'You mean pull things out from inside her, as you might say? Who's been putting that idea into your head?'
'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'that's what we do mean to do.'
'What do you think you'll find there?'
'Nothing but rubbish, I expect,' said Tommy. 'But it would be nice,' he said in a rather doubtful voice, 'if things were cleared up a bit, you know. We might want to keep other things in here. You know - games, perhaps, a croquet set. Something like that.'
'There used to be a crookey lawn once. Long time ago. That was in Mrs Faulkner's time. Yes. Down where the rose garden is now. Mind you, it wasn't a full size one.'
'When was that?' asked Tommy.
'What, you mean the crookey lawn? Oh, well before my time, it was. There's always people as want to tell you things about what used to happen - things as used to be hidden and why and who wanted to hide them. Lot of tall stories, some of them lies. Some maybe as was true.'
'You're very clever, Isaac,' said Tuppence, 'you always seem to know about everything. How do you know about the croquet lawn?'
'Oh, used to be a box of crookey things in here. Been there for ages. Shouldn't think there's much of it left now.'
Tuppence relinquished Mathilde and went over to a corner where there was a long wooden box. After releasing the lid with some difficulty as it had stuck under the ravages of time, it yielded a faded red ball, a blue ball and one mallet bent and warped. The rest of it was mainly cobwebs.
'Might have been in Mrs Fautkner's time, that might. They do say, you know, as she played in the tournaments in her time,' said Isaac.
'At Wimbledon?' said Tuppence, incredulous.
'Well, not exactly at Wimbledon, I don't think it was. No. The locals, you know. They used to have them down here. Pictures I've seen down at the photographer's -'
'The photographer's?'
'Ah. In the village, Durrance. You know Durrance, don't you?'
'Durrance?' said Tuppence vaguely. 'Oh yes, he sells films and things like that, doesn't he?'
'That's right. Mind you, he's not the old Durrance, as manages it now. It's his grandson, or his great-grandson, I shouldn't wonder. He sells mostly postcards, you know, and Christmas cards and birthday cards and things like that. He used to take photographs of people. Got a whole lot tucked away. Somebody come in the other day, you know. Wanted a picture of her great-grandmother, she said. She said she'd had one but she'd broken it or burnt it or lost it or something, and she wondered if there was the negative left. But I don't think she found it. But there's a lot of old albums in there stuck away somewhere.'
'Albums,' said Tuppence thoughtfully.
'Anything more I can do?' said Isaac.
'Well, just give us a bit of a hand with Jane, or whatever her name is.'
'Not Jane, it's Mathilde, and it's not Matilda, either which it ought by rights to be, I should say. I believe it was always called Mathilde, for some reason. French, I expect.'
'French or American,' said Tommy, thoughtfully. 'Mathilde. Louise. That sort of thing.'
'Quite a good place to have hidden things, don't you think?' said Tuppence, placing her arm into the cavity in Mathilde's stomach. She drew out a dilapidated indiarubber ball, which had once been red and yellow but which now had gaping holes in it.
'I suppose that's children,' said Tuppence. 'They always put things in like this.'
'Whenever they see a hole,' said Isaac. 'But there was a young gentleman once as used to leave his letters in it, so I've heard. Same as though it was a post-box.'
'Letters? Who were they for?'
'Some young lady, I'd think. But it was before my time,' said Isaac, as usual.
'The things that always happened long before Isaac's time,' said Tuppence, as Isaac, having adjusted Mathilde into a good position, left them on the pretext of having to shut up the frames.
Tommy removed his jacket.
'It's incredible,' said Tuppence, panting a little as she removed a scratched and dirty arm from the gaping wound in Mathilde's stomach, 'that anyone could put so many things or want to put them, in this thing, and that nobody should ever have cleaned it out.'
'Well, why should anyone clean it out? Why would anyone want to clean it out?'
'That's true,' said Tuppence. 'We do, though, don't we?'
'Only because we can't think of anything better to do. I don't think anything will come of it though. Ow!'
'What's the matter?' said Tuppence.
'Oh, I scratched myself on something.'
He drew his arm out slightly, readjusted it, and felt inside once more. A knitted scarf rewarded him. It had clearly been the sustenance of moths at one time and possibly after that had descended to an even lower level of social life.
'Disgusting,' said Tommy.
Tuppence pushed him aside slightly and fished in with her own arm, leaning over Mathilde while she felt about inside.
'Mind the nails,' said Tommy.
'What's this?' said Tuppence.
She brought her find out into the open air. It appeared to be the wheel off a bus or cart or some child's toy.
'I think,' she said, 'we're wasting our time.'
'I'm sure we are,' said Tommy.
'All the same, we might as well do it properly,' said Tuppence. 'Oh dear, I've got three spiders walking up my arm. It'll be a worm in a minute and I hate worms.'
'I don't think there'll be any worms inside Mathilde. I mean, worms like going underground in the earth. I don't think they'd care for Mathilde as a boarding-house, do you?'
'Oh well, it's getting empty at any rate, I think,' said Tuppence. 'Hullo, what's this? Dear me, it seems to be a needle book. What a funny thing to find. There's still some needles in it but they're all rusted.'
'Some child who didn't like to do her sewing, I expect,' said Tommy.
'Yes, that's a good idea.'
'I touched something that felt like a book just now,' said Tommy.
'Oh. Well, that might be helpful. What part of Mathilde?'
'I should think the appendix or the liver,' said Tommy in a professional tone. 'On her right-hand side. I'm regarding this as an operation!' he added.
'All right, Surgeon. Better pull it out, whatever it is.'
The so-called book, barely recognizable as such, was of ancient lineage. Its pages were loose and stained, and its binding was coming to pieces.
'It seems to be a manual of French,' said Tommy. 'Pour les enfants. Le Petit precepteur.'
'I see,' said Tuppence. 'I've got the same idea as you had. The child didn't want to learn her French lesson; so she came in here and deliberately lost it by putting it into Mathilde. Good old Mathilde.'
'If Mathilde was right side up, it must have been very difficult putting things through this hole in her stomach.'
'Not for a child,' said Tuppence. 'She'd be quite the right height and everything. I mean, she'd kneel and crawl underneath it. Hullo, here's something which feels slippery. Feels rather like an animal's skin.'
'How very unpleasant,' said Tommy. 'Do you think it's a dead rabbit or something?'
'Well, it's not furry or anything. I don't think it's very nice. Oh dear, there's a nail again. Well, it seems to be hung on a nail. There's a sort of bit of string or cord. Funny it hasn't rotted away, isn't it?'
She drew out her find cautiously.
'It's a pocket-book,' she said. 'Yes. Yes, it's been quite good leather once, I think. Quite good leather.'
'Let's see what's inside it, if there is anything inside it,' said Tommy.
'There's something inside it,' said Tuppence.
'Perhaps it's a lot of five pound notes,' she added hopefully.
'Well, I don't suppose they'd be usable still. Paper would rot, wouldn't it?'
'I don't know,' said Tuppence. 'A lot of queer things do survive, you know. I think five pound notes used to be made of wonderfully good paper once, you know. Sort of thin but very durable.'
'Oh well, perhaps it's a twenty pound note. It will help with the housekeeping.'
'What? The money'll be before Isaac's time too, I expect, or else he'd have found it. Ah well. Think! It might be a hundred pound note. I wish it were golden sovereigns. Sovereigns were always in purses. My Great-Aunt Maria had a great purse full of sovereigns. She used to show it to us as children. It was her nest egg, she said, in case the French came. I think it was the French. Anyway, it was for extremities or danger. Lovely fat golden sovereigns. I used to think it was wonderful and I'd think how lovely it would be, you know, once one was grown up and you'd have a purse full of sovereigns.'
'Who was going to give you a purse full of sovereigns?'
'I didn't think of anyone giving it to me,' said Tuppence. 'I thought of it as the sort of thing that belonged to you as a right once you were a grown up person. You know, a real grown up wearing a mantle - that's what they called the things. A mantle with a sort of fur boa round it and a bonnet. You had this great fat purse jammed full of sovereigns, and if you had a favourite grandson who was going back to school, you always gave him a sovereign as a tip.'
'What about the girls, the grand-daughters?'
'I don't think they got any sovereigns,' said Tuppence. 'But sometimes she used to send me half a five pound note.'
'Half a five pound note? That wouldn't be much good.'
'Oh yes, it was. She used to tear the five pound note in half, send me one half first and then the other half in another letter later. You see, it was supposed in that way that nobody'd want to steal it.'
'Oh dear what a lot of precautions everyone did take.'
'They did rather,' said Tuppence. 'Hullo, what's this?'
She was fumbling now in the leather case.
'Let's get out of KK for a minute,' said Tommy, 'and get some air.'
They got outside KK. In the air they saw better what their trophy was like. It was a thick leather wallet of good quality. It was stiff with age but not in any way destroyed.
'I expect it was kept from damp inside Mathilde,' said Tuppence. 'Oh, Tommy, do you know what I think this is?'
'No. What? It isn't money anyway. And certainly not sovereigns. '
'Oh no, it isn't money,' said Tuppence, 'but I think it's letters. I don't know whether we'll be able to read them now. They're very old and faded.'
Very carefully Tommy arranged the crinkled yellow paper of the letters, pushing them apart when he could. The writing was quite large and had once been written in a very deep blue-black ink.
'Meeting place changed,' said Tommy. 'Ken Gardens near Peter Pan. Wednesday 25th, 3.30 p.m. Joanna.'
'I really believe,' said Tuppence, 'we might have something at last.'
'You mean that someone who'd be going to London was told to go on a certain day and meet someone in Kensington Gardens bringing perhaps the papers or the plans or whatever it was. Who do you think got these things out of Mathilde or put them into Mathilde?'
'It couldn't have been a child,' said Tuppence. 'It must have been someone who lived in the house and so could move about without being noticed. Got things from the naval spy, I suppose, and took them to London.'
Tuppence wrapped up the old leather wallet in the scarf she'd been wearing round her neck and she and Tommy returned to the house.
'There may be other papers in there,' said Tuppence, 'but most of them I think are perished and will more or less fall to pieces if you touch them. Hullo, what's this?'
On the hall table a rather bulky package was lying. Albert came out from the dining-room.
'It was left by hand, madam,' he said. 'Left by hand this morning for you.'
'Ah, I wonder what it is,' said Tuppence. She took it.
Tommy and she went into the sitting-room together. Tuppence undid the knot of the string and took off the brown paper wrapping.
'It's a kind of album,' she said, 'I think. Oh, there's a note with it. Ah, it's from Mrs Griffin.
"Dear Mrs Beresford, It was so kind of you to bring me the birthday book the other day. I have had great pleasure looking over it and remembering various people from past days. One does forget so soon. Very often one only remembers somebody's Christian name and not their surname, sometimes it's the other way about. I came across, a little time ago, this old album. It doesn't really belong to me. I think it belonged to my grandmother, but it has a good many pictures in it and among them, I think, there are one or two of the Parkinsons, because my grandmother knew the Parkinsons. I thought perhaps you would like to see it as you seemed to be so interested in the history of your house and who has lived in it in the past. Please don't bother to send it back to me because it means nothing to me personally really, I can assure you. One has so many things in the house always belonging to aunts and grandmothers and the other day when I was looking in an old chest of drawers in the attic I came across six needle-books. Years and years old. I should think almost possibly a hundred years old. And I believe that was not my grandmother but her grandmother again who used at one time always to give a needle-book each to the maids for Christmas and I think these were some she had bought at a sale and would do for another year. Of course quite useless now. Sometimes it seems sad to think of how much waste there has always been."
'A photo album,' said Tuppence. 'Well, that might be fun. Come along, let's have a look.'
