Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [66]
Tuppence wandered about a little, picking up various specimens of the merchandise and waiting whilst a discussion about the results obtained from a certain camera were criticized, and advice was asked.
An elderly woman with grey hair and rather lack-lustre eyes attended to a good deal of the more ordinary requests. A rather tall young man with long flaxen hair and a budding beard seemed to be the principal attendant. He came along the counter towards Tuppence, looking at her questioningly.
‘Can I help you in any way?’
‘Really,’ said Tuppence, ‘I wanted to ask about albums. You know, photograph albums.’
‘Ah, things to stick your photos in, you mean? Well, we’ve got one or two of those but you don’t get so much of them nowadays, I mean, people go very largely for transparencies, of course.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I collect them, you know. I collect old albums. Ones like this.’
She produced, with the air of a conjurer, the album she’d been sent.
‘Ah, that goes back a long time, doesn’t it?’ said Mr Durrance. ‘Ah, well now, over fifty years old, I should say. Of course, they did do a lot of those things around then, didn’t they? Everyone had an album.’
‘They had birthday books, too,’ said Tuppence.
‘Birthday books–yes, I remember something about them. My grandmother had a birthday book, I remember. Lots of people had to write their name in it. We’ve got birthday cards here still, but people don’t buy them much nowadays. It’s more Valentines, you know, and Happy Christmases, of course.’
‘I don’t know whether you had any old albums. You know, the sort of things people don’t want any more, but they interest me as a collector. I like having different specimens.’
‘Well, everyone collects something nowadays, that’s true enough,’ said Durrance. ‘You’d hardly believe it, the things people collect. I don’t think I’ve got anything as old as this one of yours, though. However, I could look around.’
He went behind the counter and pulled open a drawer against the wall.
‘Lot of stuff in here,’ he said. ‘I meant to turn it out some time but I didn’t know as there’d really be any market for it. A lot of weddings here, of course. But then, I mean, weddings date. People want them just at the time of the wedding but nobody comes back to look for weddings in the past.’
‘You mean, nobody comes in and says “My grandmother was married here. I wonder if you’ve got any photographs of her wedding?”’
‘Don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that,’ said Durrance. ‘Still, you never know. They do ask you for queer things sometimes. Sometimes, you know, someone comes in and wants to see whether you’ve kept a negative of a baby. You know what mothers are. They want pictures of their babies when they were young. Awful pictures, most of them are, anyway. Now and then we’ve even had the police round. You know, they want to identify someone. Someone who was here as a boy, and they want to see what he looks like–or rather what he looked like then, and whether he’s likely to be the same one as one they’re looking for now and whom they’re after because he’s wanted for murder or for swindles. I must say that cheers things up sometimes,’ said Durrance with a happy smile.
‘I see you’re quite crime-minded,’ said Tuppence.
‘Oh well, you know, you’re reading about things like that every day, why this man is supposed to have killed his wife about six months ago, and all that. Well, I mean, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Because, I mean, some people say that she’s still alive. Other people say that he buried her somewhere and nobody’s found her. Things like that. Well, a photograph of him might come in useful.