‘Well, I expect you’ll pounds d it a little disappointing. It’s just a market town, you know. It doesn’t cater at all for the motoring trade. The Blue Dragon is a two-star but really I don’t think these stars mean anything at all sometimes. I think you’d f’md The Lamb better. Quieter, you know. Are you staying there for long?’
‘Oh no,’ said Tuppence, ‘just a day or two while I’m looking round the neighbourhood.’
‘Not very much to see, I’m afraid. No interesting antiquities or anything like that. We’re purely a rural and agricultural district,’ said the vicar. ‘But peaceful, you know, very peaceful.
As I told you, some interesting wild flowers.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘I’ve heard that and I’m anxious to collect a few specimens in the intervals of doing a little mild house hunting,’ she added.
‘Oh dear, how interesting,’ said Miss Bligh. ‘Are you thinking of settling in this neighbourhood?’
‘Well, my husband and I haven’t decided very def’mitely on any one neighbourhood in particular,’ said Tuppence. ‘And we’re in no hurry. He won’t be retiring for another eighteen months. But it’s always as well, I think, to look about.
Personally, what I prefer to do is to stay in one neighbourhood for four or five days, get a list of likely small properties and drive about to see them. Coming down for one day from London to see one particular house is very tiring, I fred.’
‘Oh yes, you’ve got your car here, have you?’ ‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘I shall have to go to a house agent in Market Basing tomorrow morning. There’s nowhere, I sup-pose, to stay in the village here, is there?’
‘Of course, there’s Mrs Copleigh,’ said Miss Bligh. ‘She takes people in the summer, you know. Summer visitors. She’s beautifully clean. All her rooms are. Of course, she only does bed and brealffast and perhaps a light meal in the evening. But I don’t think she takes anyone in much before August or July at the earliest.’
‘Perhaps I could go and see her and fred out,’ said Tuppence.
‘She’s a very worthy woman,’ said the vicar. ‘Her tongue wags a good deal,’ he added. ‘She never stops talking, not for one single minute.’
‘A lot of gossip and chattering is always going on in these small villages,’ said Miss Bligh. ‘I think it would be a very good idea if I helped Mrs Beresford. I could take her along to Mrs Copleigh and just see what chances there are.’
‘That would be very kind of you,’ said Tuppence.
‘Then we’ll be off,’ said Miss Bligh briskly. ‘Goodbye, Vicar. Still on your quest? A sad task and so unlikely to meet with success. I really think it was a most unreasonable request tO make.’
Tuppence said goodbye to the vicar and said she would be glad to help him if she could.
‘I could easily spend an hour or two looking at the various gravestones. I’ve got very good eyesight for my age. It’s just the name Waters you are looking for?’
‘Not really,’ said the vicar. ‘It’s the age that matters, I think.
A child of perhaps seven, it would be. A girl. Major Waters thinks that his wife might have changed her name and that probably the child might be known by the name she had taken.
And as he doesn’t know what that name is, it makes it all very difficult.’
‘The whole thing’s impossible, so far as I can see,’ said Miss Bligh. ‘You ought never to have said you would do such a thing, Vicar. It’s monstrous, suggesting anything of the kind.’
‘The poor fellow seems very upset,’ said the vicar. ‘A sad history altogether, so far as I can make out. But I mustn’t keep you.’ Tuppence thought to herself as she was shepherded by Miss Bligh that no matter what the reputation of Mrs Gopleigh for talking, she could hardly talk more than Miss Bhgh did. A stream of pronouncements both rapid and dictatorial poured from her lips.
Mrs Copleigh’s cottage proved to be a pleasant and roomy one set back from the village street with a neat garden of flowers in front, a whitened doorstep and a brass handle well polished. Mrs Gopleigh herself seemed to Tuppence like a character straight out of the pages of Dickens. She was very small and very round, so that she came rolling towards you rather like a rubber ball. She had bright twinkling eyes, blonde hair rolled up in sausage curls on her head and an air of tremendous vigour. After displaying a little doubt to begin with – ‘Well, I don’t usually, you know. No. My husband and I say “summer visitors, that’s different”. Everyone does that if they can nowadays. And have to, I’m sure. But not this time of year so much, we don’t. Not until July. However, if it’s just for a few days and the lady wouldn’t mind things being a bit rough, perhaps ‘ Tuppence said she didn’t mind things being rough and Mrs Gopleigh, having surveyed her with close attention, whilst not stopping her flow of conversation, said perhaps the lady would like to come up and see the room, and then things might be arranged.