Chapter 6 Postern of Fate

Chapter 6 Postern of Fate

Mr Durrance’s shop was half-way up the village. It was on a corner site,had a few photographs displayed in the window; a couple of marriagegroups, a kicking baby in a nudist condition on a rug, one or two beardedyoung men taken with their girls. None of the photographs were verygood, some of them already displayed signs of age. There were also post-cards in large numbers; birthday cards and a few special shelves arrangedin order of relationships. To my Husband. To my Wife. One or two bathinggroups. There were a few pocket-books and wallets of rather poor qualityand a certain amount of stationery¹ and envelopes bearing² floral designs.
Boxes of small notepaper decorated with flowers and labelled For Notes.
Tuppence wandered about a little, picking up various specimens³ of themerchandise and waiting whilst⁴ a discussion about the results obtainedfrom a certain camera were criticized, and advice was asked.
An elderly woman with grey hair and rather lack-lustre eyes attended toa good deal of the more ordinary requests. A rather tall young man withlong flaxen hair and a budding beard seemed to be the principal attend-ant. He came along the counter towards Tuppence, looking at her ques-tioningly.
‘Can I help you in any way?’
‘Really,’ said Tuppence, ‘I wanted to ask about albums. You know, photo-graph albums.’
‘Ah, things to stick your photos in, you mean? Well, we’ve got one or twoof those but you don’t get so much of them nowadays, I mean, people govery largely for transparencies, of course.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I collect them, you know. I col-lect old albums. Ones like this.’
She produced, with the air of a conjurer, the album she’d been sent.
‘Ah, that goes back a long time, doesn’t it?’ said Mr Durrance. ‘Ah, wellnow, over fifty years old, I should say. Of course, they did do a lot of thosethings around then, didn’t they? Everyone had an album.’
‘They had birthday books, too,’ said Tuppence.
‘Birthday books– yes, I remember something about them. My grand-mother had a birthday book, I remember. Lots of people had to write theirname in it. We’ve got birthday cards here still, but people don’t buy themmuch nowadays. It’s more Valentines, you know, and Happy Christmases,of course.’
‘I don’t know whether you had any old albums. You know, the sort ofthings people don’t want any more, but they interest me as a collector. Ilike having different specimens.’
‘Well, everyone collects something nowadays, that’s true enough,’ saidDurrance. ‘You’d hardly believe it, the things people collect. I don’t thinkI’ve got anything as old as this one of yours, though. However, I could lookaround.’
He went behind the counter and pulled open a drawer against the wall.
‘Lot of stuff in here,’ he said. ‘I meant to turn it out some time but Ididn’t know as there’d really be any market for it. A lot of weddings here,of course. But then, I mean, weddings date. People want them just at thetime of the wedding but nobody comes back to look for weddings in thepast.’
‘You mean, nobody comes in and says “My grandmother was marriedhere. I wonder if you’ve got any photographs of her wedding?”’
‘Don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that,’ said Durrance. ‘Still, younever know. They do ask you for queer⁵ things sometimes. Sometimes, youknow, someone comes in and wants to see whether you’ve kept a negativeof a baby. You know what mothers are. They want pictures of their babieswhen they were young. Awful pictures, most of them are, anyway. Nowand then we’ve even had the police round. You know, they want toidentify someone. Someone who was here as a boy, and they want to seewhat he looks like–or rather what he looked like then, and whether he’slikely to be the same one as one they’re looking for now and whom they’reafter because he’s wanted for murder or for swindles. I must say thatcheers things up sometimes,’ said Durrance with a happy smile.
‘I see you’re quite crime-minded,’ said Tuppence.
‘Oh well, you know, you’re reading about things like that every day, whythis man is supposed to have killed his wife about six months ago, and allthat. Well, I mean, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Because, I mean, some peoplesay that she’s still alive. Other people say that he buried her somewhereand nobody’s found her. Things like that. Well, a photograph of him mightcome in useful.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence.
‘She felt that though she was getting on good terms with Mr Durrancenothing was coming of it.
‘I don’t suppose you’d have any photographs of someone called–I thinkher name was Mary Jordan. Some name like that. But it was a long timeago. About–oh, I suppose sixty years. I think she died here.’
‘Well, it’d be well before my time,’ said Mr Durrance. ‘Father kept a goodmany things. You know, he was one of those–hoarders, they call them.
Never wanted to throw anything away. Anyone he’d known he’d remem-ber, especially if there was a history about it. Mary Jordan. I seem to re-member something about her. Something to do with the Navy, wasn’t it,and a submarine? And they said she was a spy, wasn’t she? She was halfforeign. Had a Russian mother or a German mother–might have been a Ja-panese mother or something like that.’
‘Yes. I just wondered if you had any pictures of her.’
‘Well, I don’t think so. I’ll have a look around some time when I’ve got alittle time. I’ll let you know if anything turns up. Perhaps you’re a writer,are you?’ he said hopefully.
‘Well,’ said Tuppence, ‘I don’t make a whole- time job of it, but I amthinking of bringing out a rather small book. You know, recalling thetimes of about anything from a hundred years ago down till today. Youknow, curious things that have happened including crimes and adven-tures. And, of course, old photographs are very interesting and would il-lustrate the book beautifully.’
‘Well, I’ll do everything I can to help you, I’m sure. Must be quite inter-esting, what you’re doing. Quite interesting to do, I mean.’
‘There were some people called Parkinson,’ said Tuppence. ‘I think theylived in our house once.’
‘Ah, you come from the house up on the hill, don’t you? The Laurels⁶ orKatmandu–I can’t remember what it was called last. Swallow’s Nest it wascalled once, wasn’t it? Can’t think why.’
‘I suppose there were a lot of swallows nesting in the roof,’ suggestedTuppence. ‘There still are.’
‘Well, may have been, I suppose. But it seems a funny name for a house.’
Tuppence, having felt that she’d opened relations satisfactorily, thoughnot hoping very much that any result would come of it, bought a few post-cards and some flowered notes in the way of stationery, and wished MrDurrance goodbye, got back to the gate, walked up the drive, then checkedherself on the way to the house and went up the side path round it to haveone more look at KK. She got near the door. She stopped suddenly, thenwalked on. It looked as though something like a bundle of clothes was ly-ing near the door. Something they’d pulled out of Mathilde and notthought to look at, Tuppence wondered.
She quickened her pace, almost running. When she got near the doorshe stopped suddenly. It was not a bundle of old clothes. The clothes wereold enough, and so was the body that wore them. Tuppence bent⁷ over andthen stood up again, steadied herself with a hand on the door.
‘Isaac!’ she said. ‘Isaac. Poor old Isaac. I believe–oh, I do believe that he’sdead.’
Somebody was coming towards her on the path from the house as shecalled out, taking a step or two.
‘Oh, Albert, Albert. Something awful’s happened. Isaac, old Isaac. He’slying there and he’s dead and I think–I think somebody has killed him.’

1 stationery   

n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封

参考例句：

• She works in the stationery department of a big store.她在一家大商店的文具部工作。
• There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.文具一多，心里自会觉得踏实。

2 bearing   

n.关系，影响，举止，姿态，方位，方向

参考例句：

• What you said had not much bearing on the problem.你说的话跟这个问题没有多大关系。
• He preserved his grave and dignified bearing.他保持庄重威严的仪态。

3 specimens   

n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人

参考例句：

• Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
• The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 whilst   

conj.一边...一边，当...的时候，同时，时时

参考例句：

• She sang whilst she worked.她边干活边唱歌。
• There was dead silence in the court,whilst the white rabbit read out these verses.当白兔子念诗的时候，法庭上鸦雀无声。

5 queer   

adj.奇怪的，异常的，不舒服的，眩晕的

参考例句：

• I heard some queer footsteps.我听到某种可疑的脚步声。
• She has been queer lately.她最近身体不舒服。

6 laurels   

n.桂冠，荣誉

参考例句：

• The path was lined with laurels.小路两旁都种有月桂树。
• He reaped the laurels in the finals.他在决赛中荣膺冠军。

7 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。