Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [37]
‘Mathilde’s stomach. The rocking-horse. I told you about the rocking-horse. It’s an American rocking-horse.’
‘A lot of things seem to have come from America,’ said Tommy. ‘The bay rum too, you said.’
‘Well, anyway, the rocking-horse did have a hole in its stomach because old Isaac told me about it; it had a hole in its stomach and a lot of sort of queer old paper stuff came out of it. Nothing interesting. But anyway, that’s the sort of place where anyone might have hidden anything, isn’t it?’
‘Quite possibly.’
‘And Truelove, of course. I examined Truelove again. You know it’s got a sort of rather old decayed mackintosh seat but there was nothing there. And of course there were no personal things belonging to anyone. So I thought again. Well, after all, there’s still the bookcase and books. People hide things in books. And we haven’t quite finished doing the book-room upstairs, have we?’
‘I thought we had,’ said Tommy hopefully.
‘Not really. There was the bottom shelf still.’
‘That doesn’t really need doing. I mean, one hasn’t got to get up a ladder and take things down.’
‘No. So I went up there and sat down on the floor and looked through the bottom shelf. Most of it was sermons. Sermons of somebody in old times written by a Methodist minister, I think. Anyway, they weren’t interesting, there was nothing in them. So I pulled all those books out on the floor. And then I did make a discovery. Underneath, some time or other, somebody had made a sort of gaping hole, and pushed all sorts of things in it, books all torn to pieces more or less. There was one rather big one. It had a brown paper cover on it and I just pulled it out to see. After all, one never knows, does one? And what do you think it was?’
‘I’ve no idea. First edition of Robinson Crusoe or something valuable like that?’
‘No. It was a birthday book.’
‘A birthday book. What’s that?’
‘Well, they used to have them. Goes back a long time. Back to the Parkinsons, I think. Probably before that. Anyway, it was rather battered and torn. Not worth keeping, and I don’t suppose anyone would have bothered about it. But it does date back and one might find something in it, I thought.’
‘I see. You mean the sort of thing people might have slipped something into.’
‘Yes. But nobody has done that, of course. Nothing so simple. But I’m still going through it quite carefully. I haven’t gone through it properly yet. You see, it might have interesting names in it and one might find out something.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Tommy, sounding sceptical.
‘Well, that’s one thing. That’s the only thing in the book line that I came across. There was nothing else on the bottom shelf. The other thing to look through, of course, is the cupboards.’
‘What about furniture?’ said Tommy. ‘Lots of things like secret drawers in furniture, and all that.’
‘No, Tommy, you’re not looking at things straight. I mean, all the furniture in the house now is ours. We moved into an empty house and brought our furniture with us. The only thing we found here from really old times is all that mess out in the place called KK, old decayed toys and garden seats. I mean, there’s no proper antique furniture left in the house. Whoever it was lived here last took it away or else sent it to be sold. There’s been lots of people, I expect, since the Parkinsons, so there wouldn’t be anything left of theirs here. But, I did find something. I don’t know, it may mean something helpful.’
‘What was that?’
‘China menu cards.’
‘China menu cards?’
‘Yes. In that old cupboard we haven’t been able to get into. The one off the larder. You know, they’d lost the key. Well, I found the key in an old box. Out in KK, as a matter of fact. I put some oil on it and I managed to get the cupboard door open. And, well, there was nothing in it. It was just a dirty cupboard with a few broken bits of china left in it. I should think from the last people who were here. But shoved up on the top shelf there was a little heap of the Victorian china menus people used to have at parties. Fascinating, the things