Postern of Fate tat-5

by Agatha Christie

  'Just show me what you're doing to the lettuces. I'd like to know.'

  She stood by, watching the manipulations of Henry Bodlicott.

  'Now that's all right. Yes, nice ones, these, aren't they? Webb's Wonderful, aren't they? They keep a long time.'

  'We finished the Tom Thumbs,' said Tuppence.

  'That's right. Those are the little early ones, aren't they? Very crisp and good.'

  'Well, thank you very much,' said Tuppence.

  She turned away and started to walk towards the house. She noted she'd lost her scarf and turned back. Henry Bodlicott, just starting for home, stopped and came across to her.

  'Just the scarf,' said Tuppence. 'Is it - oh, there it is on that bush.'

  He handed it to her, then stood looking at her, shuffling his feet. He looked so very worried and ill at ease that Tuppence wondered what was the matter with him.

  'Is there anything?' she said.

  Henry shuffled his feet, looked at her, shuffled his feet again, picked his nose and rubbed his left ear and then moved his feet in a kind of tattoo.

  'Just something I - I wondered if you - I mean - if you wouldn't mind me asking you -'

  'Well?' said Tuppence. She stopped and looked at him enquiringly.

  Henry got very red in the face and continued to shuffle his feet.

  'Well, I didn't like to - I don't like to ask, but I just wondered - I mean, people have been saying - they said things... I mean, I hear them say...'

  'Yes?' said Tuppence, wondering what had upset Henry, what he could have heard concerning the lives of Mr and Mrs Beresford, the new tenants of The Laurels. 'Yes, you've heard what?'

  'Oh, just as - as how it's you is the lady what caught spies or something in the last war. You did it, and the gentleman too. You were in it and you found someone who was a German spy pretending to be something else. And you found him out and you had a lot of adventures and in the end it was all cleared up. I mean, you were - I don't know what to call it - I suppose you were one of our Secret Service people and you did that and they said as you'd been wonderful. Of course, some time ago now but you was all mixed up with something - something about nursery rhymes too.'

  'That's right,' said Tuppence. 'Goosey Goosey Gander was the one in question.'

  'Goosey Goosey Gander! I remember that. Gosh, years ago, it was. Whither will you wander?'

  'That's right,' said Tuppence. 'Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber. There he found an old man who wouldn't say his prayers and he took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs. At least, I think that's right but it may be a different nursery rhyme I've tacked on to it.'

  'Well, I never,' said Henry. 'Well, I mean, it's rather wonderful to have you living here just like anyone else, isn't it? But I don't know why the nursery rhymes were in it.'

  'Oh there was a kind of code, a cypher,' said Tuppence.

  'You mean it had to be sort of read and all that?' said Henry.

  'Something of the kind,' said Tuppence. 'Anyway, it was all found out.'

  'Well now, isn't that wonderful,' said Henry. 'You don't mind if I tell my friend, do you? My chum. Clarence, his name is. Silly name, I know. We all laugh at him for it. But he's a good chap, he is and he'll be ever so thrilled to know as we've got you really living amongst us.'

  He looked at Tuppence with the admiration of an affectionate spaniel.

  'Wonderful!' he said again.

  'Oh, it was a long time ago,' said Tuppence. 'In the 1940's.'

  'Was it fun, or were you ever so frightened?'

  'Bits of both,' said Tuppence. 'Mostly, I think, I was frightened. '

  'Oh well, I expect as you would be, too. Yes, but it's odd as you should come here and get mixed up in the same sort of thing. It was a naval gentleman, wasn't it? I mean as called himself an English commander in the Navy, but he wasn't really. He was a German. At least, that's what Clarence said.'

  'Something like that,' said Tuppence.

  'So perhaps that's why you come here. Because, you know, we had something here once - well it was a very, very long time ago - but it was the same thing, as you might say. He was a submarine officer. He sold plans of submarines. Mind you, it's only stories as I've heard people say.'

  'I see,' said Tuppence. 'Yes. No, it's not the reason we came here. We just came here because it's a nice house to live in. I've heard these same rumours going about only I don't know exactly what happened.'

  'Well, I'll try and tell you sometime. Of course, one doesn't always know what's right or not but things aren't always known properly.'

  'How did your friend Clarence manage to know so much about it?'

  'Well, he heard from Mick, you know. He used to live a short time up by where the blacksmith used to be. He's been gone a long time, but he heard a lot from different people. And our uncle, old Isaac, he knew a good deal about it. He used to tell us things sometimes.'

  'So he did know a good deal about it all?' said Tuppence.

  'Oh yes. That's why I wondered, you know, when he was coshed the other day if that could be the reason. That he might have known a bit too much and - he told it all to you. So they did him in. That's what they do nowadays. They do people in, you know, if they know too much of anything that's going to involve them with the police or anything.'

  'You think your Uncle Isaac - you think he knew a good deal about it?'

  'Well, I think things got told him, you know. He heard a lot here and there. Didn't often talk of it but sometimes he would. Of an evening, you know, after smoking a pipe or hearing me and Clarrie talk and my other friend, Tom Gillingham. He used to want to know, too, and Uncle Izzy would tell us this, that and the other. Of course we didn't know if he was making it up or not. But I think he'd found things and knew where some things were. And he said if some people knew where they were there might be something interesting.'

  'Did he?' said Tuppence. 'Well, I think that's very interesting to us also. You must try and remember some of the things he said or suggested sometime because, well, it might lead to finding out who killed him. Because he was killed. It wasn't an accident, was it?'

  'We thought at first it must have been an accident. You know, he had a bit of a heart or something and he used to fall down now and again or get giddy or have turns. But it seems - I went to the inquest, you know - as though he'd been done in deliberate.'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'I think he was done in deliberate.'

  'And you don't know why?' said Henry.

  Tuppence looked at Henry. It seemed to her as though she and Henry were for the moment two police dogs on the same scent.

  'I think it was deliberate, and I think that you, because he was your relation, and I too, would like to know who it was who did such a cruel and wicked thing. But perhaps you do know or have some idea already, Henry.'

  'I don't have a proper idea, I don't,' said Henry. 'One just hears things and I know people that Uncle Izzy says - said - now and then had got it in for him for some reason and he said that was because he knew a bit too much about them and about what they knew and about something that happened. But it's always someone who's been dead so many years ago that one can't really remember it or get at it properly.'

  'Well,' said Tuppence, 'I think you'll have to help us, Henry.'

  'You mean you'll let me sort of be in it with you? I mean, doing a bit of finding out any time?'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'if you can hold your tongue about what you find out. I mean, tell me, but don't go talking to all your friends about it because that way things would get around.'

  'I see. And then they might tell the coshers and go for you and Mr Beresford, mightn't they?'

  'They might,' said Tuppence, 'and I'd rather they didn't.'

  'Well, that's natural,' said Henry. 'Well, see here, if I come across anything or hear anything I'll come up and offer to do a bit of work here. How's that? Then I can tell you what I know and nobody'd hear us and - but I don't know anything right at the moment. But I've got frien
ds.' He drew himself up suddenly and put on an air clearly adopted from something he'd seen on television. 'I know things. People don't know as I know things. They don't think I've listened and they don't think I'd remember, but I know sometimes - you know, they'll say something and then they'll say who else knows about it and then they'll - well, you know, if you keep quiet you get to hear a lot. And I expect it's all very important, isn't it?'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'I think it's important. But we have to be very careful, Henry. You understand that?'

  'Oh, I do. Of course I'll be careful. Careful as you know how. He knew a lot about this place, you know,' went on Henry. 'My Uncle Isaac did.'

  'About this house, you mean, or this garden?'

  'That's right. He knew some of the stories about it, you know. Where people were seen going and what they did with things maybe, and where they met people. Where there were hiding-places and things. He used to talk sometimes, he did. Of course Mom, she didn't listen much. She'd just think it was all silly. Johnny - that's my older brother - he thinks it's all nonsense and he didn't listen. But I listened and Clarence is interested in that sort of thing. You know, he likes those kind of films and all that. He said to me, "Chuck, it's just like a film." So we talked about it together.'

  'Did you ever hear anyone talked about whose name was Mary Jordan?'

  'Ah yes, of course. She was the German girl who was a spy, wasn't she? Got naval secrets out of naval officers, didn't she?'

  'Something of that kind, I believe,' said Tuppence, feeling it safer to stick to that version, though in her mind apologizing to the ghost of Mary Jordan.

  'I expect she was very lovely, wasn't she? Very beautiful?'

  'Well, I don't know,' said Tuppence, 'because, I mean, she probably died when I was about three years old.'

  'Yes, of course, it would be so, wouldn't it? Oh, one hears her talked about sometimes.'

  'You seem very excited and out of breath, Tuppence,' said Tommy as his wife, dressed in her garden clothes, came in through the side door, panting a little as she came.

  'Well,' said Tuppence, 'I am in a way.'

  'Not been overdoing it in the garden?'

  'No. Actually I haven't been doing anything at all. I've just been standing by the lettuces talking, or being talked to - whichever way you put it -'

  'Who's been talking to you?'

  'A boy,' said Tuppence. 'A boy.'

  'Offering to help in the garden?'

  'Not exactly,' said Tuppence. 'That would be very nice too, of course. No. Actually, he was expressing admiration.'

  'Of the garden?'

  'No,' said Tuppence, 'of me.'

  'Of you?'

  'Don't look surprised,' said Tuppence, 'and oh, don't sound surprised either. Still, I admit these bonnes bouches come in sometimes when you least expect them.'

  'Oh. What is the admiration of - your beauty or your garden overall?'

  'My past,' said Tuppence.

  'Your past!'

  'Yes. He was fairly thrilled to think I had been the lady, as he politely put it, who had unmasked a German spy in the last war. A false naval commander, retired, who was nothing of the kind.'

  'Good gracious,' said Tommy. 'N or M again. Dear me, shan't we ever be able to live that down?'

  'Well, I'm not very sure I want to live it down,' said Tuppence. 'I mean, why should we? If we'd been a celebrated actress or actor we'd quite like to be reminded of it.'

  'I see the point,' said Tommy.

  'And I think it might be very useful with what we're trying to do here.'

  'If he's a boy, how old did you say he was?'

  'Oh, I should think about ten or twelve. Looks ten but he's twelve, I think. And he has a friend called Clarence.'

  'What's that got to do with it?'

  'Well, nothing at the moment,' said Tuppence, 'but he and Clarence are allies and would like, I think, to attach themselves to our service. To find out things or to tell us things.'

  'If they're ten or twelve, how can they tell us things or remember things we want to know?' said Tommy. 'What sort of things did he say?'

  'Most of his sentences were short,' said Tuppence, 'and consisted of mainly "well, you know," or "you see, it was like this" or "yes, and then you know". Anyway, "you know" was always a component part of everything he said.'

  'And they were all things you didn't know.'

  'Well, they were attempts at explaining things he'd heard about.'

  'Heard about from whom?'

  'Well, not first-hand knowledge, as you'd say, and I wouldn't say second-hand knowledge. I think it might go up to third-hand, fourth-hand, fifth-hand, sixth-hand knowledge. It consisted also of what Clarence had heard and what Clarence's friend, Algernon, had heard. What Algernon said Jimmy had heard -'

  'Stop,' said Tommy, 'that's enough. And what had they heard?'

  'That's more difficult,' said Tuppence, 'but I think one can get round to it. They'd heard certain places mentioned or stories told and they were very, very anxious to partake of the joys of what we had clearly come to do here.'

  'Which is?'

  'To discover something important. Something that's well known to be hidden here.'

  'Ah,' said Tommy. 'Hidden. Hidden how, where and when?'

  'Different stories about all those three,' said Tuppence, 'but it's exciting, you must admit, Tommy.'

  Tommy said thoughtfully that perhaps it was.

  'It ties in with old Isaac,' said Tuppence. 'I think Isaac must have known quite a lot of things which he could have told us.'

  'And you think that Clarence and - what's this one's name again?'

  'I'll remember it in a minute,' said Tuppence. 'I got so confused with all the other people he'd heard things from. The ones with the grand names like AIgernon and the ones with the ordinary names like Jimmy and Johnny and Mike.

  'Chuck,' said Tuppence suddenly.

  'Chuck what?' asked Tommy.

  'No. I didn't mean it that way. I think that's his name. The boy, I mean. Chuck.'

  'It seems a very odd name.'

  'His real name is Henry but I expect his friends call him Chuck.'

  'Like Chuck goes the weasel.'

  'Pop goes the weasel, you mean.'

  'Well, I know that's correct. But Chuck goes the weasel sounds much the same.'

  'Oh Tommy, what I really want to say to you is that we've got to go on with this, specially now. Do you feel the same?'

  'Yes,' said Tommy.

  'Well, I thought perhaps you did. Not that you've said anything. But we've got to go on with it and I'll tell you why. Mainly because of Isaac. Isaac. Somebody killed him. They killed him because he knew something. He knew something that might have been dangerous to somebody. And we've got to find out who the person was it would be dangerous to.'

  'You don't think,' said Tommy, 'that it's just - oh one of those things. You know, hooliganism or whatever they call it. You know, people go out and want to do people in and don't care who the people are, but they prefer them to be elderly and not be able to put up any kind of a resistance.'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'in a way I do mean that. But - I don't think it was that. I think there is something, I don't know if hidden is the right word, there's something here. Something that throws light on something that happened in the past, something that someone left here or put here or gave to someone to keep here who has since died or put it somewhere. But something that someone doesn't want discovered. Isaac knew it and they must have been afraid he'd tell us because word's evidently going round now about us. You know, that we're famous anti-espionage people or whatever you call it. We've got a reputation for that sort of thing. And it's tied up in a way, you see, with Mary Jordan and all the rest of it.'

  'Mary Jordan,' said Tommy, 'did not die a natural death.'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'and old Isaac was killed. We've got to find out who killed him and why. Otherwise -'

  'You've got to be careful,' said Tommy, 'you've got to be careful o
f yourself, Tuppence. If anyone killed Isaac because he thought he was going to talk about things in the past that he'd heard about, someone may be only too pleased to wait in a dark corner for you one night and do the same thing. They wouldn't think there'd be any worry about it, they'd just think people would say: "Oh another of those things."'

  'When old ladies are hit on the head and done in,' said Tuppence. 'Yes, quite so. That's the unfortunate result of having grey hair and walking with a slight arthritic limp. Of course I must be fair game for anyone. I shall look after myself. Do you think I ought to carry a small pistol about with me?'

  'No,' said Tommy, 'certainly not.'

  'Why? Do you think I'd make some mistake with it?'

  'Well, I think you might trip over the root of a tree. You know you're always falling down. And then you might shoot yourself instead of just using the pistol for protection.'

  'Oh, you don't really think I'd do anything stupid like that, do you?' said Tuppence.

  'Yes, I do,' said Tommy. 'I'm sure you're quite capable of it.'

  'I could carry a flick knife,' said Tuppence.

  'I shouldn't carry anything at all,' said Tommy. 'I should just go about looking innocent and talking about gardening. Say, perhaps, we're not sure we like the house and we have plans for going to live elsewhere. That's what I suggest.'

  'Who've I got to say that to?'

  'Oh, almost anyone,' said Tommy. 'It'll get round.'

  'Things always get round,' said Tuppence. 'Quite a place here for things getting round. Are you going to say the same things, Tommy?'

  'Well, roughly. Say, perhaps, that we don't like the house as much as we thought we did.'

  'But you want to go on, too, don't you?' said Tuppence.

  'Yes,' said Tommy. 'I'm embroiled all right.'

  'Have you thought how to set about it?'

  'Go on doing what I'm doing at present. What about you, Tuppence? Have you got any plans?'

  'Not quite yet,' said Tuppence. 'I've got a few ideas. I can get a bit more out of - what did I say his name was?'

  'First Henry - then Clarence.'

  Chapter 9

  JUNIOR BRIGADE

  Having seen Tommy depart for London, Tuppence was wandering vaguely round the house trying to single out some particular activity which might yield successful results. However, her brain did not seem to be full of bright ideas this morning.