Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'Well, I'm sorry,' said Tommy. 'So no satisfaction.'

'Well, there were some things that were interesting. I said to myself, one has to say something to oneself - I think I'd better go upstairs now and take the cobwebs off before I go on talking.'

'Well, I think perhaps you had,' said Tommy. 'I shall like looking at you better when you've done that.'

'If you want to get the proper Darby and Joan feeling,' said Tuppence, 'you must always look at me and consider that your wife, no matter what her age, still looks lovely to you.'

'Tuppence dearest,' said Tommy, 'you look excessively lovely to me. And there is a kind of roly-poly of a cobweb hanging down over your left ear which is most attractive. Rather like the curl that the Empress Eugenie is sometimes represented as having in pictures. You know, running along the corner of her neck. Yours seems to have got a spider in it, too.'

'Oh,' said Tuppence, 'I don't like that.'

She brushed the web away with her hand. She duly went upstairs and returned to join Tommy later. A glass was awaiting her. She looked at it doubtfully.

'You aren't trying to make me drink bay rum, are you?'

'No. I don't think I particularly want to drink bay rum myself.'

'Well,' said Tuppence, 'if I may get on with what I was saying -'

'I should like you to,' said Tommy. 'You'll do it anyway, but I would like to feel it was because I'd urged you to do so.'

'Well, I said to myself, "Now if I was going to hide anything in this house that I didn't want anyone else to find, what sort of place would I choose?"'

'Yes,' said Tommy, 'very logical.'

'And so I thought, what places are there where one can hide things? Well, one of them of course is Mathilde's stomach.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Tommy.

'Mathilde's stomach. The rocking-horse. I told you about the rocking-horse. It's an American rocking-horse.'

'A lot of things seem to have come from America,' said Tommy. 'The bay rum too, you said.'

'Well, anyway, the rocking-horse did have a hole in its stomach because old Isaac told me about it; it had a hole in its stomach and a lot of sort of queer old paper stuff came out of it. Nothing interesting. But anyway, that's the sort of place where anyone might have hidden anything, isn't it?'

'Quite possibly.'

'And Truelove, of course. I examined Truelove again. You know it's got a sort of rather old decayed mackintosh seat but there was nothing there. And of course there were no personal things belonging to anyone. So I thought again, Well, after all, there's still the bookcase and books. People hide things in books. And we haven't quite finished doing the book-room upstairs, have we?'

'I thought we had,' said Tommy hopefully.

'Not really. There was the bottom shelf still.'

'That doesn't really need doing. I mean, one hasn't got to get up a ladder and take things down.'

'No. So I went up there and sat down on the floor and looked through the bottom shelf. Most of it was sermons. Sermons of somebody in old times written by a Methodist minister, I think. Anyway, they weren't interesting, there was nothing in them. So I pulled all those books out on the floor. And then I did make a discovery. Underneath, some time or other, somebody had made a sort of gaping hole, and pushed all sorts of things into it, books all torn to pieces more or less. There was one rather big one. It had a brown paper cover on it and I just pulled it out to see. After all, one never knows, does one? And what do you think it was?'

'I've no idea. First edition of Robinson Crusoe or something valuable like that?'

'No. It was a birthday book.'

'A birthday book. What's that?'

'Well, they used to have them. Goes back a long time. Back to the Parkinsons, I think. Probably before that. Anyway, it was rather battered and torn. Not worth keeping, and I don't suppose anyone would have bothered about it. But it does date back and one might find something in it, I thought.'

'I see. You mean the sort of thing people might have slipped something into.'

'Yes. But nobody had done that, of course. Nothing so simple. But I'm still going through it quite carefully. I haven't gone through it properly yet. You see, it might have interesting names in it and one might find out something.'

'I suppose so,' said Tommy, sounding sceptical.

'Well, that's one thing. That's the only thing in the book line that I came across. There was nothing else on the bottom shelf. The other thing to look through, of course, is cupboards.'

'What about furniture?' said Tommy. 'Lots of things like secret drawers in furniture, and all that.'

'No, Tommy, you're not looking at things straight. I mean, all the furniture in the house now is ours. We moved into an empty house and brought our furniture with us. The only thing we found here from really old times is all that mess out in the place called KK, old decayed toys and garden seats. I mean, there's no proper antique furniture left in the house. Whoever it was lived here last took it away or else sent it to be sold. There's been lots of people, I expect, since the Parkinsons, so there wouldn't be anything of theirs here. But, I did find something. I don't know, it may mean something helpful.'

'What was that?'

'China menu cards.'

'China menu cards?'

'Yes. In that old cupboard we haven't been able to get into. The one off the larder. You know, they'd lost the key. Well, I found the key in an old box. Out in KK, as a matter of fact. I put some oil on it and I managed to get the cupboard door open. And, well, there was nothing in it. It was just a dirty cupboard with a few broken bits of china left in it. I should think from the last people who were here. But shoved up on the top shelf there was a little heap of the Victorian china menus people used to have at parties. Fascinating, the things they ate - really the most delicious meals. I'll read you some after we've had dinner. It was fascinating. You know, two soups, clear and thick, and on top of that there were two kinds of fish and then there were two entries, I think, and then you had a salad or something like that. And then after that you had the joint and after that - I'm not quite sure what came next. I think a sorbet - that's ice cream, isn't it? And actually after that - lobster salad! Can you believe it?'

'Hush, Tuppence,' said Tommy, 'I don't really think I can stand any more.'

'Well, anyway I thought it might be interesting. It dates back, you know. It dates back, I should think, quite a long time.'

'And what do you hope to get from all these discoveries?'

'Well, the only thing with possibilities is the birthday book. In it I see there is a mention of somebody called Winifred Morrison.'

'Well?'

'Well, Winifred Morrison, I gather, was the maiden name of old Mrs Griffin. That's the one I went to tea with the other day. She's one of the oldest inhabitants, you know, and she remembers or knows about a lot of things that happened before her time. Well, I think she might remember or have heard of some of the other names in the birthday book. We might get something from that.'

'We might,' said Tommy still sounding doubtful. 'I still think -'

'Well, what do you still think?' said Tuppence.

'I don't know what to think,' said Tommy. Let's go to bed and sleep. Don't you think we'd better give this business up altogether? Why should we want to know who killed Mary Jordan?'

'Don't you want to?'

'No, I don't,' said Tommy. 'At least - oh, I give in. You've got me involved now, I admit.'

'Haven't you found out anything?' asked Tuppence.

'I hadn't time today. But I've got a few more sources of information. I put that woman I told you about - you know, the one who's quite clever about research - I put her on to a few things.'

'Oh well,' said Tuppence, 'we'll still hope for the best. It's all nonsense, but perhaps it is rather fun.'

'Only I'm not so sure it's going to be as much fun as you think,' said Tommy.

'Oh well. No matter,' said Tuppence, 'we'll have done our best.'

'Well, don't g

o on doing your best all by yourself,' said Tommy. 'That's exactly what worries me so much - when I'm away from you.'

Chapter 6

MR ROBINSON