Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [62]
‘The house we bought–well, it’s called The Laurels now,’ said Tommy.
‘Silly name,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘Very popular at one time, though. I remember when I was a boy, all the neighbours, you know, they had those great Victorian drives up to the house. Always getting in loads of gravel for putting down on it and laurels on each side. Sometimes they were glossy green ones and sometimes the speckled ones. Supposed to be very showy. I suppose some of the people who’ve lived there called it that and the name stuck. Is that right?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Tommy. ‘Not the last people. I believe the last people called it Katmandu, or some name abroad because they lived in a certain place they liked.’
‘Yes, yes. Swallow’s Nest goes back a long time. Yes, but one’s got to go back sometimes. In fact, that’s what I was going to talk to you about. Going back.’
‘Did you ever know it, sir?’
‘What–Swallow’s Nest, alias The Laurels? No, I never went there. But it figured in certain things. It’s tied up with certain periods in the past. People over a certain period. A period of great anxiety to this country.’
‘I gather you’ve come in contact with some information pertaining to someone called Mary Jordan. Or known by that name. Anyway, that’s what Mr Robinson told us.’
‘Want to see what she looked like? Go over to the mantelpiece. There’s a photograph on the left side.’
Tommy got up, went across to the mantelpiece and picked up the photograph. It represented an old-world type of a photograph. A girl wearing a picture hat and holding up a bunch of roses towards her head.
‘Looks damn silly now, doesn’t it?’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘But she was a good-looking girl, I believe. Unlucky though. She died young. Rather a tragedy, that was.’
‘I don’t know anything about her,’ said Tommy.
‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘Nobody does nowadays.’
‘There was some idea locally that she was a German spy,’ said Tommy. ‘Mr Robinson told me that wasn’t the case.’
‘No, it wasn’t the case. She belonged to us. And she did good work for us, too. But somebody got wise to her.’
‘That was when there were some people called Parkinson living there,’ said Tommy.
‘Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know all the details. Nobody does nowadays. I wasn’t personally involved, you know. All this has been raked up since. Because, you see, there’s always trouble. There’s trouble in every country. There’s trouble all over the world now and not for the first time. No. You can go back a hundred years and you’ll find trouble, and you can go back another hundred years and you’ll find trouble. Go back to the Crusades and you’ll find everyone dashing out of the country going to deliver Jerusalem, or you’ll find risings all over the country. Wat Tyler and all the rest of them. This, that and the other, there’s always trouble.’
‘Do you mean there’s some special trouble now?’
‘Of course there is. I tell you, there’s always trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Oh, we don’t know,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘They even come round to an old man like me and ask me what I can tell them, or what I can remember about certain people in the past. Well, I can’t remember very much but I know about one or two people. You’ve got to look into the past sometimes. You’ve got to know what was happening then. What secrets people had, what knowledge they had that they kept to themselves, what they hid away, what they pretended was happening and what was really happening. You’ve done good jobs, you and your missus at different times. Do you want to go on with it now?’
‘I don’t know,