Agatha Christie - By the pricking of my thumbs

'Yes, I know. It's lucky it wasn't worse, but then - yes, I think I can understand that.'

'You know something,' said Tuppence. 'You know something about all this, 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's worrying. This whole criminal gang business, it seems so extraordinary. It doesn'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 always gone on really. But they're very well organized now, like businesses. There's nothing really dangerous, you know, not about the criminal part of it. It's the other. It's knowing just where the danger is and how to guard against it. You must be careful, Mrs Beresford, you really must. You're one 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, she wasn't mine - someone told her in the nursing home where she died - that there was a killer.'

Emma nodded her head slowly.

'There were two deaths in that nursing home,' said Tuppence, 'and the doctor 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 what happened at that nursing home or old ladies' home or whatever it was, to start 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 perhaps who was killed.'

'I think you've gone wrong there,' said Mrs Boscowan. 'I think the child got mixed up in it and perhaps she got it mixed up. Your old lady, I mean. She got the child mixed up with something else, some other kind of killing.'

'I suppose it's possible. Old people do get mixed up. But there was a child murderer loose here, wasn't there? Or so the woman I lodged with here said.'

'There were several child murders in this part of the country, yes. But that was a good long time ago, you know. I'm not sure. The vicar wouldn't know. He wasn't there then. But Miss Bligh was. Yes, yes, she must have been 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 idolatry. 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 several times. What's happened to the picture your husband showed me?'

'He brought it home again,' said Tuppence. 'He told me what you said about the boat - that your husband didn't paint it - the boat called Waterlily.'

'Yes. It wasn't painted by my husband. When I last saw the picture there 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 Lillian - but there was no child buried in that grave, only a child's coffin, full of the proceeds of a big robbery. The painting of the boat must have been a message - a message to say 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 up to 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 were fresh towels and soap, I hope? Mrs Copleigh comes in to look after the vicar, but I really have to see she does things properly.'

Mrs Boscowan and Miss Bligh went downstairs together.

Tuppence joined them just as they reached the drawing room door. Sir Philip Starke rose as she came into the room, rearranged her chair and sat down beside her.

'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 had some elements of a ghostlike voice, far-away, lacking in resonance, yet with a curious depth - 'about your accident,' he said. 'It's so sad nowadays - all the accidents there are.'

His eyes were wandering over her face and she thought to herself, 'He's making just as much a study of me as I made of him.' She gave a sharp half-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 congress or other and I thought I'd have a tour round a likely part of the countryside - just to see what there was going, and the kind of price one would have 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 attractive-looking house - from the outside.'

'Yes. I should imagine, though, that even the outside needs a great deal doing to it, to the roof and things like that. Not so attractive on the wrong side, 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 part of it left still. I expect you've seen it or had it pointed out to you. It's above this vicarage, you know, a bit up the hill. At least what they call a hill in this part of the world. It was never much to boast of. My father built it way back in 1890 or so. A proud mansion. Gothic overlays, a touch of Balmoral. Our architects nowadays rather admire that kind of thing again, though actually forty years ago it was shuddered at. It had everything a so-called gentleman's house ought to have.' His voice was gently ironic. 'A billiard room, a morning room, ladies' parlour, colossal dining room, a ballroom, 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 successful industrialist. He hoped I would follow in his footsteps. I didn't. He treated me very well. He gave me a large income, or allowance - as it used to 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 wild flowers, especially in the Balkans. Have you ever been to the Balkans looking 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 been back 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. She was 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 were sent away to be stored. There's just a bedroom and an office and a sitting room where my agent comes, or I come if I have to come down here and see to any estate business.'