Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie

Tommy. 'You are certainly pointing out to me the difficulties of what I am undertaking, or trying to undertake.'
    'Research into what? Not lawn-mowers, I hope.'
    'I don't know why you mention lawn-mowers.'
    'Because you're eternally looking at catalogues of them,' said Tuppence. 'You're mad about getting a lawn-mower.'
    'In this house of ours it is historic research we are doing into things - crimes and others that seem to have happened at least sixty or seventy years ago.'
    'Anyway, come on, tell me a little more about your research projects, Tommy.'
    'I went to London,' said Tommy, 'and put certain things in motion.'
    'Ah,' said Tuppence. 'Research? Research in motion. In a way I've been doing the same thing that you are, only our methods are different. And my period is very far back.'
    'Do you mean that you're really beginning to take an interest in the problem of Mary Jordan? So that's how you put it on the agenda nowadays,' said Tommy. 'It's definitely taken shape has it? The mystery, or the problem of Mary Jordan.'
    'Such a very ordinary name, too. Couldn't have been her right name if she was German,' said Tuppence, 'and she was said to be a German spy or something like that, but she could have been English, I suppose.'
    'I think the German story is just a kind of legend.'
    'Do go on, Tommy. You're not telling me anything.'
    'Well, I put certain - certain - certain -'
    'Don't go on saying certain,' said Tuppence. 'I really can't understand.'
    'Well, it's very difficult to explain things sometimes,' said Tommy, 'but I mean, there are certain ways of making enquiries.'
    'You mean, things in the past?'
    'Yes. In a sense. I mean, there are things that you can find out. Things that you could obtain information from. Not just by riding old toys and asking old ladies to remember things and cross-questioning an old gardener who probably will tell you everything quite wrong or going round to the post office and upsetting the staff by asking the girls there to tell their memories of what their great-great-aunts once said.'
    'All of them have produced a little something,' said Tuppence.
    'So will mine,' said Tommy.
    'You've been making enquiries? Who do you go to to ask your questions?'
    'Well, it's not quite like that, but you must remember, Tuppence, that occasionally in my life I have been in connection with people who do know how to go about these sort of things. You know, there are people you pay a certain sum to and they do the research for you from the proper quarters so that what you get is quite authentic.'
    'What sort of things? What sort of places?'
    'Well, there are lots of things. To begin with you can get someone to study deaths, births and marriages, that sort of thing.'
    'Oh, I suppose you send them to Somerset House. Do you go there for deaths as well as marriages?'
    'And births - one needn't go oneself, you get someone to go for you. And find out when someone dies or read somebody's will, look up marriages in churches or study birth certificates. All those things can be enquired into.'
    'Have you been spending a lot of money?' asked Tuppence. 'I thought we were going to try and economize once we'd paid the expense of moving in here.'
    'Well, considering the interest you're taking in problems, I consider that this can be regarded in the way of money well spent.'
    'Well, did you find out anything?'
    'Not as quickly as this. You have to wait until the research has been made. Then if they can get answers for you -'
    'You mean somebody comes up and tells you that someone called Mary Jordan was born at Little Sheffield-on-the-Wold or something like that and then you go and make enquiries there later. Is that the sort of thing?'
    'Not exactly. And then there are census returns and death certificates and causes of death and, oh, quite a lot of things that you can find out about.'
    'Well,' said Tuppence, 'it sounds rather interesting anyway, which is always something.'
    'And there are files in newspaper offices that you