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very beautiful or very ugly. And that doesn't seem to happen so noticeably in the country, does it?'
    'I'm telling you,' said Tommy, 'that Hannibal and I have been extremely clever.'
    'I thought you said it was Hannibal.'
    Tommy reached out his hand and took a book from the shelf in front of him.
    'Kidnapped,' he remarked. 'Oh yes, another Robert Louis Stevenson. Somebody must have been very fond of Robert Louis Stevenson. The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, Catriona and two others, I think. All given to Alexander Parkinson by a fond grandmother and one from a generous aunt.'
    'Well,' said Tuppence, 'what about it?'
    'And I've found his grave,' said Tommy.
    'Found what?'
    'Well, Hannibal did. It's right in the corner against one of the small doors into the church. I suppose it's the door to the vestry, something like that. It's very rubbed and not well kept up, but that's it. He was fourteen when he died. Alexander Richard Parkinson. Hannibal was nosing about there. I got him away from it and managed to make out the inscription, in spite of its being so rubbed.'
    'Fourteen,' said Tuppence. 'Poor little boy.'
    'Yes,' said Tommy, 'it's sad and -'
    'You've got something in your head,' said Tuppence. 'I don't understand.'
    'Well, I wondered. I suppose, Tuppence, you've infected me. That's the worst of you. When you get keen on something, you don't go on with it by yourself, you get somebody else to take an interest in it too.'
    'I don't quite know what you mean,' said Tuppence.
    'I wondered if it was a case of cause and effect.'
    'What do you mean, Tommy?'
    'I was wondering about Alexander Parkinson who took a lot of trouble, though no doubt he enjoyed himself doing it, making a kind of code, a secret message in a book. “Mary Jordan did not die naturally.” Supposing that was true? Supposing Mary Jordan, whoever she was, didn't die naturally? Well then, don't you see, perhaps the next thing that happened was that Alexander Parkinson died.'
    'You don't mean - you don't think -'
    'Well, one wonders,' said Tommy. 'It started me wondering - fourteen years old. There was no mention of what he died of. I suppose there wouldn't be on a gravestone. There was just a text: In thy presence is the fullness of joy. Something like that. But - it might have been because he knew something that was dangerous to somebody else. And so - and so - he died.'
    'You mean he was killed? You're just imagining things,' said Tuppence.
    'Well, you started it. Imagining things, or wondering. It's much the same thing, isn't it?'
    'We shall go on wondering, I suppose,' said Tuppence, 'and we shan't be able to find out anything because it was all such years and years and years ago.'
    They looked at each other.
    'Round about the time we were trying to investigate the Jane Finn business,' said Tommy.
    They looked at each other again; their minds going back to the past.

Postern of Fate

Chapter 6
    PROBLEMS
    Moving house is often thought of beforehand as an agreeable exercise which the movers are going to enjoy, but it does not always turn out as expected.
    Relations have to be reopened or adjusted with electricians, with builders, with carpenters, with painters, with wallpaperers, with providers of refrigerators, gas stoves, electric appliances, with upholsterers, makers of curtains, hangers-up of curtains, those who lay linoleum, those who supply carpets. Every day has not only its appointed task but usually something between four and twelve extra callers, either long expected or those whose coming was quite forgotten.
    But there were moments when Tuppence with sighs of relief announced various finalities in different fields.
    'I really think our kitchen is almost perfect by now,' she said. 'Only I can't find the proper kind of flour bin yet.'
    'Oh,' said Tommy, 'does it matter very much?'
    'Well, it does rather. I mean, you buy flour very often in three-pound bags and it won't go into these kind of containers. They're all so dainty. You know, one has a pretty rose on