Postern of Fate

‘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 (#ufc185c8d-05b8-58f8-983f-58a26f7ab1bb)

Problems (#ufc185c8d-05b8-58f8-983f-58a26f7ab1bb)

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.’