Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'He's really very keen on gardening,' said Tommy. 'I realize that. He really did work for a friend of his who happened to be Mr Solomon, who has been dead for some years, but I suppose it makes a good cover, that, because he can say he worked for him and people will know he worked for him. So he'll appear to be quite bona fide.'

'Yes, I suppose one has to think of all those things,' said Tuppence.

The front door bell rang and Hannibal dashed from the room, tiger-style, to kill any intruder who might be wishing to enter the sacred precincts which he guarded. Tommy came back with an envelope.

'Addressed to us both,' he said. 'Shall I open it?'

'Go ahead,' said Tuppence.

He opened it.

'Well,' he said, 'this raises possibilities for the future.'

'What is it?'

'It's an invitation from Mr Robinson. To you and to me. To dine with him on a date the week after next when he hopes you'll be fully recovered and yourself again. In his country house. Somewhere in Sussex, I think.'

'Do you think he'll tell us anything then?' said Tuppence.

'I think he might,' said Tommy.

'Shall I take my list with me?' said Tuppence. 'I know it by heart now.'

She read rapidly.

'Black Arrow, Alexander Parkinson, Oxford and Cambridge porcelain Victorian seats, Grin-hen-lo, KK, Mathilde's stomach, Cain and Abel, Truelove...'

'Enough,' said Tommy. 'It sounds mad.'

'Well, it is mad, all of it. Think there'll be anyone else at Mr Robinson's?'

'Possibly Colonel Pikeaway.'

'In that case,' said Tuppence, 'I'd better take a cough lozenge with me, hadn't I? Anyway, I do want to see Mr Robinson. I can't believe he's as fat and yellow as you say he is - Oh! - but, Tommy, isn't it the week after next that Deborah is bringing the children to stay with us?'

'No,' said Tommy, 'it's this next weekend as ever is.'

'Thank goodness, so that's all right,' said Tuppence.

Chapter 16

THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH

'Was that the car?'

Tuppence came out of the front door peering anxiously along the curve of the drive, eagerly awaiting the arrival of her daughter Deborah and the three children.

Albert emerged from the side door.

'They won't be here yet. No, that was the grocer, madam. You wouldn't believe it - eggs have gone up, again. Never vote for this Government again, I won't. I'll give the Liberals a go.'

'Shall I come and see to the rhubarb and strawberry fool for tonight?'

'I've seen to that, madam. I've watched you often and I know just how you do it.'

'You'll be a Cordon Bleu chef by the time you've finished, Albert,' said Tuppence. 'It's Jane's favourite sweet.'

'Yes, and I made a treacle tart - Master Andrew loves treacle tart.'

'The rooms are all ready?'

'Yes. Mrs Shacklebury came in good time this morning. I put the Guerlain Sandalwood Soap in Miss Deborah's bathroom. It's her favourite, I know.'

Tuppence breathed a sigh of relief at the knowledge that all was in order for the arrival of her family.

There was the sound of a motor horn and a few minutes later the car came up the drive with Tommy at the wheel and a moment later the guests were decanted on the doorstep - daughter Deborah still a very handsome woman, nearly forty, and Andrew, fifteen, Janet, eleven, and Rosalie, seven.

'Hullo, Grandma,' shouted Andrew.

'Where's Hannibal?' called Janet.

'I want my tea,' said Rosalie, showing a disposition to burst into tears.

Greetings were exchanged. Albert dealt with the disembarcation of all the family treasures including a budgerigar, a bowl of goldfish and a hamster in a hutch.

'So this is the new home,' said Deborah, embracing her mother. 'I like it - I like it very much.'

'Can we go round the garden?' asked Janet.

'After tea,' said Tommy.

'I want my tea,' reiterated Rosalie with an expression on her face of First things first.

They went into the dining-room where tea was set out and met with general satisfaction.

'What's all this I've been hearing about you, Mum?' demanded Deborah, when they had finished tea and repaired to the open air - the children racing around to explore the possible pleasures of the garden in the joint company of Thomas and Hannibal who bad rushed out to take part in the rejoicings.

Deborah, who always took a stern line with her mother whom she considered in need of careful guardianship, demanded. 'What have you been doing?'

'Oh. We've settled in quite comfortably by now,' said Tuppence.

Deborah looked unconvinced.

'You've been doing things. She has, hasn't she, Dad?'

Tommy was returning with Rosalie riding him piggyback. Janet surveying the new territory and Andrew looking around with an air of taking a full grown-up view.

'You have been doing things.' Deborah returned to the attack. 'You've been playing at being Mrs Blenkinsop all over again. The trouble with you is, there's no holding you - N or M - all over again.' Derek heard something and wrote and told me.' She nodded as she mentioned her brother's name.

'Derek - what could he know?' demanded Tuppence.

'Derek always gets to know things.'

'You too, Dad.' Deborah turned on her father. 'You've been mixing yourself up in things, too. I thought you'd come here, both of you, to retire, and take life quietly - and enjoy yourselves.'

'That was the idea,' said Tommy, 'but Fate thought otherwise.'

'Postern of Fate,' said Tuppence. 'Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear -'

'Flecker,' said Andrew, with conscious erudition. He was addicted to poetry and hoped one day to be a poet himself. He carried on with a full quotation:

'Four great gates has the City of Damascus...

Postern of Fate - the Desert Gate...

Pass not beneath. O Caravan - or pass not singing. Have you heard that silence where the birds are dead, something pipeth like a bird?'

With singularly apposite cooperation birds flew suddenly from the roof of the house over their heads.

'What are all those birds, Grannie?' asked Janet.

'Swallows flying south,' said Tuppence.

'Won't they ever come back again?'

'Yes, they'll come back next summer.'

'And pass through the Postern of Fate!' said Andrew with intense satisfaction.

'This house was called Swallow's Nest once,' said Tuppence.

'But you aren't going on living here, are you?' said Deborah. 'Dad wrote and said you're looking out for another house.'

'Why?' asked Janet - the Rosa Dartle of the family. 'I like this one.'

'I'll give you a few reasons,' said Tommy, plucking a sheet of paper from his pocket and reading aloud:

'Black Arrow

Alexander Parkinson

Oxford and Cambridge

Victorian china garden stools

Grin-hen-lo

KK

Mathilde's stomach

Cain and Abel

Gallant Truelove'

'Shut up, Tommy - that's my list. It's nothing to do with you,' said Tuppence.

'But what does it mean?' asked Janet, continuing her quiz.