By the Pricking of My Thumbs tat-4 Read online

  He was content so far as Tuppence could see, to let his wife talk. He himself more or less abstracted his attention, part of the time busy with his plans for the next day which appeared to be market day.

  As far as Tuppence was concerned nothing could have turned out better. It could have been distinguished by a slogan-'You want information, we have it'. Mrs. Copleigh was as good as a wireless set or a television. You had only to turn the button and words poured out accompanied by gestures and lots of facial expression. Not only was her figure like a child's rubber ball, her face might also have been made of India rubber.

  The various people she was talking about almost came alive in caricature before Tuppence's eyes.

  Tuppence ate bacon and eggs and had slices of thick bread and butter and praised the blackberry jelly, homemade, her favourite kind, she truthfully announced, and did her best to absorb the flood of information so that she could write notes down in her notebook later. A whole panorama of the past in this country district seemed to be spread out before her.

  There was no chronological sequence which occasionally made things difficult. Mrs. Copleigh jumped from fifteen years ago to two years ago to last month, and then back to somewhere in the twenties. All this would want a lot of sorting out. And Tuppence wondered whether in the end she would get anything.

  The first button she had pressed had not given her any result. That was a mention of Mrs. Lancaster.

  'I think she came from hereabouts,' said Tuppence, allowing a good deal of vagueness to appear in her voice. 'She had a picture-a very nice picture done by an artist who I believe was known down here.'

  'Who did you say now?'

  'A Mrs. Lancaster.'

  'No, I don't remember any Lancasters in these parts. Lancaster. Lancaster. A gentleman had a car accident, I remember. No, it's the car I'm thinking of. A Lancaster that was. No Mrs. Lancaster. It wouldn't be Miss Bolton, would it? She'd be about seventy now I think. She might have married a Mr. Lancaster. She went away and travelled abroad and I do hear she married someone.'

  'The picture she gave my aunt was by a Mr. Boscobel-I think the name was,' said Tuppence. 'What a lovely jelly.'

  'I don't put no apple in it either, like most people do. Makes it jell better, they say, but it takes all the flavour out.'

  'Yes,' said Tuppence. 'I quite agree with you. It does.'

  'Who did you say now? It began with a B but I didn't quite catch it.'

  'Boscobel, I think.'

  'Oh, I remember Mr. Boscowan well. Let's see now. That must have been-fifteen years ago it was at least that he came down here. He came several years running, he did. He liked the place. Actually rented a cottage. One of Farmer Hart's cottages it was, that he kept for his labourer. But they built a new one, they did, the Council. Four new cottages specially for labourers.'

  'Regular artist, Mr. B was,' said Mrs. Copleigh. 'Funny kind of coat he used to wear. Sort of velvet or corduroy. It used to have holes in the elbows and he wore green and yellow shirts, he did. Oh, very colourful, he was. I liked his pictures, I did. He had a showing of them one year. Round about Christmas time it was, I think. No, of course not, it must have been in the summer. He wasn't here in the winter. Yes, very nice. Nothing exciting, if you know what I mean. Just a house with a couple of trees or two cows looking over a fence. But all nice and quiet and pretty colours. Not like some of these young chaps nowadays.'

  'Do you have a lot of artists down here?'

  'Not really. Oh no, not to speak of. One or two ladies comes down in the summer and does sketching sometimes, but I don't think much of them. We had a young fellow a year ago, called himself an artist. Didn't shave properly. I can't say I liked any of his pictures much. Funny colours all swirled round anyhow. Nothing you could recognize a bit. Sold a lot of his pictures, he did at that. And they weren't cheap, mind you.'

  'Ought to have been five pounds,' said Mr. Copleigh entering the conversation for the first time so suddenly that Tuppence jumped.

  'What my husband thinks is,' said Mrs. Copleigh, resuming her place as interpreter to him. 'He thinks no picture ought to cost more than five pounds. Paints wouldn't cost as much as that. That's what he says, don't you, George?'

  'Ah,' said George.

  'Mr. Boscowan painted a picture of that house by the bridge and the canal-Waterside or Watermead, isn't it called? I came that way today.'

  'Oh, you came along that road, did you? It's not much of a road, is it? Very narrow. Lonely that house is, I always think. I wouldn't like to live in that house. Too lonely. Don't you agree, George?'

  George made the noise that expressed faint disagreement and possibly contempt at the cowardice of women.

  'That's where Alice Perry lives, that is,' said Mrs. Copleigh.

  Tuppence abandoned her researches on Mr. Boscowan to go along with an opinion on the Perrys. It was, she perceived, always better to go along with Mrs. Copleigh who was a jumper from subject to subject.

  'Queer couple they are,' said Mrs. Copleigh.

  George made his agreeing sound.

  'Keep themselves to themselves, they do. Don't mingle much, as you'd say. And she goes about looking like nothing on earth, Alice Perry does.'

  'Mad,' said Mr. Copleigh.

  'Well, I don't know as I'd say that. She looks mad all right. All that scatty hair flying about. And she wears men's coats and great rubber boots most of the time. And she says odd things and doesn't sometimes answer you right when you ask her a question. But I wouldn't say she was mad. Peculiar, that's all.'

  'Do people like her?'

  'Nobody knows her hardly, although they've been there several years. There's all sorts of tales about her but then, there's always tales.'

  'What sort of tales?'

  Direct questions were never resented by Mrs. Copleigh, who welcomed them as one who was only too eager to answer.

  'Calls up spirits, they say, at night. Sitting round a table. And there's stories of lights moving about the house at night. And she reads a lot of clever books, they say. With things drawn in them-circles and stars. If you ask me, it's Amos Perry as is the one that's not quite all right.'

  'He's just simple,' said Mr. Copleigh indulgently.

  'Well, you may be right about that. But there were tales said of him once. Fond of his garden, but doesn't know much.'

  'It's only half a house though, isn't it?' said Tuppence. 'Mrs. Perry asked me in very kindly.'

  'Did she now? Did she really? I don't know as I'd have liked to go into that house,' said Mrs. Copleigh.

  'Their part of it's all right,' said Mr. Copleigh.

  'Isn't the other part all right?' said Tuppence. 'The front part that gives on the canal.'

  'Well, there used to be a lot of stories about it. Of course, nobody's lived in it for years. They say there's something queer about it. Lot of stories told. But when you come down to it, it's not stories in anybody's memory here. It's all long ago. It was built over a hundred years ago, you know. They say as there was a pretty lady kept there first, built for her, it was, by one of the gentlemen at Court.'

  'Queen Victoria's Court?' asked Tuppence with interest.

  'I don't think it would be her. She was particular, the old Queen was. No, I'd say it was before that. Time of one of them Georges. This gentlemen, he used to come down and see her and the story goes that they had a quarrel and he cut her throat one night.'

  'How terrible!' said Tuppence. 'Did they hang him for it?'

  'No. Oh no, there was nothing of that sort. The story is, you see, that he had to get rid of the body and he walled her up in the fireplace.'

  'Walled her up in the fireplace!'

  'Some ways they tell it, they say she was a nun, and she had run away from a convent and that's why she had to be walled up. That's what they do at convents.'

  'But it wasn't nuns who walled her up.'

  'No, no. He did it. Her lover, what had done her in. And he bricked up all the fireplace, they say, and nailed a big sheet of iron
over it. Anyway, she was never seen again, poor soul, walking about in her nice dresses. Some said, of course, she'd gone away with him. Gone away to live in town or back to some other place. People used to hear noises and see lights in the house, and a lot of people don't go near it after dark.'

  'But what happened later?' said Tuppence, feeling that to go back beyond the reign of Queen Victoria seemed a little too far into the past for what she was looking for.

  'Well, I don't rightly know as there was very much. A farmer called Blodgick took it over when it came up for sale, I believe. He weren't there long either. What they called a gentleman farmer. That's why he liked the house, I suppose, but the farming land wasn't much use to him, and he didn't know how to deal with it. So he sold it again. Changed hands ever so many times it has. Always builders coming along and making alterations-new bathrooms-that sort of thing. A couple had it who were doing chicken farming. I believe, at one time. But it got a name, you know, for being unlucky. But all that's a bit before my time. I believe Mr. Boscowan himself thought of buying it at one time. That was when he painted the picture of it.'

  'What sort of age was Mr. Boscowan when he was down here?'

  'Forty, I would say, or maybe a bit more than that. He was a good-looking man in his way. Run into fat a bit, though. Great one for the girls, he was.'

  'Ah,' said Mr. Copleigh. It was a warning grunt this time.

  'Ah well, we all know what artists are like,' said Mrs. Copleigh, including Tuppence in this knowledge. 'Go over to France a lot, you know, and get French ways, they do.'

  'He wasn't married?'

  'Not then he wasn't. Not when he was first down here. Bit keen he was on Mrs. Charrington's daughter, but nothing came of it. She was a lovely girl, though, but too young for him. She wasn't more than twenty-five.'

  'Who was Mrs. Charrington?' Tuppence felt bewildered at this introduction of new characters.

  'What the hell am I doing here, anyway?' she thought suddenly as waves of fatigue swept over her-'I'm just listening to a lot of gossip about people, and imagining things like murder which aren't true at all. I can see now: It started when a nice but addle-headed old pussy got a bit mixed up in her head and began reminiscing about stories this Mr. Boscowan, or someone like him who may have given the picture to her, told about the house and the legends about it, of someone being walled up alive in a fireplace and she thought it was a child for some reason. And here I am going round investigating mares' nests. Tommy told me I was a fool, and he was quite right-I am a fool.'

  She waited for a break to occur in Mrs. Copleigh's even flow of conversation, so that she could rise, say good night politely and go upstairs to bed.

  Mrs. Copleigh was still in full and happy spate.

  'Mrs. Charrington? Oh, she lived in Watermead for a bit,' said Mrs. Copleigh. 'Mrs. Charrington, and her daughter. She was a nice lady, she was, Mrs. Charrington. Widow of an army officer, I believe. Badly off, but the house was being rented cheap. Did a lot of gardening. She was very fond of gardening. Not much good at keeping the house clean, she wasn't. I went and obliged for her, once or twice, but I couldn't keep it up. I had to go on my bicycle, you see, and it's over two miles. Weren't any buses along that road.'

  'Did she live there long?'

  'Not more than two or three years, I think. Got scared, I expect, after the troubles came. And then she had her own troubles about her daughter, too. Lilian I think her name was.'

  Tuppence took a draught of the strong tea with which the meal was fortified, and resolved to get finished with Mrs. Charrington before seeking repose.

  'What was the trouble about the daughter? Mr. Boscowan?'

  'No, it wasn't Mr. Boscowan as got her into trouble. I'll never believe that. It was the other one.'

  'Who was the other one?' asked Tuppence. 'Someone else who lived down here?'

  'I don't think he lived down in these parts. Someone she'd met up in London. She went up there to study ballet dancing, would it be? Or art? Mr. Boscowan arranged for her to join some school there. Slate I think its name was.'

  'Slade?' suggested Tuppence.

  'May have been. That sort of name. Anyway, she used to go up there and that's how she got to know this fellow, whoever he was. Her mother didn't like it. She forbade her to meet him. Fat lot of good that was likely to do. She was a silly woman in some ways. Like a lot of those army officers' wives were, you know. She thought girls would do as they were told. Behind the times, she was. Been out in India and those parts, but when it's a question of a good-looking young fellow and you take your eye off a gift, you won't find she's doing what you told her. Not her. He used to come down here now and then and they used to meet outside.'

  'And then she got into trouble, did she?' Tuppence said, using the well-known euphemism, hoping that under that form it would not offend Mr. Copleigh's sense of propriety.

  'Must have been him, I suppose. Anyway, there it was plain as plain. I saw how it was long before her own mother did. Beautiful creature, she was. Big and tall and handsome. But I don't think, you know, that she was one that could stand up to things. She'd break up, you know. She used to walk about rather wild-like, muttering to herself. If you ask me he treated her bad, that fellow did. Went away and left her when he found out what was happening. Of course, a mother as was a mother would have gone and talked to him and made him see where his duty lay, but Mrs. Charrington, she wouldn't have had the spirit to do that. Anyway, her mother got wise, and she took the girl away. Shut up the house, she did and afterwards it was put up for sale. They came back to pack up, I believe, but they never came to the village or said anything to anyone. They never come back here, neither of them. There was some story got around. I never knew if there was any truth in it.'

  'Some folk'll make up anything,' said Mr. Copleigh unexpectedly.

  'Well, you're right there, George. Still they may have been true. Such things happen. And as you say, that girl didn't look quite right in the head to me.'

  'What was the story?' demanded Tuppence.

  'Well, really, I don't like to say. It's a long time since and I wouldn't like to say anything as I wasn't sure of it. It was Mrs. Badcock's Louise who put it about. Awful liar that girl was. The things she'd say. Anything to make up a good story.'

  'But what was it?' said Tuppence.

  'Said this Charrington girl had killed the baby and after that killed herself. Said her mother went half mad with grief and her relations had to put her in a nursing home.'

  Again Tuppence felt confusion mounting in her head. She felt almost as though she was swaying in her chair. Could Mrs. Charrington be Mrs. Lancaster? Changed her name, gone slightly batty, obsessed about her daughter's fate. Mrs. Copleigh's voice was going on remorselessly.

  'I never believed a word of that myself. That Badcock girl would say anything. We weren't listening much to hearsay and stories just then-we'd had other things to worry about. Scared stiff we'd been, all over the countryside on account of the things that had been going on-'

  'Why? What had been happening?' asked Tuppence, marvelling at the things that seemed to happen, and to centre round the peaceful-looking village of Sutton Chancellor.

  'I daresay as you'll have read about it all in the papers at the time. Let's see, near as possible it would have been twenty years ago. You'll have read about it for sure. Child murders. Little girl of nine years old first. Didn't come home from school one day. Whole neighbourhood was out searching for her. Dingley Copse she was found in. Strangled, she'd been. It makes me shiver still to think of it. Well, that was the first, then about three weeks later another. The other side of Market Basing, that was. But within the district, as you might say. A man with a car could have done it easy enough.'

  'And then there were others. Not for a month or two sometimes. And then there'd be another one. Not more than a couple of miles from here, one was; almost in the village, though.'

  'Didn't the police-didn't anyone know who'd done it?'

  'They tried h
ard enough,' said Mrs. Copleigh. 'Detained a man quite soon, they did. Someone from t'other side of Market Basing. Said he was helping them in their inquiries. You know what that always means. They think they've got him. They pulled in first one and then another but always after twenty-four hours or so they had to let him go again. Found out he couldn't have done it or wasn't in these parts or somebody gave him an alibi.'

  'You don't know, Liz,' said Mr. Copleigh. 'They may have known quite well who done it. I'd say they did. That's often the way of it, or so I've heard. The police know who it is but they can't get the evidence.'

  'That's wives, that is,' said Mrs. Copleigh, 'wives or mothers or fathers even. Even the police can't do much no matter what they may think. A mother says "my boy was here that night at dinner" or his young lady says she went to the pictures with him that night, and he was with her the whole time, or a father says that he and his son were out in the far field together doing something-well, you can't do anything against it. They may think the father or the mother or his sweetheart's lying, but unless someone else come along and say they saw the boy or the man or whatever it is in some other place, there's not much they can do. It was a terrible time. Right bet up we all were round here. When we heard another child was missing we'd make parties up.'

  'Aye, that's right,' said Mr. Copleigh.

  'When they'd got together they'd go out and they'd search. Sometimes they found her at once and sometimes they wouldn't find her for weeks. Sometimes she was quite near her home in a place you'd have thought we must have looked at already. Maniac, I suppose it must have been. It's awful,' said Mrs. Copleigh in a righteous tone, 'it's awful, that there should be men like that. They ought to be shot. They ought to be strangled themselves. And I'd do it to them for one, if anyone would let me. Any man who kills children and assaults them. What's the good putting them in loony bins and treating them with all the home comforts and living soft. And then sooner or later they let 'em out again, say they're cured and send them home. That happened somewhere in Norfolk. My sister lives there and she told me about it. He went back home and two days later he'd done in someone else. Crazy they are, these doctors, some of them, saying these men are cured when they are not.'