POSTERN OF FATE Agatha Christie

would arouse envy and jealousy among callers. They must even
rejoice the artistic feelings of tradesmen delivering joints of meat and
crates of grocery.
At four o'clock Tuppence produced a brown teapot full of good strong
tea in the kitchen, placed a sugar basin full of lumps of sugar and a
milk jug by it, and called Isaac in to refresh himself before departing.
She went in search of Tommy.
I suppose he's asleep somewhere, thought Tuppence to herself as she
looked from one room into another. She was glad to see a head
sticking up on the landing out of the sinister pit in the floor.
'It's all right now, ma'am,' said an electrician, 'no need to be careful
any more. It's all fixed.' He added that he was starting work on a
different portion of the house on the following morning.
'I do hope,' said Tuppence, 'that you will really come.' She added,
'Have you seen Mr Beresford anywhere?'
'Aye, your husband, you mean? Yes, he's up on an upper floor, I think.
Dropping things, he was. Yes, rather heavy things, too. Must have
been some books, I think.'
'Books!' said Tuppence. 'Well I never!'
The electrician retreated down into his own personal underworld in
the passage and Tuppence went up to the attic converted to the extra
book library at present devoted to children's books.