By the Pricking of My Thumbs

CHAPTER 5

Disappearance of an Old Lady

Aunt Ada’s things arrived in due course. The desk was installed and admired. The little work-table 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, W1.

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:

‘C-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-c-y.’

‘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.

‘Yes! She’s your Aunt Ada.’

‘Where does Aunt Ada come in? Mrs Lancaster is no aunt of mine.’

‘But it’s lawyers,’ Tuppence insisted. ‘It’s a man’s job always to deal with lawyers. They just think women are silly and don’t pay attention—’

‘A very sensible point of view,’ said Tommy.

‘Oh! Tommy—do help. You go and telephone and I’ll find the dictionary and look how to spell contingency.’

Tommy gave her a look, but departed.

He returned at last and spoke firmly—‘This matter is now closed, Tuppence.’

‘You got Mr Eccles?’

‘Strictly speaking I got a Mr Wills who is doubtless the dogsbody of the firm of Partingford, Lockjaw and Harrison. But he was fully informed and glib. All letters and communications go via the Southern Counties Bank, Hammersmith branch, who will forward all communications. And there, Tuppence, let me tell you, the trail stops. Banks will forward things—but they won’t yield any addresses to you or anyone else who asks. They have their code of rules and they’ll stick to them—Their lips are sealed like our more pompous Prime Ministers.’

‘All right, I’ll send a letter care of the Bank.’

‘Do that—and for goodness’ sake, leave me alone—or I shall never get my speech done.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ She kissed the top of his head.

‘It’s the best butter,’ said Tommy.

It was not until the following Thursday evening that Tommy asked suddenly, ‘By the way, did you ever get any answer to the letter you sent care of the Bank to Mrs Johnson—’

‘It’s nice of you to ask,’ said Tuppence sarcastically. ‘No, I didn’t.’ She added meditatively, ‘I don’t think I shall, either.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re not really interested,’ said Tuppence coldly.

‘Look here, Tuppence—I know I’ve been rather preoccupied—It’s all this I.U.A.S.—It’s only once a year, thank goodness.’

‘It starts on Monday, doesn’t it? For five days—’

‘Four days.’

‘And you all go down to a Hush Hush, top secret house in the country somewhere, and make speeches and read Papers and vet young men for Super Secret assignments in Europe and beyond. I’ve forgotten what I.U.A.S. stands for. All these initials they have nowadays—’

‘International Union of Associated Security.’

‘What a mouthful! Quite ridiculous. And I expect the whole place is bugged, and everybody knows everybody else’s most secret conversations.’

‘Highly likely,’ said Tommy with a grin.

‘And I suppose you enjoy it?’

‘Well, I do in a way. One sees a lot of old friends.’

‘All quite ga-ga by now, I expect. Does any of it do any good?’

‘Heavens, what a question! Can one ever let oneself believe that you can answer that by a plain Yes or No—’

‘And are any of the people any good?’

‘I’d answer Yes to that. Some of them are very good indeed.’

‘Will old Josh be there?’

‘Yes, he’ll be there.’

‘What is he like nowadays?’

‘Extremely deaf, half blind, crippled with rheumatism—and you’d be surprised at the things that don’t get past him.’

‘I see,’ said Tuppence. She meditated. ‘I wish I were in it, too.’

Tommy looked apologetic.

‘I expect you’ll find something to do while I’m away.’

‘I might at that,’ said Tuppence meditatively.

Her husband looked at her with the vague apprehension that Tuppence could always arouse in him.

‘Tuppence—what are you up to?’

‘Nothing, yet—So far I’m only thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘Sunny Ridge. And a nice old lady sipping milk and talking in a scatty kind of way about dead children and fireplaces. It intrigued me. I thought then that I’d try and find out more from her next time we came to see Aunt Ada—But there wasn’t a next time because Aunt Ada died—And when we were next in Sunny Ridge—Mrs Lancaster had—disappeared!’

‘You mean her people had taken her away? That’s not a disappearance—it’s quite natural.’

‘It’s a disappearance—no traceable address—no answer to letters—it’s a planned disappearance. I’m more and more sure of it.’

‘But—’

Tuppence broke in upon his ‘But’.

‘Listen, Tommy—supposing that sometime or other a crime happened—It seemed all safe and covered up—But then suppose that someone in the family had seen something, or known something—someone elderly and garrulous—someone who chattered to people—someone whom you suddenly realized might be a danger to you—What would you do about it?’

‘Arsenic in the soup?’ suggested Tommy cheerfully. ‘Cosh them on the head—Push them down the staircase—?’

‘That’s rather extreme—Sudden deaths attract attention. You’d look about for some simpler way—and you’d find one. A nice respectable Home for Elderly Ladies. You’d pay a visit to it, calling yourself Mrs Johnson or Mrs Robinson—or you would get some unsuspecting third party to make arrangements—You’d fix the financial arrangements through a firm of reliable solicitors. You’ve already hinted, perhaps, that your elderly relative has fancies and mild delusions sometimes—so do a good many of the other old ladies—Nobody will think it odd—if she cackles on about poisoned milk, or dead children behind a fireplace, or a sinister kidnapping; nobody will really listen. They’ll just think it’s old Mrs So-and-So having her fancies again—nobody will take any notice at all.’

‘Except Mrs Thomas Beresford,’ said Tommy.

‘All right, yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’ve taken notice—’

‘But why did you?’

‘I don’t quite know,’ said Tuppence slowly. ‘It’s like the fairy stories. By the pricking of my thumbs—Something evil this way comes—I felt suddenly scared. I’d always thought of Sunny Ridge as such a normal happy place—and suddenly I began to wonder—That’s the only way I can put it. I wanted to find out more. And now poor old Mrs Lancaster has disappeared. Somebody’s spirited her away.’

‘But why should they?’

‘I can only think because she was getting worse—worse from their point of view—remembering more, perhaps, talking to people more, or perhaps she recognized someone—or someone recognized her—or told her something that gave her new ideas about something that had once happened. Anyway, for some reason or other she became dangerous to someone.’

‘Look here, Tuppence, this whole thing is all somethings and someones. It’s just an idea you’ve thought up. You don’t want to go mixing yourself up in things that are no business of yours—’

‘There’s nothing to be mixed up in according to you,’ said Tuppence. ‘So you needn’t worry at all.’

‘You leave Sunny Ridge alone.’

‘I don’t mean to go back to Sunny Ridge. I think they’ve told me all they know there. I think that that old lady was quite safe whilst she was there. I want to find out where she is now—I want to get to her wherever she is in time—before something happens to her.’

‘What on earth do you think might happen to her?’

‘I don’t like to think. But I’m on the trail—I’m going to be Prudence Beresford, Private Investigator. Do you remember when we were Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives?’

‘I was,’ said Tommy. ‘You were Miss Robinson, my private secretary.’

‘Not all the time. Anyway, that’s what I’m going to do while you’re playing at International Espionage at Hush Hush Manor. It’s the “Save Mrs Lancaster” that I’m going to be busy with.’

‘You’ll probably find her perfectly all right.’

‘I hope I shall. Nobody would be better pleased than I should.’

‘How do you propose to set about it?’

‘As I told you, I’ve got to think first. Perhaps an advertisement of some kind? No, that would be a mistake.’

‘Well, be careful,’ said Tommy, rather inadequately.

Tuppence did not deign to reply.

On Monday morning, Albert, the domestic mainstay of the Beresfords’ life for many long years, ever since he had been roped into anti-criminal activities by them as a carroty-haired lift-boy, deposited the tray of early morning tea on the table between the two beds, pulled back the curtains, announced that it was a fine day, and removed his now portly form from the room.

Tuppence yawned, sat up, rubbed her eyes, poured out a cup of tea, dropped a slice of lemon in it, and remarked that it seemed a nice day, but you never knew.

Tommy turned over and groaned.

‘Wake up,’ said Tuppence. ‘Remember you’re going places today.’

‘Oh Lord,’ said Tommy. ‘So I am.’

He, too, sat up and helped himself to tea. He looked with appreciation at the picture over the mantelpiece.

‘I must say, Tuppence, your picture looks very nice.’

‘It’s the way the sun comes in from the window sideways and lights it up.’

‘Peaceful,’ said Tommy.

‘If only I could remember where it was I’d seen it before.’

‘I can’t see that it matters. You’ll remember sometime or other.’

‘That’s no good. I want to remember now.’

‘But why?’

‘Don’t you see? It’s the only clue I’ve got. It was Mrs Lancaster’s picture—’

‘But the two things don’t tie up together anyway,’ said Tommy. ‘I mean, it’s true that the picture once belonged to Mrs Lancaster. But it may have been just a picture she bought at an exhibition or that somebody in her family did. It may have been a picture that somebody gave her as a present. She took it to Sunny Ridge with her because she thought it looked nice. There’s no reason it should have anything to do with her personally. If it had, she wouldn’t have given it to Aunt Ada.’

‘It’s the only clue I’ve got,’ said Tuppence.

‘It’s a nice peaceful house,’ said Tommy.

‘All the same, I think it’s an empty house.’

‘What do you mean, empty?’

‘I don’t think,’ said Tuppence, ‘there’s anybody living in it. I don’t think anybody’s ever going to come out of that house. Nobody’s going to walk across that bridge, nobody’s going to untie that boat and row away in it.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Tuppence.’ Tommy stared at her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘I thought so the first time I saw it,’ said Tuppence. ‘I thought “What a nice house that would be to live in.” And then I thought “But nobody does live here, I’m sure they don’t.” That shows you that I have seen it before. Wait a minute. Wait a minute… it’s coming. It’s coming.’

Tommy stared at her.

‘Out of a window,’ said Tuppence breathlessly. ‘Out of a car window? No, no, that would be the wrong angle. Running alongside the canal… and a little hump-backed bridge and the pink walls of the house, the two poplar trees, more than two. There were lots more poplar trees. Oh dear, oh dear, if I could—’

‘Oh, come off it, Tuppence.’

‘It will come back to me.’

‘Good Lord,’ Tommy looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to hurry. You and your déjà vu picture.’

He jumped out of bed and hastened to the bathroom. Tuppence lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, trying to force a recollection that just remained elusively out of reach.

Tommy was pouring out a second cup of coffee in the dining-room when Tuppence appeared flushed with triumph.

‘I’ve got it—I know where I saw that house. It was out of the window of a railway train.’

‘Where? When?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think. I remember saying to myself: “Someday I’ll go and look at that house”—and I tried to see what the name of the next station was. But you know what railways are nowadays. They’ve pulled down half the stations—and the next one we went through was all torn down, and grass growing over the platforms, and no name board or anything.’

‘Where the hell’s my brief-case? Albert!’

A frenzied search took place.

Tommy came back to say a breathless goodbye. Tuppence was sitting looking meditatively at a fried egg.

‘Goodbye,’ said Tommy. ‘And for God’s sake, Tuppence, don’t go poking into something that’s none of your business.’

‘I think,’ said Tuppence, meditatively, ‘that what I shall really do, is to take a few railway journeys.’

Tommy looked slightly relieved.

‘Yes,’ he said encouragingly, ‘you try that. Buy yourself a season ticket. There’s some scheme where you can travel a thousand miles all over the British Isles for a very reasonable fixed sum. That ought to suit you down to the ground, Tuppence. You travel by all the trains you can think of in all the likely parts. That ought to keep you happy until I come home again.’

‘Give my love to Josh.’

‘I will.’ He added, looking at his wife in a worried manner, ‘I wish you were coming with me. Don’t—don’t do anything stupid, will you?’

‘Of course not,’ said Tuppence.

CHAPTER 6

Tuppence on the Trail

‘Oh dear,’ sighed Tuppence, ‘oh dear.’ She looked round her with gloomy eyes. Never, she said to herself, had she felt more miserable. Naturally she had known she would miss Tommy, but she had no idea how much she was going to miss him.

During the long course of their married life they had hardly ever been separated for any length of time. Starting before their marriage, they had called themselves a pair of ‘young adventurers’. They had been through various difficulties and dangers together, they had married, they had had two children and just as the world was seeming rather dull and middle-aged to them, the second war had come about and in what seemed an almost miraculous way they had been tangled up yet again on the outskirts of the British Intelligence. A somewhat unorthodox pair, they had been recruited by a quiet nondescript man who called himself ‘Mr Carter’, but to whose word everybody seemed to bow. They had had adventures, and once again they had had them together. This, by the way, had not been planned by Mr Carter. Tommy alone had been recruited. But Tuppence displaying all her natural ingenuity, had managed to eavesdrop in such a fashion that when Tommy had arrived at a guest house on the sea coast in the role of a certain Mr Meadowes, the first person he had seen there had been a middle-aged lady plying knitting needles, who had looked up at him with innocent eyes and whom he had been forced to greet as Mrs Blenkinsop. Thereafter they had worked as a pair.

‘However,’ thought Tuppence to herself, ‘I can’t do it this time.’ No amount of eavesdropping, of ingenuity, or anything else would take her to the recesses of Hush Hush Manor or to participation in the intricacies of I.U.A.S. Just an Old Boys Club, she thought resentfully. Without Tommy the flat was empty, the world was lonely, and ‘What on earth,’ thought Tuppence, ‘am I to do with myself?’

The question was really purely rhetorical for Tuppence had already started on the first steps of what she planned to do with herself. There was no question this time of intelligence work, of counter-espionage or anything of that kind. Nothing of an official nature. ‘Prudence Beresford, Private Investigator, that’s what I am,’ said Tuppence to herself.

After a scrappy lunch had been hastily cleared away, the dining-room table was strewn with railway timetables, guide-books, maps, and a few old diaries which Tuppence had managed to disinter.

Some time in the last three years (not longer, she was sure) she had taken a railway journey, and looking out of the carriage window, had noticed a house. But, what railway journey?

Like most people at the present time, the Beresfords travelled mainly by car. The railway journeys they took were few and far between.

Scotland, of course, when they went to stay with their married daughter Deborah—but that was a night journey.

Penzance—summer holidays—but Tuppence knew that line by heart.

No, this had been a much more casual journey.

With diligence and perseverance, Tuppence had made a meticulous list of all the possible journeys she had taken which might correspond to what she was looking for. One or two race meetings, a visit to Northumberland, two possible places in Wales, a christening, two weddings, a sale they had attended, some puppies she had once delivered for a friend who bred them and who had gone down with influenza. The meeting place had been an arid-looking country junction whose name she couldn’t remember.

Tuppence sighed. It seemed as though Tommy’s solution was the one she might have to adopt—Buy a kind of circular ticket and actually travel over the most likely stretches of railway line.

In a small notebook she had jotted down any snatches of extra memories—vague flashes—in case they might help.

A hat, for instance—Yes, a hat that she had thrown up on the rack. She had been wearing a hat—so—a wedding or the christening—certainly not puppies.

And—another flash—kicking off her shoes—because her feet hurt. Yes—that was definite—she had been actually looking at the House—and she had kicked off her shoes because her feet hurt.

So, then, it had definitely been a social function she had either been going to, or returning from—Returning from, of course—because of the painfulness of her feet from long standing about in her best shoes. And what kind of a hat? Because that would help—a flowery hat—a summer wedding—or a velvet winter one?

Tuppence was busy jotting down details from the Railway timetables of different lines when Albert came in to ask what she wanted for supper—and what she wanted ordered in from the butcher and the grocer.

‘I think I’m going to be away for the next few days,’ said Tuppence. ‘So you needn’t order in anything. I’m going to take some railway journeys.’

‘Will you be wanting some sandwiches?’

‘I might. Get some ham or something.’

‘Egg and cheese do you? Or there’s a tin of pâté in the larder—it’s been there a long while, time it was eaten.’ It was a somewhat sinister recommendation, but Tuppence said,

‘All right. That’ll do.’

‘Want letters forwarded?’

‘I don’t even know where I’m going yet,’ said Tuppence.

‘I see,’ said Albert.

The comfortable thing about Albert was that he always accepted everything. Nothing ever had to be explained to him.

He went away and Tuppence settled down to her planning—what she wanted was: a social engagement involving a hat and party shoes. Unfortunately the ones she had listed involved different railway lines—One wedding on the Southern Railway, the other in East Anglia. The christening north of Bedford.

If she could remember a little more about the scenery… She had been sitting on the right-hand side of the train. What had she been looking at before the canal—Woods? Trees? Farmland? A distant village?

Straining her brain, she looked up with a frown—Albert had come back. How far she was at that moment from knowing that Albert standing there waiting for attention was neither more nor less than an answer to prayer—

‘Well, what is it now, Albert?’

‘If it’s that you’re going to be away all day tomorrow—’

‘And the day after as well, probably—’

‘Would it be all right for me to have the day off?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘It’s Elizabeth—come out in spots she has. Milly thinks it’s measles—’

‘Oh dear.’ Milly was Albert’s wife and Elizabeth was the youngest of his children. ‘So Milly wants you at home, of course.’

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