what we need.”

“No!”

Bletchley’s eyes went round seeking allies.

“Meadowes, you agree with me?”

Slowly Tommy nodded.

“Cayley? Look, Mrs. Sprot, both Meadowes and Cayley agree.”

Mrs. Sprot said with sudden energy:

“Men! All of you! Ask the women!”

Tommy’s eyes sought Tuppence. Tuppence said, her voice low and shaken:

“I—I agree with Mrs. Sprot.”

She was thinking: “Deborah! Derek! If it were them, I’d feel like her. Tommy and the others are right, I’ve no doubt, but all the same I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk it.”

Mrs. O’Rourke was saying:

“No mother alive could risk it and that’s a fact.”

Mrs. Cayley murmured:

“I do think, you know, that—well—” and tailed off into incoherence.

Miss Minton said tremulously:

“Such awful things happen. We’d never forgive ourselves if anything happened to dear little Betty.”

Tuppence said sharply:

“You haven’t said anything, Mr. von Deinim?”

Carl’s blue eyes were very bright. His face was a mask. He said slowly and stiffly:

“I am a foreigner. I do not know your English police. How competent they are—how quick.”

Someone had come into the hall. It was Mrs. Perenna, her cheeks were flushed. Evidently she had been hurrying up the hill. She said:

“What’s all this?” And her voice was commanding, imperious, not the complaisant guesthouse hostess, but a woman of force.

They told her—a confused tale told by too many people, but she grasped it quickly.

And with her grasping of it, the whole thing seemed, in a way, to be passed up to her for judgement. She was the Supreme Court.

She held the hastily scrawled note a minute, then she handed it back. Her words came sharp and authoritative.

“The police? They’ll be no good. You can’t risk their blundering. Take the law into your own hands. Go after the child yourselves.”

Bletchley said, shrugging his shoulders:

“Very well. If you won’t call the police, it’s the best thing to be done.

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