By the Pricking of My Thumbs Read online

  Tommy rang the front door bell and he and Tuppence were duly admitted by a rather harassed looking young woman in a nylon overall. She showed them into a small sitting-room saying rather breathlessly, 'I'll tell Miss Packard. She's expecting you and she'll be down in a minute. You won't mind waiting just a little, will you, but it's old Mrs Carraway. She's been and swallowed her thimble again, you see.'

  'How on earth did she do a thing like that?' asked Tuppence, surprised.

  'Does it for fun,' explained the household help briefly.

  'Always doing it.'

  She departed and Tuppence sat down and said thoughtfully, 'I don't think I should like to swallow a thimble. It'd be awfully bobbly as it went down. Don't you think so?'

  They had not very long to wait however before the door opened and Miss Packard came in, apologizing as she did so.

  She was a big, sandy-haired woman of about fifty with the air of calm competence about her which Tommy had always admired.

  'I'm sorry if I have kept you waiting, Mr Beresford,' she said. 'How do you do, Mrs Beresford, I'm so glad you've cor too.' 'Somebody swallowed something, I hear,' said Tommy.

  'Oh, so Marlene told you that? Yes, it was old M Carraway. She's always swallowing things. Very difficult, yo know, because one can't watch them all the rime. Of course on knows children do it, but it seems a funny thing to be a hobb of an elderly woman, doesn't it? It's grown upon her, yo know. She gets worse every year, It doesn't seem to do her an harm, that's the cheeriest thing about it.' 'Perhaps her father was a sword swallower,' suggeste Tuppence.

  'Now that's a very interesting idea, Mrs Beresford. Perhap it would explain things.' She went on,'I've told Miss Fanshaw, that you were coming, Mr Beresford. I don't know reall' whether she quite took it in. She doesn't always, you know.' 'How has she been lately?' 'Well, she's failing rather rapidly now, I'm afraid,' said Mis Packard in a comfortable voice. 'One never really knows ho much she takes in and how much she doesn't. I told her las night and she said she was sure I must be mistaken because i was term time. She seemed to think that you were still a school. Poor old things, they get very muddled up sometimes especially over time. However, this morning when I reminde her about your visit, she just said it was quite impossibl. because you were dead. Oh well,' Miss Packard went o cheerfully, 'I expect she'll recognize you when she sees you.' 'How is she in health? Much the same?' 'Well, perhaps as well as can be expected. Frankly, yot know, I don't think she'll be with us very much longer. Sh doesn't suffer in any way but her heart condition's no bettel than it was. In fact, it's rather worse. So I think I'd like you tt know that it's just as well to be prepared, so that if she did g suddenly it wouldn't be any shock to you.' 'We brought her some flowers,' said Tuppence.

  'And a box of chocolates,' said Tommy.

  'Oh, that's very kind of you I'm sure. She'll be very pleased Would you like to come up now?'

  Tommy and Tuppence rose and followed Miss Packard from the room. She led them up the broad staircase. As they passed one of the rooms in the passage upstairs, it opened suddenly and a little woman about five foot high trotted out, calling in a loud shrill voice, 'I want my cocoa. I want my cocoa.

  Where's Nurse Jane? I want my cocoa.'

  A woman in a nurse's uniform popped out of the next door and said, 'There, there, dear, it's all right. You've had your cocoa. You had it twenty minutes ago.'

  'No I didn't, Nurse. It's not true. I haven't had my cocoa.

  I'm thirsty.'

  'Well, you shall have another cup if you like.'

  'I can't have another when I haven't had one.'

  They passed on and Miss Packard, after giving a brief rap on a door at the end of the passage, opened it and passed in.

  'Here you are, Miss Fanshawe,' she said brightly. 'Here's your nephew come to see you. Isn't that nice?'

  In a bed near the window an elderly lady sat up abruptly on her raised pillows. She had iron grey hair, a thin wrinkled face with a large, high-bridged nose and a general air of disappro-bation.

  Tommy advanced.

  'Hullo, Aunt Ada,' he said. 'How are you?'

  Aunt Ada paid no attention to him, but addressed Miss Packard angrily.

  'I don't know what you mean by showing gentlemen into a lady's bedroom,' she said. 'Wouldn't have been thought proper at all in my young days! Telling me he's my nephew indeed!

  Who is he? A plumber or the electrician?'

  'Now, now, that's not very nice,' said Miss Packard mildly.

  'I'm your nephew, Thomas Beresford,' said Tommy. He advanced the box of chocolates. 'I've brought you a box of chocolates.'

  'You can't get round me that way,' said Aunt Ada. 'I know your kind. Say anything, you will. Who's this woman?' She eyed Mrs Beresford with an air of distaste.

  'I'm Prudence,' said Mrs Beresford. 'Your niece, Prudence.'

  'What a ridiculous name,' said Aunt Ada. 'Sounds like a parlourmaid. My Great-uncle Mathew had a parlourmaid called Comfort and the housemaid was called Rejoice-inthe-Lord.

  Methodist she was. But my Great-aunt Fanny soon put a stop to that. Told her she was going to be called Rebecca as long as she was in her house.' 'I brought you a few roses,' said Tuppence.

  'I don't care for flowers in a sick-room. Use up all the oxygen.' 'I'll put them in a vase for you,' said Miss Packard.

  'You won't do anything of the kind. You ought to have learnt by now that I know my own mind.' 'You seem in fine form, Aunt Ada,' said Mr Beresford.

  'Fighting fit, I should say.' 'I can take your measure all right. What d'you mean by saying that you're my nephew? What did you say your name was? Thomas?' '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 followed 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 immech'ately.

  '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 iaid 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 wonder ful 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 a11. 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.T. ommy.

  '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 lookout.

  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?' 'I rather different. A 'No,' said Tommy. think that was 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 hail.

  '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, ey 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 indul-gently.

  '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 staffhere. 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 p/me 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 fred 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 :e 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 acd, smd 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 f'md it funny but one does.'

  'Have you been living here long?'

  'A good while now. Yes, let me see, seven years - eig
ht 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.