Postern of Fate

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

The White Elephant Sale (#ufc185c8d-05b8-58f8-983f-58a26f7ab1bb)

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.’