Postern of Fate

Hannibal pretended not to hear.

‘Hannibal!’

Hannibal redoubled his speed and turned a corner which led towards the kitchen.

‘Hannibal!’ shouted Tommy. ‘Do you hear me?’

‘Hear you, Master?’ said Hannibal. ‘Were you calling me? Oh yes, of course.’

A sharp bark from inside the kitchen caught his ear. He scampered out to join Tommy. Hannibal walked a few inches behind Tommy’s heel.

‘Good boy,’ said Tommy.

‘I am a good boy, aren’t I?’ said Hannibal. ‘Any moment you need me to defend you, here I am less than a foot away.’

They had arrived at a side gate which led into the churchyard. Hannibal, who in some way had an extraordinary knack of altering his size when he wanted to, instead of appearing somewhat broad-shouldered, possibly a somewhat too plump dog, he could at any moment make himself like a thin black thread. He now squeezed himself through the bars of the gate with no difficulty at all.

‘Come back, Hannibal,’ called Tommy. ‘You can’t go into the churchyard.’

Hannibal’s answer to that, if there had been any, would have been, ‘I am in the churchyard already, Master.’ He was scampering gaily round the churchyard with the air of a dog who has been let out in a singularly pleasant garden.

‘You awful dog!’ said Tommy.

He unlatched the gate, walked in and chased Hannibal, lead in hand. Hannibal was now at the far corner of the churchyard, and seemed to have every intention of trying to gain access through the door of the church, which was slightly ajar. Tommy, however, reached him in time and attached the lead. Hannibal looked up with the air of one who had intended this to happen all along. ‘Putting me on the lead, are you?’ he said. ‘Yes, of course, I know it’s a kind of prestige. It shows that I am a very valuable dog.’ He wagged his tail. Since there seemed nobody to oppose Hannibal walking in the churchyard with his master, suitably secured as he was by a stalwart lead, Tommy wandered round, checking perhaps Tuppence’s researches of a former day.

He looked first at a worn stone monument more or less behind a little side door into the church. It was, he thought, probably one of the oldest. There were several of them there, most of them bearing dates in the eighteen-hundreds. There was one, however, that Tommy looked at longest.

‘Odd,’ he said, ‘damned odd.’

Hannibal looked up at him. He did not understand this piece of Master’s conversation. He saw nothing about the gravestone to interest a dog. He sat down, looked up at his master enquiringly.

CHAPTER 5

The White Elephant Sale

Tuppence was pleasurably surprised to find the brass lamp which she and Tommy now regarded with such repulsion welcomed with the utmost warmth.

‘How very good of you, Mrs Beresford, to bring us something as nice as that. Most interesting, most interesting. I suppose it must have come from abroad on your travels once.’

‘Yes. We bought it in Egypt,’ said Tuppence.

She was quite doubtful by this time, a period of eight to ten years having passed, as to where she had bought it. It might have been Damascus, she thought, and it might equally well have been Baghdad or possibly Tehran. But Egypt, she thought, since Egypt was doubtless in the news at this moment, would be far more interesting. Besides, it looked rather Egyptian. Clearly, if she had got it from any other country, it dated from some period when they had been copying Egyptian work.

‘Really,’ she said, ‘it’s rather big for our house, so I thought—’

‘Oh, I think really we ought to raffle it,’ said Miss Little.

Miss Little was more or less in charge of things. Her local nickname was ‘The Parish Pump’, mainly because she was so well informed about all things that happened in the parish. Her surname was misleading. She was a large woman of ample proportions. Her Christian name was Dorothy, but she was always called Dotty.

‘I hope you’re coming to the sale, Mrs Beresford?’

Tuppence assured her that she was coming.

‘I can hardly wait to buy,’ she said chattily.

‘Oh, I’m so glad you feel like that.’

‘I think it’s a very good thing,’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean, the White Elephant idea, because it’s—well, it is so true, isn’t it? I mean, what’s one person’s white elephant is somebody else’s pearl beyond price.’

‘Ah, really we must tell that to the vicar,’ said Miss Price-Ridley, an angular lady with a lot of teeth. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure he would be very much amused.’

‘That papier-mâché basin, for instance,’ said Tuppence, raising this particular trophy up.

‘Oh really, do you think anyone will buy that?’

‘I shall buy it myself if it’s for sale when I come here tomorrow,’ said Tuppence.

‘But nowadays, they have such pretty plastic washing-up bowls.’

‘I’m not very fond of plastic,’ said Tuppence. ‘That’s a really good papier-mâché bowl that you’ve got there. I mean if you put things down in that, lots of china together, they wouldn’t break. And there’s an old-fashioned tin-opener too. The kind with a bull’s head that one never sees nowadays.’

‘Oh, but it’s such hard work, that. Don’t you think the ones that you put on an electric thing are much better?’

Conversation on these lines went on for a short time and then Tuppence asked if there were any services that she could render.

‘Ah, dear Mrs Beresford, perhaps you would arrange the curio stall. I’m sure you’re very artistic.’

‘Not really artistic at all,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I would love to arrange the stall for you. You must tell me if I’m doing it wrong,’ she added.

‘Oh, it’s so nice to have some extra help. We are so pleased to meet you, too. I suppose you’re nearly settled into your house by now?’

‘I thought we should be settled by now,’ said Tuppence, ‘but it seems as though there’s a long time to go still. It’s so very hard with electricians and then carpenters and people. They’re always coming back.’

A slight dispute arose with people near her supporting the claims of electricians and the Gas Board.

‘Gas people are the worst,’ said Miss Little, with firmness, ‘because, you see, they come all the way over from Lower Stamford. The electricity people only have to come from Wellbank.’

The arrival of the vicar to say a few words of encouragement and good cheer to the helpers changed the subject. He also expressed himself very pleased to meet his new parishioner, Mrs Beresford.

‘We know all about you,’ he said. ‘Oh yes indeed. And your husband. A most interesting talk I had the other day about you both. What an interesting life you must have had. I dare say it’s not supposed to be spoken of, so I won’t. I mean, in the last war. A wonderful performance on your and your husband’s part.’

‘Oh, do tell us, Vicar,’ said one of the ladies, detaching herself from the stall where she was setting up jars of jam.

‘I was told in strict confidence,’ said the vicar. ‘I think I saw you walking round the churchyard yesterday, Mrs Beresford.’

‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘I looked into the church first. I see you have one or two very attractive windows.’

‘Yes, yes, they date back to the fourteenth century. That is, the one in the north aisle does. But of course most of them are Victorian.’

‘Walking round the churchyard,’ said Tuppence, ‘it seemed to me there were a great many Parkinsons buried there.’

‘Yes, yes, indeed. There’ve always been big contingents of Parkinsons in this part of the world, though of course I don’t remember any of them myself, but you do, I think, Mrs Lupton.’

Mrs Lupton, an elderly lady who was supporting herself on two sticks, looked pleased.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘I remember when Mrs Parkinson was alive—you know, old Mrs Parkinson, the Mrs Parkinson who lived in the Manor House, wonderful old lady she was. Quite wonderful.’

‘And there were some Somers I saw, and the Chattertons.’

‘Ah, I see you’re getting up well with our local geography of the past.’

‘I think I heard something about a Jordan—Annie or Mary Jordan, was it?’

Tuppence looked round her in an enquiring fashion. The name of Jordan seemed to cause no particular interest.

‘Somebody had a cook called Jordan. I think, Mrs Blackwell. Susan Jordan I think it was. She only stayed six months, I think. Quite unsatisfactory in many ways.’

‘Was that a long time ago?’

‘Oh no. Just about eight or ten years ago I think. Not more than that.’

‘Are there any Parkinsons living here now?’

‘Oh no. They’re all gone long ago. One of them married a first cousin and went to live in Kenya, I believe.’

‘I wonder,’ said Tuppence, managing to attach herself to Mrs Lupton, who she knew had something to do with the local children’s hospital, ‘I wonder if you want any extra children’s books. They’re all old ones, I mean. I got them in an odd lot when we were bidding for some of the furniture that was for sale in our house.’

‘Well, that’s very kind of you, I’m sure, Mrs Beresford. Of course we do have some very good ones, given to us you know. Special editions for children nowadays. One does feel it’s a pity they should have to read all those old-fashioned books.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’ said Tuppence. ‘I loved the books that I had as a child. Some of them,’ she said, ‘had been my grandmother’s when she was a child. I believe I liked those best of all. I shall never forget reading Treasure Island, Mrs Molesworth’s Four Winds Farm and some of Stanley Weyman’s.’

She looked round her enquiringly—then, resigning herself, she looked at her wrist-watch, exclaimed at finding how late it was and took her leave.

Tuppence, having got home, put the car away in the garage and walked round the house to the front door. The door was open, so she walked in. Albert then came from the back premises and bowed to greet her.

‘Like some tea, madam? You must be very tired.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’ve had tea. They gave me tea down at the Institute. Quite good cake, but very nasty buns.’

‘Buns is difficult. Buns is nearly as difficult as doughnuts. Ah,’ he sighed. ‘Lovely doughnuts Milly used to make.’

‘I know. Nobody’s were like them,’ said Tuppence.

Milly had been Albert’s wife, now some years deceased. In Tuppence’s opinion, Milly had made wonderful treacle tart but had never been very good with doughnuts.

‘I think doughnuts are dreadfully difficult,’ said Tuppence, ‘I’ve never been able to do them myself.’

‘Well, it’s a knack.’

‘Where’s Mr Beresford? Is he out?’

‘Oh no, he’s upstairs. In that room. You know. The book-room or whatever you like to call it. I can’t get out of the way of calling it the attic still, myself.’

‘What’s he doing up there?’ said Tuppence, slightly surprised.

‘Well, he’s still looking at the books, I think. I suppose he’s still arranging them, getting them finished as you might say.’

‘Still seems to me very surprising,’ said Tuppence. ‘He’s really been very rude to us about those books.’

‘Ah well,’ said Albert, ‘gentlemen are like that, aren’t they? They likes big books mostly, you know, don’t they? Something scientific that they can get their teeth into.’

‘I shall go up and rout him out,’ said Tuppence. ‘Where’s Hannibal?’

‘I think he’s up there with the master.’

But at that moment Hannibal made his appearance. Having barked with the ferocious fury he considered necessary for a good guard dog, he had correctly assumed that it was his beloved mistress who had returned and not someone who had come to steal the teaspoons or to assault his master and mistress. He came wriggling down the stairs, his pink tongue hanging out, his tail wagging.

‘Ah,’ said Tuppence, ‘pleased to see your mother?’

Hannibal said he was very pleased to see his mother. He leapt upon her with such force that he nearly knocked her to the ground.

‘Gently,’ said Tuppence, ‘gently. You don’t want to kill me, do you?’

Hannibal made it clear that the only thing he wanted to do was to eat her because he loved her so much.

‘Where’s Master? Where’s Father? Is he upstairs?’

Hannibal understood. He ran up a flight, turned his head over his shoulder and waited for Tuppence to join him.

‘Well, I never,’ said Tuppence as, slightly out of breath, she entered the book-room to see Tommy astride a pair of steps, taking books in and out. ‘Whatever are you doing? I thought you were going to take Hannibal for a walk.’

‘We have been for a walk,’ said Tommy. ‘We went to the churchyard.’

‘Why on earth did you take Hannibal into the churchyard? I’m sure they wouldn’t like dogs there.’

‘He was on the lead,’ said Tommy, ‘and anyway I didn’t take him. He took me. He seemed to like the churchyard.’

‘I hope he hasn’t got a thing about it,’ said Tuppence. ‘You know what Hannibal is like. He likes arranging a routine always. If he’s going to have a routine of going to the churchyard every day, it will really be very difficult for us.’

‘He’s really been very intelligent about the whole thing,’ said Tommy.

‘When you say intelligent, you just mean he’s self-willed,’ said Tuppence.

Hannibal turned his head and came and rubbed his nose against the calf of her leg.

‘He’s telling you,’ said Tommy, ‘that he is a very clever dog. Cleverer than you or I have been so far.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’ asked Tuppence.

‘Have you been enjoying yourself?’ asked Tommy, changing the subject.

‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ said Tuppence. ‘People were very kind to me and nice to me and I think soon I shan’t get them mixed up so much as I do at present. It’s awfully difficult at first, you know, because people look rather alike and wear the same sort of clothes and you don’t know at first which is which. I mean, unless somebody is very beautiful or very ugly. And that doesn’t seem to happen so noticeably in the country, does it?’

‘I’m telling you,’ said Tommy, ‘that Hannibal and I have been extremely clever.’

‘I thought you said it was Hannibal?’

Tommy reached out his hand and took a book from the shelf in front of him.

‘Kidnapped,’ he remarked. ‘Oh yes, another Robert Louis Stevenson. Somebody must have been very fond of Robert Louis Stevenson. The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, Catriona and two others, I think. All given to Alexander Parkinson by a fond grandmother and one from a generous aunt.’

‘Well,’ said Tuppence, ‘what about it?’

‘And I’ve found his grave,’ said Tommy.

‘Found what?’

‘Well, Hannibal did. It’s right in the corner against one of the small doors into the church. I suppose it’s the other door to the vestry, something like that. It’s very rubbed and not well kept up, but that’s it. He was fourteen when he died. Alexander Richard Parkinson. Hannibal was nosing about there. I got him away from it and managed to make out the inscription, in spite of its being so rubbed.’

‘Fourteen,’ said Tuppence. ‘Poor little boy.’

‘Yes,’ said Tommy, ‘it’s sad and—’

‘You’ve got something in your head,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, I wondered. I suppose, Tuppence, you’ve infected me. That’s the worst of you. When you get keen on something, you don’t go on with it by yourself, you get somebody else to take an interest in it too.’

‘I don’t quite know what you mean,’ said Tuppence.

‘I wondered if it was a case of cause and effect.’

‘What do you mean, Tommy?’

‘I was wondering about Alexander Parkinson who took a lot of trouble, though no doubt he enjoyed himself doing it, making a kind of code, a secret message in a book. “Mary Jordan did not die naturally.” Supposing that was true? Supposing Mary Jordan, whoever she was, didn’t die naturally? Well then, don’t you see, perhaps the next thing that happened was that Alexander Parkinson died.’

‘You don’t mean—you don’t think—’

‘Well, one wonders,’ said Tommy. ‘It started me wondering—fourteen years old. There was no mention of what he died of. I suppose there wouldn’t be on a gravestone. There was just a text: In thy presence is the fullness of joy. Something like that. But—it might have been because he knew something that was dangerous to somebody else. And so—and so he died.’

‘You mean he was killed? You’re just imagining things,’ said Tuppence.

‘Well you started it. Imagining things, or wondering. It’s much the same thing, isn’t it?’

‘We shall go on wondering, I suppose,’ said Tuppence, ‘and we shan’t be able to find out anything because it was all such years and years and years ago.’

They looked at each other.

‘Round about the time we were trying to investigate the Jane Finn business,’ said Tommy.

They looked at each other again; their minds going back to the past.

CHAPTER 6

Problems

Moving house is often thought of beforehand as an agreeable exercise which the movers are going to enjoy, but it does not always turn out as expected.

Relations have to be reopened or adjusted with electricians, with builders, with carpenters, with painters, with wall-paperers, with providers of refrigerators, gas stoves, electric appliances, with upholsterers, makers of curtains, hangers-up of curtains, those who lay linoleum, those who supply carpets. Every day has not only its appointed task but usually something between four and twelve extra callers, either long expected or those whose coming was quite forgotten.

But there were moments when Tuppence with sighs of relief announced various finalities in different fields.

‘I really think our kitchen is almost perfect by now,’ she said. ‘Only I can’t find the proper kind of flour bin yet.’

‘Oh,’ said Tommy, ‘does it matter very much?’

‘Well, it does rather. I mean, you buy flour very often in three-pound bags and it won’t go into these kinds of containers. They’re all so dainty. You know, one has a pretty rose on it and the other’s got a sunflower and they’ll not take more than a pound. It’s all so silly.’

At intervals, Tuppence made other suggestions.

‘The Laurels,’ she said. ‘Silly name for a house, I think. I don’t see why it’s called The Laurels. It hasn’t got any laurels. They could have called it The Plane Trees much better. Plane trees are very nice,’ said Tuppence.

‘Before The Laurels it was called Long Scofield, so they told me,’ said Tommy.

‘That name doesn’t seem to mean anything either,’ said Tuppence.

‘What is a Scofield, and who lived in it then?’

‘I think it was the Waddingtons.’

‘One gets so mixed,’ said Tuppence. ‘Waddingtons and then the Joneses, the people who sold it to us. And before that the Blackmores? And once, I suppose the Parkinsons. Lots of Parkinsons. I’m always running into more Parkinsons.’

‘What way do you mean?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s that I’m always asking,’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean, if I could find out something about the Parkinsons, we could get on with our—well, with our problem.’

‘That’s what one always seems to call everything nowadays. The problem of Mary Jordan, is that it?’

‘Well, it’s not just that. There’s the problem of the Parkinsons and the problem of Mary Jordan and there must be a lot of other problems too. Mary Jordan didn’t die naturally, then the next thing the message said was, “It was one of us.” Now did that mean one of the Parkinson family or did it mean just someone who lived in the house? Say there were two or three Parkinsons, and some older Parkinsons, and people with different names but who were aunts to the Parkinsons or nephews and nieces to the Parkinsons, and I suppose something like a housemaid and a parlour maid and a cook and perhaps a governess and perhaps—well, not an au pair girl, it would be too long ago for an au pair girl—but “one of us” must mean a householdful. Households were fuller then than they are now. Well, Mary Jordan could have been a housemaid or a parlour maid or even the cook. And why should someone want her to die, and not die naturally? I mean, somebody must have wanted her to die or else her death would have been natural, wouldn’t it?—I’m going to another coffee morning the day after tomorrow,’ said Tuppence.

‘You seem to be always going to coffee mornings.’

‘Well, it’s a very good way of getting to know one’s neighbours and all the people who live in the same village. After all, it’s not very big, this village. And people are always talking about their old aunts or people they knew. I shall try and start on Mrs Griffin, who was evidently a great character in the neighbourhood. I should say she ruled everyone with a rod of iron. You know. She bullied the vicar and she bullied the doctor and I think she bullied the district nurse and all the rest of it.’

‘Wouldn’t the district nurse be helpful?’

‘I don’t think so. She’s dead. I mean, the one who would have been here in the Parkinsons’ time is dead, and the one who is here now hasn’t been here very long. No sort of interest in the place. I don’t think she even knew a Parkinson.’

‘I wish,’ said Tommy desperately, ‘oh, how I wish that we could forget all the Parkinsons.’

‘You mean, then we shouldn’t have a problem?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Tommy. ‘Problems again.’

‘It’s Beatrice,’ said Tuppence.

‘What’s Beatrice?’

‘Who introduced problems. Really, it’s Elizabeth. The cleaning help we had before Beatrice. She was always coming to me and saying, “Oh madam, could I speak to you a minute? You see, I’ve got a problem,” and then Beatrice began coming on Thursdays and she must have caught it, I suppose. So she had problems too. It’s just a way of saying something—but you always call it a problem.’

‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘We’ll admit that’s so. You’ve got a problem—I’ve got a problem—We’ve both got problems.’

He sighed, and departed.

Tuppence came down the stairs slowly, shaking her head. Hannibal came up to her hopefully, wagging his tail and wriggling in hopes of favours to come.

‘No, Hannibal,’ said Tuppence. ‘You’ve had a walk. You’ve had your morning walk.’

Hannibal intimated that she was quite mistaken, he hadn’t had a walk.

‘You are one of the worst liars among dogs I have ever known,’ said Tuppence. ‘You’ve been for a walk with Father.’

Hannibal made his second attempt, which was to endeavour to show by various attitudes that any dog would have a second walk if only he had an owner who could see things in that light. Disappointed in this effort, he went down the stairs and proceeded to bark loudly and make every pretence of being about to make a sharp snap bite at a tousled-haired girl who was wielding a Hoover. He did not like the Hoover, and he objected to Tuppence having a lengthy conversation with Beatrice.

‘Oh, don’t let him bite me,’ said Beatrice.

‘He won’t bite you,’ said Tuppence. ‘He only pretends he’s going to.’

‘Well, I think he’ll really do it one day,’ said Beatrice. ‘By the way, madam, I wonder if I could speak to you for a moment.’

‘Oh,’ said Tuppence. ‘You mean—’

‘Well, you see, madam, I’ve got a problem.’

‘I thought that was it,’ said Tuppence. ‘What sort of problem is it? And, by the way, do you know any family here or anyone who lived here at one time called Jordan?’

‘Jordan now. Well, I can’t really say. There was the Johnsons, of course, and there was—ah yes, one of the constables was a Johnson. And so was one of the postmen. George Johnson. He was a friend of mine.’ She giggled.

‘You never heard of a Mary Jordan who died?’

Beatrice merely looked bewildered—and she shook her head and went back to the assault.

‘About this problem, madam?’

‘Oh yes, your problem.’

‘I hope you don’t mind my asking you, madam, but it’s put me in a queer position, you see, and I don’t like—’