Postern of Fate tat-5

by Agatha Christie

  'Well, it's not furry or anything. I don't think it's very nice. Oh dear, there's a nail again. Well, it seems to be hung on a nail. There's a sort of bit of string or cord. Funny it hasn't rotted away, isn't it?'

  She drew out her find cautiously.

  'It's a pocket-book,' she said. 'Yes. Yes, it's been quite good leather once, I think. Quite good leather.'

  'Let's see what's inside it, if there is anything inside it,' said Tommy.

  'There's something inside it,' said Tuppence.

  'Perhaps it's a lot of five pound notes,' she added hopefully.

  'Well, I don't suppose they'd be usable still. Paper would rot, wouldn't it?'

  'I don't know,' said Tuppence. 'A lot of queer things do survive, you know. I think five pound notes used to be made of wonderfully good paper once, you know. Sort of thin but very durable.'

  'Oh well, perhaps it's a twenty pound note. It will help with the housekeeping.'

  'What? The money'll be before Isaac's time too, I expect, or else he'd have found it. Ah well. Think! It might be a hundred pound note. I wish it were golden sovereigns. Sovereigns were always in purses. My Great-Aunt Maria had a great purse full of sovereigns. She used to show it to us as children. It was her nest egg, she said, in case the French came. I think it was the French. Anyway, it was for extremities or danger. Lovely fat golden sovereigns. I used to think it was wonderful and I'd think how lovely it would be, you know, once one was grown up and you'd have a purse full of sovereigns.'

  'Who was going to give you a purse full of sovereigns?'

  'I didn't think of anyone giving it to me,' said Tuppence. 'I thought of it as the sort of thing that belonged to you as a right once you were a grown up person. You know, a real grown up wearing a mantle - that's what they called the things. A mantle with a sort of fur boa round it and a bonnet. You had this great fat purse jammed full of sovereigns, and if you had a favourite grandson who was going back to school, you always gave him a sovereign as a tip.'

  'What about the girls, the grand-daughters?'

  'I don't think they got any sovereigns,' said Tuppence. 'But sometimes she used to send me half a five pound note.'

  'Half a five pound note? That wouldn't be much good.'

  'Oh yes, it was. She used to tear the five pound note in half, send me one half first and then the other half in another letter later. You see, it was supposed in that way that nobody'd want to steal it.'

  'Oh dear what a lot of precautions everyone did take.'

  'They did rather,' said Tuppence. 'Hullo, what's this?'

  She was fumbling now in the leather case.

  'Let's get out of KK for a minute,' said Tommy, 'and get some air.'

  They got outside KK. In the air they saw better what their trophy was like. It was a thick leather wallet of good quality. It was stiff with age but not in any way destroyed.

  'I expect it was kept from damp inside Mathilde,' said Tuppence. 'Oh, Tommy, do you know what I think this is?'

  'No. What? It isn't money anyway. And certainly not sovereigns. '

  'Oh no, it isn't money,' said Tuppence, 'but I think it's letters. I don't know whether we'll be able to read them now. They're very old and faded.'

  Very carefully Tommy arranged the crinkled yellow paper of the letters, pushing them apart when he could. The writing was quite large and had once been written in a very deep blue-black ink.

  'Meeting place changed,' said Tommy. 'Ken Gardens near Peter Pan. Wednesday 25th, 3.30 p.m. Joanna.'

  'I really believe,' said Tuppence, 'we might have something at last.'

  'You mean that someone who'd be going to London was told to go on a certain day and meet someone in Kensington Gardens bringing perhaps the papers or the plans or whatever it was. Who do you think got these things out of Mathilde or put them into Mathilde?'

  'It couldn't have been a child,' said Tuppence. 'It must have been someone who lived in the house and so could move about without being noticed. Got things from the naval spy, I suppose, and took them to London.'

  Tuppence wrapped up the old leather wallet in the scarf she'd been wearing round her neck and she and Tommy returned to the house.

  'There may be other papers in there,' said Tuppence, 'but most of them I think are perished and will more or less fall to pieces if you touch them. Hullo, what's this?'

  On the hall table a rather bulky package was lying. Albert came out from the dining-room.

  'It was left by hand, madam,' he said. 'Left by hand this morning for you.'

  'Ah, I wonder what it is,' said Tuppence. She took it.

  Tommy and she went into the sitting-room together. Tuppence undid the knot of the string and took off the brown paper wrapping.

  'It's a kind of album,' she said, 'I think. Oh, there's a note with it. Ah, it's from Mrs Griffin.

  "Dear Mrs Beresford, It was so kind of you to bring me the birthday book the other day. I have had great pleasure looking over it and remembering various people from past days. One does forget so soon. Very often one only remembers somebody's Christian name and not their surname, sometimes it's the other way about. I came across, a little time ago, this old album. It doesn't really belong to me. I think it belonged to my grandmother, but it has a good many pictures in it and among them, I think, there are one or two of the Parkinsons, because my grandmother knew the Parkinsons. I thought perhaps you would like to see it as you seemed to be so interested in the history of your house and who has lived in it in the past. Please don't bother to send it back to me because it means nothing to me personally really, I can assure you. One has so many things in the house always belonging to aunts and grandmothers and the other day when I was looking in an old chest of drawers in the attic I came across six needle-books. Years and years old. I should think almost possibly a hundred years old. And I believe that was not my grandmother but her grandmother again who used at one time always to give a needle-book each to the maids for Christmas and I think these were some she had bought at a sale and would do for another year. Of course quite useless now. Sometimes it seems sad to think of how much waste there has always been."

  'A photo album,' said Tuppence. 'Well, that might be fun. Come along, let's have a look.'

  They sat down on the sofa. The album was very typical of bygone days. Most of the prints were faded by now but every now and then Tuppence managed to recognize surroundings that fitted the gardens of their own house.

  'Look, there's the monkey puzzle. Yes - and look, there's Truelove behind it. That must be a very old photograph, and a funny little boy hanging on to Truelove. Yes, and there's the wistaria and there's the pampas grass. I suppose it must have been a tea-party or something. Yes, there are a lot of people sitting round a table in the garden. They've got names underneath them too. Mabel. Mabel's no beauty. And who's that?'

  'Charles,' said Tommy. 'Charles and Edmund. Charles and Edmund seem to have been playing tennis. They've got rather queer tennis racquets. And there's William, whoever he was, and Major Coates.'

  'And there's - oh Tommy, there's Mary.'

  'Yes. Mary Jordan. Both names there, written under the photograph.'

  'She was pretty. Very pretty, I think. It is very faded and old, but - oh Tommy, it really seems wonderful to see Mary Jordan.'

  'I wonder who took the photograph?'

  'Perhaps the photographer that Isaac mentioned. The one in the village here. Perhaps he'd have old photographs too. I think perhaps one day we'll go and ask.'

  Tommy had pushed aside the album by now and was opening a letter which had come in the midday post.

  'Anything interesting?' asked Tuppence. 'There are three letters here. Two are bills, I can see. This one - yes, this one is rather different. I asked you if it was interesting,' said Tuppence.

  'It may be,' said Tommy. 'I'll have to go to London tomorrow again.'

  'To deal with your usual committees?'

  'Not exactly,' said Tommy. 'I'm going to call on someone. Actually it isn't London, it's out of Lond
on. Somewhere Harrow way, I gather.'

  'What is?' said Tuppence. 'You haven't told me yet.'

  'I'm going to call on someone called Colonel Pikeaway.'

  'What a name,' said Tuppence.

  'Yes, it is rather, isn't it?'

  'Have I heard it before?' said Tuppence.

  'I may have mentioned it to you once. He lives in a kind of permanent atmosphere of smoke. Have you got any cough lozenges, Tuppence?'

  'Cough lozenges! Well, I don't know. Yes, I think I have. I've got an old box of them from last winter. But you haven't got a cough - not that I've noticed, at any rate.'

  'No, but I shall have if I'm going to see Pikeaway. As far as I can remember, you take two choking breaths and then you go on choking. You look hopefully at all the windows which are tightly shut, but Pikeaway would never take a hint of that kind.'

  'Why do you think he wants to see you?'

  'Can't imagine,' said Tommy. 'He mentions Robinson.'

  'What - the yellow one? The one who's got a fat yellow face and is something very hush-hush?'

  'That's the one,' said Tommy.

  'Oh well,' said Tuppence, 'perhaps what we're mixed up in here is hush-hush.'

  'Hardly could be considering it all took place - whatever it was, if there is anything - years and years ago, before even Isaac can remember.'

  'New sins have old shadows,' said Tuppence, 'if that's the saying I mean. I haven't got it quite right. New sins have old shadows. Or is it Old sins make long shadows?'

  'I should forget it,' said Tommy. 'None of them sounds right.'

  'I shall go and see that photographer man this afternoon, I think. Want to come?'

  'No,' said Tommy. 'I think I shall go down and bathe.'

  'Bathe? It'll be awfully cold.'

  'Never mind. I feel I need something cold, bracing and refreshing to remove all the taste of cobwebs, the various remains of which seem to be clinging round my ears and round my neck and some even seem to have got between my toes.'

  'This does seem a very dirty job,' said Tuppence. 'Well. I'll go and see Mr Durrell or Durrance, if that's his name. There was another letter, Tommy, which you haven't opened.'

  'Oh, I didn't see it. Ah well, that might be something.'

  'Who is it from?'

  'My researcher,' said Tommy, in a rather grand voice. 'The one who has been running about England, in and out of Somerset House looking up deaths, marriages and births, consulting newspaper files and census returns. She's very good.'

  'Good and beautiful?'

  'Not beautiful so that you'd notice it,' said Tommy.

  'I'm glad of that,' said Tuppence. 'You know, Tommy, now that you're getting on in years you might - you might get some rather dangerous ideas about a beautiful helper.'

  'You don't appreciate a faithful husband when you've got one,' said Tommy.

  'All my friends tell me you never know with husbands,' said Tuppence.

  'You have the wrong kind of friends,' said Tommy.

  Chapter 5

  INTERVIEW WITH COLONEL PIKEAWAY

  Tommy drove through Regent's Park, then he passed through various roads he'd not been through for years. Once when he and Tuppence had had a flat near Belsize Park, he remembered walks on Hampstead Heath and a dog they had had who'd enjoyed the walks. A dog with a particularly self-willed nature. When coming out of the flat he had always wished to turn to the left on the road that would lead to Hampstead Heath. The efforts of Tuppence or Tommy to make him turn to the right and go into shopping quarters were usually defeated. James, a Sealyham of obstinate nature, had allowed his heavy sausage-like body to rest flat on the pavement, he would produce a tongue from his mouth and give every semblance of being a dog tired out by being given the wrong kind of exercise by those who owned him. People passing by usually could not refrain from comment.

  'Oh, look at that dear little dog there. You know, the one with the white hair - looks rather like a sausage, doesn't he? And panting, poor fellow. Those people of his, they won't let him go the way he wants to, he looks tired out, just tired out,'

  Tommy had taken the lead from Tuppence and had pulled James firmly in the opposite direction from the one he wanted to go.

  'Oh dear,' said Tuppence, 'can't you pick him up, Tommy?'

  'What, pick up James? He's too much of a weight.'

  James, with a clever manoeuvre, turned his sausage body so that he was facing once more in the direction of his expectation.

  'Look, poor little doggie, I expect he wants to go home, don't you?'

  James tugged firmly on his lead.

  'Oh all right,' said Tuppence, 'we'll shop later. Come on, we'll have to let James go where he wants to go. He's such a heavy dog, you can't make him do anything else.'

  James looked up and wagged his tail. 'I quite agree with you,' the wag seemed to say. 'You've got the point at last. Come on. Hampstead Heath it is.' And it usually had been.

  Tommy wondered. He'd got the address of the place where he was going. The last time he had been to see Colonel Pikeaway it had been in Bloomsbury. A small poky room full of smoke. Here, when he reached the address, it was a small, nondescript house fronting on the heath not far from the birthplace of Keats. It did not look particularly artistic or interesting.

  Tommy rang a bell. An old woman with a close resemblance to what Tommy imagined a witch might look like, with a sharp nose and a sharp chin which almost met each other, stood there, looking hostile.

  'Can I see Colonel Pikeaway?'

  'Don't know I'm sure.' said the witch. 'Who would you be now?'

  'My name is Beresford.'

  'Oh, I see. Yes. He did say something about that.'

  'Can I leave the car outside?'

  'Yes, it'll be all right for a bit. Don't get many of the wardens poking around this street. No yellow lines just along here. Better lock it up, sir. You never know.'

  Tommy attended to these rules as laid down, and followed the old woman into the house.

  'One flight up.' she said, 'not more.'

  Already on the stairs there was the strong smell of tobacco. The witch-woman tapped at a door, poked her head in, said, 'This must be the gentleman you wanted to see. Says you're expecting him.' She stood aside and Tommy passed into what he remembered before, an aroma of smoke which forced him almost immediately to choke and gulp. He doubted he would have remembered Colonel Pikeaway apart from the smoke and the cloud and smell of nicotine. A very old man lay back in an armchair - a somewhat ragged armchair with holes on the arms of it. He looked up thoughtfully as Tommy entered.

  'Shut the door, Mrs Copes,' he said, 'don't want to let the cold air in, do we?'

  Tommy rather thought that they did, but obviously it was his not to reason why, his but to inhale and in due course die, he presumed.

  'Thomas Beresford,' said Colonel Pikeaway thoughtfully. 'Well, well, how many years is it since I saw you?'

  Tommy had not made a proper computation.

  'Long time ago,' said Colonel Pikeaway, 'came here with what's-his-name, didn't you? Ah well, never mind, one name's as good as another. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Juliet said that, didn't she? Silly things sometimes Shakespeare made them say. Of course, he couldn't help it, he was a poet. Never cared much for Romeo and Juliet, myself. All those suicides for love's sake. Plenty of 'em about, mind you. Always happening, even nowadays. Sit down, my boy, sit down.'

  Tommy was slightly startled at being called 'my boy' again, but he availed himself of the invitation.

  'You don't mind, sir,' he said, dispossessing the only possible seeming chair of a large pile of books.

  'No, no, shove 'em all on the floor. Just trying to look something up, I was. Well, well, I'm pleased to see you. You look a bit older than you did, but you look quite healthy. Ever had a coronary?'

  'No,' said Tommy.

  'Ah! Good. Too many people suffering from hearts, blood pressure - all those things. Doing too much. That's what it is. Running about all ove
r the place, telling everyone how busy they are and the world can't get on without them, and how important they are and everything else. Do you feel the same? I expect you do.'

  'No,' said Tommy, 'I don't feel very important. I feel - well, I feel that I really would enjoy relaxing nowadays.'

  'Well, it's a splendid thought,' said Colonel Pikeaway. 'The trouble is there are so many people about who won't let you relax. What took you to this place of yours where you're living now? I've forgotten the name of it. Just tell me again, will you?'

  Tommy obliged with his address.

  'Ah yes, ah yes, I put the right thing on the envelope then.'

  'Yes, I got your letter.'

  'I understand you've been to see Robinson. He's still going. Just as fat as ever; just as yellow as ever, and just as rich or richer than ever, I expect. Knows all about it too. Knows about money, I mean. What took you there, boy?'

  'Well, we had bought a new house, and a friend of mine advised me that Mr Robinson might be able to clear up a mystery that my wife and I found connected with it, relating to a long time back.'

  'I remember now. I don't believe I ever met her but you've got a clever wife, haven't you? Did some sterling work in the - what is the thing? Sounded like the catechism. N or M, that was it, wasn't it?'

  'Yes,' said Tommy.

  'And now you're on to the same line again, are you? Looking into things. Had suspicions, had you?'

  'No,' said Tommy, 'that's entirely wrong. We only went there because we were tired of the flat we were living in and they kept putting up the rent.'

  'Nasty trick,' said Colonel Pikeaway. 'They do that to you nowadays, the landlords. Never satisfied. Talk about Daughters of the Horse Leech - sons of the horse leech are just as bad. All right, you went there to live. Il faut cultiver son jardin,' said Colonel Pikeaway, with a rather sudden onslaught on the French language. 'Trying to rub up my French again,' be explained. 'Got to keep in with the Common Market nowadays, haven't we? Funny stuff going on there, by the way. You know, behind things. Not what you see on the surface. So you went to live at Swallow's Nest. What took you to Swallow's Nest, I'd like to know?'