By the Pricking of My Thumbs

‘Yes. Thomas or Tommy.’

‘Never heard of you,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘I only had one nephew and he was called William. Killed in the last war. Good thing, too. He’d have gone to the bad if he’d lived. I’m tired,’ said Aunt Ada, leaning back on her pillows and turning her head towards Miss Packard. ‘Take ’em away. You shouldn’t let strangers in to see me.’

‘I thought a nice little visit might cheer you up,’ said Miss Packard unperturbed.

Aunt Ada uttered a deep bass sound of ribald mirth.

‘All right,’ said Tuppence cheerfully. ‘We’ll go away again. I’ll leave the roses. You might change your mind about them. Come on, Tommy,’ said Tuppence. She turned towards the door.

‘Well, goodbye, Aunt Ada. I’m sorry you don’t remember me.’

Aunt Ada was silent until Tuppence had gone out of the door with Miss Packard and Tommy following her.

‘Come back, you,’ said Aunt Ada, raising her voice. ‘I know you perfectly. You’re Thomas. Red-haired you used to be. Carrots, that’s the colour your hair was. Come back. I’ll talk to you. I don’t want the woman. No good her pretending she’s your wife. I know better. Shouldn’t bring that type of woman in here. Come and sit down here in this chair and tell me about your dear mother. You go away,’ added Aunt Ada as a kind of postscript, waving her hand towards Tuppence who was hesitating in the doorway.

Tuppence retired immediately.

‘Quite in one of her moods today,’ said Miss Packard, unruffled, as they went down the stairs. ‘Sometimes, you know,’ she added, ‘she can be quite pleasant. You would hardly believe it.’

Tommy sat down in the chair indicated to him by Aunt Ada and remarked mildly that he couldn’t tell her much about his mother as she had been dead now for nearly forty years. Aunt Ada was unperturbed by this statement.

‘Fancy,’ she said, ‘is it as long as that? Well, time does pass quickly.’ She looked him over in a considering manner. ‘Why don’t you get married?’ she said. ‘Get some nice capable woman to look after you. You’re getting on, you know. Save you taking up with all these loose women and bringing them round and speaking as though they were your wife.’

‘I can see,’ said Tommy, ‘that I shall have to get Tuppence to bring her marriage lines along next time we come to see you.’

‘Made an honest woman of her, have you?’ said Aunt Ada.

‘We’ve been married over thirty years,’ said Tommy, ‘and we’ve got a son and a daughter, and they’re both married too.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Aunt Ada, shifting her ground with dexterity, ‘that nobody tells me anything. If you’d kept me properly up to date—’

Tommy did not argue the point. Tuppence had once laid upon him a serious injunction. ‘If anybody over the age of sixty-five finds fault with you,’ she said, ‘never argue. Never try to say you’re right. Apologize at once and say it was all your fault and you’re very sorry and you’ll never do it again.’

It occurred to Tommy at this moment with some force that that would certainly be the line to take with Aunt Ada, and indeed always had been.

‘I’m very sorry, Aunt Ada,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid, you know, one does tend to get forgetful as time goes on. It’s not everyone,’ he continued unblushingly, ‘who has your wonderful memory for the past.’

Aunt Ada smirked. There was no other word for it. ‘You have something there,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I received you rather roughly, but I don’t care for being imposed upon. You never know in this place. They let in anyone to see you. Anyone at all. If I accepted everyone for what they said they were, they might be intending to rob and murder me in my bed.’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s very likely,’ said Tommy.

‘You never know,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘The things you read in the paper. And the things people come and tell you. Not that I believe everything I’m told. But I keep a sharp look-out. Would you believe it, they brought a strange man in the other day—never seen him before. Called himself Dr Williams. Said Dr Murray was away on his holiday and this was his new partner. New partner! How was I to know he was his new partner? He just said he was, that’s all.’

‘Was he his new partner?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ said Aunt Ada, slightly annoyed at losing ground, ‘he actually was. But nobody could have known it for sure. There he was, drove up in a car, had that little kind of black box with him, which doctors carry to do blood pressure—and all that sort of thing. It’s like the magic box they all used to talk about so much. Who was it, Joanna Southcott’s?’

‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘I think that was rather different. A prophecy of some kind.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, my point is anyone could come into a place like this and say he was a doctor, and immediately all the nurses would smirk and giggle and say yes, Doctor, of course, Doctor, and more or less stand to attention, silly girls! And if the patient swore she didn’t know the man, they’d only say she was forgetful and forgot people. I never forget a face,’ said Aunt Ada firmly. ‘I never have. How is your Aunt Caroline? I haven’t heard from her for some time. Have you seen anything of her?’

Tommy said, rather apologetically, that his Aunt Caroline had been dead for fifteen years. Aunt Ada did not take this demise with any signs of sorrow. Aunt Caroline had after all not been her sister, but merely her first cousin.

‘Everyone seems to be dying,’ she said, with a certain relish. ‘No stamina. That’s what’s the matter with them. Weak heart, coronary thrombosis, high blood pressure, chronic bronchitis, rheumatoid arthritis—all the rest of it. Feeble folk, all of them. That’s how the doctors make their living. Giving them boxes and boxes and bottles and bottles of tablets. Yellow tablets, pink tablets, green tablets, even black tablets, I shouldn’t be surprised. Ugh! Brimstone and treacle they used to use in my grandmother’s day. I bet that was as good as anything. With the choice of getting well or having brimstone and treacle to drink, you chose getting well every time.’ She nodded her head in a satisfied manner. ‘Can’t really trust doctors, can you? Not when it’s a professional matter—some new fad—I’m told there’s a lot of poisoning going on here. To get hearts for the surgeons, so I’m told. Don’t think it’s true, myself. Miss Packard’s not the sort of woman who would stand for that.’

Downstairs Miss Packard, her manner slightly apologetic, indicated a room leading off the hall.

‘I’m so sorry about this, Mrs Beresford, but I expect you know how it is with elderly people. They take fancies or dislikes and persist in them.’

‘It must be very difficult running a place of this kind,’ said Tuppence.

‘Oh, not really,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I quite enjoy it, you know. And really, I’m quite fond of them all. One gets fond of people one has to look after, you know. I mean, they have their little ways and their fidgets, but they’re quite easy to manage, if you know how.’

Tuppence thought to herself that Miss Packard was one of those people who would know how.

‘They’re like children, really,’ said Miss Packard indulgently. ‘Only children are far more logical which makes it difficult sometimes with them. But these people are illogical, they want to be reassured by your telling them what they want to believe. Then they’re quite happy again for a bit. I’ve got a very nice staff here. People with patience, you know, and good temper, and not too brainy, because if you have people who are brainy they are bound to be very impatient. Yes, Miss Donovan, what is it?’ She turned her head as a young woman with pince-nez came running down the stairs.

‘It’s Mrs Lockett again, Miss Packard. She says she’s dying and she wants the doctor called at once.’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Packard, unimpressed, ‘what’s she dying from this time?’

‘She says there was mushroom in the stew yesterday and that there must have been fungi in it and that she’s poisoned.’

‘That’s a new one,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I’d better come up and talk to her. So sorry to leave you, Mrs Beresford. You’ll find magazines and papers in that room.’

‘Oh, I’ll be quite all right,’ said Tuppence.

She went into the room that had been indicated to her. It was a pleasant room overlooking the garden with french windows that opened on it. There were easy chairs, bowls of flowers on the tables. One wall had a bookshelf containing a mixture of modern novels and travel books, and also what might be described as old favourites, which possibly many of the inmates might be glad to meet again. There were magazines on a table.

At the moment there was only one occupant in the room. An old lady with white hair combed back off her face who was sitting in a chair, holding a glass of milk in her hand, and looking at it. She had a pretty pink and white face, and she smiled at Tuppence in a friendly manner.

‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Are you coming to live here or are you visiting?’

‘I’m visiting,’ said Tuppence. ‘I have an aunt here. My husband’s with her now. We thought perhaps two people at once was rather too much.’

‘That was very thoughtful of you,’ said the old lady. She took a sip of milk appreciatively. ‘I wonder—no, I think it’s quite all right. Wouldn’t you like something? Some tea or some coffee perhaps? Let me ring the bell. They’re very obliging here.’

‘No thank you,’ said Tuppence, ‘really.’

‘Or a glass of milk perhaps. It’s not poisoned today.’

‘No, no, not even that. We shan’t be stopping very much longer.’

‘Well, if you’re quite sure—but it wouldn’t be any trouble, you know. Nobody ever thinks anything is any trouble here. Unless, I mean, you ask for something quite impossible.’

‘I daresay the aunt we’re visiting sometimes asks for quite impossible things,’ said Tuppence. ‘She’s a Miss Fanshawe,’ she added.

‘Oh, Miss Fanshawe,’ said the old lady. ‘Oh yes.’

Something seemed to be restraining her but Tuppence said cheerfully,

‘She’s rather a tartar, I should imagine. She always has been.’

‘Oh, yes indeed she is. I used to have an aunt myself, you know, who was very like that, especially as she grew older. But we’re all quite fond of Miss Fanshawe. She can be very, very amusing if she likes. About people, you know.’

‘Yes, I daresay she could be,’ said Tuppence. She reflected a moment or two, considering Aunt Ada in this new light.

‘Very acid,’ said the old lady. ‘My name is Lancaster, by the way, Mrs Lancaster.’

‘My name’s Beresford,’ said Tuppence.

‘I’m afraid, you know, one does enjoy a bit of malice now and then. Her descriptions of some of the other guests here, and the things she says about them. Well, you know, one oughtn’t, of course, to find it funny but one does.’

‘Have you been living here long?’

‘A good while now. Yes, let me see, seven years—eight years. Yes, yes it must be more than eight years.’ She sighed. ‘One loses touch with things. And people too. Any relations I have left live abroad.’

‘That must be rather sad.’

‘No, not really. I didn’t care for them very much. Indeed, I didn’t even know them well. I had a bad illness—a very bad illness—and I was alone in the world, so they thought it was better for me to live in a place like this. I think I’m very lucky to have come here. They are so kind and thoughtful. And the gardens are really beautiful. I know myself that I shouldn’t like to be living on my own because I do get very confused sometimes, you know. Very confused.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘I get confused here. I mix things up. I don’t always remember properly the things that have happened.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tuppence. ‘I suppose one always has to have something, doesn’t one?’

‘Some illnesses are very painful. We have two poor women living here with very bad rheumatoid arthritis. They suffer terribly. So I think perhaps it doesn’t matter so much if one gets, well, just a little confused about what happened and where, and who it was, and all that sort of thing, you know. At any rate it’s not painful physically.’

‘No. I think perhaps you’re quite right,’ said Tuppence.

The door opened and a girl in a white overall came in with a little tray with a coffee pot on it and a plate with two biscuits, which she set down at Tuppence’s side.

‘Miss Packard thought you might care for a cup of coffee,’ she said.

‘Oh. Thank you,’ said Tuppence.

The girl went out again and Mrs Lancaster said,

‘There, you see. Very thoughtful, aren’t they?’

‘Yes indeed.’

Tuppence poured out her coffee and began to drink it. The two women sat in silence for some time. Tuppence offered the plate of biscuits but the old lady shook her head.

‘No thank you, dear. I just like my milk plain.’

She put down the empty glass and leaned back in her chair, her eyes half closed. Tuppence thought that perhaps this was the moment in the morning when she took a little nap, so she remained silent. Suddenly however, Mrs Lancaster seemed to jerk herself awake again. Her eyes opened, she looked at Tuppence and said,

‘I see you’re looking at the fireplace.’

‘Oh. Was I?’ said Tuppence, slightly startled.

‘Yes. I wondered—’ she leant forward and lowered her voice. ‘—Excuse me, was it your poor child?’

Tuppence slightly taken aback, hesitated.

‘I—no, I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘I wondered. I thought perhaps you’d come for that reason. Someone ought to come some time. Perhaps they will. And looking at the fireplace, the way you did. That’s where it is, you know. Behind the fireplace.’

‘Oh,’ said Tuppence. ‘Oh. Is it?’

‘Always the same time,’ said Mrs Lancaster, in a low voice. ‘Always the same time of day.’ She looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. Tuppence looked up also. ‘Ten past eleven,’ said the old lady. ‘Ten past eleven. Yes, it’s always the same time every morning.’

She sighed. ‘People didn’t understand—I told them what I knew—but they wouldn’t believe me!’

Tuppence was relieved that at that moment the door opened and Tommy came in. Tuppence rose to her feet.

‘Here I am. I’m ready.’ She went towards the door turning her head to say, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Lancaster.’

‘How did you get on?’ she asked Tommy, as they emerged into the hall.

‘After you left,’ said Tommy, ‘like a house on fire.’

‘I seem to have had a bad effect on her, don’t I?’ said Tuppence. ‘Rather cheering, in a way.’

‘Why cheering?’

‘Well, at my age,’ said Tuppence, ‘and what with my neat and respectable and slightly boring appearance, it’s nice to think that you might be taken for a depraved woman of fatal sexual charm.’

‘Idiot,’ said Tommy, pinching her arm affectionately. ‘Who were you hobnobbing with? She looked a very nice fluffy old lady.’

‘She was very nice,’ said Tuppence. ‘A dear old thing, I think. But unfortunately bats.’

‘Bats?’

‘Yes. Seemed to think there was a dead child behind the fireplace or something of the kind. She asked me if it was my poor child.’

‘Rather unnerving,’ said Tommy. ‘I suppose there must be some people who are slightly batty here, as well as normal elderly relatives with nothing but age to trouble them. Still, she looked nice.’

‘Oh, she was nice,’ said Tuppence. ‘Nice and very sweet, I think. I wonder what exactly her fancies are and why.’

Miss Packard appeared again suddenly.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Beresford. I hope they brought you some coffee?’

‘Oh yes, they did, thank you.’

‘Well, it’s been very kind of you to come, I’m sure,’ said Miss Packard. Turning to Tommy, she said, ‘And I know Miss Fanshawe has enjoyed your visit very much. I’m sorry she was rude to your wife.’

‘I think that gave her a lot of pleasure too,’ said Tuppence.

‘Yes, you’re quite right. She does like being rude to people. She’s unfortunately rather good at it.’

‘And so she practises the art as often as she can,’ said Tommy.

‘You’re very understanding, both of you,’ said Miss Packard.

‘The old lady I was talking to,’ said Tuppence. ‘Mrs Lancaster, I think she said her name was?’

‘Oh yes, Mrs Lancaster. We’re all very fond of her.’

‘She’s—is she a little peculiar?’

‘Well, she has fancies,’ said Miss Packard indulgently. ‘We have several people here who have fancies. Quite harmless ones. But—well, there they are. Things that they believe have happened to them. Or to other people. We try not to take any notice, not to encourage them. Just play it down. I think really it’s just an exercise in imagination, a sort of phantasy they like to live in. Something exciting or something sad and tragic. It doesn’t matter which. But no persecution mania, thank goodness. That would never do.’

‘Well, that’s over,’ said Tommy with a sigh, as he got into the car. ‘We shan’t need to come again for at least six months.’

But they didn’t need to go and see her in six months, for three weeks later Aunt Ada died in her sleep.

CHAPTER 3

A Funeral

‘Funerals are rather sad, aren’t they?’ said Tuppence.

They had just returned from attending Aunt Ada’s funeral, which had entailed a long and troublesome railway journey since the burial had taken place at the country village in Lincolnshire where most of Aunt Ada’s family and forebears had been buried.

‘What do you expect a funeral to be?’ said Tommy reasonably. ‘A scene of mad gaiety?’

‘Well, it could be in some places,’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean the Irish enjoy a wake, don’t they? They have a lot of keening and wailing first and then plenty of drink and a sort of mad whoopee. Drink?’ she added, with a look towards the sideboard.

Tommy went over to it and duly brought back what he considered appropriate. In this case a White Lady.

‘Ah, that’s more like it,’ said Tuppence.

She took off her black hat and threw it across the room and slipped off her long black coat.

‘I hate mourning,’ she said. ‘It always smells of moth balls because it’s been laid up somewhere.’

‘You don’t need to go on wearing mourning. It’s only to go to the funeral in,’ said Tommy.

‘Oh no, I know that. In a minute or two I’m going to go up and put on a scarlet jersey just to cheer things up. You can make me another White Lady.’

‘Really, Tuppence, I had no idea that funerals would bring out this party feeling.’

‘I said funerals were sad,’ said Tuppence when she reappeared a moment or two later, wearing a brilliant cherry-red dress with a ruby and diamond lizard pinned to the shoulder of it, ‘because it’s funerals like Aunt Ada’s that are sad. I mean elderly people and not many flowers. Not a lot of people sobbing and sniffing round. Someone old and lonely who won’t be missed much.’

‘I should have thought it would be much easier for you to stand that than it would if it were my funeral, for instance.’

‘That’s where you’re entirely wrong,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t particularly want to think of your funeral because I’d much prefer to die before you do. But I mean, if I were going to your funeral, at any rate it would be an orgy of grief. I should take a lot of handkerchiefs.’

‘With black borders?’

‘Well, I hadn’t thought of black borders but it’s a nice idea. And besides, the Burial service is rather lovely. Makes you feel uplifted. Real grief is real. It makes you feel awful but it does something to you. I mean, it works it out like perspiration.’

‘Really, Tuppence, I find your remarks about my decease and the effect it will have upon you in exceedingly bad taste. I don’t like it. Let’s forget about funerals.’

‘I agree. Let’s forget.’

‘The poor old bean’s gone,’ said Tommy, ‘and she went peacefully and without suffering. So, let’s leave it at that. I’d better clear up all these, I suppose.’

He went over to the writing table and ruffled through some papers.

‘Now where did I put Mr Rockbury’s letter?’

‘Who’s Mr Rockbury? Oh, you mean the lawyer who wrote to you.’

‘Yes. About winding up her affairs. I seem to be the only one of the family left by now.’

‘Pity she hadn’t got a fortune to leave you,’ said Tuppence.

‘If she had had a fortune she’d have left it to that Cats’ Home,’ said Tommy. ‘The legacy that she’s left to them in her will will pretty well eat up all the spare cash. There won’t be much left to come to me. Not that I need it or want it anyway.’

‘Was she so fond of cats?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so. I never heard her mention them. I believe,’ said Tommy thoughtfully, ‘she used to get rather a lot of fun out of saying to old friends of hers when they came to see her “I’ve left you a little something in my will, dear” or “This brooch that you’re so fond of I’ve left you in my will.” She didn’t actually leave anything to anyone except the Cats’ Home.’

‘I bet she got rather a kick out of that,’ said Tuppence. ‘I can just see her saying all the things you told me to a lot of her old friends—or so-called old friends because I don’t suppose they were people she really liked at all. She just enjoyed leading them up the garden path. I must say she was an old devil, wasn’t she, Tommy? Only, in a funny sort of way one likes her for being an old devil. It’s something to be able to get some fun out of life when you’re old and stuck away in a Home. Shall we have to go to Sunny Ridge?’

‘Where’s the other letter, the one from Miss Packard? Oh yes, here it is. I put it with Rockbury’s. Yes, she says there are certain things there, I gather, which apparently are now my property. She took some furniture with her, you know, when she went to live there. And of course there are her personal effects. Clothes and things like that. I suppose somebody will have to go through them. And letters and things. I’m her executor, so I suppose it’s up to me. I don’t suppose there’s anything we want really, is there? Except there’s a small desk there that I always liked. Belonged to old Uncle William, I believe.’

‘Well, you might take that as a memento,’ said Tuppence. ‘Otherwise, I suppose, we just send the things to be auctioned.’

‘So you don’t really need to go there at all,’ said Tommy.

‘Oh, I think I’d like to go there,’ said Tuppence.

‘You’d like to? Why? Won’t it be rather a bore to you?’

‘What, looking through her things? No, I don’t think so. I think I’ve got a certain amount of curiosity. Old letters and antique jewellery are always interesting and I think one ought to look at them oneself, not just send them to auction or let strangers go through them. No, we’ll go and look through the things and see if there’s anything we would like to keep and otherwise settle up.’

‘Why do you really want to go? You’ve got some other reason, haven’t you?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Tuppence, ‘it is awful being married to someone who knows too much about one.’

‘So you have got another reason?’

‘Not a real one.’

‘Come on, Tuppence. You’re not really so fond of turning over people’s belongings.’

‘That, I think, is my duty,’ said Tuppence firmly. ‘No, the only other reason is—’

‘Come on. Cough it up.’

‘I’d rather like to see that—that other old pussy again.’

‘What, the one who thought there was a dead child behind the fireplace?’

‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’d like to talk to her again. I’d like to know what was in her mind when she said all those things. Was it something she remembered or was it something that she’d just imagined? The more I think about it the more extraordinary it seems. Is it a sort of story that she wrote to herself in her mind or is there—was there once something real that happened about a fireplace or about a dead child. What made her think that the dead child might have been my dead child? Do I look as though I had a dead child?’

‘I don’t know how you expect anyone to look who has a dead child,’ said Tommy. ‘I shouldn’t have thought so. Anyway, Tuppence, it is our duty to go and you can enjoy yourself in your macabre way on the side. So that’s settled. We’ll write to Miss Packard and fix a day.’