Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie

  'Well I should like to pay a visit to it,' said Tuppence. 'Certainly. Is there any particular time one goes there?'

  'Well, any time you like, I suppose, but the afternoon would be a good time, you know. Yes. That's when they like visits. In the afternoon. Then if they can say they've got a friend coming - if they've got a friend coming they get extra things for tea, you know. Biscuits sometimes, with sugar on. And crisps sometimes. Things like that. What did you say, Fred?'

  Fred took a step forward. He gave a somewhat pompous bow to Tuppence.

  'I shall be very happy,' he said, 'to escort you. Shall we say about half past three this afternoon?'

  'Ah be yourself' said Clarence. 'Don't go talking like that.'

  'I shall be very pleased to come,' said Tuppence. She looked at the water. 'I can't help being rather sorry that there aren't any goldfish any more.'

  'You ought to have seen the ones with five tails. Wonderful, they was. Somebody's dog fell in here once. Mrs Faggett's, it was.'

  He was contradicted. 'No it wasn't. It was somebody else, her name was Follyo, not Fagot -'

  'It was Foliatt and it was spelt with a plain f. Not a capital letter.'

  'Ah, don't be silly. It was someone quite different. It was that Miss French, that was. Two small ffs she spelt it with.'

  'Did the dog drown?' asked Tuppence.

  'No, he didn't drown. He was only a puppy, you see, and his mother was upset and she went along and she pulled at Miss French's dress. Miss Isabel was in the orchard picking apples and the mother dog pulled at her dress and Miss lsabel she come along and she saw the puppy drowning and she jumped right into this here and pulled it out. Wet through, she was, and the dress she was wearing was never fit for wearing again.'

  'Oh dear,' said Tuppence, 'what a lot of things seem to have gone on here. All right,' she said, 'I'll be ready this afternoon. Perhaps two of you or three would come for me and take me to this Pensioners' Palace Club.'

  'What three? Who's going to come?'

  Uproar happened immediately.

  'I'm coming... No, I'm not... No, Betty is... No, Betty shan't come. Betty went the other day. I mean, she went to the cinema party the other day. She can't go again.'

  'Well, settle it between you,' said Tuppence, 'and come here at half past three.'

  'I hope you'll find it interesting,' said Clarence.

  'It will be of historical interest,' said the intellectual girl firmly.

  'Oh, shut up, Janet!' said Clarence. He turned to Tuppence. 'She's always like that,' he said, 'Janet is. She goes to grammar school, that's why. She boasts about it, see? A comprehensive wasn't good enough for her and her parents made a fuss and now she's at grammar school. That's why she goes on like this all the time.'

  Tuppence wondered, as she finished her lunch, whether the events of the morning would produce any sequel. Would anybody really come to escort her this afternoon and take her to the PPC? Was there any such thing really as the PPC or was it a nickname of some kind that the children had invented? Anyway, it might be fun, Tuppence thought, to sit waiting in case someone came.

  However, the deputation was punctual to the minute. At half past three the bell rang, Tuppence rose from her seat by the fire, clapped a hat upon her head - an indiarubber hat because she thought it would probably rain - and Albert appeared to escort her to the front door.

  'Not going to let you go with just anyone,' he breathed into her ear.

  'Look here, Albert,' whispered Tuppence, 'is there really such a place as the PPC here?'

  'I thought that had something to do with visiting cards,' said Albert, who was always prone to show his complete knowledge of social customs. 'You know, what you leave on people when you're going away or when you're arriving, I'm not sure which.'

  'I think it's something to do with pensioners.'

  'Oh yes, they've got a sort of a place. Yes. Built just two or three years ago, I think it was. You know, it's just down after you pass the rectory and then you turn right and you see it. It's rather an ugly building, but it's nice for the old folk and any who like can go meeting there. They have games and things, and there's a lot of ladies goes and helps with things. Gets up concerts and - sort of - well, rather like, you know, Women's Institute. Only it's specially for the elderly people. They're all very, very old, and most of them deaf.'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'yes. It sounded rather like that.'

  The front door opened. Janet, by reason of her intellectual superiority, stood there first. Behind her was Clarence, and behind him was a tall boy with a squint who appeared to answer to the name of Bert.

  'Good afternoon, Mrs Beresford,' said Janet. 'Everybody is so pleased that you are coming. I think perhaps you'd better take an umbrella, the weather forecast was not very good today.'

  'I've got to go that way anyway,' said Albert, 'so I'll come with you a short part of it.'

  Certainly, Tuppence thought, Albert was always very protective. Perhaps just as well, but she did not think that either Janet, Bert or Clarence was likely to be a danger to her. The walk took about twenty minutes. When the red building was reached they went through the gate, up to the door and were received by a stout woman of about seventy.

  'Ah, so we've got visitors. I'm so pleased you could come, my dear, so pleased.' She patted Tuppence upon the shoulder. 'Yes, Janet, thank you very much. Yes. This way. Yes. None of you need wait unless you like, you know.'

  'Oh I think the boys will be very disappointed if they didn't wait to hear a little about what all this is about,' said Janet.

  'Well, I think, you know, there are not so very many of us here. Perhaps it would be better for Mrs Beresford, not so worrying if there weren't too many of us. I wonder, Janet, if you would just go into the kitchen and tell Mollie that we are quite ready for tea to be brought in now.'

  Tuppence had not really come for tea, but she could hardly say so. Tea appeared rather rapidly. It was excessively weak, it was served with some biscuits and some sandwiches with a rather nasty type of paste in between them with an extra fishy taste. Then they sat around and seemed slightly at a loss.

  An old man with a beard who looked to Tuppence as though he was about a hundred came and sat firmly by her.

  'I'd best have a word with you first, I think, my lady,' he said, elevating Tuppence to the peerage. 'Seeing as I'm about the oldest here and have heard more of the stories of the old days than anyone else. A lot of history about this place, you know. Oh, a lot of things has happened here, not that we can go into everything at once, can we? But we've all - oh, we've all heard something about the things that went on.'

  'I gather,' said Tuppence, hastily rushing in before she could be introduced to some topic in which she had no interest whatever, 'I understand that quite a lot of interesting things went on here, not so much in the last war, but in the war before that, or even earlier. Not that any of your memories would go back as far as that. But one wonders perhaps if you could have heard things, you know, from your elderly relations.'

  'Ah, that's right,' said the old man, 'that's right. Heard a lot, I did, from my Uncle Len. Yes, ah, he was a great chap, was Uncle Len. He knew about a lot of things. He knew what went on. It was like what went on down in the house on the quay before the last war. Yes, a bad show, that. What you call one of those fakists -'

  'Fascists,' said one of the elderly ladies, a rather prim one with grey hair and a lace fichu rather the worse for wear round her neck.

  'Well fascist if you like to say it that way, what does it matter? Ah yes, one of those he was. Yes. Same sort of thing as that chap in Italy. Mussolini or something, wasn't it? Anyway, some sort of fishy name like that. Mussels or cockles. Oh yes, he did a lot of harm here. Had meetings, you know. All sorts of things like that. Someone called Mosley started it all.'

  'But in the first war there was a girl called Mary Jordan, wasn't there?' said Tuppence, wondering if this was a wise thing to say or not.

  'Ah yes. Said to be quite a good-looker,
you know. Yes. Got hold of secrets out of the sailors and the soldiers.'

  A very old lady piped up in a thin voice.

  'He's not in the Navy and he's not in the Army,

  But he's just the man for me.

  Not in the Navy, not in the Army, he's in the

  Royal Ar-till-er-rie!'

  The old man took up his personal chant when she had got thus far:

  'It's a long way to Tipperary,

  It's a long way to go,

  It's a long way to Tipperary

  And the rest of it I don't know.'

  'Now that's enough Benny, that's quite enough,' said a firm-looking woman who seemed to be either his wife or his daughter.

  Another old lady sang in a quavering voice:

  'All the nice girls love a sailor,

  All the nice girls love a tar,

  All the nice girls love a sailor,

  And you know what sailors are.'

  'Oh, shut up, Maudie, we're tired of that one. Now let the lady hear something,' said Uncle Ben. 'Let the lady hear something. She's come here to hear something. She wants to hear where that thing there was all the fuss about was hidden, don't you? And all about it.'

  'That sounds very interesting,' said Tuppence, cheering up. 'Something was hidden?'

  'Ah yes, long before my time it was but I heard all about it. Yes. Before 1914. Word was handed down, you know, from one to another. Nobody knew exactly what it was and why there was all this excitement.'

  'Something to do with the boat race it had,' said an old lady. 'You know, Oxford and Cambridge. I was taken once. I was taken to see the boat race in London under the bridges and everything. Oh, it was a wonderful day. Oxford won by a length.'

  'A lot of nonsense you're all talking,' said a grim-looking woman with iron-grey hair. 'You don't know anything about it, you don't. I know more than most of you although it happened a long time before I was born. It was my Great-Aunt Mathilda who told me and she were told by her Aunty Lou. And that was a good forty years before them. Great talk about it, it was; and people went around looking for it. Some people thought as it was a gold-mine, you know. Yes, a gold ingot brought back from Australia. Somewhere like that.'

  'Damn silly,' said an old man, who was smoking a pipe with an air of general dislike of his fellow members. 'Mixed it up with goldfish, they did. Was as ignorant as that.'

  'It was worth a lot of money, whatever it was, or it wouldn't have been hidden,' said someone else. 'Yes, lots of people come down from the government, and yes, police too. They looked around but they couldn't find anything.'

  'Ah well, they didn't have the right clues. There are clues, you know, if you know where to look for them.' Another old lady nodded her head wisely. 'There's always clues.'

  'How interesting,' said Tuppence. 'Where? Where are these clues, I mean? In the village or somewhere outside it or -'

  This was a rather unfortunate remark as it brought down at least six different replies, all uttered at once.

  'On the moor, beyond Tower West,' one was saying.

  'Oh no, it's past Little Kenny, it was. Yes, quite near Little Kenny.'

  'No, it was the cave. The cave by the sea front. Over as far as Baldy's Head. You know, where the red rocks are. That's it. There's an old smugglers' tunnel. Wonderful, it must be. Some people say as it's there still.'

  'I saw a story once of an old Spanish main or something. Right back to the time of the Armada, it was. A Spanish boat as went down there. Full of doubloons.'

  Chapter 10

  ATTACK ON TUPPENCE

  'Good gracious!' said Tommy, as he returned that evening, 'You look terribly tired, Tuppence. What have you been doing? You look worn out.'

  'I am worn out,' said Tuppence. 'I don't know that I shall ever recover again. Oh dear.'

  'What have you been doing? Not climbing up and finding more books or anything?'

  'No, no,' said Tuppence, 'I don't want to look at books again. I'm off books.'

  'Well, what is it? What have you been doing?'

  'Do you know what a PPC is?'

  'No,' said Tommy, 'at least, well, yes. It's something -' He paused.

  'Yes, Albert knows,' said Tuppence, 'but it's not that kind of one. Now then, I'll just tell you in a minute, but you'd better have something first. A cocktail or a whisky or something. And I'll have something too.'

  She more or less put Tommy wise to the events of the afternoon. Tommy said 'good gracious' again and added: 'The things you get yourself into, Tuppence. Was any of it interesting?'

  'I don't know,' said Tuppence. 'When six people are talking at once, and most of them can't talk properly and they all say different things - you see, you don't really know what they're saying. But yes, I think I've got a few ideas for dealing with things.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, there is a lot of legend, I think, going on about something that was once hidden here and was a secret connected with the 1914 war, or even before it.'

  'Well, we know that already, don't we?' said Tommy. 'I mean, we've been briefed to know that.'

  'Yes. Well, there are a few old tales still going around the village here. And everybody has got ideas about it put into their heads by their Aunt Marias or their Uncle Bens and it's been put into their Aunt Marias by their Uncle Stephens or Aunty Ruth or Grandmother Something else. It's been handed down for years and years. Well, one of the things might be the right one, of course.'

  'What, lost among all the others?'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'like a needle in a haystack. Exactly.'

  'And how are you going to find the needle in the haystack?'

  'I'm going to select a few what I call likely possibilities. People who might tell one something that they really did hear. I shall have to isolate them from everybody else, at any rate for a short period of time, and get them to tell me exactly what their Aunt Agatha or Aunt Betty or old Uncle James told them. Then I shall have to go on to the next one and possibly one of them might give me a further inkling. There must be something, you know, somewhere.'

  'Yes,' said Tommy, 'I think there's something, but we don't know what it is.'

  'Well, that's what we're trying to do, isn't it?'

  'Yes, but I mean you've got to have some idea what a thing actually is before you go looking for it.'

  'I don't think it's gold ingots on a Spanish Armada ship,' said Tuppence, 'and I don't think it's anything hidden in the smugglers' cave.'

  'Might be some super brandy from France,' said Tommy hopefully.

  'It might,' said Tuppence, 'but that wouldn't be really what we're looking for, would it?'

  'I don't know,' said Tommy. 'I think it might be what I'm looking for sooner or later, Anyway, it's something I should enjoy finding. Of course it might be a sort of letter or something. A sexy letter that you could blackmail someone about, about sixty years ago. But I don't think it would cut much ice nowadays, do you?'

  'No, I don't. But we've got to get some idea sooner or later. Do you think we'll ever get anywhere, Tommy?'

  'I don't know,' said Tommy. 'I got a little bit of help today.'

  'Oh. What about?'

  'Oh, about the census"

  'The what?'

  'The census. There seems to have been a census in one particular year - I've got the year written down - and there were a good many people staying in this house with the Parkinsons.'

  'How on earth did you find all that out?'

  'Oh, by various methods of research by my Miss Collodon.'

  'I'm getting jealous of Miss Collodon.'

  'Well, you needn't be. She's very fierce and she ticks me off a good deal, and she is no ravishing beauty.'

  'Well, that's just as well,' said Tuppence. 'But what has the census got to do with it?'

  'Well when Alexander said it must be one of us it could have meant, you see, someone who was in the house at that time and therefore you had to enter up their name on the census register. Anyone who spent the night under your roof,
and I think probably there are records of these things in the census files. And if you know the right people - I don't mean I know them now but I can get to know them through people I do know - then I think I could perhaps get a short list.'

  'Well, I admit,' said Tuppence, 'you have ideas all right. For goodness' sake let's have something to eat and perhaps I shall feel better and not so faint from trying to listen to sixteen very ugly voices all at once.'