Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [95]
She shook her head in deep despondency. Rising from her chair, she went towards the fireplace.
‘Are you trying to put a log on?’ said Tommy. ‘Let me. You’ve been told not to move about much.’
‘My arm’s quite all right now,’ said Tuppence. ‘Anyone would think I’d broken it or something. It was only a nasty scrape or graze.’
‘You have more to boast about than that,’ said Tommy. ‘It was definitely a bullet wound. You have been wounded in war.’
‘War it seems to have been all right,’ said Tuppence. ‘Really!’
‘Never mind,’ said Tommy, ‘we dealt with the Mullins very well, I think.’
‘Hannibal,’ said Tuppence, ‘was a very good dog there, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Tommy, ‘he told us. Told us very definitely. He just leapt for that pampas grass. His nose told him, I suppose. He’s got a wonderful nose.’
‘I can’t say my nose warned me,’ said Tuppence. ‘I just thought she was rather an answer to prayer, turning up. And I quite forgot we were only supposed to take someone who had worked for Mr Solomon. Did Mr Crispin tell you anything more? I suppose his name isn’t really Crispin.’
‘Possibly not,’ said Tommy.
‘Did he come to do some sleuthing too? Too many of us here, I should say.’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘not exactly a sleuth. I think he was sent for security purposes. To look after you.’
‘To look after me,’ said Tuppence, ‘and you, I should say. Where is he now?’
‘Dealing with Miss Mullins, I expect.’
‘Yes, well, it’s extraordinary how hungry these excitements make one. Quite peckish, as one might say. Do you know, there’s nothing I can imagine I’d like to eat more than a nice hot crab with a sauce made of cream with just a touch of curry powder.’
‘You’re well again,’ said Tommy. ‘I’m delighted to hear you feeling like that about food.’
‘I’ve never been ill,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’ve been wounded. That’s quite different.’
‘Well,’ said Tommy, ‘anyway you must have realized as I did that when Hannibal let go all out and told you an enemy was close at hand in the pampas grass, you must have realized that Miss Mullins was the person who, dressed as a man, hid there and shot at you–’
‘But then,’ said Tuppence, ‘we thought that she’d have another go. I was immured with my wound in bed and we made our arrangements. Isn’t that right, Tommy?’
‘Quite right,’ said Tommy, ‘quite right. I thought probably she wouldn’t leave it too long to come to the conclusion that one of her bullets had taken effect and that you’d be laid up in bed.’
‘So she came along full of feminine solicitude,’ said Tuppence.
‘And our arrangement was very good, I thought,’ said Tommy. ‘There was Albert on permanent guard, watching every step she took, every single thing she did–’
‘And also,’ said Tuppence, ‘bringing me up on a tray a cup of coffee and adding another cup for the visitor.’
‘Did you see Mullins–or Dodo, as Crispin called her–put anything in your cup of coffee?’
‘No,’ said Tuppence, ‘I must admit that I didn’t. You see, she seemed to catch her foot in something and she knocked over that little table with our nice vase on it, made a great deal of apology, and my eye of course was on the broken vase and whether it was too bad to mend. So I didn’t see her.’
‘Albert did,’ said Tommy. ‘Saw it through the hinge where he’d enlarged it a crack so that he could look through.’
‘And then it was a very good idea to put Hannibal in confinement in the bathroom but leaving the door only half latched because, as we know, Hannibal is very good at opening doors. Not of course if they’re completely latched, but if they only look latched or feel latched he takes one great spring and comes in like a–oh, like a Bengal tiger.’
‘Yes,’ said Tommy, ‘that is quite a good description.’
‘And now I suppose Mr Crispin or whatever his name is has finished making his enquiries, although how he thinks Miss Mullins can be connected with Mary Jordan, or with a dangerous figure like Jonathan Kane who only exists in the past–’
‘I don’t think he only exists in the past. I think there may be a new edition of him, a re-birth, as you might say. There