Tommy drove through Regent’s Park, then he passed through variousroads he’d not been through for years. Once when he and Tuppence hadhad a flat near Belsize Park, he remembered walks on Hampstead Heathand a dog they had had who’d enjoyed the walks. A dog with a particularlyself-willed nature. When coming out of the flat he had always wished toturn to the left on the road that would lead to Hampstead Heath. The ef-forts of Tuppence or Tommy to make him turn to the right and go intoshopping quarters were usually defeated. James, a Sealyham of obstinatenature, had allowed his heavy sausage-like body to rest flat on the pave-ment, he would produce a tongue from his mouth and give every semb-lance of being a dog tired out by being given the wrong kind of exercise bythose who owned him. People passing by usually could not refrain fromcomment.
‘Oh, look at that dear little dog there. You know, the one with the whitehair–looks rather like a sausage, doesn’t he? And panting, poor fellow.
Those people of his, they won’t let him go the way he wants to, he lookstired out, just tired out.’
Tommy had taken the lead from Tuppence and had pulled James firmlyin the opposite direction from the one he wanted to go.
‘Oh dear,’ said Tuppence, ‘can’t you pick him up, Tommy?’
‘What, pick up James? He’s too much of a weight.’
James, with a clever manoeuvre1, turned his sausage body so that he wasfacing once more in the direction of his expectation.
‘Look, poor little doggie, I expect he wants to go home, don’t you?’
James tugged2 firmly on his lead.
‘Oh, all right,’ said Tuppence, ‘we’ll shop later. Come on, we’ll have to letJames go where he wants to go. He’s such a heavy dog, you can’t make himdo anything else.’
James looked up and wagged his tail. ‘I quite agree with you,’ the wagseemed to say. ‘You’ve got the point at last. Come on. Hampstead Heath itis.’ And it usually had been.
Tommy wondered. He’d got the address of the place where he was go-ing. The last time he had been to see Colonel Pikeaway it had been inBloomsbury. A small poky room full of smoke. Here, when he reached theaddress, it was a small, nondescript house fronting on the heath not farfrom the birthplace of Keats. It did not look particularly artistic3 or inter-esting.
Tommy rang a bell. An old woman with a close resemblance to whatTommy imagined a witch might look like, with a sharp nose and a sharpchin which almost met each other, stood there, looking hostile.
‘Can I see Colonel Pikeaway?’
‘Don’t know I’m sure,’ said the witch. ‘Who would you be now?’
‘My name is Beresford.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes. He did say something about that.’
‘Can I leave the car outside?’
‘Yes, it’ll be all right for a bit. Don’t get many of the wardens4 pokingaround this street. No yellow lines just along here. Better lock it up, sir.
You never know.’
Tommy attended to these rules as laid down, and followed the old wo-man into the house.
‘One flight up,’ she said, ‘not more.’
Already on the stairs there was the strong smell of tobacco. The witch-woman tapped at a door, poked5 her head in, said, ‘This must be the gentle-man you wanted to see. Says you’re expecting him.’ She stood aside andTommy passed into what he remembered before, an aroma6 of smokewhich forced him almost immediately to choke and gulp7. He doubted hewould have remembered Colonel Pikeaway apart from the smoke and thecloud and smell of nicotine8. A very old man lay back in an armchair–asomewhat ragged9 armchair with holes on the arms of it. He looked upthoughtfully as Tommy entered.
‘Shut the door, Mrs Copes,’ he said, ‘don’t want to let the cold air in, dowe?’
Tommy rather thought that they did, but obviously it was his not toreason why, his but to inhale10 and in due course die, he presumed.
‘Thomas Beresford,’ said Colonel Pikeaway thoughtfully. ‘Well, well,how many years is it since I saw you?’
Tommy had not made a proper computation.
‘Long time ago,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, ‘came here with what’s- his-name, didn’t you? Ah well, never mind, one name’s as good as another. Arose by any other name would smell as sweet. Juliet said that, didn’t she?
Silly things sometimes Shakespeare made them say. Of course, he couldn’thelp it, he was a poet. Never cared much for Romeo and Juliet, myself. Allthose suicides for love’s sake. Plenty of ’em about, mind you. Always hap-pening, even nowadays. Sit down, my boy, sit down.’
Tommy was slightly startled at being called ‘my boy’ again, but heavailed himself of the invitation.
‘You don’t mind, sir,’ he said, dispossessing the only possible-seemingchair of a large pile of books.
‘No, no, shove ’em all on the floor. Just trying to look something up, Iwas. Well, well, I’m pleased to see you. You look a bit older than you did,but you look quite healthy. Ever had a coronary?’
‘No,’ said Tommy.
‘Ah! Good. Too many people suffering from hearts, blood pressure–allthose things. Doing too much. That’s what it is. Running about all over theplace, telling everyone how busy they are and the world can’t get onwithout them, and how important they are and everything else. Do youfeel the same? I expect you do.’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘I don’t feel very important. I feel–well, I feel that Ireally would enjoy relaxing nowadays.’
‘Well, it’s a splendid thought,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘The trouble isthere are so many people about who won’t let you relax. What took you tothis place of yours where you’re living now? I’ve forgotten the name of it.
Just tell me again, will you?’
Tommy obliged with his address.
‘Ah, yes, ah yes, I put the right thing on the envelope then.’
‘Yes, I got your letter.’
‘I understand you’ve been to see Robinson. He’s still going. Just as fat asever, just as yellow as ever, and just as rich or richer than ever, I expect.
Knows all about it too. Knows about money, I mean. What took you there,boy?’
‘Well, we had bought a new house, and a friend of mine advised me thatMr Robinson might be able to clear up a mystery that my wife and I foundconnected with it, relating to a long time back.’
‘I remember now. I don’t believe I ever met her but you’ve got a cleverwife, haven’t you? Did some sterling11 work in the–what is the thing? Soun-ded like the catechism. N or M, that was it, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Tommy.
‘And now you’re on to the same line again, are you? Looking into things.
Had suspicions, had you?’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘that’s entirely12 wrong. We only went there because wewere tired of the flat we were living in and they kept putting up the rent.’
‘Nasty trick,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘They do that to you nowadays, thelandlords. Never satisfied. Talk about Daughters of the Horse Leech13–sonsof the horse leech are just as bad. All right, you went to live there. Il fautcultiver son jardin,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, with a rather sudden onslaughton the French language. ‘Trying to rub up my French again,’ he explained.
‘Got to keep in with the Common Market nowadays, haven’t we? Funnystuff going on there, by the way. You know, behind things. Not what yousee on the surface. So you went to live at Swallow’s Nest. What took you toSwallow’s Nest, I’d like to know?’
‘The house we bought–well, it’s called The Laurels14 now,’ said Tommy.
‘Silly name,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘Very popular at one time, though. Iremember when I was a boy, all the neighbours, you know, they had thosegreat Victorian drives up to the house. Always getting in loads of gravelfor putting down on it and laurels on each side. Sometimes they wereglossy green ones and sometimes the speckled ones. Supposed to be veryshowy. I suppose some of the people who’ve lived there called it that andthe name stuck. Is that right?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Tommy. ‘Not the last people. I believe the lastpeople called it Katmandu, or some name abroad because they lived in acertain place they liked.’
‘Yes, yes. Swallow’s Nest goes back a long time. Yes, but one’s got to goback sometimes. In fact, that’s what I was going to talk to you about. Goingback.’
‘Did you ever know it, sir?’
‘What–Swallow’s Nest, alias15 The Laurels? No, I never went there. But itfigured in certain things. It’s tied up with certain periods in the past.
People over a certain period. A period of great anxiety to this country.’
‘I gather you’ve come in contact with some information pertaining16 tosomeone called Mary Jordan. Or known by that name. Anyway, that’swhat Mr Robinson told us.’
‘Want to see what she looked like? Go over to the mantelpiece. There’s aphotograph on the left side.’
Tommy got up, went across to the mantelpiece and picked up the photo-graph. It represented an old-world type of a photograph. A girl wearing apicture hat and holding up a bunch of roses towards her head.
‘Looks damn silly now, doesn’t it?’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘But she was agood- looking girl, I believe. Unlucky though. She died young. Rather atragedy, that was.’
‘I don’t know anything about her,’ said Tommy.
‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘Nobody does nowadays.’
‘There was some idea locally that she was a German spy,’ said Tommy.
‘Mr Robinson told me that wasn’t the case.’
‘No, it wasn’t the case. She belonged to us. And she did good work for us,too. But somebody got wise to her.’
‘That was when there were some people called Parkinson living there,’
said Tommy.
‘Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know all the details. Nobody does nowadays. Iwasn’t personally involved, you know. All this has been raked up since.
Because, you see, there’s always trouble. There’s trouble in every country.
There’s trouble all over the world now and not for the first time. No. Youcan go back a hundred years and you’ll find trouble, and you can go backanother hundred years and you’ll find trouble. Go back to the Crusadesand you’ll find everyone dashing out of the country going to deliver Jerus-alem, or you’ll find risings all over the country. Wat Tyler and all the restof them. This, that and the other, there’s always trouble.’
‘Do you mean there’s some special trouble now?’
‘Of course there is. I tell you, there’s always trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Oh, we don’t know,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘They even come round toan old man like me and ask me what I can tell them, or what I can remem-ber about certain people in the past. Well, I can’t remember very muchbut I know about one or two people. You’ve got to look into the past some-times. You’ve got to know what was happening then. What secrets peoplehad, what knowledge they had that they kept to themselves, what they hidaway, what they pretended was happening and what was really happen-ing. You’ve done good jobs, you and your missus at different times. Do youwant to go on with it now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tommy. ‘If–well, do you think there is anything Icould do? I’m rather an old man now.’
‘Well, you look to me as though you’ve got better health than manypeople of your age. Look to me as though you’ve got better health thansome of the younger ones too. And as for your wife, well, she was alwaysgood at nosing out things, wasn’t she? Yes, good as a well-trained dog.’
Tommy could not repress a smile.
‘But what is this all about?’ said Tommy. ‘I–of course I’m quite willing todo anything if–if you thought I could, but I don’t know. Nobody’s told meanything.’
‘I don’t suppose they will,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘I don’t think theywant me to tell you anything. I don’t suppose that Robinson told youmuch. He keeps his mouth shut, that large fat man. But I’ll tell you, well,the bare facts. You know what the world’s like–well, the same things al-ways. Violence, swindles, materialism17, rebellion by the young, love of viol-ence and a good deal of sadism, almost as bad as the days of the HitlerYouth. All those things. Well, when you want to find out what’s wrong notonly with this country but world trouble as well, it’s not easy. It’s a goodthing, the Common Market. It’s what we always needed, always wanted.
But it’s got to be a real Common Market. That’s got to be understood veryclearly. It’s got to be a united Europe. There’s got to be a union of civilizedcountries with civilized18 ideas and with civilized beliefs and principles. Thefirst thing is, when there’s something wrong you’ve got to know wherethat something is and that’s where that yellow whale of a fellow stillknows his oats.’
‘You mean Mr Robinson?’
‘Yes, I mean Mr Robinson. They wanted to give him a peerage, youknow, but he wouldn’t have it. And you know what he means.’
‘I suppose,’ said Tommy, ‘you mean–he stands for–money.’
‘That’s right. Not materialism, but he knows about money. He knowswhere it comes from, he knows where it goes, he knows why it goes, heknows who’s behind things. Behind banks, behind big industrial undertak-ings, and he has to know who is responsible for certain things, big for-tunes made out of drugs, drug pushers, drugs being sent all over theworld, being marketed, a worship of money. Money not just for buyingyourself a big house and two Rolls-Royces, but money for making moremoney and doing down, doing away with the old beliefs. Beliefs in hon-esty, in fair trading. You don’t want equality in the world, you want thestrong to help the weak. You want the rich to finance the poor. You wantthe honest and the good to be looked up to and admired. Finance! Thingsare coming back now to finance all the time. What finance is doing, whereit’s going, what it’s supporting, how far hidden it is. There are people youknew, people in the past who had power and brains and their power andbrains brought the money and means, and some of their activities weresecret but we’ve got to find out about them. Find out who their secretspassed to, who they’ve been handed down to, who may be running thingsnow. Swallow’s Nest was a type of headquarters. A headquarters for whatI should call evil. Later in Hollowquay there was something else. D’you re-member Jonathan Kane at all?’
‘It’s a name,’ said Tommy. ‘I don’t remember anything personally.’
‘Well, he was said to be what was admired at one time–what came to beknown later as a fascist19. That was the time before we knew what Hitlerwas going to be like and all the rest of them. The time when we thoughtthat something like fascism might be a splendid idea to reform the worldwith. This chap Jonathan Kane had followers20. A lot of followers. Young fol-lowers, middle-aged21 followers, a lot of them. He had plans, he had sourcesof power, he knew the secrets of a lot of people. He had the kind of know-ledge that gave him power. Plenty of blackmail22 about as always. We wantto know what he knew, we want to know what he did, and I think it’s pos-sible that he left both plans and followers behind him. Young people whowere enmeshed and perhaps still are in favour of his ideas. There havebeen secrets, you know, there are always secrets that are worth money.
I’m not telling you anything exact because I don’t know anything exact.
The trouble with me is that nobody really knows. We think we knoweverything because of what we’ve been through. Wars, turmoil23, peace,new forms of government. We think we know it all, but do we? Do weknow anything about germ warfare24? Do we know everything about gases,about means of inducing pollution? The chemists have their secrets, theNavy, the Air Force–all sorts of things. And they’re not all in the present,some of them were in the past. Some of them were on the point of beingdeveloped but the development didn’t take place. There wasn’t time for it.
But it was written down, it was committed to paper or committed to cer-tain people, and those people had children and their children had childrenand maybe some of the things came down. Left in wills, left in documents,left with solicitors25 to be delivered at a certain time.
‘Some people don’t know what it is they’ve got hold of, some of themhave just destroyed it as rubbish. But we’ve got to find out a little morethan we do because things are happening all the time. In different coun-tries, in different places, in wars, in Vietnam, in guerrilla wars, in Jordan,in Israel, even in the uninvolved countries. In Sweden and Switzerland–anywhere. There are these things and we want clues to them. And there’ssome idea that some of the clues could be found in the past. Well, youcan’t go back into the past, you can’t go to a doctor and say, “Hypnotize meand let me see what happened in 1914,” or in 1918 or earlier still perhaps.
In 1890 perhaps. Something was being planned, something was nevercompletely developed. Ideas. Just look far back. They were thinking of fly-ing, you know, in the Middle Ages. They had some ideas about it. The an-cient Egyptians, I believe, had certain ideas. They were never developed.
But once the ideas passed on, once you come to the time when they getinto the hands of someone who has the means and the kind of brain thatcan develop them, anything may happen–bad or good. We have a feelinglately that some of the things that have been invented–germ warfare, forexample–are difficult to explain except through the process of some secretdevelopment, thought to be unimportant but it hasn’t been unimportant.
Somebody in whose hands it’s got has made some adaptation of it whichcan produce very, very frightening results. Things that can change a char-acter, can perhaps turn a good man into a fiend, and usually for the samereason. For money. Money and what money can buy, what money can get.
The power that money can develop. Well, young Beresford, what do yousay to all that?’
‘I think it’s a very frightening prospect,’ said Tommy.
‘That, yes. But do you think I’m talking nonsense? Do you think this isjust an old man’s fantasies?’
‘No, sir,’ said Tommy. ‘I think you’re a man who knows things. You al-ways have been a man who knew things.’
‘H’m. That’s why they wanted me, wasn’t it? They came here, com-plained about all the smoke, said it stifled26 them, but– well, you knowthere’s a time–a time when there was that Frankfurt ring business–well,we managed to stop that. We managed to stop it by getting at who was be-hind it. There’s a somebody, not just one somebody–several somebodieswho are probably behind this. Perhaps we can know who they are, buteven if not we can know perhaps what the things are.’
‘I see,’ said Tommy. ‘I can almost understand.’
‘Can you? Don’t you think this is all rather nonsense? Rather fantastic?’
‘I don’t think anything’s too fantastic to be true,’ said Tommy. ‘I’velearnt that, at least, through a pretty long life. The most amazing thingsare true, things you couldn’t believe could be true. But what I have tomake you understand is that I have no qualifications. I have no scientificknowledge. I have been concerned always with security.’
‘But,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, ‘you’re a man who has always been able tofind out things. You. You–and the other one. Your wife. I tell you, she’s gota nose for things. She likes to find out things and you go about and takeher about. These women are like that. They can get at secrets. If you’reyoung and beautiful you do it like Delilah. When you’re old–I can tell you,I had an old great-aunt once and there was no secret that she didn’t noseinto and find out the truth about. There’s the money side. Robinson’s on tothat. He knows about money. He knows where the money goes, why itgoes, where it goes to, and where it comes from and what it’s doing. All therest of it. He knows about money. It’s like a doctor feeling your pulse. Hecan feel a financier’s pulse. Where the headquarters of money are. Who’susing it, what for and why. I’m putting you on to this because you’re in theright place. You’re in the right place by accident and you’re not there forthe reason anyone might suppose you were. For there you are, an ordin-ary couple, elderly, retired27, seeking for a nice house to end your days in,poking about into the corners of it, interested in talking. Some sentenceone day will tell you something. That’s all I want you to do. Look about.
Find out what legends or stories are told about the good old days or thebad old days.’
‘A naval28 scandal, plans of a submarine or something, that’s talked aboutstill,’ said Tommy. ‘Several people keep mentioning it. But nobody seemsto know anything really about it.’
‘Yes, well, that’s a good starting point. It was round about then JonathanKane lived in that part, you know. He had a cottage down near the sea andhe ran his propaganda campaign round there. He had disciples29 whothought he was wonderful, Jonathan Kane. K-a-n-e. But I would ratherspell it a different way. I’d spell it C-a-i-n. That would describe him better.
He was set on destruction and methods of destruction. He left England. Hewent through Italy to countries rather far away, so it’s said. How much isrumour I don’t know. He went to Russia. He went to Iceland, he went tothe American continent. Where he went and what he did and who wentwith him and listened to him, we don’t know. But we think that he knewthings, simple things; he was popular with his neighbours, he lunchedwith them and they with him. Now, one thing I’ve got to tell you. Lookabout you. Ferret out things, but for goodness’ sake take care ofyourselves, both of you. Take care of that–what’s-her-name? Prudence30?’
‘Nobody ever called her Prudence. Tuppence,’ said Tommy.
‘That’s right. Take care of Tuppence and tell Tuppence to take care ofyou. Take care of what you eat and what you drink and where you go andwho is making up to you and being friendly and why should they? A littleinformation comes along. Something odd or queer. Some story in the pastthat might mean something. Someone perhaps who’s a descendant or a re-lative or someone who knew people in the past.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Tommy. ‘We both will. But I don’t feel that we’llbe able to do it. We’re too old. We don’t know enough.’
‘You can have ideas.’
‘Yes. Tuppence has ideas. She thinks that something might be hidden inour house.’
‘So it might. Others have had the same idea. Nobody’s ever found any-thing so far, but then they haven’t really looked with any assurance at all.
Various houses and various families, they change. They get sold and some-body else comes and then somebody else and so they go on. Lestrangesand Mortimers and Parkinsons. Nothing much in the Parkinsons exceptfor one of the boys.’
‘Alexander Parkinson?’
‘So you know about him. How did you manage that?’
‘He left a message for someone to find in one of Robert Louis Steven-son’s books. Mary Jordan did not die naturally. We found it.’
‘The fate of every man we have bound about his neck–some saying likethat, isn’t there? Carry on, you two. Pass through the Postern of Fate.’
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manoeuvre
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tugged
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artistic
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wardens
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poked
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aroma
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gulp
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nicotine
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ragged
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inhale
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sterling
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entirely
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leech
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laurels
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alias
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pertaining
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materialism
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civilized
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fascist
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followers
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middle-aged
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blackmail
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turmoil
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warfare
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solicitors
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stifled
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retired
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naval
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disciples
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prudence
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