Agatha Christie - By the pricking of my thumbs

'Well, that's over,' said Tommy. 'There's nothing to find out in this place - so forget about Mrs Blenkinsop. When I'm dead and buried and you've suitably mourned me and taken up your residence in a home for the aged, I expect you'll be thinking you are Mrs Blenkinsop half of the time.'

'It'll be rather boring to have only one rôle to play,' said Tuppence.

'Why do you think old people want to be Marie Antoinette, Madame Curie and all the rest of it?' asked Tommy.

'I expect because they get so bored. One does get bored. I'm sure you would if you couldn't use your legs and walk about, or perhaps your fingers get too stiff and you can't knit. Desperately you want something to do to amuse yourself so you try on some public character and see what it feels like when you are it. I can understand that perfectly.'

'I'm sure you can,' said Tommy. 'God help the home for the aged that you 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 kitchen maid at Anne of Cleves' castle retailing a lot of spicy gossip that I'd heard.'

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 to tell 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 Nurse O'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 right for a tall girl like you. Aunt Ada was tall.'

'Ah! she was the grand old lady - she must have been very handsome as a girl.'

'I suppose so,' said Tommy doubtfully. 'She must have been a tartar to look after, though.'

'Oh, she was that, indeed. But she had a grand spirit. Nothing got her down. And she was no fool either. You'd be surprised the way she got to know 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 complaints and moans. Miss Fanshawe was never dull. Grand stories she'd tell you of the old days. Rode a horse once up the staircase of a country house when 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 dears come and tell you. Criminals that they've recognized - we must notify the police 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 not the police she wants, it's a doctor to be called - she's that crazy about doctors.'

'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 was very devoted to your Aunt - not that Miss Fanshawe always had time for her - 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 sitting room?'

'Ah! she'd lots of stories, that one - about the things that happened to her - and the secrets she knew -'

'There was something about a child - a kidnapped child or a murdered child -'

'It's strange it is, the things they think up. It's the TV as often as not that gives them the ideas -'

'Do you find it a strain, working here with all these old people? It must be 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 manner.

'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 very much - and I'm glad, too, to have something to remember Miss Fanshawe by. She was a grand old lady. You don't find many like her nowadays.'

Chapter 5

DISAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD LADY

Aunt Ada's things arrived in due course. The desk was installed and admired. The little worktable dispossessed the whatnot which was relegated to a dark corner of the hall. And the picture of the pale pink house by the canal bridge Tuppence hung over the mantelpiece in her bedroom where she could see it every morning when drinking her early morning tea.

Since her conscience still troubled her a little, Tuppence wrote a letter explaining 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. This she dispatched to Mrs Lancaster, c/o Mrs Johnson, at the Cleveland Hotel, George Street, London, W. 1.

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 address in the hotel register...'

'I'd let it go if I were you,' said Tommy. 'Why make all this fuss? I expect 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 the Cleveland 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 of their having stayed there before.'

'I expect Miss Packard got the name of the hotel wrong. Wrote it down in a hurry - and then perhaps lost it - or remembered it wrong. Things like that often happen, you know.'

'I shouldn't have thought it would at Sunny Ridge. Miss Packard is so efficient always.'

'Perhaps they didn't book beforehand at the hotel and it was full, so they had to go somewhere else. You know what accommodation in London 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 the address of the lawyers.'

'What lawyers?'

'Don't you remember she said something about a firm of solicitors who made all the arrangements because the Johnsons were abroad?'

Tommy, who was busy over a speech he was drafting for a conference he was shortly to attend, and murmuring under his breath - 'the proper policy if such a contingency should arise' said: 'How do you spell contingency, 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: 'Consistency.'

'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 do it in peace.'

'Sorry.'

Tuppence removed herself. Tommy continued to write sentences and then scratch them out. His face was just brightening, as the pace of his writing increased - when once more the door opened.

'Here it is,' said Tuppence. 'Partingdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale, 32 Lincoln Terrace, W.C.2. Tel. Holborn 051386. The operative member of the firm is Mr Eccles.' She placed a sheet of paper by Tommy's elbow. 'Now you take on.'

'No!' said Tommy firmly.