BOOK III
Chapter 1 Mary Jordan

‘But that alters everything,’ said Tuppence.
‘Yes,’ said Tommy. ‘Yes. It was–it was quite a shock.’
‘Why did he tell you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tommy. ‘I thought– well, two or three differentthings.’
‘Did he–what’s he like, Tommy? You haven’t really told me.’
‘Well, he’s yellow,’ said Tommy. ‘Yellow and big and fat and very, veryordinary, but at the same time, if you know what I mean, he isn’t ordinaryat all. He’s–well, he’s what my friend said he was. He’s one of the tops.’
‘You sound like someone talking about pop singers.’
‘Well, one gets used to using these terms.’
‘Yes, but why? Surely that was revealing something that he wouldn’thave wanted to reveal, you’d think.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s all over, you see. I supposenone of it matters nowadays. I mean, look at all the things they’re releas-ing now. Off the record. You know, not hushing up things any more. Let-ting it all come out, what really happened. What one person wrote andwhat another person said and what one row was about and how some-thing else was all hushed up because of something you never heardabout.’
‘You make me feel horribly confused,’ said Tuppence, ‘when you saythings like that. It makes everything wrong, too, doesn’t it?’
‘How do you mean, makes everything wrong?’
‘Well, I mean, the way we’ve been looking at it. I mean– what do Imean?’
‘Go on,’ said Tommy. ‘You must know what you mean.’
‘Well, what I said. It’s all wrong. I mean, we found this thing in TheBlack Arrow, and it was all clear enough. Somebody had written it inthere, probably this boy Alexander, and it meant that somebody–one ofthem, he said, at least, one of us–I mean he put it that way but that’s whathe meant–one of the family or somebody in the house or something, hadarranged to bring about the death of Mary Jordan, and we didn’t knowwho Mary Jordan was, which was very baffling.’
‘Goodness knows it’s been baffling,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, it hasn’t baffled you as much as me. It’s baffled me a great deal. Ihaven’t really found out anything about her. At least–’
‘What you found out about her was that she had been apparently¹ a Ger-man spy, isn’t that what you mean? You found out that?’
‘Yes, that is what was believed about her, and I supposed it was true.

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