AGATHA CHRISTIE. By the Pricking of My Thumbs

‘Sir Philip Starke – Lives up in the Warrender House. Used to be called the Old Priory when the Warrenders lived in it before it burnt down. You can see the Warrender graves in the churchyard and tablets in the church, too. Always been Warrenders here practically since the time of King James.’ ‘Was Sir Philip a relation of the Warrenders?’ ‘No. Made his money in a big way, I believe, or his father did. Steelworks or something of that kiA. Odd sort of man was Sir Philip. The works were somewhere up north, but he lived here. Kept to himself he did. What they call a rec – rec – rec-something.’ ‘Recluse,’ suggested Tuppence.

‘That’s the word I’m looking for. Pale he was, you know, and thin and bony and fond of flowers. He was a botanist. Used to collect all sorts of silly little wild flowers, the kind you wouldn’t look at twice. He even wrote a book on them, I believe. Oh yes, he was clever, very clever. His wife was a nice lady, and very handsome, but sad looking, I always thought.’ Mr Copleigh uttered one of his grunts. ‘You’re daft,’ he said.

‘Thinking it might have been Sir Philip. He was fond of children, Sir Philip was. He was always giving parties for them.’ ‘Yes I know. Always giving ftes, having lovely prizes for the children. Egg and spoon races – all those strawberry and cream teas he’d give. He’d no children of his own, you see. Often he’d stop children in a lane and give them a sweet or give them a sixpence to buy sweets. But I don’t know. I think he overdid it.

He was an odd man. I thought there was something wrong when his wife suddenly up and left him.’ ‘When/iid his wife leave him?’ ‘It’d be about six months after all this trouble began. Three children had been killed by then. Lady Starke went away suddenly to the south of France and she never came back. She wasn’t the kind, you’d say, to do that. She was a quiet lady, respectable. It’s not as though she left him for any other man.

No, she wasn’t the kind to do that. So why did she go and leave him? I always say it’s because she knew something – found out about something ‘ ‘Is he still living here?’ ‘Not regular, he isn’t. He comes down once or twice a year but the house is kept shut up most of the time with a caretaker there. Miss Bligh in the village – she used to be his secretary she sees to hings for him.’ ‘And his wife?’ ‘She’s dead, poor lady. Died soon after she went abroad.

There’s a tablet put up to her’in the church. Awful for her it would be. Perhaps she wasn’t sure at first, then perhaps she began to suspect her husband, and then perhaps she got to be quite sure. She couldn’t bear it and she went away.’ ‘The things you women imagine,’ said Mr Copleigh.

‘All I say is there was something that wasn’t right about Sir Philip. He was too fond of children, I think, and it wasn’t in a natural kind of way.’ ‘Women’s fancies,’ said Mr Copleigh.

Mrs Copleigh got up and started to move things off the table.

‘About time,’ said her husband. ‘You’ll give this lady here bad dreams if you go on about things as were over years ago and have nothing to do with anyone here any more.’ ‘It’s been very interesting hearing,’ said Tuppence. ‘But I am very sleepy. I think I’d better go to bed now.’ ‘Well, we usually goes early to bed,’ said Mrs Copleigh, ‘and you’ll be tired after the long day you’ve had.’ ‘I am. I’m frightfully sleepy.’ Tuppence gave a large yawn.

‘Well, good night and thank you very much.’ ‘Would you like a call and a cup of tea in the morning? Eight o’clock too early for you?’ ‘No, that would be frae,’ said Tuppence. ‘But don’t bother ffit’s a lot of trouble.’ ‘No trouble at all,’ said Mrs Copleigh.

Tuppence pulled herself wearily up to bed. She opened her suitcase, took out the few things she needed, undressed, washed and dropped into bed. It was true what she had told Mrs Copleigh. She was dead tired. The things she had heard passed through her head in a kind of kaleidoscope of moving figures and of all sorts of horrific imaginings. Dead children too many dead children. Tuppence wanted just one dead child behind a fireplace. The fireplace had to do perhaps with Waterside. The child’s doll. A child that had been killed by a demented young girl driven off her rather weak brains by the fact that her lover had deserted her. Oh dear me, what melodramatic language I’m using, thought Tuppence. All such a muddle – the chronology all mixed up – one can’t be sure what happened when.

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