Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

ieces if you touch them. Hullo, what's this?'

On the hall table a rather bulky package was lying. Albert came out from the dining-room.

'It was left by hand, madam,' he said. 'Left by hand this morning for you.'

'Ah, I wonder what it is,' said Tuppence. She took it.

Tommy and she went into the sitting-room together. Tuppence undid the knot of the string and took off the brown paper wrapping.

'It's a kind of album,' she said, 'I think. Oh, there's a note with it. Ah, it's from Mrs Griffin.

"Dear Mrs Beresford, It was so kind of you to bring me the birthday book the other day. I have had great pleasure looking over it and remembering various people from past days. One does forget so soon. Very often one only remembers somebody's Christian name and not their surname, sometimes it's the other way about. I came across, a little time ago, this old album. It doesn't really belong to me. I think it belonged to my grandmother, but it has a good many pictures in it and among them, I think, there are one or two of the Parkinsons, because my grandmother knew the Parkinsons. I thought perhaps you would like to see it as you seemed to be so interested in the history of your house and who has lived in it in the past. Please don't bother to send it back to me because it means nothing to me personally really, I can assure you. One has so many things in the house always belonging to aunts and grandmothers and the other day when I was looking in an old chest of drawers in the attic I came across six needle-books. Years and years old. I should think almost possibly a hundred years old. And I believe that was not my grandmother but her grandmother again who used at one time always to give a needle-book each to the maids for Christmas and I think these were some she had bought at a sale and would do for another year. Of course quite useless now. Sometimes it seems sad to think of how much waste there has always been."

'A photo album,' said Tuppence. 'Well, that might be fun. Come along, let's have a look.'

They sat down on the sofa. The album was very typical of bygone days. Most of the prints were faded by now but every now and then Tuppence managed to recognize surroundings that fitted the gardens of their own house.

'Look, there's the monkey puzzle. Yes - and look, there's Truelove behind it. That must be a very old photograph, and a funny little boy hanging on to Truelove. Yes, and there's the wistaria and there's the pampas grass. I suppose it must have been a tea-party or something. Yes, there are a lot of people sitting round a table in the garden. They've got names underneath them too. Mabel. Mabel's no beauty. And who's that?'

'Charles,' said Tommy. 'Charles and Edmund. Charles and Edmund seem to have been playing tennis. They've got rather queer tennis racquets. And there's William, whoever he was, and Major Coates.'

'And there's - oh Tommy, there's Mary.'

'Yes. Mary Jordan. Both names there, written under the photograph.'

'She was pretty. Very pretty, I think. It is very faded and old, but - oh Tommy, it really seems wonderful to see Mary Jordan.'

'I wonder who took the photograph?'

'Perhaps the photographer that Isaac mentioned. The one in the village here. Perhaps he'd have old photographs too. I think perhaps one day we'll go and ask.'

Tommy had pushed aside the album by now and was opening a letter which had come in the midday post.

'Anything interesting?' asked Tuppence. 'There are three letters here. Two are bills, I can see. This one - yes, this one is rather different. I asked you if it was interesting,' said Tuppence.

'It may be,' said Tommy. 'I'll have to go to London tomorrow again.'

'To deal with your usual committees?'

'Not exactly,' said Tommy. 'I'm going to call on someone. Actually it isn't London, it's out of London. Somewhere Harrow way, I gather.'

'What is?' said Tuppence. 'You haven't told me yet.'

'I'm going to call on someone called Colonel Pikeaway.'

'What a name,' said Tuppence.

'Yes, it is rather, isn't it?'

'Have I heard it before?' said Tuppence.

'I may have mentioned it to you once. He lives in a kind of permanent atmosphere of smoke. Have you got any cough lozenges, Tuppence?'

'Cough lozenges! Well, I don't know. Yes, I think I have. I've got an old box of them from last winter. But you haven't got a cough - not that I've noticed, at any rate.'

'No, but I shall have if I'm going to see Pikeaway. As far as I can remember, you take two choking breaths and then you go on choking. You look hopefully at all the windows which are tightly shut, but Pikeaway would never take a hint of that kind.'

'Why do you think he wants to see you?'

'Can't imagine,' said Tommy. 'He mentions Robinson.'

'What - the yellow one? The one who's got a fat yellow face and is something very hush-hush?'

'That's the one,' said Tommy.

'Oh well,' said Tuppence, 'perhaps what we're mixed up in here is hush-hush.'

'Hardly could be considering it all took place - whatever it was, if there is anything - years and years ago, before even Isaac can remember.'

'New sins have old shadows,' said Tuppence, 'if that's the saying I mean. I haven't got it quite right. New sins have old shadows. Or is it Old sins make long shadows?'

'I should forget it,' said Tommy. 'None of them sounds right.'

'I shall go and see that photographer man this afternoon, I think. Want to come?'

'No,' said Tommy. 'I think I shall go down and bathe.'

'Bathe? It'll be awfully cold.'

'Never mind. I feel I need something cold, bracing and refreshing to remove all the taste of cobwebs, the various remains of which seem to be clinging round my ears and round my neck and some even seem to have got between my toes.'

'This does seem a very dirty job,' said Tuppence. 'Well. I'll go and see Mr Durrell or Durrance, if that's his name. There was another letter, Tommy, which you haven't opened.'

'Oh, I didn't see it. Ah well, that might be something.'

'Who is it from?'

'My researcher,' said Tommy, in a rather grand voice. 'The one who has been running about England, in and out of Somerset House looking up deaths, marriages and births, consulting newspaper files and census returns. She's very good.'

'Good and beautiful?'

'Not beautiful so that you'd notice it,' said Tommy.

'I'm glad of that,' said Tuppence. 'You know, Tommy, now that you're getting on in years you might - you might get some rather dangerous ideas about a beautiful helper.'

'You don't appreciate a faithful husband when you've got one,' said Tommy.

'All my friends tell me you never know with husbands,' said Tuppence.

'You have the wrong kind of friends,' said Tommy.

Chapter 5

INTERVIEW WITH COLONEL PIKEAWAY

Tommy drove through Regent's Park, then he passed through various roads he'd not been through for years. Once when he and Tuppence had had a flat near Belsize Park, he remembered walks on Hampstead Heath and a dog they had had who'd enjoyed the walks. A dog with a particularly self-willed nature. When coming out of the flat he had always wished to turn to the left on the road that would lead to Hampstead Heath. The efforts of Tuppence or Tommy to make him turn to the right and go into shopping quarters were usually defeated. James, a Sealyham of obstinate nature, had allowed his heavy sausage-like body to rest flat on the pavement, he would produce a tongue from his mouth and give every semblance of being a dog tired out by being given the wrong kind of exercise by those who owned him. People passing by usually could not refrain from comment.

'Oh, look at that dear little dog there. You know, the one with the white hair - looks rather like a sausage, doesn't he? And panting, poor fellow. Those people of his, they won't let him go the way he wants to, he looks tired out, just tired out,'

Tommy had taken the lead from Tuppence and had pulled James firmly in the opposite direction from the one he wanted to go.

'Oh dear,' said Tuppence, 'can't you pick him up, Tommy?'

'

What, pick up James? He's too much of a weight.'

James, with a clever manoeuvre, turned his sausage body so that he was facing once more in the direction of his expectation.

'Look, poor little doggie, I expect he wants to go home, don't you?'

James tugged firmly on his lead.

'Oh all right,' said Tuppence, 'we'll shop later. Come on, we'll have to let James go where he wants to go. He's such a heavy dog, you can't make him do anything else.'