Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'Who do you mean by "they"?'

'I've no idea,' said Tommy. 'We must get to "they" later. Just they. There's We and there's They. We must keep them apart in our minds.'

'What about Isaac?'

'What do you mean, what about Isaac?'

'I don't know. I just wondered if he was mixed up in this.'

'He's a very old man', he's been here a long time and he knows a few things. If somebody slipped him a five pound note or something, do you think he'd tamper with Truelove's wheels?'

'No, I don't,' said Tuppence. 'He hasn't got the brains to.'

'He wouldn't need brains for it,' said Tommy. 'He'd only need the brains to take the five pound note and to take out a few screws or break off a bit of wood here or there and just make it so that - well, it would come to grief next time you went down the hill in it.'

'I think what you are imagining is nonsense,' said Tuppence.

'Well, you've been imagining a few things that are nonsense already.'

'Yes, but they fitted in,' said Tuppence. 'They fitted in with the things we've heard.'

'Well,' said Tommy, 'as a result of my investigations or researches, whatever you like to call them, it seems that we haven't learnt quite the right things.'

'You mean what I said just now, that this turns things upside down. I mean now we know that Mary Jordan wasn't an enemy agent, instead she was a British agent. She was here for a purpose. Perhaps she had accomplished her purpose.'

'In that case,' said Tommy, 'now let's get it all clear, with this new bit of knowledge added. Her purpose here was to find out something.'

'Presumably to find out something about Commander X,' said Tuppence. 'You must find out his name, it seems so extraordinarily barren only to be able to say Commander X all the time.'

'All right, all right, but you know how difficult these things are.'

'And she did find them out, and she reported what she had found out. And perhaps someone opened the letter,' said Tuppence.

'What letter?' said Tommy.

'The letter she wrote to whoever was her "contact".'

'Yes.'

'Do you think he was her father or her grandfather or something like that?'

'I shouldn't think so,' said Tommy. 'I don't think that's the sort of way things would be done. She might just have chosen to take the name of Jordan, or they thought it was quite a good name because it was not associated in any way, which it wouldn't be if she was partly German, and had perhaps come from some other work that she had been doing for us but not for them.'

'For us and not for them,' agreed Tuppence, 'abroad. And so she came here as what?'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Tuppence, 'we shall have to start all over again finding out as what, I suppose... Anyway, she came here and she found out something and she either passed it on to someone or didn't. I mean, she might not have written a letter. She might have gone to London and reported something. Met someone in Regent's Park, say.'

'That's rather the other way about, usually, isn't it?' said Tommy. 'I mean you meet somebody from whatever embassy it is you're in collusion with and you meet in Regent's Park and -'

'Hide things in a hollow tree sometimes. Do you think they really do that? It sounds so unlikely. It's so much more like people who are having a love-affair and putting love-letters in.'

'I dare say whatever they put in there was written as though they were love-letters and really had a code.'

'That's a splendid idea,' said Tuppence, 'only I suppose they - Oh dear, it's such years ago. How difficult it is to get anywhere. The more you know, I mean, the less use it is to you. But we're not going to stop, Tommy, are we?'

'I don't suppose we are for a moment,' said Tommy. He sighed.

'You wish we were?' said Tuppence.

'Almost. Yes. Far as I can see -'

'Well,' cut in Tuppence, 'I can't see you taking yourself off the trail. No, and it would be very difficult to get me off the trail. I mean, I'd go on thinking about it and it would worry me. I dare say I should go off my food and everything.'

'The point is,' said Tommy, 'do you think - we know in a way perhaps what this starts from. Espionage. Espionage by the enemy with certain objects in view, some of which were accomplished. Perhaps some which weren't quite accomplished. But we don't know - well - we don't know who was mixed up in it. From the enemy point of view. I mean, there were people here, I should think, people perhaps among security forces. People who were traitors but whose job it was to appear to be loyal servants of the State.'

'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'I'll go for that one. That seems to be very likely.'

'And Mary Jordan's job was to get in touch with them.'

'To get in touch with Commander X?'

'I should think so, yes. Or with friends of Commander X and to find out about things. But apparently it was necessary for her to come here to get it.'

'Do you mean that the Parkinsons - I suppose we're back at the Parkinsons again before we know where we are - were in it? That the Parkinsons were part of the enemy?'

'It seems very unlikely,' said Tommy.

'Well, then, I can't see what it all means.'

'I think the house might have something to do with it,' said Tommy.

'The house? Well, other people came and lived here afterwards, didn't they?'

'Yes, they did. But I don't suppose they were people quite like - well, quite like you, Tuppence.'

'What do you mean by quite like me?'

'Well, wanting old books and looking through them and finding out things. Being a regular mongoose, in fact. They just came and lived here and I expect the upstairs rooms and the books were probably servants' rooms and nobody went into them. There may be something that was hidden in this house. Hidden perhaps by Mary Jordan. Hidden in a place ready to deliver to someone who would come for them, or deliver them by going herself to London or somewhere on some excuse. Visit to a dentist. Seeing an old friend. Quite easy to do. She had something she had acquired, or got to know, hidden in this house. You're not saying it's still hidden in this house?'

'No,' said Tommy, 'I shouldn't have thought so. But one doesn't know. Somebody is afraid we may find it or have found it and they want to get us out of the house, or they want to get hold of whatever it is they think we've found but that they've never found, though perhaps they've looked for it in past years and then thought it had been hidden somewhere else outside.'

'Oh, Tommy,' said Tuppence, 'that makes it all much more exciting really, doesn't it?'

'It's only what we think,' said Tommy.

'Now don't be such a wet blanket,' said Tuppence. 'I'm going to look outside as well as inside -'

'What are you going to do, dig up the kitchen garden?'

'No,' said Tuppence. 'Cupboards, the cellar, things like that. Who knows. Oh, Tommy!'

'Oh, Tuppence!' said Tommy. 'Just when we were looking forward to a delightful, peaceful old age.'

'No peace for the pensioners,' said Tuppence gaily. 'That's an idea too.'