Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

Albert stretched up, overdid his armful, and Catriona fell more or less on Tuppence's head.

'Oh, sorry, madam. Very sorry.'

'It's quite all right,' said Tuppence, 'it doesn't matter. Catriona. Yes. Any more Stevensons up there?'

Albert handed the books down now more gingerly. Tuppence uttered a cry of excessive delight.

'The Black Arrow. I declare! The Black Arrow! Now that's one of the first books really I ever got hold of and read. Yes. I don't suppose you ever did, Albert. I mean, you wouldn't have been born, would you? Now let me think. Let me think. The Black Arrow. Yes, of course, it was that picture on the wall with eyes - real eyes - looking through the eyes of the picture. It was splendid. So frightening, just that. Oh yes. The Black Arrow. What was it? It was all about - oh yes, the cat, the dog? No. The cat, the rat and Lovell, the dog, Rule all England under the hog. That's it. The hog was Richard the Third, of course. Though nowadays they all write books saying he was really wonderful. Not a villain at all. But I don't believe that. Shakespeare didn't either. After all, he started his play by making Richard say: "I am determined so to prove a villain." Ah yes. The Black Arrow.'

'Some more, madam?'

'No, thank you, Albert. I think I'm rather too tired to go on now.'

'That's all right. By the way, the master rang up and said he'd be half an hour late.'

'Never mind,' said Tuppence.

She sat down in the chair, took The Black Arrow, opened the pages and engrossed herself.

'Oh dear,' she said, 'how wonderful this is. I've really forgotten it quite enough to enjoy reading it all over again. It was so exciting.'

Silence fell. Albert returned to the kitchen. Tuppence leaned back in the chair. Time passed. Curled up in the rather shabby armchair, Mrs Thomas Beresford sought the joys of the past by applying herself to the perusal of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow.

In the kitchen time also passed. Albert applied himself to various manoeuvres with the stove. A car drove up. Albert went to the side door.

'Shall I put it in the garage, sir?'

'No,' said Tommy, 'I'll do that. I expect you're busy with dinner. Am I very late?'

'Not really, sir, just about when you said, A little early, in fact.'

'Oh.' Tommy disposed of the car and then came into the kitchen, rubbing his hands. 'Cold out. Where's Tuppence?'

'Oh, missus, she's upstairs with the books.'

'What, still those miserable books?'

'Yes. She's done a good many more today and she's spent most of the time reading.'

'Oh dear,' said Tommy. 'All right, Albert. What are we having?'

'Fillets of lemon sole, sir. It won't take long to do.'

'All right. Well, make it about quarter of an hour or so anyway. I want to wash first.'

Upstairs, on the top floor Tuppence was still sitting in the somewhat shabby armchair, engrossed in The Black Arrow. Her forehead was slightly wrinkled. She had come across what seemed to her a somewhat curious phenomenon. There seemed to be what she could only call a kind of interference. The particular page she had got to - she gave it a brief glance, 64 or was it 65? She couldn't see - anyway, apparently somebody had underlined some of the words on the page. Tuppence had spent the last quarter of an hour studying this phenomenon. She didn't see why the words had been underlined. They were not in sequence, they were not a quotation, therefore, in the book. They seemed to be words that had been singled out and had then been underlined in red ink. She read under her breath: 'Matcham could not restrain a little cry. Dick started with surprise and dropped the windac from his fingers. They were all afoot, loosing sword and dagger in the sheath. Ellis held up his hand. The white of his eyes shone. Let, large -' Tuppence shook her head. It didn't make sense. None of it did.

She went over to the table where she kept her writing things, picked out a few sheets recently sent by a firm of notepaper printers for the Beresfords to make a choice of the paper to be stamped with their new address: The Laurels.

'Silly name,' said Tuppence, 'but if you go changing names all the time, then all your letters go astray.'

She copied things down. Now she realized something she hadn't realized before.

'That makes all the difference,' said Tuppence.

She traced letters on the page.

'So there you are,' said Tommy's voice, suddenly. 'Dinner's practically in. How are the books going?'

'This lot's terribly puzzling,' said Tuppence. 'Dreadfully puzzling.'

'What's puzzling?'

'Well this is The Black Arrow of Stevenson's and I wanted to read it again and I began. It was all right, and then suddenly - all the pages were rather queer because I mean a lot of the words had been underlined in red ink.'

'Oh well, one does that,' said Tommy. 'I don't mean solely in red ink but I mean one does underline things. You know, something you want to remember, or a quotation of something. Well, you know what I mean.'

'I know what you mean,' said Tuppence, 'but it doesn't go like that. And it's - it's letters, you see.'

'What do you mean by letters?' said Tommy.

'Come here,' said Tuppence.'

Tommy came and sat on the arm of the chair. Tommy read: '"Matcham could not restrain a little cry and even died starter started with surprise and dropped the window from his fingers the two big fellows on the - something I can't read - shell was an expected signal. They were all afoot together tightening loosing sword and dagger." It's mad,' he said.

'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'that's what I thought at first. It was mad. But it isn't mad, Tommy.'

Some cow bells rang from downstairs.

'That's supper in.'

'Never mind,' said Tuppence, 'I've got to tell you this first. We can get down to things about it later but it's really so extraordinary. I've got to tell you this straight away.'

'Oh, all right. Have you got one of your mare's nests?'

'No I haven't. It's just that I took out the letters, you see. Well - on this page, you see, well - the M of "Matcham" which is the first word, the M is underlined and the A and after that there are three more, three or four more words. They don't come in sequence in the book. They've just been picked out, I think, and they've been underlined - the letters in them - because they wanted the right letters and the next one, you see, is the R from "restraint" underlined and the Y of "cry", and then there's J from "Jack", O from "shot" R from "ruin", D from "death" and A from "death" again, N from "murrain" -'

'For goodness' sake,' said Tommy, 'do stop.'

'Wait,' said Tuppence. 'I've got to find out. Now you see because I've written out these, do you see what this is? I mean if you take those letters out and write them in order on this piece of paper, do you see what you get with the ones I've done first? M-A-R-Y. Those four were underlined.'

'What does that make?'

'It makes Mary.'

'All right,' said Tommy, 'it makes Mary. Somebody called Mary. A child with an inventive nature, I expect who is trying to point out that this was her book. People are always writing their names in books and things like that.'

'All right. Mary,' said Tuppence. 'And the next thing that comes underlined makes the word J-o-r-d-a-n.'

'You see? Mary Jordan,' said Tommy. 'It's quite natural. Now you know her whole name. Her name was Mary Jordan.'

'Well, this book didn't belong to her. In the beginning it says in a rather silly, childish-looking writing, it says "Alexander". Alexander Parkinson, I think.'

'Oh well. Does it really matter?'

'Of course it matters,' said Tuppence.

'Come on, I'm hungry,' said Tommy.

'Restrain yourself,' said Tuppence, 'I'm only going to read you the next bit until the writing stops - or at any rate stops in the next four pages. The letters are picked from odd places on various pages. They don't run in sequence - there can't be anything in the words that matters - it's just the letters. Now then. We've got M-a-r-y J-o-r-d-a-n. That's right. Now do you know wha

t the next four words are? D-i-d n-o-t, not, d-i-e n-a-t-u-r-a-l-y. That's meant to be "naturally" but they didn't know it had two "ls". Now then, what's that? Mary Jordan did not die naturally. There you are,' said Tuppence.