By the Pricking of My Thumbs tat-4

by Agatha Christie

  'It's nice of you to ask,' said Tuppence sarcastically. 'No, I didn't.' She added 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 all this 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 country somewhere, and make speeches and read Papers and vet young men for Super Secret assignments in Europe and beyond. I've forgotten what I.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 is bugged, and everybody knows everybody else's most secret conversations.'

  '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 ga-ga by now, I expect. Does any of it do any good?'

  'Heavens, what a question! Can one ever let oneself believe that you can answer 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?'

  [Unreadable]

  'Arsenic in the cup?' suggested Tommy cheerfully. 'Bash them on the head. Push them down the staircase?'

  [Unreadable]

  A nice respectable Home for Elderly Ladies. You'd pay a visit to it, calling yourself Mrs. Johnson or Mrs. Robinson-or you would get some unsuspecting third party to make arrangements. You'd fix the financial arrangements through a firm of reliable solicitors. You've already hinted, perhaps, that your elderly relative has fancies and mild delusions sometimes-so do a good many of the other old ladies. Nobody will think it odd if she cackles on about poisoned milk, or dead children behind a fireplace, or a sinister kidnapping; nobody will really listen. They'll just think it's old Mrs. So-and-So having 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. By the pricking of my thumbs/Something evil this way comes. I felt suddenly scared. 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. I wanted to find out more. And now poor old Mrs. Lancaster has disappeared. Somebody's spirited her away.'

  'But why should they?'

  'I can only think because she was getting worse-worse from their point of view-remembering more, perhaps, talking to people more, or perhaps she recognized someone-or someone recognized her-or told her something that gave her new ideas about something that had once happened. Anyway, for some reason or other she became dangerous to someone.'

  '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 yourself up 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 they know there. I think that that old lady was quite safe whilst she was there. I want to find out where she is now. I want to get to her wherever she is in time-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 Prudence Beresford, Private Investigator. Do you remember when we were Blunt's Brilliant 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 playing 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 some kind? No, that would be a mistake.'

  'Well, be careful,' said Tommy, rather inadequately.

  Tuppence did not deign to reply.

  III

  On Monday morning, Albert, the domestic mainstay of the Beresfords' life for many long years, ever since he had been roped into anti-criminal activities by them as a carroty-haired lift-boy, deposited the tray of early morning tea on the table between the two beds, pulled back the curtains, announced that it was a nice day, and removed his now portly form from the 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, but you 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 at the 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 it up.'

  '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!'

  '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 have been just a picture she bought at an exhibition or that somebody in her family did. It may have been a picture that somebody gave her as a present. She took it to Sunny Ridge with her because she thought it looked nice. 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 think anybody's ever going to come out of that house. Nobody's going to walk across 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 matter with you?'

  'I thought so the first time I saw it,' said Tuppence. 'I thought "What a nice house that would be to live in." And then I thought "But nobody does live 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 hump-backed bridge and the pink walls of the house, the two poplar 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 and your dйjа vu picture.'

  He jumped out of bed and hastened to the bathroom.

  Tuppence lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, trying to force a recollection that just remained elusively out of reach.

  Tommy was pouring out a second cup of coffee in the dining room when Tuppence appeared flushed with triumph.

  'I've got it! I know where I saw that house. It was out of the window of a railway train.'


  'Where? When?'

  'I don't know. I'll have to think. I remember saying to myself: "Someday I'll go and look at that house"-and I tried to see what the name of the next station was. But you know what railways are nowadays. They've pulled down half the stations-and the next one we went through was all torn down, and grass growing over the platforms, and no name board or anything.'

  'Where the hell's my briefcase? Albert!'

  A frenzied search took place.

  Tommy came back to say a breathless goodbye. Tuppence was sitting looking meditatively at a fried egg.

  'Goodbye,' said Tommy. 'And for God's sake, Tuppence, don't go poking into something that's none of your business.'

  'I think,' said Tuppence, meditatively, 'that what I shall really do, is to take 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 the British Isles for a very reasonable fixed sum. That ought to suit you down to the ground, Tuppence. You travel by all the trains you can think of in all the likely parts. That ought to keep you happy until I come home.'

  'Give my love to Josh.'

  'I will.' He added, looking at his wife in a worried manner, 'I wish you were coming with me. Don't-don't do anything stupid, will you?'

  'Of course not,' said Tuppence.

  Chapter 6. Tuppence on the Trail

  'Oh dear,' sighed Tuppence, 'oh dear.' She looked round her with gloomy eyes. Never, she said to herself, had she felt more miserable. Naturally she had known she would miss Tommy but she had no idea how much she was going to miss him.

  During the long course of their married life they had hardly ever been separated for any length of time. Starting before their marriage, they had called themselves a pair of 'young adventurers'.

  They had been through various difficulties and danger together, they had married, they had had two 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 almost miraculous way they had been tangled up yet again on the outskirts of the British Intelligence. A somewhat more-to-do pair, they had been recruited by a quiet nondescript man who called himself 'Mr. Carter', but to whose word everybody seemed to bow. They had had adventures, and once again they had had them together. This, by the way, had not been planned by Mr. Carter. Tommy alone had been recruited. But Tuppence displaying all her natural ingenuity, had managed to eavesdrop in such a fashion that when Tommy had arrived at a guest house on the sea coast in the role of a certain Mr. Meadows, the first person he had seen there had been a middle-aged lady plying knitting needles, who had looked up at him with innocent eyes and whom he had been forced to greet as Mrs. Blenkinsop. Thereafter they had worked as a pair.

  However, thought Tuppence to herself, 'I can't do it this time.' No amount of eavesdropping, of ingenuity or anything else would take her to the recesses of Hush Hush Manor or to participation in the intricacies of I.U.A.S. 'Just an Old Boys Club,' she thought resentfully, 'Without Tommy the flat was empty, the world was lonely,' and 'What on earth,' thought Tuppence, 'am I to do with myself?'

  The question was really purely rhetorical for Tuppence had already started on the first steps of what she planned to do with herself. There was no question this time of intelligence work, of counter-espionage or anything 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 room table was strewn with railway timetables, guidebooks, maps, and a few old diaries which Tuppence had managed to disinter.

  Some time in the last three years (not longer, she was sure) she had taken a railway journey, and looking out of the carriage window, had noticed a house. But, what railway journey?

  Like most people at the present time, the Beresfords travelled mainly by car. The railway journeys they took were few and far between.

  Scotland, of course, when they went to stay with their married daughter Deborah-but that was a night journey.

  Penzance-summer holidays-and Tuppence knew that line by heart.

  No, this had been a much more casual journey. With diligence and perseverance, Tuppence had made a meticulous list of all the possible journeys she had taken which might correspond to what she was looking for. On or two race meetings, a visit to Northumberland, two possible places in Wales, a christening, two weddings, a sale they had attended, some puppies she had once delivered for a friend who bred them and who had gone down with influenza. The meeting place had been an arid-looking country junction whose name she couldn't remember.

  Tuppence sighed. It seemed as though Tommy's solution was the one she might have to adopt. Buy a kind of circular ticket and actually travel over the most likely stretches of railway line.

  In a small notebook she had jotted down any snatches of extra memories-vague flashes-in case they might help.

  A hat, for instance. Yes, a hat that she had thrown up on the rack. She had been wearing a hat-so-a wedding or the christening-certainly not puppies.

  And-another flash-kicking off her shoes because her feet hurt. Yes-that was [unclear] she had been actually looking at the House-and she had kicked off her shoes because her feet hurt.

  So, then, it had definitely been a social function she had either been going to, or returning from. Returning from, of course-because of the painfulness of her feet from long standing about in her best shoes. And what kind of a hat?

  Because that would help-a flowery hat-a summer wedding-or a velvet winter one?

  Tuppence was busy jotting down details from the Railway timetables of different 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. 'So you 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 fat in the larder-it's been there a long while, time it was eaten.' It was a somewhat sinister recommendation, 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 accepted everything. Nothing ever had to be explained to him.

  He went away and Tuppence settled down to her planning. What she wanted was: a social engagement involving a hat and party shoes. Unfortunately the ones she had listed involved different railway lines. One wedding on the Southern Railway, the other in East Anglia. The christening north of Bedford.

  If she could remember a little more about the scenery… She had been sitting on the right hand side of the train. What had she been looking at before 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 there waiting 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 his children. '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 her hands 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'r
e all in quarantine, I suppose.'

  'Oh! well, best for 'em all to get it, and get it over. Charlie's had it, and so has 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 anticipation-a recognition-Measles! Yes, measles.

  Something to do with measles.

  But why should the house by the canal have anything to do with measles…?

  Of course! Anthea. Anthea was Tuppence's goddaughter and Anthea's daughter Jane was at school-her first term-and it was Prize Giving and Anthea had rung up-her two younger children had come out in a measles rash and she had nobody in the house to help and Jane would be terribly disappointed 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 and then go back to the sports and all the rest of it. There was a special school train.

  Everything came back into her mind with astonishing clarity-even the dress 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 of the window until, exhausted by the activities of the day, and the pressure of her shoes, she had dropped off to sleep.

  When she had woken up the train had been running beside a canal. It was partially wooded country, an occasional bridge, sometimes a twisting lane or minor road-a distant farm-no villages.

  The train began to slow down, for no reason it would seem, except that a signal must be against it. It drew jerkily a halt by a bridge, a little hump-backed bridge which spanned the canal, a disused canal presumably. On the other side of the canal, close to the water, was the house-a house that Tuppence thought at once was one of the most attractive houses she had ever seen-a quiet, peaceful house, irradiated by the golden light of the late afternoon sun.

  There was no human being to be seen-no dogs, or livestock.

  Yet the green shutters were not fastened. The house must be lived in, but now, at this moment, it was empty.