Why do you mention Cumberland? What do you know about Cumberland, Mrs Tommy?’ ‘Nothing,’ said Tuppence. ‘For some reason or other it just came into my head.’ She frowned and looked perplexed. ‘And a red and white striped rose on the side of a house – one of those old-fashioned roses.’ She shook her head.
‘Does Sir Philip Starke own the Canal House?’ ‘He owns the land – He owns most of the land hereabouts.’ ‘Yes, he said so last night.’ ‘Through him, we’ve learned a good deal about leases and tenancies that have been cleverly obscured through legal complexities ‘ ‘Those house agents I went to see in the Market Square – Is there something phony about them, or did I imagine it?’ ‘You didn’t imagine it. We’re going to pay them a visit this morning. We are going to ask some rather awkward questions.’ ‘Good,’ said Tuppence.
‘We’re doing quite nicely. We’ve cleared up the big post office robbery of 1965, and the Albury Cross robberies, and the Irish Mail train bus’mess. We’ve found some of the loot. Clever places they manufactured in these houses. A new bath installed in one, a service flat made in another – a couple of its rooms a little smaller than they ought to have been thereby providing for an interesting recess. Oh yes, we’ve found out a great deal.’ ‘But what about the people?’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean the people who thought of it, or ran it – apart from Mr Eccles, I mean. There must have been others who knew something.’ ‘Oh yes. There were a couple of men – one who ran a night club, conveniently just off the M 1. Happy Hamish they used to call him. Slippery as an eel. And a woman they called Killer Kate – but that was a long time ago – one of our more interesting criminals. A beautiful girl, but her mental balance was doubtful. They eased her out – she might have become a danger to them. They were a strictly business concern – in it for loot – not for murder.’ ‘And was the Canal House one of their hideaway places?’ ‘At one time, Ladymead, they called it then. It’s had a lot of different names in its time.’ ‘Just to make things more difficult, I suppose,’ said Tuppence. ‘Ladymead. I wonder if that ties up with some particular thing.’ ‘What should tie it up with?’ ‘Well, it doesn’t really,’ said Tuppence. ‘It just started off another hare in my mind, if you know what I mean. The trouble is,’ she added, ‘I don’t really know what I mean myself now. The picture, too. Boscowan painted the picture and then somebody else painted a boat into it, with a name on the boat ‘ ‘Tiger Lily.’ ‘No, Waterlily. And his wife says that he didn’t paint the b3at.’ ‘Would she know?’ ‘I expect she would. If you were married to a painter, and especially if you were an artist yourself, I think you’d know if it was a different style of painting. She’s rather frightening, I think,’ said Tuppence.
‘Who – Mrs Boscowan?’ ‘Yes. If you know what I mean, powerful. Rather overwhelming.’ ‘Possibly. Yes.’ ‘She knows things,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I’m not sure that she knows them because she knows them, if you know what I mean.’ ‘I don’t,’ said Tommy fLrmly.
‘Well, I mean, there’s one way of knowing things. The other way is that you sort of feel them.’ ‘That’s rather the way you go in for, Tuppence.’ ‘You can say what you like,’ said Tuppence, apparently following her own track of thought, ‘the whole thing ties up round Sutton Chancellor. Round Ladymead, or Canal House or whatever you like to call it. And all the people who lived there, now and in past times. Some things I think might go back a long way.’ ‘You’re thinking of Mrs Copleigh.’
‘On the whole,’ said Tuppence, ‘I think Mrs Copleigh just put in a lot of things which have made everything more difficult. I think she’s got all her times and dates mixed up too.’ ‘People do/said Tommy, ‘in the country.’
‘I know that,’ said Tuppence, ‘I was brought up in a country vicarage, after all. They date things by events, they don’t date them by years. They don’t say “that happened in 1930” or “that happened in 1925” or things like that. They say “that happened the year after the old mill burned down” or “that happened after the lighrnin struck the big oak and killed Farmer Jmes” or “that was the year we had the polio epidemic”. So naturally, of course, the things they do remember don’t go in any particular sequence. Everything’s very difficult,’ she added. ‘There are just bits poking up here and there, if you know what I mean. Of course the point is,’ said Tuppence with the air of someone who suddenly makes an important discovery, ‘the trouble is that I’m old myself.’ ‘You are eternally young,’ said Ivor gallantly.