Chapter 10 Attack on Tuppence

‘Good gracious¹!’ said Tommy, as he returned that evening. ‘You look ter-ribly tired, Tuppence. What have you been doing? You look worn out.’
‘I am worn out,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t know that I shall ever recoveragain. Oh dear.’
‘What have you been doing? Not climbing up and finding² more books oranything?’
‘No, no,’ said Tuppence, ‘I don’t want to look at books again. I’m offbooks.’
‘Well, what is it? What have you been doing?’
‘Do you know what a PPC is?’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘at least, well, yes. It’s something–’ He paused.
‘Yes, Albert knows,’ said Tuppence, ‘but it’s not that kind of one. Nowthen, I’ll just tell you in a minute, but you’d better have something first. Acocktail or a whisky³ or something. And I’ll have something too.’
She more or less put Tommy wise to the events of the afternoon. Tommysaid ‘good gracious’ again and added: ‘The things you get yourself into,Tuppence. Was any of it interesting?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tuppence. ‘When six people are talking at once, andmost of them can’t talk properly and they all say different things–you see,you don’t really know what they’re saying. But yes, I think I’ve got a fewideas for dealing⁴ with things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, there is a lot of legend, I think, going on about something that wasonce hidden here and was a secret connected with the 1914 war, or evenbefore it.’
‘Well, we know that already, don’t we?’ said Tommy. ‘I mean, we’vebeen briefed to know that.’
‘Yes. Well, there are a few old tales still going around the village here.
And everybody has got ideas about it put into their heads by their AuntMarias or their Uncle Bens and it’s been put into their Aunt Marias bytheir Uncle Stephens or Aunty Ruth or Grandmother Something else. It’sbeen handed down for years and years. Well, one of the things might bethe right one, of course.’
‘What, lost among all the others?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘like a needle in the haystack?

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