By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy & Tuppence 4)

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 quest worried about Mrs Lancaster, feeling that Mrs Lancaster was threatened with some danger and she had resolved to fred Mrs Lancaster, protect her.

'And if she isn't dead,' thought Tuppence, 'I'll still do it!' Sutton Chancellor... That was where the beginning of something meaningful and dangerous had happened. The house with the canal was part of it. Perhaps it was the centre of it all, or was it Sutton Chancellor itself7. A place where people had lived, had come to, had left, had run away, had vanished, had disappeared and reappeared. Like Sir Philip Starke.

Without turning her head Tuppence's eyes went to Sir Philip Starke. She knew nothing about him except what Mrs Copleigh had poured out in the course of her monologue on the general inhabitants. A quiet man, a learned man, a botanist, an industrialist, or at least one who owned a big stake 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 the bird 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 a handful of diamonds - the proceeds of crime. This was one of the headquarters of a big criminal undertaking. But there had been crimes more sinister than robberies. Mrs Copleigh had said 'I always fancied myself as he might have done it.'

Sir Philip Starke. A murderer? Behind her half-closed eyelids, Tuppence studied him with the knowledge clearly in her mind that she was studying him to fred 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 worn ascetic face. Yes, definitely ascetic. Very definitely a tortured face. Those large dark eyes. E1Greco eyes.

The emaciated body.

He had come here this evening, why, she wondered? Her eyes went on to Miss Bligh. Sitting a little restlessly in her chair, occasionally moving to push a table nearer someone, to offer a cushion, to move the position of the cigarette box or matches. Restless, ill at ease. She was looking at Philip Starke.

Every time she relaxed, her eyes went to him.

'Doglike devotion,' thought Tuppence. 'I think she must have been in love with him once. I think in a way perhaps she still is. You don't stop being in love with anyone because you get old. People like Derek and Deborah think you do. They can't imagine anyone who isn't young being in love. But I think she - I think she is still in love with him, hopelessly, devotedly in love. Didn't someone say - was it Mrs Copleigh or the vicar who had said, that Miss Bligh had been his secretary as a young woman, that she still looked after his affairs here?

'Well,' thought Tuppence, 'it's natural enough. Secretaries often fall in love with their bosses. So say Gertrude Bligh had loved Philip Starke. Was that a useful fact at all? Had Miss Bligh known or suspected that behind Philip Starke's calm ascetic personality there ran a horrifying thread of madness? So fond of children ahoays.'

'Too fond of children, I thought,' Mrs Copleigh had said.

Things did take you like that. Perhaps that was a reason for his looking so tortured.

'Unless one is a pathologist or a psychiatrist or something, one doesn't know anything about mad murderers,' thought Tuppence. 'lFhy do they want to ldll children? What gives them that urge? Are they sorry about it afterwards? Are they disgusted, are they desperately unhappy, are they terrified?'

At that moment she noticed that his gaze had fallen on her.

His eyes met hers and seemed to leave some message. 'You are thinking about me,' those eyes said. 'Yes, it's true what you are thinking. 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 the vicar. 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 even suspected. Things happened all round him, perhaps, but he wouldn't know about them, because he had that rather disturbing quality of innocence.

Mrs Boscowan? But Mrs Boscowan was difficult to know anything about. A middle-aged woman, a personality, as Tommy had said, but that didn'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 to herself. 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 Tuppence had followed her. Mrs Boscowan started up the stairs - Tuppence came up behind her.

'The spare room is at the top of the stairs,' said Mrs Boscowan. 'It's always kept ready. It has a bathroom leading out of it.'

She opened the door at the top of the stairs, went through, switched on the light and Tuppence followed her in.

'I'm very glad to have found you here,' said Mrs Boscowan.

'I hoped I should. 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, as it 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 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 mind - 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 fn'st 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 L'fiian - 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 fred 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.