Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'There's a bit more glass wants sweeping up on the floor still, missus.'

'I know,' said Tuppence, 'we haven't had time yet.'

'Ah, but you can't take risks with glass. You know what glass is. A little splinter can do you all the harm in the world. Die of it, you can, if it gets into a blood vessel. I remember Miss Lavinia Shotacomb. You wouldn't believe...'

Tuppence was not tempted by Miss Lavinia Shotacomb. She had heard her mentioned by other local characters. She had apparently been between seventy and eighty, quite deaf and almost blind.

'I suppose,' said Tuppence, breaking in before Isaac's reminiscences of Lavinia Shotacomb could begin, that you must know a lot about all the various people and the extraordinary things that have happened in this place in the past.'

'Aw well, I'm not as young as I was, you know. Over eighty-five, I am. Going on for ninety. I've always had a good memory. There are things, you know, you don't forget. No. However long it is, something reminds you of it, you know, and brings it all back to you. The things I could tell you, you wouldn't believe.'

'Well, it's really wonderful, isn't it,' said Tuppence, 'to think how much you must know about what a lot of extraordinary people.'

'Ah no there's no accounting for people, is there? Ones that aren't what you think they are, sometimes things as you wouldn't have believed in about them.'

'Spies, I suppose, sometimes,' said Tuppence, 'or criminals.'

She looked at him hopefully... Old Isaac bent and picked up a splinter of glass.

'Here you are,' he said. 'How'd you feel if that got in the sole of your foot?'

Tuppence began to feel that the replenishing of a glass skylight was not going to yield much in the way of Isaac's more exciting memories of the past. She mentioned that the small so-called greenhouse attached to a wall of the house near the dining-room window was also in need of repair and replacement by an outlay of money upon glass. Would it be worth repairing or would it be better to have it pulled down? Isaac was quite pleased to transfer himself to this fresh problem. They went downstairs, and outside the house walked round its walls until they came to the erection in question.

'Ah, you mean that there, do you?'

Tuppence said yes, she did mean that there.

'Kay-kay,' said Isaac.

Tuppence looked at him. Two letters of the alphabet such as KK really meant nothing to her.

'What did you say?'

'I said KK. That's what it used to be called in old Mrs Lottie Jones's time.'

'Oh. Why did she call it KK?'

'I dunno. It was a sort of - sort of name I suppose they used to have for places like this. You know, it wasn't grand. Bigger houses have a real conservatory. You know, where they'd have maidenhair ferns in pots.'

'Yes,' said Tuppence, her own memories going back easily to such things.

'And a greenhouse you can call it, too. But this here, KK old Mrs Lottie Jones used to call it. I dunno why.'

'Did they have maidenhair ferns in it?'

'No, it wasn't used for that. No. The children had it for toys mostly. Well, when you say toys I expect they're here still if nobody has turned them out. You see, it's half falling down, isn't it? They just stuck up a bit then they put a bit of roofing over and I don't suppose that anyone will use it again. They used to bring the broken toys, or chairs out here and things like that. But then, you see, they already had the rocking-horse there and Truelove in the far corner.'

'Can we get inside it?' asked Tuppence, trying to apply her eye to a slightly clearer portion of a pane of window. 'There must be a lot of queer things inside.'

'Ah well, there's the key,' said Isaac. 'I expect it's hanging up in the same place.'

'Where's the same place?'

'Ah, there's a shed round here.'

They went round an adjacent path. The shed was hardly worthy of being called a shed. Isaac kicked its door open, removed various bits of branches of trees, kicked away some rotting apples and, removing an old doormat hanging on the wall, showed three or four rusty keys hanging up on a nail.

'Lindop's keys, those,' he said. 'Last but one as was living here as gardener. Retired basket-maker, he was. Didn't do no good at anything. If you'd like to see inside KK -?'

'Oh yes,' said Tuppence hopefully. 'I'd like to see inside KK. How do you spell it?' she asked.

'How do I spell what?'

'I mean KK. Is it just two letters?'

'No. I think it was something different. I think it was two foreign words. I seem to remember now K-A-I and then another K-A-I. Kay-Kay, or Kye-Kye almost, they used to say it. I think it was a Japanese word.'

'Oh,' said Tuppence. 'Did any Japanese people ever live here?'

'Oh no, nothing like that. No. Not that kind of foreigner.'

The application of a little oil, which Isaac seemed to produce and app

ly quite quickly, had a wonderful effect on the rustiest of the keys which, inserted in the door and turned with a grinding noise, could be pushed open. Tuppence and her guide went in.

'There you are,' said Isaac, not displaying any particular pride in the objects within. 'Nothing but old rubbish, is it?'

'That's a rather wonderful-looking horse,' said Tuppence.

'That's Mackild, that is,' said Isaac.

'Mack-ild?' said Tuppence, rather doubtfully.

'Yes. It's a woman's name of some kind. Queen somebody, it was. Somebody said as it was William the Conqueror's wife but I think they were just boasting about that. Come from America, it did. American godfather brought it to one of the children.'

'To one of the -?'

'One of the Bassington children, that was. Before the other lot. I dunno. I suppose it's all rusted up now.'