Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [40]
II
What next was an appointment in an inexpensive restaurant in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.
‘Well I never!’ said an elderly man, leaping up from his seat where he was sitting waiting. ‘Carroty Tom, on my life. Shouldn’t have known you.’
‘Possibly not,’ said Tommy. ‘Not much carrots left about me. It’s grey-haired Tom.’
‘Ah well, we’re all that. How’s your health?’
‘Much the same as I always was. Cracking. You know. Decomposing by degrees.’
‘How long is it since I’ve seen you? Two years? Eight years? Eleven years?’
‘Now you’re going too far,’ said Tommy. ‘We met at the Maltese Cats dinner last autumn, don’t you remember?’
‘Ah, so we did. Pity that broke up, you know. I always thought it would. Nice premises, but the food was rotten. Well, what are you doing these days, old boy? Still in the espionage-up-to-date do?’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘I’m nothing to do with espionage.’
‘Dear me. What a waste of your activities.’
‘And what about you, Mutton-Chop?’
‘Oh, I’m much too old to serve my country in that way.’
‘No espionage going on nowadays?’
‘Lots of it, I expect. But probably they put the bright boys on to it. The ones who come bursting out of universities needing a job badly. Where are you now? I sent you a Christmas card this year. Well, I didn’t actually post it till January but anyway it came back to me with “Not known at this address”.’
‘No. We’ve gone to the country to live now. Down near the sea. Hollowquay.’
‘Hollowquay. Hollowquay? I seem to remember something. Something in your line going on there once, wasn’t there?’
‘Not in my time,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve only just got to hear of it since going to live there. Legends of the past. At least sixty years ago.’
‘Something to do with a submarine, wasn’t it? Plans of a submarine sold to someone or other. I forget who we were selling to at that time. Might have been the Japanese, might have been the Russians–oh, and lots of others. People always seemed to meet enemy agents in Regent’s Park or somewhere like that. You know, they’d meet someone like a third Secretary from an Embassy. Not so many beautiful lady spies around as there used to be once in fiction.’
‘I wanted to ask you a few things, Mutton-Chop.’
‘Oh? Ask away. I’ve had a very uneventful life. Margery–do you remember Margery?’
‘Yes, of course I remember Margery. I nearly got to your wedding.’
‘I know. But you couldn’t make it or something, or took the wrong train, as far as I remember. A train that was going to Scotland instead of Southall. Anyway, just as well you didn’t. Nothing much came of it.’
‘Didn’t you get married?’
‘Oh yes, I got married. But somehow or other it didn’t take very well. No. A year and a half and it was done with. She’s married again. I haven’t, but I’m doing very nicely. I live at Little Pollon. Quite a decent golf-course there. My sister lives with me. She’s a widow with a nice bit of money and we get on well together. She’s a bit deaf so she doesn’t hear what I say, but it only means shouting a bit.’
‘You said you’d heard of Hollowquay. Was it really something to do with spying of some kind?’
‘Well, to tell you the truth, old boy, it’s so long ago that I can’t remember much about it. It made a big stir at the time. You know, splendid young naval officer absolutely above suspicion in every way, ninety per cent British, rated about a hundred and five in reliability, but nothing of the kind really. In the pay of–well, I can’t remember now who he was in the pay of. Germany, I suppose. Before the 1914 war. Yes, I think that was it.’
‘And there was a woman too, I believe, associated with it all,’ said Tommy.
‘I seem to remember hearing something about a Mary Jordan, I think it was. Mind you, I am not clear about all this. Got into the papers and I think it was a wife of his–I mean of the above-suspicion naval officer. It was his wife who got in touch with the Russians and–no, no, that’s something that happened since then. One mixes things up so–they all sound alike. Wife thought