Postern of Fate: A Tommy and Tuppence Mystery by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, traditional, Fiction, Women Sleuths, General, Historical, Mystery & Detective
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2010-02-10T05:35:27+00:00

Three

TOMMY AND TUPPENCE COMPARE NOTES

“You look tired, Tuppence,” said Tommy as at the close of dinner they went into the sitting room and Tuppence dropped into a chair, uttering several large sighs followed by a yawn.

“Tired? I’m dead beat,” said Tuppence.

“What have you been doing? Not things in the garden, I hope.”

“I have not been overworking myself physically,” said Tuppence, coldly. “I’ve been doing like you. Mental research.”

“Also very exhausting, I agree,” said Tommy. “Where, particularly? You didn’t get an awful lot out of Mrs. Griffin the day before yesterday, did you?”

“Well, I did get a good deal, I think. I didn’t get much out of the first recommendation. At least, I suppose I did in a way.”

Opening her handbag, she tugged at a notebook of rather tiresome size, and finally got it out.

“I made various notes each time about things. I took some of the china menus along, for one thing.”

“Oh. And what did that produce?”

“Well, it’s not names that I write down so much as the things they say to me and tell me. And they were very thrilled at that china menu because it seemed it was one particular dinner that everyone had enjoyed very much and they had had a wonderful meal—they hadn’t had anything like it before, and apparently they had lobster salad for the first time. They’d heard of it being served after the joint in the richest and most fashionable houses, but it hadn’t come their way.”

“Oh,” said Tommy, “that wasn’t very helpful.”

“Well, yes it was, in a way, because they said they’d always remember that evening. So I said why would they always remember that evening and they said it was because of the census.”

“What—a census?”

“Yes. You know what a census is, surely, Tommy? Why, we had one only last year, or was it the year before last? You know—having to say, or making everyone sign or enter particulars. Everyone who slept under your roof on a certain night. You know the sort of thing. On the night of November 15th who did you have sleeping under your roof? And you have to put it down, or they have to sign their names. I forget which. Anyway, they were having a census that day and so everyone had to say who was under their roof, and of course a lot of people were at the party and they talked about it. They said it was very unfair and a very stupid thing to have and that anyway they thought it was really a most disgraceful thing to go on having nowadays, because you had to say if you had children and if you were married, or if you were not married but did have children, and things like that. You had to put down a lot of very difficult particulars and you didn’t think it was nice. Not nowadays. So they were very upset about it. I mean, they were upset, not about the old census because nobody minded then. It was just a thing that happened.

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