Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [74]
‘If they’re ten or twelve, how can they tell us things or remember things we want to know?’ said Tommy. ‘What sort of things did he say?’
‘Most of his sentences were short,’ said Tuppence, ‘and consisted of mainly “well, you know”, or “you see, it was like this”, or “yes, and then you know”. Anyway, “you know” was always a component part of everything he said.’
‘And they were all things you didn’t know.’
‘Well, they were attempts at explaining things he’d heard about.’
‘Heard about from whom?’
‘Well, not first-hand knowledge, as you’d say, and I wouldn’t say second-hand knowledge. I think it might go up to third-hand, fourth-hand, fifth-hand, sixth-hand knowledge. It consisted also of what Clarence had heard and what Clarence’s friend, Algernon, had heard. What Algernon said Jimmy had heard–’
‘Stop,’ said Tommy, ‘that’s enough. And what had they heard?’
‘That’s more difficult,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I think one can get round to it. They’d heard certain places mentioned or stories told and they were very, very anxious to partake of the joys of what we had clearly come to do here.’
‘Which is?’
‘To discover something important. Something that’s well known to be hidden here.’
‘Ah,’ said Tommy. ‘Hidden. Hidden how, where and when?’
‘Different stories about all those three,’ said Tuppence, ‘but it’s exciting, you must admit, Tommy.’
Tommy said thoughtfully that perhaps it was.
‘It ties in with old Isaac,’ said Tuppence. ‘I think Isaac must have known quite a lot of things which he could have told us.’
‘And you think that Clarence and–what’s this one’s name again?’
‘I’ll remember it in a minute,’ said Tuppence. ‘I got so confused with all the other people he’d heard things from. The ones with the grand names like Algernon and the ones with the ordinary names like Jimmy and Johnny and Mike.
‘Chuck,’ said Tuppence suddenly.
‘Chuck what?’ asked Tommy.
‘No. I didn’t mean it that way. I think that’s his name. The boy, I mean. Chuck.’
‘It seems a very odd name.’
‘His real name is Henry but I expect his friends call him Chuck.’
‘Like Chuck goes the weasel.’
‘Pop goes the weasel, you mean.’
‘Well, I know that’s correct. But Chuck goes the weasel sounds much the same.’
‘Oh Tommy, what I really want to say to you is that we’ve got to go on with this, specially now. Do you feel the same?’
‘Yes,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, I thought perhaps you did. Not that you’ve said anything. But we’ve got to go on with it and I’ll tell you why. Mainly because of Isaac. Isaac. Somebody killed him. They killed him because he knew something. He knew something that might have been dangerous to somebody. And we’ve got to find out who the person was it would be dangerous to.’
‘You don’t think,’ said Tommy, ‘that it’s just–oh, one of those things. You know, hooliganism or whatever they call it. You know, people go out and want to do people in and don’t care who the people are, but they prefer them to be elderly and not to be able to put up any kind of a resistance.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘in a way I do mean that. But–I don’t think it was that. I think there is something, I don’t know if hidden is the right word, there’s something here. Something that throws light on something that happened in the past, something that someone left here or put here or gave to someone to keep here who has since died or put it somewhere. But something that someone doesn’t want discovered. Isaac knew it and they must have been afraid he’d tell us because word’s evidently going round now about us. You know, that we’re famous anti-espionage people or whatever you call it. We’ve got a reputation for that sort of thing. And it’s tied up in a way, you see, with Mary Jordan and all the rest of it.’
‘Mary Jordan,’ said Tommy, ‘did not die a natural death.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘and old Isaac was killed. We’ve got to find out who killed him and why. Otherwise–’
‘You’ve got to be careful,’ said Tommy, ‘you’ve got to be careful of yourself, Tuppence. If anyone killed Isaac because he thought he was going to talk about things in the past that he