Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [33]
‘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.’
‘Well, maybe I’ll believe that if a year passes and nothing exciting has happened. But I know you, Beresford, and I know our Mrs Beresford, too. The two of you together, you’re a wonderful couple and I bet you’ll come up with something. I tell you, if those papers ever come to light, it’ll have a very, very great effect on the political front and there are several people who won’t be pleased. No indeed. And those people who won’t be pleased are looked on as–pillars of rectitude at the moment! But by some they are thought to be dangerous. Remember that. They’re dangerous, and the ones that aren’t dangerous are in contact with those who are dangerous. So you be careful and make your missus be careful too.’
‘Really,’ said Tommy, ‘your ideas, you make me feel quite excited.’
‘Well, go on feeling excited but look after Mrs Tuppence. I’m fond of Tuppence. She’s a nice girl, always was and still is.’
‘Hardly a girl,’ said Tommy.
‘Now don’t say that of your wife. Don’t get in that habit. One in a thousand, she is. But I’m sorry for someone who has her in the picture sleuthing him down. She’s probably out on the hunt today.’
‘I don’t think she is. More likely gone to tea with an elderly lady.’
‘Ah well. Elderly ladies can sometimes give you useful information. Elderly ladies and children of five years old. All the unlikely people come out sometimes with a truth nobody had ever dreamed of. I could tell you things–’
‘I’m sure you could, Colonel.’
‘Ah well, one mustn’t give away secrets.’
Colonel Atkinson shook his head.
III
On his way home Tommy stared out of the railway carriage window and watched the rapidly retreating countryside. ‘I wonder,’ he said to himself, ‘I really wonder. That old boy, he’s usually in the know. Knows things. But what can there be that could matter now. It’s all in the past–I mean there’s nothing, can’t be anything left from that war. Not nowadays.’ Then he wondered. New ideas had taken over–Common Market ideas. Somewhere, as it were behind his mind rather than in it, because there were grandsons and nephews, new generations–younger members of families that had always meant something, that had pull, had got positions of influence, of power because they were born who they were, and if by any chance they were not loyal, they could be approached, could believe in new creeds or in old creeds revived, whichever way you liked to think of it. England was in a funny state, a different state from what it had been. Or was it really always in the same state? Always underneath the smooth surface there was some black mud. There wasn’t clear water down to the pebbles, down to the shells, lying on the bottom of the sea. There was something moving, something sluggish somewhere, something that had to be found, suppressed. But surely not–surely not in a place like Hollowquay. Hollowquay was a has-been if there ever was. Developed first as a fishing village and then further developed as an English Riviera–and now a mere summer resort, crowded in August. Most people now preferred package trips abroad.
IV
‘Well,’ said Tuppence, as she left the dinner table that night and went into the other room to drink coffee, ‘was it fun or not fun? How were all the old boys?’
‘Oh, very much the old boys,’ said Tommy. ‘How was your old lady?’
‘Oh the piano tuner came,’ said Tuppence, ‘and it rained in the afternoon so I didn’t see her. Rather a pity, the old lady might have said some things that were interesting.’
‘My old boy did,’ said Tommy. ‘I was quite surprised. What do you think of this place really, Tuppence?’
‘Do you mean the house?’
‘No, I didn