By the Pricking of My Thumbs

‘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.’

CHAPTER 4 (#udb4cef93-17d4-59a0-9d65-dd81fe5d7410)

Picture of a House (#udb4cef93-17d4-59a0-9d65-dd81fe5d7410)

Tuppence drew a deep breath.

‘It’s just the same,’ she said.

She and Tommy were standing on the front doorstep of Sunny Ridge.

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ asked Tommy.

‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have—something to do with time. Time goes at a different pace in different places. Some places you come back to, and you feel that time has been bustling along at a terrific rate and that all sorts of things will have happened—and changed. But here—Tommy—do you remember Ostend?’

‘Ostend? We went there on our honeymoon. Of course I remember.’

‘And do you remember the sign written up? TRAM-STILLSTAND—It made us laugh. It seemed so ridiculous.’

‘I think it was Knock—not Ostend.’

‘Never mind—you remember it. Well, this is like that word—Tramstillstand—a portmanteau word. Timestillstand—nothing’s happened here. Time has just stood still. Everything’s going on here just the same. It’s like ghosts, only the other way round.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you going to stand here all day talking about time and not even ring the bell?—Aunt Ada isn’t here, for one thing. That’s different.’ He pressed the bell.

‘That’s the only thing that will be different. My old lady will be drinking milk and talking about fireplaces, and Mrs Somebody-or-other will have swallowed a thimble or a teaspoon and a funny little woman will come squeaking out of a room demanding her cocoa, and Miss Packard will come down the stairs, and—’