Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

'Oh Albert, Albert. Something awful's happened. Isaac, old Isaac. He's lying here and he's dead and I think - I think somebody has killed him.'

Chapter 7

THE INQUEST

The medical evidence had been given. Two passers-by not far from the gate had given their evidence. The family had spoken, giving evidence as to his state of health, any possible people who had had a reason for enmity towards him (one or two youngish adolescent boys who had before now been warned off by him) had been asked to assist the police and had protested their innocence. One or two of his employers had spoken including his latest employer, Mrs Prudence Beresford and her husband, Mr Thomas Beresford. All had been said and done and a verdict had been brought in: Wilful Murder by a person or persons unknown.

Tuppence came out from the inquest and Tommy put an arm round her as they passed the little group of people waiting outside.

'You did very well, Tuppence,' he said, as they returned through the garden gate towards the house. 'Very well indeed. Much better than some of those people. You were very clear and you could be heard. The Coroner seemed to me to be very pleased with you.'

'I don't want anyone to be very pleased with me,' said Tuppence. 'I don't like old Isaac being coshed on the head and killed like that.'

'I suppose someone might have had it in for him,' said Tommy.

'Why should they?' said Tuppence.

'I don't know,' said Tommy.

'No,' said Tuppence, 'and I don't know either. But I just wondered if it's anything to do with us.'

'Do you mean - what do you mean, Tuppence?'

'You know what I mean really,' said Tuppence. 'It's this - this place. Our house. Our lovely new house. And garden and everything. It's as though - isn't it just the right place for us? We thought it was,' said Tuppence.

'Well, I still do,' said Tommy.

'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'I think you've got more hope than I have. I've got an uneasy feeling that there's something - something wrong with it all here. Something left over from the past.'

'Don't say it again,' said Tommy.

'Don't say what again?'

'Oh, just those two words.'

Tuppence dropped her voice. She got nearer to Tommy and spoke almost into his ear.

'Mary Jordan?'

'Well, yes. That was in my mind.'

'And in my mind too, I expect. But I mean, what can anything then have to do with nowadays? What can the past matter?' said Tuppence. 'It oughtn't to have anything to do with - now.'

'The past oughtn't to have anything to do with the present - is that what you mean? But it does,' said Tommy. 'It does, in queer ways that one doesn't think of. I mean that one doesn't think would ever happen.'

'A lot of things, you mean, happen because of what there was in the past?'

'Yes. It's a sort of long chain. The sort of thing you have, with gaps and then with beads on it from time to time.'

'Jane Finn and all that. Like Jane Finn in our adventures when we were young because we wanted adventures.'

'And we had them,' said Tommy. 'Sometimes I look back on it and wonder how we got out of it all alive.'

'And then - other things. You know, when we went into partnership, and we pretended to be detective agents.'

'Oh that was fun,' said Tommy. 'Do you remember -'

'No,' said Tuppence, 'I'm not going to remember. I'm not anxious to go back to thinking of the past except - well, except as a stepping-stone, as you might say. No. Well, anyway that gave us practice, didn't it? And then we had the next bit.'

'Ah,' said Tommy. 'Mrs Blenkinsop, eh?'

Tuppence laughed.

'Yes. Mrs Blenkinsop. I'll never forget when I came into that room and saw you sitting there.'

'How you had the nerve, Tuppence, to do what you did, move that wardrobe or whatever it was, and listen in to me and Mr What's-his-name, talking. And then -'

'And then Mrs Blenkinsop,' said Tuppence. She laughed too. 'N or M and Goosey Goosey Gander.'

'But you don't -' Tommy hesitated - 'you don't believe that all those were what you call stepping-stones to this?'

'Well, they are in a way,' said Tuppence. 'I mean, I don't suppose that Mr Robinson would have said what he did to you if he hadn't had a lot of those things in his mind. Me for one of them.'

'Very much you for one of them.'

'But now,' said Tuppence, 'this makes it all different. This, I mean. Isaac. Dead. Coshed on the head. Just inside our garden gate.'

'You don't think that's connected with -'

'One can't help thinking it might be,' said Tuppence. 'That's what I mean. We're not just investigating a sort of detective mystery any more. Finding out, I mean, about the past and why somebody died in the past and things like that. It's become personal. Quite personal, I think. I mean, poor old Isaac being dead.'

'He was a very old man and possibly that had something to do with it.'

'Not after listening to the medical evidence this morning. Someone wanted to kill him. What for?'

'Why didn't they want to kill us if it was anything to do with us?' said Tommy.

'Well, perhaps they'll try that too. Perhaps, you know, he could have told us something. Perhaps he was going to tell us something. Perhaps he even threatened somebody else that he was going to talk to us, say something he knew about the girl or one of the Parkinsons. Or - or all this spying business in the 1914 war. The secrets that were sold. And then, you see, he had to be silenced. But if we hadn't come to live here and ask questions and wanted to find out, it wouldn't have happened.'

'Don't get so worked up.'

'I am worked up. And I'm not doing anything for fun any more. This isn't fun. We're doing something different now, Tommy. We're hunting down a killer. But who? Of course we don't know yet but we can find out. That's not the past, that's now. That's something that happened - what - only days ago, six days ago? That's the present. It's here and it's connected with us and it's connected with this house. And we've got to find out and we're going to find out. I don't know how but we've got to go after all the clues and follow up things. I feel like a dog with my nose to the ground, following a t

rail. I'll have to follow it here, and you've got to be a hunting dog. Go round to different places. The way you're doing now. Finding out about things. Getting your - whatever you call it - research done. There must be people who know things, not of their own knowledge, but what people have told them. Stories they've heard. Rumours. Gossip.'