AGATHA CHRISTIE. By the Pricking of My Thumbs

It was rather dark inside. The passages were small. Mrs Perry led her through a kitchen and into a sitting-room beyond it which was evidently the family living-room. There was nothing exciting about the house. It was, Tuppence thought, probably a late Victorian addition to the main part. Horizon-tally it was narrow. It seemed to consist ora horizontal passage, rather dark, which served a string of rooms. She thought to herself that it certainly was rather an odd way of dividing a house.

‘Sit down and I’ll bring the tea in,’ said Mrs Perry.

‘Let me help you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I shan’t be a minute. It’s all ready on the tray.’

A whisfie rose from the kitchen. The kettle had evidently reached the end of its span of tranquillity. Mrs Perry went out and returned in a minute or two with the tea tray., a plate of scones, a jar of jam and three cups and saucers.

‘I expect you’re disappointed, now you’ve got inside,’ said Mrs Perry.

It was a shrewd remark and very near to the truth.

‘Oh no,’ said Tuppence.

‘Well, I should be if I was you. Because they don’t match a bit, do they? I mean the front and the back side of the house don’t match. But it is a comfortable house to live in. Not many rooms, not too much light but it makes a great difference in price.’

‘Who divided the house and why?’

‘Oh, a good many years ago, I believe. I suppose whoever had it thought it was too big or too inconvenient. Only wanted a weekend place or something of that kind. So they kept the good rooms, the dining-room and the drawing-room and made a kitchen out of a small study there was, and a couple of bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, and then wailed it up and let the part that was kitchens and old-fashioned sculleries and things, and did it up a bit.’

‘Who lives in the other part? Someone who just comes down for weekends?’

‘Nobody lives there now,’ said Mrs Perry. ‘Have another scone, dear.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tuppence.

‘At least nobody’s come down here in the last two years. I don’t know even who it belongs to now.’ ‘

‘But when you fLrst came here?’

‘There was a young lady used to come down here – an actress they said she was. At least that’s what we heard. But we never saw her really. Just caught a glimpse sometimes. She used to come down late on a Saturday night after the show, I suppose.

She used to go away on the Sunday evenings.’

‘Quite a mystery woman,’ said Tuppence, encouragingly.

‘You know that’s just the way I used to think of her. I used to make up stories about her in my head. Sometimes I’d think she was like Greta Garbo. You know, the way she went about always in dark glasses and pulled-down hats. Goodness now, I’ve got my peak hat on.’

She removed the witch’s’ headgear from her head and laughed.

‘It’s for a play we’re having at the parish rooms in Sutton Chancellor,’ she said. ‘You know – a sort of fairy story play for the children mostly. I’m playing the witch,’ she added.

‘Oh,’ said Tuppence, slightly taken aback, then added quickly, ‘What fun.’

‘Yes, it is fun, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Perry. ‘Just right for the witch, aren’t I?’ She laughed and tapped her chin. ‘You know.

I’ve got the face for it. Hope it won’t put ideas into people’s heads. They’ll think I’ve got the evil eye.’

‘I don’t think they’d think that of you,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’m sure you’d be a beneficent witch.’

‘Well, I’m glad you think so,’ said Mrs Perry. ‘As I was saying, this actress – I can’t remember her name now – Miss Marchment I think it was, but it might have been something else – you wouldn’t believe the things I used to make up about her. Really, I suppose, I hardly ever saw or spoke to her.

Sometimes I think she was just terribly shy and neurotic. Reporters’d come down after her and things like that, but she never would see them. At other times I used to think – well, you’ll say I’m foolish – I used to think quite sinister things about her. You know, that she was afraid of being recognized. Perhaps she wasn’t an actress at all. Perhaps the police were looking for her. Perhaps she was a criminal of some kind. It’s exciting sometimes, making rhlnL,S up in your head. Especially when you don’t – well – see many people.’ ‘Did nobody ever come down here with her?’ ‘Well, I’m not so sure about that. Of course these partition walls, you know, that they put in when they turned the house into two, well, they’re pretty thin and sometimes you’d hear voices and things like that. I think she did bring down someone for weekends occasionally.’ She nodded her head. ‘A man of some kind. That may have been why they wanted somewhere quiet like this.’ ‘A married man,’ said Tuppence, entering into the spirit of make-believe.

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