The Secret Adversary | Page 2

Cowley, known to her intimate friends for some
mysterious reason as "Tuppence." She pounced at once.
"Tommy, you're stony!"
"Not a bit of it," declared Tommy unconvincingly. "Rolling in cash."
"You always were a shocking liar," said Tuppence severely, "though
you did once persuade Sister Greenbank that the doctor had ordered
you beer as a tonic, but forgotten to write it on the chart. Do you
remember?"
Tommy chuckled.
"I should think I did! Wasn't the old cat in a rage when she found out?
Not that she was a bad sort really, old Mother Greenbank! Good old
hospital--demobbed like everything else, I suppose?"
Tuppence sighed.
"Yes. You too?"

Tommy nodded.
"Two months ago."
"Gratuity?" hinted Tuppence.
"Spent."
"Oh, Tommy!"
"No, old thing, not in riotous dissipation. No such luck! The cost of
living--ordinary plain, or garden living nowadays is, I assure you, if
you do not know----"
"My dear child," interrupted Tuppence, "there is nothing I do NOT
know about the cost of living. Here we are at Lyons', and we will each
of us pay for our own. That's it!" And Tuppence led the way upstairs.
The place was full, and they wandered about looking for a table,
catching odds and ends of conversation as they did so.
"And--do you know, she sat down and CRIED when I told her she
couldn't have the flat after all." "It was simply a BARGAIN, my dear!
Just like the one Mabel Lewis brought from Paris----"
"Funny scraps one does overhear," murmured Tommy. "I passed two
Johnnies in the street to-day talking about some one called Jane Finn.
Did you ever hear such a name?"
But at that moment two elderly ladies rose and collected parcels, and
Tuppence deftly ensconced herself in one of the vacant seats.
Tommy ordered tea and buns. Tuppence ordered tea and buttered toast.
"And mind the tea comes in separate teapots," she added severely.
Tommy sat down opposite her. His bared head revealed a shock of
exquisitely slicked-back red hair. His face was pleasantly
ugly--nondescript, yet unmistakably the face of a gentleman and a

sportsman. His brown suit was well cut, but perilously near the end of
its tether.
They were an essentially modern-looking couple as they sat there.
Tuppence had no claim to beauty, but there was character and charm in
the elfin lines of her little face, with its determined chin and large,
wide-apart grey eyes that looked mistily out from under straight, black
brows. She wore a small bright green toque over her black bobbed hair,
and her extremely short and rather shabby skirt revealed a pair of
uncommonly dainty ankles. Her appearance presented a valiant attempt
at smartness.
The tea came at last, and Tuppence, rousing herself from a fit of
meditation, poured it out.
"Now then," said Tommy, taking a large bite of bun, "let's get
up-to-date. Remember, I haven't seen you since that time in hospital in
1916."
"Very well." Tuppence helped herself liberally to buttered toast.
"Abridged biography of Miss Prudence Cowley, fifth daughter of
Archdeacon Cowley of Little Missendell, Suffolk. Miss Cowley left the
delights (and drudgeries) of her home life early in the war and came up
to London, where she entered an officers' hospital. First month:
Washed up six hundred and forty-eight plates every day. Second month:
Promoted to drying aforesaid plates. Third month: Promoted to peeling
potatoes. Fourth month: Promoted to cutting bread and butter. Fifth
month: Promoted one floor up to duties of wardmaid with mop and pail.
Sixth month: Promoted to waiting at table. Seventh month: Pleasing
appearance and nice manners so striking that am promoted to waiting
on the Sisters! Eighth month: Slight check in career. Sister Bond ate
Sister Westhaven's egg! Grand row! Wardmaid clearly to blame!
Inattention in such important matters cannot be too highly censured.
Mop and pail again! How are the mighty fallen! Ninth month:
Promoted to sweeping out wards, where I found a friend of my
childhood in Lieutenant Thomas Beresford (bow, Tommy!), whom I
had not seen for five long years. The meeting was affecting! Tenth
month: Reproved by matron for visiting the pictures in company with

one of the patients, namely: the aforementioned Lieutenant Thomas
Beresford. Eleventh and twelfth months: Parlourmaid duties resumed
with entire success. At the end of the year left hospital in a blaze of
glory. After that, the talented Miss Cowley drove successively a trade
delivery van, a motor-lorry and a general!" The last was the pleasantest.
He was quite a young general!"
"What brighter was that?" inquired Tommy. "Perfectly sickening the
way those brass hats drove from the War Office to the Savoy, and from
the Savoy to the War Office!"
"I've forgotten his name now," confessed Tuppence. "To resume, that
was in a way the apex of my career. I next entered