She obtains British nationality by marrying and divorcing an Englishman in Beirut; the husband (James Turner) dies a year later of alcoholism. Having made a point of not dealing in secrets belonging to H.M. Government, when she feels she has made enough money, she retires and moves to England and Willie Garvin follows suit. Bored by their new lives among the idle rich, they accept a request for assistance from Sir Gerald Tarrant, a high-ranking official of the British Secret Service. This is where the story really begins, although it is treated differently in the first comic strip and the first book. (See note in "Differences between Comic Strip and Books", below.) Modesty's fortune is estimated at 500,000 pounds as of 1963 (over 8.84 million pounds in 2020). She lives in a penthouse in London overlooking Hyde Park, and also owns a villa in Tangier and a cottage two miles from Benildon, Wiltshire. She is 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) tall and weighs 120 lbs (54 kg) as revealed in "La Machine".