Tommy Beresford removed his overcoat in the hall of the flat. He hung itup with some care, taking time over it. His hat went carefully on the nextpeg.
He squared his shoulders, affixed1 a resolute2 smile to his face and walkedinto the sitting room, where his wife sat knitting a Balaclava helmet inkhaki wool.
It was the spring of 1940.
Mrs. Beresford gave him a quick glance and then busied herself by knit-ting at a furious rate. She said after a minute or two:
“Any news in the evening paper?”
Tommy said:
“The Blitzkrieg is coming, hurray, hurray! Things look bad in France.”
Tuppence said:
“It’s a depressing world at the moment.”
There was a pause and then Tommy said:
“Well, why don’t you ask? No need to be so damned tactful.”
“I know,” admitted Tuppence. “There is something about conscious tactthat is very irritating. But then it irritates you if I do ask. And anyway Idon’t need to ask. It’s written all over you.”
“I wasn’t conscious of looking a Dismal3 Desmond.”
“No, darling,” said Tuppence. “You had a kind of nailed to the mast smilewhich was one of the most heartrending things I have ever seen.”
Tommy said with a grin:
“No, was it really as bad as all that?”
“And more! Well, come on, out with it. Nothing doing?”
“Nothing doing. They don’t want me in any capacity. I tell you, Tup-pence, it’s pretty thick when a man of forty-six is made to feel like a dod-dering grandfather. Army, Navy, Air Force, Foreign Office, one and all saythe same thing—I’m too old. I may be required later.”
Tuppence said:
“Well, it’s the same for me. They don’t want people of my age for nurs-ing—no, thank you. Nor for anything else. They’d rather have a fluffy4 chitwho’s never seen a wound or sterilised a dressing5 than they would haveme who worked for three years, 1915 to 1918, in various capacities, nursein the surgical6 ward7 and operating theatre, driver of a trade delivery vanand later of a General. This, that and the other—all, I assert firmly, withconspicuous success. And now I’m a poor, pushing, tiresome8, middle-agedwoman who won’t sit at home quietly and knit as she ought to do.”
Tommy said gloomily:
“This war is hell.”
“It’s bad enough having a war,” said Tuppence, “but not being allowedto do anything in it just puts the lid on.”
Tommy said consolingly:
“Well, at any rate Deborah has got a job.”
Deborah’s mother said:
“Oh, she’s all right. I expect she’s good at it, too. But I still think, Tommy,that I could hold my own with Deborah.”
Tommy grinned.
“She wouldn’t think so.”
Tuppence said:
“Daughters can be very trying. Especially when they will be so kind toyou.”
Tommy murmured:
“The way young Derek makes allowances for me is sometimes ratherhard to bear. That ‘poor old Dad’ look in his eye.”
“In fact,” said Tuppence, “our children, although quite adorable, are alsoquite maddening.”
But at the mention of the twins, Derek and Deborah, her eyes were verytender.
“I suppose,” said Tommy thoughtfully, “that it’s always hard for peoplethemselves to realise that they’re getting middle- aged9 and past doingthings.”
Tuppence gave a snort of rage, tossed her glossy10 dark head, and sent herball of khaki wool spinning from her lap.
“Are we past doing things? Are we? Or is it only that everyone keeps in-sinuating that we are. Sometimes I feel that we never were any use.”
“Quite likely,” said Tommy.
“Perhaps so. But at any rate we did once feel important. And now I’mbeginning to feel that all that never really happened. Did it happen,Tommy? Is it true that you were once crashed on the head and kidnappedby German agents? Is it true that we once tracked down a dangerous crim-inal—and got him! Is it true that we rescued a girl and got hold of import-ant secret papers, and were practically thanked by a grateful country? Us!
You and me! Despised, unwanted Mr. and Mrs. Beresford.”
“Now dry up, darling. All this does no good.”
“All the same,” said Tuppence, blinking back a tear, “I’m disappointed inour Mr. Carter.”
“He wrote us a very nice letter.”
“He didn’t do anything—he didn’t even hold out any hope.”
“Well, he’s out of it all nowadays. Like us. He’s quite old. Lives in Scot-land and fishes.”
Tuppence said wistfully:
“They might have let us do something in the Intelligence.”
“Perhaps we couldn’t,” said Tommy. “Perhaps, nowadays, we wouldn’thave the nerve.”
“I wonder,” said Tuppence. “One feels just the same. But perhaps, as yousay, when it came to the point—”
She sighed. She said:
“I wish we could find a job of some kind. It’s so rotten when one has somuch time to think.”
Her eyes rested just for a minute on the photograph of the very youngman in the Air Force uniform, with the wide grinning smile so likeTommy’s.
Tommy said:
“It’s worse for a man. Women can knit, after all—and do up parcels andhelp at canteens.”
Tuppence said:
“I can do all that twenty years from now. I’m not old enough to be con-tent with that. I’m neither one thing nor the other.”
The front door bell rang. Tuppence got up. The flat was a small serviceone.
She opened the door to find a broad-shouldered man with a big fairmoustache and a cheerful red face, standing11 on the mat.
His glance, a quick one, took her in as he asked in a pleasant voice:
“Are you Mrs. Beresford?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Grant. I’m a friend of Lord Easthampton’s. He suggested Ishould look you and your husband up.”
“Oh, how nice, do come in.”
She preceded him into the sitting room.
“My husband, er—Captain—”
“Mr.”
“Mr. Grant. He’s a friend of Mr. Car—of Lord Easthampton’s.”
The old nom de guerre of the former Chief of the Intelligence, “Mr.
Carter,” always came more easily to her lips than their old friend’s propertitle.
For a few minutes the three talked happily together. Grant was an at-tractive person with an easy manner.
Presently Tuppence left the room. She returned a few minutes later withthe sherry and some glasses.
After a few minutes, when a pause came, Mr. Grant said to Tommy:
“I hear you’re looking for a job, Beresford?”
An eager light came into Tommy’s eye.
“Yes, indeed. You don’t mean—”
Grant laughed, and shook his head.
“Oh, nothing of that kind. No, I’m afraid that has to be left to the youngactive men—or to those who’ve been at it for years. The only things I cansuggest are rather stodgy12, I’m afraid. Office work. Filing papers. Tyingthem up in red tape and pigeonholing13 them. That sort of thing.”
Tommy’s face fell.
“Oh, I see!”
Grant said encouragingly:
“Oh well, it’s better than nothing. Anyway, come and see me at my officeone day. Ministry14 of Requirements. Room 22. We’ll fix you up with some-thing.”
The telephone rang. Tuppence picked up the receiver.
“Hallo—yes—what?” A squeaky voice spoke15 agitatedly16 from the otherend. Tuppence’s face changed. “When?—Oh, my dear—of course—I’llcome over right away. .?.?.”
She put back the receiver.
She said to Tommy:
“That was Maureen.”
“I thought so—I recognised her voice from here.”
Tuppence explained breathlessly:
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Grant. But I must go round to this friend of mine.
She’s fallen and twisted her ankle and there’s no one with her but herlittle girl, so I must go round and fix up things for her and get hold ofsomeone to come in and look after her. Do forgive me.”
“Of course, Mrs. Beresford. I quite understand.”
Tuppence smiled at him, picked up a coat which had been lying over thesofa, slipped her arms into it and hurried out. The flat door banged.
Tommy poured out another glass of sherry for his guest.
“Don’t go yet,” he said.
“Thank you.” The other accepted the glass. He sipped17 it for a moment insilence. Then he said, “In a way, you know, your wife’s being called awayis a fortunate occurrence. It will save time.”
Tommy stared.
“I don’t understand.”
Grant said deliberately18:
“You see, Beresford, if you had come to see me at the Ministry, I was em-powered to put a certain proposition before you.”
The colour came slowly up in Tommy’s freckled19 face. He said:
“You don’t mean—”
Grant nodded.
“Easthampton suggested you,” he said. “He told us you were the man forthe job.”
Tommy gave a deep sigh.
“Tell me,” he said.
“This is strictly20 confidential21, of course.”
Tommy nodded.
“Not even your wife must know. You understand?”
“Very well—if you say so. But we worked together before.”
“Yes, I know. But this proposition is solely22 for you.”
“I see. All right.”
“Ostensibly you will be offered work—as I said just now—office work—in a branch of the Ministry functioning in Scotland—in a prohibited areawhere your wife cannot accompany you. Actually you will be somewherevery different.”
Tommy merely waited.
Grant said:
“You’ve read in the newspapers of the Fifth Column? You know, roughlyat any rate, just what that term implies.”
Tommy murmured:
“The enemy within.”
“Exactly. This war, Beresford, started in an optimistic spirit. Oh, I don’tmean the people who really knew—we’ve known all along what we wereup against—the efficiency of the enemy, his aerial strength, his deadly de-termination, and the coordination23 of his well- planned war machine. Imean the people as a whole. The good-hearted, muddleheaded democraticfellow who believes what he wants to believe—that Germany will crackup, that she’s on the verge24 of revolution, that her weapons of war aremade of tin, and that her men are so underfed that they’ll fall down if theytry to march—all that sort of stuff. Wishful thinking as the saying goes.
“Well, the war didn’t go that way. It started badly and it went on worse.
The men were all right—the men on the battleships and in the planes andin the dugouts. But there was mismanagement and unpreparedness—thedefects, perhaps, of our qualities. We don’t want war, haven’t consideredit seriously, weren’t good at preparing for it.
“The worst of that is over. We’ve corrected our mistakes, we’re slowlygetting the right men in the right place. We’re beginning to run the war asit should be run—and we can win the war—make no mistake about that—but only if we don’t lose it first. And the danger of losing it comes, notfrom outside—not from the might of Germany’s bombers25, not from herseizure of neutral countries and fresh vantage points from which to attack—but from within. Our danger is the danger of Troy—the wooden horsewithin our walls. Call it the Fifth Column if you like. It is here, among us.
Men and women, some of them highly placed, some of them obscure, butall believing genuinely in the Nazi26 aims and the Nazi creed27 and desiring tosubstitute that sternly efficient creed for the muddled28 easygoing liberty ofour democratic institutions.”
Grant leant forward. He said, still in that same pleasant unemotionalvoice:
“And we don’t know who they are .?.?.”
Tommy said: “But surely—”
Grant said with a touch of impatience29:
“Oh, we can round up the small fry. That’s easy enough. But it’s the oth-ers. We know about them. We know that there are at least two highlyplaced in the Admiralty—that one must be a member of General G——’sstaff—that there are three or more in the Air Force, and that two, at least,are members of the Intelligence, and have access to Cabinet secrets. Weknow that because it must be so from the way things have happened. Theleakage—a leakage30 from the top—of information to the enemy, shows usthat.”
Tommy said helplessly, his pleasant face perplexed31:
“But what good should I be to you? I don’t know any of these people.”
Grant nodded.
“Exactly. You don’t know any of them—and they don’t know you.”
He paused to let it sink in and then went on:
“These people, these high-up people, know most of our lot. Informationcan’t be very well refused to them. I am at my wits’ end. I went to East-hampton. He’s out of it all now—a sick man—but his brain’s the best I’veever known. He thought of you. Over twenty years since you worked forthe department. Name quite unconnected with it. Your face not known.
What do you say—will you take it on?”
Tommy’s face was almost split in two by the magnitude of his ecstaticgrin.
“Take it on? You bet I’ll take it on. Though I can’t see how I can be of anyuse. I’m just a blasted amateur.”
“My dear Beresford, amateur status is just what is needed. The profes-sional is handicapped here. You’ll take the place of the best man we had orare likely to have.”
Tommy looked a question. Grant nodded.
“Yes. Died in St. Bridget’s Hospital last Tuesday. Run down by a lorry—only lived a few hours. Accident case—but it wasn’t an accident.”
Tommy said slowly: “I see.”
Grant said quietly:
“And that’s why we have reason to believe that Farquhar was on tosomething — that he was getting somewhere at last. By his death thatwasn’t an accident.”
Tommy looked a question.
Grant went on:
“Unfortunately we know next to nothing of what he had discovered.
Farquhar had been methodically following up one line after another. Mostof them led nowhere.”
Grant paused and then went on:
“Farquhar was unconscious until a few minutes before he died. Then hetried to say something. What he said was this: N or M. Song Susie.”
“That,” said Tommy, “doesn’t seem very illuminating32.”
Grant smiled.
“A little more so than you might think. N or M, you see, is a term wehave heard before. It refers to two of the most important and trusted Ger-man agents. We have come across their activities in other countries andwe know just a little about them. It is their mission to organise33 a FifthColumn in foreign countries and to act as liaison34 officer between the coun-try in question and Germany. N, we know, is a man. M is a woman. All weknow about them is that these two are Hitler’s most highly trusted agentsand that in a code message we managed to decipher towards the begin-ning of the war there occurred this phrase—Suggest N or M for England.
Full powers—”
“I see. And Farquhar—”
“As I see it, Farquhar must have got on the track of one or other of them.
Unfortunately we don’t know which. Song Susie sounds very cryptic—butFarquhar hadn’t a high-class French accent! There was a return ticket toLeahampton in his pocket which is suggestive. Leahampton is on thesouth coast—a budding Bournemouth or Torquay. Lots of private hotelsand guesthouses. Amongst them is one called Sans Souci—”
Tommy said again:
“Song Susie—Sans Souci—I see.”
Grant said: “Do you?”
“The idea is,” Tommy said, “that I should go there and—well—ferretround.”
“That is the idea.”
Tommy’s smile broke out again.
“A bit vague, isn’t it?” he asked. “I don’t even know what I’m lookingfor.”
“And I can’t tell you. I don’t know. It’s up to you.”
Tommy sighed. He squared his shoulders.
“I can have a shot at it. But I’m not a very brainy sort of chap.”
“You did pretty well in the old days, so I’ve heard.”
“Oh, that was pure luck,” said Tommy hastily.
“Well, luck is rather what we need.”
Tommy considered a moment or two. Then he said:
“About this place, Sans Souci—”
Grant shrugged35 his shoulders.
“May be all a mare’s nest. I can’t tell. Farquhar may have been thinkingof ‘Sister Susie sewing shirts for soldiers.’ It’s all guesswork.”
“And Leahampton itself?”
“Just like any other of these places. There are rows of them. Old ladies,old Colonels, unimpeachable36 spinsters, dubious37 customers, fishy38 custom-ers, a foreigner or two. In fact, a mixed bag.”
“And N or M amongst them?”
“Not necessarily. Somebody, perhaps, who’s in touch with N or M. Butit’s quite likely to be N or M themselves. It’s an inconspicuous sort of place,a boardinghouse at a seaside resort.”
“You’ve no idea whether it’s a man or a woman I’ve to look for?”
Grant shook his head.
Tommy said: “Well, I can but try.”
“Good luck to your trying, Beresford. Now—to details—”
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收听单词发音
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1
affixed
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| adj.[医]附着的，附着的v.附加( affix的过去式和过去分词 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章） | |
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2
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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6
surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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7
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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8
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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9
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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11
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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stodgy
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| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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13
pigeonholing
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| v.把…搁在分类架上( pigeonhole的现在分词 )；把…留在记忆中；缓办；把…隔成小格 | |
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14
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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15
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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agitatedly
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| 动摇，兴奋； 勃然 | |
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17
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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21
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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23
coordination
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| n.协调，协作 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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25
bombers
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| n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟 | |
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26
Nazi
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| n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的 | |
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27
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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28
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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29
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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30
leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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31
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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32
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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33
organise
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| vt.组织，安排，筹办 | |
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34
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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35
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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36
unimpeachable
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| adj.无可指责的；adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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37
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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38
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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