to happen to her. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Mr Carter (see The Secret Adversary) who asks them to take over The International Detective Agency. The agency's manager, Theodore Blunt, is in prison. Carter's particular request is that they watch for letters on blue paper sent to Mr Blunt from a purported ham merchant anxious to trace his refugee wife. Each such letter will have a Russian stamp with a "16" written underneath. He asks for such letters to be sent to him immediately. A Pot of Tea Tommy's alias is Mr Blunt, while Tuppence is his confidential secretary, Miss Robinson. The porter from their flat, Albert is their office worker. After a week of refusing divorce cases, which Tuppence finds distasteful, they receive a visit from Lawrence St Vincent. He is the nephew of, and heir to, the Earl of Cheriton. He has fallen for a young woman called Janet who works in a hat shop in Brooks Street. She has disappeared from the shop and has not been seen at her lodgings. St Vincent wants them to find her. The Beresfords take on the case, which Tuppence solves with ease. Janet is a friend of hers from her wartime nursing days who was working at the shop where Tuppence makes her purchases. She asked Janet to mention the "Blunts" and then disappear. St Vincent would ask them to take on the case, for which they receive favourable publicity, and when they find Janet, her happiness will provoke St Vincent into a proposal of marriage to Janet. The Affair of the Pink Pearl Tommy sorts out a pile of famous detective stories, and he thinks it would be a good idea to base their techniques on the styles of their fictional counterparts. He has bought a good camera for taking photographs of footprints and "all that sort of thing". The next client is a young woman named Miss Kingston Bruce. She lives in Wimbledon with her parents, and last night one of their guests lost a valuable pink pearl. The Blunts have been recommended to them by Lawrence St Vincent, who was one of the guests. The Beresfords travel to Wimbledon and meet Colonel Kingston Bruce. He proudly tells them that Lady Laura Barton, daughter of the late Earl of Carroway, is staying with them together with an American couple, Mr and Mrs Hamilton Betts, who