Postern of Fate (Tommy & Tuppence 5)

Albert produced a very passable meal. His cooking was erratic. It had its moments of brilliance which tonight was exemplified by what he called cheese pudding, and Tuppence and Tommy preferred to call cheese soufflé. Albert reproved them slightly for the wrong nomenclature.

'Cheese soufflé is different,' he said, 'got more beaten up white of egg in it than this has.'

'Never mind,' said Tuppence, 'it's very good whether it's cheese pudding or cheese soufflé.'

Both Tommy and Tuppence were entirely absorbed with the eating of food and did not compare any more notes as to their procedure. When, however, they had both drunk two cups of strong coffee, Tuppence leaned back in her chair, uttered a deep sigh and said:

'Now I feel almost myself again. You didn't do much washing before dinner, did you, Tommy?'

'I couldn't be bothered to wait and wash,' said Tommy. 'Besides, I never know with you. You might have made me go upstairs to the book-room and stand on a dusty ladder and poke about on the shelves.'

'I wouldn't be so unkind,' said Tuppence. 'Now wait a minute. Let's see where we are.'

'Where we are or where you are?'

'Well, where I am, really,' said Tuppence. 'After all, that's the only thing I know about, isn't it? You know where you are and I know where I am. Perhaps, that is.'

'May be a bit of perhaps about it,' said Tommy.

'Pass me over my bag, will you, unless I've left it in the dining-room?'

'You usually do but you haven't this time. It's under the foot of your chair. No - the other side.'

Tuppence picked up her handbag.

'Very nice present, this was,' she said. 'Real crocodile, I think. Bit difficult to stuff things in sometimes.'

'And apparently to take them out again,' said Tommy.

Tuppence was wrestling.

'Expensive bags are always very difficult for getting things out of,' she said breathlessly. 'Those basket-work ones are the most comfortable. They bulge to any extent and you can stir them up like you stir up a pudding. Ah! I think I've got it.'

'What is it? It looks like a washing bill.'

'Oh, it's a little notebook. Yes, I used to write washing things in it, you know, what I had to complain about - torn pillowcase or something like that. But I thought it would come in useful, you see, because only three or four pages of it had been used. I put down here, you see, things we've heard. A great many of them don't seem to have any point but there it is. I added census, by the way, when you first mentioned it. I didn't know what it meant at that time or what you meant by it, But anyway I did add it.'

'Fine,' said Tommy.

'And I put down Mrs Henderson and someone called Dodo.'

'Who was Mrs Henderson?'

'Well, I don't suppose you'll remember and I needn't go back to it now but those were two of the names I put down that Mrs What's-her-name, you know, the old one, Mrs Griffin mentioned. And then there was a message or a notice. Something about Oxford and Cambridge. And I've come across another thing in one of the old books.'

'What about - Oxford and Cambridge? Do you mean an undergraduate?'

'I'm not sure whether there was an undergraduate or not, I think really it was a bet on the boat race.'

'Much more likely,' said Tommy. 'Not awfully apt to be useful to us.'

'Well, one never knows. So there's Mrs Henderson and there's somebody who lives in a house called Apple Tree Lodge and there's something I found on a dirty bit of paper shoved into one of the books upstairs. I don't know if it was Catriona or whether it was in a book called Shadow of the Throne.'

'That's about the French Revolution. I read it when I was a boy,' said Tommy.

'Well, I don't see how that comes in. At any rate, I put it down.'

'Well, what is it?'

'It seems to be three pencil words. Grin, g-r-i-n, then hen, h-e-n and then Lo, capital L-o.'

'Let me guess,' said Tommy. 'Cheshire cat - that's a grin - Henny-Penny, that's another fairy story, isn't it, for the hen, and Lo -'

'Ah,' said Tuppence, 'Lo does you in, does it?'

'Lo and behold,' said Tommy, 'but it doesn't seem to make sense. '

Tuppence spoke rapidly. 'Mrs Henley, Apple Tree Lodge - I haven't done her yet, she's in Meadowside.' Tuppence recited quickly: 'Now, where are we? Mrs Griffin, Oxford and Cambridge, bet on a boat race, census, Cheshire cat, Henny-Penny, the story where the Hen went to the Dovrefell - Hans Andersen or something like that - and Lo. I suppose Lo means when they got there. Got to the Dovrefell, I mean.

'I don't think there's much else,' said Tuppence. 'There's the Oxford and Cambridge boat race or the bet.'

'I should think the odds are on our being rather silly. But I think if we go on being silly long enough, some gem of great price might come out of it, concealed among the rubbish, as you might say. Just as we found one significant book on the bookshelves upstairs.'

'Oxford and Cambridge,' said Tuppence thoughtfully. 'That makes me think of something. It makes me remember something. Now what could it be?'

'Mathilde?'

'No, it wasn't Mathilde, but -'

'Truelove,' suggested Tommy. He grinned from ear to ear. 'True love. Where can I my true love find?'

'Stop grinning, you ape,' said Tuppence. 'You've got that last thing on your brain. Grin-hen-Lo. Doesn't make sense. And yet - I have a kind of feeling - Oh!'

'What's the Oh about?'

'Oh'! Tommy, I've got an idea. Of course.'

'What's of course?'

'Lo,' said Tuppence. 'Lo. Grin is what made me think of it. You grinning like a Cheshire cat. Grin. Hen and then Lo. Of course. That must be it somehow.'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

'Oxford and Cambridge boat race.'

'Why does grin hen Lo make you think of Oxford and Cambridge boat race?'

'I'll give you three guesses,' said Tuppence.

'Well I give up at once because I don't think it could possibly make sense.'

'It does really.'

'What, the boat race?'

'No, nothing to do with the boat race. The colour. Colours, I mean.'

'What do you mean, Tuppence?'

'Grin hen Lo. We've been reading it the wrong way round. It's meant to be read the other way round.'

'What do you mean? Ol, then n-e-h - it doesn't make sense. You couldn't go on n-i-r-g. Nirg or some word like that.'

'No. Just take the three words. A little bit, you know, like what Alexander did in the book - the first book that we looked at. Read those three words the other way round. Lo-hen-grin.'

Tommy scowled.

'Still haven't got it?' said Tuppence. 'Lohengrin, of course. The swan. The opera. You know. You know, Lohengrin, Wagner.'

'Well, there's nothing to do with a swan.'

'Yes, there is. Those two pieces of china we found. Stools for the garden. You remember? One was a dark blue and one was a light blue, and old Isaac said to us, at least I think it was Isaac, he said, "That's Oxford, you see, and that's Cambridge."'

'Well, we smashed the Oxford one, didn't we?'

'Yes. But the Cambridge one is still there. The light blue one. Don't you see? Lohengrin. Something was hidden in one of those two swans. Tommy, the next thing we have to do is to go and look at the Cambridge one. The light blue one, it's still in KK. Shall we go now?'

'What - at eleven o'clock at night - no.'

'We'll go tomorrow. You haven't got to go to London tomorrow?'

'No.'

'Well, we'll go tomorrow and we'll see.'

'I don't know what you're doing about the garden,' said Albert. 'I did a spell once in a garden for a short time, but I'm not up in vegetables very much. There's a boy here that wants to see you, by the way, madam.'

'Oh, a boy,' said Tuppence. 'Do you mean the red-haired one?'

'No. I mean the other one, the one with a lot of messy yellow hair half down his back. Got rather a silly name. Like a hotel. You know, the Royal Clarence. That's his name.

Clarence.'

'Clarence, but not Royal Clarence.'

'Not likely,' said Albert. 'He's waiting in the front door. He says, madam, as he might be able to assist you in some way.'

'I see. I gather he used to assist old Isaac occasionally.'