Agatha Christie - Postern of Fate

'I wonder where it takes one,' said Tuppence. 'There must be a reason for it.'

Perhaps, she thought, as the path took a couple of sharp turns in opposite directions, making a zigzag and making Tuppence feel that she knew exactly what Alice in Wonderland had meant by saying that a path would suddenly shake itself and change direction. There were fewer bushes, there were laurels now, possibly fitting in with the name given to the property, and then a rather stony, difficult, narrow path wound up between them. It came very suddenly to four moss-covered steps leading up to a kind of niche made of what had once been metal and later seemed to have been replaced by bottles. A kind of shrine, and in it a pedestal and on this pedestal a stone figure, very much decayed. It was the figure of a boy with a basket on his head. A feeling of recognition came to Tuppence.

'This is the sort of thing you could date a place with,' she said. 'It's very like the one Aunt Sarah had in her garden. She had a lot of laurels too.'

Her mind went back to Aunt Sarah, whom she had occasionally visited as a child. She had played herself, she remembered, a game called River Horses. For River Horses you took your hoop out. Tuppence, it may be said, had been six years old at the time. Her hoop represented the horses. White horses with manes and flowing tails. In Tuppence's imagination, with that you had gone across a green, rather thick patch of grass and you had then gone round a bed planted with pampas grass waving feathery heads into the air, up the same kind of a path, and leaning there among some beech trees in the same sort of summer-house niche was a figure and a basket. Tuppence, when riding her winning horses here, had taken a gift always, a gift you put in the basket on top of the boy's head; at the same time you said it was an offering and you made a wish. The wish, Tuppence remembered, was nearly always to come true.

'But that,' said Tuppence, sitting down suddenly on the top step of the flight she had been climbing, 'that, of course, was because I cheated really. I mean, I wished for something that I knew was almost sure to happen, and then I could feel that my wish had come true and it really was a magic. It was a proper offering to a real god from the past. Though it wasn't a god really, it was just a podgy-looking little boy. Ah well – what fun it is, all the things one used to invent and believe in and play at.'

She sighed, went down the path again and found her way to the mysteriously named KK.

KK looked in just the same mess as ever. Mathilde was still looking forlorn and forsaken, but two more things attracted Tuppence's attention. They were in porcelain – porcelain stools with the figures of white swans curled round them. One stool was dark blue and the other stool was pale blue.

'Of course,' said Tuppence, 'I've seen things like that before when I was young. Yes, they used to be on verandas. One of my other aunts had them, I think. We used to call them Oxford and Cambridge. Very much the same. I think it was ducks – no, it was swans they had round them. And then there was the same sort of queer thing in the seat, a sort of hole that was like a letter S. The sort of thing you could put things into. Yes, I think I'll get Isaac to take these stools out of here and give them a good wash, and then we'll have them on the loggia, or lodger as he will insist on calling it, though the veranda comes more natural to me. We'll put them on that and enjoy them when the good weather comes.'

She turned and started to run towards the door. Her foot caught in Mathilde's obtrusive rocker -

'Oh dear!' said Tuppence, 'now what have I done?'

What she had done was to catch her foot in the dark blue porcelain stool and it had rolled down on to the floor and smashed in two pieces.

'Oh dear,' said Tuppence, 'now I've really killed Oxford, I suppose. We shall have to make do with Cambridge. I don't think you could stick Oxford together again. The pieces are too difficult.'

She sighed and wondered what Tommy was doing.

Tommy was sitting exchanging memories with some old friends.

'World's in a funny way nowadays,' said Colonel Atkinson. 'I hear you and your what's-her-name, Prudence – no, you had a nickname for her, Tuppence, that's right – yes, I hear you've gone to live in the country. Somewhere down near Hollowquay. I wonder what took you there. Anything particular?'

'Well, we found this house fairly cheap,' said Tommy.

'Ah. Well, that's lucky always, isn't it? What's the name? You must give me your address.'

'Well, we think we may call it Cedar Lodge because there's a very nice cedar there. Its original name was The Laurels, but that's rather a Victorian hangover, isn't it?'

'The Laurels. The Laurels, Hollowquay. My word, what are you up to, eh? What are you up to?'

Tommy looked at the elderly face with the sprouting white moustache.

'On to something, are you?' said Colonel Atkinson. 'Are you employed in the service of your country again?'

'Oh, I'm too old for that,' said Tommy. 'I'm retired from all that sort of stuff.'

'Ah, I wonder now. Perhaps that's just the thing you say. Perhaps you've been told to say that. After all, you know, there's a good deal was never found out about all that business.'

'What business?' said Tommy.

'Well, I expect you've read about it or heard about it. The Cardington Scandal. You know, came after that other thing – the what-you-call-'em letters – and the Emlyn Johnson submarine business.'

'Oh,' said Tommy, 'I seem to remember something vaguely.'

'Well, it wasn't actually the submarine business, but that's what called attention to the whole thing. And there were those letters, you see. Gave the whole show away politically. Yes. Letters. If they'd been able to get hold of them it would have made a big difference. It would have drawn attention to several people who at the time were the most highly trusted people in the government. Astonishing how these things happen, isn't it? You know! The traitors in one's midst, always highly trusted, always splendid fellows, always the last people to be suspected – and all the time – well, a lot of all that never came to light.' He winked one eye. 'Perhaps you've been sent down there to have a look round, eh, my boy?'

'A look round at what?' said Tommy.

'Well, this house of yours, The Laurels, did you say? There used to be some silly jokes about The Laurels sometimes. Mind you, they'd had a good look round, the security people and the rest of them. They thought that somewhere in that house was valuable evidence of some kind. There was an idea it had been sent overseas – Italy was mentioned – just before people got alerted. But other people thought it might be still hidden there in that part of the world somewhere. You know, it's the sort of place that has cellars and flagstones and various things. Come now, Tommy, my boy, I feel you're on the hunt again.'

'I assure you I don't do anything of that kind nowadays.'

'Well, that's what one thought before about you when you were at that other place. Beginning of the last war. You know, where you ran down that German chap. That and the woman with the nursery rhyme books. Yes. Sharp bit of work, all that. And now, perhaps, they've set you on another trail!'

'Nonsense,' said Tommy. 'You mustn't get all these ideas in your head. I'm an old gaffer now.'

'You're a cunning old dog. I bet you're better than some of these young ones. Yes. You sit there looking innocent, and really I expect, well, one mustn't ask you questions. Mustn't ask you to betray State secrets, must I? Anyway, be careful of your missus. You know she's always one to stick herself forward too much. She had a narrow escape last time in the N or M days.'

'Ah well,' said Tommy, 'I think Tuppence is just interested in the general antiquity of this place, you know. Who lived there and where. And pictures of the old people who used to live in the house, and all the rest of it. That and planning the garden. That's all we're really interested in nowadays. Gardens. Gardens and bulb catalogues and all the rest of it.'