“Of course,” said Hitchcock, “pour le sport.”
“So Madeleine Lockwood is to receive you! Well, what do you know! She’s such a recluse!”
“Is she? Then she’s not friendly with your cousin Phoebe?”
Miss Farquhar leaned forward again. “Actually, Phoebe is one of the few villagers she permits to cross her threshold. Well, she does need someone to shop and run errands. And Phoebe’s not much trouble, as she’s a bit light in the head.”
“And quick on her feet.”
“She gets around quite nimbly for a woman her age. She’s almost seventy. So’s Madeleine, as a matter of fact.” Hitchcock’s eyebrows were raised a scintilla. “That would place Miss Lockwood in her fifties when she was spying for us during the war.”
“She wasn’t spying for us. She was spying for them.”
“The Germans? Well, I’ll be blowed! How’d she keep from being condemned to the firing squad?”
“Him and his connections!”
“Theirs must have been a rather late-in-life love affair.”
“Does love respect timetables?” asked Miss Farquhar quaintly.
“I suppose it doesn’t.” Hitchcock resisted the urge to pinch her cheek.
Hitchcock looked again at the photograph of Madeleine Lockwood. “She doesn’t look fifty in this photo.”
“Why should she? That photo was taken forty years ago, when she was cavorting in the halls.”
“Hmmm. I wonder.” Hitchcock had lost all interest in breakfast. Nancy Adair was tapping a finger impatiently on the tabletop, while trying to summon up the courage to light a cigarette.
“Yes?” said Miss Farquhar.
“I was wondering if you could help us.”
“More tea?”
“No, thank you. Miss Adair and I…” He heard an intake of breath. It came from Nancy Adair.
“Who’s Miss Adair?” asked Miss Farquhar.
“That’s my professional name,” said Nancy swiftly. “In private life I’m Mrs. Jennings, but I write under the name Nancy Adair.”
“Oh, of course! So many writers use pseudonyms.” She turned to Hitchcock. “You were wondering if I could help you? Do you need directions to Medwin?”
“We need an introduction to Miss Lockwood.”
“I thought she was expecting you!”
“She isn’t. She doesn’t even know we exist.” Hitchcock spoke rapidly, hoping to assuage the little lady’s sudden look of dismay. “It’s like this. Nancy and I are collaborating on a book about espionage, and we’re especially researching little-known spies. You know, those who didn’t make headlines or met tragic demises, such as our Miss Lockwood.” He hoped she’d be softened by his proprietorial attitude toward Madeleine Lockwood. “You probably don’t know, but there are people who have heard of her and consider her a minor legend, such as my German acquaintance whose name you heard me mention a few minutes ago. Isn’t that so, dear?” Nancy managed a smile as she thought the hell with it and lit a cigarette. “So, my dear, generous Miss Farquhar, that is what finds us on the road to Medwin and here enjoying your generous hospitality. “
“You’d like me to phone Phoebe and ask her to intercede with Miss Lockwood?”
“Is it too much to ask?”
“Not at all. From what I’ve heard from Phoebe about Madeleine’s monstrous ego, she might be more than delighted to be tempted back into the limelight.”
“Mind you, Miss Farquhar, we’re not offering her a tour. We’d just like to spend some time with her and interview her. I suppose it’s too early to phone cousin Phoebe?”
“Not at all. She’s up with the birds. I’ll be right back.” When Miss Farquhar left the room, Hitchcock said to Nancy Adair, “Wasn’t this a most fortunate stroke of luck?”
“Most fortuitous.”
“You don’t sound terribly enthusiastic.”
“I’m just anxious to get on with the program.”
“May I remind you, young lady, that this is my show. You foisted yourself upon me in a supporting role. To take it a bit further, I’m the director here and I call the shots.”
“Of course, Mr. Director.”
“And sarcasm is uncalled for.”
“I’m sorry. Forgive me. I slept very badly.”
“So did I.”
“Like hell you did.”
Miss Farquhar returned. “Phoebe will try to arrange it!”
“That was quick!” exclaimed Hitchcock.
“Why waste time when it is so cruelly evanescent?” She gave them directions to Cousin Phoebe’s house in Allerton, and Hitchcock was effusive in his gratitude for Miss Far- quhar’s help. She saw them out to their car and as they drove off waved them good-bye with a lace-trimmed blue handkerchief she had stashed in her meager bosom. Then she went back into the house, marched directly to the library where there was an extension of the front-desk telephone, and put through a call to a number in London.
Hitchcock was reciting aloud, “Phoebe Allerton, 22 Hollyhock Lane, turn right at the petrol station as one enters Medwin. How long do you think it will take us to get to Medwin?”
“I should think within a hour, if we’re lucky. But lorries are beginning to appear on the road, and we just might get stuck in traffic outside Brighton.”
“Nancy?”
“Yes?”
“Have you met Miss Farquhar before?”
Nancy started to stammer and then corrected herself. “What made you think that?”
“They way you suddenly went silent at breakfast. Up till then, there’d been no shutting you up.”
“I told you. I was tired. It takes me a long time to get going in the morning.”
“It took you a long time to settle on a place for bed and breakfast last night.”
“Mr. Hitchcock,” said Nancy evenly, “you’ve been involved in too many spy stories. Now settle back arid relax.” He settled back, but he didn’t relax. His mind was racing and probing and examining and sifting fact after fact after fact. Supposition and possibility ran hand in hand, and suspicion had triggered a red light of caution in his mind. Somehow, there had to be a way of losing Miss Nancy Adair.
* * *
“I don’t like that. I don’t like that one bit.” Sir Arthur Willing was wearing a suit of Irish tweed that bagged at the knees and the elbows. He thought the circles under Basil Cole’s eyes were unbecoming, and he wished Nigel Pack would stop jiggling with his left leg the right leg he’d crossed over it. Detective Superintendent Jennings was about to take the floor
