Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'Well, it's something very like that,' said Tuppence. 'I think that s good enough, don't you?'

'What are you doing inside a prickly thing like that?'

'Well, because when you get to the end of the hill, I mean, if you didn't put your feet down to stop completely you could be in the arti - or whatever it is.'

'Do I mean arti -? What about urticaria? No that's nettles, isn't it? Oh well,' said Tommy, 'everyone to their own kind of amusement.'

'I was just doing a little investigation, you know, of our latest problem.'

'Your problem? My problem? Whose problem?'

'I don't know,' said Tuppence. 'Both our problems, I hope.'

'But not one of Beatrice's problems, or anything like that?'

'Oh no. It's just that I wondered what other things there might be hidden in this house, so I went and looked at a lot of toys that seem to have been shoved away in a sort of queer old greenhouse probably years and years ago and there was this creature and there was Mathilde, which is a rocking-horse with a hole in its stomach.'

'A hole in its stomach?'

'Well, yes. People, I suppose, used to shove things in there. Children - for fun - and lots of old leaves and dirty papers and bits of sort of queer dusters and flannel, oily stuff that had been used to clean things with.'

'Come on, let's go into the house,' said Tommy.

'Well, Tommy,' said Tuppence, as she stretched out her feet to a pleasant wood fire which she had lit ready for his return in the drawing-room, 'let's have your news. Did you go to the Ritz Hotel Gallery to see the show?'

'No. As a matter of fact, I didn't. I hadn't time, really.'

'What do you mean, you hadn't time? I thought that's what you went for.'

'Well, one doesn't always do the things that one went for.'

'You must have gone somewhere and done something,' said Tuppence.

'I found a new possible place to park a car.'

'That's always useful,' said Tuppence. 'Where was that?'

'Near Hounslow.'

'What on earth did you want to go to Hounslow for?'

'Well, I didn't actually go to Hounslow. There's a sort of car park there, then I took a tube, you know.'

'What, a tube to London?'

'Yes. Yes, it seemed the easiest way.'

'You have rather a guilty look about you,' said Tuppence. 'Don't tell me I have a rival who lives in Hounslow?'

'No,' said Tommy. 'You ought to be pleased with what I've been doing.'

'Oh. Have you been buying me a present?'

'No. No,' said Tommy, 'I'm afraid not. I never know what to give you, as a matter of fact.'

'Well, your guesses are very good sometimes,' said Tuppence hopefully. 'What have you been really doing, Tommy, and why should I be pleased?'

'Because I, too,' said Tommy, 'have been doing research.'

'Everyone's doing research nowadays,' said Tuppence. 'You know, all the teenagers and all one's nephews or cousins or other people's sons and daughters, they're all doing research. I don't know actually what they do research into nowadays, but they never seem to do it, whatever it is, afterwards. They just have the research and a good time doing the research and they're very pleased with themselves and - well, I don't quite know what does come next.'

'Betty, our adopted daughter, went to East Africa,' said Tommy. 'Have you heard from her?'

'Yes, she loves it there - loves poking into African families and writing articles about them.'

'Do you think the families appreciate her interest?' asked Tommy.

'I shouldn't think so,' said Tuppence. 'In my father's parish I remember, everyone disliked the District Visitors - Nosey Parkers they called them.'

'You may have something there,' said Tommy. 'You are certainly pointing out to me the difficulties of what I am undertaking, or trying to undertake.'

'Research into what? Not lawn-mowers, I hope.'

'I don't know why you mention lawn-mowers.'

'Because you're eternally looking at catalogues of them,' said Tuppence. 'You're mad about getting a lawn-mower.'

'In this house of ours it is historic research we are doing into things - crimes and others that seem to have happened at least sixty or seventy years ago.'

'Anyway, come on, tell me a little more about your research projects, Tommy.'

'I went to London,' said Tommy, 'and put certain things in motion.'

'Ah,' said Tuppence. 'Research? Research in motion. In a way I've been doing the same thing that you are, only our methods are different. And my period is very far back.'

'Do you mean that you're really beginning to take an interest in the problem of Mary Jordan? So that's how you put it on the agenda nowadays,' said Tommy. 'It's definitely taken shape has it? The mystery, or the problem of Mary Jordan.'

'Such a very ordinary name, too. Couldn't have been her right name if she was German,' said Tuppence, 'and she was said to be a German spy or something like that, but she could have been English, I suppose.'

'I think the German story is just a kind of legend.'

'Do go on, Tommy. You're not telling me anything.'

'Well, I put certain - certain - certain -'

'Don't go on saying certain,' said Tuppence. 'I really can't understand.'

'Well, it's very difficult to explain things sometimes,' said Tommy, 'but I mean, there are certain ways of making enquiries.'

'You mean, things in the past?'

'Yes. In a sense. I mean, there are things that you can find out. Things that you could obtain information from. Not just by riding old toys and asking old ladies to remember things and cross-questioning an old gardener who probably will tell you everything quite wrong or going round to the post office and upsetting the staff by asking the girls there to tell their memories of what their great-great-aunts once said.'

'All of them have produced a little something,' said Tuppence.

'So will mine,' said Tommy.

'You've been making enquiries? Who do you go to to ask your questions?'

'Well, it's not quite like that, but you must remember, Tuppence, that occasionally in my life I have been in connection with people who do know how to go about these sort of things. You know, there are people you pay a certain sum to and they do the research for you from the proper quarters so that what you get is quite authentic.'

'What sort of things? What sort of places?'

'Well, there are lots of things. To begin with you can get someone to study deaths, births and marriages, that sort of thing.'

'Oh, I suppose you send them to Somerset House. Do you go there for deaths as well as marriages?'

'And births - one needn't go oneself, you get someone to go for you. And find out when someone dies or read somebody's will, look up marriages in churches or study birth certificates. All those things can be enquired into.'

'Have you been spending a lot of money?' asked Tuppence. 'I thought we were going to try and economize once we'd paid the expense of moving in here.'

'Well, considering the interest you're taking in problems, I consider that this can be regarded in the way of money well spent.'

'Well, did you find out anything?'

'Not as quickly as this. You have to wait until the research has been made. Then if they can get answers for you -'

'You mean somebody comes up and tells you that someone called Mary Jordan was born at Little Sheffield-on-the-Wold or something like that and then you go and make enquiries there later. Is that the sort o

f thing?'

'Not exactly. And then there are census returns and death certificates and causes of death and, oh, quite a lot of things that you can find out about.'

'Well,' said Tuppence, 'it sounds rather interesting anyway, which is always something.'