Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'A look round at what?' said Tommy.

'Well, this house of yours, The Laurels, did you say? There used to be some silly jokes about The Laurels sometimes. Mind you, they'd had a good look round, the security people and the rest of them. They thought that somewhere in that house was valuable evidence of some kind. There was an idea it had been sent overseas - Italy was mentioned - just before people got alerted. But other people thought it might be still hidden there in that part of the world somewhere. You know, it's the sort of place that has cellars and flagstones and various things. Come now, Tommy, my boy, I feel you're on the hunt again.'

'I assure you I don't do anything of that kind nowadays.'

'Well, that's what one thought before about you when you were at that other place. Beginning of the last war. You know, where you ran down that German chap. That and the woman with the nursery rhyme books. Yes. Sharp bit of work, all that. And now, perhaps, they've set you on another trail!'

'Nonsense,' said Tommy. 'You mustn't get all these ideas in your head. I'm an old gaffer now.'

'You're a cunning old dog. I bet you're better than some of these young ones. Yes. You sit there looking innocent, and really I expect, well, one mustn't ask you questions. Mustn't ask you to betray State secrets, must I? Anyway, be careful of your missus. You know she's always one to stick herself forward too much. She had a narrow escape last time in the N or M days.'

'Ah well,' said Tommy, 'I think Tuppence is just interested in the general antiquity of this place, you know. Who lived there and where. And pictures of the old people who used to live in the house, and all the rest of it. That and planning the garden. That's all we're really interested in nowadays. Gardens. Gardens and bulb catalogues and all the rest of it.'

'Well, maybe I'll believe that if a year passes and nothing exciting has happened. But I know you, Beresford, and I know our Mrs Beresford, too. The two of you together, you're a wonderful couple and I bet you'll come up with something. I tell you, if those papers ever come to light, it'll have a very, very great effect on the political front and there are several people who won't be pleased. No indeed. And those people who won't be pleased are looked on as pillars of rectitude at the moment! But by some they are thought to be dangerous. Remember that. They're dangerous, and the ones that aren't dangerous are in contact with those who are dangerous. So you be careful and make your missus be careful too.'

'Really,' said Tommy, 'your ideas, you make me feel quite excited.'

'Well, go on feeling excited but look after Mrs Tuppence. I'm very fond of Tuppence. She's a nice girl, always was and still is.'

'Hardly a girl,' said Tommy.

'Now don't say that of your wife. Don't get in that habit. One in a thousand, she is. But I'm sorry for someone who has her in the picture sleuthing him down. She's probably out on the hunt today.'

'I don't think she is. More likely gone to tea with an elderly lady.'

'Ah well. Elderly ladies can sometimes give you useful information. Elderly ladies and children of five years old. All the unlikely people come out sometimes with a truth nobody had ever dreamed of. I could tell you things -'

'I'm sure you could, Colonel.'

'Ah well, one mustn't give away secrets.'

Colonel Atkinson shook his head.

On his way home Tommy stared out of the railway carriage window and watched the rapidly retreating countryside. 'I wonder,' he said to himself, 'I really wonder. That old boy, he's usually in the know. Knows things. But what can there be that could matter now. It's all in the past - I mean there's nothing, can't be anything left from that war. Not nowadays.' Then he wondered. New ideas had taken over - Common Market ideas. Somewhere, as it were behind his mind rather than in it, because there were grandsons and nephews, new generations - younger members of families that had always meant something, that had pull, had got positions of influence, of power because they were born who they were and if by any chance they were not loyal, they could be approached, could believe in new creeds or in old creeds revived, whichever way you liked to think of it. England was in a funny state, a different state from what it had been. Or was it really always in the same state? Always underneath the smooth surface there was some black mud. There wasn't clear water down to the pebbles, down to the shells, lying on the bottom of the sea. There was something moving, something sluggish somewhere, something that had to be found, suppressed. But surely not - surely not in a place like Hollowquay. Hollowquay was a has-been if there ever was. Developed first as a fishing village and then further developed as an English Riviera - and now a mere summer resort, crowded in August. Most people now preferred package trips abroad.

'Well,' said Tuppence, as she left the dinner table that night and went into the other room to drink coffee, 'was it fun or not fun? How were all the old boys?'

'Oh, very much the old boys,' said Tommy. 'How was your old lady?'

'Oh the piano tuner came,' said Tuppence, 'and it rained in the afternoon so I didn't see her. Rather a pity, the old lady might have said some things that were interesting.'

'My old boy did,' said Tommy. 'I was quite surprised. What do you think of this place really, Tuppence?'

'Do you mean the house?'

'No, I don't mean the house. I think I mean Hollowquay.'

'Well, I think it's a nice place.'

'What do you mean by nice?'

'Well, it's a good word really. It's a word one usually despises, but I don't know why one should. I suppose a place that's nice is a place where things don't happen and you don't want them to happen. You're glad they don't.'

'Ah. That's because of our age, I suppose.'

'No, I don't think it's because of that. It's because it's nice to know there are places where things don't happen. Though I must say something nearly happened today.'

'What do you mean by nearly happened? Have you been doing anything silly, Tuppence?'

'No, of course I haven't.'

'Then what do you mean?'

'I mean that pane of glass at the top of the greenhouse, you know, it was trembling the other day a bit, had the twitches. Well it practically came down on my head. Might have cut me to bits.'

'It doesn't seem to have cut you to bits,' said Tommy looking at her. '

'No. I was lucky. But still, it made me jump rather.'

'Oh, we'll have to get our old boy who comes and does things, what's-his-name? Isaac, isn't it? Have to get him to look at some of the other panes - I mean, we don't want you being done in, Tuppence.'

'Well, I suppose when you buy an old house there's always something wrong with it.'

'Do you think there's something wrong with this house Tuppence?'

'What on earth do you mean by wrong with this house?'

'Well, because I heard something rather queer about it today.'

'What - queer about this house?'

'Yes.'

'Really, Tommy, that seems impossible,' said Tuppence.

'Why does it seem impossible? Because it looks so nice and innocent? Well painted and done up?'

'No. Well painted and done up and looking innocent, that's all due to us. It looked rather shabby and decayed when we bought it.'

'Well, of course, that's why it was cheap.'

'You look peculiar, Tommy,' said Tuppence. 'What is it?'

'Well, it was old Moustachio-Monty, you know.'

'Oh, dear old boy, yes. Did he send his love to me?'

'Yes, he certainly did. He told me to make you take care of yourself, and me to take care of you.'

'He always says that. Though why I should take care of myself here I don't know.'

'Well, it seems it's the sort of place you might have to take care of yourself.'

'Now what on earth do you mean by that, Tommy?'

'Tuppence, what would you think if I said that he suggested or hinted, whatever way you like, that we were here not as old retired has-beens but as people on active service? That we were once more, as in the N or M days, on duty he

re. Sent here by the forces of security and order to discover something. To find out what was wrong with this place.'

'Well, I don't know if you're dreaming, Tommy, or if it was old Moustachio-Monty who was, if it was he who suggested it.'

'Well, he did. He seemed to think that we were definitely here on some kind of mission, to find something.'

'To find something? What sort of thing?'

'Something that might be hidden in this house.'

'Something that might be hidden in this house! Tommy, are you mad, or was he mad?'