‘If that picture’s a clue to something, what do you think it’s a clue to?’ He blushed slightly at the inelegancy of the phrase he had just coined. ‘I mean – what’s it all about? It ought to mean something. What I was thinking of,’ said Albert, ‘if you’ll excuse me mentioning it ‘ ‘Go ahead, Albert.’ ‘What I was thinking of was that desk.’ ‘Desk?’ ‘Yes. The one that came by the furniture removers with the little table and the two chairs and the other things. Family property, it was, you said?’ ‘It belonged to my Aunt Ada,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, that’s what I meant sir. That’s the sort of place where you find clues. In old desks. Antiques.’ ‘Possibly,’ said Tommy.
‘It wasn’t my business, I know, and I suppose I really oughtn’t to have gone messing about with it, but while you were away, sir, I couldn’t help it. I had to go and have a look.’ ‘What – a look into the desk?’ ‘Yes, just to see if there might be a clue there. You see, desks like that, they have secret drawers.’ ‘Possibly,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, there you are. There might be a clue there, hidden.
Shut up in the secret drawer.’ ‘It’s an agreeable idea,’ said Tommy. ‘But there’s no reason as far as I know for my Aunt Ada to hide things away in secret drawers.’ ‘You never know with old ladies. They like tucking things away. Like jackdaws, they are, or magpies. I forget which it is.
There might be a secret will in it or something written in invisible ink or a treasure. Where you’d find some hidden treasure.’
‘I’m sorry, Albert, but I think I’m going to have to disappoint you. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing of that kind in that nice old family desk which once belonged to my Uncle William. Another man who turned crusty in his old age besides being stone deaf and having a very bad temper.’
‘What I thought is,’ said Albert, ‘it wouldn’t do any harm to look, would it?’ He added virtuously, ‘It needed cleaning out anyway. You know how old things are with old ladies. They don’t turn them out much – not when they’re rheumatic and fred it hard to get about.’
Tommy paused for a moment or two. He remembered that Tuppence and he had looked quickly through the drawers of the desk, had put their contents such as they were in two large envelopes and removed a few skeins of wool, two cardigans, a black velvet stole and three frae pillow-cases from the lower drawers which they had placed with other clothing and odds and ends for disposal. They had also looked through such papers as there had been in the envelopes after their return home with them. There had been nothing there of particular interest.
‘We looked through the contents, Albert,’ he said. ‘Spent a couple of evenings really. One or two quite interesting old letters, some recipes for boiling ham, some other recipes for preserving fruit, some ration books and coupons and things dating back to the war. There was nothing of any interest.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Albert, ‘but that’s just papers and things, as you might say. Just ordinary go and come what everybody gets holed up in desks and drawers and things. I mean real secret stuff. When I was a boy, you know, I did six months with an antique dealer – helping him fake up things as often as not. But I got to know about secret drawers that way. They usually run to the same pattern. Three or four well-known kinds and they vary it now and then. Don’t you think, sir, you ought to have a look? I mean, I didn’t like to go it meself with you not here.
I would have been presuming.’ He looked at Tommy with the air of a pleading dog.
‘Come on, Albert,’ said Tommy, giving in. ‘Let’s go and presume.’ ‘A very nice piece of furniture,’ thought Tommy, as he stood by Albert’s side, surveying this specimen of his inheritance from Aunt Ada. ‘Nicely kept, beautiful old polish on it, showing the good workmanship and craftsmanship of days gone by.’ ‘Well, Albert,’ he said, ‘go ahead. This is your bit of fun. But don’t go and strain it.’ ‘Oh, I was ever so careful. I didn’t crack it, or slip knives into it or anything like that. First of all we let down the from and put it on these two slab things that pull out. That’s right, you see, the flap comes down this way and that’s where the old lady used to sit. Nice little mother-of-pearl blotting case your Aunt Ada had. It was in the left-hand drawer.’ ‘There are these two things,’ said Tommy.