Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [41]
‘We were both mixed up in it,’ said Tommy, ‘and it’s such a very long time ago that I really can’t remember anything about it now.’
‘There was some woman associated with that, wasn’t there? Name like Jane Fish, or something like that, or was it Jane Whale?’
‘Jane Finn,’ said Tommy.
‘Where is she now?’
‘She’s married to an American.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, all very nice. One always seems to get talking about one’s old pals and what’s happened to them all. When you talk about old friends, either they are dead, which surprises you enormously because you didn’t think they would be, or else they’re not dead and that surprises you even more. It’s a very difficult world.’
Tommy said yes it was a very difficult world and here was the waiter coming. What could they have to eat…The conversation thereafter was gastronomic.
III
In the afternoon Tommy had another interview arranged. This time with a sad, grizzled man sitting in an office and obviously grudging the time he was giving Tommy.
‘Well, I really couldn’t say. Of course I know roughly what you’re talking about–lot of talk about it at the time–caused a big political blow-up–but I really have no information about that sort of thing, you know. No. You see, these things, they don’t last, do they? They soon pass out of one’s mind once the Press gets hold of some other juicy scandal.’
He opened up slightly on a few of his own interesting moments in life when something he’d never suspected came suddenly to light or his suspicions had suddenly been aroused by some very peculiar event. He said:
‘Well, I’ve just got one thing might help. Here’s an address for you and I’ve made an appointment too. Nice chap. Knows everything. He’s the tops, you know, absolutely the tops. One of my daughters was a godchild of his. That’s why he’s awfully nice to me and will always do me a good turn if possible. So I asked him if he would see you. I said there were some things you wanted the top news about, I said what a good chap you were and various things and he said yes, he’d heard of you already. Knew something about you, and he said, Of course come along. Three forty-five, I think. Here’s the address. It’s an office in the City, I think. Ever met him?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tommy, looking at the card and the address. ‘No.’
‘Well you wouldn’t think he knew anything, to look at him, I mean. Big, you know, and yellow.’
‘Oh,’ said Tommy, ‘big and yellow.’
It didn’t really convey much information to his mind.
‘He’s the tops,’ said Tommy’s grizzled friend, ‘absolute tops. You go along there. He’ll be able to tell you something anyway. Good luck, old chap.’
IV
Tommy, having successfully got himself to the City office in question, was received by a man of 35 to 40 years of age who looked at him with the eye of one determined to do the worst without delay. Tommy felt that he was suspected of many things, possibly carrying a bomb in some deceptive container, or prepared to hijack or kidnap anyone or to hold up with a revolver the entire staff. It made Tommy extremely nervous.
‘You have an appointment with Mr Robinson? At what time, did you say? Ah, three forty-five.’ He consulted a ledger. ‘Mr Thomas Beresford, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Tommy.
‘Ah. Just sign your name here, please.’
Tommy signed his name where he was told.
‘Johnson.’
A nervous-looking young man of about twenty-three seemed like an apparition rising out of a glass partitioned desk. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Take Mr Beresford up to the fourth floor to Mr Robinson’s office.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He led Tommy to a lift, the kind of lift that always seemed to have its own idea of how it should