AGATHA CHRISTIE. By the Pricking of My Thumbs

‘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.

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