Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie

  'He's really very keen on gardening,' said Tommy. 'I realize that. He really did work for a friend of his who happened to be Mr Solomon, who has been dead for some years, but I suppose it makes a good cover, that, because he can say he worked for him and people will know he worked for him. So he'll appear to be quite bona fide.'

  'Yes, I suppose one has to think of all those things,' said Tuppence.

  The front door bell rang and Hannibal dashed from the room, tiger-style, to kill any intruder who might be wishing to enter the sacred precincts which he guarded. Tommy came back with an envelope.

  'Addressed to us both,' he said. 'Shall I open it?'

  'Go ahead,' said Tuppence.

  He opened it.

  'Well,' he said, 'this raises possibilities for the future.'

  'What is it?'

  'It's an invitation from Mr Robinson. To you and to me. To dine with him on a date the week after next when he hopes you'll be fully recovered and yourself again. In his country house. Somewhere in Sussex, I think.'

  'Do you think he'll tell us anything then?' said Tuppence.

  'I think he might,' said Tommy.

  'Shall I take my list with me?' said Tuppence. 'I know it by heart now.'

  She read rapidly.

  'Black Arrow, Alexander Parkinson, Oxford and Cambridge porcelain Victorian seats, Grin-hen-lo, KK, Mathilde's stomach, Cain and Abel, Truelove...'

  'Enough,' said Tommy. 'It sounds mad.'

  'Well, it is mad, all of it. Think there'll be anyone else at Mr Robinson's?'

  'Possibly Colonel Pikeaway.'

  'In that case,' said Tuppence, 'I'd better take a cough lozenge with me, hadn't I? Anyway, I do want to see Mr Robinson. I can't believe he's as fat and yellow as you say he is - Oh! - but, Tommy, isn't it the week after next that Deborah is bringing the children to stay with us?'

  'No,' said Tommy, 'it's this next weekend as ever is.'

  'Thank goodness, so that's all right,' said Tuppence.

  Chapter 16

  THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH

  'Was that the car?'

  Tuppence came out of the front door peering anxiously along the curve of the drive, eagerly awaiting the arrival of her daughter Deborah and the three children.

  Albert emerged from the side door.

  'They won't be here yet. No, that was the grocer, madam. You wouldn't believe it - eggs have gone up, again. Never vote for this Government again, I won't. I'll give the Liberals a go.'

  'Shall I come and see to the rhubarb and strawberry fool for tonight?'

  'I've seen to that, madam. I've watched you often and I know just how you do it.'

  'You'll be a Cordon Bleu chef by the time you've finished, Albert,' said Tuppence. 'It's Jane's favourite sweet.'

  'Yes, and I made a treacle tart - Master Andrew loves treacle tart.'

  'The rooms are all ready?'

  'Yes. Mrs Shacklebury came in good time this morning. I put the Guerlain Sandalwood Soap in Miss Deborah's bathroom. It's her favourite, I know.'

  Tuppence breathed a sigh of relief at the knowledge that all was in order for the arrival of her family.

  There was the sound of a motor horn and a few minutes later the car came up the drive with Tommy at the wheel and a moment later the guests were decanted on the doorstep - daughter Deborah still a very handsome woman, nearly forty, and Andrew, fifteen, Janet, eleven, and Rosalie, seven.

  'Hullo, Grandma,' shouted Andrew.

  'Where's Hannibal?' called Janet.

  'I want my tea,' said Rosalie, showing a disposition to burst into tears.

  Greetings were exchanged. Albert dealt with the disembarcation of all the family treasures including a budgerigar, a bowl of goldfish and a hamster in a hutch.

  'So this is the new home,' said Deborah, embracing her mother. 'I like it - I like it very much.'

  'Can we go round the garden?' asked Janet.

  'After tea,' said Tommy.

  'I want my tea,' reiterated Rosalie with an expression on her face of First things first.

  They went into the dining-room where tea was set out and met with general satisfaction.

  'What's all this I've been hearing about you, Mum?' demanded Deborah, when they had finished tea and repaired to the open air - the children racing around to explore the possible pleasures of the garden in the joint company of Thomas and Hannibal who bad rushed out to take part in the rejoicings.

  Deborah, who always took a stern line with her mother whom she considered in need of careful guardianship, demanded. 'What have you been doing?'

  'Oh. We've settled in quite comfortably by now,' said Tuppence.

  Deborah looked unconvinced.

  'You've been doing things. She has, hasn't she, Dad?'

  Tommy was returning with Rosalie riding him piggyback. Janet surveying the new territory and Andrew looking around with an air of taking a full grown-up view.

  'You have been doing things.' Deborah returned to the attack. 'You've been playing at being Mrs Blenkinsop all over again. The trouble with you is, there's no holding you - N or M - all over again.' Derek heard something and wrote and told me.' She nodded as she mentioned her brother's name.

  'Derek - what could he know?' demanded Tuppence.

  'Derek always gets to know things.'

  'You too, Dad.' Deborah turned on her father. 'You've been mixing yourself up in things, too. I thought you'd come here, both of you, to retire, and take life quietly - and enjoy yourselves.'

  'That was the idea,' said Tommy, 'but Fate thought otherwise.'

  'Postern of Fate,' said Tuppence. 'Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear -'

  'Flecker,' said Andrew, with conscious erudition. He was addicted to poetry and hoped one day to be a poet himself. He carried on with a full quotation:

  'Four great gates has the City of Damascus...

  Postern of Fate - the Desert Gate...

  Pass not beneath. O Caravan - or pass not singing. Have you heard that silence where the birds are dead, something pipeth like a bird?'

  With singularly apposite cooperation birds flew suddenly from the roof of the house over their heads.

  'What are all those birds, Grannie?' asked Janet.

  'Swallows flying south,' said Tuppence.

  'Won't they ever come back again?'

  'Yes, they'll come back next summer.'

  'And pass through the Postern of Fate!' said Andrew with intense satisfaction.

  'This house was called Swallow's Nest once,' said Tuppence.

  'But you aren't going on living here, are you?' said Deborah. 'Dad wrote and said you're looking out for another house.'

  'Why?' asked Janet - the Rosa Dartle of the family. 'I like this one.'

  'I'll give you a few reasons,' said Tommy, plucking a sheet of paper from his pocket and reading aloud:

  'Black Arrow

  Alexander Parkinson

  Oxford and Cambridge

  Victorian china garden stools

  Grin-hen-lo

  KK

  Mathilde's stomach

  Cain and Abel

  Gallant Truelove'

  'Shut up, Tommy - that's my list. It's nothing to do with you,' said Tuppence.

  'But what does it mean?' asked Janet, continuing her quiz.

  'It sounds like a list of clues from a detective story,' said Andrew, who in his less poetical moments was addicted to that form of literature.

  'It is a list of clues. It's the reason why we are looking for another house,' said Tommy.

  'But I like it here,' said Janet, 'it's lovely.'

  'It's a nice house,' said Rosalie. 'Chocolate biscuits,' she added, with memories of recently eaten tea.

  'I like it,' said Andrew, speaking as an autocratic Czar of Russia might speak.

  'Why don't you like it, Grandma?' asked Janet.

  'I do like it,' said Tuppence with a sudden unexpected enthusiasm. 'I want to live here - to go on living here.'

  'Postern of Fate,' said Andrew. 'It's an exciting name.'<
br />
  'It used to be called Swallow's Nest,' said Tuppence. 'We could call it that again -'

  'All those clues,' said Andrew. 'You could make a story out of them - even a book -'

  'Too many names, too complicated,' said Deborah. 'Who'd read a book like that?'

  'You'd be surprised,' said Tommy, 'what people will read - and enjoy!'

  Tommy and Tuppence looked at each other.

  'Couldn't I get some paint tomorrow?' asked Andrew. 'Or Albert could get some and he'd help me. We'd paint the new name on the gate.'

  'And then the swallows would know they could come back next summer,' said Janet.

  She looked at her mother.

  'Not at all a bad idea,' said Deborah.

  'La Reine le veult,' said Tommy and bowed to his daughter, who always considered that giving the Royal assent in the family was her perquisite.

  Chapter 17

  LAST WORDS: DINNER WITH MR ROBINSON

  'What a lovely meal,' said Tuppence. She looked round at the assembled company.

  They had passed from the dining table and were now assembled in the library round the coffee table.

  Mr Robinson, as yellow and even larger than Tuppence had visualized him, was smiling behind a big and beautiful George II coffee-pot - next to him was Mr Crispin, now, it seemed, answering to the name of Horsham. Colonel Pikeaway sat next to Tommy, who had, rather doubtfully, offered him one of his own cigarettes.

  Colonel Pikeaway, with an expression of surprise, said: 'I never smoke after dinner.'

  Miss Collodon, whom Tuppence had found rather alarming, said, 'Indeed, Colonel Pikeaway? How very, very interesting.' She turned her head towards Tuppence. 'What a very well-behaved dog you have got, Mrs Beresford!'

  Hannibal, who was lying under the table with his head resting on Tuppence's foot, looked out with his misleading best angelic expression and moved his tail gently.

  'I understood he was a very fierce dog,' said Mr Robinson, casting an amused glance at Tuppence.

  'You should see him in action,' said Mr Crispin - alias Horsham.

  'He has party manners when he is asked out to dinner,' explained Tuppence. 'He loves it, feels he's really a prestige dog going into high society.' She turned to Mr Robinson. 'It was really very, very nice of you to send him an invitation and to have a plateful of liver ready for him. He loves liver.'

  'All dogs love liver,' said Mr Robinson. 'I understand -' he looked at Crispin-Horsham - 'that if I were to pay a visit to Mr and Mrs Beresford at their own home I might be torn to pieces.'

  'Hannibal takes his duties very seriously,' said Mr Crispin. 'He's a well-bred guard dog and never forgets it.'

  'You understand his feelings, of course, as a security officer,' said Mr Robinson.

  His eyes twinkled.

  'You and your husband have done a very remarkable piece of work, Mrs Beresford,' said Mr Robinson. 'We are indebted to you. Colonel Pikeaway tells me that you were the initiator in the affair.'

  'It just happened,' said Tuppence, embarrassed. 'I got - well - curious. I wanted to find out - about certain things -'

  'Yes, I gathered that. And now, perhaps you feel an equally natural curiosity as to what all this has been about?'

  Tuppence became even more embarrassed, and her remarks became slightly incoherent.

  'Oh - oh of course - I mean - I do understand that all this is quite secret - I mean all very hush-hush - and that we can't ask questions - because you couldn't tell us things. I do understand that perfectly.'

  'On the contrary, it is I who want to ask you a question. If you will answer it by giving me the information I shall be enormously pleased.'

  Tuppence stared at him with wide-open eyes.

  'I can't imagine -' She broke off.

  'You have a list - or so your husband tells me. He didn't tell me what that list was. Quite rightly. That list is your secret property. But I, too, know what it is to suffer curiosity.'

  Again his eyes twinkled. Tuppence was suddenly aware that she liked Mr Robinson very much.

  She was silent for a moment or two, then she coughed and fumbled in her evening bag.

  'It's terribly silly,' she said. 'In fact it's rather more than silly. It's mad.'

  Mr Robinson responded unexpectedly: '"Mad, mad, all the whole world is mad." So Hans Sachs said, sitting under his elder tree in The Meistersingers - my favourite opera. How right he was!'

  He took the sheet of foolscap she handed to him.

  'Read it aloud if you like,' said Tuppence. 'I don't really mind.'

  Mr Robinson glanced at it, then handed it to Crispin. 'Angus, you have a clearer voice than I have.'

  Mr Crispin took the sheet and read in an agreeable tenor with good enunciation:

  'Black Arrow

  Alexander Parkinson

  Mary Jordan did not die naturally

  Oxford and Cambridge porcelain Victorian seats

  Grin-Hen-Lo

  KK

  Mathilde's stomach

  Cain and Abel

  Truelove'

  He stopped, looked at his host, who turned his head towards Tuppence.

  'My dear,' said Mr Robinson. 'Let me congratulate you - you must have a most unusual mind. To arrive from this list of clues at your final discoveries is really most remarkable.'

  'Tommy was hard at it too,' said Tuppence.

  'Nagged into it by you,' said Tommy.

  'Very good research he did,' said Colonel Pikeaway appreciatively.

  'The census date gave me a very good pointer.'

  'You are a gifted pair,' said Mr Robinson. He looked at Tuppence again and smiled. 'I am still assuming that though you have displayed no indiscreet curiosity, you really want to know what all this has been about?'

  'Oh,' exclaimed Tuppence. 'Are you really going to tell us something? How wonderful!'

  'Some of it begins, as you surmised, with the Parkinsons,' said Mr Robinson. 'That is to say, in the distant past. My own great-grandmother was a Parkinson. Some things I learnt from her -

  'The girl known as Mary Jordan was in our service. She had connections in the Navy - her mother was Austrian and so she herself spoke German fluently.

  'As you may know, and as your husband certainly knows already, there are certain documents which will shortly be released for publication.

  'The present trend of political thinking is that hush-hush, necessary as it is at certain times, should not be preserved indefinitely. There are things in the records that should be made known as a definite part of our country's past history.

  'Three or four volumes are due to be published within the next couple of years authenticated by documentary evidence.

  'What went on in the neighbourhood of Swallow's Nest (that was the name of your present house at that time) will certainly be included.

  'There were leakages - as always there are leakages in times of war, or preceding a probable outbreak of war.

  'There were politicians who had prestige and who were thought of very highly. There were one or two leading journalists who had enormous influence and used it unwisely. There were men even before the First World War who were intriguing against their own country. After that war there were young men who graduated from universities and who were fervent believers and often active members of the Communist Party without anyone knowing of that fact. And even more dangerous, Fascism was coming into favour with a full progressive programme of eventual union with Hitler, posing as a Lover of Peace and thereby bringing about a quick end to the war.

  'And so on. A Continuous Behind the Scenes Picture. It has happened before in history. Doubtless it will always happen: a Fifth Column that is both active and dangerous, run by those who believed in it - as well as those who sought financial gain, those who aimed at eventual power being placed in their hands in the future. Some of this will make interesting reading. How often has the same phrase been uttered in all good faith: Old B.? A traitor? Nonsense. Last man in the world! Absolutely trustworthy!

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