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

'Open the window if you can, Amos.'

Amos went over, pulled the shutter aside, unfastened the other side of it and then pushed at the latch of the window. He raised the lower sash which came gratingly. As soon as it was open Mrs Perry leaned out and released 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 very quickly, birds. It's fright that makes them so paralysed looking.'

Sure enough, a few moments later the jackdaw, with a final struggle, a squawk, a flapping of wings flew off.

'I only hope,' said Alice Perry, 'that it doesn't come down that chimney again. Contrary things, birds: Don't know what's good for them. Get into a room, they can never get out of it by themselves. Oh,' she added, 'what a mess.'

She, Tuppence and Mr Perry all stared at the grate. From the chimney had come down a mass of soot, of odd rubble and of broken bricks. Evidently it had been in a bad state of repair for some time.

'Somebody ought to come and live here,' said Mrs Perry, looking round her.

'Somebody ought to look after it,' Tuppence agreed with her. 'Some builder ought to look at it or do something about it or the whole house will come 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

'Oh, what a shame,' said Tuppence, 'to ruin a beautiful house - it really is a beautiful room, isn't it.' She and Mrs Perry looked together round it appreciatively.

Built in 1790 it had all the graciousness of a house of that period. It had had o 'nginally 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.

'blow what do you want to bother yourself with a house that doesn't belong to you?' said her husband. 'Leave it alone, woman. It'll be in just as bad 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 them they had been dead for some time.

'That's the nest that came down a good few weeks ago. It's a wonder it doesn'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 down the chimney. Well I never,' she added, staring at it.

'It's a doll. It's a child's doll.' They looked down at it. Ragged, torn, its clothes in rags, its head lolling from the shoulders, it had originally been a child's doll. One glass eye dropped out. Tuppence stood holding it.

'I wonder,' she said, 'I wonder how a child's doll ever got up a chimney. Extraordinary.'

CHAPTER 8 Sutton Chancellor

After leaving the canal house, Tuppence drove slowly on along the narrow winding road which she had been assured would lead her to the village of Sutton Chancellor. It was an isolated road. There were no houses to be seen from it - only field gates from which muddy tracks led inwards. There was little traffic - one tractor came along, and one lorry proudly announcing that it carried Mother's Delight and the picture of an enormous .and unnatural looking loaf. The church steeple she had noticed m the distance seemed to have disappeared entirely - but it finally reappesred quite near at hand after the lane had bent suddenly and sharply round a belt of trees. Tuppence glanced at the speedometer and saw she had come two miles since the canal house.

It was an attractive old church standing in a sizeable churchyard with a lone yew tree standing by the church door.

Tuppence left the car outside the lych-gate, passed through it, and stood for a few moments surveying the church and the churchyard round it. Then she went to the church door with its rounded Norman arch and lifted 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 pitch pine pews and its flaring red and blue glass windows had ruined any antique charm it had once possessed. A middle-aged woman in a tweed coat and skirt was arranging flowers in brass vases round the pulpit - she had already £mished the altar. She looked round at Tuppence with a sharply inquiring glance. Tuppence wandered up an aisle looking at memorial tablets on the walls. A family called Warrender seemed to be most fully represented in early years.

All of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor. Captain Warrender,

Major Warrevder, Sarah Elisabeth Warrender, dearly beloved wife of George Wareader. A newer tablet recorded the death of Julia Starke (another beloved wife) of Philip Starke, also of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor - so it would seem the Warrenders had died out. None of them were particularly suggestive or interes6ng. Tuppence passed out of the church again and walked round it on the outside. The outside, Tuppence thought, was much more attractive than the inside.

'Early Perp. and Dec.,' said Tuppence to herself, having been brought up on familiar terms with ecclesiastical architecture.

She was not particularly fond of early Perp. herself.

It was a fair:sized church and she thought that the village of Sutton Chancellor must once have been a rather more important centre of rural life than it was now. She left the car whereit was and walked on to the village. It had a village shop and a post office and about a dozen small houses or cottages.

One or two of them were thatched but the others were rather plain and unattractive. There were six council houses at the end of the village street looking slightly self-conscious. A brass plate on a door announced 'Arthur Thomas, Chimney Sweep'.

Tuppence wondered if any responsible house agents were likely to engage 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 the house.

She walked back slowly towards the church, and her car, pausing to examire the churchyard more closely. She liked the churchyard. There were very few new burials in it. Most of the stones commemorated Victorian burials, and earlier ones - half defaced by lichen and time. The old stones were attractive.

Some of them were upright slabs with cherubs on the tops, with wreaths round them. She wandered about, looking at the inscriptions. Warrenders again. Mary Warrender, aged 47, Alice Warrender, aged 33, Colonel John Warrender killed in Afghanistan. Various infant Warrenders - deeply regretted and eloquent verses of pious hopes. She wondered if any Warrenders lived here still. They'd left off being buried here apparently. She couldn't £md any tombstones later than 1843.