One AUNT ADA
BOOK 1 SUNNY RIDGE
One AUNT ADA

Mr. and Mrs. Beresford were sitting at the breakfast table. They were anordinary couple. Hundreds of elderly couples just like them were havingbreakfast all over England at that particular moment. It was an ordinarysort of day too, the kind of day that you get five days out of seven. Itlooked as though it might rain but wasn’t quite sure of it.
Mr. Beresford had once had red hair. There were traces of the red still,but most of it had gone that sandy- cum- grey colour that red- headedpeople so often arrive at in middle life. Mrs. Beresford had once had blackhair, a vigorous curling mop of it. Now the black was adulterated withstreaks of grey laid on, apparently at random. It made a rather pleasant ef-fect. Mrs. Beresford had once thought of dyeing her hair, but in the endshe had decided that she liked herself better as nature had made her. Shehad decided instead to try a new shade of lipstick so as to cheer herself up.
An elderly couple having breakfast together. A pleasant couple, butnothing remarkable about them. So an onlooker would have said. If theonlooker had been young he or she would have added, “Oh yes, quitepleasant, but deadly dull, of course, like all old people.”
However, Mr. and Mrs. Beresford had not yet arrived at the time of lifewhen they thought of themselves as old. And they had no idea that theyand many others were automatically pronounced deadly dull solely onthat account. Only by the young of course, but then, they would havethought indulgently, young people knew nothing about life. Poor dears,they were always worrying about examinations, or their sex life, or buy-ing some extraordinary clothes, or doing extraordinary things to their hairto make them more noticeable. Mr. and Mrs. Beresford from their ownpoint of view were just past the prime of life. They liked themselves andliked each other and day succeeded day in a quiet but enjoyable fashion.
There were, of course, moments, everyone has moments. Mr. Beresfordopened a letter, glanced through it and laid it down, adding it to the smallpile by his left hand. He picked up the next letter but forbore to open it. In-stead he stayed with it in his hand. He was not looking at the letter, he waslooking at the toast rack. His wife observed him for a few moments beforesaying,
“What’s the matter, Tommy?”
“Matter?” said Tommy vaguely. “Matter?”
“That’s what I said,” said Mrs. Beresford.
“Nothing is the matter,” said Mr. Beresford. “What should it be?”
“You’ve thought of something,” said Tuppence accusingly.
“I don’t think I was thinking of anything at all.”
“Oh yes, you were. Has anything happened?”
“No, of course not. What should happen?” He added, “I got theplumber’s bill.”
“Oh,” said Tuppence with the air of one enlightened. “More than you ex-pected, I suppose.”
“Naturally,” said Tommy, “it always is.”
“I can’t think why we didn’t train as plumbers,” said Tuppence. “If you’donly trained as a plumber, I could have been a plumber’s mate and we’dbe raking in money day by day.”
“Very shortsighted of us not to see these opportunities.”
“Was that the plumber’s bill you were looking at just now?”
“Oh no, that was just an Appeal.”
“Delinquent boys—Racial integration?”
“No. Just another Home they’re opening for old people.”
“Well, that’s more sensible anyway,” said Tuppence, “but I don’t see whyyou have to have that worried look about it.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that.”
“Well, what were you thinking of?”
“I suppose it put it into my mind,” said Mr. Beresford.
“What?” said Tuppence. “You know you’ll tell me in the end.”
“It really wasn’t anything important. I just thought that perhaps—well,it was Aunt Ada.”
“Oh, I see,” said Tuppence, with instant comprehension. “Yes,” she ad-ded, softly, meditatively. “Aunt Ada.”
Their eyes met. It is regrettably true that in these days there is in nearlyevery family, the problem of what might be called an “Aunt Ada.” Thenames are different—Aunt Amelia, Aunt Susan, Aunt Cathy, Aunt Joan.
They are varied by grandmothers, aged cousins and even great-aunts. Butthey exist and present a problem in life which has to be dealt with. Ar-rangements have to be made. Suitable establishments for looking after theelderly have to be inspected and full questions asked about them. Recom-mendations are sought from doctors, from friends, who have Aunt Adas oftheir own who had been “perfectly happy until she had died” at “TheLaurels, Bexhill,” or “Happy Meadows at Scarborough.”
The days are past when Aunt Elisabeth, Aunt Ada and the rest of themlived on happily in the homes where they had lived for many years previ-ously, looked after by devoted if sometimes somewhat tyrannical old ser-vants. Both sides were thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement. Orthere were the innumerable poor relations, indigent nieces, semi-idioticspinster cousins, all yearning for a good home with three good meals aday and a nice bedroom. Supply and demand complemented each otherand all was well. Nowadays, things are different.
For the Aunt Adas of today arrangements have to be made suitable, notmerely to an elderly lady who, owing to arthritis or other rheumatic diffi-culties, is liable to fall downstairs if she is left alone in a house, or who suf-fers from chronic bronchitis, or who quarrels with her neighbours and in-sults the tradespeople.
Unfortunately, the Aunt Adas are far more trouble than the opposite endof the age scale. Children can be provided with foster homes, foisted off onrelations, or sent to suitable schools where they stay for the holidays, orarrangements can be made for pony treks or camps and on the whole verylittle objection is made by the children to the arrangements so made forthem. The Aunt Adas are very different. Tuppence Beresford’s own aunt—Great-aunt Primrose—had been a notable troublemaker. Impossible to sat-isfy her. No sooner did she enter an establishment guaranteed to providea good home and all comforts for elderly ladies than after writing a fewhighly complimentary letters to her niece praising this particular estab-lishment, the next news would be that she had indignantly walked out ofit without notice.
“Impossible. I couldn’t stay there another minute!”
Within the space of a year Aunt Primrose had been in and out of elevensuch establishments, finally writing to say that she had now met a verycharming young man. “Really a very devoted boy. He lost his mother at ayoung age and he badly needs looking after. I have rented a flat and he iscoming to live with me. This arrangement will suit us both perfectly. Weare natural affinities. You need have no more anxieties, dear Prudence.
My future is settled. I am seeing my lawyer tomorrow as it is necessarythat I should make some provision for Mervyn if I should predecease himwhich is, of course, the natural course of events, though I assure you at themoment I feel in the pink of health.”
Tuppence had hurried north (the incident had taken place in Aberdeen).
But as it happened, the police had arrived there first and had removed theglamorous Mervyn, for whom they had been seeking for some time, on acharge of obtaining money under false pretences. Aunt Primrose had beenhighly indignant, and had called it persecution—but after attending theCourt proceedings (where twenty- five other cases were taken into ac-count)—had been forced to change her views of her protégé.
“I think I ought to go and see Aunt Ada, you know, Tuppence,” saidTommy. “It’s been some time.”
“I suppose so,” said Tuppence, without enthusiasm. “How long has itbeen?”
Tommy considered. “It must be nearly a year,” he said.
“It’s more than that,” said Tuppence. “I think it’s over a year.”
“Oh dear,” said Tommy, “the time does go so fast, doesn’t it? I can’t be-lieve it’s been as long as that. Still, I believe you’re right, Tuppence.” Hecalculated. “It’s awful the way one forgets, isn’t it? I really feel very badlyabout it.”
“I don’t think you need,” said Tuppence. “After all, we send her thingsand we write letters.”
“Oh yes, I know. You’re awfully good about those sort of things, Tup-pence. But all the same, one does read things sometimes that are very up-setting.”
“You’re thinking of that dreadful book we got from the library,” saidTuppence, “and how awful it was for the poor old dears. How theysuffered.”
“I suppose it was true—taken from life.”
“Oh yes,” said Tuppence, “there must be places like that. And there arepeople who are terribly unhappy, who can’t help being unhappy. But whatelse is one to do, Tommy?”
“What can anyone do except be as careful as possible. Be very carefulwhat you choose, find out all about it and make sure she’s got a nice doc-tor looking after her.”
“Nobody could be nicer than Dr. Murray, you must admit that.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, the worried look receding from his face. “Murray’s afirst- class chap. Kind, patient. If anything was going wrong he’d let usknow.”
“So I don’t think you need worry about it,” said Tuppence. “How old isshe by now?”
“Eighty-two,” said Tommy. “No—no. I think it’s eighty-three,” he added.
“It must be rather awful when you’ve outlived everybody.”
“That’s only what we feel,” said Tuppence. “They don’t feel it.”
“You can’t really tell.”
“Well, your Aunt Ada doesn’t. Don’t you remember the glee with whichshe told us the number of her old friends that she’d already outlived? Shefinished up by saying ‘and as for Amy Morgan, I’ve heard she won’t lastmore than another six months. She always used to say I was so delicateand now it’s practically a certainty that I shall outlive her. Outlive her by agood many years too.’ Triumphant, that’s what she was at the prospect.”
“All the same—” said Tommy.
“I know,” said Tuppence, “I know. All the same you feel it’s your dutyand so you’ve got to go.”
“Don’t you think I’m right?”
“Unfortunately,” said Tuppence, “I do think you’re right. Absolutelyright. And I’ll come too,” she added, with a slight note of heroism in hervoice.
“No,” said Tommy. “Why should you? She’s not your aunt. No, I’ll go.”
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Beresford. “I like to suffer too. We’ll suffer to-gether. You won’t enjoy it and I shan’t enjoy it and I don’t think for onemoment that Aunt Ada will enjoy it. But I quite see it is one of those thingsthat has got to be done.”
“No, I don’t want you to go. After all, the last time, remember howfrightfully rude she was to you?”
“Oh, I didn’t mind that,” said Tuppence. “It’s probably the only bit of thevisit that the poor old girl enjoyed. I don’t grudge it to her, not for a mo-ment.”
“You’ve always been nice to her,” said Tommy, “even though you don’tlike her very much.”
“Nobody could like Aunt Ada,” said Tuppence. “If you ask me I don’tthink anyone ever has.”
“One can’t help feeling sorry for people when they get old,” said Tommy.
“I can,” said Tuppence. “I haven’t got as nice a nature as you have.”
“Being a woman you’re more ruthless,” said Tommy.
“I suppose that might be it. After all, women haven’t really got time to beanything but realistic over things. I mean I’m very sorry for people ifthey’re old or sick or anything, if they’re nice people. But if they’re notnice people, well, it’s different, you must admit. If you’re pretty nastywhen you’re twenty and just as nasty when you’re forty and nastier stillwhen you’re sixty, and a perfect devil by the time you’re eighty—well,really, I don’t see why one should be particularly sorry for people, just be-cause they’re old. You can’t change yourself really. I know some absoluteducks who are seventy and eighty. Old Mrs. Beauchamp, and Mary Carrand the baker’s grandmother, dear old Mrs. Poplett, who used to come inand clean for us. They were all dears and sweet and I’d do anything Icould for them.”
“All right, all right,” said Tommy, “be realistic. But if you really want tobe noble and come with me—”
“I want to come with you,” said Tuppence. “After all, I married you forbetter or for worse and Aunt Ada is decidedly the worse. So I shall go withyou hand in hand. And we’ll take her a bunch of flowers and a box ofchocolates with soft centres and perhaps a magazine or two. You mightwrite to Miss What’s-her-name and say we’re coming.”
“One day next week? I could manage Tuesday,” said Tommy, “if that’sall right for you.”
“Tuesday it is,” said Tuppence. “What’s the name of the woman? I can’tremember—the matron or the superintendent or whoever she is. Beginswith a P.”
“Miss Packard.”
“That’s right.”
“Perhaps it’ll be different this time,” said Tommy.
“Different? In what way?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something interesting might happen.”
“We might be in a railway accident on the way there,” said Tuppence,brightening up a little.
“Why on earth do you want to be in a railway accident?”
“Well I don’t really, of course. It was just—”
“Just what?”
“Well, it would be an adventure of some kind, wouldn’t it? Perhaps wecould save lives or do something useful. Useful and at the same time excit-ing.”
“What a hope!” said Mr. Beresford.
“I know,” agreed Tuppence. “It’s just that these sort of ideas come to onesometimes.”
Two WAS IT YOUR POOR CHILD?
Two WAS IT YOUR POOR CHILD?

How Sunny Ridge had come by its name would be difficult to say. Therewas nothing prominently ridgelike about it. The grounds were flat, whichwas eminently more suitable for the elderly occupants. It had an ample,though rather undistinguished garden. It was a fairly large Victorian man-sion kept in a good state of repair. There were some pleasant shady trees,a Virginia creeper running up the side of the house, and two monkeypuzzles gave an exotic air to the scene. There were several benches in ad-vantageous places to catch the sun, one or two garden chairs and asheltered veranda on which the old ladies could sit sheltered from the eastwinds.
Tommy rang the front doorbell and he and Tuppence were duly admit-ted by a rather harassed-looking young woman in a nylon overall. Sheshowed them into a small sitting room saying rather breathlessly, “I’ll tellMiss Packard. She’s expecting you and she’ll be down in a minute. Youwon’t mind waiting just a little, will you, but it’s old Mrs. Carraway. She’sbeen and swallowed her thimble again, you see.”
“How on earth did she do a thing like that?” asked Tuppence, surprised.
“Does it for fun,” explained the household help briefly. “Always doingit.”
She departed and Tuppence sat down and said thoughtfully, “I don’tthink I should like to swallow a thimble. It’d be awfully bobbly as it wentdown. Don’t you think so?”
They had not very long to wait however before the door opened andMiss Packard came in, apologizing as she did so. She was a big, sandy-haired woman of about fifty with the air of calm competence about herwhich Tommy had always admired.
“I’m sorry if I have kept you waiting, Mr. Beresford,” she said. “How doyou do, Mrs. Beresford, I’m so glad you’ve come too.”
“Somebody swallowed something, I hear,” said Tommy.
“Oh, so Marlene told you that? Yes, it was old Mrs. Carraway. She’s al-ways swallowing things. Very difficult, you know, because one can’t watchthem all the time. Of course one knows children do it, but it seems a funnything to be a hobby of an elderly woman, doesn’t it? It’s grown upon her,you know. She gets worse every year. It doesn’t seem to do her any harm,that’s the cheeriest thing about it.”
“Perhaps her father was a sword swallower,” suggested Tuppence.
“Now that’s a very interesting idea, Mrs. Beresford. Perhaps it would ex-plain things.” She went on, “I’ve told Miss Fanshawe that you were com-ing, Mr. Beresford. I don’t know really whether she quite took it in. Shedoesn’t always, you know.”
“How has she been lately?”
“Well, she’s failing rather rapidly now, I’m afraid,” said Miss Packard ina comfortable voice. “One never really knows how much she takes in andhow much she doesn’t. I told her last night and she said she was sure Imust be mistaken because it was term time. She seemed to think that youwere still at school. Poor old things, they get very muddled up sometimes,especially over time. However, this morning when I reminded her aboutyour visit, she just said it was quite impossible because you were dead. Ohwell,” Miss Packard went on cheerfully, “I expect she’ll recognize youwhen she sees you.”
“How is she in health? Much the same?”
“Well, perhaps as well as can be expected. Frankly, you know, I don’tthink she’ll be with us very much longer. She doesn’t suffer in any waybut her heart condition’s no better than it was. In fact, it’s rather worse. SoI think I’d like you to know that it’s just as well to be prepared, so that ifshe did go suddenly it wouldn’t be any shock to you.”
“We brought her some flowers,” said Tuppence.
“And a box of chocolates,” said Tommy.
“Oh, that’s very kind of you I’m sure. She’ll be very pleased. Would youlike to come up now?”
Tommy and Tuppence rose and followed Miss Packard from the room.
She led them up the broad staircase. As they passed one of the rooms inthe passage upstairs, it opened suddenly and a little woman about five foothigh trotted out, calling in a loud shrill voice, “I want my cocoa. I want mycocoa. Where’s Nurse Jane? I want my cocoa.”
A woman in a nurse’s uniform popped out of the next door and said,“There, there, dear, it’s all right. You’ve had your cocoa. You had it twentyminutes ago.”
“No I didn’t, Nurse. It’s not true. I haven’t had my cocoa. I’m thirsty.”
“Well, you shall have another cup if you like.”
“I can’t have another when I haven’t had one.”
They passed on and Miss Packard, after giving a brief rap on a door atthe end of the passage, opened it and passed in.
“Here you are, Miss Fanshawe,” she said brightly. “Here’s your nephewcome to see you. Isn’t that nice?”
In a bed near the window an elderly lady sat up abruptly on her raisedpillows. She had iron-grey hair, a thin wrinkled face with a large, high-bridged nose and a general air of disapprobation. Tommy advanced.
“Hullo, Aunt Ada,” he said. “How are you?”
Aunt Ada paid no attention to him, but addressed Miss Packard angrily.
“I don’t know what you mean by showing gentlemen into a lady’s bed-room,” she said. “Wouldn’t have been thought proper at all in my youngdays! Telling me he’s my nephew indeed! Who is he? A plumber or theelectrician?”
“Now, now, that’s not very nice,” said Miss Packard mildly.
“I’m your nephew, Thomas Beresford,” said Tommy. He advanced thebox of chocolates. “I’ve brought you a box of chocolates.”
“You can’t get round me that way,” said Aunt Ada. “I know your kind.
Say anything, you will. Who’s this woman?” She eyed Mrs. Beresford withan air of distaste.
“I’m Prudence,” said Mrs. Beresford. “Your niece, Prudence.”
“What a ridiculous name,” said Aunt Ada. “Sounds like a parlourmaid.
My Great-uncle Mathew had a parlourmaid called Comfort and the house-maid was called Rejoice-in-the-Lord. Methodist she was. But my Great-aunt Fanny soon put a stop to that. Told her she was going to be called Re-becca as long as she was in her house.”
“I brought you a few roses,” said Tuppence.
“I don’t care for flowers in a sick room. Use up all the oxygen.”
“I’ll put them in a vase for you,” said Miss Packard.
“You won’t do anything of the kind. You ought to have learnt by nowthat I know my own mind.”
“You seem in fine form, Aunt Ada,” said Mr. Beresford. “Fighting fit, Ishould say.”
“I can take your measure all right. What d’you mean by saying thatyou’re my nephew? What did you say your name was? Thomas?”
“Yes. Thomas or Tommy.”
“Never heard of you,” said Aunt Ada. “I only had one nephew and hewas called William. Killed in the last war. Good thing, too. He’d have goneto the bad if he’d lived. I’m tired,” said Aunt Ada, leaning back on her pil-lows and turning her head towards Miss Packard. “Take ’em away. Youshouldn’t let strangers in to see me.”
“I thought a nice little visit might cheer you up,” said Miss Packard un-perturbed.
Aunt Ada uttered a deep bass sound of ribald mirth.
“All right,” said Tuppence cheerfully. “We’ll go away again. I’ll leave theroses. You might change your mind about them. Come on, Tommy,” saidTuppence. She turned towards the door.
“Well, goodbye, Aunt Ada. I’m sorry you don’t remember me.”
Aunt Ada was silent until Tuppence had gone out of the door with MissPackard and Tommy followed her.
“Come back, you, said Aunt Ada, raising her voice. “I know you per-fectly. You’re Thomas. Red-haired you used to be. Carrots, that’s the colouryour hair was. Come back. I’ll talk to you. I don’t want the woman. Nogood her pretending she’s your wife. I know better. Shouldn’t bring thattype of woman in here. Come and sit down here in this chair and tell meabout your dear mother. You go away,” added Aunt Ada as a kind of post-script, waving her hand towards Tuppence who was hesitating in thedoorway.
Tuppence retired immediately.
“Quite in one of her moods today,” said Miss Packard, unruffled, as theywent down the stairs. “Sometimes, you know,” she added, “she can bequite pleasant. You would hardly believe it.”
Tommy sat down in the chair indicated to him by Aunt Ada and re-marked mildly that he couldn’t tell her much about his mother as she hadbeen dead now for nearly forty years. Aunt Ada was unperturbed by thisstatement.
“Fancy,” she said, “is it as long as that? Well, time does pass quickly.”
She looked him over in a considering manner. “Why don’t you get mar-ried?” she said. “Get some nice capable woman to look after you. You’regetting on, you know. Save you taking up with all these loose women andbringing them round and speaking as though they were your wife.”
“I can see,” said Tommy, “that I shall have to get Tuppence to bring hermarriage lines along next time we come to see you.”
“Made an honest woman of her, have you?” said Aunt Ada.
“We’ve been married over thirty years,” said Tommy, “and we’ve got ason and a daughter, and they’re both married too.”
“The trouble is,” said Aunt Ada, shifting her ground with dexterity, “thatnobody tells me anything. If you’d kept me properly up to date—”
Tommy did not argue the point. Tuppence had once laid upon him a ser-ious injunction. “If anybody over the age of sixty-five finds fault with you,”
she said, “never argue. Never try to say you’re right. Apologize at once andsay it was all your fault and you’re very sorry and you’ll never do itagain.”
It occurred to Tommy at this moment with some force that that wouldcertainly be the line to take with Aunt Ada, and indeed always had been.
“I’m very sorry, Aunt Ada,” he said. “I’m afraid, you know, one doestend to get forgetful as time goes on. It’s not everyone,” he continued un-blushingly, “who has your wonderful memory for the past.”
Aunt Ada smirked. There was no other word for it. “You have somethingthere,” she said. “I’m sorry if I received you rather roughly, but I don’tcare for being imposed upon. You never know in this place. They let inanyone to see you. Anyone at all. If I accepted everyone for what they saidthey were, they might be intending to rob and murder me in my bed.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s very likely,” said Tommy.
“You never know,” said Aunt Ada. “The things you read in the paper.
And the things people come and tell you. Not that I believe everything I’mtold. But I keep a sharp lookout. Would you believe it, they brought astrange man in the other day—never seen him before. Called himself Dr.
Williams. Said Dr. Murray was away on his holiday and this was his newpartner. New partner! How was I to know he was his new partner? He justsaid he was, that’s all.”
“Was he his new partner?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Aunt Ada, slightly annoyed at losingground, “he actually was. But nobody could have known it for sure. Therehe was, drove up in a car, had that little kind of black box with him, whichdoctors carry to do blood pressure—and all that sort of thing. It’s like themagic box they all used to talk about so much. Who was it, Joanna South-cott’s?”
“No,” said Tommy. “I think that was rather different. A prophecy ofsome kind.”
“Oh, I see. Well, my point is anyone could come into a place like this andsay he was a doctor, and immediately all the nurses would smirk andgiggle and say yes, Doctor, of course, Doctor, and more or less stand to at-tention, silly girls! And if the patient swore she didn’t know the man,they’d only say she was forgetful and forgot people. I never forget a face,”
said Aunt Ada firmly. “I never have. How is your Aunt Caroline? I haven’theard from her for some time. Have you seen anything of her?”
Tommy said, rather apologetically, that his Aunt Caroline had been deadfor fifteen years. Aunt Ada did not take this demise with any signs of sor-row. Aunt Caroline had after all not been her sister, but merely her firstcousin.
“Everyone seems to be dying,” she said, with a certain relish. “No stam-ina. That’s what’s the matter with them. Weak heart, coronary throm-bosis, high blood pressure, chronic bronchitis, rheumatoid arthritis—allthe rest of it. Feeble folk, all of them. That’s how the doctors make theirliving. Giving them boxes and boxes and bottles and bottles of tablets. Yel-low tablets, pink tablets, green tablets, even black tablets, I shouldn’t besurprised. Ugh! Brimstone and treacle they used to use in my grand-mother’s day. I bet that was as good as anything. With the choice of gettingwell or having brimstone and treacle to drink, you chose getting wellevery time.” She nodded her head in a satisfied manner. “Can’t really trustdoctors, can you? Not when it’s a professional matter—some new fad—I’mtold there’s a lot of poisoning going on here. To get hearts for the surgeons,so I’m told. Don’t think it’s true, myself. Miss Packard’s not the sort of wo-man who would stand for that.”
Downstairs Miss Packard, her manner slightly apologetic, indicated aroom leading off the hall.
“I’m so sorry about this, Mrs. Beresford, but I expect you know how it iswith elderly people. They take fancies or dislikes and persist in them.”
“It must be very difficult running a place of this kind,” said Tuppence.
“Oh, not really,” said Miss Packard. “I quite enjoy it, you know. Andreally, I’m quite fond of them all. One gets fond of people one has to lookafter, you know. I mean, they have their little ways and their fidgets, butthey’re quite easy to manage, if you know how.”
Tuppence thought to herself that Miss Packard was one of those peoplewho would know how.
“They’re like children, really,” said Miss Packard indulgently. “Only chil-dren are far more logical which makes it difficult sometimes with them.
But these people are illogical, they want to be reassured by your tellingthem what they want to believe. Then they’re quite happy again for a bit.
I’ve got a very nice staff here. People with patience, you know, and goodtemper, and not too brainy, because if you have people who are brainythey are bound to be very impatient. Yes, Miss Donovan, what is it?” Sheturned her head as a young woman with pince-nez came running downthe stairs.
“It’s Mrs. Lockett again, Miss Packard. She says she’s dying and shewants the doctor called at once.”
“Oh,” said Miss Packard, unimpressed, “what’s she dying from thistime?”
“She says there was mushroom in the stew yesterday and that theremust have been fungi in it and that she’s poisoned.”
“That’s a new one,” said Miss Packard. “I’d better come up and talk toher. So sorry to leave you, Mrs. Beresford. You’ll find magazines and pa-pers in that room.”
“Oh, I’ll be quite all right,” said Tuppence.
She went into the room that had been indicated to her. It was a pleasantroom overlooking the garden with french windows that opened on it.
There were easy chairs, bowls of flowers on the tables. One wall had abookshelf containing a mixture of modern novels and travel books, andalso what might be described as old favourites, which possibly many ofthe inmates might be glad to meet again. There were magazines on atable.
At the moment there was only one occupant in the room. An old ladywith white hair combed back off her face who was sitting in a chair, hold-ing a glass of milk in her hand, and looking at it. She had a pretty pink andwhite face, and she smiled at Tuppence in a friendly manner.
“Good morning,” she said. “Are you coming to live here or are you visit-ing?”
“I’m visiting,” said Tuppence. “I have an aunt here. My husband’s withher now. We thought perhaps two people at once was rather too much.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” said the old lady. She took a sip ofmilk appreciatively. “I wonder—no, I think it’s quite all right. Wouldn’tyou like something? Some tea or some coffee perhaps? Let me ring thebell. They’re very obliging here.”
“No thank you,” said Tuppence, “really.”
“Or a glass of milk perhaps. It’s not poisoned today.”
“No, no, not even that. We shan’t be stopping very much longer.”
“Well, if you’re quite sure—but it wouldn’t be any trouble, you know.
Nobody ever thinks anything is any trouble here. Unless, I mean, you askfor something quite impossible.”
“I daresay the aunt we’re visiting sometimes asks for quite impossiblethings,” said Tuppence. “She’s a Miss Fanshawe,” she added.
“Oh, Miss Fanshawe,” said the old lady. “Oh yes.”
Something seemed to be restraining her but Tuppence said cheerfully,“She’s rather a tartar, I should imagine. She always has been.”
“Oh, yes indeed she is. I used to have an aunt myself, you know, whowas very like that, especially as she grew older. But we’re all quite fond ofMiss Fanshawe. She can be very, very amusing if she likes. About people,you know.”
“Yes, I daresay she could be,” said Tuppence. She reflected a moment ortwo, considering Aunt Ada in this new light.
“Very acid,” said the old lady. “My name is Lancaster, by the way, Mrs.
Lancaster.”
“My name’s Beresford,” said Tuppence.
“I’m afraid, you know, one does enjoy a bit of malice now and then. Herdescriptions of some of the other guests here, and the things she saysabout them. Well, you know, one oughtn’t, of course, to find it funny butone does.”
“Have you been living here long?”
“A good while now. Yes, let me see, seven years—eight years. Yes, yes itmust be more than eight years.” She sighed. “One loses touch with things.
And people too. Any relations I have left live abroad.”
“That must be rather sad.”
“No, not really. I didn’t care for them very much. Indeed, I didn’t evenknown them well. I had a bad illness—a very bad illness—and I was alonein the world, so they thought it was better for me to live in a place likethis. I think I’m very lucky to have come here. They are so kind andthoughtful. And the gardens are really beautiful. I know myself that Ishouldn’t like to be living on my own because I do get very confused some-times, you know. Very confused.” She tapped her forehead. “I get confusedhere. I mix things up. I don’t always remember properly the things thathave happened.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tuppence. “I suppose one always has to have some-thing, doesn’t one?”
“Some illnesses are very painful. We have two poor women living herewith very bad rheumatoid arthritis. They suffer terribly. So I think per-haps it doesn’t matter so much if one gets, well, just a little confused aboutwhat happened and where, and who it was, and all that sort of thing, youknow. At any rate it’s not painful physically.”
“No. I think perhaps you’re quite right,” said Tuppence.
The door opened and a girl in a white overall came in with a little traywith a coffee pot on it and a plate with two biscuits, which she set down atTuppence’s side.
“Miss Packard thought you might care for a cup of coffee,” she said.
“Oh. Thank you,” said Tuppence.
The girl went out again and Mrs. Lancaster said,“There, you see. Very thoughtful, aren’t they?”
“Yes indeed.”
Tuppence poured out her coffee and began to drink it. The two womensat in silence for some time. Tuppence offered the plate of biscuits but theold lady shook her head.
“No thank you, dear. I just like my milk plain.”
She put down the empty glass and leaned back in her chair, her eyeshalf closed. Tuppence thought that perhaps this was the moment in themorning when she took a little nap, so she remained silent. Suddenly how-ever, Mrs. Lancaster seemed to jerk herself awake again. Her eyes opened,she looked at Tuppence and said,
“I see you’re looking at the fireplace.”
“Oh. Was I?” said Tuppence, slightly startled.
“Yes. I wondered—” she leant forward and lowered her voice. “—Excuseme, was it your poor child?”
Tuppence slightly taken aback, hesitated.
“I—no, I don’t think so,” she said.
“I wondered. I thought perhaps you’d come for that reason. Someoneought to come some time. Perhaps they will. And looking at the fireplace,the way you did. That’s where it is, you know. Behind the fireplace.”
“Oh,” said Tuppence. “Oh. Is it?”
“Always the same time,” said Mrs. Lancaster, in a low voice. “Always thesame time of day.” She looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. Tup-pence looked up also. “Ten past eleven,” said the old lady. “Ten past el-even. Yes, it’s always the same time every morning.”
She sighed. “People didn’t understand—I told them what I knew—butthey wouldn’t believe me!”
Tuppence was relieved that at that moment the door opened andTommy came in. Tuppence rose to her feet.
“Here I am. I’m ready.” She went towards the door turning her head tosay, “Goodbye, Mrs. Lancaster.”
“How did you get on?” she asked Tommy, as they emerged into the hall.
“After you left,” said Tommy, “like a house on fire.”
“I seem to have had a bad effect on her, don’t I?” said Tuppence. “Rathercheering, in a way.”
“Why cheering?”
“Well, at my age,” said Tuppence, “and what with my neat and respect-able and slightly boring appearance, it’s nice to think that you might betaken for a depraved woman of fatal sexual charm.”
“Idiot,” said Tommy, pinching her arm affectionately. “Who were youhobnobbing with? She looked a very nice fluffy old lady.”
“She was very nice,” said Tuppence. “A dear old thing, I think. But un-fortunately bats.”
“Bats?”
“Yes. Seemed to think there was a dead child behind the fireplace orsomething of the kind. She asked me if it was my poor child.”
“Rather unnerving,” said Tommy. “I suppose there must be some peoplewho are slightly batty here, as well as normal elderly relatives with noth-ing but age to trouble them. Still, she looked nice.”
“Oh, she was nice,” said Tuppence. “Nice and very sweet, I think. I won-der what exactly her fancies are and why.”
Miss Packard appeared again suddenly.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Beresford. I hope they brought you some coffee?”
“Oh yes, they did, thank you.”
“Well, it’s been very kind of you to come, I’m sure,” said Miss Packard.
Turning to Tommy, she said, “And I know Miss Fanshawe has enjoyedyour visit very much. I’m sorry she was rude to your wife.”
“I think that gave her a lot of pleasure too,” said Tuppence.
“Yes, you’re quite right. She does like being rude to people. She’s unfor-tunately rather good at it.”
“And so she practises the art as often as she can,” said Tommy.
“You’re very understanding, both of you,” said Miss Packard.
“The old lady I was talking to,” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Lancaster, I thinkshe said her name was?”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Lancaster. We’re all very fond of her.”
“She’s—is she a little peculiar?”
“Well, she has fancies,” said Miss Packard indulgently. “We have severalpeople here who have fancies. Quite harmless ones. But—well, there theyare. Things that they believe have happened to them. Or to other people.
We try not to take any notice, not to encourage them. Just play it down. Ithink really it’s just an exercise in imagination, a sort of phantasy they liketo live in. Something exciting or something sad and tragic. It doesn’t mat-ter which. But no persecution mania, thank goodness. That would neverdo.”
“Well, that’s over,” said Tommy with a sigh, as he got into the car. “Weshan’t need to come again for at least six months.”
But they didn’t need to go and see her in six months, for three weekslater Aunt Ada died in her sleep.
Three A FUNERAL
Three A FUNERAL

“Funerals are rather sad, aren’t they?” said Tuppence.
They had just returned from attending Aunt Ada’s funeral, which hadentailed a long and troublesome railway journey since the burial hadtaken place at the country village in Lincolnshire where most of AuntAda’s family and forebears had been buried.
“What do you expect a funeral to be?” said Tommy reasonably. “A sceneof mad gaiety?”
“Well, it could be in some places,” said Tuppence. “I mean the Irish en-joy a wake, don’t they? They have a lot of keening and wailing first andthen plenty of drink and a sort of mad whoopee. Drink?” she added, with alook towards the sideboard.
Tommy went over to it and duly brought back what he considered ap-propriate. In this case a White Lady.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” said Tuppence.
She took off her black hat and threw it across the room and slipped offher long black coat.
“I hate mourning,” she said. “It always smells of moth balls because it’sbeen laid up somewhere.”
“You don’t need to go on wearing mourning. It’s only to go to the funeralin,” said Tommy.
“Oh no, I know that. In a minute or two I’m going to go up and put on ascarlet jersey just to cheer things up. You can make me another WhiteLady.”
“Really, Tuppence, I had no idea that funerals would bring out this partyfeeling.”
“I said funerals were sad,” said Tuppence when she reappeared a mo-ment or two later, wearing a brilliant cherry-red dress with a ruby anddiamond lizard pinned to the shoulder of it, “because it’s funerals likeAunt Ada’s that are sad. I mean elderly people and not many flowers. Nota lot of people sobbing and sniffing round. Someone old and lonely whowon’t be missed much.”
“I should have thought it would be much easier for you to stand thatthan it would if it were my funeral, for instance.”
“That’s where you’re entirely wrong,” said Tuppence. “I don’t particu-larly want to think of your funeral because I’d much prefer to die beforeyou do. But I mean, if I were going to your funeral, at any rate it would bean orgy of grief. I should take a lot of handkerchiefs.”
“With black borders?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought of black borders but it’s a nice idea. And besides,the Burial service is rather lovely. Makes you feel uplifted. Real grief isreal. It makes you feel awful but it does something to you. I mean, it worksit out like perspiration.”
“Really, Tuppence, I find your remarks about my decease and the effectit will have upon you in exceedingly bad taste. I don’t like it. Let’s forgetabout funerals.”
“I agree. Let’s forget.”
“The poor old bean’s gone,” said Tommy, “and she went peacefully andwithout suffering. So, let’s leave it at that. I’d better clear up all these, Isuppose.”
He went over to the writing table and ruffled through some papers.
“Now where did I put Mr. Rockbury’s letter?”
“Who’s Mr. Rockbury? Oh, you mean the lawyer who wrote to you.”
“Yes. About winding up her affairs. I seem to be the only one of the fam-ily left by now.”
“Pity she hadn’t got a fortune to leave you,” said Tuppence.
“If she had had a fortune she’d have left it to that Cats’ Home,” saidTommy. “The legacy that she’s left to them in her will will pretty well eatup all the spare cash. There won’t be much left to come to me. Not that Ineed it or want it anyway.”
“Was she so fond of cats?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. I never heard her mention them. I believe,”
said Tommy thoughtfully, “she used to get rather a lot of fun out of sayingto old friends of hers when they came to see her ‘I’ve left you a little some-thing in my will, dear’ or ‘This brooch that you’re so fond of I’ve left you inmy will.’ She didn’t actually leave anything to anyone except the Cats’
Home.”
“I bet she got rather a kick out of that,” said Tuppence. “I can just see hersaying all the things you told me to a lot of her old friends—or so-calledold friends because I don’t suppose they were people she really liked atall. She just enjoyed leading them up the garden path. I must say she wasan old devil, wasn’t she, Tommy? Only, in a funny sort of way one likesher for being an old devil. It’s something to be able to get some fun out oflife when you’re old and stuck away in a Home. Shall we have to go toSunny Ridge?”
“Where’s the other letter, the one from Miss Packard? Oh yes, here it is. Iput it with Rockbury’s. Yes, she says there are certain things there, Igather, which apparently are now my property. She took some furniturewith her, you know, when she went to live there. And of course there areher personal effects. Clothes and things like that. I suppose somebody willhave to go through them. And letters and things. I’m her executor, so Isuppose it’s up to me. I don’t suppose there’s anything we want really, isthere? Except there’s a small desk there that I always liked. Belonged toold Uncle William, I believe.”
“Well, you might take that as a memento,” said Tuppence. “Otherwise, Isuppose, we just send the things to be auctioned.”
“So you don’t really need to go there at all,” said Tommy.
“Oh, I think I’d like to go there,” said Tuppence.
“You’d like to? Why? Won’t it be rather a bore to you?”
“What, looking through her things? No, I don’t think so. I think I’ve got acertain amount of curiosity. Old letters and antique jewellery are alwaysinteresting and I think one ought to look at them oneself, not just sendthem to auction or let strangers go through them. No, we’ll go and lookthrough the things and see if there’s anything we would like to keep andotherwise settle up.”
“Why do you really want to go? You’ve got some other reason, haven’tyou?”
“Oh dear,” said Tuppence, “it is awful being married to someone whoknows too much about one.”
“So you have got another reason?”
“Not a real one.”
“Come on, Tuppence. You’re not really so fond of turning over people’sbelongings.”
“That, I think, is my duty,” said Tuppence firmly. “No, the only otherreason is—”
“Come on. Cough it up.”
“I’d rather like to see that—that other old pussy again.”
“What, the one who thought there was a dead child behind the fire-place?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “I’d like to talk to her again. I’d like to know whatwas in her mind when she said all those things. Was it something she re-membered or was it something that she’d just imagined? The more I thinkabout it the more extraordinary it seems. Is it a sort of story that she wroteto herself in her mind or is there—was there once something real thathappened about a fireplace or about a dead child. What made her thinkthat the dead child might have been my dead child? Do I look as though Ihad a dead child?”
“I don’t know how you expect anyone to look who has a dead child,”
said Tommy. “I shouldn’t have thought so. Anyway, Tuppence, it is ourduty to go and you can enjoy yourself in your macabre way on the side. Sothat’s settled. We’ll write to Miss Packard and fix a day.”
Four PICTURE OF A HOUSE
Four PICTURE OF A HOUSE

Tuppence drew a deep breath.
“It’s just the same,” she said.
She and Tommy were standing on the front doorstep of Sunny Ridge.
“Why shouldn’t it be?” asked Tommy.
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have—something to do with time. Timegoes at a different pace in different places. Some places you come back to,and you feel that time has been bustling along at a terrific rate and that allsorts of things will have happened—and changed. But here—Tommy—doyou remember Ostend?”
“Ostend? We went there on our honeymoon. Of course I remember.”
“And do you remember the sign written up? TRAMSTILLSTAND — Itmade us laugh. It seemed so ridiculous.”
“I think it was Knock—not Ostend.”
“Never mind—you remember it. Well, this is like that word—Tramstill-stand—a portmanteau word. Timestillstand—nothing’s happened here.
Time has just stood still. Everything’s going on here just the same. It’s likeghosts, only the other way round.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you going to stand hereall day talking about time and not even ring the bell?—Aunt Ada isn’there, for one thing. That’s different.” He pressed the bell.
“That’s the only thing that will be different. My old lady will be drinkingmilk and talking about fireplaces, and Mrs. Somebody-or-other will haveswallowed a thimble or a teaspoon and a funny little woman will comesqueaking out of a room demanding her cocoa, and Miss Packard willcome down the stairs, and—”
The door opened. A young woman in a nylon overall said: “Mr. and Mrs.
Beresford? Miss Packard’s expecting you.”
The young woman was just about to show them into the same sittingroom as before when Miss Packard came down the stairs and greetedthem. Her manner was suitably not quite as brisk as usual. It was grave,and had a kind of semimourning about it—not too much—that might havebeen embarrassing. She was an expert in the exact amount of condolencewhich would be acceptable.
Three score years and ten was the Biblical accepted span of life, and thedeaths in her establishment seldom occurred below that figure. They wereto be expected and they happened.
“So good of you to come. I’ve got everything laid out tidily for you tolook through. I’m glad you could come so soon because as a matter of factI have already three or four people waiting for a vacancy to come here.
You will understand, I’m sure, and not think that I was trying to hurry youin any way.”
“Oh no, of course, we quite understand,” said Tommy.
“It’s all still in the room Miss Fanshawe occupied,” Miss Packard ex-plained.
Miss Packard opened the door of the room in which they had last seenAunt Ada. It had that deserted look a room has when the bed is coveredwith a dust sheet, with the shapes showing beneath it of folded- upblankets and neatly arranged pillows.
The wardrobe doors stood open and the clothes it had held had beenlaid on the top of the bed neatly folded.
“What do you usually do — I mean, what do people do mostly withclothes and things like that?” said Tuppence.
Miss Packard, as invariably, was competent and helpful.
“I can give you the name of two or three societies who are only toopleased to have things of that kind. She had quite a good fur stole and agood quality coat but I don’t suppose you would have any personal use forthem? But perhaps you have charities of your own where you would liketo dispose of things.”
Tuppence shook her head.
“She had some jewellery,” said Miss Packard. “I removed that for safe-keeping. You will find it in the right-hand drawer of the dressing table. Iput it there just before you were due to arrive.”
“Thank you very much,” said Tommy, “for the trouble you have taken.”
Tuppence was staring at a picture over the mantelpiece. It was a smalloil painting representing a pale pink house standing adjacent to a canalspanned by a small humpbacked bridge. There was an empty boat drawnup under the bridge against the bank of the canal. In the distance weretwo poplar trees. It was a very pleasant little scene but neverthelessTommy wondered why Tuppence was staring at it with such earnestness.
“How funny,” murmured Tuppence.
Tommy looked at her inquiringly. The things that Tuppence thoughtfunny were, he knew by long experience, not really to be described bysuch an adjective at all.
“What do you mean, Tuppence?”
“It is funny. I never noticed that picture when I was here before. But theodd thing is that I have seen that house somewhere. Or perhaps it’s ahouse just like that that I have seen. I remember it quite well .?.?. Funnythat I can’t remember when and where.”
“I expect you noticed it without really noticing you were noticing,” saidTommy, feeling his choice of words was rather clumsy and nearly as pain-fully repetitive as Tuppence’s reiteration of the word “funny.”
“Did you notice it, Tommy, when we were here last time?”
“No, but then I didn’t look particularly.”
“Oh, that picture,” said Miss Packard. “No, I don’t think you would haveseen it when you were here the last time because I’m almost sure it wasn’thanging over the mantelpiece then. Actually it was a picture belonging toone of our other guests, and she gave it to your aunt. Miss Fanshawe ex-pressed admiration of it once or twice and this other old lady made her apresent of it and insisted she should have it.”
“Oh I see,” said Tuppence, “so of course I couldn’t have seen it here be-fore. But I still feel I know the house quite well. Don’t you, Tommy?”
“No,” said Tommy.
“Well, I’ll leave you now,” said Miss Packard briskly. “I shall be availableat any time that you want me.”
She nodded with a smile, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
“I don’t think I really like that woman’s teeth,” said Tuppence.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Too many of them. Or too big—‘The better to eat you with, my child’—Like Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.”
“You seem in a very odd sort of mood today, Tuppence.”
“I am rather. I’ve always thought of Miss Packard as very nice—buttoday, somehow, she seems to me rather sinister. Have you ever felt that?”
“No, I haven’t. Come on, let’s get on with what we came here to do—lookover poor old Aunt Ada’s ‘effects,’ as the lawyers call them. That’s the deskI told you about—Uncle William’s desk. Do you like it?”
“It’s lovely. Regency, I should think. It’s nice for the old people whocome here to be able to bring some of their own things with them. I don’tcare for the horsehair chairs, but I’d like that little worktable. It’s justwhat we need for that corner by the window where we’ve got that per-fectly hideous whatnot.”
“All right,” said Tommy. “I’ll make a note of those two.”
“And we’ll have the picture over the mantelpiece. It’s an awfully attract-ive picture and I’m quite sure that I’ve seen that house somewhere. Now,let’s look at the jewellery.”
They opened the dressing-table drawer. There was a set of cameos and aFlorentine bracelet and earrings and a ring with different-coloured stonesin it.
“I’ve seen one of these before,” said Tuppence. “They spell a name usu-ally. Dearest sometimes. Diamond, emerald, amethyst, no, it’s not dearest.
I don’t think it would be really. I can’t imagine anyone giving your AuntAda a ring that spelt dearest. Ruby, emerald—the difficulty is one neverknows where to begin. I’ll try again. Ruby, emerald, another ruby, no, Ithink it’s a garnet and an amethyst and another pinky stone, it must be aruby this time and a small diamond in the middle. Oh, of course, it’s re-gard. Rather nice really. So old-fashioned and sentimental.”
She slipped it on to her finger.
“I think Deborah might like to have this,” she said, “and the Florentineset. She’s frightfully keen on Victorian things. A lot of people arenowadays. Now, I suppose we’d better do the clothes. That’s always rathermacabre, I think. Oh, this is the fur stole. Quite valuable, I should think. Iwouldn’t want it myself. I wonder if there’s anyone here—anyone whowas especially nice to Aunt Ada—or perhaps some special friend amongthe other inmates—visitors, I mean. They call them visitors or guests, I no-tice. It would be nice to offer her the stole if so. It’s real sable. We’ll askMiss Packard. The rest of the things can go to the charities. So that’s allsettled, isn’t it? We’ll go and find Miss Packard now. Goodbye, Aunt Ada,”
she remarked aloud, her eyes turning to the bed. “I’m glad we came to seeyou that last time. I’m sorry you didn’t like me, but if it was fun to you notto like me and say those rude things, I don’t begrudge it to you. You had tohave some fun. And we won’t forget you. We’ll think of you when we lookat Uncle William’s desk.”
They went in search of Miss Packard. Tommy explained that they wouldarrange for the desk and the small worktable to be called for and des-patched to their own address and that he would arrange with the localauctioneers to dispose of the rest of the furniture. He would leave thechoice of any societies willing to receive clothing to Miss Packard if shewouldn’t mind the trouble.
“I don’t know if there’s anyone here who would like her sable stole,”
said Tuppence. “It’s a very nice one. One of her special friends, perhaps?
Or perhaps one of the nurses who had done some special waiting on AuntAda?”
“That is a very kind thought of yours, Mrs. Beresford. I’m afraid MissFanshawe hadn’t any special friends among our visitors, but Miss O’Keefe,one of the nurses, did do a lot for her and was especially good and tactful,and I think she’d be pleased and honoured to have it.”
“And there’s the picture over the mantelpiece,” said Tuppence. “I’d liketo have that—but perhaps the person whom it belonged to, and who gaveit to her, would want to have it back. I think we ought to ask her—?”
Miss Packard interrupted. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Beresford, I’m afraid wecan’t do that. It was a Mrs. Lancaster who gave it to Miss Fanshawe andshe isn’t with us any longer.”
“Isn’t with you?” said Tuppence, surprised. “A Mrs. Lancaster? The one Isaw last time I was here—with white hair brushed back from her face. Shewas drinking milk in the sitting room downstairs. She’s gone away, yousay?”
“Yes. It was all rather sudden. One of her relations, a Mrs. Johnson, tookher away about a week ago. Mrs. Johnson had returned from Africa whereshe’s been living for the last four or five years—quite unexpectedly. She isnow able to take care of Mrs. Lancaster in her own home, since she andher husband are taking a house in England. I don’t think,” said Miss Pack-ard, “that Mrs. Lancaster really wanted to leave us. She had become so—set in her ways here, and she got on very well with everyone and washappy. She was very disturbed, quite tearful about it—but what can onedo? She hadn’t really very much say in the matter, because of course theJohnsons were paying for her stay here. I did suggest that as she had beenhere so long and settled down so well, it might be advisable to let her re-main—”
“How long had Mrs. Lancaster been with you? asked Tuppence.
“Oh, nearly six years, I think. Yes, that’s about it. That’s why, of course,she’d really come to feel that this was her home.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “Yes, I can understand that.” She frowned andgave a nervous glance at Tommy and then stuck a resolute chin into theair.
“I’m sorry she’s left. I had a feeling when I was talking to her that I’dmet her before—her face seemed familiar to me. And then afterwards itcame back to me that I’d met her with an old friend of mine, a Mrs. Blen-kensop. I thought when I came back here again to visit Aunt Ada, that I’dfind out from her if that was so. But of course if she’s gone back to herown people, that’s different.”
“I quite understand, Mrs. Beresford. If any of our visitors can get intouch with some of their old friends or someone who knew their relationsat one time, it makes a great difference to them. I can’t remember a Mrs.
Blenkensop ever having been mentioned by her, but then I don’t supposethat would be likely to happen in any case.”
“Can you tell me a little more about her, who her relations were, andhow she came to come here?”
“There’s really very little to tell. As I said, it was about six years ago thatwe had letters from Mrs. Johnson inquiring about the Home, and thenMrs. Johnson herself came here and inspected it. She said she’d had men-tions of Sunny Ridge from a friend and she inquired the terms and all thatand—then she went away. And about a week or a fortnight later we had aletter from a firm of solicitors in London making further inquiries, and fi-nally they wrote saying that they would like us to accept Mrs. Lancasterand that Mrs. Johnson would bring her here in about a week’s time if wehad a vacancy. As it happened, we had, and Mrs. Johnson brought Mrs.
Lancaster here and Mrs. Lancaster seemed to like the place and liked theroom that we proposed to allot her. Mrs. Johnson said that Mrs. Lancasterwould like to bring some of her own things. I quite agreed, because peopleusually do that and find they’re much happier. So it was all arranged verysatisfactorily. Mrs. Johnson explained that Mrs. Lancaster was a relationof her husband’s, not a very near one, but that they felt worried about herbecause they themselves were going out to Africa—to Nigeria I think itwas, her husband was taking up an appointment there and it was likelythey’d be there for some years before they returned to England, so as theyhad no home to offer Mrs. Lancaster, they wanted to make sure that shewas accepted in a place where she would be really happy. They were quitesure from what they’d heard about this place that that was so. So it was allarranged very happily indeed and Mrs. Lancaster settled down here verywell.”
“I see.”
“Everyone here liked Mrs. Lancaster very much. She was a little bit—well, you know what I mean — woolly in the head. I mean, she forgotthings, confused things and couldn’t remember names and addressessometimes.”
“Did she get many letters?” said Tuppence. “I mean letters from abroadand things?”
“Well, I think Mrs. Johnson—or Mr. Johnson—wrote once or twice fromAfrica but not after the first year. People, I’m afraid, do forget, you know.
Especially when they go to a new country and a different life, and I don’tthink they’d been very closely in touch with her at any time. I think it wasjust a distant relation, and a family responsibility, and that was all itmeant to them. All the financial arrangements were done through the law-yer, Mr. Eccles, a very nice, reputable firm. Actually we’d had one or twodealings with that firm before so that we new about them, as they knewabout us. But I think most of Mrs. Lancaster’s friends and relations hadpassed over and so she didn’t hear much from anyone, and I think hardlyanyone ever came to visit her. One very nice-looking man came about ayear later, I think. I don’t think he knew her personally at all well but hewas a friend of Mr. Johnson’s and had also been in the Colonial serviceoverseas. I think he just came to make sure she was well and happy.”
“And after that,” said Tuppence, “everyone forgot about her.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Miss Packard. “It’s sad, isn’t it? But it’s the usualrather than the unusual thing to happen. Fortunately, most visitors to usmake their own friends here. They get friendly with someone who hastheir own tastes or certain memories in common, and so things settledown quite happily. I think most of them forget most of their past life.”
“Some of them, I suppose,” said Tommy, “are a little—” he hesitated fora word “—a little—” his hand went slowly to his forehead, but he drew itaway. “I don’t mean—” he said.
“Oh, I know perfectly what you mean,” said Miss Packard. “We don’ttake mental patients, you know, but we do take what you might call bor-derline cases. I mean, people who are rather senile—can’t look after them-selves properly, or who have certain fancies and imaginations. Sometimesthey imagine themselves to be historical personages. Quite in a harmlessway. We’ve had two Marie Antoinettes here, one of them was always talk-ing about something called the Petit Trianon and drinking a lot of milkwhich she seemed to associate with the place. And we had one dear oldsoul who insisted that she was Madame Curie and that she had discoveredradium. She used to read the papers with great interest, especially anynews of atomic bombs or scientific discoveries. Then she always explainedit was she and her husband who had first started experiments on theselines. Harmless delusions are things that manage to keep you very happywhen you’re elderly. They don’t usually last all the time, you know. You’renot Marie Antoinette every day or even Madame Curie. Usually it comeson about once a fortnight. Then I suppose presumably one gets tired ofkeeping the playacting up. And of course more often it’s just forgetfulnessthat people suffer from. They can’t quite remember who they are. Or theykeep saying there’s something very important they’ve forgotten and ifthey could only remember it. That sort of thing.”
“I see,” said Tuppence. She hesitated, and then said, “Mrs. Lancaster—Was it always things about that particular fireplace in the sitting room sheremembered, or was it any fireplace?”
Miss Packard stared—“A fireplace? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It was something she said that I didn’t understand—Perhaps she’d hadsome unpleasant association with a fireplace, or read some story that hadfrightened her.”
“Possibly.”
Tuppence said: “I’m still rather worried about the picture she gave toAunt Ada.”
“I really don’t think you need worry, Mrs. Beresford. I expect she’s for-gotten all about it by now. I don’t think she prized it particularly. She wasjust pleased that Miss Fanshawe admired it and was glad for her to have it,and I’m sure she’d be glad for you to have it because you admire it. It’s anice picture, I thought so myself. Not that I know much about pictures.”
“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll write to Mrs. Johnson if you’ll give me her ad-dress, and just ask if it’s all right to keep it.”
“The only address I’ve got is the hotel in London they were going to—theCleveland, I think it was called. Yes, the Cleveland Hotel, George Street,W1. She was taking Mrs. Lancaster there for about four or five days andafter that I think they were going to stay with some relations in Scotland. Iexpect the Cleveland Hotel will have a forwarding address.”
“Well, thank you—And now, about this fur stole of Aunt Ada’s.”
“I’ll go and bring Miss O’Keefe to you.”
She went out of the room.
“You and your Mrs. Blenkensops,” said Tommy.
Tuppence looked complacent.
“One of my best creations,” she said. “I’m glad I was able to make use ofher—I was just trying to think of a name and suddenly Mrs. Blenkensopcame into my mind. What fun it was, wasn’t it?”
“It’s a long time ago—No more spies in wartime and counter-espionagefor us.”
“More’s the pity. It was fun—living in that guest house—inventing a newpersonality for myself—I really began to believe I was Mrs. Blenkensop.”
“You were lucky you got away safely with it,” said Tommy, “and in myopinion, as I once told you, you overdid it.”
“I did not. I was perfectly in character. A nice woman, rather silly, andfar too much taken up with her three sons.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Tommy. “One son would have been quiteenough. Three sons were too much to burden yourself with.”
“They became quite real to me,” said Tuppence. “Douglas, Andrew and—goodness, I’ve forgotten the name of the third one now. I know exactlywhat they looked like and their characters and just where they were sta-tioned, and I talked most indiscreetly about the letters I got from them.”
“Well, that’s over,” said Tommy. “There’s nothing to find out in thisplace—so forget about Mrs. Blenkensop. When I’m dead and buried andyou’ve suitably mourned me and taken up your residence in a home forthe aged, I expect you’ll be thinking you are Mrs. Blenkensop half of thetime.”
“It’ll be rather boring to have only one role to play,” said Tuppence.
“Why do you think old people want to be Marie Antoinette, and MadameCurie and all the rest of it?” asked Tommy.
“I expect because they get so bored. One does get bored. I’m sure youwould if you couldn’t use your legs and walk about, or perhaps your fin-gers get too stiff and you can’t knit. Desperately you want something to doto amuse yourself so you try on some public character and see what itfeels like when you are it. I can understand that perfectly.”
“I’m sure you can,” said Tommy. “God help the home for the aged thatyou go to. You’ll be Cleopatra most of the time, I expect.”
“I won’t be a famous person,” said Tuppence. “I’ll be someone like a kit-chenmaid at Anne of Cleves’ castle retailing a lot of spicy gossip that I’dheard.”
The door opened, and Miss Packard appeared in company with a tall,freckle-faced young woman in nurse’s dress and a mop of red hair.
“This is Miss O’Keefe—Mr. and Mrs. Beresford. They have something totell you. Excuse me, will you? One of the patients is asking for me.”
Tuppence duly made the presentation of Aunt Ada’s fur stole and NurseO’Keefe was enraptured.
“Oh! It’s lovely. It’s too good for me, though. You’ll be wanting it yourself—”
“No, I don’t really. It’s on the big side for me. I’m too small. It’s just rightfor a tall girl like you. Aunt Ada was tall.”
“Ah! she was the grand old lady—she must have been very handsome asa girl.”
“I suppose so,” said Tommy doubtfully. “She must have been a tartar tolook after, though.”
“Oh, she was that, indeed. But she had a grand spirit. Nothing got herdown. And she was no fool either. You’d be surprised the way she got toknow things. Sharp as a needle, she was.”
“She had a temper, though.”
“Yes, indeed. But it’s the whining kind that gets you down—all com-plaints and moans. Miss Fanshawe was never dull. Grand stories she’d tellyou of the old days—Rode a horse once up the staircase of a country housewhen she was a girl—or so she said—Would that be true now?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Tommy.
“You never know what you can believe here. The tales the old dearscome and tell you. Criminals that they’ve recognized—We must notify thepolice at once—if not, we’re all in danger.”
“Somebody was being poisoned last time we were here, I remember,”
said Tuppence.
“Ah! that was only Mrs. Lockett. It happens to her every day. But it’s notthe police she wants, it’s a doctor to be called—she’s that crazy about doc-tors.”
“And somebody—a little woman—calling out for cocoa—”
“That would be Mrs. Moody. Poor soul, she’s gone.”
“You mean left here—gone away?”
“No—it was a thrombosis took her—very sudden. She was one who wasvery devoted to your Aunt—not that Miss Fanshawe always had time forher—always talking nineteen to the dozen, as she did—”
“Mrs. Lancaster has left, I hear.”
“Yes, her folk came for her. She didn’t want to go, poor thing.”
“What was the story she told me — about the fireplace in the sittingroom?”
“Ah! she’d lots of stories, that one—about the things that happened toher—and the secrets she knew—”
“There was something about a child—a kidnapped child or a murderedchild—”
“It’s strange it is, the things they think up. It’s the TV as often as not thatgives them the ideas—”
“Do you find it a strain, working here with all these old people? It mustbe tiring.”
“Oh no—I like old people—That’s why I took up Geriatric work—”
“You’ve been here long?”
“A year and a half—” She paused. “—But I’m leaving next month.”
“Oh! why?”
For the first time a certain constraint came into Nurse O’Keefe’s man-ner.
“Well, you see, Mrs. Beresford, one needs a change—”
“But you’ll be doing the same kind of work?”
“Oh yes—” She picked up the fur stole. “I’m thanking you again verymuch—and I’m glad, too, to have something to remember Miss Fanshaweby—She was a grand old lady—You don’t find many like her nowadays.”
Five DISAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD LADY（1）
Five DISAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD LADY
Aunt Ada’s things arrived in due course. The desk was installed and ad-mired. The little worktable dispossessed the whatnot—which was releg-ated to a dark corner of the hall. And the picture of the pale pink house bythe canal bridge Tuppence hung over the mantelpiece in her bedroomwhere she could see it every morning when drinking her early morningtea.
Since her conscience still troubled her a little, Tuppence wrote a letterexplaining how the picture had come into their possession but that if Mrs.
Lancaster would like it returned, she had only got to let them know. Thisshe dispatched to Mrs. Lancaster, c/o Mrs. Johnson, at the Cleveland Hotel,George Street, London, W1.
To this there was no reply, but a week later the letter was returned with“Not known at this address” scrawled on it.
“How tiresome,” said Tuppence.
“Perhaps they only stayed for a night or two,” suggested Tommy.
“You’d think they’d have left a forwarding address—”
“Did you put ‘Please forward’ on it?”
“Yes, I did. I know, I’ll ring them up and ask—They must have put an ad-dress in the hotel register—”
“I’d let it go if I were you,” said Tommy. “Why make all this fuss? I ex-pect the old pussy has forgotten all about the picture.”
“I might as well try.”
Tuppence sat down at the telephone and was presently connected to theCleveland Hotel.
She rejoined Tommy in his study a few minutes later.
“It’s rather curious, Tommy — they haven’t even been there. No Mrs.
Johnson—no Mrs. Lancaster—no rooms booked for them—or any trace oftheir having stayed there before.”
“I expect Miss Packard got the name of the hotel wrong. Wrote it downin a hurry—and then perhaps lost it—or remembered it wrong. Thingslike that often happen, you know.”
“I shouldn’t have thought it would at Sunny Ridge. Miss Packard is so ef-ficient always.”
“Perhaps they didn’t book beforehand at the hotel and it was full, sothey had to go somewhere else. You know what accommodation in Lon-don is like—Must you go on fussing?”
Tuppence retired.
Presently she came back.
“I know what I’m going to do. I’ll ring up Miss Packard and I’ll get theaddress of the lawyers—”
“What lawyers?”
“Don’t you remember she said something about a firm of solicitors whomade all the arrangements because the Johnsons were abroad?”
Tommy, who was busy over a speech he was drafting for a Conferencehe was shortly to attend, and murmuring under his breath—“the properpolicy if such a contingency should arise”—said: “How do you spell contin-gency, Tuppence?”
“Did you hear what I was saying?”
“Yes, very good idea—splendid—excellent—you do that—”
Tuppence went out—stuck her head in again and said:
“C-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-c-y.”
“Can’t be—you’ve got the wrong word.”
“What are you writing about?”
“The Paper I’m reading next at the I.U.A.S. and I do wish you’d let me doit in peace.”
“Sorry.”
Tuppence removed herself. Tommy continued to write sentences andthen scratch them out. His face was just brightening, as the pace of hiswriting increased—when once more the door opened.
“Here it is,” said Tuppence. “Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Part-ingdale, 32 Lincoln Terrace, W.C.2. Tel. Holborn 051386. The operativemember of the firm is Mr. Eccles.” She placed a sheet of paper by Tommy’selbow. “Now you take on.”
“No!” said Tommy firmly.
“Yes! She’s your Aunt Ada.”
“Where does Aunt Ada come in? Mrs. Lancaster is no aunt of mine.”
“But it’s lawyers,” Tuppence insisted. “It’s a man’s job always to dealwith lawyers. They just think women are silly and don’t pay attention—”
“A very sensible point of view,” said Tommy.
“Oh! Tommy—do help. You go and telephone and I’ll find the dictionaryand look how to spell contingency.”
Tommy gave her a look, but departed.
He returned at last and spoke firmly—“This matter is now closed, Tup-pence.”
“You got Mr. Eccles?”
“Strictly speaking I got a Mr. Wills who is doubtless the dogsbody of thefirm of Partingford, Lockjaw and Harrison. But he was fully informed andglib. All letters and communications go via the Southern Counties Bank,Hammersmith branch, who will forward all communications. And there,Tuppence, let me tell you, the trail stops. Banks will forward things—butthey won’t yield any addresses to you or anyone else who asks. They havetheir code of rules and they’ll stick to them—Their lips are sealed like ourmore pompous Prime Ministers.”
“All right, I’ll send a letter care of the Bank.”
“Do that—and for goodness’ sake, leave me alone—or I shall never get myspeech done.”
“Thank you, darling,” said Tuppence. “I don’t know what I’d do withoutyou.” She kissed the top of his head.
“It’s the best butter,” said Tommy.
Five DISAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD LADY（3）
III
On Monday morning, Albert, the domestic mainstay of the Beresfords’
life for many long years, ever since he had been roped into anticriminalactivities by them as a carroty-haired lift boy, deposited the tray of earlymorning tea on the table between the two beds, pulled back the curtains,announced that it was a fine day, and removed his now portly form fromthe room.
Tuppence yawned, sat up, rubbed her eyes, poured out a cup of tea,dropped a slice of lemon in it, and remarked that it seemed a nice day, butyou never knew.
Tommy turned over and groaned.
“Wake up,” said Tuppence. “Remember you’re going places today.”
“Oh Lord,” said Tommy. “So I am.”
He, too, sat up and helped himself to tea. He looked with appreciation atthe picture over the mantelpiece.
“I must say, Tuppence, your picture looks very nice.”
“It’s the way the sun comes in from the window sideways and lights itup.”
“Peaceful,” said Tommy.
“If only I could remember where it was I’d seen it before.”
“I can’t see that it matters. You’ll remember sometime or other.”
“That’s no good. I want to remember now.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you see? It’s the only clue I’ve got. It was Mrs. Lancaster’s picture—”
“But the two things don’t tie up together anyway,” said Tommy. “I mean,it’s true that the picture once belonged to Mrs. Lancaster. But it may havebeen just a picture she bought at an exhibition or that somebody in herfamily did. It may have been a picture that somebody gave her as apresent. She took it to Sunny Ridge with her because she thought it lookednice. There’s no reason it should have anything to do with her personally.
If it had, she wouldn’t have given it to Aunt Ada.”
“It’s the only clue I’ve got,” said Tuppence.
“It’s a nice peaceful house,” said Tommy.
“All the same, I think it’s an empty house.”
“What do you mean, empty?”
“I don’t think,” said Tuppence, “there’s anybody living in it. I don’t thinkanybody’s ever going to come out of that house. Nobody’s going to walkacross that bridge, nobody’s going to untie that boat and row away in it.”
“For goodness’ sake, Tuppence.” Tommy stared at her. “What’s the mat-ter with you?”
“I thought so the first time I saw it,” said Tuppence. “I thought ‘What anice house that would be to live in.’ And then I thought ‘But nobody doeslive here, I’m sure they don’t.’ That shows you that I have seen it before.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute .?.?. it’s coming. It’s coming.”
Tommy stared at her.
“Out of a window,” said Tuppence breathlessly. “Out of a car window?
No, no, that would be the wrong angle. Running alongside the canal .?.?.
and a little humpbacked bridge and the pink walls of the house, the twopoplar trees, more than two. There were lots more poplar trees. Oh dear,oh dear, if I could—”
“Oh, come off it, Tuppence.”
“It will come back to me.”
“Good Lord,” Tommy looked at his watch. “I’ve got to hurry. You andyour déjà vu picture.”
He jumped out of bed and hastened to the bathroom. Tuppence lay backon her pillows and closed her eyes, trying to force a recollection that justremained elusively out of reach.
Tommy was pouring out a second cup of coffee in the dining room whenTuppence appeared flushed with triumph.
“I’ve got it—I know where I saw that house. It was out of the window ofa railway train.”
“Where? When?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think. I remember saying to myself: ‘SomedayI’ll go and look at that house’—and I tried to see what the name of the nextstation was. But you know what railways are nowadays. They’ve pulleddown half the stations—and the next one we went through was all torndown, and grass growing over the platforms, and no name board or any-thing.”
“Where the hell’s my briefcase? Albert!”
A frenzied search took place.
Tommy came back to say a breathless goodbye. Tuppence was sittinglooking meditatively at a fried egg.
“Goodbye,” said Tommy. “And for God’s sake, Tuppence, don’t go pokinginto something that’s none of your business.”
“I think,” said Tuppence, meditatively, “that what I shall really do, is totake a few railway journeys.”
Tommy looked slightly relieved.
“Yes,” he said encouragingly, “you try that. Buy yourself a season ticket.
There’s some scheme where you can travel a thousand miles all over theBritish Isles for a very reasonable fixed sum. That ought to suit you downto the ground, Tuppence. You travel by all the trains you can think of in allthe likely parts. That ought to keep you happy until I come home again.”
“Give my love to Josh.”
“I will.” He added, looking at his wife in a worried manner, “I wish youwere coming with me. Don’t—don’t do anything stupid, will you?”
“Of course not,” said Tuppence.
Five DISAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD LADY（2）
II
It was not until the following Thursday evening that Tommy asked sud-denly, “By the way, did you ever get any answer to the letter you sent careof the Bank to Mrs. Johnson—”
“It’s nice of you to ask,” said Tuppence sarcastically. “No, I didn’t.” Sheadded meditatively, “I don’t think I shall, either.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not really interested,” said Tuppence coldly.
“Look here, Tuppence—I know I’ve been rather preoccupied—It’s allthis I.U.A.S.—It’s only once a year, thank goodness.”
“It starts on Monday, doesn’t it? For five days—”
“Four days.”
“And you all go down to a Hush Hush, top secret house in the countrysomewhere, and make speeches and read Papers and vet young men forSuper Secret assignments in Europe and beyond. I’ve forgotten whatI.U.A.S. stands for. All these initials they have nowadays—”
“International union of Associated Security.”
“What a mouthful! Quite ridiculous. And I expect the whole place isbugged, and everybody knows everybody else’s most secret conversa-tions.”
“Highly likely,” said Tommy with a grin.
“And I suppose you enjoy it?”
“Well, I do in a way. One sees a lot of old friends.”
“All quite gaga by now, I expect. Does any of it do any good?”
“Heavens, what a question! Can one ever let oneself believe that you cananswer that by a plain Yes or No—”
“And are any of the people any good?”
“I’d answer Yes to that. Some of them are very good indeed.”
“Will old Josh be there?”
“Yes, he’ll be there.”
“What is he like nowadays?”
“Extremely deaf, half blind, crippled with rheumatism—and you’d besurprised at the things that don’t get past him.”
“I see,” said Tuppence. She meditated. “I wish I were in it, too.”
Tommy looked apologetic.
“I expect you’ll find something to do while I’m away.”
“I might at that,” said Tuppence meditatively.
Her husband looked at her with the vague apprehension that Tuppencecould always arouse in him.
“Tuppence—what are you up to?”
“Nothing, yet—So far I’m only thinking.”
“What about?”
“Sunny Ridge. And a nice old lady sipping milk and talking in a scattykind of way about dead children and fireplaces. It intrigued me. I thoughtthen that I’d try and find out more from her next time we came to seeAunt Ada—But there wasn’t a next time because Aunt Ada died—Andwhen we were next in Sunny Ridge—Mrs. Lancaster had—disappeared!”
“You mean her people had taken her away? That’s not a disappearance—it’s quite natural.”
“It’s a disappearance—no traceable address—no answer to letters—it’s aplanned disappearance. I’m more and more sure of it.”
“But—”
Tuppence broke in upon his “But.”
“Listen, Tommy—supposing that sometime or other a crime happened—It seemed all safe and covered up—But then suppose that someone in thefamily had seen something, or known something—someone elderly andgarrulous—someone who chattered to people—someone whom you sud-denly realized might be a danger to you—What would you do about it?”
“Arsenic in the soup?” suggested Tommy cheerfully. “Cosh them on thehead—Push them down the staircase—?”
“That’s rather extreme — Sudden deaths attract attention. You’d lookabout for some simpler way — and you’d find one. A nice respectableHome for Elderly Ladies. You’d pay a visit to it, calling yourself Mrs. John-son or Mrs. Robinson—or you would get some unsuspecting third party tomake arrangements—You’d fix the financial arrangements through a firmof reliable solicitors. You’ve already hinted, perhaps, that your elderly rel-ative has fancies and mild delusions sometimes—so do a good many of theother old ladies — Nobody will think it odd — if she cackles on aboutpoisoned milk, or dead children behind a fireplace, or a sinister kidnap-ping; nobody will really listen. They’ll just think it’s old Mrs. So-and-Sohaving her fancies again—nobody will take any notice at all.”
“Except Mrs. Thomas Beresford,” said Tommy.
“All right, yes,” said Tuppence. “I’ve taken notice—”
“But why did you?”
“I don’t quite know,” said Tuppence slowly. “It’s like the fairy stories. Bythe pricking of my thumbs—Something evil this way comes—I felt suddenlyscared. I’d always thought of Sunny Ridge as such a normal happy place—and suddenly I began to wonder — That’s the only way I can put it. Iwanted to find out more. And now poor old Mrs. Lancaster has disap-peared. Somebody’s spirited her away.”
“But why should they?”
“I can only think because she was getting worse — worse from theirpoint of view—remembering more, perhaps, talking to people more, orperhaps she recognized someone—or someone recognized her—or toldher something that gave her new ideas about something that had oncehappened. Anyway, for some reason or other she became dangerous tosomeone.”
“Look here, Tuppence, this whole thing is all somethings and someones.
It’s just an idea you’ve thought up. You don’t want to go mixing yourselfup in things that are no business of yours—”
“There’s nothing to be mixed up in according to you,” said Tuppence.
“So you needn’t worry at all.”
“You leave Sunny Ridge alone.”
“I don’t mean to go back to Sunny Ridge. I think they’ve told me all theyknow there. I think that that old lady was quite safe whilst she was there. Iwant to find out where she is now—I want to get to her wherever she is intime—before something happens to her.”
“What on earth do you think might happen to her?”
“I don’t like to think. But I’m on the trail—I’m going to be PrudenceBeresford, Private Investigator. Do you remember when we were BluntsBrilliant Detectives?”
“I was,” said Tommy. “You were Miss Robinson, my private secretary.”
“Not all the time. Anyway, that’s what I’m going to do while you’re play-ing at International Espionage at Hush Hush Manor. It’s the ‘Save Mrs.
Lancaster’ that I’m going to be busy with.”
“You’ll probably find her perfectly all right.”
“I hope I shall. Nobody would be better pleased than I should.”
“How do you propose to set about it?”
“As I told you, I’ve got to think first. Perhaps an advertisement of somekind? No, that would be a mistake.”
“Well, be careful,” said Tommy, rather inadequately.
Tuppence did not deign to reply.
Seven THE FRIENDLY WITCH
BOOK 2 THE HOUSE ON THE CANAL
Seven THE FRIENDLY WITCH

Before leaving the next morning, Tuppence took a last careful look at thepicture hanging in her room, not so much to fix its details firmly in hermind, but to memorize its position in the landscape. This time she wouldbe seeing it not from the window of a train but from the road. The angle ofapproach would be quite different. There might be many humpbackedbridges, many similar disused canals—perhaps other houses looking likethis one (but that Tuppence refused to believe).
The picture was signed, but the signature of the artist was illegible—Allthat could be said was that it began with B.
Turning away from the picture, Tuppence checked her paraphernalia:
an A.B.C. and its attached railway map; a selection of ordnance maps; tent-ative names of places—Medchester, Westleigh—Market Basing—Middle-sham—Inchwell—Between them, they enclosed the triangle that she haddecided to examine. With her she took a small overnight bag since shewould have a three hours’ drive before she even arrived at the area of op-erations, and after that, it meant, she judged, a good deal of slow drivingalong country roads and lanes looking for likely canals.
After stopping in Medchester for coffee and a snack, she pushed on by asecond-class road adjacent to a railway line, and leading through woodedcountry with plenty of streams.
As in most of the rural districts of England, signposts were plentiful,bearing names that Tuppence had never heard of, and seldom seeming tolead to the place in question. There seemed to be a certain cunning aboutthis part of the road system of England. The road would twist off from thecanal, and when you pressed on hopefully to where you thought the canalmight have taken itself, you drew a blank. If you had gone in the directionof Great Michelden, the next signpost you came to offered you a choice oftwo roads, one to Pennington Sparrow and the other to Farlingford. Youchose Farlingford and managed actually to get to such a place but almostimmediately the next signpost sent you back firmly to Medchester, so thatyou practically retraced your steps. Actually Tuppence never did findGreat Michelden, and for a long time she was quite unable to find the lostcanal. If she had had any idea of which village she was looking for, thingsmight have gone more easily. Tracking canals on maps was merely puzz-ling. Now and again she came to the railway which cheered her up andshe would then push on hopefully for Bees Hill, South Winterton and Far-rell St. Edmund. Farrell St. Edmund had once had a station, but it hadbeen abolished some time ago! “If only,” thought Tuppence, “there wassome well-behaved road that ran alongside a canal, or alongside a railwayline, it would make it so much easier.”
The day wore on and Tuppence became more and more baffled. Occa-sionally she came upon a farm adjacent to a canal but the road having ledto the farm insisted on having nothing more to do with the canal and wentover a hill and arrived at something called Westpenfold which had achurch with a square tower which was no use at all.
From there when disconsolately pursuing a rutted road which seemedthe only way out of Westpenfold and which to Tuppence’s sense of direc-tion (which was now becoming increasingly unreliable) seemed to lead inthe opposite direction to anywhere she could possibly want to go, shecame abruptly to a place where two lanes forked right and left. There wasthe remains of a signpost between them, the arms of which had bothbroken off.
“Which way?” said Tuppence. “Who knows? I don’t.”
She took the left-hand one.
It meandered on, winding to left and to right. Finally it shot round abend, widened out and climbed a hill, coming out of woods into opendownlike country. Having surmounted the crest it took a steep downwardcourse. Not very far away a plaintive cry sounded—“Sounds like a train,” said Tuppence, with sudden hope.
It was a train—Then below her was the railway line and on it a goodstrain uttering cries of distress as it puffed along. And beyond it was thecanal and on the other side of the canal was a house that Tuppence recog-nized and, leading across the canal was a small humpbacked, pink-brickedbridge. The road dipped under the railway, came up, and made for thebridge. Tuppence drove very gently over the narrow bridge. Beyond it theroad went on with the house on the right-hand side of it. Tuppence droveon looking for the way in. There didn’t seem to be one. A fairly high wallshielded it from the road.
The house was on her right now. She stopped the car and walked backon to the bridge and looked at what she could see of the house from there.
Most of the tall windows were shuttered with green shutters. The househad a very quiet and empty look. It looked peaceful and kindly in the set-ting sun. There was nothing to suggest that anyone lived in it. She wentback to the car and drove a little farther. The wall, a moderately high one,ran along to her right. The left-hand side of the road was merely a hedgegiving on green fields.
Presently she came to a wrought-iron gate in the wall. She parked thecar by the side of the road, got out and went over to look through the iron-work of the gate. By standing on tiptoe she could look over it. What shelooked into was a garden. The place was certainly not a farm now, thoughit might have been once. Presumably it gave on fields beyond it. Thegarden was tended and cultivated. It was not particularly tidy but itlooked as though someone was trying rather unsuccessfully to keep it tidy.
From the iron gate a circular path curved through the garden and roundto the house. This must be presumably the front door, though it didn’t looklike a front door. It was inconspicuous though sturdy—a back door. Thehouse looked quite different from this side. To begin with, it was notempty. People lived there. Windows were open, curtains fluttered at them,a garbage pail stood by the door. At the far end of the garden Tuppencecould see a large man digging, a big elderly man who dug slowly and withpersistence. Certainly looked at from here the house held no enchantment,no artist would have wanted particularly to paint it. It was just a houseand somebody lived in it. Tuppence wondered. She hesitated. Should shego on and forget the house altogether? No, she could hardly do that, notafter all the trouble she had taken. What time was it? She looked at herwatch but her watch had stopped. The sound of a door opening came frominside. She peered through the gate again.
The door of the house had opened and a woman came out. She putdown a milk bottle and then, straightening up, glanced towards the gate.
She saw Tuppence and hesitated for a moment, and then seeming to makeup her mind, she came down the path towards the gate. “Why,” said Tup-pence to herself, “why, it’s a friendly witch!”
It was a woman of about fifty. She had long straggly hair which whencaught by the wind, flew out behind her. It reminded Tuppence vaguely ofa picture (by Nevinson?) of a young witch on a broomstick. That is per-haps why the term witch had come into her mind. But there was nothingyoung or beautiful about this woman. She was middle-aged, with a linedface, dressed in a rather slipshod way. She had a kind of steeple hatperched on her head and her nose and her chin came up towards eachother. As a description she could have been sinister but she did not looksinister. She seemed to have a beaming and boundless good will. “Yes,”
thought Tuppence, “you’re exactly like a witch, but you’re a friendly witch.
I expect you’re what they used to call a ‘white witch.’ ”
The woman came down in a hesitating manner to the gate and spoke.
Her voice was pleasant with a faint country burr in it of some kind.
“Were you looking for anything?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” said Tuppence, “you must think it very rude of me lookinginto your garden in this way, but—but I wondered about this house.”
“Would you like to come in and look round the garden?” said thefriendly witch.
“Well—well—thank you but I don’t want to bother you.”
“Oh, it’s no bother. I’ve nothing to do. Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” said Tuppence.
“I thought perhaps you’d lost your way,” said the friendly witch. “Peopledo sometimes.”
“I just thought,” said Tuppence, “that this was a very attractive-lookinghouse when I came down the hill on the other side of the bridge.”
“That’s the prettiest side,” said the woman. “Artists come and sketch itsometimes—or they used to—once.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “I expect they would. I believe I—I saw a picture—at some exhibition,” she added hurriedly. “Some house very like this. Per-haps it was this.”
“Oh, it may have been. Funny, you know, artists come and do a picture.
And then other artists seem to come too. It’s just the same when they havethe local picture show every year. Artists all seem to choose the same spot.
I don’t know why. You know, it’s either a bit of meadow and brook, or aparticular oak tree, or a clump of willows, or it’s the same view of the Nor-man church. Five or six different pictures of the same thing, most of thempretty bad, I should think. But then I don’t know anything about art. Comein, do.”
“You’re very kind,” said Tuppence. “You’ve got a very nice garden,” sheadded.
“Oh, it’s not too bad. We’ve got a few flowers and vegetables and things.
But my husband can’t do much work nowadays and I’ve got no time withone thing and another.”
“I saw this house once from the train,” said Tuppence. “The train slowedup and I saw this house and I wondered whether I’d ever see it again.
Quite some time ago.”
“And now suddenly you come down the hill in your car and there it is,”
said the woman. “Funny, things happen like that, don’t they?”
“Thank goodness,” Tuppence thought, “this woman is extraordinarilyeasy to talk to. One hardly has to imagine anything to explain oneself. Onecan almost say just what comes into one’s head.”
“Like to come inside the house?” said the friendly witch. “I can seeyou’re interested. It’s quite an old house, you know. I mean, late Georgianor something like that, they say, only it’s been added on to. Of course,we’ve only got half the house, you know.”
“Oh I see,” said Tuppence. “It’s divided in two, is that it?”
“This is really the back of it,” said the woman. “The front’s the otherside, the side you saw from the bridge. It was a funny way to partition it, Ishould have thought. I’d have thought it would have been easier to do itthe other way. You know, right and left, so to speak. Not back and front.
This is all really the back.”
“Have you lived here long?” asked Tuppence.
“Three years. After my husband retired we wanted a little place some-where in the country where we’d be quiet. Somewhere cheap. This wasgoing cheap because of course it’s very lonely. You’re not near a village oranything.”
“I saw a church steeple in the distance.”
“Ah, that’s Sutton Chancellor. Two and a half miles from here. We’re inthe parish, of course, but there aren’t any houses until you get to the vil-lage. It’s a very small village too. You’ll have a cup of tea?” said thefriendly witch. “I just put the kettle on not two minutes ago when I lookedout and saw you.” She raised both hands to her mouth and shouted.
“Amos,” she shouted, “Amos.”
The big man in the distance turned his head.
“Tea in ten minutes,” she called.
He acknowledged the signal by raising his hand. She turned, opened thedoor and motioned Tuppence to go in.
“Perry, my name is,” she said in a friendly voice. “Alice Perry.”
“Mine’s Beresford,” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Beresford.”
“Come in, Mrs. Beresford, and have a look round.”
Tuppence paused for a second. She thought “Just for a moment I feel likeHansel and Gretel. The witch asks you into her house. Perhaps it’s agingerbread house .?.?. It ought to be.”
Then she looked at Alice Perry again and thought that it wasn’t thegingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel’s witch. This was just a perfectlyordinary woman. No, not quite ordinary. She had a rather strange wildfriendliness about her. “She might be able to do spells,” thought Tuppence,“but I’m sure they’d be good spells.” She stooped her head a little andstepped over the threshold into the witch’s house.
It was rather dark inside. The passages were small. Mrs. Perry led herthrough a kitchen and into a sitting room beyond it which was evidentlythe family living room. There was nothing exciting about the house. Itwas, Tuppence thought, probably a late Victorian addition to the mainpart. Horizontally it was narrow. It seemed to consist of a horizontal pas-sage, rather dark, which served a string of rooms. She thought to herselfthat it certainly was rather an odd way of dividing a house.
“Sit down and I’ll bring the tea in,” said Mrs. Perry.
“Let me help you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I shan’t be a minute. It’s all ready on the tray.”
A whistle rose from the kitchen. The kettle had evidently reached theend of its span of tranquillity. Mrs. Perry went out and returned in aminute or two with the tea tray, a plate of scones, a jar of jam and threecups and saucers.
“I expect you’re disappointed, now you’ve got inside,” said Mrs. Perry.
It was a shrewd remark and very near to the truth.
“Oh no,” said Tuppence.
“Well, I should be if I was you. Because they don’t match a bit, do they? Imean the front and the back side of the house don’t match. But it is a com-fortable house to live in. Not many rooms, not too much light but it makesa great difference in price.”
“Who divided the house and why?”
“Oh, a good many years ago, I believe. I suppose whoever had it thoughtit was too big or too inconvenient. Only wanted a weekend place or some-thing of that kind. So they kept the good rooms, the dining room and thedrawing room and made a kitchen out of a small study there was, and acouple of bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, and then walled it up and letthe part that was kitchens and old-fashioned sculleries and things, and didit up a bit.”
“Who lives in the other part? Someone who just comes down for week-ends?”
“Nobody lives there now,” said Mrs. Perry. “Have another scone, dear.”
“Thank you,” said Tuppence.
“At least nobody’s come down here in the last two years. I don’t knoweven who it belongs to now.”
“But when you first came here?”
“There was a young lady used to come down here—an actress they saidshe was. At least that’s what we heard. But we never saw her really. Justcaught a glimpse sometimes. She used to come down late on a Saturdaynight after the show, I suppose. She used to go away on the Sunday even-ings.”
“Quite a mystery woman,” said Tuppence, encouragingly.
“You know that’s just the way I used to think of her. I used to make upstories about her in my head. Sometimes I’d think she was like GretaGarbo. You know, the way she went about always in dark glasses andpulled-down hats. Goodness now, I’ve got my peak hat on.”
She removed the witch’s headgear from her head and laughed.
“It’s for a play we’re having at the parish rooms in Sutton Chancellor,”
she said. “You know—a sort of fairy story play for the children mostly. I’mplaying the witch,” she added.
“Oh,” said Tuppence, slightly taken aback, then added quickly, “Whatfun.”
“Yes, it is fun, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Perry. “Just right for the witch, aren’tI?” She laughed and tapped her chin. “You know. I’ve got the face for it.
Hope it won’t put ideas into people’s heads. They’ll think I’ve got the evileye.”
“I don’t think they’d think that of you,” said Tuppence. “I’m sure you’dbe a beneficent witch.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” said Mrs. Perry. “As I was saying, this act-ress—I can’t remember her name now—Miss Marchment I think it was,but it might have been something else—you wouldn’t believe the things Iused to make up about her. Really, I suppose, I hardly ever saw or spoke toher. Sometimes I think she was just terribly shy and neurotic. Reporters’dcome down after her and things like that, but she never would see them.
At other times I used to think—well, you’ll say I’m foolish—I used to thinkquite sinister things about her. You know, that she was afraid of being re-cognized. Perhaps she wasn’t an actress at all. Perhaps the police werelooking for her. Perhaps she was a criminal of some kind. It’s excitingsometimes, making things up in your head. Especially when you don’t—well—see many people.”
“Did nobody ever come down here with her?”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that. Of course these partition walls, youknow, that they put in when they turned the house into two, well, they’repretty thin and sometimes you’d hear voices and things like that. I thinkshe did bring down someone for weekends occasionally.” She nodded herhead. “A man of some kind. That may have been why they wanted some-where quiet like this.”
“A married man,” said Tuppence, entering into the spirit of make be-lieve.
“Yes, it would be a married man, wouldn’t it?” said Mrs. Perry.
“Perhaps it was her husband who came down with her. He’d taken thisplace in the country because he wanted to murder her and perhaps heburied her in the garden.”
“My!” said Mrs. Perry. “You do have an imagination, don’t you? I neverthought of that one.”
“I suppose someone must have known all about her,” said Tuppence. “Imean house agents. People like that.”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Perry. “But I rather liked not knowing, ifyou understand what I mean.”
“Oh yes,” said Tuppence, “I do understand.”
“It’s got an atmosphere, you know, this house. I mean there’s a feeling init, a feeling that anything might have happened.”
“Didn’t she have any people come in to clean for her or anything likethat?”
“Difficult to get anyone here. There’s nobody near at hand.”
The outside door opened. The big man who had been digging in thegarden came in. He went to the scullery tap and turned it, obviously wash-ing his hands. Then he came through into the sitting room.
“This is my husband,” said Mrs. Perry. “Amos. We’ve got a visitor, Amos.
This is Mrs. Beresford.”
“How do you do?” said Tuppence.
Amos Perry was a tall, shambling-looking man. He was bigger and morepowerful than Tuppence had realized. Although he had a shambling gaitand walked slowly, he was a big man of muscular build. He said,“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Beresford.”
His voice was pleasant and he smiled, but Tuppence wondered for abrief moment whether he was really what she would have called “allthere.” There was a kind of wondering simplicity about the look in hiseyes and she wondered, too, whether Mrs. Perry had wanted a quiet placeto live in because of some mental disability on the part of her husband.
“Ever so fond of the garden, he is,” said Mrs. Perry.
At his entrance the conversation dimmed down. Mrs. Perry did most ofthe talking but her personality seemed to have changed. She talked withrather more nervousness and with particular attention to her husband.
Encouraging him, Tuppence thought, rather in a way that a mother mightprompt a shy boy to talk, to display the best of himself before a visitor,and to be a little nervous that he might be inadequate. When she’d fin-ished her tea, Tuppence got up. She said,
“I must be going. Thank you, Mrs. Perry, very much for your hospital-ity.”
“You’ll see the garden before you go.” Mr. Perry rose. “Come on, I’llshow you.”
She went with him outdoors and he took her down to the corner beyondwhere he had been digging.
“Nice, them flowers, aren’t they?” he said. “Got some old-fashioned roseshere—See this one, striped red and white.”
“‘Commandant Beaurepaire,’ ” said Tuppence.
“Us calls it ‘York and Lancaster’ here,” said Perry. “Wars of the Roses.
Smells sweet, don’t it?”
“Smells lovely.”
“Better than them new-fashioned Hybrid Teas.”
In a way the garden was rather pathetic. The weeds were imperfectlycontrolled, but the flowers themselves were carefully tied up in an ama-teurish fashion.
“Bright colours,” said Mr. Perry. “I like bright colours. We often get folkto see our garden,” he said. “Glad you came.”
“Thank you very much,” said Tuppence. “I think your garden and yourhouse are very nice indeed.”
“You ought to see t’other side of it.”
“Is it to let or to be sold? Your wife says there’s nobody living therenow.”
“We don’t know. We’ve not seen anyone and there’s no board up andnobody’s ever come to see over it.”
“It would be a nice house, I think, to live in.”
“You wanting a house?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, making up her mind quickly. “Yes, as a matter offact, we are looking round for some small place in the country, for whenmy husband retires. That’ll be next year probably, but we like to lookabout in plenty of time.”
“It’s quiet here if you like quiet.”
“I suppose,” said Tuppence, “I could ask the local house agents. Is thathow you got your house?”
“Saw an advertisement first we did in the paper. Then we went to thehouse agents, yes.”
“Where was that—in Sutton Chancellor? That’s your village, isn’t it?”
“Sutton Chancellor? No. Agents’ place is in Market Basing. Russell &Thompson, that’s the name. You could go to them and ask.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “so I could. How far is Market Basing from here?”
“It’s two miles to Sutton Chancellor and it’s seven miles to Market Basingfrom there. There’s a proper road from Sutton Chancellor, but it’s all laneshereabouts.”
“I see,” said Tuppence. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Perry, and thank you verymuch for showing me your garden.”
“Wait a bit.” He stooped, cut off an enormous paeony and taking Tup-pence by the lapel of her coat, he inserted this through the buttonhole init. “There,” he said, “there you are. Looks pretty, it does.”
For a moment Tuppence felt a sudden feeling of panic. This large, sham-bling, good-natured man suddenly frightened her. He was looking down ather, smiling. Smiling rather wildly, almost leering. “Pretty it looks on you,”
he said again. “Pretty.”
Tuppence thought “I’m glad I’m not a young girl .?.?. I don’t think I’d likehim putting a flower on me then.” She said goodbye again and hurriedaway.
The house door was open and Tuppence went in to say goodbye to Mrs.
Perry. Mrs. Perry was in the kitchen, washing up the tea things and Tup-pence almost automatically pulled a teacloth off the rack and started dry-ing.
“Thank you so much,” she said, “both you and your husband. You’vebeen so kind and hospitable to me—What’s that?”
From the wall of the kitchen, or rather behind the wall where an old-fashioned range had once stood, there came a loud screaming andsquawking and a scratching noise too.
“That’ll be a jackdaw,” said Mrs. Perry, “dropped down the chimney inthe other house. They do this time of the year. One came down our chim-ney last week. They make nests in the chimneys, you know.”
“What—in the other house?”
“Yes, there it is again.”
Again the squawking and crying of a distressed bird came to their ears.
Mrs. Perry said, “There’s no one to bother, you see, in the empty house.
The chimneys ought to be swept and all that.”
The squawking scratching noises went on.
“Poor bird,” said Tuppence.
“I know. It won’t be able to get up again.”
“You mean it’ll just die there?”
“Oh yes. One came down our chimney as I say. Two of them, actually.
One was a young bird. It was all right, we put it out and it flew away. Theother one was dead.”
The frenzied scuffling and squeaking went on.
“Oh,” said Tuppence, “I wish we could get at it.”
Mr. Perry came in through the door. “Anything the matter?” he said,looking from one to the other.
“There’s a bird, Amos. It must be in the drawing-room chimney nextdoor. Hear it?”
“Eh, it’s come down from the jackdaws’ nest.”
“I wish we could get in there,” said Mrs. Perry.
“Ah, you can’t do anything. They’ll die from the fright, if nothing else.”
“Then it’ll smell,” said Mrs. Perry.
“You won’t smell anything in here. You’re softhearted,” he went on,looking from one to the other, “like all females. We’ll get it if you like.”
“Why, is one of the windows open?”
“We can get in through the door.”
“What door?”
“Outside here in the yard. The key’s hanging up among those.”
He went outside and along to the end, opening a small door there. It wasa kind of potting shed really, but a door from it led into the other houseand near the door of the potting shed were six or seven rusty keys hangingon a nail.
“This one fits,” said Mr. Perry.
He took down the key and put it in the door, and after exerting a gooddeal of cajolery and force, the key turned rustily in the lock.
“I went in once before,” he said, “when I heard water running. Some-body’d forgotten to turn the water off properly.”
He went in and the two women followed him. The door led into a smallroom which still contained various flower vases on a shelf and a sink witha tap.
“A flower room, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “Where people used to dothe flowers. See? A lot of the vases left here.”
There was a door out of the flower room. This was not even locked. Heopened it and they went through. It was like, Tuppence thought, goingthrough into another world. The passageway outside was covered with apile carpet. A little way along there was a door half open and from therethe sounds of a bird in distress were coming. Perry pushed the door openand his wife and Tuppence went in.
The windows were shuttered but one side of a shutter was hangingloose and light came in. Although it was dim, there was a faded but beauti-ful carpet on the floor, a deep sage green in colour. There was a bookshelfagainst the wall but no chairs or tables. The furniture had been removedno doubt, the curtains and carpets had been left as fittings to be passed onto the next tenant.
Mrs. Perry went towards the fireplace. A bird lay in the grate scufflingand uttering loud squawking sounds of distress. She stooped, picked it up,and said,
“Open the window if you can, Amos.”
Amos went over, pulled the shutter aside, unfastened the other side of itand then pushed at the latch of the window. He raised the lower sashwhich came gratingly. As soon as it was open Mrs. Perry leaned out andreleased the jackdaw. It flopped on to the lawn, hopped a few paces.
“Better kill it,” said Perry. “It’s damaged.”
“Leave it a bit,” said his wife. “You never know. They recover veryquickly, birds. It’s fright that makes them so paralysed looking.”
Sure enough, a few moments later the jackdaw, with a final struggle, asquawk, a flapping of wings flew off.
“I only hope,” said Alice Perry, “that it doesn’t come down that chimneyagain. Contrary things, birds. Don’t know what’s good for them. Get into aroom, they can never get out of it by themselves. Oh,” she added, “what amess.”
She, Tuppence and Mr. Perry all stared at the grate. From the chimneyhad come down a mass of soot, of odd rubble and of broken bricks. Evid-ently it had been in a bad state of repair for some time.
“Somebody ought to come and live here,” said Mrs. Perry, looking roundher.
“Somebody ought to look after it,” Tuppence agreed with her. “Somebuilder ought to look at it or do something about it or the whole house willcome down soon.”
“Probably water has been coming through the roof in the top rooms.
Yes, look at the ceiling up there, it’s come through there.”
“Oh, what a shame,” said Tuppence, “to ruin a beautiful house—it reallyis a beautiful room, isn’t it.”
She and Mrs. Perry looked together round it appreciatively. Built in1790 it had all the graciousness of a house of that period. It had had origin-ally a pattern of willow leaves on the discoloured paper.
“It’s a ruin now,” said Mr. Perry.
Tuppence poked the debris in the grate.
“One ought to sweep it up,” said Mrs. Perry.
“Now what do you want to bother yourself with a house that doesn’t be-long to you?” said her husband. “Leave it alone, woman. It’ll be in just asbad a state tomorrow morning.”
Tuppence stirred the bricks aside with a toe.
“Ooh,” she said with an exclamation of disgust.
There were two dead birds lying in the fireplace. By the look of themthey had been dead for some time.
“That’s the nest that came down a good few weeks ago. It’s a wonder itdoesn’t smell more than it does,” said Perry.
“What’s this thing?” said Tuppence.
She poked with her toe at something lying half hidden in the rubble.
Then she bent and picked it up.
“Don’t you touch a dead bird,” said Mrs. Perry.
“It’s not a bird,” said Tuppence. “Something else must have come downthe chimney. Well I never,” she added, staring at it. “It’s a doll. It’s a child’sdoll.”
They looked down at it. Ragged, torn, its clothes in rags, its head lollingfrom the shoulders, it had originally been a child’s doll. One glass eyedropped out. Tuppence stood holding it.
“I wonder,” she said, “I wonder how a child’s doll ever got up a chimney.
Extraordinary.”
Six TUPPENCE ON THE TRAIL
Six TUPPENCE ON THE TRAIL

“Oh dear,” sighed Tuppence, “oh dear.” She looked round her with gloomyeyes. Never, she said to herself, had she felt more miserable. Naturally shehad known she would miss Tommy, but she had no idea how much shewas going to miss him.
During the long course of their married life they had hardly ever beenseparated for any length of time. Starting before their marriage, they hadcalled themselves a pair of “young adventurers.” They had been throughvarious difficulties and dangers together, they had married, they had hadtwo children and just as the world was seeming rather dull and middle-aged to them, the second war had come about and in what seemed an al-most miraculous way they had been tangled up yet again on the outskirtsof the British Intelligence. A somewhat unorthodox pair, they had been re-cruited by a quiet nondescript man who called himself “Mr. Carter,” but towhose word everybody seemed to bow. They had had adventures, andonce again they had had them together. This, by the way, had not beenplanned by Mr. Carter. Tommy alone had been recruited. But Tuppencedisplaying all her natural ingenuity, had managed to eavesdrop in such afashion that when Tommy had arrived at a guest house on the sea coast inthe role of a certain Mr. Meadows, the first person he had seen there hadbeen a middle-aged lady plying knitting needles, who had looked up athim with innocent eyes and whom he had been forced to greet as Mrs.
Blenkensop. Thereafter they had worked as a pair.
“However,” thought Tuppence to herself, “I can’t do it this time.” Noamount of eavesdropping, of ingenuity, or anything else would take her tothe recesses of Hush Hush Manor or to participation in the intricacies ofI.U.A.S. Just an Old Boys Club, she thought resentfully. Without Tommy theflat was empty, the world was lonely, and “What on earth,” thought Tup-pence, “am I to do with myself?”
The question was really purely rhetorical for Tuppence had alreadystarted on the first steps of what she planned to do with herself. There wasno question this time of intelligence work, of counterespionage or any-thing of that kind. Nothing of an official nature. “Prudence Beresford,Private Investigator, that’s what I am,” said Tuppence to herself.
After a scrappy lunch had been hastily cleared away, the dining roomtable was strewn with railway timetables, guidebooks, maps, and a fewold diaries which Tuppence had managed to disinter.
Some time in the last three years (not longer, she was sure) she hadtaken a railway journey, and looking out of the carriage window, had no-ticed a house. But, what railway journey?
Like most people at the present time, the Beresfords travelled mainly bycar. The railway journeys they took were few and far between.
Scotland, of course, when they went to stay with their married daughterDeborah—but that was a night journey.
Penzance—summer holidays—but Tuppence knew that line by heart.
No, this had been a much more casual journey.
With diligence and perseverance, Tuppence had made a meticulous listof all the possible journeys she had taken which might correspond to whatshe was looking for. One or two race meetings, a visit to Northumberland,two possible places in Wales, a christening, two weddings, a sale they hadattended, some puppies she had once delivered for a friend who bredthem and who had gone down with influenza. The meeting place had beenan arid-looking country junction whose name she couldn’t remember.
Tuppence sighed. It seemed as though Tommy’s solution was the oneshe might have to adopt—Buy a kind of circular ticket and actually travelover the most likely stretches of railway line.
In a small notebook she had jotted down any snatches of extra memor-ies—vague flashes—in case they might help.
A hat, for instance—Yes, a hat that she had thrown up on the rack. Shehad been wearing a hat—so—a wedding or the christening—certainly notpuppies.
And—another flash—kicking off her shoes—because her feet hurt. Yes—that was definite—she had been actually looking at the House—and shehad kicked off her shoes because her feet hurt.
So, then, it had definitely been a social function she had either been go-ing to, or returning from—Returning from, of course—because of the pain-fulness of her feet from long standing about in her best shoes. And whatkind of a hat? Because that would help—a flowery hat—a summer wed-ding—or a velvet winter one?
Tuppence was busy jotting down details from the Railway timetables ofdifferent lines when Albert came in to ask what she wanted for supper—and what she wanted ordered in from the butcher and the grocer.
“I think I’m going to be away for the next few days,” said Tuppence. “Soyou needn’t order in anything. I’m going to take some railway journeys.”
“Will you be wanting some sandwiches?”
“I might. Get some ham or something.”
“Egg and cheese do you? Or there’s a tin of p?té in the larder—it’s beenthere a long while, time it was eaten.” It was a somewhat sinister recom-mendation, but Tuppence said,
“All right. That’ll do.”
“Want letters forwarded?”
“I don’t even know where I’m going yet,” said Tuppence.
“I see,” said Albert.
The comfortable thing about Albert was that he always acceptedeverything. Nothing ever had to be explained to him.
He went away and Tuppence settled down to her planning—what shewanted was: a social engagement involving a hat and party shoes. Unfor-tunately the ones she had listed involved different railway lines — Onewedding on the Southern Railway, the other in East Anglia. The christen-ing north of Bedford.
If she could remember a little more about the scenery .?.?. She had beensitting on the right-hand side of the train. What had she been looking atbefore the canal—Woods? Trees? Farmland? A distant village?
Straining her brain, she looked up with a frown—Albert had come back.
How far she was at that moment from knowing that Albert standing therewaiting for attention was neither more nor less than an answer to prayer—
“Well, what is it now, Albert?”
“If it’s that you’re going to be away all day tomorrow—”
“And the day after as well, probably—”
“Would it be all right for me to have the day off?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It’s Elizabeth—come out in spots she has. Milly thinks it’s measles—”
“Oh dear.” Milly was Albert’s wife and Elizabeth was the youngest of hischildren. “So Milly wants you at home, of course.”
Albert lived in a small neat house a street or two away.
“It’s not that so much—She likes me out of the way when she’s got herhands full—she doesn’t want me messing things up—But it’s the other kids—I could take ’em somewhere out of her way.”
“Of course. You’re all in quarantine, I suppose.”
“Oh! well, best for ’em all to get it, and get it over. Charlie’s had it, and sohas Jean. Anyway, that’ll be all right?”
Tuppence assured him that it would be all right.
Something was stirring in the depths of her subconscious—A happy an-ticipation—a recognition—Measles—Yes, measles. Something to do withmeasles.
But why should the house by the canal have anything to do withmeasles .?.?. ?
Of course! Anthea. Anthea was Tuppence’s goddaughter—and Anthea’sdaughter Jane was at school—her first term—and it was Prize Giving andAnthea had rung up—her two younger children had come out in a measlerash and she had nobody in the house to help and Jane would be terriblydisappointed if nobody came—Could Tuppence possibly?—And Tuppence had said of course—She wasn’t doing anything particular—she’d go down to the school and take Jane out and give her lunch andthen go back to the sports and all the rest of it. There was a special schooltrain.
Everything came back into her mind with astonishing clarity—even thedress she’d worn—a summer print of cornflowers!
She had seen the house on the return journey.
Going down there she had been absorbed in a magazine she had bought,but coming back she had had nothing to read, and she had looked out ofthe window until, exhausted by the activities of the day, and the pressureof her shoes, she had dropped off to sleep.
When she had woken up the train had been running beside a canal. Itwas partially wooded country, an occasional bridge, sometimes a twistinglane or minor road—a distant farm—no villages.
The train began to slow down, for no reason it would seem, except that asignal must be against it. It drew jerkily to a halt by a bridge, a little hump-backed bridge which spanned the canal, a disused canal presumably. Onthe other side of the canal, close to the water, was the house—a house thatTuppence thought at once was one of the most attractive houses she hadever seen—a quiet, peaceful house, irradiated by the golden light of thelate afternoon sun.
There was no human being to be seen—no dogs, or livestock. Yet thegreen shutters were not fastened. The house must be lived in, but now, atthis moment, it was empty.
“I must find out about that house,” Tuppence had thought. “Someday Imust come back here and look at it. It’s the kind of house I’d like to livein.”
With a jerk the train lurched slowly forwards.
“I’ll look out for the name of the next station—so that I’ll know where itis.”
But there had been no appropriate station. It was the time when thingswere beginning to happen to railways—small stations were closed, evenpulled down, grass sprouted on the decayed platforms. For twentyminutes—half an hour—the train ran on, but nothing identifiable was tobe seen. Over fields, in the far distance, Tuppence once saw the spire of achurch.
Then had come some factory complex—tall chimneys—a line of prefabhouses, then open country again.
Tuppence had thought to herself—That house was rather like a dream!
Perhaps it was a dream—I don’t suppose I’ll ever go and look for it—toodifficult. Besides, rather a pity, perhaps—
Someday, maybe, I’ll come across it by accident!
And so—she had forgotten all about it—until a picture hanging on a wallhad reawakened a veiled memory.
And now, thanks to one word uttered unwittingly by Albert, the questwas ended.
Or, to speak correctly, a quest was beginning.
Tuppence sorted out three maps, a guidebook, and various other ac-cessories.
Roughly now she knew the area she would have to search. Jane’s schoolshe marked with a large cross—the branch railway line, which ran intothe main line to London—the time lapse whilst she had slept.
The final area as planned covered a considerable mileage — north ofMedchester, southeast of Market Basing which was a small town, but wasquite an important railway junction, west probably of Shaleborough.
She’d take the car, and start early tomorrow morning.
She got up and went into the bedroom and studied the picture over themantelpiece.
Yes, there was no mistake. That was the house she had seen from thetrain three years ago. The house she had promised to look for someday—Someday had come—Someday was tomorrow.
Eight SUTTON CHANCELLOR
Eight SUTTON CHANCELLOR

After leaving the canal house, Tuppence drove slowly on along the narrowwinding road which she had been assured would lead her to the village ofSutton Chancellor. It was an isolated road. There were no houses to beseen from it — only field gates from which muddy tracks led inwards.
There was little traffic—one tractor came along, and one lorry proudly an-nouncing that it carried Mother’s Delight and the picture of an enormousand unnatural-looking loaf. The church steeple she had noticed in the dis-tance seemed to have disappeared entirely — but it finally reappearedquite near at hand after the lane had bent suddenly and sharply round abelt of trees. Tuppence glanced at the speedometer and saw she had cometwo miles since the canal house.
It was an attractive old church standing in a sizeable churchyard with alone yew tree standing by the church door.
Tuppence left the car outside the lych gate, passed through it, and stoodfor a few moments surveying the church and the churchyard round it.
Then she went to the church door with its rounded Norman arch and lif-ted the heavy handle. It was unlocked and she went inside.
The inside was unattractive. The church was an old one, undoubtedly,but it had had a zealous wash and brush up in Victorian times. Its pitchpine pews and its flaring red and blue glass windows had ruined any an-tique charm it had once possessed. A middle-aged woman in a tweed coatand skirt was arranging flowers in brass vases round the pulpit—she hadalready finished the altar. She looked round at Tuppence with a sharplyinquiring glance. Tuppence wandered up an aisle looking at memorialtablets on the walls. A family called Warrender seemed to be most fullyrepresented in early years. All of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor. CaptainWarrender, Major Warrender, Sarah Elisabeth Warrender, dearly belovedwife of George Warrender. A newer tablet recorded the death of JuliaStarke (another beloved wife) of Philip Starke, also of The Priory, SuttonChancellor—so it would seem the Warrenders had died out. None of themwere particularly suggestive or interesting. Tuppence passed out of thechurch again and walked round it on the outside. The outside, Tuppencethought, was much more attractive than the inside. “Early Perp. and Dec.,”
said Tuppence to herself, having been brought up on familiar terms withecclesiastical architecture. She was not particularly fond of early Perp.
herself.
It was a fair- sized church and she thought that the village of SuttonChancellor must once have been a rather more important centre of rurallife than it was now. She left the car where it was and walked on to the vil-lage. It had a village shop and a post office and about a dozen small housesor cottages. One or two of them were thatched but the others were ratherplain and unattractive. There were six council houses at the end of the vil-lage street looking slightly self- conscious. A brass plate on a door an-nounced “Arthur Thomas, Chimney Sweep.”
Tuppence wondered if any responsible house agents were likely to en-gage his services for the house by the canal which certainly needed them.
How silly she had been, she thought, not to have asked the name of thehouse.
She walked back slowly towards the church, and her car, pausing to ex-amine the churchyard more closely. She liked the churchyard. There werevery few new burials in it. Most of the stones commemorated Victorianburials, and earlier ones—half-defaced by lichen and time. The old stoneswere attractive. Some of them were upright slabs with cherubs on thetops, with wreaths round them. She wandered about, looking at the in-scriptions. Warrenders again. Mary Warrender, aged 47, Alice Warrender,aged 33, Colonel John Warrender killed in Afghanistan. Various infantWarrenders—deeply regretted—and eloquent verses of pious hopes. Shewondered if any Warrenders lived here still. They’d left off being buriedhere apparently. She couldn’t find any tombstones later than 1843. Round-ing the big yew tree she came upon an elderly clergyman who was stoop-ing over a row of old tombstones near a wall behind the church. Hestraightened up and turned round as Tuppence approached.
“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly.
“Good afternoon,” said Tuppence, and added, “I’ve been looking at thechurch.”
“Ruined by Victorian renovation,” said the clergyman.
He had a pleasant voice and a nice smile. He looked about seventy, butTuppence presumed he was not quite as far advanced in age as that,though he was certainly rheumatic and rather unsteady on his legs.
“Too much money about in Victorian times,” he said sadly. “Too manyironmasters. They were pious, but had, unfortunately, no sense of theartistic. No taste. Did you see the east window?” he shuddered.
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “Dreadful,” she said.
“I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m the vicar,” he added, rather unne-cessarily.
“I thought you must be,” said Tuppence politely. “Have you been herelong?” she added.
“Ten years, my dear,” he said. “It’s a nice parish. Nice people, what thereare of them. I’ve been very happy here. They don’t like my sermons verymuch,” he added sadly. “I do the best I can, but of course I can’t pretend tobe really modern. Sit down,” he added hospitably, waving to a nearbytombstone.
Tuppence sat down gratefully and the vicar took a seat on another onenearby.
“I can’t stand very long,” he said, apologetically. He added, “Can I doanything for you or are you just passing by?”
“Well, I’m really just passing by,” said Tuppence. “I thought I’d just lookat the church. I’d rather lost myself in a car wandering around the lanes.”
“Yes, yes. Very difficult to find one’s way about round here. A lot of sign-posts are broken, you know, and the council don’t repair them as theyshould.” He added, “I don’t know that it matters very much. People whodrive down these lanes aren’t usually trying to get anywhere in particular.
People who are keep to the main roads. Dreadful,” he added again. “Espe-cially the new Motorway. At least, I think so. The noise and the speed andthe reckless driving. Oh well! pay no attention to me. I’m a crusty old fel-low. You’d never guess what I’m doing here,” he went on.
“I saw you were examining some of the gravestones,” said Tuppence.
“Has there been any vandalism? Have teenagers been breaking bits offthem?”
“No. One’s mind does turn that way nowadays what with so many tele-phone boxes wrecked and all those other things that these young vandalsdo. Poor children, they don’t know any better, I suppose. Can’t think ofanything more amusing to do than to smash things. Sad, isn’t it? Very sad.
No,” he said, “there’s been no damage of that kind here. The boys roundhere are a nice lot on the whole. No, I’m just looking for a child’s grave.”
Tuppence stirred on her tombstone. “A child’s grave?” she said.
“Yes. Somebody wrote to me. A Major Waters, he asked if by any possib-ility a child had been buried here. I looked it up in the parish register, ofcourse, but there was no record of any such name. All the same, I cameout here and looked round the stones. I thought, you know, that perhapswhoever wrote might have got hold of some wrong name, or that therehad been a mistake.”
“What was the Christian name?” asked Tuppence.
“He didn’t know. Perhaps Julia after the mother.”
“How old was the child?”
“Again he wasn’t sure—Rather vague, the whole thing. I think myselfthat the man must have got hold of the wrong village altogether. I neverremember a Waters living here or having heard of one.”
“What about the Warrenders?” asked Tuppence, her mind going back tothe names in the church. “The church seems full of tablets to them andtheir names are on lots of gravestones out here.”
“Ah, that family’s died out by now. They had a fine property, an oldfourteenth- century Priory. It was burnt down — oh, nearly a hundredyears ago now, so I suppose any Warrenders there were left, went awayand didn’t come back. A new house was built on the site, by a rich Vic-torian called Starke. A very ugly house but comfortable, they say. Verycomfortable. Bathrooms, you know, and all that. I suppose that sort ofthing is important.”
“It seems a very odd thing,” said Tuppence, “that someone should writeand ask you about a child’s grave. Somebody—a relation?”
“The father of the child,” said the vicar. “One of these war tragedies, Iimagine. A marriage that broke up when the husband was on serviceabroad. The young wife ran away with another man while the husbandwas serving abroad. There was a child, a child he’d never seen. She’d begrown up by now, I suppose, if she were alive. It must be twenty years agoor more.”
“Isn’t it a long time after to be looking for her?”
“Apparently he only heard there was a child quite recently. The informa-tion came to him by pure chance. Curious story, the whole thing.”
“What made him think that the child had been buried here?”
“I gather somebody who had come across his wife in wartime had toldhim that his wife had said she was living at Sutton Chancellor. It happens,you know. You meet someone, a friend or acquaintance you haven’t seenfor years, and they sometimes can give you news from the past that youwouldn’t get in any other way. But she’s certainly not living here now.
Nobody of that name has lived here—not since I’ve been here. Or in theneighbourhood as far as I know. Of course, the mother might have beengoing by another name. However, I gather the father is employing solicit-ors and inquiry agents and all that sort of thing, and they will probably beable to get results in the end. It will take time—”
“Was it your poor child?” murmured Tuppence.
“I beg your pardon, my dear?”
“Nothing,” said Tuppence. “Something somebody said to me the otherday. ‘Was it your poor child?’ It’s rather a startling thing to hear suddenly.
But I don’t really think the old lady who said it knew what she was talkingabout.”
“I know. I know. I’m often the same. I say things and I don’t really knowwhat I mean by them. Most vexing.”
“I expect you know everything about the people who live here now?”
said Tuppence.
“Well, there certainly aren’t very many to know. Yes. Why? Is theresomeone you wanted to know about?”
“I wondered if there had ever been a Mrs. Lancaster living here.”
“Lancaster? No, I don’t think I recollect that name.”
“And there’s a house—I was driving today rather aimlessly—not mind-ing particularly where I went, just following lanes—”
“I know. Very nice, the lanes round here. And you can find quite rarespecimens. Botanical, I mean. In the hedges here. Nobody ever picksflowers in these hedges. We never get any tourists round here or that sortof thing. Yes, I’ve found some very rare specimens sometimes. DustyCranesbell, for instance—”
“There was a house by a canal,” said Tuppence, refusing to be side-tracked into botany. “Near a little humpbacked bridge. It was about twomiles from here. I wondered what its name was.”
“Let me see. Canal — humpbacked bridge. Well .?.?. there are severalhouses like that. There’s Merricot Farm.”
“It wasn’t a farm.”
“Ah, now, I expect it was the Perrys’ house—Amos and Alice Perry.”
“That’s right,” said Tuppence. “A Mr. and Mrs. Perry.”
“She’s a striking-looking woman, isn’t she? Interesting, I always think.
Very interesting. Medieval face, didn’t you think so? She’s going to playthe witch in our play we’re getting up. The school children, you know. Shelooks rather like a witch, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “A friendly witch.”
“As you say, my dear, absolutely rightly. Yes, a friendly witch.”
“But he—”
“Yes, poor fellow,” said the vicar. “Not completely compos mentis—butno harm in him.”
“They were very nice. They asked me in for a cup of tea,” said Tuppence.
“But what I wanted to know was the name of the house. I forgot to askthem. They’re only living in half of it, aren’t they?”
“Yes, yes. In what used to be the old kitchen quarters. They call it ‘Water-side,’ I think, though I believe the ancient name for it was ‘Watermead.’ Apleasanter name, I think.”
“Who does the other part of the house belong to?”
“Well, the whole house used to belong originally to the Bradleys. Thatwas a good many years ago. Yes, thirty or forty at least, I should think.
And then it was sold, and then sold again and then it remained empty fora long time. When I came here it was just being used as a kind of weekendplace. By some actress—Miss Margrave, I believe. She was not here verymuch. Just used to come down from time to time. I never knew her. Shenever came to church. I saw her in the distance sometimes. A beautifulcreature. A very beautiful creature.”
“Who does it actually belong to now?” Tuppence persisted.
“I’ve no idea. Possibly it still belongs to her. The part the Perrys live in isonly rented to them.”
“I recognized it, you know,” said Tuppence, “as soon as I saw it, becauseI’ve got a picture of it.”
“Oh really? That must have been one of Boscombe’s, or was his nameBoscobel—I can’t remember now. Some name like that. He was a Cornish-man, fairly well-known artist, I believe. I rather imagine he’s dead now.
Yes, he used to come down here fairly often. He used to sketch all roundthis part of the world. He did some oils here, too. Very attractive land-scapes, some of them.”
“This particular picture,” said Tuppence, “was given to an old aunt ofmine who died about a month ago. It was given to her by a Mrs. Lancaster.
That’s why I asked if you knew the name.”
But the vicar shook his head once more.
“Lancaster? Lancaster. No, I don’t seem to remember the name. Ah! buthere’s the person you must ask. Our dear Miss Bligh. Very active, MissBligh is. She knows all about the parish. She runs everything. The Wo-men’s Institute, the Boy Scouts and the Guides—everything. You ask her.
She’s very active, very active indeed.”
The vicar sighed. The activity of Miss Bligh seemed to worry him. “NellieBligh, they call her in the village. The boys sing it after her sometimes. Nel-lie Bligh, Nellie Bligh. It’s not her proper name. That’s something more likeGertrude or Geraldine.”
Miss Bligh, who was the tweed-clad woman Tuppence had seen in thechurch, was approaching them at a rapid trot, still holding a small water-ing can. She eyed Tuppence with deep curiosity as she approached, in-creasing her pace and starting a conversation before she reached them.
“Finished my job,” she exclaimed merrily. “Had a bit of a rush today. Ohyes, had a bit of a rush. Of course, as you know, Vicar, I usually do thechurch in the morning. But today we had the emergency meeting in theparish rooms and really you wouldn’t believe the time it took! So much ar-gument, you know. I really think sometimes people object to things just forthe fun of doing so. Mrs. Partington was particularly irritating. Wantingeverything fully discussed, you know, and wondering whether we’d gotenough different prices from different firms. I mean, the whole thing issuch a small cost anyway, that really a few shillings here or there can’tmake much difference. And Burkenheads have always been most reliable.
I don’t think really, Vicar, you know, that you ought to sit on that tomb-stone.”
“Irreverent, perhaps?” suggested the vicar.
“Oh no, no, of course I didn’t mean that at all, Vicar. I meant the stone,you know, the damp does come through and with your rheumatism—”
Her eyes slid sideways to Tuppence questioningly.
“Let me introduce you to Miss Bligh,” said the vicar. “This is—this is—”
he hesitated.
“Mrs. Beresford,” said Tuppence.
“Ah yes,” said Miss Bligh. “I saw you in the church, didn’t I, just now,looking round it. I would have come and spoken to you, called your atten-tion to one or two interesting points, but I was in such a hurry to finish myjob.”
“I ought to have come and helped you,” said Tuppence, in her sweetestvoice. “But it wouldn’t have been much use, would it, because I could seeyou knew so exactly where every flower ought to go.”
“Well now, it’s very nice of you to say so, but it’s quite true. I’ve done theflowers in the church for—oh, I don’t know how many years it is. We letthe school children arrange their own particular pots of wild flowers forfestivals, though of course they haven’t the least idea, poor little things. Ido think a little instruction, but Mrs. Peake will never have any instruc-tion. She’s so particular. She says it spoils their initiative. Are you stayingdown here?” she asked Tuppence.
“I was going on to Market Basing,” said Tuppence. “Perhaps you can tellme a nice quiet hotel to stay there?”
“Well, I expect you’ll find it a little disappointing. It’s just a market town,you know. It doesn’t cater at all for the motoring trade. The Blue Dragon isa two-star but really I don’t think these stars mean anything at all some-times. I think you’d find The Lamb better. Quieter, you know. Are youstaying there for long?”
“Oh no,” said Tuppence, “just a day or two while I’m looking round theneighbourhood.”
“Not very much to see, I’m afraid. No interesting antiquities or anythinglike that. We’re purely a rural and agricultural district,” said the vicar.
“But peaceful, you know, very peaceful. As I told you, some interestingwild flowers.”
“Ah yes,” said Tuppence, “I’ve heard that and I’m anxious to collect afew specimens in the intervals of doing a little mild house hunting,” sheadded.
“Oh dear, how interesting,” said Miss Bligh. “Are you thinking of settlingin this neighbourhood?”
“Well, my husband and I haven’t decided very definitely on any oneneighbourhood in particular,” said Tuppence. “And we’re in no hurry. Hewon’t be retiring for another eighteen months. But it’s always as well, Ithink, to look about. Personally, what I prefer to do is to stay in one neigh-bourhood for four or five days, get a list of likely small properties anddrive about to see them. Coming down for one day from London to seeone particular house is very tiring, I find.”
“Oh yes, you’ve got your car here, have you?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “I shall have to go to a house agent in MarketBasing tomorrow morning. There’s nowhere, I suppose, to stay in the vil-lage here, is there?”
“Of course, there’s Mrs. Copleigh,” said Miss Bligh. “She takes people inthe summer, you know. Summer visitors. She’s beautifully clean. All herrooms are. Of course, she only does bed and breakfast and perhaps a lightmeal in the evening. But I don’t think she takes anyone in much beforeAugust or July at the earliest.”
“Perhaps I could go and see her and find out,” said Tuppence.
“She’s a very worthy woman,” said the vicar. “Her tongue wags a gooddeal,” he added. “She never stops talking, not for one single minute.”
“A lot of gossip and chattering is always going on in these small vil-lages,” said Miss Bligh. “I think it would be a very good idea if I helpedMrs. Beresford. I could take her along to Mrs. Copleigh and just see whatchances there are.”
“That would be very kind of you,” said Tuppence.
“Then we’ll be off,” said Miss Bligh briskly. “Goodbye, Vicar. Still onyour quest? A sad task and so unlikely to meet with success. I really thinkit was a most unreasonable request to make.”
Tuppence said goodbye to the vicar and said she would be glad to helphim if she could.
“I could easily spend an hour or two looking at the various gravestones.
I’ve got very good eyesight for my age. It’s just the name Waters you arelooking for?”
“Not really,” said the vicar. “It’s the age that matters, I think. A child ofperhaps seven, it would be. A girl. Major Waters thinks that his wife mighthave changed her name and that probably the child might be known bythe name she had taken. And as he doesn’t know what that name is, itmakes it all very difficult.”
“The whole thing’s impossible, so far as I can see,” said Miss Bligh. “Youought never to have said you would do such a thing, Vicar. It’s monstrous,suggesting anything of the kind.”
“The poor fellow seems very upset,” said the vicar. “A sad history alto-gether, so far as I can make out. But I mustn’t keep you.”
Tuppence thought to herself as she was shepherded by Miss Bligh thatno matter what the reputation of Mrs. Copleigh for talking, she couldhardly talk more than Miss Bligh did. A stream of pronouncements bothrapid and dictatorial poured from her lips.
Mrs. Copleigh’s cottage proved to be a pleasant and roomy one set backfrom the village street with a neat garden of flowers in front, a whiteneddoorstep and a brass handle well polished. Mrs. Copleigh herself seemedto Tuppence like a character straight out of the pages of Dickens. She wasvery small and very round, so that she came rolling towards you ratherlike a rubber ball. She had bright twinkling eyes, blonde hair rolled up insausage curls on her head and an air of tremendous vigour. After display-ing a little doubt to begin with—“Well, I don’t usually, you know. No. Myhusband and I say ‘summer visitors, that’s different.’ Everyone does that ifthey can nowadays. And have to, I’m sure. But not this time of year somuch, we don’t. Not until July. However, if it’s just for a few days and thelady wouldn’t mind things being a bit rough, perhaps—”
Tuppence said she didn’t mind things being rough and Mrs. Copleigh,having surveyed her with close attention, whilst not stopping her flow ofconversation, said perhaps the lady would like to come up and see theroom, and then things might be arranged.
At that point Miss Bligh tore herself away with some regret because shehad not so far been able to extract all the information she wanted fromTuppence, as to where she came from, what her husband did, how old shewas, if she had any children and other matters of interest. But it appearedthat she had a meeting at her house over which she was going to presideand was terrified at the risk that someone else might seize that covetedpost.
“You’ll be quite all right with Mrs. Copleigh,” she assured Tuppence,“she’ll look after you, I’m sure. Now what about your car?”
“Oh, I’ll fetch it presently,” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Copleigh will tell mewhere I had better put it. I can leave it outside here really because it isn’t avery narrow street, is it?”
“Oh, my husband can do better than that for you,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
“He’ll put it in the field for you. Just round the side lane here, and it’ll bequite all right, there. There’s a shed he can drive it into.”
Things were arranged amicably on that basis and Miss Bligh hurriedaway to her appointment. The question of an evening meal was nextraised. Tuppence asked if there was a pub in the village.
“Oh, we have nothing as a lady could go to,” said Mrs. Copleigh, “but ifyou’d be satisfied with a couple of eggs and a slice of ham and maybesome bread and homemade jam—”
Tuppence said that would be splendid. Her room was small but cheerfuland pleasant with a rosebud wallpaper and a comfortable-looking bed anda general air of spotless cleanliness.
“Yes, it’s a nice wallpaper, miss,” said Mrs. Copleigh, who seemed de-termined to accord Tuppence single status. “Chose it we did so that anynewly married couple should come here on honeymoon. Romantic, if youknow what I mean.”
Tuppence agreed that romance was a very desirable thing.
“They haven’t got so much to spend nowadays, newly marrieds. Notwhat they used to. Most of them you see are saving for a house or aremaking down payments already. Or they’ve got to buy some furniture onthe hire purchase and it doesn’t leave anything over for having a poshhoneymoon or anything of that kind. They’re careful, you know, most ofthe young folk. They don’t go bashing all their money.”
She clattered downstairs again talking briskly as she went. Tuppence laydown on the bed to have half an hour’s sleep after a somewhat tiring day.
She had, however, great hopes of Mrs. Copleigh, and felt that once thor-oughly rested herself, she would be able to lead the conversation to themost fruitful subjects possible. She would hear, she was sure, all about thehouse by the bridge, who had lived there, who had been of evil or good re-pute in the neighbourhood, what scandals there were and other suchlikely topics. She was more convinced of this than ever when she had beenintroduced to Mr. Copleigh, a man who barely opened his mouth. His con-versation was mostly made up of amiable grunts, usually signifying an af-firmative. Sometimes, in more muted tones, a disagreement.
He was content so far as Tuppence could see, to let his wife talk. He him-self more or less abstracted his attention, part of the time busy with hisplans for the next day which appeared to be market day.
As far as Tuppence was concerned nothing could have turned out bet-ter. It could have been distinguished by a slogan—“You want information,we have it.” Mrs. Copleigh was as good as a wireless set or a television.
You had only to turn the button and words poured out accompanied bygestures and lots of facial expression. Not only was her figure like a child’srubber ball, her face might also have been made of india rubber. The vari-ous people she was talking about almost came alive in caricature beforeTuppence’s eyes.
Tuppence ate bacon and eggs and had slices of thick bread and butterand praised the blackberry jelly, homemade, her favourite kind, she truth-fully announced, and did her best to absorb the flood of information sothat she could write notes down in her notebook later. A whole panoramaof the past in this country district seemed to be spread out before her.
There was no chronological sequence which occasionally made thingsdifficult. Mrs. Copleigh jumped from fifteen years ago to two years ago tolast month, and then back to somewhere in the twenties. All this wouldwant a lot of sorting out. And Tuppence wondered whether in the end shewould get anything.
The first button she had pressed had not given her any result. That wasa mention of Mrs. Lancaster.
“I think she came from hereabouts,” said Tuppence, allowing a gooddeal of vagueness to appear in her voice. “She had a picture—a very nicepicture done by an artist who I believe was known down here.”
“Who did you say now?”
“A Mrs. Lancaster.”
“No, I don’t remember any Lancasters in these parts. Lancaster. Lan-caster. A gentleman had a car accident, I remember. No, it’s the car I’mthinking of. A Lancaster that was. No Mrs. Lancaster. It wouldn’t be MissBolton, would it? She’d be about seventy now I think. She might have mar-ried a Mr. Lancaster. She went away and travelled abroad and I do hearshe married someone.”
“The picture she gave my aunt was by a Mr. Boscobel—I think the namewas,” said Tuppence. “What a lovely jelly.”
“I don’t put no apple in it either, like most people do. Makes it jell better,they say, but it takes all the flavour out.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “I quite agree with you. It does.”
“Who did you say now? It began with a B but I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Boscobel, I think.”
“Oh, I remember Mr. Boscowan well. Let’s see now. That must havebeen—fifteen years ago it was at least that he came down here. He cameseveral years running, he did. He liked the place. Actually rented a cot-tage. One of Farmer Hart’s cottages it was, that he kept for his labourer.
But they built a new one, they did, the Council. Four new cottages speciallyfor labourers.
“Regular artist, Mr. B was,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “Funny kind of coat heused to wear. Sort of velvet or corduroy. It used to have holes in the el-bows and he wore green and yellow shirts, he did. Oh, very colourful, hewas. I liked his pictures, I did. He had a showing of them one year. Roundabout Christmas time it was, I think. No, of course not, it must have beenin the summer. He wasn’t here in the winter. Yes, very nice. Nothing excit-ing, if you know what I mean. Just a house with a couple of trees or twocows looking over a fence. But all nice and quiet and pretty colours. Notlike some of these young chaps nowadays.”
“Do you have a lot of artists down here?”
“Not really. Oh no, not to speak of. One or two ladies comes down in thesummer and does sketching sometimes, but I don’t think much of them.
We had a young fellow a year ago, called himself an artist. Didn’t shaveproperly. I can’t say I liked any of his pictures much. Funny colours allswirled round anyhow. Nothing you could recognize a bit. Sold a lot of hispictures, he did at that. And they weren’t cheap, mind you.”
“Ought to have been five pounds,” said Mr. Copleigh entering the con-versation for the first time so suddenly that Tuppence jumped.
“What my husband thinks is,” said Mrs. Copleigh, resuming her place asinterpreter to him. “He thinks no picture ought to cost more than fivepounds. Paints wouldn’t cost as much as that. That’s what he says, don’tyou, George?”
“Ah,” said George.
“Mr. Boscowan painted a picture of that house by the bridge and thecanal—Waterside or Watermead, isn’t it called? I came that way today.”
“Oh, you came along that road, did you? It’s not much of a road, is it?
Very narrow. Lonely that house is, I always think. I wouldn’t like to live inthat house. Too lonely. Don’t you agree, George?”
George made the noise that expressed faint disagreement and possiblycontempt at the cowardice of women.
“That’s where Alice Perry lives, that is,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
Tuppence abandoned her researches on Mr. Boscowan to go along withan opinion on the Perrys. It was, she perceived, always better to go alongwith Mrs. Copleigh who was a jumper from subject to subject.
“Queer couple they are,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
George made his agreeing sound.
“Keep themselves to themselves, they do. Don’t mingle much, as you’dsay. And she goes about looking like nothing on earth, Alice Perry does.”
“Mad,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“Well, I don’t know as I’d say that. She looks mad all right. All that scattyhair flying about. And she wears men’s coats and great rubber boots mostof the time. And she says odd things and doesn’t sometimes answer youright when you ask her a question. But I wouldn’t say she was mad. Pecu-liar, that’s all.”
“Do people like her?”
“Nobody knows her hardly, although they’ve been there several years.
There’s all sorts of tales about her but then, there’s always tales.”
“What sort of tales?”
Direct questions were never resented by Mrs. Copleigh, who welcomedthem as one who was only too eager to answer.
“Calls up spirits, they say, at night. Sitting round a table. And there’sstories of lights moving about the house at night. And she reads a lot ofclever books, they say. With things drawn in them—circles and stars. Ifyou ask me, it’s Amos Perry as is the one that’s not quite all right.”
“He’s just simple,” said Mr. Copleigh indulgently.
“Well, you may be right about that. But there were tales said of himonce. Fond of his garden, but doesn’t know much.”
“It’s only half a house though, isn’t it?” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Perry askedme in very kindly.”
“Did she now? Did she really? I don’t know as I’d have liked to go intothat house,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
“Their part of it’s all right,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“Isn’t the other part all right?” said Tuppence. “The front part that giveson the canal.”
“Well, there used to be a lot of stories about it. Of course, nobody’s livedin it for years. They say there’s something queer about it. Lot of storiestold. But when you come down to it, it’s not stories in anybody’s memoryhere. It’s all long ago. It was built over a hundred years ago, you know.
They say as there was a pretty lady kept there first, built for her, it was, byone of the gentlemen at Court.”
“Queen Victoria’s Court?” asked Tuppence with interest.
“I don’t think it would be her. She was particular, the old Queen was. No,I’d say it was before that. Time of one of them Georges. This gentlemen, heused to come down and see her and the story goes that they had a quarreland he cut her throat one night.”
“How terrible!” said Tuppence. “Did they hang him for it?”
“No. Oh no, there was nothing of that sort. The story is, you see, that hehad to get rid of the body and he walled her up in the fireplace.”
“Walled her up in the fireplace!”
“Some ways they tell it, they say she was a nun, and she had run awayfrom a convent and that’s why she had to be walled up. That’s what theydo at convents.”
“But it wasn’t nuns who walled her up.”
“No, no. He did it. Her lover, what had done her in. And he bricked upall the fireplace, they say, and nailed a big sheet of iron over it. Anyway,she was never seen again, poor soul, walking about in her fine dresses.
Some said, of course, she’d gone away with him. Gone away to live in townor back to some other place. People used to hear noises and see lights inthe house, and a lot of people don’t go near it after dark.”
“But what happened later?” said Tuppence, feeling that to go back bey-ond the reign of Queen Victoria seemed a little too far into the past forwhat she was looking for.
“Well, I don’t rightly know as there was very much. A farmer calledBlodgick took it over when it came up for sale, I believe. He weren’t therelong either. What they called a gentleman farmer. That’s why he liked thehouse, I suppose, but the farming land wasn’t much use to him, and hedidn’t know how to deal with it. So he sold it again. Changed hands ever somany times it has—Always builders coming along and making alterations—new bathrooms—that sort of thing—A couple had it who were doingchicken farming, I believe, at one time. But it got a name, you know, forbeing unlucky. But all that’s a bit before my time. I believe Mr. Boscowanhimself thought of buying it at one time. That was when he painted thepicture of it.”
“What sort of age was Mr. Boscowan when he was down here?”
“Forty, I would say, or maybe a bit more than that. He was a good-look-ing man in his way. Run into fat a bit, though. Great one for the girls, hewas.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Copleigh. It was a warning grunt this time.
“Ah well, we all know what artists are like,” said Mrs. Copleigh, includ-ing Tuppence in this knowledge. “Go over to France a lot, you know, andget French ways, they do.”
“He wasn’t married?”
“Not then he wasn’t. Not when he was first down here. Bit keen he wason Mrs. Charrington’s daughter, but nothing came of it. She was a lovelygirl, though, but too young for him. She wasn’t more than twenty-five.”
“Who was Mrs. Charrington?” Tuppence felt bewildered at this intro-duction of new characters.
“What the hell am I doing here, anyway?” she thought suddenly aswaves of fatigue swept over her—“I’m just listening to a lot of gossip aboutpeople, and imagining things like murder which aren’t true at all. I can seenow—It started when a nice but addleheaded old pussy got a bit mixed upin her head and began reminiscing about stories this Mr. Boscowan, orsomeone like him who may have given the picture to her, told about thehouse and the legends about it, of someone being walled up alive in a fire-place and she thought it was a child for some reason. And here I am goinground investigating mares’ nests. Tommy told me I was a fool, and he wasquite right—I am a fool.”
She waited for a break to occur in Mrs. Copleigh’s even flow of conver-sation, so that she could rise, say good night politely and go upstairs tobed.
Mrs. Copleigh was still in full and happy spate.
“Mrs. Charrington? Oh, she lived in Watermead for a bit,” said Mrs. Co-pleigh. “Mrs. Charrington, and her daughter. She was a nice lady, she was,Mrs. Charrington. Widow of an army officer, I believe. Badly off, but thehouse was being rented cheap. Did a lot of gardening. She was very fondof gardening. Not much good at keeping the house clean, she wasn’t. Iwent and obliged for her, once or twice, but I couldn’t keep it up. I had togo on my bicycle, you see, and it’s over two miles. Weren’t any buses alongthat road.”
“Did she live there long?”
“Not more than two or three years, I think. Got scared, I expect, after thetroubles came. And then she had her own troubles about her daughter,too. Lilian, I think her name was.”
Tuppence took a draught of the strong tea with which the meal was for-tified, and resolved to get finished with Mrs. Charrington before seekingrepose.
“What was the trouble about the daughter? Mr. Boscowan?”
“No, it wasn’t Mr. Boscowan as got her into trouble. I’ll never believethat. It was the other one.”
“Who was the other one?” asked Tuppence. “Someone else who liveddown here?”
“I don’t think he lived down in these parts. Someone she’d met up inLondon. She went up there to study ballet dancing, would it be? Or art?
Mr. Boscowan arranged for her to join some school there. Slate I think itsname was.”
“Slade?” suggested Tuppence.
“May have been. That sort of name. Anyway, she used to go up thereand that’s how she got to know this fellow, whoever he was. Her motherdidn’t like it. She forbade her to meet him. Fat lot of good that was likely todo. She was a silly woman in some ways. Like a lot of those army officers’
wives were, you know. She thought girls would do as they were told. Be-hind the times, she was. Been out in India and those parts, but when it’s aquestion of a good-looking young fellow and you take your eye off a girl,you won’t find she’s doing what you told her. Not her. He used to comedown here now and then and they used to meet outside.”
“And then she got into trouble, did she?” Tuppence said, using the well-known euphemism, hoping that under that form it would not offend Mr.
Copleigh’s sense of propriety.
“Must have been him, I suppose. Anyway, there it was plain as plain. Isaw how it was long before her own mother did. Beautiful creature, shewas. Big and tall and handsome. But I don’t think, you know, that she wasone that could stand up to things. She’d break up, you know. She used towalk about rather wildlike, muttering to herself. If you ask me he treatedher bad, that fellow did. Went away and left her when he found out whatwas happening. Of course, a mother as was a mother would have goneand talked to him and made him see where his duty lay, but Mrs. Char-rington, she wouldn’t have had the spirit to do that. Anyway, her mothergot wise, and she took the girl away. Shut up the house, she did and after-wards it was put up for sale. They came back to pack up, I believe, butthey never came to the village or said anything to anyone. They nevercome back here, neither of them. There was some story got around. Inever knew if there was any truth in it.”
“Some folk’ll make up anything,” said Mr. Copleigh unexpectedly.
“Well, you’re right there, George. Still they may have been true. Suchthings happen. And as you say, that girl didn’t look quite right in the headto me.”
“What was the story?” demanded Tuppence.
“Well, really, I don’t like to say. It’s a long time since and I wouldn’t liketo say anything as I wasn’t sure of it. It was Mrs. Badcock’s Louise who putit about. Awful liar that girl was. The things she’d say. Anything to makeup a good story.”
“But what was it?” said Tuppence.
“Said this Charrington girl had killed the baby and after that killed her-self. Said her mother went half mad with grief and her relations had toput her in a nursing home.”
Again Tuppence felt confusion mounting in her head. She felt almost asthough she was swaying in her chair. Could Mrs. Charrington be Mrs. Lan-caster? Changed her name, gone slightly batty, obsessed about her daugh-ter’s fate. Mrs. Copleigh’s voice was going on remorselessly.
“I never believed a word of that myself. That Badcock girl would sayanything. We weren’t listening much to hearsay and stories just then—we’d had other things to worry about. Scared stiff we’d been, all over thecountryside on account of the things that had been going on—real things—”
“Why? What had been happening?” asked Tuppence, marvelling at thethings that seemed to happen, and to centre round the peaceful-lookingvillage of Sutton Chancellor.
“I daresay as you’ll have read about it all in the papers at the time. Let’ssee, near as possible it would have been twenty years ago. You’ll haveread about it for sure. Child murders. Little girl of nine years old first.
Didn’t come home from school one day. Whole neighbourhood was outsearching for her. Dingley Copse she was found in. Strangled, she’d been.
It makes me shiver still to think of it. Well, that was the first, then aboutthree weeks later another. The other side of Market Basing, that was. Butwithin the district, as you might say. A man with a car could have done iteasy enough.
“And then there were others. Not for a month or two sometimes. Andthen there’d be another one. Not more than a couple of miles from here,one was; almost in the village, though.”
“Didn’t the police—didn’t anyone know who’d done it?”
“They tried hard enough,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “Detained a man quitesoon, they did. Someone from t’other side of Market Basing. Said he washelping them in their inquiries. You know what that always means. Theythink they’ve got him. They pulled in first one and then another but al-ways after twenty-four hours or so they had to let him go again. Found outhe couldn’t have done it or wasn’t in these parts or somebody gave him analibi.”
“You don’t know, Liz,” said Mr. Copleigh. “They may have known quitewell who done it. I’d say they did. That’s often the way of it, or so I’veheard. The police know who it is but they can’t get the evidence.”
“That’s wives, that is,” said Mrs. Copleigh, “wives or mothers or fatherseven. Even the police can’t do much no matter what they may think. Amother says ‘my boy was here that night at dinner’ or his young lady saysshe went to the pictures with him that night, and he was with her thewhole time, or a father says that he and his son were out in the far field to-gether doing something—well, you can’t do anything against it. They maythink the father or the mother or his sweetheart’s lying, but unlesssomeone else come along and say they saw the boy or the man orwhatever it is in some other place, there’s not much they can do. It was aterrible time. Right het up we all were round here. When we heard an-other child was missing we’d make parties up.”
“Aye, that’s right,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“When they’d got together they’d go out and they’d search. Sometimesthey found her at once and sometimes they wouldn’t find her for weeks.
Sometimes she was quite near her home in a place you’d have thought wemust have looked at already. Maniac, I suppose it must have been. It’s aw-ful,” said Mrs. Copleigh in a righteous tone, “it’s awful, that there shouldbe men like that. They ought to be shot. They ought to be strangled them-selves. And I’d do it to them for one, if anyone would let me. Any man whokills children and assaults them. What’s the good putting them in loonybins and treating them with all the home comforts and living soft. Andthen sooner or later they let ’em out again, say they’re cured and sendthem home. That happened somewhere in Norfolk. My sister lives thereand she told me about it. He went back home and two days later he’d donein someone else. Crazy they are, these doctors, some of them, saying thesemen are cured when they are not.”
“And you’ve no idea down here who it might have been?” said Tup-pence. “Do you think really it was a stranger?”
“Might have been a stranger to us. But it must have been someone livingwithin—oh! I’d say a range of twenty miles around. It mightn’t have beenhere in this village.”
“You always thought it was, Liz.”
“You get het up,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “You think it’s sure to be here inyour own neighbourhood because you’re afraid, I suppose. I used to lookat people. So did you, George. You’d say to yourself I wonder if it could bethat chap, he’s seemed a bit queer lately. That sort of thing.”
“I don’t suppose really he looked queer at all,” said Tuppence. “He prob-ably looked just like everyone else.”
“Yes, it could be you’ve got something there. I’ve heard it said that youwouldn’t know, and whoever it was had never seemed mad at all, butother people say there’s always a terrible glare in their eyes.”
“Jeffreys, he was the sergeant of police here then,” said Mr. Copleigh,“he always used to say he had a good idea but there was nothing doing.”
“They never caught the man?”
“No. Over six months it was, nearly a year. Then the whole thingstopped. And there’s never been anything of that kind round here since.
No, I think he must have gone away. Gone away altogether. That’s whatmakes people think they might know who it was.”
“You mean because of people who did leave the district?”
“Well, of course it made people talk, you know. They’d say it might beso-and-so.”
Tuppence hesitated to ask the next question, but she felt that with Mrs.
Copleigh’s passion for talking it wouldn’t matter if she did.
“Who did you think it was?” she asked.
“Well, it’s that long ago I’d hardly like to say. But there was names men-tioned. Talked of, you know, and looked at. Some as thought it might beMr. Boscowan.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, being an artist and all, artists are queer. They say that. But I didn’tthink it was him!”
“There was more as said it was Amos Perry,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“Mrs. Perry’s husband?”
“Yes. He’s a bit queer, you know, simpleminded. He’s the sort of chapthat might have done it.”
“Were the Perrys living here then?”
“Yes. Not at Watermead. They had a cottage about four or five milesaway. Police had an eye on him, I’m sure of that.”
“Couldn’t get anything on him, though,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “His wifespoke for him always. Stayed at home with her in the evenings, he did. Al-ways, she said. Just went along sometimes to the pub on a Saturday night,but none of these murders took place on a Saturday night, so there wasn’tanything in that. Besides, Alice Perry was the kind you’d believe when shegave evidence. She’d never let up or back down. You couldn’t frighten herout of it. Anyway, he’s not the one. I never thought so. I know I’ve nothingto go on but I’ve a sort of feeling if I’d had to put my finger on anyone I’dhave put it on Sir Philip.”
“Sir Philip?” Again Tuppence’s head reeled. Yet another character wasbeing introduced. Sir Philip. “Who’s Sir Philip?” she asked.
“Sir Philip Starke—Lives up in the Warrender House. Used to be calledthe Old Priory when the Warrenders lived in it—before it burnt down.
You can see the Warrender graves in the churchyard and tablets in thechurch, too. Always been Warrenders here practically since the time ofKing James.”
“Was Sir Philip a relation of the Warrenders?”
“No. Made his money in a big way, I believe, or his father did. Steel-works or something of that kind. Odd sort of man was Sir Philip. Theworks were somewhere up north, but he lived here. Kept to himself hedid. What they call a rec—rec—rec-something.”
“Recluse,” suggested Tuppence.
“That’s the word I’m looking for. Pale he was, you know, and thin andbony and fond of flowers. He was a botanist. Used to collect all sorts ofsilly little wild flowers, the kind you wouldn’t look at twice. He even wrotea book on them, I believe. Oh yes, he was clever, very clever. His wife wasa nice lady, and very handsome, but sad looking, I always thought.”
Mr. Copleigh uttered one of his grunts. “You’re daft,” he said. “Thinkingit might have been Sir Philip. He was fond of children, Sir Philip was. Hewas always giving parties for them.”
“Yes I know. Always giving fêtes, having lovely prizes for the children.
Egg and spoon races—all those strawberry and cream teas he’d give. He’dno children of his own, you see. Often he’d stop children in a lane and givethem a sweet or give them a sixpence to buy sweets. But I don’t know. Ithink he overdid it. He was an odd man. I thought there was somethingwrong when his wife suddenly up and left him.”
“When did his wife leave him?”
“It’d be about six months after all this trouble began. Three children hadbeen killed by then. Lady Starke went away suddenly to the south ofFrance and she never came back. She wasn’t the kind, you’d say, to dothat. She was a quiet lady, respectable. It’s not as though she left him forany other man. No, she wasn’t the kind to do that. So why did she go andleave him? I always say it’s because she knew something — found outabout something—”
“Is he still living here?”
“Not regular, he isn’t. He comes down once or twice a year but the houseis kept shut up most of the time with a caretaker there. Miss Bligh in thevillage—she used to be his secretary—she sees to things for him.”
“And his wife?”
“She’s dead, poor lady. Died soon after she went abroad. There’s a tabletput up to her in the church. Awful for her it would be. Perhaps she wasn’tsure at first, then perhaps she began to suspect her husband, and then per-haps she got to be quite sure. She couldn’t bear it and she went away.”
“The things you women imagine,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“All I say is there was something that wasn’t right about Sir Philip. Hewas too fond of children, I think, and it wasn’t in a natural kind of way.”
“Women’s fancies,” said Mr. Copleigh.
Mrs. Copleigh got up and started to move things off the table.
“About time,” said her husband. “You’ll give this lady here bad dreams ifyou go on about things as were over years ago and have nothing to dowith anyone here any more.”
“It’s been very interesting hearing,” said Tuppence. “But I am verysleepy. I think I’d better go to bed now.”
“Well, we usually goes early to bed,” said Mrs. Copleigh, “and you’ll betired after the long day you’ve had.”
“I am. I’m frightfully sleepy.” Tuppence gave a large yawn. “Well, goodnight and thank you very much.”
“Would you like a call and a cup of tea in the morning? Eight o’clock tooearly for you?”
“No, that would be fine,” said Tuppence. “But don’t bother if it’s a lot oftrouble.”
“No trouble at all,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
Tuppence pulled herself wearily up to bed. She opened her suitcase,took out the few things she needed, undressed, washed and dropped intobed. It was true what she had told Mrs. Copleigh. She was dead tired. Thethings she had heard passed through her head in a kind of kaleidoscope ofmoving figures and of all sorts of horrific imaginings. Dead children—toomany dead children. Tuppence wanted just one dead child behind a fire-place. The fireplace had to do perhaps with Waterside. The child’s doll. Achild that had been killed by a demented young girl driven off her ratherweak brains by the fact that her lover had deserted her. Oh dear me, whatmelodramatic language I’m using, thought Tuppence. All such a muddle—the chronology all mixed up—one can’t be sure what happened when.
She went to sleep and dreamt. There was a kind of Lady of Shalott look-ing out of the window of the house. There was a scratching noise comingfrom the chimney. Blows were coming from behind a great iron platenailed up there. The clanging sounds of the hammer. Clang, clang, clang.
Tuppence woke up. It was Mrs. Copleigh knocking on the door. She camein brightly, put the tea down by Tuppence’s bed, pulled the curtains,hoped Tuppence had slept well. No one had ever, Tuppence thought,looked more cheerful than Mrs. Copleigh did. She had had no bad dreams!
Ten A CONFERENCE—AND AFTER（2）
II
The faithful Albert opened the front door with a beaming smile of wel-come.
“Glad to see you back, sir.”
“I’m glad to be back—” Tommy surrendered his suitcase—“Where’s Mrs.
Beresford?”
“Not back yet, sir.”
“Do you mean she’s away?”
“Been away three or four days. But she’ll be back for dinner. She rangup yesterday and said so.”
“What’s she up to, Albert?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. She took the car, but she took a lot of railway guidesas well. She might be anywhere, as you might say.”
“You might indeed,” said Tommy with feeling. “John o’ Groat’s — orLand’s End—and probably missed the connection at Little Dither on theMarsh on the way back. God bless British Railways. She rang up yesterday,you say. Did she say where she was ringing from?”
“She didn’t say.”
“What time yesterday was this?”
“Yesterday morning. Before lunch. Just said everything was all right.
She wasn’t quite sure of what time she’d get home, but she thought she’dbe back well before dinner and suggested a chicken. That do you all right,sir?”
“Yes,” said Tommy, regarding his watch, “but she’ll have to make itpretty quickly now.”
“I’ll hold the chicken back,” said Albert.
Tommy grinned. “That’s right,” he said. “Catch it by the tail. How’ve youbeen, Albert? All well at home?”
“Had a scare of measles—But it’s all right. Doctor says it’s only straw-berry rash.”
“Good,” said Tommy. He went upstairs, whistling a tune to himself. Hewent into the bathroom, shaved and washed, strode from there into thebedroom and looked around him. It had that curious look of disoccupancysome bedrooms put on when their owner is away. Its atmosphere wascold and unfriendly. Everything was scrupulously tidy and scrupulouslyclean. Tommy had the depressed feeling that a faithful dog might havehad. Looking round him, he thought it was as though Tuppence had neverbeen. No spilled powder, no book cast down open with its back splayedout.
“Sir.”
It was Albert, standing in the doorway.
“Well?”
“I’m getting worried about the chicken.”
“Oh damn the chicken,” said Tommy. “You seem to have that chicken onyour nerves.”
“Well, I took it as you and she wouldn’t be later than eight. Not laterthan eight, sitting down, I mean.”
“I should have thought so, too,” said Tommy, glancing at his wrist watch.
“Good Lord, is it nearly five and twenty to nine?”
“Yes it is, sir. And the chicken—”
“Oh, come on,” said Tommy, “you get that chicken out of the oven andyou and I’ll eat it between us. Serve Tuppence right. Getting back well be-fore dinner indeed!”
“Of course some people do eat dinner late,” said Albert. “I went to Spainonce and believe me, you couldn’t get a meal before ten o’clock. Ten p.m. Iask you! Heathens!”
“All right,” said Tommy, absentmindedly. “By the way, have you no ideawhere she has been all this time?”
“You mean the missus? I dunno, sir. Rushing around, I’d say. Her firstidea was going to places by train, as far as I can make out. She was alwayslooking in A.B.C.s and timetables and things.”
“Well,” said Tommy, “we all have our ways of amusing ourselves, I sup-pose. Hers seems to have been railway travel. I wonder where she is allthe same. Sitting in the Ladies’ Waiting Room at Little Dither on theMarsh, as likely as not.”
“She knew as you was coming home today though, didn’t she, sir?” saidAlbert. “She’ll get here somehow. Sure to.”
Tommy perceived that he was being offered loyal allegiance. He and Al-bert were linked together in expressing disapprobation of a Tuppencewho in the course of her flirtations with British Railways was neglecting tocome home in time to give a returning husband his proper welcome.
Albert went away to release the chicken from its possible fate of crema-tion in the oven.
Tommy, who had been about to follow him, stopped and looked towardsthe mantelpiece. He walked slowly to it and looked at the picture thathung there. Funny, her being so sure that she had seen that particularhouse before. Tommy felt quite certain that he hadn’t seen it. Anyway, itwas quite an ordinary house. There must be plenty of houses like that.
He stretched up as far as he could towards it and then, still not able toget a good view, unhooked it and took it close to the electric lamp. A quiet,gentle house. There was the artist’s signature. The name began with a Bthough he couldn’t make out exactly what the name was. Bosworth —Bouchier—He’d get a magnifying glass and look at it more closely. A merrychime of cowbells came from the hall. Albert had highly approved of theSwiss cowbells that Tommy and Tuppence had brought back some time orother from Grindelwald. He was something of a virtuoso on them. Dinnerwas served. Tommy went to the dining room. It was odd, he thought, thatTuppence hadn’t turned up by now. Even if she had had a puncture,which seemed probable, he rather wondered that she hadn’t rung up toexplain or excuse her delay.
“She might know that I’d worry,” said Tommy to himself. Not, of course,that he ever did worry—not about Tuppence. Tuppence was always allright. Albert contradicted this mood.
“Hope she hasn’t had an accident,” he remarked, presenting Tommywith a dish of cabbage, and shaking his head gloomily.
“Take that away. You know I hate cabbage,” said Tommy. “Why shouldshe have had an accident? It’s only half past nine now.”
“Being on the road is plain murder nowadays,” said Albert. “Anyonemight have an accident.”
The telephone bell rang. “That’s her,” said Albert. Hastily reposing thedish of cabbage on the sideboard, he hurried out of the room. Tommyrose, abandoning his plate of chicken, and followed Albert. He was justsaying “Here, I’ll take it,” when Albert spoke.
“Yes, sir? Yes, Mr. Beresford is at home. Here he is now.” He turned hishead to Tommy. “It’s a Dr. Murray for you, sir.”
“Dr. Murray?” Tommy thought for a moment. The name seemed famil-iar but for the moment he couldn’t remember who Dr. Murray was. IfTuppence had had an accident — and then with a sigh of relief he re-membered that Dr. Murray had been the doctor who attended the oldladies at Sunny Ridge. Something, perhaps, to do with Aunt Ada’s funeralforms. True child of his time, Tommy immediately assumed that it must bea question of some form or other—something he ought to have signed, orDr. Murray ought to have signed.
“Hullo,” he said, “Beresford here.”
“Oh, I’m glad to catch you. You remember me, I hope. I attended youraunt, Miss Fanshawe.”
“Yes, of course I remember. What can I do?”
“I really wanted to have a word or two with you sometime. I don’t knowif we can arrange a meeting, perhaps in town one day?”
“Oh I expect so, yes. Quite easily. But—er—is it something you can’t sayover the phone?”
“I’d rather not say it over the telephone. There’s no immediate hurry. Iwon’t pretend there is but—but I should like to have a chat with you.”
“Nothing wrong?” said Tommy, and wondered why he put it that way.
Why should there be anything wrong?
“Not really. I may be making a mountain out of a molehill. Probably am.
But there have been some rather curious developments at Sunny Ridge.”
“Nothing to do with Mrs. Lancaster, is it?” asked Tommy.
“Mrs. Lancaster?” The doctor seemed surprised. “Oh no. She left sometime ago. In fact—before your aunt died. This is something quite differ-ent.”
“I’ve been away—only just got back. May I ring you up tomorrow morn-ing—we could fix something then.”
“Right. I’ll give you my telephone number. I shall be at my surgery untilten a.m.”
“Bad news?” asked Albert as Tommy returned to the dining room.
“For God’s sake, don’t croak, Albert,” said Tommy irritably. “No — ofcourse it isn’t bad news.”
“I thought perhaps the missus—”
“She’s all right,” said Tommy. “She always is. Probably gone haring offafter some wildcat clue or other—You know what she’s like. I’m not goingto worry any more. Take away this plate of chicken—You’ve been keepingit hot in the oven and it’s inedible. Bring me some coffee. And then I’m go-ing to bed.
“There will probably be a letter tomorrow. Delayed in the post—youknow what our posts are like—or there will be a wire from her—or she’llring up.”
But there was no letter next day—no telephone call—no wire.
Albert eyed Tommy, opened his mouth and shut it again several times,judging quite rightly that gloomy predictions on his part would not be wel-comed.
At last Tommy had pity on him. He swallowed a last mouthful of toastand marmalade, washed it down with coffee, and spoke—“All right, Albert, I’ll say it first—Where is she? What’s happened to her?
And what are we going to do about it?”
“Get on to the police, sir?”
“I’m not sure. You see—” Tommy paused.
“If she’s had an accident—”
“She’s got her driving licence on her—and plenty of identifying papers—Hospitals are very prompt at reporting these things—and getting in touchwith relatives—all that. I don’t want to be precipitate—she—she mightn’twant it. You’ve no idea—no idea at all, Albert, where she was going—Noth-ing she said? No particular place — or county. Not a mention of somename?”
Albert shook his head.
“What was she feeling like? Pleased?—Excited? Unhappy? Worried?”
Albert’s response was immediate.
“Pleased as Punch—Bursting with it.”
“Like a terrier off on the trail,” said Tommy.
“That’s right, sir—you know how she gets—”
“On to something—Now I wonder—” Tommy paused in consideration.
Something had turned up, and, as he had just said to Albert, Tuppencehad rushed off like a terrier on the scent. The day before yesterday shehad rung up to announce her return. Why, then, hadn’t she returned? Per-haps, at this moment, thought Tommy, she’s sitting somewhere telling liesto people so hard that she can’t think of anything else!
If she were engrossed in pursuit, she would be extremely annoyed if he,Tommy, were to rush off to the police bleating like a sheep that his wifehad disappeared—He could hear Tuppence saying “How you could be sofatuous as to do such a thing! I can look after myself perfectly. You ought toknow that by this time!” (But could she look after herself?)One was never quite sure where Tuppence’s imagination could take her.
Into danger? There hadn’t, so far, been any evidence of danger in thisbusiness—Except, as aforesaid, in Tuppence’s imagination.
If he were to go to the police, saying his wife had not returned home asshe announced she was going to do—The police would sit there, lookingtactful though possibly grinning inwardly, and would then presumably,still in a tactful way, ask what men friends his wife had got!
“I’ll find her myself,” declared Tommy. “She’s somewhere. Whether it’snorth, south, east or west I’ve no idea—and she was a silly cuckoo not toleave word when she rang up, where she was.”
“A gang’s got her, perhaps—” said Albert.
“Oh! be your age, Albert, you’ve outgrown that sort of stuff years ago!”
“What are you going to do, sir?”
“I’m going to London,” said Tommy, glancing at the clock. “First I’m go-ing to have lunch at my club with Dr. Murray who rang me up last night,and who’s got something to say to me about my late deceased aunt’s af-fairs—I might possibly get a useful hint from him—After all, this businessstarted at Sunny Ridge. I am also taking that picture that’s hanging overour bedroom mantelpiece up with me—”
“You mean you’re taking it to Scotland Yard?”
“No,” said Tommy. “I’m taking it to Bond Street.”
Nine A MORNING IN MARKET BASING
Nine A MORNING IN MARKET BASING

“Ah well,” said Mrs. Copleigh, as she bustled out of the room. “Anotherday. That’s what I always say when I wake up.”
“Another day?” thought Tuppence, sipping strong black tea. “I wonder ifI’m making an idiot of myself .?.?. ? Could be .?.?. Wish I had Tommy here totalk to. Last night muddled me.”
Before she left her room, Tuppence made entries in her notebook on thevarious facts and names that she had heard the night before, which shehad been far too tired to do when she went up to bed. Melodramatic stor-ies, of the past, containing perhaps grains of truth here and there butmostly hearsay, malice, gossip, romantic imagination.
“Really,” thought Tuppence. “I’m beginning to know the love lives of aquantity of people right back to the eighteenth century, I think. But whatdoes it all amount to? And what am I looking for? I don’t even know anylonger. The awful thing is that I’ve got involved and I can’t leave off.”
Having a shrewd suspicion that the first thing she might be getting in-volved with was Miss Bligh, whom Tuppence recognized as the overallmenace of Sutton Chancellor, she circumvented all kind offers of help bydriving off to Market Basing posthaste, only pausing, when the car was ac-costed by Miss Bligh with shrill cries, to explain to that lady that she hadan urgent appointment .?.?. When would she be back? Tuppence was vague—Would she care to lunch?—Very kind of Miss Bligh, but Tuppence wasafraid—
“Tea, then. Four-thirty I’ll expect you.” It was almost a Royal Command.
Tuppence smiled, nodded, let in the clutch and drove on.
Possibly, Tuppence thought—if she got anything interesting out of thehouse agents in Market Basing—Nellie Bligh might provide additional use-ful information. She was the kind of woman who prided herself on know-ing all about everyone. The snag was that she would be determined toknow all about Tuppence. Possibly by this afternoon Tuppence wouldhave recovered sufficiently to be once more her own inventive self!
“Remember, Mrs. Blenkensop,” said Tuppence, edging round a sharpcorner and squeezing into a hedge to avoid being annihilated by a frolic-some tractor of immense bulk.
Arrived in Market Basing she put the car in a parking lot in the mainsquare, and went into the post office and entered a vacant telephone box.
The voice of Albert answered — using his usual response — a single“Hallo” uttered in a suspicious voice.
“Listen, Albert—I’ll be home tomorrow. In time for dinner, anyway—perhaps earlier. Mr. Beresford will be back, too, unless he rings up. Get ussomething—chicken, I think.”
“Right, Madam. Where are you—”
But Tuppence had rung off.
The life of Market Basing seemed centred in its important main square—Tuppence had consulted a classified directory before leaving the post of-fice and three out of the four house and estate agents were situated in thesquare—the fourth in something called George Street.
Tuppence scribbled down the names and went out to look for them.
She started with Messrs. Lovebody & Slicker which appeared to be themost imposing.
A girl with spots received her.
“I want to make some inquiries about a house.”
The girl received this news without interest. Tuppence might have beeninquiring about some rare animal.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said the girl, looking round to ascertain if therewas one of her colleagues to whom she could pass Tuppence on—“A house,” said Tuppence. “You are house agents, aren’t you?”
“House agents and auctioneers. The Cranberry Court auction’s on Wed-nesday if it’s that you’re interested in, catalogues two shillings.”
“I’m not interested in auctions. I want to ask about a house.”
“Furnished?”
“Unfurnished—To buy—or rent.”
Spots brightened a little.
“I think you’d better see Mr. Slicker.”
Tuppence was all for seeing Mr. Slicker and was presently seated in asmall office opposite a tweed- suited young man in horsy checks, whobegan turning over a large number of particulars of desirable residences— murmuring comments to himself .?.?. “8 Mandeville Road — architectbuilt, three bed, American kitchen—Oh, no, that’s gone—Amabel Lodge—picturesque residence, four acres—reduced price for quick sale—”
Tuppence interrupted him forcefully: “I have seen a house I like the lookof—In Sutton Chancellor—or rather, near Sutton Chancellor—by a canal—”
“Sutton Chancellor,” Mr. Slicker looked doubtful—“I don’t think we haveany property there on our books at present. What name?”
“It doesn’t seem to have any written up—Possibly Waterside. Rivermead—once called Bridge House. I gather,” said Tuppence, “the house is in twoparts. One half is let but the tenant there could not tell me anything aboutthe other half, which fronts on the canal and which is the one in which Iam interested. It appears to be unoccupied.”
Mr. Slicker said distantly that he was afraid he couldn’t help her, butcondescended to supply the information that perhaps Messrs. Blodget &Burgess might do so. By the tone in his voice the clerk seemed to implythis Messrs. Blodget & Burgess were a very inferior firm.
Tuppence transferred herself to Messrs. Blodget & Burgess who were onthe opposite side of the square—and whose premises closely resembledthose of Messrs. Lovebody & Slicker—the same kind of sale bills and forth-coming auctions in their rather grimy windows. Their front door had re-cently been repainted a rather bilious shade of green, if that was accoun-ted to be a merit.
The reception arrangements were equally discouraging, and Tuppencewas given over to a Mr. Sprig, an elderly man of apparently despondentdisposition. Once more Tuppence retailed her wants and requirements.
Mr. Sprig admitted to being aware of the existence of the residence inquestion, but was not helpful, or as far as it seemed, much interested.
“It’s not in the market, I’m afraid. The owner doesn’t want to sell.”
“Who is the owner?”
“Really I doubt if I know. It has changed hands rather frequently—therewas a rumour at one moment of a compulsory purchase order.”
“What did any local government want it for?”
“Really, Mrs.—er—(he glanced down at Tuppence’s name jotted downon his blotter)—Mrs. Beresford, if you could tell me the answer to thatquestion you would be wiser than most victims are these days. The waysof local councils and planning societies are always shrouded in mystery.
The rear portion of the house had a few necessary repairs done to it andwas let at an exceedingly low rent to a—er—ah yes, a Mr. and Mrs. Perry.
As to the actual owners of the property, the gentleman in question livesabroad and seems to have lost interest in the place. I imagine there wassome question of a minor inheriting, and it was administered by execut-ors. Some small legal difficulties arose—the law tends to be expensive,Mrs. Beresford—I fancy the owner is quite content for the house to falldown—no repairs are done except to the portion the Perrys inhabit. Theactual land, of course, might always prove valuable in the future—the re-pair of derelict houses is seldom profitable. If you are interested in a prop-erty of that kind, I am sure we could offer you something far more worthyour while. What, if I may ask, is there which especially appealed to youin this property?”
“I liked the look of it,” said Tuppence. “It’s a very pretty house—I saw itfirst from the train—”
“Oh, I see—” Mr. Sprig masked as best he could an expression of “thefoolishness of women is incredible”—and said soothingly, “I should reallyforget all about it if I were you.”
“I suppose you could write and ask the owners if they would be pre-pared to sell—or if you would give me their—or his address—”
“We will get into communication with the owners’ solicitors if you insist—but I can’t hold out much hope.”
“I suppose one always has to go through solicitors for everythingnowadays.” Tuppence sounded both foolish and fretful .?.?. “And lawyersare always so slow over everything.”
“Ah yes—the law is prolific of delays—”
“And so are banks—just as bad!”
“Banks—” Mr. Sprig sounded a little startled.
“So many people give you a bank as an address. That’s tiresome too.”
“Yes—yes—as you say—But people are so restless these days and moveabout so much—living abroad and all that.” He opened a desk drawer.
“Now I have a property here, Crossgates—two miles from Market Basing—very good condition—nice garden—”
Tuppence rose to her feet.
“No thank you.”
She bade Mr. Sprig a firm goodbye and went out into the square.
She paid a brief visit to the third establishment which seemed to bemainly preoccupied with sales of cattle, chicken farms and general farmsin a derelict condition.
She paid a final visit to Messrs. Roberts & Wiley in George Street—whichseemed to be a small but pushing business, anxious to oblige—but gener-ally uninterested and ignorant of Sutton Chancellor and anxious to sellresidences as yet only half built at what seemed ridiculously exorbitantsums—an illustration of one made Tuppence shudder. The eager youngman seeing his possible client firm in departure, admitted unwillingly thatsuch a place as Sutton Chancellor did exist.
“Sutton Chancellor you mentioned. Better try Blodget & Burgess in thesquare. They handle some property thereabouts—but it’s all in very poorcondition—run down—”
“There’s a pretty house near there, by a canal bridge—I saw it from thetrain. Why does nobody want to live there?”
“Oh! I know the place, this—Riverbank—You wouldn’t get anyone to livein it—Got a reputation as haunted.”
“You mean—ghosts?”
“So they say—Lots of tales about it. Noises at nights. And groans. If youask me, it’s deathwatch beetle.”
“Oh dear,” said Tuppence. “It looked to me so nice and isolated.”
“Much too isolated most people would say. Floods in winter—think ofthat.”
“I see that there’s a lot to think about,” said Tuppence bitterly.
She murmured to herself as she sent her steps towards The Lamb andFlag at which she proposed to fortify herself with lunch.
“A lot to think about—floods, deathwatch beetle, ghosts, clanking chains,absentee owners and landlords, solicitors, banks—a house that nobodywants or loves—except perhaps me .?.?. Oh well, what I want now is food.”
The food at The Lamb and Flag was good and plentiful—hearty food forfarmers rather than phony French menus for tourists passing through—Thick savoury soup, leg of pork and apple sauce, Stilton cheese—or plumsand custard if you preferred it—which Tuppence didn’t—After a desultory stroll round, Tuppence retrieved her car and startedback to Sutton Chancellor—unable to feel that her morning had been fruit-ful.
As she turned the last corner and Sutton Chancellor church came intoview, Tuppence saw the vicar emerging from the churchyard. He walkedrather wearily. Tuppence drew up by him.
“Are you still looking for that grave?” she asked.
The vicar had one hand at the small of his back.
“Oh dear,” he said, “my eyesight is not very good. So many of the in-scriptions are nearly erased. My back troubles me, too. So many of thesestones lie flat on the ground. Really, when I bend over sometimes I fearthat I shall never get up again.”
“I shouldn’t do it any more,” said Tuppence. “If you’ve looked in the par-ish register and all that, you’ve done all you can.”
“I know, but the poor fellow seemed so keen, so earnest. I’m quite surethat it’s all wasted labour. However, I really felt it was my duty. I have stillgot a short stretch I haven’t done, over there from beyond the yew tree tothe far wall—although most of the stones are eighteenth century. But Ishould like to feel I had finished my task properly. Then I could not re-proach myself. However, I shall leave it till tomorrow.”
“Quite right,” said Tuppence. “You mustn’t do too much in one day. I tellyou what,” she added. “After I’ve had a cup of tea with Miss Bligh, I’ll goand have a look myself. From the yew tree to the wall, do you say?”
“Oh, but I couldn’t possibly ask you—”
“That’s all right. I shall quite like to do it. I think it’s very interestingprowling round in a churchyard. You know, the older inscriptions giveyou a sort of picture of the people who lived here and all that sort of thing.
I shall quite enjoy it, I shall really. Do go back home and rest.”
“Well, of course, I really have to do something about my sermon thisevening, it’s quite true. You are a very kind friend, I’m sure. A very kindfriend.”
He beamed at her and departed into the vicarage. Tuppence glanced ather watch. She stopped at Miss Bligh’s house. “Might as well get it over,”
thought Tuppence. The front door was open and Miss Bligh was just carry-ing a plate of fresh-baked scones across the hall into the sitting room.
“Oh! so there you are, dear Mrs. Beresford. I’m so pleased to see you.
Tea’s quite ready. The kettle is on. I’ve only got to fill up the teapot. I hopeyou did all the shopping you wanted,” she added, looking in a rathermarked manner at the painfully evident empty shopping bag hanging onTuppence’s arm.
“Well, I didn’t have much luck really,” said Tuppence, putting as good aface on it as she could. “You know how it is sometimes—just one of thosedays when people just haven’t got the particular colour or the particularkind of thing you want. But I always enjoy looking round a new place evenif it isn’t a very interesting one.”
A whistling kettle let forth a strident shriek for attention and Miss Blighshot back into the kitchen to attend to it, scattering a batch of letters wait-ing for the post on the hall table.
Tuppence stooped and retrieved them, noticing as she put them back onthe table that the topmost one was addressed to a Mrs. Yorke, RosetrellisCourt for Elderly Ladies—at an address in Cumberland.
“Really,” thought Tuppence. “I am beginning to feel as if the whole of thecountry is full of nothing but Homes for the Elderly! I suppose in next tono time Tommy and I will be living in one!”
Only the other day, some would-be kind and helpful friend had writtento recommend a very nice address in Devon—married couples—mostly re-tired Service people. Quite good cooking — You brought your own fur-niture and personal belongings.
Miss Bligh reappeared with the teapot and the two ladies sat down totea.
Miss Bligh’s conversation was of a less melodramatic and juicy naturethan that of Mrs. Copleigh, and was concerned more with the procuring ofinformation, than of giving it.
Tuppence murmured vaguely of past years of Service abroad—the do-mestic difficulties of life in England, gave details of a married son and amarried daughter both with children and gently steered the conversationto the activities of Miss Bligh in Sutton Chancellor which were numerous—The Women’s Institute, Guides, Scouts, the Conservative Ladies union,Lectures, Greek Art, Jam Making, Flower Arrangement, the SketchingClub, the Friends of Archaeology—The vicar’s health, the necessity of mak-ing him take care of himself, his absentmindedness—Unfortunate differ-ences of opinion between churchwardens—
Tuppence praised the scones, thanked her hostess for her hospitalityand rose to go.
“You are so wonderfully energetic, Miss Bligh,” she said. “How you man-age to do all you do, I cannot imagine. I must confess that after a day’s ex-cursion and shopping, I like just a nice little rest on my bed—just half anhour or so of shut-eye—A very comfortable bed, too. I must thank youvery much for recommending me to Mrs. Copleigh—”
“A most reliable woman, though of course she talks too much—”
“Oh! I found all her local tales most entertaining.”
“Half the time she doesn’t know what she’s talking about! Are you stay-ing here for long?”
“Oh no — I’m going home tomorrow. I’m disappointed at not havingheard of any suitable little property—I had hopes of that very picturesquehouse by the canal—”
“You’re well out of that. It’s in a very poor state of repair—Absenteelandlords—it’s a disgrace—”
“I couldn’t even find out who it belongs to. I expect you know. You seemto know everything here—”
“I’ve never taken much interest in that house. It’s always changinghands—One can’t keep pace. The Perrys live in half of it—and the otherhalf just goes to rack and ruin.”
Tuppence said goodbye again and drove back to Mrs. Copleigh’s. Thehouse was quiet and apparently empty. Tuppence went up to her bed-room, deposited her empty shopping bag, washed her face and powderedher nose, tiptoed out of the house again, looking up and down the street,then leaving her car where it was, she walked swiftly round the corner,and took a footpath through the field behind the village which eventuallyled to a stile into the churchyard.
Tuppence went over the stile into the churchyard, peaceful in the even-ing sun, and began to examine the tombstones as she had promised. Shehad not really had any ulterior motive in doing so. There was nothinghere she hoped to discover. It was really just kindliness on her part. Theelderly vicar was rather a dear, and she would like him to feel that hisconscience was entirely satisfied. She had brought a notebook and pencilwith her in case there was anything of interest to note down for him. Shepresumed she was merely to look for a gravestone that might have beenput up commemorating the death of some child of the required age. Mostof the graves here were of an older date. They were not very interesting,not old enough to be quaint or to have touching or tender inscriptions.
They were mostly of fairly elderly people. Yet she lingered a little as shewent along, making mental pictures in her mind. Jane Elwood, departedthis life January the 6th, aged 45. William Marl, departed this life Januarythe 5th, deeply regretted. Mary Treves, five years old. March 14th 1835.
That was too far back. “In thy presence is the fulness of joy.” Lucky littleMary Treves.
She had almost reached the far wall now. The graves here were neglec-ted and overgrown, nobody seemed to care about this bit of the cemetery.
Many of the stones were no longer upright but lay about on the ground.
The wall here was damaged and crumbling. In places it had been brokendown.
Being right behind the church, it could not be seen from the road—andno doubt children came here to do what damage they could. Tuppencebent over one of the stone slabs—The original lettering was worn awayand unreadable — But heaving it up sideways, Tuppence saw somecoarsely scrawled letters and words, also by now partly overgrown.
She stopped to trace them with a forefinger, and got a word here andthere—
Whoever .?.?. offend .?.?. one of these little ones. .?.?.
Millstone .?.?. Millstone .?.?. Millstone .?.?. and below—in uneven cuttingby an amateur hand:
Here lies Lily Waters.
Tuppence drew a deep breath—She was conscious of a shadow behindher, but before she could turn her head—something hit her on the back ofher head and she fell forwards on to the tombstone into pain and dark-ness.
Ten A CONFERENCE—AND AFTER（1）
BOOK 3 MISSING—A WIFE
Ten A CONFERENCE—AND AFTER

“Well, Beresford,” said Major-General Sir Josiah Penn, K.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.,speaking with the weight appropriate to the impressive stream of lettersafter his name. “Well, what do you think of all that yackety-yack?”
Tommy gathered by that remark that Old Josh, as he was irreverentlyspoken of behind his back, was not impressed with the result of the courseof the conferences in which they had been taking part.
“Softly, softly catchee monkey,” said Sir Josiah, going on with his re-marks. “A lot of talk and nothing said. If anybody does say anything sens-ible now and then, about four beanstalks immediately get up and howl itdown. I don’t know why we come to these things. At least, I do know. Iknow why I do. Nothing else to do. If I didn’t come to these shows, I’d haveto stay at home. Do you know what happens to me there? I get bullied,Beresford. Bullied by my housekeeper, bullied by my gardener. He’s anelderly Scot and he won’t so much as let me touch my own peaches. So Icome along here, throw my weight about and pretend to myself that I’mperforming a useful function, ensuring the security of this country! Stuffand nonsense.
“What about you? You’re a relatively young man. What do you comeand waste your time for? Nobody’ll listen to you, even if you do say some-thing worth hearing.”
Tommy, faintly amused that despite his own, as he considered, ad-vanced age, he could be regarded as a youngster by Major General Sir Jo-siah Penn, shook his head. The General must be, Tommy thought, consid-erably past eighty, he was rather deaf, heavily bronchial, but he wasnobody’s fool.
“Nothing would ever get done at all if you weren’t here, sir,” saidTommy.
“I like to think so,” said the General. “I’m a toothless bulldog—but I canstill bark. How’s Mrs. Tommy? Haven’t seen her for a long time.”
Tommy replied that Tuppence was well and active.
“She was always active. Used to make me think of a dragonfly some-times. Always darting off after some apparently absurd idea of her ownand then we’d find it wasn’t absurd. Good fun!” said the General, with ap-proval. “Don’t like these earnest middle-aged women you meet nowadays,all got a Cause with a capital C. And as for the girls nowadays—” he shookhis head. “Not what they used to be when I was a young man. Pretty as apicture, they used to be then. Their muslin frocks! Cloche hats, they used towear at one time. Do you remember? No, I suppose you’d have been atschool. Had to look right down underneath the brim before you could seethe girl’s face. Tantalizing it was, and they knew it! I remember now—letme see—she was a relative of yours—an aunt wasn’t she?—Ada. Ada Fan-shawe—”
“Aunt Ada?”
“Prettiest girl I ever knew.”
Tommy managed to contain the surprise he felt. That his Aunt Adacould ever have been considered pretty seemed beyond belief. Old Joshwas dithering on.
“Yes, pretty as a picture. Sprightly, too! Gay! Regular tease. Ah, I remem-ber last time I saw her. I was a subaltern just off to India. We were at amoonlight picnic on the beach .?.?. She and I wandered away together andsat on a rock looking at the sea.”
Tommy looked at him with great interest. At his double chins, his baldhead, his bushy eyebrows and his enormous paunch. He thought of AuntAda, of her incipient moustache, her grim smile, her iron-grey hair, hermalicious glance. Time, he thought. What Time does to one! He tried tovisualize a handsome young subaltern and a pretty girl in the moonlight.
He failed.
“Romantic,” said Sir Josiah Penn with a deep sigh. “Ah yes, romantic. Iwould have liked to propose to her that night, but you couldn’t propose ifyou were a subaltern. Not on your pay. We’d have had to wait five yearsbefore we could be married. That was too long an engagement to ask anygirl to agree to. Ah well! you know how things happen. I went out to Indiaand it was a long time before I came home on leave. We wrote to one an-other for a bit, then things slacked off. As it usually happens. I never sawher again. And yet, you know, I never quite forgot her. Often thought ofher. I remember I nearly wrote to her once, years later. I’d heard she wasin the neighbourhood where I was staying with some people. I thought I’dgo and see her, ask if I could call. Then I thought to myself “Don’t be adamn’ fool. She probably looks quite different by now.”
“I heard a chap mention her some years later. Said she was one of theugliest women he’d ever seen. I could hardly believe it when I heard himsay that, but I think now perhaps I was lucky I never did see her again.
What’s she doing now? Alive still?”
“No. She died about two or three weeks ago, as a matter of fact,” saidTommy.
“Did she really, did she really? Yes, I suppose she’d be—what now, she’dbe seventy-five or seventy-six? Bit older than that perhaps.”
“She was eighty,” said Tommy.
“Fancy now. Dark-haired lively Ada. Where did she die? Was she in anursing home or did she live with a companion or—she never married,did she?”
“No,” said Tommy, “she never married. She was in an old ladies’ home.
Rather a nice one, as a matter of fact. Sunny Ridge, it’s called.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of that. Sunny Ridge. Someone my sister knew wasthere, I believe. A Mrs.—now what was the name—a Mrs. Carstairs? D’youever come across her?”
“No. I didn’t come across anyone much there. One just used to go andvisit one’s own particular relative.”
“Difficult business, too, I think. I mean, one never knows what to say tothem.”
“Aunt Ada was particularly difficult,” said Tommy. “She was a tartar,you know.”
“She would be.” The General chuckled. “She could be a regular littledevil when she liked when she was a girl.”
He sighed.
“Devilish business, getting old. One of my sister’s friends used to get fan-cies, poor old thing. Used to say she’d killed somebody.”
“Good Lord,” said Tommy. “Had she?”
“Oh, I don’t suppose so. Nobody seems to think she had. I suppose,” saidthe General, considering the idea thoughtfully, “I suppose she might have,you know. If you go about saying things like that quite cheerfully, nobodywould believe you, would they? Entertaining thought that, isn’t it?”
“Who did she think she’d killed?”
“Blessed if I know. Husband perhaps? Don’t know who he was or whathe was like. She was a widow when we first came to know her. Well,” headded with a sigh, “sorry to hear about Ada. Didn’t see it in the paper. If Ihad I’d have sent flowers or something. Bunch of rosebuds or somethingof that kind. That’s what girls used to wear on their evening dresses. Abunch of rosebuds on the shoulder of an evening dress. Very pretty it was.
I remember Ada had an evening dress—sort of hydrangea colour, mauvy.
Mauvy-blue and she had pink rosebuds on it. She gave me one once. Theyweren’t real, of course. Artificial. I kept it for a long time—years. I know,”
he added, catching Tommy’s eye, “makes you laugh to think of it, doesn’tit. I tell you, my boy, when you get really old and gaga like I am, you getsentimental again. Well, I suppose I’d better toddle off and go back to thelast act of this ridiculous show. Best regards to Mrs. T. when you gethome.”
In the train the next day, Tommy thought back over this conversation,smiling to himself and trying again to picture his redoubtable aunt andthe fierce Major General in their young days.
“I must tell Tuppence this. It’ll make her laugh,” said Tommy. “I wonderwhat Tuppence has been doing while I’ve been away?”
He smiled to himself.
Eleven BOND STREET AND DR. MURRAY（1）
Eleven BOND STREET AND DR. MURRAY
Tommy jumped out of a taxi, paid the driver and leaned back into the cabto take out a rather clumsily done up parcel which was clearly a picture.
Tucking as much of it as he could under his arm, he entered the NewAthenian Galleries, one of the longest established and most important pic-ture galleries in London.
Tommy was not a great patron of the arts but he had come to the NewAthenian because he had a friend who officiated there.
“Officiated” was the only word to use because the air of sympathetic in-terest, the hushed voice, the pleasurable smile, all seemed highly ecclesi-astical.
A fair-haired young man detached himself and came forward, his facelighting up with a smile of recognition.
“Hullo, Tommy,” he said. “Haven’t seen you for a long time. What’s thatyou’ve got under your arm? Don’t tell me you’ve been taking to paintingpictures in your old age? A lot of people do—results usually deplorable.”
“I doubt if creative art was ever my long suit,” said Tommy. “Though Imust admit I found myself strongly attracted the other day by a smallbook telling in the simplest terms how a child of five can learn to paint inwater colours.”
“God help us if you’re going to take to that. Grandma Moses in reverse.”
“To tell you the truth, Robert, I merely want to appeal to your expertknowledge of pictures. I want your opinion on this.”
Deftly Robert took the picture from Tommy and skilfully removed itsclumsy wrappings with the expertise of a man accustomed to handle theparcelling up and deparcelling of all different-sized works of art. He tookthe picture and set it on a chair, peered into it to look at it, and then with-drew five or six steps away. He turned his gaze towards Tommy.
“Well,” he said, “what about it? What do you want to know? Do youwant to sell it, is that it?”
“No,” said Tommy, “I don’t want to sell it, Robert. I want to know aboutit. To begin with, I want to know who painted it.”
“Actually,” said Robert, “if you had wanted to sell it, it would be quitesaleable nowadays. It wouldn’t have been, ten years ago. But Boscowan’sjust coming into fashion again.”
“Boscowan?” Tommy looked at him inquiringly. “Is that the name of theartist? I saw it was signed with something beginning with B but I couldn’tread the name.”
“Oh, it’s Boscowan all right. Very popular painter about twenty- fiveyears ago. Sold well, had plenty of shows. People bought him all right.
Technically a very good painter. Then, in the usual cycle of events, hewent out of fashion. Finally, hardly any demand at all for his works butlately he’s had a revival. He, Stitchwort, and Fondella. They’re all comingup.”
“Boscowan,” repeated Tommy.
“B-o-s-c-o-w-a-n,” said Robert obligingly.
“Is he still painting?”
“No. He’s dead. Died some years ago. Quite an old chap by then. Sixty-five, I think, when he died. Quite a prolific painter, you know. A lot of hiscanvases about. Actually we’re thinking of having a show of him here inabout four or five months’ time. We ought to do well over it, I think. Whyare you so interested in him?”
“It’d be too long a story to tell you,” said Tommy. “One of these days I’llask you out to lunch and give you the doings from the beginning. It’s along, complicated and really rather an idiotic story. All I wanted to knowis all about this Boscowan and if you happen to know by any chancewhere this house is that’s represented here.”
“I couldn’t tell you the last for a moment. It’s the sort of thing he didpaint, you know. Small country houses in rather isolated spots usually,sometimes a farmhouse, sometimes just a cow or two around. Sometimesa farm cart, but if so, in the far distance. Quiet rural scenes. Nothingsketchy or messy. Sometimes the surface looks almost like enamel. It wasa peculiar technique and people liked it. A good many of the things hepainted were in France, Normandy mostly. Churches. I’ve got one pictureof his here now. Wait a minute and I’ll get it for you.”
He went to the head of the staircase and shouted down to someone be-low. Presently he came back holding a small canvas which he propped onanother chair.
“There you are,” he said. “Church in Normandy.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, “I see. The same sort of thing. My wife says nobodyever lived in that house—the one I brought in. I see now what she meant. Idon’t see that anybody was attending service in that church or ever will.”
“Well, perhaps your wife’s got something. Quiet, peaceful dwellings withno human occupancy. He didn’t often paint people, you know. Sometimesthere’s a figure or two in the landscape, but more often not. In a way Ithink that gives them their special charm. A sort of isolationist feeling. Itwas as though he removed all the human beings, and the peace of thecountryside was all the better without them. Come to think of it, that’smaybe why the general taste has swung round to him. Too many peoplenowadays, too many cars, too many noises on the road, too much noiseand bustle. Peace, perfect peace. Leave it all to Nature.”
“Yes, I shouldn’t wonder. What sort of a man was he?”
“I didn’t know him personally. Before my time. Pleased with himself byall accounts. Thought he was a better painter than he was, probably. Puton a bit of side. Kindly, quite likeable. Eye for the girls.”
“And you’ve no idea where this particular piece of countryside exists? Itis England, I suppose.”
“I should think so, yes. Do you want me to find out for you?”
“Could you?”
“Probably the best thing to do would be to ask his wife, his widowrather. He married Emma Wing, the sculptor. Well known. Not very pro-ductive. Does quite powerful work. You could go and ask her. She lives inHampstead. I can give you the address. We’ve been corresponding withher a good deal lately over the question of this show of her husband’swork we’re doing. We’re having a few of her smaller pieces of sculpture aswell. I’ll get the address for you.”
He went to the desk, turned over a ledger, scrawled something on a cardand brought it back.
“There you are, Tommy,” he said. “I don’t know what the deep darkmystery is. Always been a man of mystery, haven’t you? It’s a nice repres-entation of Boscowan’s work you’ve got there. We might like to use it forthe show. I’ll send you a line to remind you nearer the time.”
“You don’t know a Mrs. Lancaster, do you?”
“Well, I can’t think of one off-hand. Is she an artist or something of thekind?”
“No, I don’t think so. She’s just an old lady living for the last few years inan old ladies’ home. She comes into it because this picture belonged to heruntil she gave it away to an aunt of mine.”
“Well I can’t say the name means anything to me. Better go and talk toMrs. Boscowan.”
“What’s she like?”
“She was a good bit younger than he was, I should say. Quite a personal-ity.” He nodded his head once or twice. “Yes, quite a personality. You’llfind that out I expect.”
He took the picture, handed it down the staircase with instructions tosomeone below to do it up again.
“Nice for you having so many myrmidons at your beck and call,” saidTommy.
He looked round him, noticing his surroundings for the first time.
“What’s this you’ve got here now?” he said with distaste.
“Paul Jaggerowski — Interesting young Slav. Said to produce all hisworks under the influence of drugs—Don’t you like him?”
Tommy concentrated his gaze on a big string bag which seemed to haveenmeshed itself in a metallic green field full of distorted cows.
“Frankly, no.”
“Philistine,” said Robert. “Come out and have a bite of lunch.”
“Can’t. I’ve got a meeting with a doctor at my club.”
“Not ill, are you?”
“I’m in the best of health. My blood pressure is so good that it disap-points every doctor to whom I submit it.”
“Then what do you want to see a doctor for?”
“Oh,” said Tommy cheerfully—“I’ve just got to see a doctor about a body.
Thanks for your help. Goodbye.”
Eleven BOND STREET AND DR. MURRAY（2）
II
Tommy greeted Dr. Murray with some curiosity—He presumed it wassome formal matter to do with Aunt Ada’s decease, but why on earth Dr.
Murray would not at least mention the subject of his visit over the tele-phone, Tommy couldn’t imagine.
“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said Dr. Murray, shaking hands, “but thetraffic was pretty bad and I wasn’t exactly sure of the locality. I don’tknow this part of London very well.”
“Well, too bad you had to come all the way here,” said Tommy. “I couldhave met you somewhere more convenient, you know.”
“You’ve time on your hands then just now?”
“Just at the moment, yes. I’ve been away for the last week.”
“Yes, I believe someone told me so when I rang up.”
Tommy indicated a chair, suggested refreshment, placed cigarettes andmatches by Dr. Murray’s side. When the two men had established them-selves comfortably Dr. Murray opened the conversation.
“I’m sure I’ve aroused your curiosity,” he said, “but as a matter of factwe’re in a spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge. It’s a difficult and perplexingmatter and in one way it’s nothing to do with you. I’ve no earthly right totrouble you with it but there’s just an off chance that you might knowsomething which would help me.”
“Well, of course, I’ll do anything I can. Something to do with my aunt,Miss Fanshawe?”
“Not directly, no. But in a way she does come into it. I can speak to youin confidence, can’t I, Mr. Beresford?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“As a matter of fact I was talking the other day to a mutual friend ofours. He was telling me a few things about you. I gather that in the lastwar you had rather a delicate assignment.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put it quite as seriously as that,” said Tommy, in his mostnoncommittal manner.
“Oh no, I quite realize that it’s not a thing to be talked about.”
“I don’t really think that matters nowadays. It’s a good long time sincethe war. My wife and I were younger then.”
“Anyway, it’s nothing to do with that, that I want to talk to you about,but at least I feel that I can speak frankly to you, that I can trust you not torepeat what I am now saying, though it’s possible that it all may have tocome out later.”
“A spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge, you say?”
“Yes. Not very long ago one of our patients died. A Mrs. Moody. I don’tknow if you ever met her or if your aunt ever talked about her.”
“Mrs. Moody?” Tommy reflected. “No, I don’t think so. Anyway, not sofar as I remember.”
“She was not one of our older patients. She was still on the right side ofseventy and she was not seriously ill in any way. It was just a case of a wo-man with no near relatives and no one to look after her in the domesticline. She fell into the category of what I often call to myself a flutterer. Wo-men who more and more resemble hens as they grow older. They cluck.
They forget things. They run themselves into difficulties and they worry.
They get themselves wrought up about nothing at all. There is very littlethe matter with them. They are not strictly speaking mentally disturbed.”
“But they just cluck,” Tommy suggested.
“As you say. Mrs. Moody clucked. She caused the nurses a fair amountof trouble although they were quite fond of her. She had a habit of forget-ting when she’d had her meals, making a fuss because no dinner had beenserved to her when as a matter of fact she had actually just eaten a verygood dinner.”
“Oh,” said Tommy, enlightened, “Mrs. Cocoa.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m sorry,” said Tommy, “it’s a name my wife and I had for her. Shewas yelling for Nurse Jane one day when we passed along the passage andsaying she hadn’t had her cocoa. Rather a nice-looking scatty little woman.
But it made us both laugh, and we fell into the habit of calling her Mrs. Co-coa. And so she’s died.”
“I wasn’t particularly surprised when the death happened,” said Dr.
Murray. “To be able to prophesy with any exactitude when elderly womenwill die is practically impossible. Women whose health is seriously affec-ted, who, one feels as a result of physical examination, will hardly last theyear out, sometimes are good for another ten years. They have a tenacioushold on life which mere physical disability will not quench. There areother people whose health is reasonably good and who may, one thinks,make old bones. They on the other hand, catch bronchitis, or ’flu, seem un-able to have the stamina to recuperate from it, and die with surprisingease. So, as I say, as a medical attendant to an elderly ladies’ home, I amnot surprised when what might be called a fairly unexpected death oc-curs. This case of Mrs. Moody, however, was somewhat different. She diedin her sleep without having exhibited any sign of illness and I could nothelp feeling that in my opinion her death was unexpected. I will use thephrase that has always intrigued me in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. Ihave always wondered what Macbeth meant when he said of his wife,‘She should have died hereafter.’ ”
“Yes, I remember wondering once myself what Shakespeare was gettingat,” said Tommy. “I forget whose production it was and who was playingMacbeth, but there was a strong suggestion in that particular production,and Macbeth certainly played it in a way to suggest that he was hinting tothe medical attendant that Lady Macbeth would be better out of the way.
Presumably the medical attendant took the hint. It was then that Macbeth,feeling safe after his wife’s death, feeling that she could no longer damagehim by her indiscretions or her rapidly failing mind, expresses his genu-ine affection and grief for her. ‘She should have died hereafter.’ ”
“Exactly,” said Dr. Murray. “It is what I felt about Mrs. Moody. I felt thatshe should have died hereafter. Not just three weeks ago of no apparentcause—”
Tommy did not reply. He merely looked at the doctor inquiringly.
“Medical men have certain problems. If you are puzzled over the causeof a patient’s death there is only one sure way to tell. By a postmortem.
Postmortems are not appreciated by relatives of the deceased, but if a doc-tor demands a postmortem and the result is, as it perfectly well may be, acase of natural causes, or some disease or malady which does not alwaysgive outward signs or symptoms, then the doctor’s career can be quite ser-iously affected by his having made a questionable diagnosis—”
“I can see that it must have been difficult.”
“The relatives in question are distant cousins. So I took it upon myself toget their consent as it was a matter of medical interest to know the causeof death. When a patient dies in her sleep it is advisable to add to one’smedical knowledge. I wrapped it up a good bit, mind you, didn’t make ittoo formal. Luckily they couldn’t care less. I felt very relieved in mind.
Once the autopsy had been performed and if all was well, I could give adeath certificate without a qualm. Anyone can die of what is amateurishlycalled heart failure, from one of several different causes. Actually Mrs.
Moody’s heart was in really very good shape for her age. She sufferedfrom arthritis and rheumatism and occasional trouble with her liver, butnone of these things seemed to accord with her passing away in hersleep.”
Dr. Murray came to a stop. Tommy opened his lips and then shut themagain. The doctor nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Beresford. You can see where I am tending. Death has resultedfrom an overdose of morphine.”
“Good Lord!” Tommy stared and the ejaculation escaped him.
“Yes. It seemed quite incredible, but there was no getting away from theanalysis. The question was: How was that morphia administered? She wasnot on morphia. She was not a patient who suffered pain. There werethree possibilities, of course. She might have taken it by accident. Unlikely.
She might have got hold of some other patient’s medicine by mistake butthat again is not particularly likely. Patients are not entrusted with sup-plies of morphia, and we do not accept drug addicts who might have asupply of such things in their possession. It could have been deliberatesuicide but I should be very slow to accept that. Mrs. Moody, though aworrier, was of a perfectly cheerful disposition and I am quite sure hadnever thought of ending her life. The third possibility is that a fatal over-dose was deliberately administered to her. But by whom, and why? Natur-ally, there are supplies of morphia and other drugs which Miss Packard asa registered hospital nurse and matron, is perfectly entitled to have in herpossession and which she keeps in a locked cupboard. In such cases as sci-atica or rheumatoid arthritis there can be such severe and desperate painthat morphia is occasionally administered. We have hoped that we maycome across some circumstance in which Mrs. Moody had a dangerousamount of morphia administered to her by mistake or which she herselftook under the delusion that it was a cure for indigestion or insomnia. Wehave not been able to find any such circumstances possible. The next thingwe have done, at Miss Packard’s suggestion and I agreed with her, is tolook carefully into the records of such deaths as have taken place at SunnyRidge in the last two years. There have not been many of them, I am gladto say. I think seven in all, which is a pretty fair average for people of thatage group. Two deaths of bronchitis, perfectly straightforward, two of flu,always a possible killer during the winter months owing to the slight res-istance offered by frail, elderly women. And three others.”
He paused and said, “Mr. Beresford, I am not satisfied about those threeothers, certainly not about two of them. They were perfectly probable,they were not unexpected, but I will go as far as saying that they were un-likely. They are not cases that on reflection and research I am entirely sat-isfied about. One has to accept the possibility that, unlikely as it seems,there is someone at Sunny Ridge who is, possibly for mental reasons, akiller. An entirely unsuspected killer.”
There was silence for some moments. Tommy gave a sigh.
“I don’t doubt what you’ve told me,” he said, “but all the same, frankly, itseems unbelievable. These things—surely, they can’t happen.”
“Oh yes,” said Dr. Murray grimly, “they happen all right. You go oversome of the pathological cases. A woman who took on domestic service.
She worked as a cook in various households. She was a nice, kind, pleas-ant-seeming woman, gave her employers faithful service, cooked well, en-joyed being with them. Yet, sooner or later, things happened. Usually aplate of sandwiches. Sometimes picnic food. For no apparent motive ar-senic was added. Two or three poisoned sandwiches among the rest. Ap-parently sheer chance dictated who took and ate them. There seemed nopersonal venom. Sometimes no tragedy happened. The same woman wasthree or four months in a situation and there was no trace of illness. Noth-ing. Then she left to go to another job, and in that next job, within threeweeks, two of the family died after eating bacon for breakfast. The factthat all these things happened in different parts of England and at irregu-lar intervals made it some time before the police got on her track. Sheused a different name, of course, each time. But there are so many pleas-ant, capable, middle-aged women who can cook, it was hard to find outwhich particular woman it was.”
“Why did she do it?”
“I don’t think anybody has ever really known. There have been severaldifferent theories, especially of course by psychologists. She was a some-what religious woman and it seems possible that some form of religiousinsanity made her feel that she had a divine command to rid the world ofcertain people, but it does not seem that she herself had borne them anypersonal animus.
“Then there was the French woman, Jeanne Gebron, who was called TheAngel of Mercy. She was so upset when her neighbours had ill children,she hurried to nurse those children. Sat devotedly at their bedside. Thereagain it was some time before people discovered that the children shenursed never recovered. Instead they all died. And why? It is true that whenshe was young her own child died. She appeared to be prostrated withgrief. Perhaps that was the cause of her career of crime. If her child diedso should the children of other women. Or it may be, as some thought, thather own child was also one of the victims.”
“You’re giving me chills down my spine,” said Tommy.
“I’m taking the most melodramatic examples,” said the doctor. “It maybe something much simpler than that. You remember in the case of Arm-strong, anyone who had in any way offended him or insulted him, or in-deed, if he even thought anyone had insulted him, that person was quicklyasked to tea and given arsenic sandwiches. A sort of intensified touchi-ness. His first crimes were obviously mere crimes for personal advantage.
Inheriting of money. The removal of a wife so that he could marry an-other woman.
“Then there was Nurse Warriner who kept a Home for elderly people.
They made over what means they had to her, and were guaranteed a com-fortable old age until death came — But death did not delay very long.
There, too, it was morphia that was administered—a very kindly woman,but with no scruples—she regarded herself, I believe, as a benefactor.”
“You’ve no idea, if your surmise about these deaths is true, who it couldbe?”
“No. There seems no pointer of any kind. Taking the view that the killeris probably insane, insanity is a very difficult thing to recognize in some ofits manifestations. Is it somebody, shall we say, who dislikes elderlypeople, who had been injured or has had her life ruined or so she thinks,by somebody elderly? Or is it possibly someone who has her own ideas ofmercy killing and thinks that everyone over sixty years of age should bekindly exterminated. It could be anyone, of course. A patient? Or a mem-ber of the staff—a nurse or a domestic worker?
“I have discussed this at great length with Millicent Packard who runsthe place. She is a highly competent woman, shrewd, businesslike, withkeen supervision both of the guests there and of her own staff. She insiststhat she has no suspicion and no clue whatever and I am sure that is per-fectly true.”
“But why come to me? What can I do?”
“Your aunt, Miss Fanshawe, was a resident there for some years—shewas a woman of very considerable mental capacity, though she often pre-tended otherwise. She had unconventional ways of amusing herself byputting on an appearance of senility. But she was actually very much allthere—What I want you to try and do, Mr. Beresford, is to think hard—youand your wife, too—Is there anything you can remember that Miss Fan-shawe ever said or hinted, that might give us a clue—Something she hadseen or noticed, something that someone had told her, something that sheherself had thought peculiar. Old ladies see and notice a lot, and a reallyshrewd one like Miss Fanshawe would know a surprising amount of whatwent on in a place like Sunny Ridge. These old ladies are not busy, you see,they have all the time in the world to look around them and make deduc-tions—and even jump to conclusions—that may seem fantastic, but aresometimes, surprisingly, entirely correct.”
Tommy shook his head.
“I know what you mean—But I can’t remember anything of that kind.”
“Your wife’s away from home, I gather. You don’t think she might re-member something that hadn’t struck you?”
“I’ll ask her—but I doubt it.” He hesitated, then made up his mind. “Lookhere, there was something that worried my wife—about one of the oldladies, a Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Mrs. Lancaster? Yes?”
“My wife’s got it into her head that Mrs. Lancaster has been taken awayby some so-called relations very suddenly. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Lan-caster gave a picture to my aunt as a present, and my wife felt that sheought to offer to return the picture to Mrs. Lancaster, so she tried to get intouch with her to know if Mrs. Lancaster would like the picture returnedto her.”
“Well, that was very thoughtful of Mrs. Beresford, I’m sure.”
“Only she found it very hard to get in touch with her. She got the ad-dress of the hotel where they were supposed to be staying—Mrs. Lan-caster and her relations—but nobody of that name had been staying thereor had booked rooms there.”
“Oh? That was rather odd.”
“Yes. Tuppence thought it was rather odd, too. They had left no otherforwarding address at Sunny Ridge. In fact, we have made several at-tempts to get in touch with Mrs. Lancaster, or with this Mrs.—Johnson Ithink the name was—but have been quite unable to get in touch withthem. There was a solicitor who I believe paid all the bills—and made allthe arrangements with Miss Packard and we got into communication withhim. But he could only give me the address of a bank. Banks,” said Tommydrily, “don’t give you any information.”
“Not if they’ve been told not to by their clients, I agree.”
“My wife wrote to Mrs. Lancaster care of the bank, and also to Mrs.
Johnson, but she’s never had any reply.”
“That seems a little unusual. Still, people don’t always answer letters.
They may have gone abroad.”
“Quite so—it didn’t worry me. But it has worried my wife. She seemsconvinced that something has happened to Mrs. Lancaster. In fact, duringthe time I was away from home, she said she was going to investigate fur-ther—I don’t know what exactly she meant to do, perhaps see the hotelpersonally, or the bank, or try the solicitor. Anyway, she was going to tryand get a little more information.”
Dr. Murray looked at him politely, but with a trace of patient boredomin his manner.
“What did she think exactly—?”
“She thinks that Mrs. Lancaster is in danger of some kind—even thatsomething may have happened to her.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“Oh! really, I should hardly think—”
“This may seem quite idiotic to you,” said Tommy, “but you see, my wiferang up saying she would be back yesterday evening—and—she didn’t ar-rive.”
“She said definitely that she was coming back?”
“Yes. She knew I was coming home, you see, from this conference busi-ness. So she rang up to let our man, Albert, know that she’d be back to din-ner.”
“And that seems to you an unlikely thing for her to do?” said Murray. Hewas now looking at Tommy with some interest.
“Yes,” said Tommy. “It’s very unlike Tuppence. If she’d been delayed orchanged her plans she would have rung up again or sent a telegram.”
“And you’re worried about her?”
“Yes, I am,” said Tommy.
“H’m! Have you consulted the police?”
“No,” said Tommy. “What’d the police think? It’s not as though I had anyreason to believe that she is in trouble or danger or anything of that kind.
I mean, if she’d had an accident or was in a hospital, anything like that,somebody would communicate with me soon enough, wouldn’t they?”
“I should say so—yes—if she had some means of identification on her.”
“She’d have her driving licence on her. Probably letters and variousother things.”
Dr. Murray frowned.
Tommy went on in a rush:
“And now you come along—And bring up all this business of SunnyRidge—People who’ve died when they oughtn’t to have died. Supposingthis old bean got on to something—saw something, or suspected some-thing—and began chattering about it—She’d have to be silenced in someway, so she was whisked out of it quickly, and taken off to some place orother where she wouldn’t be traced. I can’t help feeling that the wholething ties up somehow—”
“It’s odd—it’s certainly odd—What do you propose to do next?”
“I’m going to do a bit of searching myself—Try these solicitors first—They may be quite all right, but I’d like to have a look at them, and drawmy own conclusions.”
Twelve TOMMY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND（1）
Twelve TOMMY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND

From the opposite side of the road, Tommy surveyed the premises ofMessrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale.
They looked eminently respectable and old-fashioned. The brass platewas well worn but nicely polished. He crossed the street and passedthrough swing doors to be greeted by the muted note of typewriters at fullspeed.
He addressed himself to an open mahogany window on his right whichbore the legend INQUIRIES—
Inside was a small room where three women were typing and two maleclerks were bending over desks copying documents.
There was a faint, musty atmosphere with a decidedly legal flavour.
A woman of thirty-five odd, with a severe air, faded blonde hair, andpince-nez rose from her typewriter and came to the window.
“Can I help you?”
“I would like to see Mr. Eccles.”
The woman’s air of severity redoubled.
“Have you an appointment?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m just passing through London today.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Eccles is rather busy this morning. Perhaps anothermember of the firm—”
“It was Mr. Eccles I particularly wanted to see. I have already had somecorrespondence with him.”
“Oh I see. Perhaps you’ll give me your name.”
Tommy gave his name and address and the blonde woman retired toconfer with the telephone on her desk. After a murmured conversationshe returned.
“The clerk will show you into the waiting room. Mr. Eccles will be ableto see you in about ten minutes’ time.”
Tommy was ushered into a waiting room which had a bookcase ofrather ancient and ponderous- looking law tomes and a round tablecovered with various financial papers. Tommy sat there and went over inhis own mind his planned methods of approach. He wondered what Mr.
Eccles would be like. When he was shown in at last and Mr. Eccles rosefrom a desk to receive him, he decided for no particular reason that hecould name to himself that he did not like Mr. Eccles. He also wonderedwhy he did not like Mr. Eccles. There seemed no valid reason for dislike.
Mr. Eccles was a man of between forty and fifty with greyish hair thinninga little at the temples. He had a long rather sad-looking face with a particu-larly wooden expression, shrewd eyes, and quite a pleasant smile whichfrom time to time rather unexpectedly broke up the natural melancholy ofhis countenance.
“Mr. Beresford?”
“Yes. It is really rather a trifling matter, but my wife has been worriedabout it. She wrote to you, I believe, or possibly she may have rung youup, to know if you could give her the address of a Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Mrs. Lancaster,” said Mr. Eccles, retaining a perfect poker face. It wasnot even a question. He just left the name hanging in the air.
“A cautious man,” thought Tommy, “but then it’s second nature for law-yers to be cautious. In fact, if they were one’s own lawyers one wouldprefer them to be cautious.”
He went on:
“Until lately living at a place called Sunny Ridge, an establishment—anda very good one—for elderly ladies. In fact, an aunt of my own was thereand was extremely happy and comfortable.”
“Oh yes, of course, of course. I remember now. Mrs. Lancaster. She is, Ithink, no longer living there? That is right, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Tommy.
“At the moment I do not exactly recall—” he stretched out a hand to-wards the telephone—“I will just refresh my memory—”
“I can tell you quite simply,” said Tommy. “My wife wanted Mrs. Lan-caster’s address because she happens to be in possession of a piece ofproperty which originally belonged to Mrs. Lancaster. A picture, in fact. Itwas given by Mrs. Lancaster as a present to my aunt, Miss Fanshawe. Myaunt died recently, and her few possessions have come into our keeping.
This included the picture which was given her by Mrs. Lancaster. My wifelikes it very much but she feels rather guilty about it. She thinks that itmay be a picture Mrs. Lancaster values and in that case she feels sheought to offer to return it to Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Ah, I see,” said Mr. Eccles. “It is very conscientious of your wife, I amsure.”
“One never knows,” said Tommy, smiling pleasantly, “what elderlypeople may feel about their possessions. She may have been glad for myaunt to have it since my aunt admired it, but as my aunt died very soonafter having received this gift, it seems, perhaps, a little unfair that itshould pass into the possession of strangers. There is no particular title onthe picture. It represents a house somewhere in the country. For all Iknow it may be some family house associated with Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Quite, quite,” said Mr. Eccles, “but I don’t think—”
There was a knock and the door opened and a clerk entered and pro-duced a sheet of paper which he placed before Mr. Eccles. Mr. Eccleslooked down.
“Ah yes, ah yes, I remember now. Yes, I believe Mrs.—” he glanced downat Tommy’s card lying on his desk—“Beresford rang up and had a fewwords with me. I advised her to get into touch with the Southern CountiesBank, Hammersmith branch. This is the only address I myself know. Let-ters addressed to the bank’s address, care of Mrs. Richard Johnson wouldbe forwarded. Mrs. Johnson is, I believe, a niece or distant cousin of Mrs.
Lancaster’s and it was Mrs. Johnson who made all the arrangements withme for Mrs. Lancaster’s reception at Sunny Ridge. She asked me to makefull inquiries about the establishment, since she had only heard about itcasually from a friend. We did so, I can assure you, most carefully. It wassaid to be an excellent establishment and I believe Mrs. Johnson’s relative,Mrs. Lancaster, spent several years there quite happily.”
“She left there, though, rather suddenly,” Tommy suggested.
“Yes. Yes, I believe she did. Mrs. Johnson, it seems, returned rather un-expectedly recently from East Africa—so many people have done so! Sheand her husband had, I believe, resided in Kenya for many years. Theywere making various new arrangements and felt able to assume personalcare of their elderly relative. I am afraid I have no knowledge of Mrs.
Johnson’s present whereabouts. I had a letter from her thanking me andsettling accounts she owed, and directing that if there was any necessityfor communicating with her I should address my letters care of the bankas she was undecided as yet where she and her husband would actually beresiding. I am afraid, Mr. Beresford, that that is all I know.”
His manner was gentle but firm. It displayed no embarrassment of anykind nor disturbance. But the finality of his voice was very definite. Thenhe unbent and his manner softened a little.
“I shouldn’t really worry, you know, Mr. Beresford,” he said reassur-ingly. “Or rather, I shouldn’t let your wife worry. Mrs. Lancaster, I believe,is quite an old lady and inclined to be forgetful. She’s probably forgottenall about this picture that she gave away. She is, I believe, seventy-five orseventy-six years of age. One forgets very easily at that age, you know.”
“Did you know her personally?”
“No, I never actually met her.”
“But you knew Mrs. Johnson?”
“I met her when she came here occasionally to consult me as to arrange-ments. She seemed a pleasant, businesslike woman. Quite competent inthe arrangements she was making.” He rose and said, “I am so sorry Ican’t help you, Mr. Beresford.”
It was a gentle but firm dismissal.
Tommy came out on to the Bloomsbury street and looked about him fora taxi. The parcel he was carrying, though not heavy, was of a fairly awk-ward size. He looked up for a moment at the building he had just left. Em-inently respectable, long established. Nothing you could fault there, noth-ing apparently wrong with Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge andPartingdale, nothing wrong with Mr. Eccles, no signs of alarm or despond-ency, no shiftiness or uneasiness. In books, Tommy thought gloomily, amention of Mrs. Lancaster or Mrs. Johnson should have brought a guiltystart or a shifty glance. Something to show that the names registered, thatall was not well. Things didn’t seem to happen like that in real life. All Mr.
Eccles had looked like was a man who was too polite to resent having histime wasted by such an inquiry as Tommy had just made.
But all the same, thought Tommy to himself, I don’t like Mr. Eccles. He re-called to himself vague memories of the past, of other people that he hadfor some reason not liked. Very often those hunches—for hunches is allthey were—had been right. But perhaps it was simpler than that. If youhad had a good many dealings in your time with personalities, you had asort of feeling about them, just as an expert antique dealer knows instinct-ively the taste and look and feel of a forgery before getting down to experttests and examinations. The thing just is wrong. The same with pictures.
The same presumably with a cashier in a bank who is offered a first-classspurious banknote.
“He sounds all right,” thought Tommy. “He looks all right, he speaks allright, but all the same—” He waved frantically at a taxi which gave him adirect and cold look, increased its speed and drove on. “Swine,” thoughtTommy.
His eyes roved up and down the street, seeking for a more obligingvehicle. A fair amount of people were walking on the pavement. A fewhurrying, some strolling, one man gazing at a brass plate just across theroad from him. After a close scrutiny, he turned round and Tommy’s eyesopened a little wider. He knew that face. He watched the man walk to theend of the street, pause, turn and walk back again. Somebody came out ofthe building behind Tommy and at that moment the man opposite in-creased his pace a little, still walking on the other side of the road butkeeping pace with the man who had come out of the door. The man whohad come out of Messrs. Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale’sdoorway was, Tommy thought, looking after his retreating figure, almostcertainly Mr. Eccles. At the same moment a taxi lingering in a pleasanttempting manner, came along. Tommy raised his hand, the taxi drew up,he opened the door and got in.
“Where to?”
Tommy hesitated for a moment, looking at his parcel. About to give anaddress he changed his mind and said, “14 Lyon Street.”
A quarter of an hour later he had reached his destination. He rang thebell after paying off the taxi and asked for Mr. Ivor Smith. When heentered a second-floor room, a man sitting at a table facing the window,swung round and said with faint surprise,
“Hullo, Tommy, fancy seeing you. It’s a long time. What are you doinghere? Just tooling round looking up your old friends?”
“Not quite as good as that, Ivor.”
“I suppose you’re on your way home after the Conference?”
“Yes.”
“All a lot of the usual talky-talky, I suppose? No conclusions drawn andnothing helpful said.”
“Quite right. All a sheer waste of time.”
“Mostly listening to old Bogie Waddock shooting his mouth off, I expect.
Crashing bore. Gets worse every year.”
“Oh! well—”
Tommy sat down in the chair that was pushed towards him, accepted acigarette, and said,
“I just wondered—it’s a very long shot—whether you know anything ofa derogatory nature about one Eccles, solicitor, of the firm of Messrs. Part-ingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale.”
“Well, well, well,” said the man called Ivor Smith. He raised his eye-brows. They were very convenient eyebrows for raising. The end of themnear the nose went up and the opposite end of the cheek went down foran almost astonishing extent. They made him on very little provocationlook like a man who had had a severe shock, but actually it was quite acommon gesture with him. “Run up against Eccles somewhere have you?”
“The trouble is,” said Tommy, “that I know nothing about him.”
“And you want to know something about him?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. What made you come to see me?”
“I saw Anderson outside. It was a long time since I’d seen him but I re-cognized him. He was keeping someone or other under observation. Who-ever it was, it was someone in the building from which I had just emerged.
Two firms of lawyers practise there and one firm of chartered account-ants. Of course it may be any one of them or any member of any one ofthem. But a man walking away down the street looked to me like Eccles.
And I just wondered if by a lucky chance it could have been my Mr. Ecclesthat Anderson was giving his attention to?”
“Hm,” said Ivor Smith. “Well, Tommy, you always were a pretty goodguesser.”
“Who is Eccles?”
“Don’t you know? Haven’t you any idea?”
“I’ve no idea whatever,” said Tommy. “Without going into a long history,I went to him for some information about an old lady who has recentlyleft an old ladies’ home. The solicitor employed to make arrangements forher was Mr. Eccles. He appears to have done it with perfect decorum andefficiency. I wanted her present address. He says he hasn’t got it. Quitepossibly he hasn’t .?.?. but I wondered. He’s the only clue to her where-abouts I’ve got.”
“And you want to find her?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think it sounds as though I’m going to be much good to you. Ec-cles is a very respectable, sound solicitor who makes a large income, has agood many highly respectable clients, works for the landed gentry, profes-sional classes and retired soldiers and sailors, generals and admirals andall that sort of thing. He’s the acme of respectability. I should imaginefrom what you’re talking about, that he was strictly within his lawfulactivities.”
“But you’re—interested in him,” suggested Tommy.
“Yes, we’re very interested in Mr. James Eccles.” He sighed. “We’ve beeninterested in him for at least six years. We haven’t progressed very far.”
“Very interesting,” said Tommy. “I’ll ask you again. Who exactly is Mr.
Eccles?”
“You mean what do we suspect Eccles of? Well, to put it in a sentence,we suspect him of being one of the best organizing brains in criminalactivity in this country.”
“Criminal activity?” Tommy looked surprised.
“Oh yes, yes. No cloak and dagger. No espionage, no counterespionage.
No, plain criminal activity. He is a man who has so far as we can discovernever performed a criminal act in his life. He has never stolen anything,he’s never forged anything, he’s never converted funds, we can’t get anykind of evidence against him. But all the same whenever there’s a bigplanned organized robbery, there we find, somewhere in the background,Mr. Eccles leading a blameless life.”
“Six years,” said Tommy thoughtfully.
“Possibly even longer than that. It took a little time, to get on to the pat-tern of things. Bank holdups, robberies of private jewels, all sorts of thingswhere the big money was. They’re all jobs that followed a certain pattern.
You couldn’t help feeling that the same mind had planned them. Thepeople who directed them and who carried them out never had to do anyplanning at all. They went where they were told, they did what they wereordered, they never had to think. Somebody else was doing the thinking.”
“And what made you hit on Eccles?”
Ivor Smith shook his head thoughtfully. “It would take too long to tellyou. He’s a man who has a lot of acquaintances, a lot of friends. There arepeople he plays golf with, there are people who service his car, there arefirms of stockbrokers who act for him. There are companies doing ablameless business in which he is interested. The plan is getting clearerbut his part in it hasn’t got much clearer, except that he is very conspicu-ously absent on certain occasions. A big bank robbery cleverly planned(and no expense spared, mind you), consolidating the getaway and all therest of it, and where’s Mr. Eccles when it happens? Monte Carlo or Zurichor possibly even fishing for salmon in Norway. You can be quite sure Mr.
Eccles is never within a hundred miles of where criminal activities arehappening.”
“Yet you suspect him?”
“Oh yes. I’m quite sure in my own mind. But whether we’ll ever catchhim I don’t know. The man who tunnelled through the floor of a bank, theman who knocked out the night watchman, the cashier who was in it fromthe beginning, the bank manager who supplied the information, none ofthem know Eccles, probably they’ve never even seen him. There’s a longchain leading away—and no one seems to know more than just one linkbeyond themselves.”
“The good old plan of the cell?”
“More or less, yes, but there’s some original thinking. Some day we’ll geta chance. Somebody who oughtn’t to know anything, will know something.
Something silly and trivial, perhaps, but something that strangely enoughmay be evidence at last.”
“Is he married—got a family?”
“No, he has never taken risks like that. He lives alone with a house-keeper and a gardener and a butler-valet. He entertains in a mild andpleasant way, and I dare swear that every single person who’s entered hishouse as his guest is beyond suspicion.”
“And nobody’s getting rich?”
“That’s a good point you’ve put your finger on, Thomas. Somebody oughtto be getting rich. Somebody ought to be seen to be getting rich. But thatpart of it’s very cleverly arranged. Big wins on race courses, investmentsin stocks and shares, all things which are natural, just chancy enough tomake big money at, and all apparently genuine transactions. There’s a lotof money stacked up abroad in different countries and different places.
It’s a great big, vast, moneymaking concern—and the money’s always onthe move—going from place to place.”
“Well,” said Tommy, “good luck to you. I hope you get your man.”
“I think I shall, you know, some day. There might be a hope if one couldjolt him out of his routine.”
“Jolt him with what?”
“Danger,” said Ivor. “Make him feel he’s in danger. Make him feelsomeone’s on to him. Get him uneasy. If you once get a man uneasy, hemay do something foolish. He may make a mistake. That’s the way you getchaps, you know. Take the cleverest man there is, who can plan brilliantlyand never put a foot wrong. Let some little thing rattle him and he’ll makea mistake. So I’m hoping. Now let’s hear your story. You might knowsomething that would be useful.”
“Nothing to do with crime, I’m afraid—very small beer.”
“Well, let’s hear about it.”
Tommy told his story without undue apologies for the triviality of it.
Ivor, he knew, was not a man to despise triviality. Ivor, indeed, wentstraight to the point which had brought Tommy on his errand.
“And your wife’s disappeared, you say?”
“It’s not like her.”
“That’s serious.”
“Serious to me all right.”
“So I can imagine. I only met your missus once. She’s sharp.”
“If she goes after things she’s like a terrier on a trail,” said Thomas.
“You’ve not been to the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first because I can’t believe that she’s anything but all right. Tup-pence is always all right. She just goes all out after any hare that shows it-self. She mayn’t have had time to communicate.”
“Mmm. I don’t like it very much. She’s looking for a house, you say?
That just might be interesting because among various odds and ends thatwe followed, which incidentally have not led to much, are a kind of trail ofhouse agents.”
“House agents?” Tommy looked surprised.
“Yes. Nice, ordinary, rather mediocre house agents in small provincialtowns in different parts of England, but none of them so very far fromLondon. Mr. Eccles’s firm does a lot of business with and for house agents.
Sometimes he’s the solicitor for the buyers and sometimes for the sellers,and he employs various house agencies, on behalf of clients. Sometimeswe rather wondered why. None of it seems very profitable, you see—”
“But you think it might mean something or lead to something?”
“Well, if you remember the big London Southern Bank robbery someyears ago, there was a house in the country—a lonely house. That was thethieves’ rendezvous. They weren’t very noticeable there, but that’s wherethe stuff was brought and cached away. People in the neighbourhoodbegan to have a few stories about them, and wonder who these peoplewere who came and went at rather unusual hours. Different kinds of carsarriving in the middle of the night and going away again. People are curi-ous about their neighbours in the country. Sure enough, the police raidedthe place, they got some of the loot, and they got three men, including onewho was recognized and identified.”
“Well, didn’t that lead you somewhere?”
“Not really. The men wouldn’t talk, they were well defended and repres-ented, they got long sentences in gaol and within a year and a half theywere all out of the jug again. Very clever rescues.”
“I seem to remember reading about it. One man disappeared from acriminal court where he was brought up by two warders.”
“That’s right. All very cleverly arranged and an enormous amount ofmoney spent on the escape.
“But we think that whoever was responsible for the staff work realizedhe made a mistake in having one house for too long a time, so that thelocal people got interested. Somebody, perhaps, thought it would be a bet-ter idea to get subsidiaries living in, say, as many as thirty houses in differ-ent places. People come and take a house, mother and daughter, say, awidow, or a retired army man and his wife. Nice quiet people. They havea few repairs done to the house, get a local builder in and improve theplumbing, and perhaps some other firm down from London to decorate,and then after a year or a year and a half circumstances arise, and the oc-cupiers sell the house and go off abroad to live. Something like that. Allvery natural and pleasant. During their tenancy that house has been usedperhaps for rather unusual purposes! But no one suspects such a thing.
Friends come to see them, not very often. Just occasionally. One night, per-haps, a kind of anniversary party for a middle-aged, or elderly couple; or acoming of age party. A lot of cars coming and going. Say there are five ma-jor robberies done within six months but each time the loot passesthrough, or is cached in, not just one of these houses, but five differenthouses in five different parts of the countryside. It’s only a supposition asyet, my dear Tommy, but we’re working on it. Let’s say your old lady lets apicture of a certain house go out of her possession and supposing that’s asignificant house. And supposing that that’s the house that your missushas recognized somewhere, and has gone dashing off to investigate. Andsupposing someone doesn’t want that particular house investigated—Itmight tie up, you know.”
“It’s very far-fetched.”
“Oh yes—I agree. But these times we live in are far-fetched times—Inour particular world incredible things happen.”
Twelve TOMMY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND（2）
II
Somewhat wearily Tommy alighted from his fourth taxi of the day andlooked appraisingly at his surroundings. The taxi had deposited him in asmall cul-de-sac which tucked itself coyly under one of the protuberancesof Hampstead Heath. The cul-de-sac seemed to have been some artistic“development.” Each house was wildly different from the house next to it.
This particular one seemed to consist of a large studio with skylights in it,and attached to it (rather like a gumboil), on one side was what seemed tobe a little cluster of three rooms. A ladder staircase painted bright greenran up the outside of the house. Tommy opened the small gate, went up apath and not seeing a bell applied himself to the knocker. Getting no re-sponse, he paused for a few moments and then started again with theknocker, a little louder this time.
The door opened so suddenly that he nearly fell backwards. A womanstood on the doorstep. At first sight Tommy’s first impression was that thiswas one of the plainest women he had ever seen. She had a large expanseof flat, pancakelike face, two enormous eyes which seemed of impossiblydifferent colours, one green and one brown, a noble forehead with aquantity of wild hair rising up from it in a kind of thicket. She wore apurple overall with blotches of clay on it, and Tommy noticed that thehand that held the door open was one of exceeding beauty of structure.
“Oh,” she said. Her voice was deep and rather attractive. “What is it? I’mbusy.”
“Mrs. Boscowan?”
“Yes. What do you want?”
“My name’s Beresford. I wondered if I might speak to you for a few mo-ments.”
“I don’t know. Really, must you? What is it—something about a pic-ture?” Her eye had gone to what he held under his arm.
“Yes. It’s something to do with one of your husband’s pictures.”
“Do you want to sell it? I’ve got plenty of his pictures. I don’t want to buyany more of them. Take it to one of these galleries or something. They’rebeginning to buy him now. You don’t look as though you needed to sellpictures.”
“Oh no, I don’t want to sell anything.”
Tommy felt extraordinary difficulty in talking to this particular woman.
Her eyes, unmatching though they were, were very fine eyes and theywere looking now over his shoulder down the street with an air of somepeculiar interest at something in the far distance.
“Please,” said Tommy. “I wish you would let me come in. It’s so difficultto explain.”
“If you’re a painter I don’t want to talk to you,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “Ifind painters very boring always.”
“I’m not a painter.”
“Well, you don’t look like one, certainly.” Her eyes raked him up anddown. “You look more like a civil servant,” she said disapprovingly.
“Can I come in, Mrs. Boscowan?”
“I’m not sure. Wait.”
She shut the door rather abruptly. Tommy waited. After about fourminutes had passed the door opened again.
“All right,” she said. “You can come in.”
She led him through the doorway, up a narrow staircase and into thelarge studio. In a corner of it there was a figure and various implementsstanding by it. Hammers and chisels. There was also a clay head. Thewhole place looked as though it had recently been savaged by a gang ofhooligans.
“There’s never any room to sit up here,” said Mrs. Boscowan.
She threw various things off a wooden stool and pushed it towards him.
“There. Sit down here and speak to me.”
“It’s very kind of you to let me come in.”
“It is rather, but you looked so worried. You are worried, aren’t you,about something?”
“Yes I am.”
“I thought so. What are you worried about?”
“My wife,” said Tommy, surprising himself by his answer.
“Oh, worried about your wife? Well, there’s nothing unusual in that.
Men are always worrying about their wives. What’s the matter—has shegone off with someone or playing up?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Dying? Cancer?”
“No,” said Tommy. “It’s just that I don’t know where she is.”
“And you think I might? Well, you’d better tell me her name and some-thing about her if you think I can find her for you. I’m not sure, mindyou,” said Mrs. Boscowan, “that I shall want to. I’m warning you.”
“Thank God,” said Tommy, “you’re more easy to talk to than I thoughtyou were going to be.”
“What’s the picture got to do with it? It is a picture, isn’t it—must be,that shape.”
Tommy undid the wrappings.
“It’s a picture signed by your husband,” said Tommy. “I want you to tellme what you can about it.”
“I see. What exactly do you want to know?”
“When it was painted and where it is.”
Mrs. Boscowan looked at him and for the first time there was a slightlook of interest in her eyes.
“Well, that’s not difficult,” she said. “Yes, I can tell you all about it. It waspainted about fifteen years ago—no, a good deal longer than that I shouldthink. It’s one of his fairly early ones. Twenty years ago, I should say.”
“You know where it is—the place I mean?”
“Oh yes, I can remember quite well. Nice picture. I always liked it. That’sthe little humpbacked bridge and the house and the name of the place isSutton Chancellor. About seven or eight miles from Market Basing. Thehouse itself is about a couple of miles from Sutton Chancellor. Prettyplace. Secluded.”
She came up to the picture, bent down and peered at it closely.
“That’s funny,” she said. “Yes, that’s very odd. I wonder now.”
Tommy did not pay much attention.
“What’s the name of the house?” he asked.
“I can’t really remember. It got renamed, you know. Several times. Idon’t know what there was about it. A couple of rather tragic thingshappened there, I think, then the next people who came along renamed it.
Called the Canal House once, or Canal Side. Once it was called BridgeHouse then Meadowside—or Riverside was another name.”
“Who lived there—or who lives there now? Do you know?”
“Nobody I know. Man and a girl lived there when first I saw it. Used tocome down for weekends. Not married, I think. The girl was a dancer.
May have been an actress—no, I think she was a dancer. Ballet dancer.
Rather beautiful but dumb. Simple, almost wanting. William was quitesoft about her, I remember.”
“Did he paint her?”
“No. He didn’t often paint people. He used to say sometimes he wantedto do a sketch of them, but he never did much about it. He was always sillyover girls.”
“They were the people who were there when your husband was paint-ing the house?”
“Yes, I think so. Part of the time anyway. They only came down week-ends. Then there was some kind of a bust-up. They had a row, I think, orhe went away and left her or she went away and left him. I wasn’t downthere myself. I was working in Coventry then doing a group. After that Ithink there was just a governess in the house and the child. I don’t knowwho the child was or where she came from but I suppose the governesswas looking after her. Then I think something happened to the child.
Either the governess took her away somewhere or perhaps she died. Whatdo you want to know about the people who lived in the house twentyyears ago? Seems to me idiotic.”
“I want to hear anything I can about that house,” said Tommy. “You see,my wife went away to look for that house. She said she’d seen it out of atrain somewhere.”
“Quite right,” said Mrs. Boscowan, “the railway line runs just the otherside of the bridge. You can see the house very well from it, I expect.” Thenshe said, “Why did she want to find that house?”
Tommy gave a much abridged explanation—she looked at him doubt-fully.
“You haven’t come out of a mental home or anything, have you?” saidMrs. Boscowan. “On parole or something, whatever they call it.”
“I suppose I must sound a little like that,” said Tommy, “but it’s quitesimple really. My wife wanted to find out about this house and so she triedto take various train journeys to find out where it was she’d seen it. Well, Ithink she did find out. I think she went there to this place—somethingChancellor?”
“Sutton Chancellor, yes. Very one-horse place it used to be. Of course itmay be a big development or even one of these new dormitory towns bynow.”
“It might be anything, I expect,” said Tommy. “She telephoned she wascoming back but she didn’t come back. And I want to know what’shappened to her. I think she went and started investigating that house andperhaps—perhaps she ran into danger.”
“What’s dangerous about it?”
“I don’t know,” said Tommy. “Neither of us knew. I didn’t even thinkthere could be any danger about it, but my wife did.”
“E.S.P.?”
“Possibly. She’s a little like that. She has hunches. You never heard of orknew a Mrs. Lancaster twenty years ago or any time up to a month ago?”
“Mrs. Lancaster? No, I don’t think so. Sort of name one might remember,mightn’t it be. No. What about Mrs. Lancaster?”
“She was the woman who owned this picture. She gave it as a friendlygesture to an aunt of mine. Then she left an old people’s home rather sud-denly. Her relatives took her away. I’ve tried to trace her but it isn’t easy.”
“Who’s the one who’s got the imagination, you or your wife? You seemto have thought up a lot of things and to be rather in a state, if I may sayso.”
“Oh yes, you can say so,” said Tommy. “Rather in a state and all aboutnothing at all. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? I suppose you’re right too.”
“No,” said Mrs. Boscowan. Her voice had altered slightly. “I wouldn’t sayabout nothing at all.”
Tommy looked at her inquiringly.
“There’s one thing that’s odd about that picture,” said Mrs. Boscowan.
“Very odd. I remember it quite well, you know. I remember most of Wil-liam’s pictures although he painted such a lot of them.”
“Do you remember who it was sold to, if it was sold?”
“No, I don’t remember that. Yes, I think it was sold. There was a wholebatch of his paintings sold from one of his exhibitions. They ran back forabout three or four years before this and a couple of years later than this.
Quite a lot of them were sold. Nearly all of them. But I can’t remember bynow who it was sold to. That’s asking too much.”
“I’m very grateful to you for all you have remembered.”
“You haven’t asked me yet why I said there was something odd aboutthe picture. This picture that you brought here.”
“You mean it isn’t your husband’s—somebody else painted it?”
“Oh no. That’s the picture that William painted. ‘House by a Canal,’ Ithink he called it in the catalogue. But it isn’t as it was. You see, there’ssomething wrong with it.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Mrs. Boscowan stretched out a clay-smeared finger and jabbed at a spotjust below the bridge spanning the canal.
“There,” she said. “You see? There’s a boat tied up under the bridge, isn’tthere?”
“Yes,” said Tommy puzzled.
“Well, that boat wasn’t there, not when I saw it last. William neverpainted that boat. When it was exhibited there was no boat of any kind.”
“You mean that somebody not your husband painted the boat in here af-terwards?”
“Yes. Odd, isn’t it? I wonder why. First of all I was surprised to see theboat there, a place where there wasn’t any boat, then I can see quite wellthat it wasn’t painted by William. He didn’t put it in at any time. Some-body else did. I wonder who?”
She looked at Tommy.
“And I wonder why?”
Tommy had no solution to offer. He looked at Mrs. Boscowan. His AuntAda would have called her a scatty woman but Tommy did not think ofher in that light. She was vague, with an abrupt way of jumping from onesubject to another. The things she said seemed to have very little relationto the last thing she had said a minute before. She was the sort of person,Tommy thought, who might know a great deal more than she chose to re-veal. Had she loved her husband or been jealous of her husband or des-pised her husband? There was really no clue whatever in her manner, orindeed her words. But he had the feeling that that small painted boat tiedup under the bridge had caused her uneasiness. She hadn’t liked the boatbeing there. Suddenly he wondered if the statement she had made wastrue. Could she really remember from long years back whether Boscowanhad painted a boat at the bridge or had not? It seemed really a very smalland insignificant item. If it had been only a year ago when she had seenthe picture last—but apparently it was a much longer time than that. Andit had made Mrs. Boscowan uneasy. He looked at her again and saw thatshe was looking at him. Her curious eyes resting on him not defiantly, butonly thoughtfully. Very, very thoughtfully.
“What are you going to do now?” she said.
That at least was easy. Tommy had no difficulty in knowing what he wasgoing to do now.
“I shall go home tonight—see if there is any news of my wife—any wordfrom her. If not, tomorrow I shall go to this place,” he said. “Sutton Chan-cellor. I hope that I may find my wife there.”
“It would depend,” said Mrs. Boscowan.
“Depend on what?” said Tommy sharply.
Mrs. Boscowan frowned. Then she murmured, seemingly to herself, “Iwonder where she is?”
“You wonder where who is?”
Mrs. Boscowan had turned her glance away from him. Now her eyesswept back.
“Oh,” she said. “I meant your wife.” Then she said, “I hope she is allright.”
“Why shouldn’t she be all right? Tell me, Mrs. Boscowan, is there some-thing wrong with that place—with Sutton Chancellor?”
“With Sutton Chancellor? With the place?” She reflected. “No, I don’tthink so. Not with the place.”
“I suppose I meant the house,” said Tommy. “This house by the canal.
Not Sutton Chancellor village.”
“Oh, the house,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “It was a good house really. Meantfor lovers, you know.”
“Did lovers live there?”
“Sometimes. Not often enough really. If a house is built for lovers, itought to be lived in by lovers.”
“Not put to some other use by someone.”
“You’re pretty quick,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “You saw what I meant,didn’t you? You mustn’t put a house that was meant for one thing to thewrong use. It won’t like it if you do.”
“Do you know anything about the people who have lived there of lateyears?”
She shook her head. “No. No. I don’t know anything about the house atall. It was never important to me, you see.”
“But you’re thinking of something—no, someone?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “I suppose you’re right about that. I wasthinking of—someone.”
“Can’t you tell me about the person you were thinking of?”
“There’s really nothing to say,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “Sometimes, youknow, one just wonders where a person is. What’s happened to them orhow they might have—developed. There’s a sort of feeling—” She wavedher hands—“Would you like a kipper?” she said unexpectedly.
“A kipper?” Tommy was startled.
“Well, I happen to have two or three kippers here. I thought perhapsyou ought to have something to eat before you catch a train. Waterloo isthe station,” she said. “For Sutton Chancellor, I mean. You used to have tochange at Market Basing. I expect you still do.”
It was a dismissal. He accepted it.
Thirteen ALBERT ON CLUES（1）
Thirteen ALBERT ON CLUES

Tuppence blinked her eyes. Vision seemed rather dim. She tried to lift herhead from the pillow but winced as a sharp pain ran through it, and let itdrop again on to the pillow. She closed her eyes. Presently she openedthem again and blinked once more.
With a feeling of achievement she recognized her surroundings. “I’m ina hospital ward,” thought Tuppence. Satisfied with her mental progress sofar, she attempted no more brainy deduction. She was in a hospital wardand her head ached. Why it ached, why she was in a hospital ward, shewas not quite sure. “Accident?” thought Tuppence.
There were nurses moving around beds. That seemed natural enough.
She closed her eyes and tried a little cautious thought. A faint vision of anelderly figure in clerical dress, passed across a mental screen. “Father?”
said Tuppence doubtfully. “Is it Father?” She couldn’t really remember.
She supposed so.
“But what am I doing being ill in a hospital?” thought Tuppence. “Imean, I nurse in a hospital, so I ought to be in uniform. V.A.D. uniform. Ohdear,” said Tuppence.
Presently a nurse materialized near her bed.
“Feeling better now, dear?” said the nurse with a kind of false cheerful-ness. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”
Tuppence wasn’t quite sure whether it was nice. The nurse said some-thing about a nice cup of tea.
“I seem to be a patient,” said Tuppence rather disapprovingly to herself.
She lay still, resurrecting in her own mind various detached thoughts andwords.
“Soldiers,” said Tuppence. “V.A.D.s. That’s it, of course. I’m a V.A.D.”
The nurse brought her some tea in a kind of feeding cup and supportedher whilst she sipped it. The pain went through her head again. “A V.A.D.,that’s what I am,” said Tuppence aloud.
The nurse looked at her in an uncomprehending fashion.
“My head hurts,” said Tuppence, adding a statement of fact.
“It’ll be better soon,” said the nurse.
She removed the feeding cup, reporting to a sister as she passed along.
“Number 14’s awake. She’s a bit wonky, though, I think.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Said she was a V.I.P.,” said the nurse.
The ward sister gave a small snort indicating that that was how she felttowards unimportant patients who reported themselves to be V.I.P.s.
“We shall see about that,” said the sister. “Hurry up, Nurse, don’t be allday with that feeding cup.”
Tuppence remained half drowsy on her pillows. She had not yet got bey-ond the stage of allowing thoughts to flit through her mind in a rather dis-organized procession.
There was somebody who ought to be here, she felt, somebody she knewquite well. There was something very strange about this hospital. It wasn’tthe hospital she remembered. It wasn’t the one she had nursed in. “All sol-diers, that was,” said Tuppence to herself. “The surgical ward, I was on Aand B rows.” She opened her eyelids and took another look round. She de-cided it was a hospital she had never seen before and that it had nothingto do with the nursing of surgical cases, military or otherwise.
“I wonder where this is,” said Tuppence. “What place?” She tried tothink of the name of some place. The only places she could think of wereLondon and Southampton.
The ward sister now made her appearance at the bedside.
“Feeling a little better, I hope,” she said.
“I’m all right,” said Tuppence. “What’s the matter with me?”
“You hurt your head. I expect you find it rather painful, don’t you?”
“It aches,” said Tuppence. “Where am I?”
“Market Basing Royal Hospital.”
Tuppence considered this information. It meant nothing to her at all.
“An old clergyman,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing particular. I—”
“We haven’t been able to write your name on your diet sheet yet,” saidthe ward sister.
She held her Biro pen at the ready and looked inquiringly at Tuppence.
“My name?”
“Yes,” said the sister. “For the records,” she added helpfully.
Tuppence was silent, considering. Her name. What was her name?
“How silly,” said Tuppence to herself, “I seem to have forgotten it. And yetI must have a name.” Suddenly a faint feeling of relief came to her. Theelderly clergyman’s face flashed suddenly across her mind and she saidwith decision,
“Of course. Prudence.”
“P-r-u-d-e-n-c-e?”
“That’s right,” said Tuppence.
“That’s your Christian name. The surname?”
“Cowley. C-o-w-l-e-y.”
“Glad to get that straight,” said the sister, and moved away again withthe air of one whose records were no longer worrying her.
Tuppence felt faintly pleased with herself. Prudence Cowley. PrudenceCowley in the V.A.D. and her father was a clergyman at—at somethingvicarage and it was wartime and .?.?. “Funny,” said Tuppence to herself, “Iseem to be getting this all wrong. It seems to me it all happened a longtime ago.” She murmured to herself, “Was it your poor child?” Shewondered. Was it she who had just said that or was it somebody else saidit to her?
The sister was back again.
“Your address,” she said, “Miss—Miss Cowley, or is it Mrs. Cowley? Didyou ask about a child?”
“Was it your poor child? Did somebody say that to me or am I saying itto them?”
“I think I should sleep a little if I were you now, dear,” said the sister.
She went away and took the information she had obtained to the properplace.
“She seems to have come to herself, Doctor,” she remarked, “and shesays her name is Prudence Cowley. But she doesn’t seem to remember heraddress. She said something about a child.”
“Oh well,” said the doctor, with his usual casual air, “we’ll give her an-other twenty-four hours or so. She’s coming round from the concussionquite nicely.”
Thirteen ALBERT ON CLUES（2）
II
Tommy fumbled with his latchkey. Before he could use it the door cameopen and Albert stood in the open aperture.
“Well,” said Tommy, “is she back?”
Albert slowly shook his head.
“No word from her, no telephone message, no letters waiting—no tele-grams?”
“Nothing I tell you, sir. Nothing whatever. And nothing from anyoneelse either. They’re lying low—but they’ve got her. That’s what I think.
They’ve got her.”
“What the devil do you mean — they’ve got her?” said Tommy. “Thethings you read. Who’ve got her?”
“Well, you know what I mean. The gang.”
“What gang?”
“One of those gangs with flick knives maybe. Or an international one.”
“Stop talking rubbish,” said Tommy. “D’you know what I think?”
Albert looked inquiringly at him.
“I think it’s extremely inconsiderate of her not to send us word of somekind,” said Tommy.
“Oh,” said Albert, “well, I see what you mean. I suppose you could put itthat way. If it makes you happier,” he added rather unfortunately. He re-moved the parcel from Tommy’s arms. “I see you brought that pictureback,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve brought the bloody picture back,” said Tommy. “A fat lot of useit’s been.”
“You haven’t learnt anything from it?”
“That’s not quite true,” said Tommy. “I have learnt something from it butwhether what I’ve learnt is going to be any use to me I don’t know.” He ad-ded, “Dr. Murray didn’t ring up, I suppose, or Miss Packard from SunnyRidge Nursing Home? Nothing like that?”
“Nobody’s rung up except the greengrocer to say he’s got some nice au-bergines. He knows the missus is fond of aubergines. He always lets herknow. But I told him she wasn’t available just now.” He added, “I’ve got achicken for your dinner.”
“It’s extraordinary that you can never think of anything but chickens,”
said Tommy, unkindly.
“It’s what they call a poussin this time,” said Albert. “Skinny,” he added.
“It’ll do,” said Tommy.
The telephone rang. Tommy was out of his seat and had rushed to it in amoment.
“Hallo .?.?. hallo?”
A faint and faraway voice spoke. “Mr. Thomas Beresford? Can you ac-cept a personal call from Invergashly?”
“Yes.”
“Hold the line, please.”
Tommy waited. His excitement was calming down. He had to wait sometime. Then a voice he knew, crisp and capable, sounded. The voice of hisdaughter.
“Hallo, is that you, Pop?”
“Deborah!”
“Yes. Why are you sounding so breathless, have you been running?”
Daughters, Tommy thought, were always critical.
“I wheeze a bit in my old age,” he said. “How are you, Deborah?”
“Oh, I’m all right. Look here, Dad, I saw something in the paper. Perhapsyou’ve seen it too. I wondered about it. Something about someone whohad had an accident and was in hospital.”
“Well? I don’t think I saw anything of that kind. I mean, not to notice itin any way. Why?”
“Well it—it didn’t sound too bad. I supposed it was a car accident orsomething like that. It mentioned that the woman, whoever it was—anelderly woman—gave her name as Prudence Cowley but they were unableto find her address.”
“Prudence Cowley? You mean—”
“Well yes. I only—well—I only wondered. That is Mother’s name, isn’tit? I mean it was her name.”
“Of course.”
“I always forget about the Prudence. I mean we’ve never thought of heras Prudence, you and I, or Derek either.”
“No,” said Tommy. “No. It’s not the kind of Christian name one wouldassociate much with your mother.”
“No, I know it isn’t. I just thought it was—rather odd. You don’t think itmight be some relation of hers?”
“I suppose it might be. Where was this?”
“Hospital at Market Basing, I think it said. They wanted to know moreabout her, I gather. I just wondered—well, I know it’s awfully silly, theremust be quantities of people called Cowley and quantities of people calledPrudence. But I thought I’d just ring up and find out. Make sure, I mean,that Mother was at home and all right and all that.”
“I see,” said Tommy. “Yes, I see.”
“Well, go on, Pop, is she at home?”
“No,” said Tommy, “she isn’t at home and I don’t know either whethershe is all right or not.”
“What do you mean?” said Deborah. “What’s Mother been doing? I sup-pose you’ve been up in London with that hush-hush utterly secret idioticsurvival from past days, jawing with all the old boys.”
“You’re quite right,” said Tommy. “I got back from that yesterday even-ing.”
“And you found Mother away—or did you know she was away? Comeon, Pop, tell me about it. You’re worried. I know when you’re worried wellenough. What’s Mother been doing? She’s been up to something, hasn’tshe? I wish at her age she’d learn to sit quiet and not do things.”
“She’s been worried,” said Tommy. “Worried about something thathappened in connection with your Great-aunt Ada’s death.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Well, something that one of the patients at the nursing home said toher. She got worried about this old lady. She started talking a good dealand your mother was worried about some of the things she said. And so,when we went to look through Aunt Ada’s things we suggested talking tothis old lady and it seems she’d left rather suddenly.”
“Well, that seems quite natural, doesn’t it?”
“Some of her relatives came and fetched her away.”
“It still seems quite natural,” said Deborah. “Why did Mother get thewind up?”
“She got it into her head,” said Tommy, “that something might havehappened to this old lady.”
“I see.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, as the saying goes, she seems to havedisappeared. All in quite a natural way. I mean, vouched for by lawyersand banks and all that. Only—we haven’t been able to find out where sheis.”
“You mean Mother’s gone off to look for her somewhere?”
“Yes. And she didn’t come back when she said she was coming back, twodays ago.”
“And haven’t you heard from her?”
“No.”
“I wish to goodness you could look after Mother properly,” said De-borah, severely.
“None of us have ever been able to look after her properly,” saidTommy. “Not you either, Deborah, if it comes to that. It’s the same way shewent off in the war and did a lot of things that she’d no business to be do-ing.”
“But it’s different now. I mean, she’s quite old. She ought to sit at homeand take care of herself. I suppose she’s been getting bored. That’s at thebottom of it all.”
“Market Basing Hospital, did you say?” said Tommy.
“Melfordshire. It’s about an hour or an hour and a half from London, Ithink, by train.”
“That’s it,” said Tommy. “And there’s a village near Market Basing calledSutton Chancellor.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” said Deborah.
“It’s too long to go into now,” said Tommy. “It has to do with a picturepainted of a house near a bridge by a canal.”
“I don’t think I can hear you very well,” said Deborah. “What are youtalking about?”
“Never mind,” said Tommy. “I’m going to ring up Market Basing Hos-pital and find out a few things. I’ve a feeling that it’s your mother, all right.
People, if they’ve had concussion, you know, often remember things firstthat happened when they were a child, and only get slowly to the present.
She’s gone back to her maiden name. She may have been in a car accident,but I shouldn’t be surprised if somebody hadn’t given her a conk on thehead. It’s the sort of thing that happens to your mother. She gets intothings. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Forty minutes later, Tommy Beresford glanced at his wrist watch andbreathed a sigh of utter weariness, as he replaced the receiver with a finalclang on the telephone rest. Albert made an appearance.
“What about your dinner, sir?” he demanded. “You haven’t eaten athing, and I’m sorry to say I forgot about that chicken—Burnt to a cinder.”
“I don’t want anything to eat,” said Tommy. “What I want is a drink.
Bring me a double whisky.”
“Coming, sir,” said Albert.
A few moments later he brought the required refreshment to whereTommy had slumped down in the worn but comfortable chair reservedfor his special use.
“And now, I suppose,” said Tommy, “you want to hear everything.”
“Matter of fact, sir,” said Albert in a slightly apologetic tone, “I knowmost of it. You see, seeing as it was a question of the missus and all that, Itook the liberty of lifting up the extension in the bedroom. I didn’t thinkyou’d mind, sir, not as it was the missus.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Tommy. “Actually, I’m grateful to you. If I hadto start explaining—”
“Got on to everyone, didn’t you? The hospital and the doctor and thematron.”
“No need to go over it all again,” said Tommy.
“Market Basing Hospital,” said Albert. “Never breathed a word of that,she didn’t. Never left it behind as an address or anything like that.”
“She didn’t intend it to be her address,” said Tommy. “As far as I canmake out she was probably coshed on the head in an out of the way spotsomewhere. Someone took her along in a car and dumped her at the sideof the road somewhere, to be picked up as an ordinary hit and run.” Headded, “Call me at six-thirty tomorrow morning. I want to get an earlystart.”
“I’m sorry about your chicken getting burnt up again in the oven. I onlyput it in to keep warm and forgot about it.”
“Never mind chickens,” said Tommy. “I’ve always thought they werevery silly birds, running under cars and clucking about. Bury the corpsetomorrow morning and give it a good funeral.”
“She’s not at death’s door or anything, is she, sir?” asked Albert.
“Subdue your melodramatic fancies,” said Tommy. “If you’d done anyproper listening you’d have heard that she’s come nicely to herself again,knows who she is or was and where she is and they’ve sworn to keep herthere waiting for me until I arrive to take charge of her again. On no ac-count is she to be allowed to slip out by herself and go off again doingsome more tomfool detective work.”
“Talking of detective work,” said Albert, and hesitated with a slightcough.
“I don’t particularly want to talk about it,” said Tommy. “Forget it, Al-bert. Teach yourself bookkeeping or window- box gardening or some-thing.”
“Well, I was just thinking—I mean, as a matter of clues—”
“Well, what about clues?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s where all the trouble in life comes from. Thinking.”
“Clues,” said Albert again. “That picture, for instance. That’s a clue, isn’tit?”
Tommy observed that Albert had hung the picture of the house by thecanal up on the wall.
“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. “Imean—what’s it all about? It ought to mean something. What I was think-ing 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 tableand the two chairs and the other things. Family property, it was, yousaid?”
“It belonged to my Aunt Ada,” said Tommy.
“Well, that’s what I meant, sir. That’s the sort of place where you findclues. In old desks. Antiques.”
“Possibly,” said Tommy.
“It wasn’t my business, I know, and I suppose I really oughtn’t to havegone messing about with it, but while you were away, sir, I couldn’t helpit. 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 thesecret drawer.”
“It’s an agreeable idea,” said Tommy. “But there’s no reason as far as Iknow for my Aunt Ada to hide things away in secret drawers.”
“You never know with old ladies. They like tucking things away. Likejackdaws, they are, or magpies. I forget which it is. There might be a secretwill in it or something written in invisible ink or a treasure. Where you’dfind some hidden treasure.”
“I’m sorry, Albert, but I think I’m going to have to disappoint you. I’mpretty sure there’s nothing of that kind in that nice old family desk whichonce belonged to my Uncle William. Another man who turned crusty inhis 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, wouldit?” He added virtuously, “It needed cleaning out anyway. You know howold things are with old ladies. They don’t turn them out much—not whenthey’re rheumatic and find it hard to get about.”
Tommy paused for a moment or two. He remembered that Tuppenceand he had looked quickly through the drawers of the desk, had put theircontents such as they were in two large envelopes and removed a fewskeins of wool, two cardigans, a black velvet stole and three fine pillow-cases from the lower drawers which they had placed with other clothingand odds and ends for disposal. They had also looked through such papersas 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 ofevenings really. One or two quite interesting old letters, some recipes forboiling ham, some other recipes for preserving fruit, some ration booksand coupons and things dating back to the war. There was nothing of anyinterest.”
“Oh, that,” said Albert, “but that’s just papers and things, as you mightsay. Just ordinary go and come what everybody gets holed up in desks anddrawers 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 of-ten as not. But I got to know about secret drawers that way. They usuallyrun to the same pattern. Three or four well-known kinds and they vary itnow and then. Don’t you think, sir, you ought to have a look? I mean, Ididn’t like to go it meself with you not here. I would have been presum-ing.” 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’sside, surveying this specimen of his inheritance from Aunt Ada. “Nicelykept, beautiful old polish on it, showing the good workmanship and crafts-manship of days gone by.”
“Well, Albert,” he said, “go ahead. This is your bit of fun. But don’t goand strain it.”
“Oh, I was ever so careful. I didn’t crack it, or slip knives into it or any-thing like that. First of all we let down the front and put it on these twoslab things that pull out. That’s right, you see, the flap comes down thisway and that’s where the old lady used to sit. Nice little mother-of-pearlblotting case your Aunt Ada had. It was in the left-hand drawer.”
“There are these two things,” said Tommy.
He drew out two delicate pilastered shallow vertical drawers.
“Oh, them, sir. You can push papers in them, but there’s nothing reallysecret about them. The most usual place is to open the little middle cup-board—and then at the bottom of it usually there’s a little depression andyou slide the bottom out and there’s a space. But there’s other ways andplaces. This desk is the kind that has a kind of well underneath.”
“That’s not very secret either, is it? You just slide back a panel—”
“The point is, it looks as though you’d found all there was to find. Youpush back the panel, there’s the cavity and you can put a good manythings in there that you want to keep a bit from being pawed over and allthat. But that’s not all, as you might say. Because you see, here there’s alittle piece of wood in front, like a little ledge. And you can pull that up,you see.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, “yes, I can see that. You pull that up.”
“And you’ve got a secret cavity here, just behind the middle lock.”
“But there’s nothing in it.”
“No,” said Albert, “it looks disappointing. But if you slip your hand intothat cavity and you wiggle it along either to the left or the right, there aretwo little thin drawers, one each side. There’s a little semicircle cut out ofthe top, and you can hook your finger over that—and pull gently towardsyou—” During these remarks Albert seemed to be getting his wrist in whatwas almost a contortionist position. “Sometimes they stick a little. Wait—wait—here she comes.”
“Albert’s hooked forefinger drew something towards him from inside.
He clawed it gently forward until the narrow small drawer showed in theopening. He hooked it out and laid it before Tommy, with the air of a dogbringing his bone to his master.
“Now wait a minute, sir. There’s something in here, something wrappedup in a long thin envelope. Now we’ll do the other side.”
He changed hands and resumed his contortionist clawings. Presently asecond drawer was brought to light and was laid beside the first one.
“There’s something in here, too,” said Albert. “Another sealed-up envel-ope that someone’s hidden here one time or another. I’ve not tried to openeither of them—I wouldn’t do such a thing.” His voice was virtuous in theextreme. “I left that to you—But what I say is—they may be clues—”
Together he and Tommy extracted the contents of the dusty drawers.
Tommy took out first a sealed envelope rolled up lengthways with anelastic band round it. The elastic band parted as soon as it was touched.
“Looks valuable,” said Albert.
Tommy glanced at the envelope. It bore the superscription “Confiden-tial.”
“There you are,” said Albert. “‘Confidential.’ It’s a clue.”
Tommy extracted the contents of the envelope. In a faded handwriting,and very scratchy handwriting at that, there was a half-sheet of notepa-per. Tommy turned it this way and that and Albert leaned over hisshoulder, breathing heavily.
“Mrs. MacDonald’s recipe for Salmon Cream,” Tommy read. “Given tome as a special favour. Take 2 pounds of middle cut of salmon, 1 pint ofJersey cream, a wineglass of brandy and a fresh cucumber.” He broke off.
“I’m sorry, Albert, it’s a clue which will lead us to good cookery, no doubt.”
Albert uttered sounds indicative of disgust and disappointment.
“Never mind,” said Tommy. “Here’s another one to try.”
The next sealed envelope did not appear to be one of quite such an-tiquity. It had two pale grey wax seals affixed to it, each bearing a repres-entation of a wild rose.
“Pretty,” said Tommy, “rather fanciful for Aunt Ada. How to cook a beefsteak pie, I expect.”
Tommy ripped open the envelope. He raised his eyebrows. Ten carefullyfolded five-pound notes fell out.
“Nice thin ones,” said Tommy. “They’re the old ones. You know, the kindwe used to have in the war. Decent paper. Probably aren’t legal tendernowadays.”
“Money!” said Albert. “What she want all that money for?”
“Oh, that’s an old lady’s nest egg,” said Tommy. “Aunt Ada always had anest egg. Years ago she told me that every woman should always have fiftypounds in five-pound notes with her in case of what she called emergen-cies.”
“Well, I suppose it’ll still come in handy,” said Albert.
“I don’t suppose they’re absolutely obsolete. I think you can make somearrangement to change them at a bank.”
“There’s another one still,” said Albert. “The one from the other drawer—”
The next was bulkier. There seemed to be more inside it and it had threelarge important-looking red seals. On the outside was written in the samespiky hand “In the event of my death, this envelope should be sent un-opened to my solicitor, Mr. Rockbury of Rockbury & Tomkins, or to mynephew Thomas Beresford. Not to be opened by any unauthorized per-son.”
There were several sheets of closely written paper. The handwritingwas bad, very spiky and here and there somewhat illegible. Tommy read italoud with some difficulty.
“I, Ada Maria Fanshawe, am writing down here certainmatters which have come to my knowledge and whichhave been told me by people who are residing in thisnursing home called Sunny Ridge. I cannot vouch forany of this information being correct but there seems tobe some reason to believe that suspicious — possiblycriminal—activities are taking place here or have takenplace here. Elizabeth Moody, a foolish woman, but not Ithink untruthful, declares that she has recognized herea well- known criminal. There may be a poisoner atwork among us. I myself prefer to keep an open mind,but I shall remain watchful. I propose to write downhere any facts that come to my knowledge. The wholething may be a mare’s nest. Either my solicitor or mynephew Thomas Beresford, is asked to make full invest-igation.”
“There,” said Albert triumphantly—“Told you so! It’s a CLUE!”
Fourteen EXERCISE IN THINKING
BOOK 4 HERE IS A CHURCH AND HERE IS THE STEEPLE OPEN THE DOORS AND THERE ARE THE PEOPLE
Fourteen EXERCISE IN THINKING

“I suppose what we ought to do is think,” said Tuppence.
After a glad reunion in the hospital, Tuppence had eventually been hon-ourably discharged. The faithful pair were now comparing notes togetherin the sitting room of the best suite in The Lamb and Flag at MarketBasing.
“You leave thinking alone,” said Tommy. “You know what that doctortold you before he let you go. No worries, no mental exertion, very littlephysical activity—take everything easy.”
“What else am I doing now?” demanded Tuppence. “I’ve got my feet up,haven’t I, and my head on two cushions? And as for thinking, thinkingisn’t necessarily mental exertion. I’m not doing mathematics, or studyingeconomics, or adding up the household accounts. Thinking is just restingcomfortably, and leaving one’s mind open in case something interesting orimportant should just come floating in. Anyway, wouldn’t you rather I dida little thinking with my feet up and my head on cushions, rather than goin for action again?”
“I certainly don’t want you going in for action again,” said Tommy.
“That’s out. You understand? Physically, Tuppence, you will remain quies-cent. If possible, I shan’t let you out of my sight because I don’t trust you.”
“All right,” said Tuppence. “Lecture ends. Now let’s think. Think to-gether. Pay no attention to what doctors have said to you. If you knew asmuch as I do about doctors—”
“Never mind about the doctors,” said Tommy, “you do as I tell you.”
“All right. I’ve no wish at present for physical activity, I assure you. Thepoint is that we’ve got to compare notes. We’ve got hold of a lot of things.
It’s as bad as a village jumble sale.”
“What do you mean by things?”
“Well, facts. All sorts of facts. Far too many facts. And not only facts—Hearsay, suggestions, legends, gossip. The whole thing is like a bran tubwith different kinds of parcels wrapped up and shoved down in the saw-dust.”
“Sawdust is right,” said Tommy.
“I don’t quite know whether you’re being insulting or modest,” said Tup-pence. “Anyway, you do agree with me, don’t you? We’ve got far too muchof everything. There are wrong things and right things, and importantthings and unimportant things and they’re all mixed up together. We don’tknow where to start.”
“I do,” said Tommy.
“All right,” said Tuppence. “Where are you starting?”
“I’m starting with your being coshed on the head,” said Tommy.
Tuppence considered a moment. “I don’t see really that that’s a startingpoint. I mean, it’s the last thing that happened, not the first.”
“It’s the first in my mind,” said Tommy. “I won’t have people coshing mywife. And it’s a real point to start from. It’s not imagination. It’s a real thingthat really happened.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Tuppence. “It really happenedand it happened to me, and I’m not forgetting it. I’ve been thinking aboutit—Since I regained the power of thought, that is.”
“Have you any idea as to who did it?”
“Unfortunately, no. I was bending down over a gravestone andwhoosh!”
“Who could it have been?”
“I suppose it must have been somebody in Sutton Chancellor. And yetthat seems so unlikely. I’ve hardly spoken to anyone.”
“The vicar?”
“It couldn’t have been the vicar,” said Tuppence. “First because he’s anice old boy. And secondly because he wouldn’t have been nearly strongenough. And thirdly because he’s got very asthmatic breathing. Hecouldn’t possibly have crept up behind me without my hearing him.”
“Then if you count the vicar out—”
“Don’t you?”
“Well,” said Tommy, “yes, I do. As you know, I’ve been to see him andtalked to him. He’s been a vicar here for years and everyone knows him. Isuppose a fiend incarnate could put on a show of being a kindly vicar, butnot for more than about a week or so at the outside, I’d say. Not for aboutten or twelve years.”
“Well, then,” said Tuppence, “the next suspect would be Miss Bligh. Nel-lie Bligh. Though heaven knows why. She can’t have thought I was tryingto steal a tombstone.”
“Do you feel it might have been her?”
“Well, I don’t really. Of course, she’s competent. If she wanted to followme and see what I was doing, and conk me, she’d make a success of it. Andlike the vicar, she was there—on the spot—She was in Sutton Chancellor,popping in and out of her house to do this and that, and she could havecaught sight of me in the churchyard, come up behind me on tiptoe out ofcuriosity, seen me examining a grave, objected to my doing so for someparticular reason, and hit me with one of the church metal flower vases oranything else handy. But don’t ask me why. There seems no possiblereason.”
“Who next, Tuppence? Mrs. Cockerell, if that’s her name?”
“Mrs. Copleigh,” said Tuppence. “No, it wouldn’t be Mrs. Copleigh.”
“Now why are you so sure of that? She lives in Sutton Chancellor, shecould have seen you go out of the house and she could have followed you.”
“Oh yes, yes, but she talks too much,” said Tuppence.
“I don’t see where talking too much comes into it.”
“If you’d listened to her a whole evening as I did,” said Tuppence, “you’drealize that anyone who talks as much as she does, nonstop in a constantflow, could not possibly be a woman of action as well! She couldn’t havecome up anywhere near me without talking at the top of her voice as shecame.”
Tommy considered this.
“All right,” he said. “You have good judgement in that kind of thing, Tup-pence. Wash out Mrs. Copleigh. Who else is there?”
“Amos Perry,” said Tuppence. “That’s the man who lives at the CanalHouse. (I have to call it the Canal House because it’s got so many other oddnames. And it was called that originally.) The husband of the friendlywitch. There’s something a bit queer about him. He’s a bit simplemindedand he’s a big powerful man, and he could cosh anyone on the head if hewanted to, and I even think it’s possible in certain circumstances he mightwant to—though I don’t exactly know why he should want to cosh me.
He’s a better possibility really than Miss Bligh who seems to me just one ofthose tiresome, efficient women who go about running parishes and pok-ing their noses into things. Not at all the type who would get up to thepoint of physical attack, except for some wildly emotional reason.” She ad-ded, with a slight shiver, “You know, I felt frightened of Amos Perry thefirst time I saw him. He was showing me his garden. I felt suddenly that I—well, that I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of him—or meet himin a dark road at night. I felt he was a man that wouldn’t often want to beviolent but who could be violent if something took him that way.”
“All right,” said Tommy. “Amos Perry. Number one.”
“And there’s his wife,” said Tuppence slowly. “The friendly witch. Shewas nice and I liked her—I don’t want it to be her—I don’t think it was her,but she’s mixed up in things, I think .?.?. Things that have to do with thathouse. That’s another point, you see, Tommy—We don’t know what theimportant thing is in all this—I’ve begun to wonder whether everythingdoesn’t circulate round that house—whether the house isn’t the centralpoint. The picture—That picture does mean something, doesn’t it, Tommy?
It must, I think.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, “I think it must.”
“I came here trying to find Mrs. Lancaster—but nobody here seems tohave heard of her. I’ve been wondering whether I got things the wrongway round—that Mrs. Lancaster was in danger (because I’m still sure ofthat) because she owned that picture. I don’t think she was ever in SuttonChancellor—but she was either given, or she bought, a picture of a househere. And that picture means something—is in some way a menace tosomeone.”
“Mrs. Cocoa—Mrs. Moody—told Aunt Ada that she recognized someoneat Sunny Ridge—someone connected with ‘criminal activities.’ I think thecriminal activities are connected with the picture and with the house bythe canal, and a child who perhaps was killed there.”
“Aunt Ada admired Mrs. Lancaster’s picture—and Mrs. Lancaster gave itto her—and perhaps she talked about it—where she got it, or who hadgiven it to her, and where the house was—”
“Mrs. Moody was bumped off because she definitely recognizedsomeone who had been ‘connected with criminal activities.’ ”
“Tell me again about your conversation with Dr. Murray,” said Tup-pence. “After telling you about Mrs. Cocoa, he went on to talk about cer-tain types of killers, giving examples of real life cases. One was a womanwho ran a nursing home for elderly patients—I remember reading aboutit vaguely, though I can’t remember the woman’s name. But the idea wasthat they made over what money they had to her, and then they livedthere until they died, well fed and looked after, and without any moneyworries. And they were very happy—only they usually died well within ayear—quite peacefully in their sleep. And at last people began to notice.
She was tried and convicted of murder—But had no conscience pangs andprotested that what she had done was really a kindness to the old dears.”
“Yes. That’s right,” said Tommy. “I can’t remember the name of the wo-man now.”
“Well, never mind about that,” said Tuppence. “And then he cited an-other case. A case of a woman, a domestic worker or a cook or a house-keeper. She used to go into service into different families. Sometimesnothing happened, I believe, and sometimes it was a kind of mass poison-ing. Food poisoning, it was supposed to be. All with quite reasonablesymptoms. Some people recovering.”
“She used to prepare sandwiches,” said Tommy, “and make them upinto packets and send them out for picnics with them. She was very niceand very devoted and she used to get, if it was a mass poisoning, some ofthe symptoms and signs herself. Probably exaggerating their effect. Thenshe’d go away after that and she’d take another place, in quite a differentpart of England. It went on for some years.”
“That’s right, yes. Nobody, I believe, has ever been able to understandwhy she did it. Did she get a sort of addiction for it—a sort of habit of it?
Was it fun for her? Nobody really ever knew. She never seems to have hadany personal malice for any of the people whose deaths she seems to havecaused. Bit wrong in the top storey?”
“Yes. I think she must have been, though I suppose one of the trick cyc-lists would probably do a great deal of analysis and find out it had allsomething to do with a canary of a family she’d known years and yearsago as a child who had given her a shock or upset her or something. Butanyway, that’s the sort of thing it was.”
“The third one was queerer still,” said Tommy. “A French woman. A wo-man who’d suffered terribly from the loss of her husband and her child.
She was brokenhearted and she was an angel of mercy.”
“That’s right,” said Tuppence, “I remember. They called her the angel ofwhatever the village was. Givon or something like that. She went to all theneighbours and nursed them when they were ill. Particularly she used togo to children when they were ill. She nursed them devotedly. But sooneror later, after apparently a slight recovery, they grew much worse anddied. She spent hours crying and went to the funeral crying and every-body said they wouldn’t know what they’d have done without the angelwho’d nursed their darlings and done everything she could.”
“Why do you want to go over all this again, Tuppence?”
“Because I wondered if Dr. Murray had a reason for mentioning them.”
“You mean he connected—”
“I think he connected up three classical cases that are well known, andtried them on, as it were, like a glove, to see if they fitted anyone at SunnyRidge. I think in a way any of them might have fitted. Miss Packard wouldfit in with the first one. The efficient matron of a Home.”
“You really have got your knife into that woman. I always liked her.”
“I daresay people have liked murderers,” said Tuppence very reason-ably. “It’s like swindlers and confidence tricksmen who always look sohonest and seem so honest. I daresay murderers all seem very nice andparticularly softhearted. That sort of thing. Anyway, Miss Packard is veryefficient and she has all the means to hand whereby she could produce anice natural death without suspicion. And only someone like Mrs. Cocoawould be likely to suspect her. Mrs. Cocoa might suspect her because she’sa bit batty herself and can understand batty people, or she might havecome across her somewhere before.”
“I don’t think Miss Packard would profit financially by any of her eld-erly inmates’ deaths.”
“You don’t know,” said Tuppence. “It would be a cleverer way to do it,not to benefit from all of them. Just get one or two of them, perhaps, richones, to leave you a lot of money, but to always have some deaths thatwere quite natural as well, and where you didn’t get anything. So you see Ithink that Dr. Murray might, just might, have cast a glance at Miss Packardand said to himself, ‘Nonsense, I’m imagining things.’ But all the same thethought stuck in his mind. The second case he mentioned would fit with adomestic worker, or cook, or even some kind of hospital nurse. Somebodyemployed in the place, a middle-aged reliable woman, but who was battyin that particular way. Perhaps used to have little grudges, dislikes forsome of the patients there. We can’t go guessing at that because I don’tthink we know anyone well enough—”
“And the third one?”
“The third one’s more difficult,” Tuppence admitted. “Someone devoted.
Dedicated.”
“Perhaps he just added that for good measure,” said Tommy. He added,“I wonder about that Irish nurse.”
“The nice one we gave the fur stole to?”
“Yes, the nice one Aunt Ada liked. The very sympathetic one. Sheseemed so fond of everyone, so sorry if they died. She was very worriedwhen she spoke to us, wasn’t she? You said so—she was leaving, and shedidn’t really tell us why.”
“I suppose she might have been a rather neurotic type. Nurses aren’tsupposed to be too sympathetic. It’s bad for patients. They are told to becool and efficient and inspire confidence.”
“Nurse Beresford speaking,” said Tommy, and grinned.
“But to come back to the picture,” said Tuppence. “If we just concentrateon the picture. Because I think it’s very interesting what you told me aboutMrs. Boscowan, when you went to see her. She sounds—she sounds inter-esting.”
“She was interesting,” said Tommy. “Quite the most interesting person Ithink we’ve come across in this unusual business. The sort of person whoseems to know things, but not by thinking about them. It was as though sheknew something about this place that I didn’t, and that perhaps you don’t.
But she knows something.”
“It was odd what she said about the boat,” said Tuppence. “That the pic-ture hadn’t had a boat originally. Why do you think it’s got a boat now?”
“Oh,” said Tommy, “I don’t know.”
“Was there any name painted on the boat? I don’t remember seeing one—but then I never looked at it very closely.”
“It’s got Waterlily on it.”
“A very appropriate name for a boat—what does that remind me of?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“And she was quite positive that her husband didn’t paint that boat—Hecould have put it in afterwards.”
“She says not—she was very definite.”
“Of course,” said Tuppence, “there’s another possibility we haven’t goneinto. About my coshing, I mean—the outsider—somebody perhaps whofollowed me here from Market Basing that day to see what I was up to. Be-cause I’d been there asking all those questions. Going into all those houseagents. Blodget & Burgess and all the rest of them. They put me off aboutthe house. They were evasive. More evasive than would be natural. It wasthe same sort of evasion as we had when we were trying to find out whereMrs. Lancaster had gone. Lawyers and banks, an owner who can’t be com-municated with because he’s abroad. The same sort of pattern. They sendsomeone to follow my car, they want to see what I am doing, and in duecourse I am coshed. Which brings us,” said Tuppence, “to the gravestonein the churchyard. Why didn’t anyone want me to look at old gravestones?
They were all pulled about anyway—a group of boys, I should say, who’dgot bored with wrecking telephone boxes, and went into the churchyardto have some fun and sacrilege behind the church.”
“You say there were painted words—or roughly carved words?”
“Yes—done with a chisel, I should think. Someone who gave it up as abad job.
“The name—Lily Waters—and the age—seven years old. That was doneproperly—and then the other bits of words—It looked like ‘Whosoever .?.?.’
and then ‘offend least of these’—and—‘Millstone’—”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It should do. It’s definitely biblical—but done by someone who wasn’tquite sure what the words he wanted to remember were—”
“Very odd—the whole thing.”
“And why anyone should object—I was only trying to help the vicar—and the poor man who was trying to find his lost child—There we are—back to the lost child motif again—Mrs. Lancaster talked about a poorchild walled up behind a fireplace, and Mrs. Copleigh chattered aboutwalled-up nuns and murdered children, and a mother who killed a baby,and a lover, and an illegitimate baby, and a suicide—It’s all old tales andgossip and hearsay and legends, mixed up in the most glorious kind ofhasty pudding! All the same, Tommy, there was one actual fact—not justhearsay or legend—”
“You mean?”
“I mean that in the chimney of this Canal House, this old rag doll fell out—A child’s doll. It had been there a very, very long time, all covered withsoot and rubble—”
“Pity we haven’t got it,” said Tommy.
“I have,” said Tuppence. She spoke triumphantly.
“You brought it away with you?”
“Yes. It startled me, you know. I thought I’d like to take it and examineit. Nobody wanted it or anything. I should imagine the Perrys would justhave thrown it into the ashcan straight away. I’ve got it here.”
She rose from her sofa, went to her suitcase, rummaged a little and thenbrought out something wrapped in newspaper.
“Here you are, Tommy, have a look.”
With some curiosity Tommy unwrapped the newspaper. He took outcarefully the wreck of a child’s doll. Its limp arms and legs hung down,faint festoons of clothing dropped off as he touched them. The bodyseemed made of a very thin suede leather sewn up over a body that hadonce been plump with sawdust and now was sagging because here andthere the sawdust had escaped. As Tommy handled it, and he was quitegentle in his touch, the body suddenly disintegrated, flapping over in agreat wound from which there poured out a cupful of sawdust and with itsmall pebbles that ran to and fro about the floor. Tommy went round pick-ing them up carefully.
“Good Lord,” he said to himself, “Good Lord!”
“How odd,” Tuppence said, “it’s full of pebbles. Is that a bit of the chim-ney disintegrating, do you think? The plaster or something crumblingaway?”
“No,” said Tommy. “These pebbles were inside the body.”
He had gathered them up now carefully, he poked his finger into thecarcase of the doll and a few more pebbles fell out. He took them over tothe window and turned them over in his hand. Tuppence watched himwith uncomprehending eyes.
“It’s a funny idea, stuffing a doll with pebbles,” she said.
“Well, they’re not exactly the usual kind of pebbles,” said Tommy.
“There was a very good reason for it, I should imagine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have a look at them. Handle a few.”
She took some wonderingly from his hand.
“They’re nothing but pebbles,” she said. “Some are rather large andsome small. Why are you so excited?”
“Because, Tuppence, I’m beginning to understand things. Those aren’tpebbles, my dear girl, they’re diamonds.”
Fifteen EVENING AT THE VICARAGE（2）
II
“You look remarkably well, if I may say so, Mrs. Tommy,” said Mr. IvorSmith.
“I’m feeling perfectly well again,” said Tuppence. “Silly of me to let my-self get knocked out, I suppose.”
“You deserve a medal—Especially for this doll business. How you get onto these things, I don’t know!”
“She’s the perfect terrier,” said Tommy. “Puts her nose down on the trailand off she goes.”
“You’re not keeping me out of this party tonight,” said Tuppence suspi-ciously.
“Certainly not. A certain amount of things, you know, have been clearedup. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you two. We were getting some-where, mind you, with this remarkably clever association of criminals whohave been responsible for a stupendous amount of robberies over the lastfive or six years. As I told Tommy when he came to ask me if I knew any-thing about our clever legal gentleman, Mr. Eccles, we’ve had our suspi-cions of him for a long time but he’s not the man you’ll easily get evidenceagainst. Too careful by far. He practises as a solicitor—an ordinary genu-ine business with perfectly genuine clients.
“As I told Tommy, one of the important points has been this chain ofhouses. Genuine respectable houses with quite genuine respectable peopleliving in them, living there for a short time—then leaving.
“Now, thanks to you, Mrs. Tommy, and your investigation of chimneysand dead birds, we’ve found quite certainly one of those houses. Thehouse where a particular amount of the spoil was concealed. It’s beenquite a clever system, you know, getting jewels or various things of thatkind changed into packets of rough diamonds, hiding them, and thenwhen the time comes they are flown abroad, or taken abroad in fishingboats, when all the hue and cry about one particular robbery has dieddown.”
“What about the Perrys? Are they—I hope they’re not—mixed up in it?”
“One can’t be sure,” said Mr. Smith. “No, one can’t be sure. It seemslikely to me that Mrs. Perry, at least, knows something, or certainly knewsomething once.”
“Do you mean she really is one of the criminals?”
“It mightn’t be that. It might be, you know, that they had a hold on her.”
“What sort of hold?”
“Well, you’ll keep this confidential, I know you can hold your tongue inthese things, but the local police have always had the idea that the hus-band, Amos Perry, might just possibly have been the man who was re-sponsible for a wave of child murders a good many years ago. He is notfully competent mentally. The medical opinion was that he might quiteeasily have had a compulsion to do away with children. There was neverany direct evidence, but his wife was perhaps overanxious to provide himalways with adequate alibis. If so, you see, that might give a gang of un-scrupulous people a hold on her and they may have put her in as tenant ofpart of a house where they knew she’d keep her mouth shut. They mayreally have had some form of damaging evidence against her husband.
You met them—what do you feel about them both, Mrs. Tommy?”
“I liked her,” said Tuppence. “I think she was—well, as I say I summedher up as a friendly witch, given to white magic but not black.”
“What about him?”
“I was frightened of him,” said Tuppence. “Not all the time. Just once ortwice. He seemed suddenly to go big and terrifying. Just for a minute ortwo. I couldn’t think what I was frightened of, but I was frightened. I sup-pose, as you say, I felt that he wasn’t quite right in his head.”
“A lot of people are like that,” said Mr. Smith. “And very often they’renot dangerous at all. But you can’t tell, and you can’t be sure.”
“What are we going to do at the vicarage tonight?”
“Ask some questions. See a few people. Find out things that may give usa little more of the information we need.”
“Will Major Waters be there? The man who wrote to the vicar about hischild?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any such person! There was a coffin buriedwhere the old gravestone had been removed—a child’s coffin, lead lined—And it was full of loot. Jewels and gold objects from a burglary near St. Al-bans. The letter to the vicar was with the object of finding out what hadhappened to the grave. The local lads’ sabotage had messed things up.”
Fifteen EVENING AT THE VICARAGE（1）
Fifteen EVENING AT THE VICARAGE
“Diamonds!” Tuppence gasped.
Looking from him to the pebbles she still held in her hand, she said:
“These dusty-looking things, diamonds?”
Tommy nodded.
“It’s beginning to make sense now, you see, Tuppence. It ties up. TheCanal House. The picture. You wait until Ivor Smith hears about that doll.
He’s got a bouquet waiting for you already, Tuppence—”
“What for?”
“For helping to round up a big criminal gang!”
“You and your Ivor Smith! I suppose that’s where you’ve been all thislast week, abandoning me in my last days of convalescence in that drearyhospital—just when I wanted brilliant conversation and a lot of cheeringup.”
“I came in visiting hours practically every evening.”
“You didn’t tell me much.”
“I was warned by that dragon of a sister not to excite you. But Ivor him-self is coming here the day after tomorrow, and we’ve got a little socialevening laid on at the vicarage.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Mrs. Boscowan, one of the big local landowners, your friend Miss NellieBligh, the vicar, of course, you and I—”
“And Mr. Ivor Smith—what’s his real name?”
“As far as I know, it’s Ivor Smith.”
“You are always so cautious—” Tuppence laughed suddenly.
“What’s amusing you?”
“I was just thinking that I’d like to have seen you and Albert discoveringsecret drawers in Aunt Ada’s desk.”
“All the credit goes to Albert. He positively delivered a lecture on thesubject. He learnt all about it in his youth from an antique dealer.”
“Fancy your Aunt Ada really leaving a secret document like that, alldone up with seals all over. She didn’t actually know anything, but shewas ready to believe there was somebody in Sunny Ridge who was dan-gerous. I wonder if she knew it was Miss Packard.”
“That’s only your idea.”
“It’s a very good idea if its a criminal gang we’re looking for. They’dneed a place like Sunny Ridge, respectable and well run, with a competentcriminal to run it. Someone properly qualified to have access to drugswhenever she needed them. And by accepting any deaths that occurred asquite natural, it would influence a doctor to think they were quite allright.”
“You’ve got it all taped out, but actually the real reason you started tosuspect Miss Packard was because you didn’t like her teeth—”
“The better to eat you with,” said Tuppence meditatively. “I’ll tell yousomething else, Tommy—Supposing this picture—the picture of the CanalHouse—never belonged to Mrs. Lancaster at all—”
“But we know it did.” Tommy stared at her.
“No, we don’t. We only know that Miss Packard said so—It was MissPackard who said that Mrs. Lancaster gave it to Aunt Ada.”
“But why should—” Tommy stopped—
“Perhaps that’s why Mrs. Lancaster was taken away — so that sheshouldn’t tell us that the picture didn’t belong to her, and that she didn’tgive it to Aunt Ada.”
“I think that’s a very far-fetched idea.”
“Perhaps—But the picture was painted in Sutton Chancellor—The housein the picture is a house in Sutton Chancellor—We’ve reason to believethat that house is—or was—used as one of their hidey-holes by a criminalassociation—Mr. Eccles is believed to be the man behind this gang. Mr. Ec-cles was the man responsible for sending Mrs. Johnson to remove Mrs.
Lancaster. I don’t believe Mrs. Lancaster was ever in Sutton Chancellor, orwas ever in the Canal House, or had a picture of it—though I think sheheard someone at Sunny Ridge talk about it—Mrs. Cocoa perhaps? So shestarted chattering, and that was dangerous, so she had to be removed. Andone day I shall find her! Mark my words, Tommy.”
“The Quest of Mrs. Thomas Beresford.”
Fifteen EVENING AT THE VICARAGE（3）
III
“I am so deeply sorry, my dear,” said the vicar, coming to meet Tup-pence with both hands outstretched. “Yes, indeed, my dear, I have been soterribly upset that this should happen to you when you have been so kind.
When you were doing this to help me. I really felt—yes, indeed I have, thatit was all my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go poking among gravestones,though really we had no reason to believe—no reason at all—that someband of young hooligans—”
“Now don’t disturb yourself, Vicar,” said Miss Bligh, suddenly appearingat his elbow. “Mrs. Beresford knows, I’m sure, that it was nothing to dowith you. It was indeed extremely kind of her to offer to help, but it’s allover now, and she’s quite well again. Aren’t you, Mrs. Beresford?”
“Certainly,” said Tuppence, faintly annoyed, however, that Miss Blighshould answer for her health so confidently.
“Come and sit down here and have a cushion behind your back,” saidMiss Bligh.
“I don’t need a cushion,” said Tuppence, refusing to accept the chair thatMiss Bligh was officiously pulling forward. Instead, she sat down in an up-right and exceedingly uncomfortable chair on the other side of the fire-place.
There was a sharp rap on the front door and everyone in the roomjumped. Miss Bligh hurried out.
“Don’t worry, Vicar,” she said. “I’ll go.”
“Please, if you will be so kind.”
There were low voices outside in the hall, then Miss Bligh came backshepherding a big woman in a brocade shift, and behind her a very tallthin man, a man of cadaverous appearance. Tuppence stared at him. Ablack cloak was round his shoulders, and his thin gaunt face was like theface from another century. He might have come, Tuppence thought,straight out of an El Greco canvas.
“I’m very pleased to see you,” said the vicar, and turned. “May I intro-duce Sir Philip Starke, Mr. and Mrs. Beresford. Mr. Ivor Smith. Ah! Mrs.
Boscowan. I’ve not seen you for many, many years—Mr. and Mrs. Beres-ford.”
“I’ve met Mr. Beresford,” said Mrs. Boscowan. She looked at Tuppence.
“How do you do,” she said. “I’m glad to meet you. I heard you’d had an ac-cident.”
“Yes. I’m all right again now.”
The introductions completed, Tuppence sat back in her chair. Tirednessswept over her as it seemed to do rather more frequently than formerly,which she said to herself was possibly a result of concussion. Sittingquietly, her eyes half closed, she was nevertheless scrutinizing everyonein the room with close attention. She was not listening to the conversation,she was only looking. She had a feeling that a few of the characters in thedrama—the drama in which she had unwittingly involved herself—wereassembled here as they might be in a dramatic scene. Things were draw-ing together, forming themselves into a compact nucleus. With the comingof Sir Philip Starke and Mrs. Boscowan it was as though two hitherto unre-vealed characters were suddenly presenting themselves. They had beenthere all along, as it were, outside the circle, but now they had come in-side. They were somehow concerned, implicated. They had come here thisevening — why, she wondered? Had someone summoned them? IvorSmith? Had he commanded their presence, or only gently demanded it?
Or were they perhaps as strange to him as they were to her? She thoughtto herself: “It all began in Sunny Ridge, but Sunny Ridge isn’t the realheart of the matter. That was, had always been, here, in Sutton Chancellor.
Things had happened here. Not very lately, almost certainly not lately.
Long ago. Things which had nothing to do with Mrs. Lancaster—but Mrs.
Lancaster had become unknowingly involved. So where was Mrs. Lan-caster now?”
A little cold shiver passed over Tuppence.
“I think,” thought Tuppence, “I think perhaps she’s dead. .?.?.”
If so, Tuppence felt, she herself had failed. She had set out on her questworried about Mrs. Lancaster, feeling that Mrs. Lancaster was threatenedwith some danger and she had resolved to find Mrs. Lancaster, protecther.
“And if she isn’t dead,” thought Tuppence, “I’ll still do it!”
Sutton Chancellor .?.?. That was where the beginning of something mean-ingful and dangerous had happened. The house with the canal was part ofit. Perhaps it was the centre of it all, or was it Sutton Chancellor itself? Aplace where people had lived, had come to, had left, had run away, hadvanished, had disappeared and reappeared. Like Sir Philip Starke.
Without turning her head Tuppence’s eyes went to Sir Philip Starke. Sheknew nothing about him except what Mrs. Copleigh had poured out in thecourse of her monologue on the general inhabitants. A quiet man, alearned man, a botanist, an industrialist, or at least one who owned a bigstake in industry. Therefore a rich man—and a man who loved children.
There she was, back at it. Children again. The house by the canal and thebird in the chimney, and out of the chimney had fallen a child’s doll,shoved up there by someone. A child’s doll that held within its skin ahandful of diamonds — the proceeds of crime. This was one of theheadquarters of a big criminal undertaking. But there had been crimesmore sinister than robberies. Mrs. Copleigh had said “I always fancied my-self as he might have done it.”
Sir Philip Starke. A murderer? Behind her half-closed eyelids, Tuppencestudied him with the knowledge clearly in her mind that she was studyinghim to find out if he fitted in any way with her conception of a murderer—and a child murderer at that.
How old was he, she wondered. Seventy at least, perhaps older. A wornascetic face. Yes, definitely ascetic. Very definitely a tortured face. Thoselarge dark eyes. El Greco eyes. The emaciated body.
He had come here this evening, why, she wondered? Her eyes went onto Miss Bligh. Sitting a little restlessly in her chair, occasionally moving topush a table nearer someone, to offer a cushion, to move the position ofthe cigarette box or matches. Restless, ill at ease. She was looking at PhilipStarke. Every time she relaxed, her eyes went to him.
“Doglike devotion,” thought Tuppence. “I think she must have been inlove with him once. I think in a way perhaps she still is. You don’t stop be-ing in love with anyone because you get old. People like Derek and De-borah think you do. They can’t imagine anyone who isn’t young being inlove. But I think she—I think she is still in love with him, hopelessly, de-votedly in love. Didn’t someone say—was it Mrs. Copleigh or the vicar whohad said, that Miss Bligh had been his secretary as a young woman, thatshe still looked after his affairs here?
“Well,” thought Tuppence, “it’s natural enough. Secretaries often fall inlove with their bosses. So say Gertrude Bligh had loved Philip Starke. Wasthat a useful fact at all? Had Miss Bligh known or suspected that behindPhilip Starke’s calm ascetic personality there ran a horrifying thread ofmadness? So fond of children always.”
“Too fond of children, I thought,” Mrs. Copleigh had said.
Things did take you like that. Perhaps that was a reason for his lookingso tortured.
“Unless one is a pathologist or a psychiatrist or something, one doesn’tknow anything about mad murderers,” thought Tuppence. “Why do theywant to kill children? What gives them that urge? Are they sorry about itafterwards? Are they disgusted, are they desperately unhappy, are theyterrified?”
At that moment she noticed that his gaze had fallen on her. His eyes methers and seemed to leave some message.
“You are thinking about me,” those eyes said. “Yes, it’s true what you arethinking. I am a haunted man.”
Yes, that described him exactly—He was a haunted man.
She wrenched her eyes away. Her gaze went to the vicar. She liked thevicar. He was a dear. Did he know anything? He might, Tuppence thought,or he might be living in the middle of some evil tangle that he never evensuspected. Things happened all round him, perhaps, but he wouldn’tknow about them, because he had that rather disturbing quality of inno-cence.
Mrs. Boscowan? But Mrs. Boscowan was difficult to know anythingabout. A middle-aged woman, a personality, as Tommy had said, but thatdidn’t express enough. As though Tuppence had summoned her, Mrs.
Boscowan rose suddenly to her feet.
“Do you mind if I go upstairs and have a wash?” she said.
“Oh! of course.” Miss Bligh jumped to her feet. “I’ll take you up, shall I,Vicar?”
“I know my way perfectly,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “Don’t bother—Mrs.
Beresford?”
Tuppence jumped slightly.
“I’ll show you,” said Mrs. Boscowan, “where things are. Come with me.”
Tuppence got up as obediently as a child. She did not describe it so toherself. But she knew that she had been summoned and when Mrs.
Boscowan summoned, you obeyed.
By then Mrs. Boscowan was through the door to the hall and Tuppencehad followed her. Mrs. Boscowan started up the stairs—Tuppence cameup behind her.
“The spare room is at the top of the stairs,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “It’s al-ways kept ready. It has a bathroom leading out of it.”
She opened the door at the top of the stairs, went through, switched onthe light and Tuppence followed her in.
“I’m very glad to have found you here,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “I hoped Ishould. I was worried about you. Did your husband tell you?”
“I gathered you’d said something,” said Tuppence.
“Yes, I was worried.” She closed the door behind them, shutting them, asit were, into a private place of private consultation. “Have you felt at all,”
said Emma Boscowan, “that Sutton Chancellor is a dangerous place?”
“It’s been dangerous for me,” said Tuppence.
“Yes, I know. It’s lucky it wasn’t worse, but then—yes, I think I can un-derstand that.”
“You know something,” said Tuppence. “You know something about allthis, don’t you?”
“In a way,” said Emma Boscowan, “in a way I do, and in a way I don’t.
One has instincts, feelings, you know. When they turn out to be right, it’sworrying. This whole criminal gang business, it seems so extraordinary. Itdoesn’t seem to have anything to do with—” She stopped abruptly.
“I mean, it’s just one of those things that are going on—that have alwaysgone on really. But they’re very well organized now, like businesses.
There’s nothing really dangerous, you know, not about the criminal partof it. It’s the other. It’s knowing just where the danger is and how to guardagainst it. You must be careful, Mrs. Beresford, you really must. You’reone of those people who rush into things and it wouldn’t be safe to do that.
Not here.”
Tuppence said slowly, “My old aunt—or rather Tommy’s old aunt, shewasn’t mine—someone told her in the nursing home where she died—thatthere was a killer.”
Emma nodded her head slowly.
“There were two deaths in that nursing home,” said Tuppence, “and thedoctor isn’t satisfied about them.”
“Is that what started you off?”
“No,” said Tuppence, “it was before that.”
“If you have time,” said Emma Boscowan, “will you tell me very quickly—as quickly as you can because someone may interrupt us—just whathappened at that nursing home or old ladies’ home or whatever it was, tostart you off?”
“Yes, I can tell you very quickly,” said Tuppence. She proceeded to do so.
“I see,” said Emma Boscowan. “And you don’t know where this old lady,this Mrs. Lancaster, is now?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you think she’s dead?”
“I think she—might be.”
“Because she knew something?”
“Yes. She knew about something. Some murder. Some child perhapswho was killed.”
“I think you’ve gone wrong there,” said Mrs. Boscowan. “I think thechild got mixed up in it and perhaps she got it mixed up. Your old lady, Imean. She got the child mixed up with something else, some other kind ofkilling.”
“I suppose it’s possible. Old people do get mixed up. But there was achild murderer loose here, wasn’t there? Or so the woman I lodged withhere said.”
“There were several child murders in this part of the country, yes. Butthat was a good long time ago, you know. I’m not sure. The vicar wouldn’tknow. He wasn’t there then. But Miss Bligh was. Yes, yes, she must havebeen here. She must have been a fairly young girl then.”
“I suppose so.”
Tuppence said, “Has she always been in love with Sir Philip Starke?”
“You saw that, did you? Yes, I think so. Completely devoted beyond idol-atry. We noticed it when we first came here, William and I.”
“What made you come here? Did you live in the Canal House?”
“No, we never lived there. He liked to paint it. He painted it severaltimes. What’s happened to the picture your husband showed me?”
“He brought it home again,” said Tuppence. “He told me what you saidabout the boat—that your husband didn’t paint it—the boat called Water-lily—”
“Yes. It wasn’t painted by my husband. When I last saw the picturethere was no boat there. Somebody painted it in.”
“And called it Waterlily—And a man who didn’t exist, Major Waters—wrote about a child’s grave—a child called Lilian—but there was no childburied in that grave, only a child’s coffin, full of the proceeds of a big rob-bery. The painting of the boat must have been a message—a message tosay where the loot was hidden—It all seems to tie up with crime. .?.?.”
“It seems to, yes—But one can’t be sure what—”
Emma Boscowan broke off abruptly. She said quickly, “She’s coming upto find us. Go into the bathroom—”
“Who?”
“Nellie Bligh. Pop into the bathroom—bolt the door.”
“She’s just a busybody,” said Tuppence, disappearing into the bathroom.
“Something a little more than that,” said Mrs. Boscowan.
Miss Bligh opened the door and came in, brisk and helpful.
“Oh, I hope you found everything you wanted?” she said. “There werefresh towels and soap, I hope? Mrs. Copleigh comes in to look after thevicar, but I really have to see she does things properly.”
Mrs. Boscowan and Miss Bligh went downstairs together. Tuppencejoined them just as they reached the drawing room door. Sir Philip Starkerose as she came into the room, rearranged her chair and sat down besideher.
“Is that the way you like it, Mrs. Beresford?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Tuppence. “It’s very comfortable.”
“I’m sorry to hear—” his voice had a vague charm to it, though it hadsome elements of a ghostlike voice, far away, lacking in resonance, yetwith a curious depth —“about your accident,” he said. “It’s so sadnowadays—all the accidents there are.”
His eyes were wandering over her face and she thought to herself, “He’smaking just as much a study of me as I made of him.” She gave a sharphalf-glance at Tommy, but Tommy was talking to Emma Boscowan.
“What made you come to Sutton Chancellor in the first place, Mrs.
Beresford?”
“Oh, we’re looking for a house in the country in a vague sort of way,”
said Tuppence. “My husband was away from home attending some con-gress or other and I thought I’d have a tour round a likely part of the coun-tryside—just to see what there was going, and the kind of price one wouldhave to pay, you know.”
“I hear you went and looked at the house by the canal bridge?”
“Yes, I did. I believe I’d once noticed it from the train. It’s a very attract-ive-looking house—from the outside.”
“Yes. I should imagine, though, that even the outside needs a great dealdoing to it, to the roof and things like that. Not so attractive on the wrongside, is it?”
“No, it seems to me a curious way to divide up a house.”
“Oh well,” said Philip Starke, “people have different ideas, don’t they?”
“You never lived in it, did you?” asked Tuppence.
“No, no, indeed. My house was burnt down many years ago. There’s partof it left still. I expect you’ve seen it or had it pointed out to you. It’s abovethis vicarage, you know, a bit up the hill. At least what they call a hill inthis part of the world. It was never much to boast of. My father built itway back in 1890 or so. A proud mansion. Gothic overlays, a touch of Bal-moral. Our architects nowadays rather admire that kind of thing again,though actually forty years ago it was shuddered at. It had everything aso-called gentleman’s house ought to have.” His voice was gently ironic. “Abilliard room, a morning room, ladies’ parlour, colossal dining room, aballroom, about fourteen bedrooms, and once had—or so I should imagine—a staff of fourteen servants to look after it.”
“You sound as though you never liked it much yourself.”
“I never did. I was a disappointment to my father. He was a very suc-cessful industrialist. He hoped I would follow in his footsteps. I didn’t. Hetreated me very well. He gave me a large income, or allowance—as it usedto be called—and let me go my own way.”
“I heard you were a botanist.”
“Well, that was one of my great relaxations. I used to go looking for wildflowers, especially in the Balkans. Have you ever been to the Balkans look-ing for wild flowers? It’s a wonderful place for them.”
“It sounds very attractive. Then you used to come back and live here?”
“I haven’t lived here for a great many years now. In fact, I’ve never beenback to live here since my wife died.”
“Oh,” said Tuppence, slightly embarrassed. “Oh, I’m—I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite a long time ago now. She died before the war. In 1938. Shewas a very beautiful woman,” he said.
“Do you have pictures of her in your house here still?”
“Oh no, the house is empty. All the furniture, pictures and things weresent away to be stored. There’s just a bedroom and an office and a sittingroom where my agent comes, or I come if I have to come down here andsee to any estate business.”
“It’s never been sold?”
“No. There’s some talk of having a development of the land there. I don’tknow. Not that I have any feeling for it. My father hoped that he was start-ing a kind of feudal domain. I was to succeed him and my children were tosucceed me and so on and so on and so on.” He paused a minute and saidthen, “But Julia and I never had any children.”
“Oh,” said Tuppence softly, “I see.”
“So there’s nothing to come here for. In fact I hardly ever do. Anythingthat needs to be done here Nellie Bligh does for me.” He smiled over ather. “She’s been the most wonderful secretary. She still attends to my busi-ness affairs or anything of that kind.”
“You never come here and yet you don’t want to sell it?” said Tuppence.
“There’s a very good reason why not,” said Philip Starke.
A faint smile passed over the austere features.
“Perhaps after all I do inherit some of my father’s business sense. Theland, you know, is improving enormously in value. It’s a better investmentthan money would be, if I sold it. Appreciates every day. Some day, whoknows, we’ll have a grand new dormitory town built on that land.”
“Then you’ll be rich?”
“Then I’ll be an even richer man than I am at present,” said Sir Philip.
“And I’m quite rich enough.”
“What do you do most of the time?”
“I travel, and I have interests in London. I have a picture gallery there.
I’m by way of being an art dealer. All those things are interesting. They oc-cupy one’s time—till the moment when the hand is laid on your shoulderwhich says ‘Depart.’ ”
“Don’t,” said Tuppence. “That sounds—it gives me the shivers.”
“It needn’t give you the shivers. I think you’re going to have a long life,Mrs. Beresford, and a very happy one.”
“Well, I’m very happy at present,” said Tuppence. “I suppose I shall getall the aches and pains and troubles that old people do get. Deaf and blindand arthritis and a few other things.”
“You probably won’t mind them as much as you think you will. If I maysay so, without being rude, you and your husband seem to have a veryhappy life together.”
“Oh, we have,” said Tuppence. “I suppose really,” she said, “there’s noth-ing in life like being happily married, is there?”
A moment later she wished she had not uttered these words. When shelooked at the man opposite her, who she felt had grieved for so manyyears and indeed might still be grieving for the loss of a very much lovedwife, she felt even more angry with herself.
Sixteen THE MORNING AFTER（2）
II
Having left her car by the lych- gate at Sutton Chancellor, Tuppencelooked round her carefully before entering the church precincts. She hadthe natural distrust of one who has suffered grievous bodily harm in a cer-tain geographical spot. There did not on this occasion seem to be any pos-sible assailants lurking behind the tombstones.
She went into the church, where an elderly woman was on her kneespolishing some brasses. Tuppence tiptoed up to the lectern and made atentative examination of the volume that rested there. The woman clean-ing the brasses looked up with a disapproving glance.
“I’m not going to steal it,” said Tuppence reassuringly, and carefullyclosing it again, she tiptoed out of the church.
She would have liked to examine the spot where the recent excavationshad taken place, but that she had undertaken on no account to do.
“Whosoever shall offend,” she murmured to herself. “It might mean that,but if so it would have to be someone—”
She drove the car the short distance to the vicarage, got out and went upthe path to the front door. She rang but could hear no tinkle from inside.
“Bell’s broken, I expect,” said Tuppence, knowing the habits of vicaragebells. She pushed the door and it responded to her touch.
She stood inside in the hall. On the hall table a large envelope with a for-eign stamp took up a good deal of space. It bore the printed legend of aMissionary Society in Africa.
“I’m glad I’m not a missionary,” thought Tuppence.
Behind that vague thought, there lay something else, something connec-ted with some hall table somewhere, something that she ought to remem-ber .?.?. Flowers? Leaves? Some letter or parcel?
At that moment the vicar came out from the door on the left.
“Oh,” he said. “Do you want me? I—oh, it’s Mrs. Beresford, isn’t it?”
“Quite right,” said Tuppence. “What I really came to ask you waswhether by any chance you had a Bible.”
“Bible,” said the vicar, looking rather unexpectedly doubtful. “A Bible.”
“I thought it likely that you might have,” said Tuppence.
“Of course, of course,” said the vicar. “As a matter of fact, I suppose I’vegot several. I’ve got a Greek Testament,” he said hopefully. “That’s notwhat you want, I suppose?”
“No,” said Tuppence. “I want,” she said firmly, “the Authorized Version.”
“Oh dear,” said the vicar. “Of course, there must be several in the house.
Yes, several. We don’t use that version in the church now, I’m sorry to say.
One has to fall in with the bishop’s ideas, you know, and the bishop is verykeen on modernization, for young people and all that. A pity, I think. Ihave so many books in my library here that some of them, you know, getpushed behind the others. But I think I can find you what you want. I thinkso. If not, we’ll ask Miss Bligh. She’s here somewhere looking out the vasesfor the children who arrange their wild flowers for the Children’s Cornerin the church.” He left Tuppence in the hall and went back into the roomwhere he had come from.
Tuppence did not follow him. She remained in the hall, frowning andthinking. She looked up suddenly as the door at the end of the hall openedand Miss Bligh came through it. She was holding up a very heavy metalvase.
Several things clicked together in Tuppence’s head.
“Of course,” said Tuppence, “of course.”
“Oh, can I help—I—oh, it’s Mrs. Beresford.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, and added, “And it’s Mrs. Johnson, isn’t it?”
The heavy vase fell to the floor. Tuppence stooped and picked it up. Shestood weighing it in her hand. “Quite a handy weapon,” she said. She put itdown. “Just the thing to cosh anyone with from behind,” she said—“That’swhat you did to me, didn’t you, Mrs. Johnson.”
“I—I—what did you say? I—I—I never—”
But Tuppence had no need to stay longer. She had seen the effect of herwords. At the second mention of Mrs. Johnson, Miss Bligh had given her-self away in an unmistakable fashion. She was shaking and panic stricken.
“There was a letter on your hall table the other day,” said Tuppence,“addressed to a Mrs. Yorke at an address in Cumberland. That’s where youtook her, isn’t it, Mrs. Johnson, when you took her away from SunnyRidge? That’s where she is now. Mrs. Yorke or Mrs. Lancaster—you usedeither name—York and Lancaster like the striped red and white rose inthe Perrys’ garden—”
She turned swiftly and went out of the house leaving Miss Bligh in thehall, still supporting herself on the stair rail, her mouth open, staring afterher. Tuppence ran down the path to the gate, jumped into her car anddrove away. She looked back towards the front door, but no one emerged.
Tuppence drove past the church and back towards Market Basing, butsuddenly changed her mind. She turned the car, drove back the way shehad come, and took the left-hand road leading to the Canal House bridge.
She abandoned the car, looked over the gate to see if either of the Perryswere in the garden, but there was no sign of them. She went through thegate and up the path to the back door. That was closed too and the win-dows were shut.
Tuppence felt annoyed. Perhaps Alice Perry had gone to Market Basingto shop. She particularly wanted to see Alice Perry. Tuppence knocked atthe door, rapping first gently then loudly. Nobody answered. She turnedthe handle but the door did not give. It was locked. She stood there, unde-cided.
There were some questions she wanted badly to ask Alice Perry. Pos-sibly Mrs. Perry might be in Sutton Chancellor. She might go back there.
The difficulty of Canal House was that there never seemed to be anyone insight and hardly any traffic came over the bridge. There was no one to askwhere the Perrys might be this morning.
Sixteen THE MORNING AFTER（1）
Sixteen THE MORNING AFTER
It was the morning after the party.
Ivor Smith and Tommy paused in their conversation and looked at eachother, then they looked at Tuppence. Tuppence was staring into the grate.
Her mind looked far away.
“Where have we got to?” said Tommy.
With a sigh Tuppence came back from where her thoughts had beenwandering, and looked at the two men.
“It seems all tied up still to me,” she said. “The party last night? Whatwas it for? What did it all mean?” She looked at Ivor Smith. “I suppose itmeant something to you two. You know where we are?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that,” said Ivor. “We’re not all after the samething, are we?”
“Not quite,” said Tuppence.
The men both looked at her inquiringly.
“All right,” said Tuppence. “I’m a woman with an obsession. I want tofind Mrs. Lancaster. I want to be sure that she’s all right.”
“You want to find Mrs. Johnson first,” said Tommy. “You’ll never findMrs. Lancaster till you find Mrs. Johnson.”
“Mrs. Johnson,” said Tuppence. “Yes, I wonder—But I suppose none ofthat part of it interests you,” she said to Ivor Smith.
“Oh it does, Mrs. Tommy, it does very much.”
“What about Mr. Eccles?”
Ivor smiled. “I think,” he said, “that retribution might be overtaking Mr.
Eccles shortly. Still, I wouldn’t bank on it. He’s a man who covers histracks with incredible ingenuity. So much so, that one imagines that therearen’t really any tracks at all.” He added thoughtfully under his breath, “Agreat administrator. A great planner.”
“Last night—” began Tuppence, and hesitated—“Can I ask questions?”
“You can ask them,” Tommy told her. “But don’t bank on getting any sat-isfactory answers from old Ivor here.”
“Sir Philip Starke,” said Tuppence—“Where does he come in? He doesn’tseem to fit as a likely criminal—unless he was the kind that—”
She stopped, hastily biting off a reference to Mrs. Copleigh’s wilder sup-positions as to child murderers—
“Sir Philip Starke comes in as a very valuable source of information,”
said Ivor Smith. “He’s the biggest landowner in these parts—and in otherparts of England as well.”
“In Cumberland?”
Ivor Smith looked at Tuppence sharply. “Cumberland? Why do youmention Cumberland? What do you know about Cumberland, Mrs.
Tommy?”
“Nothing,” said Tuppence. “For some reason or other it just came intomy head.” She frowned and looked perplexed. “And a red and whitestriped rose on the side of a house—one of those old-fashioned roses.”
She shook her head.
“Does Sir Philip Starke own the Canal House?”
“He owns the land—He owns most of the land hereabouts.”
“Yes, he said so last night.”
“Through him, we’ve learned a good deal about leases and tenanciesthat have been cleverly obscured through legal complexities—”
“Those house agents I went to see in the Market Square—Is there some-thing phony about them, or did I imagine it?”
“You didn’t imagine it. We’re going to pay them a visit this morning. Weare going to ask some rather awkward questions.”
“Good,” said Tuppence.
“We’re doing quite nicely. We’ve cleared up the big post office robberyof 1965, and the Albury Cross robberies, and the Irish Mail train business.
We’ve found some of the loot. Clever places they manufactured in thesehouses. A new bath installed in one, a service flat made in another—acouple of its rooms a little smaller than they ought to have been therebyproviding for an interesting recess. Oh yes, we’ve found out a great deal.”
“But what about the people?” said Tuppence. “I mean the people whothought of it, or ran it—apart from Mr. Eccles, I mean. There must havebeen others who knew something.”
“Oh yes. There were a couple of men—one who ran a night club, con-veniently just off the M1. Happy Hamish they used to call him. Slippery asan eel. And a woman they called Killer Kate—but that was a long time ago—one of our more interesting criminals. A beautiful girl, but her mentalbalance was doubtful. They eased her out — she might have become adanger to them. They were a strictly business concern—in it for loot—notfor murder.”
“And was the Canal House one of their hideaway places?”
“At one time, Ladymead, they called it then. It’s had a lot of differentnames in its time.”
“Just to make things more difficult, I suppose,” said Tuppence. “Lady-mead. I wonder if that ties up with some particular thing.”
“What should it tie up with?”
“Well, it doesn’t really,” said Tuppence. “It just started off another harein my mind, if you know what I mean. The trouble is,” she added, “I don’treally know what I mean myself now. The picture, too. Boscowan paintedthe picture and then somebody else painted a boat into it, with a name onthe boat—”
“Tiger Lily.”
“No, Waterlily. And his wife says that he didn’t paint the boat.”
“Would she know?”
“I expect she would. If you were married to a painter, and especially ifyou were an artist yourself, I think you’d know if it was a different style ofpainting. She’s rather frightening, I think,” said Tuppence.
“Who—Mrs. Boscowan?”
“Yes. If you know what I mean, powerful. Rather overwhelming.”
“Possibly. Yes.”
“She knows things,” said Tuppence, “but I’m not sure that she knowsthem because she knows them, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” said Tommy firmly.
“Well, I mean, there’s one way of knowing things. The other way is thatyou sort of feel them.”
“That’s rather the way you go in for, Tuppence.”
“You can say what you like,” said Tuppence, apparently following herown track of thought, “the whole thing ties up round Sutton Chancellor.
Round Ladymead, or Canal House or whatever you like to call it. And allthe people who lived there, now and in past times. Some things I thinkmight go back a long way.”
“You’re thinking of Mrs. Copleigh.”
“On the whole,” said Tuppence, “I think Mrs. Copleigh just put in a lot ofthings which have made everything more difficult. I think she’s got all hertimes and dates mixed up too.”
“People do,” said Tommy, “in the country.”
“I know that,” said Tuppence, “I was brought up in a country vicarage,after all. They date things by events, they don’t date them by years. Theydon’t say ‘that happened in 1930’ or ‘that happened in 1925’ or things likethat. They say ‘that happened the year after the old mill burned down’ or‘that happened after the lightning struck the big oak and killed FarmerJames’ or ‘that was the year we had the polio epidemic.’ So naturally, ofcourse, the things they do remember don’t go in any particular sequence.
Everything’s very difficult,” she added. “There are just bits poking up hereand there, if you know what I mean. Of course the point is,” said Tuppencewith the air of someone who suddenly makes an important discovery, “thetrouble is that I’m old myself.”
“You are eternally young,” said Ivor gallantly.
“Don’t be daft,” said Tuppence, scathingly. I’m old because I rememberthings that same way. I’ve gone back to being primitive in my aids tomemory.”
She got up and walked round the room.
“This is an annoying kind of hotel,” she said.
She went through the door into her bedroom and came back again shak-ing her head.
“No Bible,” she said.
“Bible?”
“Yes. You know, in old-fashioned hotels, they’ve always got a GideonBible by your bed. I suppose so that you can get saved any moment of theday or night. Well, they don’t have that here.”
“Do you want a Bible?”
“Well, I do rather. I was brought up properly and I used to know myBible quite well, as any good clergyman’s daughter should. But now, yousee, one rather forgets. Especially as they don’t read the lessons properlyany more in churches. They give you some new version where all thewording, I suppose, is technically right and a proper translation, butsounds nothing like it used to. While you two go to the house agents, Ishall drive into Sutton Chancellor,” she added.
“What for? I forbid you,” said Tommy.
“Nonsense—I’m not going to sleuth. I shall just go into the church andlook at the Bible. If it’s some modern version, I shall go and ask the vicar,he’ll have a Bible, won’t he? The proper kind, I mean. Authorized Ver-sion.”
“What do you want the Authorized Version for?”
“I just want to refresh my memory over those words that werescratched on the child’s tombstone .?.?. They interested me.”
“It’s all very well—but I don’t trust you, Tuppence—don’t trust you notto get into trouble once you’re out of my sight.”
“I give you my word I’m not going to prowl about in graveyards anymore. The church on a sunny morning and the vicar’s study—that’s all—what could be more harmless?”
Tommy looked at his wife doubtfully and gave in.
Seventeen MRS. LANCASTER（1）
Seventeen MRS. LANCASTER

Tuppence stood there frowning, and then, suddenly, quite unexpectedly,the door opened. Tuppence drew back a step and gasped. The person con-fronting her was the last person in the world she expected to see. In thedoorway, dressed exactly the same as she had been at Sunny Ridge, andsmiling the same way with that air of vague amiability, was Mrs. Lan-caster in person.
“Oh,” said Tuppence.
“Good morning. Were you wanting Mrs. Perry?” said Mrs. Lancaster.
“It’s market day, you know. So lucky I was able to let you in. I couldn’t findthe key for some time. I think it must be a duplicate anyway, don’t you?
But do come in. Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea or something.”
Like one in a dream, Tuppence crossed the threshold. Mrs. Lancaster,still retaining the gracious air of a hostess, led Tuppence along into the sit-ting room.
“Do sit down,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t know where all the cups andthings are. I’ve only been here a day or two. Now—let me see .?.?. But—surely—I’ve met you before, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “when you were at Sunny Ridge.”
“Sunny Ridge, now, Sunny Ridge. That seems to remind me of some-thing. Oh, of course, dear Miss Packard. Yes, a very nice place.”
“You left it in rather a hurry, didn’t you?” said Tuppence.
“People are so very bossy,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “They hurry you so.
They don’t give you time to arrange things or pack properly or anything.
Kindly meant, I’m sure. Of course, I’m very fond of dear Nellie Bligh, butshe’s a very masterful kind of woman. I sometimes think,” Mrs. Lancasteradded, bending forward to Tuppence, “I sometimes think, you know, thatshe is not quite—” she tapped her forehead significantly. “Of course it doeshappen. Especially to spinsters. Unmarried women, you know. Very givento good works and all that but they take very odd fancies sometimes. Cur-ates suffer a great deal. They seem to think sometimes, these women, thatthe curate has made them an offer of marriage but really he neverthought of doing anything of the kind. Oh yes, poor Nellie. So sensible insome ways. She’s been wonderful in the parish here. And she was alwaysa first-class secretary, I believe. But all the same she has some very curiousideas at times. Like taking me away at a moment’s notice from dear SunnyRidge, and then up to Cumberland—a very bleak house, and, again quitesuddenly, bringing me here—”
“Are you living here?” said Tuppence.
“Well, if you can call it that. It’s a very peculiar arrangement altogether.
I’ve only been here two days.”
“Before that, you were at Rosetrellis Court, in Cumberland—”
“Yes, I believe that was the name of it. Not such a pretty name as SunnyRidge, do you think? In fact I never really settled down, if you know what Imean. And it wasn’t nearly as well run. The service wasn’t as good andthey had a very inferior brand of coffee. Still, I was getting used to thingsand I had found one or two interesting acquaintances there. One of themwho knew an aunt of mine quite well years ago in India. It’s so nice, youknow, when you find connections.”
“It must be,” said Tuppence.
Mrs. Lancaster continued cheerfully.
“Now let me see, you came to Sunny Ridge, but not to stay, I think. Ithink you came to see one of the guests there.”
“My husband’s aunt,” said Tuppence, “Miss Fanshawe.”
“Oh yes. Yes of course. I remember now. And wasn’t there somethingabout a child of yours behind the chimney piece?”
“No,” said Tuppence, “no, it wasn’t my child.”
“But that’s why you’ve come here, isn’t it? They’ve had trouble with achimney here. A bird got into it, I understand. This place wants repairing.
I don’t like being here at all. No, not at all and I shall tell Nellie so as soonas I see her.”
“You’re lodging with Mrs. Perry?”
“Well, in a way I am, and in a way I’m not. I think I could trust you witha secret, couldn’t I?”
“Oh yes,” said Tuppence, “you can trust me.”
“Well, I’m not really here at all. I mean not in this part of the house. Thisis the Perrys’ part of the house.” She leaned forward. “There’s anotherone, you know, if you go upstairs. Come with me. I’ll take you.”
Tuppence rose. She felt that she was in rather a crazy kind of dream.
“I’ll just lock the door first, it’s safer,” said Mrs. Lancaster.
She led Tuppence up a rather narrow staircase to the first floor. Shetook her through a double bedroom with signs of occupation—presum-ably the Perrys’ room—and through a door leading out of that into an-other room next door. It contained a washstand and a tall wardrobe ofmaple wood. Nothing else. Mrs. Lancaster went to the maple wardrobe,fumbled at the back of it, then with sudden ease pushed it aside. Thereseemed to be castors on the wardrobe and it rolled out from the wall eas-ily enough. Behind the wardrobe there was, rather strangely, Tuppencethought, a grate. Over the mantelpiece there was a mirror with a smallshelf under the mirror on which were china figures of birds.
To Tuppence’s astonishment Mrs. Lancaster seized the bird in themiddle of the mantelshelf and gave it a sharp pull. Apparently the birdwas stuck to the mantelpiece. In fact, by a swift touch Tuppence perceivedthat all the birds were firmly fastened down. But as a result of Mrs. Lan-caster’s action there was a click and the whole mantelpiece came awayfrom the wall and swung forward.
“Clever, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Lancaster. “It was done a long time ago, youknow, when they altered the house. The priest’s hole, you know, they usedto call this room but I don’t think it was really a priest’s hole. No, nothingto do with priests. I’ve never thought so. Come through. This is where Ilive now.”
She gave another push. The wall in front of her also swung back and aminute or two later they were in a large attractive-looking room with win-dows that gave out on the canal and the hill opposite.
“A lovely room, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Lancaster. “Such a lovely view. I al-ways liked it. I lived here for a time as a girl, you know.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Not a lucky house,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “No, they always said it wasn’ta lucky house. I think, you know,” she added, “I think I’ll shut up thisagain. One can’t be too careful, can one?”
She stretched out a hand and pushed the door they had come throughback again. There was a sharp click as the mechanism swung into place.
“I suppose,” said Tuppence, “that this was one of the alterations theymade to the house when they wanted to use it as a hiding place.”
“They did a lot of alterations,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “Sit down, do. Do youlike a high chair or a low one? I like a high one myself. I’m rather rheum-atic, you know. I suppose you thought there might have been a child’sbody there,” added Mrs. Lancaster. “An absurd idea really, don’t you thinkso?”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“Cops and robbers,” said Mrs. Lancaster, with an indulgent air. “One isso foolish when one is young, you know. All that sort of thing. Gangs—bigrobberies—it has such an appeal for one when one is young. One thinksbeing a gunman’s moll would be the most wonderful thing in the world. Ithought so once. Believe me—” she leaned forward and tapped Tuppenceon the knee “—believe me, it’s not true. It isn’t really. I thought so once,but one wants more than that, you know. There’s no thrill really in juststealing things and getting away with it. It needs good organization, ofcourse.”
“You mean Mrs. Johnson or Miss Bligh—whichever you call her—”
“Well, of course, she’s always Nellie Bligh to me. But for some reason orother—to facilitate things, she says—she calls herself Mrs. Johnson nowand then. But she’s never been married, you know. Oh no. She’s a regularspinster.”
A sound of knocking came to them from below.
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Lancaster, “that must be the Perrys back again. I’dno idea they were going to be back so soon.”
The knocking went on.
“Perhaps we ought to let them in,” suggested Tuppence.
“No, dear, we won’t do that,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “I can’t stand peoplealways interfering. We’re having such a nice little talk up here, aren’t we?
I think we’ll just stay up here—oh dear, now they’re calling under the win-dow. Just look out and see who it is.”
Tuppence went to the window.
“It’s Mr. Perry,” she said.
From below, Mr. Perry shouted,
“Julia! Julia!”
“Impertinence,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “I don’t allow people like AmosPerry to call me by my Christian name. No, indeed. Don’t worry, dear,” sheadded, “we’re quite safe here. And we can have a nice little talk. I’ll tellyou all about myself—I’ve really had a very interesting life—Eventful—Sometimes I think I ought to write it down. I was mixed up, you see. I wasa wild girl, and I was mixed up with—well, really just a common gang ofcriminals. No other word for it. Some of them very undesirable people.
Mind you, there were nice people among them. Quite good class.”
“Miss Bligh?”
“No, no, Miss Bligh never had anything to do with crime. Not NellieBligh. Oh no, she’s very churchy, you know. Religious. All that. But thereare different ways of religion. Perhaps you know that, do you?”
“I suppose there are a lot of different sects,” Tuppence suggested.
“Yes, there have to be, for ordinary people. But there are others besidesordinary people. There are some special ones, under special commands.
There are special legions. Do you understand what I mean, my dear?”
“I don’t think I do,” said Tuppence. “Don’t you think we ought to let thePerrys into their own house? They’re getting rather upset—”
“No, we’re not going to let the Perrys in. Not till—well, not till I’ve toldyou all about it. You mustn’t be frightened, my dear. It’s all quite—quitenatural, quite harmless. There’s no pain of any kind. It’ll be just like goingto sleep. Nothing worse.”
Tuppence stared at her, then she jumped up and went towards the doorin the wall.
“You can’t get out that way,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “You don’t knowwhere the catch is. It’s not where you think it is at all. Only I know that. Iknow all the secrets of this place. I lived here with the criminals when Iwas a girl until I went away from them all and got salvation. Special salva-tion. That’s what was given to me—to expiate my sin—The child, youknow—I killed it. I was a dancer—I didn’t want a child—Over there, on thewall—that’s my picture—as a dancer—”
Tuppence followed the pointing finger. On the wall hung an oil painting,full length, of a girl in a costume of white satin leaves with the legend“Waterlily.”
“Waterlily was one of my best roles. Everyone said so.”
Tuppence came back slowly and sat down. She stared at Mrs. Lancaster.
As she did so words repeated in her head. Words heard at Sunny Ridge.
“Was it your poor child?” She had been frightened then, frightened. Shewas frightened now. She was as yet not quite sure what she wasfrightened of, but the same fear was there. Looking at that benignant face,that kindly smile.
“I had to obey the commands given me—There have to be agents of de-struction. I was appointed to that. I accepted my appointment. They gofree of sin, you see. I mean, the children went free of sin. They were notold enough to sin. So I sent them to Glory as I was appointed to do. Still in-nocent. Still not knowing evil. You can see what a great honour it was tobe chosen. To be one of the specially chosen. I always loved children. I hadnone of my own. That was very cruel, wasn’t it, or it seemed cruel. But itwas retribution really for what I’d done. You know perhaps what I’ddone.”
“No,” said Tuppence.
“Oh, you seem to know so much. I thought perhaps you’d know that too.
There was a doctor. I went to him. I was only seventeen then and I wasfrightened. He said it would be all right to have the child taken away sothat nobody would ever know. But it wasn’t all right, you see. I began tohave dreams. I had dreams that the child was always there, asking mewhy it had never had life. The child told me it wanted companions. It wasa girl, you know. Yes, I’m sure it was a girl. She came and she wantedother children. Then I got the command. I couldn’t have any children. I’dmarried and I thought I’d have children, then my husband wanted chil-dren passionately but the children never came, because I was cursed, yousee. You understand that, don’t you? But there was a way, a way to atone.
To atone for what I’d done. What I’d done was murder, wasn’t it, and youcould only atone for murder with other murders, because the othermurders wouldn’t be really murders, they would be sacrifices. They wouldbe offered up. You do see the difference, don’t you? The children went tokeep my child company. Children of different ages but young. The com-mand would come and then—” she leaned forward and touched Tuppence“—it was such a happy thing to do. You understand that, don’t you? It wasso happy to release them so that they’d never know sin like I knew sin. Icouldn’t tell anyone, of course, nobody was ever to know. That was thething I had to be sure about. But there were people sometimes who got toknow or to suspect. Then of course—well, I mean it had to be death forthem too, so that I should be safe. So I’ve always been quite safe. You un-derstand, don’t you?”
“Not—not quite.”
“But you do know. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? You knew. Youknew the day I asked you at Sunny Ridge. I saw by your face. I said ‘Was ityour poor child?’ I thought you’d come, perhaps because you were amother. One of those whose children I’d killed. I hoped you’d come backanother time and then we’d have a glass of milk together. It was usuallymilk. Sometimes cocoa. Anyone who knew about me.”
She moved slowly across the room and opened a cupboard in a cornerof the room.
“Mrs. Moody—” said Tuppence, “was she one?”
“Oh, you know about her—she wasn’t a mother—she’d been a dresser atthe theatre. She recognized me so she had to go.” Turning suddenly shecame towards Tuppence holding a glass of milk and smiling persuasively.
“Drink it up,” she said. “Just drink it up.”
Tuppence sat silent for a moment, then she leapt to her feet and rushedto the window. Catching up a chair, she crashed the glass. She leaned herhead out and screamed:
“Help! Help!”
Mrs. Lancaster laughed. She put the glass of milk down on a table andleant back in her chair and laughed.
“How stupid you are. Who do you think will come? Who do you thinkcan come? They’d have to break down doors, they’d have to get throughthat wall and by that time—there are other things, you know. It needn’t bemilk. Milk is the easy way. Milk and cocoa and even tea. For little Mrs.
Moody I put it in cocoa—she loved cocoa.”
“The morphia? How did you get it?”
“Oh, that was easy. A man I lived with years ago—he had cancer—thedoctor gave me supplies for him—to keep in my charge—other drugs too—I said later that they’d all been thrown away—but I kept them, and otherdrugs and sedatives too—I thought they might come in useful some day—and they did—I’ve still got a supply—I never take anything of the kind my-self—I don’t believe in it.” She pushed the glass of milk towards Tuppence—“Drink it up, it’s much the easiest way. The other way—the trouble is, Ican’t be sure just where I put it.”
She got up from her chair and began walking round the room.
“Where did I put it? Where did I? I forget everything now I’m gettingold.”
Tuppence yelled again. “Help!” but the canal bank was empty still. Mrs.
Lancaster was still wandering round the room.
“I thought—I certainly thought—oh, of course, in my knitting bag.”
Tuppence turned from the window. Mrs. Lancaster was coming towardsher.
“What a silly woman you are,” said Mrs. Lancaster, “to want it this way.”
Her left arm shot out and she caught Tuppence’s shoulder. Her righthand came from behind her back. In it was a long thin stiletto blade. Tup-pence struggled. She thought, “I can stop her easily. Easily. She’s an oldwoman. Feeble. She can’t—”
Suddenly in a cold tide of fear she thought, “But I’m an old woman too.
I’m not as strong as I think myself. I’m not as strong as she is. Her hands,her grasp, her fingers. I suppose because she’s mad and mad people, I’vealways heard, are strong.”
The gleaming blade was approaching near her. Tuppence screamed.
Down below she heard shouts and blows. Blows now on the doors asthough someone were trying to force the doors or windows. “But they’llnever get through,” thought Tuppence. “They’ll never get through thistrick doorway here. Not unless they know the mechanism.”
She struggled fiercely. She was still managing to hold Mrs. Lancasteraway from her. But the other was the bigger woman. A big strong woman.
Her face was still smiling but it no longer had the benignant look. It hadthe look now of someone enjoying herself.
“Killer Kate,” said Tuppence.
“You know my nickname? Yes, but I’ve sublimated that. I’ve become akiller of the Lord. It’s the Lord’s will that I should kill you. So that makes itall right. You do see that, don’t you? You see, it makes it all right.”
Tuppence was pressed now against the side of a big chair. With one armMrs. Lancaster held her against the chair, and the pressure increased—nofurther recoil was possible. In Mrs. Lancaster’s right hand the sharp steelof the stiletto approached.
Tuppence thought, “I mustn’t panic—I mustn’t panic—” But followingthat came with sharp insistence, “But what can I do?” To struggle was un-availing.
Fear came then—the same sharp fear of which she had the first indica-tion in Sunny Ridge—
“Is it your poor child?”
That had been the first warning—but she had misunderstood it—shehad not known it was a warning.
Her eyes watched the approaching steel but strangely enough it was notthe gleaming metal and its menace that frightened her into a state of para-lysis; it was the face above it—it was the smiling benignant face of Mrs.
Lancaster—smiling happily, contentedly—a woman pursuing her appoin-ted task, with gentle reasonableness.
“She doesn’t look mad,” thought Tuppence—“That’s what’s so awful—Ofcourse she doesn’t because in her own mind she’s sane. She’s a perfectlynormal, reasonable human being—that’s what she thinks—Oh Tommy,Tommy, what have I got myself into this time?”
Dizziness and limpness submerged her. Her muscles relaxed — some-where there was a great crash of broken glass. It swept her away, intodarkness and unconsciousness.
Seventeen MRS. LANCASTER（2）
II
“That’s better—you’re coming round—drink this, Mrs. Beresford.”
A glass pressed against her lips—she resisted fiercely—Poisoned milk—who had said that once—something about “poisoned milk?” She wouldn’tdrink poisoned milk .?.?. No, not milk—quite a different smell—She relaxed, her lips opened—she sipped—
“Brandy,” said Tuppence with recognition.
“Quite right! Go on—drink some more—”
Tuppence sipped again. She leaned back against cushions, surveyed hersurroundings. The top of a ladder showed through the window. In front ofthe window there was a mass of broken glass on the floor.
“I heard the glass break.”
She pushed away the brandy glass and her eyes followed up the handand arm to the face of the man who had been holding it.
“El Greco,” said Tuppence.
“I beg your pardon.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looked round the room.
“Where is she—Mrs. Lancaster, I mean?”
“She’s—resting—in the next room—”
“I see.” But she wasn’t sure that she did see. She would see betterpresently. Just now only one idea would come at a time—“Sir Philip Starke.” She said it slowly and doubtfully. “That’s right?”
“Yes—Why did you say El Greco?”
“Suffering.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“The picture—In Toledo—Or in the Prado—I thought so a long time ago—no, not very long ago—” She thought about it—made a discovery—“Lastnight. A party—At the vicarage—”
“You’re doing fine,” he said encouragingly.
It seemed very natural, somehow, to be sitting here, in this room withbroken glass on the floor, talking to this man—with the dark agonized face—
“I made a mistake—at Sunny Ridge. I was all wrong about her—I wasafraid, then—a—wave of fear—But I got it wrong—I wasn’t afraid of her—I was afraid for her—I thought something was going to happen to her—Iwanted to protect her—to save her—I—” She looked doubtfully at him.
“Do you understand? Or does it sound silly?”
“Nobody understands better than I do—nobody in this world.”
Tuppence stared at him—frowning.
“Who—who was she? I mean Mrs. Lancaster—Mrs. Yorke—that’s notreal—that’s just taken from a rose tree—who was she—herself?”
Philip Starke said harshly:
“Who was she? Herself? The real one, the true oneWho was she—with God’s Sign upon her brow?”
“Did you ever read Peer Gynt, Mrs. Beresford?”
He went to the window. He stood there a moment, looking out—Then heturned abruptly.
“She was my wife, God help me.”
“Your wife—But she died—the tablet in the church—”
“She died abroad—that was the story I circulated—And I put up a tabletto her memory in the church. People don’t like to ask too many questionsof a bereaved widower. I didn’t go on living here.”
“Some people said she had left you.”
“That made an acceptable story, too.”
“You took her away when you found out—about the children—”
“So you know about the children?”
“She told me—It seemed—unbelievable.”
“Most of the time she was quite normal—no one would have guessed.
But the police were beginning to suspect—I had to act—I had to save her—to protect her—You understand—can you understand—in the very least?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “I can understand quite well.”
“She was—so lovely once—” His voice broke a little. “You see her—there,” he pointed to the painting on the wall. “Waterlily—She was a wildgirl—always. Her mother was the last of the Warrenders—an old family—inbred—Helen Warrender—ran away from home. She took up with a badlot—a gaolbird—her daughter went on the stage—she trained as a dancer—Waterlily was her most popular role—then she took up with a criminalgang—for excitement—purely to get a kick out of it—She was always be-ing disappointed—
“When she married me, she had finished with all that—she wanted tosettle down—to live quietly—a family life—with children. I was rich—Icould give her all the things she wanted. But we had no children. It was asorrow to both of us. She began to have obsessions of guilt—Perhaps shehad always been slightly unbalanced—I don’t know—What do causes mat-ter?—She was—”
He made a despairing gesture.
“I loved her—I always loved her—no matter what she was—what shedid—I wanted her safe—to keep her safe—not shut up—a prisoner for life,eating her heart out. And we did keep her safe—for many many years.”
“We?”
“Nellie—my dear faithful Nellie Bligh. My dear Nellie Bligh. She waswonderful — planned and arranged it all. The Homes for the Elderly —every comfort and luxury. And no temptations—no children—keep chil-dren out of her way—It seemed to work—these homes were in farawayplaces—Cumberland—North Wales—no one was likely to recognize her—or so we thought. It was on Mr. Eccles’s advice—a very shrewd lawyer—his charges were high—but I relied on him.”
“Blackmail?” suggested Tuppence.
“I never thought of it like that. He was a friend, and an adviser—”
“Who painted the boat in the picture—the boat called Waterlily?”
“I did. It pleased her. She remembered her triumph on the stage. It wasone of Boscowan’s pictures. She liked his pictures. Then, one day, shewrote a name in black pigment on the bridge—the name of a dead child—So I painted a boat to hide it and labelled the boat Waterlily—”
The door in the wall swung open—The friendly witch came through it.
She looked at Tuppence and from Tuppence to Philip Starke.
“All right again?” she said in a matter-of-fact way.
“Yes,” said Tuppence. The nice thing about the friendly witch, she saw,was that there wasn’t going to be any fuss.
“Your husband’s down below, waiting in the car. I said I’d bring youdown to him—if that’s the way you want it?”
“That’s the way I want it,” said Tuppence.
“I thought you would.” She looked towards the door into the bedroom.
“Is she—in there?”
“Yes,” said Philip Starke.
Mrs. Perry went to the bedroom. She came out again—“I see—” She looked at him inquiringly.
“She offered Mrs. Beresford a glass of milk—Mrs. Beresford didn’t wantit.”
“And so, I suppose, she drank it herself?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Dr. Mortimer will be along later,” said Mrs. Perry.
She came to help Tuppence to her feet, but Tuppence rose unaided.
“I’m not hurt,” she said. “It was just shock—I’m quite all right now.”
She stood facing Philip Starke—neither of them seemed to have any-thing to say. Mrs. Perry stood by the door in the wall.
Tuppence spoke at last.
“There is nothing I can do, is there?” she said, but it was hardly a ques-tion.
“Only one thing — It was Nellie Bligh who struck you down in thechurchyard that day.”
Tuppence nodded.
“I’ve realized it must have been.”
“She lost her head. She thought you were on the track of her, of our,secret. She—I’m bitterly remorseful for the terrible strain I’ve subjectedher to all these long years. It’s been more than any woman ought to beasked to bear—”
“She loved you very much, I suppose,” said Tuppence. “But I don’t thinkwe’ll go on looking for any Mrs. Johnson, if that is what you want to ask usnot to do.”
“Thank you—I’m very grateful.”
There was another silence. Mrs. Perry waited patiently. Tuppencelooked round her. She went to the broken window and looked at thepeaceful canal down below.
“I don’t suppose I shall ever see this house again. I’m looking at it veryhard, so that I shall be able to remember it.”
“Do you want to remember it?”
“Yes, I do. Someone said to me that it was a house that had been put tothe wrong use. I know what they meant now.”
He looked at her questioningly, but did not speak.
“Who sent you here to find me?” asked Tuppence.
“Emma Boscowan.”
“I thought so.”
She joined the friendly witch and they went through the secret door andon down.
A house for lovers, Emma Boscowan had said to Tuppence. Well, thatwas how she was leaving it—in the possession of two lovers—one deadand one who suffered and lived—
She went out through the door to where Tommy and the car were wait-ing.
She said goodbye to the friendly witch. She got into the car.
“Tuppence,” said Tommy.
“I know,” said Tuppence.
“Don’t do it again,” said Tommy. “Don’t ever do it again.”
“I won’t.”
“That’s what you say now, but you will.”
“No, I shan’t. I’m too old.”
Tommy pressed the starter. They drove off.
“Poor Nellie Bligh,” said Tuppence.
“Why do you say that?”
“So terribly in love with Philip Starke. Doing all those things for him allthose years—such a lot of wasted doglike devotion.”
“Nonsense!” said Tommy. “I expect she’s enjoyed every minute of it.
Some women do.”
“Heartless brute,” said Tuppence.
“Where do you want to go—The Lamb and Flag at Market Basing?”
“No,” said Tuppence. “I want to go home. HOME, Thomas. And staythere.”
“Amen to that,” said Mr. Beresford. “And if Albert welcomes us with acharred chicken, I’ll kill him!”