“I heard the glass break.”
She pushed away the brandy glass and her eyes followed up the hand and arm to the face of the man who had been holding it.
“El Greco,” said Tuppence.
“I beg your pardon.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looked round the room.
“Where is she—Mrs. Lancaster, I mean?”
“She’s—resting—in the next room—”
“I see.” But she wasn’t sure that she did see. She would see better presently. Just now only one idea would come at a time—
“Sir Philip Starke.” She said it slowly and doubtfully. “That’s right?”
“Yes—Why did you say El Greco?”
“Suffering.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“The picture—In Toledo—Or in the Prado—I thought so a long time ago—no, not very long ago—” She thought about it—made a discovery—“Last night. A party—At the vicarage—”
“You’re doing fine,” he said encouragingly.
It seemed very natural, somehow, to be sitting here, in this room with broken glass on the floor, talking to this man—with the dark agonized face—
“I made a mistake—at Sunny Ridge. I was all wrong about her—I was afraid, then—a—wave of fear—But I got it wrong—I wasn’t afraid of her—I was afraid for her—I thought something was going to happen to her—I wanted to protect her—to save her—I—” She looked doubtfully at him. “Do you understand? Or does it sound silly?”
“Nobody understands better than I do—nobody in this world.”
Tuppence stared at him—frowning.
“Who—who was she? I mean Mrs. Lancaster—Mrs. Yorke—that’s not real—that’s just taken from a rose tree—who was she—herself?”
Philip Starke said harshly:
“Who was she? Herself? The real one, the true one
Who was she—with God’s Sign upon her brow?”
“Did you ever read Peer Gynt, Mrs. Beresford?”
He went to the window. He stood there a moment, looking out—Then he turned abruptly.
“She was my wife, God help me.”
“Your wife—But she died—the tablet in the church—”
“She died abroad—that was the story I circulated—And I put up a tablet to her memory in the church. People don’t like to ask too many questions of a bereaved widower. I didn’t go on living here.”
“Some people said she had left you.”
“That made an acceptable story, too.”
“You took her away when you found out—about the children—”
“So you know about the children?”
“She told me—It seemed—unbelievable.”
“Most of the time she was quite normal—no one would have guessed. But the police were beginning to suspect—I had to act—I had to save her—to protect her—You understand—can you understand—in the very least?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “I can understand quite well.”
“She was—so lovely once—” His voice broke a little. “You see her—there,” he pointed to the painting on the wall. “Waterlily—She was a wild girl—always. Her mother was the last of the Warrenders—an old family—inbred—Helen Warrender—ran away from home. She took up with a bad lot—a gaolbird—her daughter went on the stage—she trained as a dancer—Waterlily was her most popular role—then she took up with a criminal gang—for excitement—purely to get a kick out of it—She was always being disappointed—
“When she married me, she had finished with all that—she wanted to settle down—to live quietly—a family life—with children. I was rich—I could give her all the things she wanted. But we had no children. It was a sorrow to both of us. She began to have obsessions of guilt—Perhaps she had always been slightly unbalanced—I don’t know—What do causes matter?—She was—”
He made a despairing gesture.
“I loved her—I always loved her—no matter what she was—what she did—I wanted her safe—to keep her safe—not shut up—a prisoner for life, eating her heart out. And we did keep her safe—for many many years.”
“We?”
“Nellie—my dear faithful Nellie Bligh. My dear Nellie Bligh. She was wonderful—planned and arranged it all. The Homes for the Elderly—every comfort and luxury. And no temptations—no children—keep children out of her way—It seemed to work—these homes were in faraway places—Cumberland—North Wales—no one was likely to recognize her—or so we thought. It was on Mr. Eccles’s advice—a very shrewd lawyer—his charges were high—but I relied on him.”
“Blackmail?” suggested Tuppence.
“I never thought of it like that. He was a friend, and an adviser—”
“Who painted the boat in the picture—the boat called Waterlily?”
“I did. It pleased her. She remembered her triumph on the stage. It was one of Boscowan’s pictures. She liked his pictures. Then, one day, she wrote a name in black pigment on the bridge—the name of a dead child—So I painted a boat to hide it and labelled the boat Waterlily—”
The door in the wall swung open—The friendly witch came through it.
She looked at Tuppence and from Tuppence to Philip Starke.
“All right again?” she said in a matter-of-fact way.
“Yes,” said Tuppence. The nice thing about the friendly witch, she saw, was that there wasn’t going to be any fuss.
“Your husband’s down below, waiting in the car. I said I’d bring you down to him—if that’s the way you want it?”
“That’s the way I want it,” said Tuppence.
“I thought you would.” She looked towards the door into the bedroom. “Is she—in there?”
“Yes,” said Philip Starke.
Mrs. Perry went to the bedroom. She came out again—
“I see—” She looked at him inquiringly.
“She offered Mrs. Beresford a glass of milk—Mrs. Beresford didn’t want it.”
“And so, I suppose, she drank it herself?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Dr. Mortimer will be along later,” said Mrs. Perry.
She came to help Tuppence to her feet, but Tuppence rose unaided.
“I’m not hurt,” she said. “It was just shock—I’m quite all right now.”
She stood facing Philip Starke—neither of them seemed to have anything to say. Mrs. Perry stood by the door in the wall.
Tuppence spoke at last.
“There is nothing I can do, is there?” she said, but it was hardly a question.
“Only one thing—It was Nellie Bligh who struck you down in the churchyard that day.”
Tuppence nodded.
“I’ve realized it must have been.”
“She lost her head. She thought you were on the track of her, of our, secret. She—I’m bitterly remorseful for the terrible strain I’ve subjected her to all these long years. It’s been more than any woman ought to be asked to bear—”
“She loved you very much, I suppose,” said Tuppence. “But I don’t think we’ll go on looking for any Mrs. Johnson, if that is what you want to ask us not to do.”
“Thank you—I’m very grateful.”
There was another silence. Mrs. Perry waited patiently. Tuppence looked round her. She went to the broken window and looked at the peaceful canal down below.
“I don’t suppose I shall ever see this house again. I’m looking at it very hard, so that I shall be able to remember it.”
“Do you want to remember it?”
“Yes, I do. Someone said to me that it was a house that had been put to the wrong use. I know what they meant now.”
He looked at her questioningly, but did not speak.
“Who sent you here to find me?” asked Tuppence.
“Emma Boscowan.”
“I thought so.”
She joined the friendly witch and they went through the secret door and on down.
&
nbsp; A house for lovers, Emma Boscowan had said to Tuppence. Well, that was how she was leaving it—in the possession of two lovers—one dead and one who suffered and lived—
She went out through the door to where Tommy and the car were waiting.
She said goodbye to the friendly witch. She got into the car.
“Tuppence,” said Tommy.
“I know,” said Tuppence.
“Don’t do it again,” said Tommy. “Don’t ever do it again.”
“I won’t.”
“That’s what you say now, but you will.”
“No, I shan’t. I’m too old.”
Tommy pressed the starter. They drove off.
“Poor Nellie Bligh,” said Tuppence.
“Why do you say that?”
“So terribly in love with Philip Starke. Doing all those things for him all those years—such a lot of wasted doglike devotion.”
“Nonsense!” said Tommy. “I expect she’s enjoyed every minute of it. Some women do.”
“Heartless brute,” said Tuppence.
“Where do you want to go—The Lamb and Flag at Market Basing?”
“No,” said Tuppence. “I want to go home. HOME, Thomas. And stay there.”
“Amen to that,” said Mr. Beresford. “And if Albert welcomes us with a charred chicken, I’ll kill him!”
Agatha Christie
Postern of Fate
Dedication
For Hannibal and his master
Epigraph
Four great gates has the city of Damascus…
Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster’s Cavern, Fort of Fear…
Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard
That silence where the birds are dead, yet something pipeth like a bird?
from Gates of Damascus by James Elroy Flecker
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Book I
1 Mainly Concerning Books
2 The Black Arrow
3 Visit to the Cemetery
4 Lots of Parkinsons
5 The White Elephant Sale
6 Problems
7 More Problems
8 Mrs Griffin
Book II
1 A Long Time Ago
2 Introduction to Mathilde, Truelove and KK
3 Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
4 Expedition on Truelove; Oxford and Cambridge
5 Methods of Research
6 Mr Robinson
Book III
1 Mary Jordan
2 Research by Tuppence
3 Tommy and Tuppence Compare Notes
4 Possibility of Surgery on Mathilde
5 Interview with Colonel Pikeaway
6 Postern of Fate
7 The Inquest
8 Reminiscences about an Uncle
9 Junior Brigade
10 Attack on Tuppence
11 Hannibal Takes Action
12 Oxford, Cambridge and Lohengrin
13 Visit from Miss Mullins
14 Garden Campaign
15 Hannibal Sees Active Service with Mr Crispin
16 The Birds Fly South
17 Last Words: Dinner with Mr Robinson
Book I
Chapter 1
Mainly Concerning Books
‘Books!’ said Tuppence.
She produced the word rather with the effect of a bad-tempered explosion.
‘What did you say?’ said Tommy.
Tuppence looked across the room at him.
‘I said “books”,’ she said.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Thomas Beresford.
In front of Tuppence were three large packing cases. From each of them various books had been extracted. The larger part of them were still filled with books.
‘It’s incredible,’ said Tuppence.
‘You mean the room they take up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you trying to put them all on the shelves?’
‘I don’t know what I’m trying to do,’ said Tuppence. ‘That’s the awkward part of it. One doesn’t know ever, exactly, what one wants to do. Oh dear,’ she sighed.
‘Really,’ said her husband, ‘I should have thought that that was not at all characteristic of you. The trouble with you has always been that you knew much too well what you do want to do.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Tuppence, ‘that here we are, getting older, getting a bit–well, let’s face it–definitely rheumatic, especially when one is stretching; you know, stretching putting in books or lifting things down from shelves or kneeling down to look at the bottom shelves for something, then finding it a bit difficult to get up again.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Tommy, ‘that’s an account of our general disabilities. Is that what you started to say?’
‘No, it isn’t what I started to say. What I started to say was, it was lovely to be able to buy a new home and find just the place we wanted to go and live in, and just the house there we’d always dreamt of having–with a little alteration, of course.’
‘Knocking one or two rooms into each other,’ said Tommy, ‘and adding to it what you call a veranda and your builder calls a lodger, though I prefer to call it a loggia.’
‘And it’s going to be very nice,’ said Tuppence firmly.
‘When you’ve done it I shan’t know it! Is that the answer?’ said Tommy.
‘Not at all. All I said was that when you see it finished you’re going to be delighted and say what an ingenious and clever and artistic wife you have.’
‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll remember the right thing to say.’
‘You won’t need to remember,’ said Tuppence. ‘It will burst upon you.’
‘What’s that got to do with books?’ said Tommy.
‘Well, we brought two or three cases of books with us. I mean, we sold off the books we didn’t much care about. We brought the ones we really couldn’t bear to part with, and then, of course, the what-you-call-’ems–I can’t remember their name now, but the people who were selling us this house–they didn’t want to take a lot of their own things with them, and they said if we’d like to make an offer they would leave things including books, and we came and looked at things–’
‘And we made some offers,’ said Tommy.
‘Yes. Not as many as they hoped we would make, I expect. Some of the furniture and ornaments were too horrible. Well, fortunately we didn’t have to take those, but when I came and saw the various books–there were some nursery ones, you know, some down in the sitting-room–and there are one or two old favourites. I mean, there still are. There are one or two of my own special favourites. And so I thought it’d be such fun to have them. You know, the story of Androcles and the Lion,’ she said. ‘I remember reading that when I was eight years old. Andrew Lang.’
‘Tell me, Tuppence, were you clever enough to read at eight years old?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘I read at five years old. Everybody could, when I was young. I didn’t know one even had to sort of learn. I mean, somebody would read stories aloud, and you liked them very much and you remembered where the book went back on the shelf and you were always allowed to take it out and have a look at it yourself, and so you found you were reading it too, without bothering to learn to spell or anything like that. It wasn’t so good later,’ she said, ‘because I’ve never been able to spell very well. And if somebody had taught me to spell when I was about four years old I can see it would have been very good indeed. My father did teach me to do addition and subtraction and multiplication, of course, because he said the multiplication table was the most useful thing you could learn in life, and I learnt long division too.’
‘What a clever man he must have been!’
‘I don’t think he was specially clever,’ said Tuppence, ‘but he was just very, very nice.’
‘Aren’t we getting away from the point?’
‘Yes, we are,’ said Tuppence. ‘Well, as I s
aid, when I thought of reading Androcles and the Lion again–it came in a book of stories about animals, I think, by Andrew Lang–oh, I loved that. And there was a story about “a day in my life at Eton” by an Eton schoolboy. I can’t think why I wanted to read that, but I did. It was one of my favourite books. And there were some stories from the classics, and there was Mrs Molesworth, The Cuckoo Clock, Four Winds Farm–’
‘Well, that’s all right,’ said Tommy. ‘No need to give me a whole account of your literary triumphs in early youth.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Tuppence, ‘that you can’t get them nowadays. I mean, sometimes you get reprints of them, but they’ve usually been altered and have different pictures in them. Really, the other day I couldn’t recognize Alice in Wonderland when I saw it. Everything looks so peculiar in it. There are the books I really could get still. Mrs Molesworth, one or two of the old fairy books–Pink, Blue and Yellow–and then, of course, lots of later ones which I’d enjoyed. Lots of Stanley Weymans and things like that. There are quite a lot here, left behind.’
‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘You were tempted. You felt it was a good buy.’
‘Yes. At least–what d’you mean a “goodbye”?’
‘I mean b-u-y,’ said Tommy.
‘Oh. I thought you were going to leave the room and were saying goodbye to me.’
‘Not at all,’ said Tommy, ‘I was deeply interested. Anyway, it was a good b-u-y.’
‘And I got them very cheap, as I tell you. And–and here they all are among our own books and others. Only, we’ve got such a terrible lot now of books, and the shelves we had made I don’t think are going to be nearly enough. What about your special sanctum? Is there room there for more books?’