By the Pricking of My Thumbs Read online

  '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.

  Rounding the big yew tree she came upon an elderly clergyman who was stooping over a row of old tombstones near a wall behind the church. He straightened up and mined round as Tuppence approached.

  'Good afternoon,' he said pleasanfiy.

  'Good afternoon,' said Tuppence, and added, 'I've been looking at the church.' 'Ruined by Victorian renovation,' said the clergyman.

  He had a pleasant voice and a nice smile. He looked about seventy, but Tuppence presumed he was not quite as far advanced in age as that, though he was certainly rheumatic and rather unsteady on his legs.

  'Too much money about in Victorian times,' he said sadly.

  'Too many ironmasters. They were pious, but had, unfortunately, no sense of the artistic. No taste. Did you see the east window?' he shuddered.

  'Yes,' said Tuppence. 'Dreadful,' she said.

  'I couldn't agree with you more. I'm the vicar,' he added, rather unnecessarily.

  'I thought you must be,' said Tuppence politely. 'Have you been here long?' she added.

  'Ten years, my dear,' he said. 'It's a nice parish. Nice people, what there are of them. I've been very happy here. They don't like
my sermons very much,' he added sadly. 'I do the best I can, but of course I can't pretend to be really modern. Sit down,' he added hospitably, waving to a nearby tombstone.

  Tuppence sat down gratefully and the vicar took a seat on another one nearby.

  'I can't stand very long,' he said, apologetically. He added, 'Can I do anything for you or are you just passing by?' 'Well, I'm really just passing by,' said Tuppence. 'I thought I'd just look at the church. I'd rather lost myself in a car wandering around the lanes.' 'Yes, yes. Very difficult to f'md one's way about round here.

  A lot of signposts are broken, you know, and the council don't repair them as they should.' He added, 'I don't know that it matters very much. People who drive down these lanes aren't usually trying to get anywhere in particular. People who are keep to the main roads. Dreadful,' he added again. 'Especially the new Motorway. At least, I think so. The noise and the speed and the reckless driving. Oh well! pay no attention to me. I'm a crusty old fellow. You'd never guess what I'm doing here,' he went on.

  'I saw you were examining some of the gravestones,' said Tuppence. 'Has there been any vandalism? Have teenagers been breaking bits off them?' 'No. One's mind does turn that way nowadays what with so many telephone boxes wrecked and all those other things that these young vandals do. Poor children, they don't know any better, I suppose. Can't think of anything more amusing to do than to smash things. Sad, isn't it? Very sad. No,' he said, 'there's been no damage of that kind here. The boys round here are a nice lot on the whole. No, I'm just looking for a child's grave.' Tuppence stirred on her tombstone. 'A child's grave?' she said.

  'Yes. Somebody wrote to me. A Major Waters, he asked if by any possibility a child had been buried here. I looked it up in the parish register, of course, but there was no record of any such name. All the same, I came out here and looked round the stones. I thought, you know, that perhaps whoever wrote might have got hold of some wrong name, or that there had been a mistake.' 'What was the Christian name?' asked Tuppence.

  'He didn't know. Perhaps Julia after the mother.' 'How old was the child?' 'Again he wasn't sure - Rather vague, the whole thing. I think myself that the man must have got hold of the wrong village altogether. I never remember a Waters living here or having heard of one.' 'What about the Warrenders?' asked Tuppence, her mind going back to the names in the church. 'The church seems full of tablets to them and their names are on lots of gravestones out here.' 'Ah, that family's died out by now. They had a fine property, an old fourteenth-century Priory. It was burnt down - oh, nearly a hundred years ago now, so I suppose any Warrenders there were left, were away and didn't come back. A new house was built on the site, by a rich Victorian called Starke. A very ugly house but comfortable, they say. Very comfortable.

  Bathrooms, you know, and all that. I suppose that sort of thing is important.' 'It seems a very odd thing,' said Tuppence, 'that someone should write and ask you about a child's grave. Somebody - a relation?' 'The father of the child,' said the vicar. 'One of these war tragedies, I imagine. A marriage that broke up when the husband was on service abroad. The young wife ran away with another man while the husband was serving abroad. There was a child, a child he'd never seen. She'd be grown up by now, I suppose, if she were alive. It must be twenty years ago or more.' 'Isn't it a long time after to be looking for her?' 'Apparently he only heard there was a child quite recently.

  The information came to him by pure chance. Curious story, the whole thing.' 'What made him think that the child had been buried here?' 'I gather somebody who had come across his wife in wartime had told him that his wife had said she was living at Sutton Chancellor. It happens, you know. You meet someone, a friend or acquaintance you haven't seen for years, and they sometimes can give you news from the past that you wouldn't get in any other way. But she's certainly not living here now. Nobody of that name has lived here - not since I've been here. Or in the neighbourhood as far as I know. Of course, the mother might have been going by another name. However, I gather the father is employing solicitors and inquiry agents and all that sort of thing, and they will probably be able to get results in the end.

  It will take time ' 'Was it your poor child?' murmured Tuppence.

  'I beg your pardon, my dear?' 'Nothing,' said Tuppence. 'Something somebody said to me the other day. "Was it your poor child?" It's rather a startling thing to hear suddenly. But I don't really think the old lady who said it knew what she was talking about.' 'I know. I know. I'm often the same. I say things and I don't really know what I mean by them. Most vexing.' 'I expect you know everything about the people who live here now?' said Tuppence.

  'Well, there certainly aren't very many to know. Yes. Why?

  Is there someone you wanted to know about?' 'I wondered if there had ever been a Mrs Lancaster living here.' 'Lancaster? No, I don't think I recollect that name.' 'And there's a house - I was driving today rather aimlessly not minding particularly where I went, just following lanes ' 'I know. Very nice, the lanes round here. And you can fred quite rare specimens. Botanical, I mean. In the hedges here.

  Nobody ever picks flowers in these hedges. We never get any tourists round here or that sort of thing. Yes, I've found some very rare specimens sometimes. Dusty Cranesbe!i, for instance ' 'There was a house by a canal,' said Tuppence, refusing to be side-tracked into botany. 'Near a little hump-backed bridge. It was about two miles from here. I wondered what its name was.' 'Let me sec. Canal - hump-backed bridge. Well... there are sevcrai houses like that. There's Merricot Farm.' 'It wasn't a farm.' : 'Ah, now, I expect it was the Perrys' house - Amos and Alice Perry.' 'That's right,' said Tuppence. 'A Mr and Mrs Perry.' 'She's a striking looking woman, isn't she? Interesting, I always think. Very interesting. Medieval face, didn't you think so? She's going to play the witch in our play we're gettj'ng up.

  The school children, you know. She looks rather like a witch, doesn't she?' 'Yes,' said Tuppence. 'A friendly witch.' 'As you say, my dear, absolutely rightly. Yes, a friendly witch.' 'But he ' 'Yes, poor fellow,' said the vicar. 'Not completely compos menth - but no harm in him.' ' 'They were very nice. They asked me in for a cup of tea,' said

  Tuppence. 'But what I wanted to know was the name of the house. I forgot to ask them. They're only living in half of it, aren't they?'

  'Yes, yes. In what used to be the old kitchen quarters. They call it "Waterside", I think, though I believe the ancient name for it was "Watermead". A pleasanter name, I think.' 'Who does the other part of the house belong to?'

  'Well, the whole house used to belong originally to the Bradleys. That was a good many years ago. Yes, thirty or forty at least, I should think. And then it was sold, and then sold again and then it remained empty for a long time. When I came here it was just being used as a kind of weekend place. By some actress - Miss Margrave, I believe. She was not here very much. Just used to come down from time to time. I never knew her. She never came to church. I saw her in the distance sometimes. A beautiful creature. A very beautiful creature.'

  'Who does it actually belong to now?' Tuppence persisted.

  'I've no idea. Possibly it still belongs to her. The part the Perrys live in is only rented to them.'

  'I recognized it, you know,' said Tuppence, 'as soon as I saw it, because I've got a picture of it.'

  'Oh really? That must have been one of Boscombe's, or was his name Boscobel - I can't remember now. Some name like that. He was a Comishman, fairly well-known artist, I believe.

  I rather imagine he's dead now. Yes, he used to come down here fairly often. He used to sketch all round this part of the world. He did some oils here, too. Very attractive landscapes, some of them.'

  'This particular picture,' said Tuppence, 'was given to an old aunt of mine who died about a month ago. It was given to her by a Mrs Lancaster. That's why I asked if you knew the name.' But the vicar shook his head once more.

  'Lancaster? Lancaster. No, I don't seem to remember the name. Ah! but here's the person you must ask. Our dear Miss Bligh. Very active, Miss
Bligh is. She knows all about the parish. She runs everything. The Women's Institute, the Boy Scouts and the Guides ~ everything. You ask her. She's very active, very active indeed.' The vicar sighed. The activity of Miss Bligh seemed to worry him. 'Nellie Bligh, they call her in the village. The boys sing it after her sometimes. Nellie Bligh, Nellie Bligh. It's not her proper name. That's something more like Gertrude or Geraldine.' Miss Bligh, who was the tweed-clad woman Tuppence had seen in the church, was approaching them at a rapid trot, still holding a small watering can. She eyed Tuppence with deep curiosity as she approached, increasing her pace and starting a conversation before she reached them.

  'Finished my job,' she exclaimed merrily. 'Had a bit of a rush today. Oh yes, had a bit of a rush. Of course, as you know, Vicar, I usually do the church in the morning. But today we had the emergency meeting in the parish rooms and really you wouldn't believe the time it took! So much argument, you know. I really think sometimes people object to things just for the fun of doing so. Mrs IXartington was particularly irritating.