Partners in Crime quotes

The prospect was not an extended one, consisting solely of a small block of flats on the other side of the road. Mrs. Beresford sighed and then yawned.

“I wish,” she said, “something would happen.”

Her husband looked up reprovingly.

Her husband looked up reprovingly.

“Be careful, Tuppence, this craving for vulgar sensation alarms me.”

Tuppence sighed and closed her eyes dreamily.

“Is it me or the money that palls upon you?” inquired Tommy coldly.

“Palls isn’t exactly the word,” said Tuppence kindly.

“I’m used to my blessings, that’s all. Just as one never thinks what a boon it is to be able to breathe through one’s nose until one has a cold in the head.”

“Palls isn’t exactly the word,” said Tuppence kindly.

“I’m used to my blessings, that’s all. Just as one never thinks what a boon it is to be able to breathe through one’s nose until one has a cold in the head.”

“Shall I neglect you a little?” suggested Tommy. “Take other women about to night clubs? That sort of thing?”

“You would only meet me there with other men. And I should know perfectly well that you didn’t care for the other women, whereas you would never be quite sure that I didn’t care for the other men. Women are so much more thorough.”

“It’s only in modesty that men score top marks,” murmured her husband.

“But what is the matter with you, Tuppence? Why this yearning discontent?”

“Think how exciting it would be,” went on Tuppence, “if we heard a wild rapping at the door and went to open it and in staggered a dead man.”

“If he was dead he couldn’t stagger,” said Tommy critically.

“You know what I mean,” said Tuppence. “They always stagger in just before they die and fall at your feet just gasping out a few enigmatic words. ‘The Spotted Leopard’ or something like that.”

“Oh! really. I say. He must be no end of a fellow.”

“The Boss, sir,” said Albert, “is It.”

The young man sat down on a hard chair, completely unconscious of the fact that he was being subjected to keen scrutiny by two pairs of eyes looking through cunningly contrived peepholes—those of Tuppence, in the intervals of frenzied typing, and those of Tommy awaiting …

“I understand, Mr. Blunt, that you are a private inquiry agent, and one who hustles things through at a great rate?”

“Hustle,” said Tommy, “is my middle name, Mrs. Betts. Let me ask you a few questions.”

Thereafter things proceeded rapidly. Tommy was shown the damaged pendant, the table on which it had lain, and Mr. Betts emerged from his taciturnity to mention the value, in dollars, of the stolen pearl.

“Or else you are just a fool. Don’t you understand that I have got you—got you in the hollow of my hand? That you’re absolutely in my power? That no one who knows you is ever likely to see you again?”

“Can’t we cut out the melodrama?” asked Tommy plaintively. “Have I got to say ‘You villain, I’ll foil you yet?’ That sort of thing is so very much out of date.”

“What about the girl?” said the other, watching him. “Doesn’t that move you?”

“You may light a cigarette—but no tricks. I am watching you, remember, with the pistol ready.”

“I’m not a performing dog,” said Tommy. “I don’t do tricks.”

He extracted a cigarette from his case, then felt for a match box. “It’s all right. I’m not feeling for a revolver. But you know well enough that I’m not armed. All the same, as I said before, you’ve forgotten one thing.”

“Liar,” laughed Tuppence.

“But I always did think I’d rather marry a liar than a fool.”

“I suppose,” said Tommy, “that there’s no absolute necessity for a husband to be either?”

Tommy complied and they set out. First they left the cocktail glass at the doctor’s house and then set off for a good tramp across country discussing the case as they did so.

“It makes it easier somehow if one plays the fool,” said Tommy.

“All this Hanaud business. I suppose some people would think I didn’t care. But I do, most awfully. I feel that somehow or other we ought to have prevented this.”

This proved rather more difficult than was expected. Turning into a photographer’s and demanding a few assorted photographs, they were met with a cold rebuff.

“Why are all the things that are so easy and simple in books so difficult in real life?” wailed Tuppence.

“How horribly suspicious they looked. What do you think they thought we wanted to do with the photographs? We had better go and raid Jane’s flat.”

“Darling Tommy,” said Tuppence. “How awfully sentimental we are getting.”

“Christmas comes but once a year,” said Tommy sententiously.

“That’s what our great grandmothers said and I expect there’s a lot of truth in it still.”