The Secret Adversary Playbook 2 — Tuppence in Service
A Playbook Series Adaptation
Last Verified: 2026-09-15 | Adapted by: Kateule Sydney | Published by: E-cyclopedia Resources Hub
Summary: With Tommy gone silent and the trail of the treaty running cold, Tuppence takes the most dangerous step of the investigation alone. Posing as a housemaid, she enters the household of a woman whose beauty hides something cold and calculating. What she finds there — a name, a threat, and the sudden appearance of one of the most famous lawyers in England — will change the shape of the whole case. But by the time Tuppence realises what she is actually caught up in, she has already put herself within reach of Mr. Brown.
Series Plan:
Source work: The Secret Adversary (1922) by Agatha Christie
Public domain status: Confirmed public domain in the United States. Christie died 1976; the work entered the US public domain in 1998.
Estimated source word count: 75,852 — basis: Reading Length calculated count, corroborated by Textopian chapter analysis
Target words per Playbook: ~7,500 (4 chapters × ~1,900 words)
Calculated number of Playbooks: 7 (Chapters 1–28 + Prologue, mapped across seven installments)
Reference: Project Gutenberg eBook #1155
Method: This post is an original adaptation of a work in the public domain. The source text is not under copyright in the jurisdiction of publication. All names, places, and narrative events derive from the source work. Prose, structure, pacing, and framing are original to this adaptation. No text from the source or from any copyrighted edition has been reproduced.
Series Navigation:
Playbook 1 B --The Man in the Grey Suit
Playbook 2 — Tuppence in Service (this post)
Previously in this series:
In Playbook 1, Tuppence Cowley and Tommy Beresford — two broke, unemployed young people in post-war London — formed a partnership called the Young Adventurers, Ltd. and placed an advertisement in the Times. Tuppence was approached by a Mr. Whittington, who made her an absurdly generous offer and then reacted with violent fear when she accidentally spoke the name Jane Finn. Whittington then vanished. Through an introduction by a government man known as Mr. Carter, Tommy and Tuppence learned the true shape of the case: a secret treaty had gone down with the Lusitania in 1915, and Jane Finn — the young American woman who survived the sinking — was the only person who might know where it was now. Jane's cousin, an American millionaire named Julius P. Hersheimmer, joined the search. Following Whittington and a man named Boris into Soho, Tommy overheard a conspiracy — and then was caught. Playbook 1 ended with Tuppence waking before dawn, knowing Tommy was in danger.
Table of Contents — Playbook 2
Chapter I — Tuppence Enters Domestic Service
Chapter II — Enter Sir James Peel Edgerton
Chapter I — Tuppence Enters Domestic Service
When Tommy set off after the two men, it took every ounce of Tuppence's self-control not to go with him. She stood in the doorway of the Soho house and watched him disappear round a corner, and for a long moment she was tempted to follow, regardless of what he had said. In the end she stayed where she was, because there was no sense in both of them being caught — and because there was one thing she could do that he could not.
She walked back to the building they had identified on South Audley Street. It was a solid block of flats, the sort of place where nothing ever happened and where nobody asked questions. The entrance hall was empty except for a small lift-boy, who was polishing brass fittings and whistling an unfamiliar tune with more enthusiasm than accuracy.
Tuppence glanced at him. He could not have been more than fourteen. She noticed, with the quick instinct that had served her well in hospital wards and could serve her well here too, the corner of a penny-dreadful novel protruding from his jacket pocket. She also noticed that when he looked up at her, his eyes were bright and curious. He was bored. He wanted something to do.
She leaned toward him and dropped her voice.
"I want a word with you."
The boy straightened up and put down his cloth.
"Do you know what this is?" Tuppence asked, and, with a flourish, she flipped open the side of her coat to reveal a small enamelled badge pinned inside. It was, in fact, a badge of a local training corps that the archdeacon had organised in the early years of the war, and which Tuppence had kept for no better reason than that she had once used it to pin flowers to her coat. But the boy did not know that.
His eyes went wide.
"American Detective Force," Tuppence whispered.
The boy's mouth fell open. He glanced around the empty hall as though expecting men in fedoras to appear from behind the potted palms.
"What's your name?" Tuppence asked.
"Albert, miss."
"Well, Albert, I'll tell you something if you can keep your mouth shut."
Albert nodded so vigorously that his cap nearly came off.
"I'm after a woman," Tuppence said. "She goes by the name of Vandemeyer. Ready Rita, they call her back in the States."
"Number twenty," Albert said, in a hushed, delighted voice.
Tuppence was careful not to show surprise. So the woman lived on the second floor. And Albert knew all about her. And he was, she realised with a pang of shame at her own manipulation, thoroughly enjoying himself.
"What do you know about her?" she asked.
"Annie — that's the 'ouse-parlourmaid — she's leaving to-day," Albert said, eager to share. "She says the place is a proper turn-up. Says Mrs. Vandemeyer is a wrong 'un. And the cook knows something about her, but she won't tell. Scared to death of her, that's what Annie says."
Tuppence considered this. The girl was leaving. That meant the place would need a new servant. And that meant — if Albert could be persuaded — she had a way in.
"Albert," she said, "how would it be if you mentioned that you had a cousin, or a friend, who might suit the place? Someone who could come in right away."
The boy's face lit up.
"You leave it to me, miss. I'll fix the whole thing up in two ticks."
"You might say that the young woman can come in at eleven tomorrow. I'll come round then. And, Albert — not a word to anyone."
"Not a word, miss. Cross my heart."
Tuppence left the building and walked back toward the Ritz, thinking hard. She had never done anything like this before. She had been a nurse, and a driver, and a girl in a government office. She had never been a spy. But she had been trained, in the long months of the war, to think on her feet, to size up a situation in a second, and to act on the information she had.
She wrote a short note to Mr. Carter that afternoon, telling him what she intended. She spent the rest of the day in a series of shops, buying a cheap uniform, a small battered trunk, and a set of hairpins, and by the time she returned to the Ritz that evening she had a complete outfit — and a plan.
The next morning a note came from Mr. Carter. It was written with the same careful hand she had seen before.
Dear Miss Tuppence, you have made a splendid start, and I congratulate you. I feel, though, that I should like to point out once more the risks you are running, especially if you pursue the course you indicate. Those people are absolutely desperate and incapable of either mercy or pity. I feel that you probably underestimate the danger, and therefore warn you again that I can promise you no protection. If, in spite of my warnings, you make up your mind to go through with it, you will find everything arranged. You have lived for two years with Miss Dufferin, The Parsonage, Llanelly, and Mrs. Vandemeyer can apply to her for a reference. Stick as near to the truth as possible. I suggest that you should represent yourself to be what you are — a former V.A.D. who has chosen domestic service as a profession. Good luck to you.
Tuppence read it twice. The warnings did not move her. What moved her was the thought of Tommy, still out there somewhere, and of the treaty, and of Jane Finn, whose face nobody had seen since 1915. And so, at eleven o'clock, dressed as a maid and carrying a battered tin trunk that she had taken by taxi to Paddington and left in the cloakroom before returning to South Audley Street, she walked demurely up the steps and rang the bell of Number 20.
The door was opened by a young woman with a sour face and sharp eyes.
"I've come about the place," Tuppence said.
"It's a rotten place," the young woman said, without preamble. "Regular old cat. Always interfering. Accused me of tampering with her letters. Me! There's never anything in the waste-paper basket — she burns everything. She's a wrong 'un, that's what she is."
But before Annie could say more, a clear voice came from inside, with a peculiar ring to it that made Tuppence's skin prickle.
"Annie!"
The young woman jumped as though she had been shot.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Who are you talking to?"
"It's a young woman about the situation, ma'am."
"Show her in. At once."
Tuppence was shown into a room on the right of the passage. Standing by the fireplace was a woman whose beauty had been the stuff of gossip columns for years. She was no longer young, and the beauty had hardened — there was nothing soft left in it. Her pale gold hair was coiled low on her neck. Her eyes, a piercing blue, fixed on Tuppence with a kind of cold scrutiny that seemed to reach all the way in.
Tuppence felt afraid. Not of Whittington — she had never feared Whittington. This was different. This woman could kill her and walk away without a backward glance. Mr. Carter's warning came back to her. Here she could expect no mercy.
She held the woman's gaze, firm and respectful.
"You can sit down," Mrs. Vandemeyer said at last, and motioned to a chair. "How did you hear I wanted a house-parlourmaid?"
"Through a friend who knows the lift-boy here. He thought the place might suit me."
Again the scrutiny. "You speak like an educated girl."
Tuppence told the story Mr. Carter had given her — the two years with Miss Dufferin at Llanelly, the wish to see London, the wish to earn. She told it plainly, and without embellishment. Mrs. Vandemeyer listened, and then asked for Miss Dufferin's address, and then, without further question, offered her the position at once.
"I'll give you fifty pounds — sixty — whatever you want. You can come in to-day. My box is at Paddington."
"Very well, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."
"Go and fetch your box in a taxi. It's an easy place. I am out a good deal. By the way, what's your name?"
"Prudence Cooper, ma'am."
And so it was that, an hour later, Tuppence Cowley — or rather Prudence Cooper — entered the household of Mrs. Vandemeyer, and began her career as a spy. She did not feel elated. She felt, rather, the way she imagined a soldier felt before his first battle: cold, and clear-headed, and slightly sick.
If Jane Finn had fallen into the hands of this woman, Tuppence thought, she would not have found it easy to escape.
Chapter II — Enter Sir James Peel Edgerton
Tuppence settled quickly into her new role. The daughters of the archdeacon had been well grounded in domestic tasks — the archdeacon's salary had required it — and Tuppence had learned, over years of managing her father's household, how to make herself useful without being seen. She waited at table. She polished silver. She kept her eyes and ears open.
The cook puzzled her. She was competent and quick, and she clearly feared her mistress. Tuppence suspected some hold — money, or an old scandal, or a threat. Whatever it was, the cook would not speak of it.
On the second evening of her employment, Mrs. Vandemeyer was expecting a guest for dinner. Tuppence laid the table for two, and stood back to inspect her work, and was conscious of an unusual degree of trepidation. She had half expected that the guest would be Whittington. If he recognised her, her position was ended before it had begun. But when the doorbell rang and she went to answer it, she found herself face to face with someone entirely unfamiliar.
He was a tall, dark man, with a slightly foreign manner and a name that sounded Russian — a name Tuppence did not catch properly, only the surname, which sounded like Stepanov. He was greeted by Mrs. Vandemeyer with a warmth that made Tuppence's skin crawl, and he called her Rita as though they had known each other for years.
Tuppence retreated to the kitchen, and waited. She listened at the dining-room door as she came and went with the dishes. The conversation at table was ordinary — gossip, the theatre, a recent divorce case. But when the meal was over, and the two of them had moved into the boudoir, Tuppence followed, and set about clearing the coffee things with slow, careful deliberation. The door of the boudoir was not quite shut. She could hear them.
What she heard made her blood run cold.
"Quite safe, I suppose?" It was the Russian speaking.
"Really, Boris, you are absurdly suspicious. I believe she's the cousin of the hall porter, or something of the kind. And nobody even dreams that I have any connection with our — mutual friend, Mr. Brown."
"For heaven's sake, be careful, Rita. That door isn't shut."
"Well, shut it then," Mrs. Vandemeyer said, and laughed.
Tuppence removed herself speedily, before the door could be closed with her on the wrong side of it. She cleared the rest of the dishes and washed up with the frantic speed she had learned in hospital, and then slipped quietly back through the flat, out onto the small balcony that ran the length of the building, and up to the window of the boudoir. The window was open a fraction of an inch. Voices came through it, low but clear.
The conversation was no longer about servants. Boris was accusing Mrs. Vandemeyer of recklessness. She was defending herself with a mocking, dangerous lightness. And then — a phrase that made Tuppence's breath catch in her throat.
"Notoriety of the right kind is the best way of disarming suspicion," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "You will realise that one of these days — perhaps sooner than you think."
"In the meantime," the Russian snapped, "you are going about everywhere with Peel Edgerton. Not only is he perhaps the most celebrated K.C. in England, but his special hobby is criminology. It is madness!"
"I know that his eloquence has saved untold men from the gallows," Mrs. Vandemeyer said calmly. "What of it? I may need his assistance in that line myself some day."
Boris stormed at her. She answered him coldly. He threatened. She reminded him — Tuppence caught the words — that she took her orders only from Mr. Brown.
The phrase went through Tuppence like a knife. She crouched on the balcony, half-frozen with the evening cold, and listened to the two of them quarrel. She learned that Boris did not trust Peel Edgerton, that he thought the famous lawyer suspected something, that Mrs. Vandemeyer thought this was nonsense — that Peel Edgerton was interested in her only as a beautiful woman.
"Money — money! That is always the danger with you, Rita," Boris said at last, and there was a low, ugly venom in his voice. "I believe you would sell your soul for money. I believe — sometimes I believe that you would sell — us."
"The price," Mrs. Vandemeyer said lightly, "would have to be enormous."
But even her lightness had a strained quality now, and Tuppence, listening, understood two things at once. She understood that Mrs. Vandemeyer was capable of selling her own accomplices if the money was right. And she understood that Boris knew it — and that the knowledge had been planted in him, and might one day bear fruit.
The quarrel ended with drinks being rung for. Tuppence slipped back through the window, rearranged her cap, and presented herself at the boudoir door as though she had been summoned from the pantry. She served the drinks, and retired, and lay awake that night thinking about everything she had heard.
The next morning, Mrs. Vandemeyer had a caller.
Tuppence heard the bell ring, and went to answer it. She found herself looking up at a man who was, she thought, just a shade over average height — yet who conveyed the impression of being considerably larger. He was clean-shaven, with a face of unusual mobility, and eyes that seemed to take in everything in the room in a single glance.
"Sir James Peel Edgerton," he said, giving her his card with a small bow.
She took it, and went to announce him, and — as she handed him his hat on his way out some twenty minutes later — she felt the weight of those eyes on her for a moment, and then heard his quiet voice, just as he was stepping through the doorway.
"Not been doing this long, eh?"
Tuppence looked up, startled.
"V.A.D. and hard up, I suppose?"
"Did Mrs. Vandemeyer tell you that?" she asked suspiciously.
"No, child. The look of you told me. Good place here?"
"Very good, thank you, sir."
"Ah — but there are plenty of good places nowadays. And a change does no harm sometimes."
He was already on the topmost stair. He looked back, with a glance that was kindly and, Tuppence thought, something more than kindly — as though he had seen more in her than she had intended to show. "Just a hint," he said. "That's all."
And then he was gone.
Tuppence went back to the pantry more thoughtful than ever.
Chapter III — Julius Tells a Story
On the Friday afternoon Tuppence was given her usual half-day out, and she went straight to the Ritz. She enquired at the desk, and learned — as she had feared — that Tommy had not returned. She left a note for Mr. Carter, asking him to trace Tommy's movements, and then enquired for Julius. He was out, but expected back shortly. She waited in his sitting-room, and it was there that he burst in on her twenty minutes later, with a face like thunder.
"What the hell —" he began, and then stopped himself. "I beg your pardon, Miss Tuppence. Those fools down at the office said Beresford wasn't here any longer — hadn't been since Wednesday. Is that so?"
"You don't know where he is?"
"I? How should I know? I haven't had one darned word from him since we parted at the depot on Wednesday."
"What depot?"
"Waterloo. Didn't he tell you?"
Tuppence stared at him. "Go on about Waterloo."
Julius sat down heavily and began to tell her. He had received a telephone call from Tommy that Wednesday morning. Tommy had told him to hurry, that he was trailing two crooks. Julius had gone to Waterloo at once. Tommy had pointed out the crooks — one was Whittington, the man Tuppence had bluffed. Tommy had shoved a ticket into Julius's hand and told him to get aboard the train; Tommy was going to trail the other man.
"I got into one of those old-fashioned compartments," Julius said. "Whittington was aboard. We got to Bournemouth, and he took a cab. I did the same. He went out again after dinner, and I followed him. We went along the cliffs and into a big house near the pine woods."
He described the house, and the darkness, and the rain. He described climbing a tree to try to see in. And then — with the self-deprecating honesty that Tuppence had come to recognise in him — he admitted that the branch had given way, and that he had fallen some thirty feet into the flower bed below.
"When I came to, I was in bed in a nursing home," he said. "The doctor was a nice little man named Hall. He mended me up. I asked him about Jane, and he said he had never had a patient of that name. But later, when I mentioned Whittington, the doctor said he knew him — that he had a niece who was one of the nurses, Nurse Edith."
"His niece," Tuppence said slowly.
"That's what he told me. He said the girl had left with a patient the night before. And when I left his nursing home this morning, he said he had heard nothing since."
Tuppence sat very still. Something was forming in her mind. "Julius," she said, "did Dr. Hall tell you the name of the patient Nurse Edith left with?"
Julius looked at her. "He said the patient's name was Janet Vandemeyer."
For a moment the room was quiet. Then Tuppence said, very softly, "Vandemeyer."
"That's the lady you're working for, isn't it?" Julius said.
"Yes." Tuppence stood. "Julius, I think I know where Jane Finn has been. Under a false name, in a nursing home at Bournemouth. And Mrs. Vandemeyer is at the centre of all of it. If I can prove to her that I know more than she thinks I do, she may be willing to sell what she knows."
"Sell?" Julius repeated. "You mean — bribe?"
"Yes. She's the sort who would sell anyone for the right price. I heard her say as much last night. She's being pressed by her Russian friend. She's frightened of Mr. Brown. And she loves money."
Julius looked at her steadily. Then he said, "How much?"
"I don't know. A great deal."
"I'll give a million dollars," Julius said, quietly. "If it comes to that."
Tuppence stared at him.
"I mean it," he said. "Money I can make again. Jane I cannot. You tell me what you need, and I'll see that it's there."
Tuppence nodded. She told him what she had been thinking. She told him about Sir James Peel Edgerton — about the hint he had thrown her, and about his reputation, and about the possibility that he might help them in ways that were not strictly within the law. Julius, at first, was against it. He did not trust lawyers. But Tuppence was insistent, and in the end he agreed to go with her the next morning to Carlton House Terrace.
On Sunday afternoon they presented themselves at Sir James's door. They were shown into a library lined with books — legal volumes, most of them, but also a great many works on crime and criminology, which Tuppence noted with interest. Sir James himself was sitting at a desk in the window, surrounded by papers, and he rose as they entered.
"You have a message for me?" he said, and then, recognising Tuppence, smiled. "It's you, is it? Brought a message from Mrs. Vandemeyer, I suppose?"
"Not exactly," Tuppence said. "In fact I'm afraid I only said that to be sure of getting in."
She introduced Julius. Sir James indicated chairs, and they sat. And then, drawing a long breath, Tuppence told him the whole story — from the formation of the Young Adventurers to the present day. She told him about Whittington, and Mr. Carter, and the treaty, and Jane Finn. She told him about Mrs. Vandemeyer, and what she had overheard on the balcony. She told him about Tommy, and where Tommy had last been seen.
Sir James listened without interruption. When she had finished he sat for a long moment in silence.
"Very interesting," he said at last. "A great deal of what you have told me, child, is already known to me. I have had certain theories of my own about this Jane Finn. You have done extraordinarily well so far. But I am afraid I cannot entirely approve of your being set to work on this affair, by whoever it was — Mr. Carter, you say? — who engaged you. It is no work for two young things."
He stood, and began to pace the room.
"However," he went on, "the matter is now of considerable importance. If your young friend Tommy is alive, he may hold information that is very valuable to us. We must find him."
"How?" Tuppence asked.
Sir James smiled. "There is one person quite near at hand who in all probability knows where he is — or at all events where he is likely to be."
"Mrs. Vandemeyer."
"Exactly."
"But she would never tell us."
"Ah," Sir James said, "that is where I come in."
He explained his plan. He would call upon Mrs. Vandemeyer that evening. He would ask her, directly, what had become of Tommy — and he would make it clear, if necessary, that he was prepared to use what he knew. In the unlikely event that she refused to speak, there was, as he delicately put it, the possibility of bribery.
"And that," Julius said, bringing his fist down on the table with a bang, "is where I come in. Count on me for one million dollars."
Sir James's eyebrows rose. "That is a very large sum."
"This is a very large business. If it takes a million to get Jane back, then that is what it takes."
Sir James looked at him for a long moment, and then inclined his head. "Very well. We shall not need as much as that, I think. But it is good to know that the resources are there." He glanced at his watch. "Mrs. Vandemeyer will not be home for some hours yet. Miss Tuppence, you must return to your post at your usual time, and behave exactly as usual. Mr. Hersheimmer and I will come to South Audley Street at ten o'clock. If by then Mrs. Vandemeyer has gone out, we shall know that something has gone wrong. If she is at home, I shall see her. If I can persuade her to speak, well and good. If I cannot, we shall have to consider — other methods."
Tuppence nodded.
As she rose to go, Sir James held out his hand. "One more thing," he said. "I do not wish to alarm you, but you are dealing with people who are entirely without scruple. If you have the slightest reason to suspect that Mrs. Vandemeyer's suspicions have been aroused, you must leave the house at once. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
"Good. Then let us hope for the best."
Chapter IV — A Friend in Need
Tuppence returned to South Audley Mansions at half past nine on Sunday evening, dressed in her uniform, and let herself in with her latchkey. The flat was quiet. The cook had been given the night off. Mrs. Vandemeyer, Tuppence saw with a small shock of alarm, was not in the drawing room, nor in the boudoir. But there was a light under her bedroom door.
She knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again. And then the door was thrown open, and Mrs. Vandemeyer stood there, dressed for travel, her face pale and set and dangerous.
"You," she said. "I thought you had gone out."
"I came back early," Tuppence said. She tried to keep her voice steady. "I — I had a touch of toothache."
Mrs. Vandemeyer looked at her for a long moment. And then Tuppence saw, behind her, the half-packed suitcase on the bed, and the wardrobe open, and the papers in the grate that had been recently burned. And she understood. Mrs. Vandemeyer was fleeing. Something had frightened her, and she was getting out.
"You'd better go to bed," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "I have had enough of you for one evening."
But there was something in her voice that made Tuppence's blood run cold. She turned to go — and felt the cold rim of a pistol barrel pressed against her temple.
"You damned little fool," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "Do you think I don't know? Do you think I haven't seen through your V.A.D. and your archdeacon and your Miss Dufferin? Who's been paying you? Whittington? Or someone higher up?"
Tuppence did not answer. There was nothing to say.
"March," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "Into the bedroom. This way."
She pushed Tuppence ahead of her, through the door and into the disordered room. Tuppence saw the hatbox, the empty wardrobe, the burnt papers in the grate. And she understood, with terrible clarity, that she was alone in a flat with a woman who was capable of killing her.
"Now," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "You can sit on the bed, and put your hands on top of your head. And you can stay that way until I decide what to do with you."
Tuppence obeyed. She sat on the edge of the bed, and put her hands on her head, and watched as Mrs. Vandemeyer crossed to the washstand and picked up a small bottle and a glass. Her fingers were shaking slightly, but she poured a measure of the liquid into the glass, and filled it with water, and turned back to Tuppence with a thin smile.
"Drink this," she said. "It will help you sleep."
Tuppence looked at the glass. "What is it?"
"Something to make you sleep soundly."
"Poison?"
"Perhaps."
Tuppence's heart was pounding, but she kept her voice level. "Then I shan't drink it. I'd much rather be shot. At least a shot would make noise, and someone might hear."
Mrs. Vandemeyer set the glass down on the washstand with a snap. "You really are a fool," she said. "Do you think I want a hue and cry after me? It's a sleeping draught, that's all. You'll wake up in the morning, none the worse. The alternative is that I tie you up and gag you, and I can promise you that you won't enjoy it. Drink it, and be sensible."
Tuppence considered. She was quite sure, now, that it was not poison — Mrs. Vandemeyer was too careful for that, too eager to slip away unseen. But if she drank it, she would be asleep when Sir James and Julius arrived, and whatever was going to happen would happen without her. She could not allow that. She had to keep Mrs. Vandemeyer in the flat. Every minute of delay was a minute gained.
She let her face crumple. She let her shoulders sag. She slid off the bed and, on her knees, reached out and clutched at Mrs. Vandemeyer's skirts.
"Don't make me drink it," she sobbed. "Please — I'll tell you everything — I'll tell you who sent me — only don't — don't make me —"
Mrs. Vandemeyer pulled back with a curl of contempt on her lips. "Get up, you little idiot. Don't drivel there. How you ever had the nerve to play your part as you did, I can't think. Get up, I say."
But Tuppence continued to cling and sob and beg. She was watching the older woman's hand very carefully. She was waiting for the moment when the hand with the pistol slackened, or the glass was lowered. And after a few more seconds, the moment came. Mrs. Vandemeyer, with an exclamation of impatience, put down the pistol on the edge of the washstand and, with both hands, raised the glass to Tuppence's mouth.
Tuppence struck.
She knocked the glass upwards, hard, and the liquid splashed across Mrs. Vandemeyer's face. In the same movement, her right hand shot out and closed on the pistol on the washstand, and she was on her feet, with the pistol now in her own hand, pointed steadily at Mrs. Vandemeyer's chest. The two women stood facing one another, breathing hard.
"Now who's on top and who's underneath?" Tuppence said.
For a moment the older woman's face convulsed with rage. Then, slowly, she smiled — and Tuppence's skin crawled at the sight of it.
"So you are not quite the fool you pretended to be," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "You played your part well. You shall pay for it — oh, yes, you shall pay for it. I have a long memory."
"I'm not afraid of you," Tuppence said. But she was.
"Sit down," Mrs. Vandemeyer said. "Now that you have the pistol, we may as well talk."
Tuppence did not take her eyes off her. "There is nothing to talk about."
"Oh, I think there is. There is the matter of your friend Tommy — and of a certain young lady called Jane Finn — and of a sum of money."
Tuppence's breath caught. She had not expected this — not so quickly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Mrs. Vandemeyer said, "that I am prepared to do business."
She leaned back in her chair, and crossed her legs, and looked up at Tuppence with an expression that was half scorn and half calculation.
"I am going to leave London to-night," she said. "I am going to disappear. And I am going to disappear alone — unless someone pays me enough to take someone else with me. You understand? I know where Jane Finn is. I know where your friend Tommy is, or at least I know who took him. And I am perfectly willing to tell you everything — for a price."
"What price?"
Mrs. Vandemeyer smiled. "How much do you suppose your Mr. Hersheimmer is worth?"
"A great deal."
"Then I think a hundred thousand pounds would be a reasonable figure. Not a penny less."
Tuppence did not flinch. She had expected something in that order. "And if I agree," she said, "what then?"
"Then," Mrs. Vandemeyer said, "I shall tell you where Jane Finn is, and where your friend Tommy is, and who Mr. Brown is."
For a moment Tuppence thought she had misheard. The last phrase was too enormous to take in. But Mrs. Vandemeyer was watching her with a look that was almost mocking.
"Yes," she said. "I know who Mr. Brown is. There are not many people who do. I am one of the few. And I am prepared — for a hundred thousand pounds — to make one more."
Tuppence's mind was racing. She could not promise the money herself, but she could promise that it would be paid. Julius had said a million dollars. That was two hundred thousand pounds. They had more than enough.
"Very well," she said. "I accept."
Mrs. Vandemeyer's eyes narrowed. "You accept? On whose authority?"
"On Mr. Hersheimmer's. He is here in London. He will pay."
"And how am I to know that he will keep his word?"
"You will have to trust me."
Mrs. Vandemeyer laughed, a low, unpleasant laugh. "Trust. Trust is a luxury for rich women. But very well. I have no choice — there is not much time. I will wait here until your Mr. Hersheimmer comes. But I warn you — if there is any trickery, if anyone comes through that door who is not expected, you will not leave this room alive."
She said it quite calmly, and Tuppence knew she meant it.
And then — suddenly — Mrs. Vandemeyer's expression changed. Her eyes went wide. Her hand went to her throat. She stared past Tuppence, at something over her shoulder.
Tuppence whirled round. There was no one there. The door was closed. The window was shut. She looked back at Mrs. Vandemeyer, and saw the woman sway on her chair, and then topple sideways onto the floor.
For a moment Tuppence stood frozen. Then she went to her. The woman was unconscious. Her pulse was there — faint, but there. Tuppence did the only thing she could think of: she ran to the washstand, poured water into the basin, and threw it into Mrs. Vandemeyer's face. Nothing happened. She looked at the little bottle from which the sleeping draught had been poured. It was empty.
She knelt on the floor beside the fallen woman, and pressed her fingers to her wrist. Still faint. Still there.
And then she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside — several sets, moving fast — and her hand went instinctively to the pistol in her pocket. And then a voice at the door — Julius's — called her name.
Two hours later, Mrs. Vandemeyer was dead.
The doctor — called by Sir James, who had taken charge of the situation with the calm authority of a man who had spent his life dealing with deaths of every kind — said that it was heart failure, accelerated by an overdose of the chloral draught. He was inclined to call it accidental. Sir James listened, and thanked him, and said nothing more. But when the doctor was gone, and the nurse had been installed, and the body had been removed, Sir James turned to Tuppence and Julius, and said quietly:
"I am not entirely satisfied. She was about to speak. She was about to betray Mr. Brown. And then she died. I do not think she died of natural causes. I think she was killed — and killed by someone who was in this flat, at the moment of her death, and who got out again without leaving any trace. If that is true, then the person we are dealing with is far more dangerous than anything you have yet encountered."
Tuppence looked at the empty bottle on the washstand, and at the closed window, and at the door that had not been opened. And then, slowly, she began to understand what Sir James was saying.
Mr. Brown, wherever he was, had been closer than they knew.
Key Takeaways from Playbook 2
• With Tommy missing, Tuppence goes undercover alone as a housemaid in Mrs. Vandemeyer's household — the most dangerous step of the investigation so far.
• She overhears a quarrel between Mrs. Vandemeyer and a Russian named Boris, and learns that Mrs. Vandemeyer is both afraid of Mr. Brown and willing to sell him out for the right price.
• Julius Hersheimmer tells the story of his pursuit of Whittington to Bournemouth — and reveals that Jane Finn was almost certainly being held in Dr. Hall's nursing home under the name "Janet Vandemeyer."
• Sir James Peel Edgerton, the famous K.C., enters the case. He warns Tuppence that Mrs. Vandemeyer's household is no place for her — and then agrees to help.
• Mrs. Vandemeyer attempts to flee, threatens Tuppence with a pistol, and is overpowered. Cornered, she agrees to betray Mr. Brown for a hundred thousand pounds.
• Before she can speak, she collapses — and dies. Sir James suspects murder. Mr. Brown is closer than anyone has realised.
Historical Context — Domestic Service in Post-War Britain
Tuppence's decision to enter domestic service as an undercover maid is historically precise. Before the First World War, domestic service was the largest single occupation for women in Britain — over a million and a half women worked as servants in 1911. But the war changed everything. Women who had spent the war years in factories, hospitals, and offices no longer wished to return to the long hours and limited freedom of service. By 1919, there was a severe shortage of housemaids and cooks, and wages had risen sharply. Middle-class households like Mrs. Vandemeyer's were forced to pay far more than they had before — or do without. This is exactly the situation Tuppence exploits: she can present herself as a "former V.A.D." who has chosen domestic service as a profession, and no one will find that at all strange, because hundreds of women were doing precisely the same thing. The scarcity of servants also explains why Mrs. Vandemeyer does not ask too many questions; she needs someone immediately, and she cannot afford to be choosy.
Original Value — The Introduction of Sir James Peel Edgerton
With the introduction of Sir James Peel Edgerton, Christie performs one of the most effective pieces of misdirection in her early fiction. He arrives at precisely the moment when Tuppence most needs help. He is famous, he is powerful, he is warm, and he throws her a hint that saves her from an obvious trap. Everything about the way he is written encourages the reader to trust him. And yet, in the retrospective reading that the novel finally invites, every one of his appearances is ambiguous. He knows too much about Jane Finn. He is too conveniently on hand when he is needed. He speaks with a lawyer's care, in a way that can always be reinterpreted later. Christie would refine this technique across her career — most famously in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd — but The Secret Adversary shows her already using it with considerable skill9. Sir James is not simply a helpful figure. He is a structural device. He is the reader's comfort, and the reader's blind spot, at the same time.
Continue the Series
Sir James, Julius, and Tuppence stand watch over Mrs. Vandemeyer's body through the night — and by dawn, a suspicion Tuppence has been fighting all evening will have grown into something she cannot ignore. In the same hours, Tommy's own story, left suspended at the end of Playbook 1, will resume. Both strands converge on a discovery that changes everything.
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References
Project Gutenberg — The Secret Adversary, eBook #1155
Project Gutenberg — Public domain and copyright FAQ
Textopian — The Secret Adversary chapter and word analysis
The Online Books Page — University of Pennsylvania
Adapted from the Original work by Agatha Christie
Public domain (1922) · This adaptation follows the playbook series format
E-cyclopedia Resources Hub — Public domain adaptations and literary reference
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