Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie. Short summary

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While going through old books in her new home, Tuppence Beresford found a strange report about the murder of some Mary Jordan. The story happened a long time ago, but curious Tuppence doesn’t miss an opportunity to investigate.

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A novel in the Tommy and Tuppence series. An elderly couple, the Beresfords, buy a house in the countryside. Parsing through old books, they find a cipher in one of them informing them: «Mary Jordan did not die of her own accord.» The curious couple begins to investigate Jordan’s death, even though it happened 60 years ago.

Tommy enlists the help of his friends in the secret service, but they warn of possible danger. Tappence, meanwhile, gets to know the locals, trying to find out something about Jordan. The woman learns that there was once a spy scandal in the village and Mary Jordan, the governess, was suspected of being a German spy. The girl was poisoned, it was considered an accident. But the boy Alexander knew something and left a note in the book. Soon the boy is dead.

Eventually the characters learn that Mary Jordan was a British agent. In the village lived Mr. Kane, who promoted fascism. Mary Jordan was sent here to get to the bottom of the situation. Miss Mullins, one of Kane’s followers, poisoned the girl.