After leaving the canal house, Tuppence drove slowly on along the narrow winding road which she had been assured would lead her to the village of Sutton Chancellor.
It was an isolated road. There were no houses to be seen from it—only field gates from which muddy tracks led inwards. There was little traffic—one tractor came along, and one lorry proudly announcing that it carried Mother’s Delight and the picture of an enormous and unnatural-looking loaf. The church steeple she had noticed in the distance seemed to have disappeared entirely—but it finally reappeared quite near at hand after the lane had bent suddenly and sharply round a belt of trees. Tuppence glanced at the speedometer and saw she had come two miles since the canal house.
It was an attractive old church standing in a sizeable churchyard with a lone yew tree standing by the church door.
Tuppence left the car outside the lych gate, passed through it, and stood for a few moments surveying the church and the churchyard round it. Then she went to the church door with its rounded Norman arch and lifted the heavy handle. It was unlocked and she went inside.
The inside was unattractive. The church was an old one, undoubtedly, but it had had a zealous wash and brush up in Victorian times. Its pitch pine pews and its flaring red and blue glass windows had ruined any antique charm it had once possessed. A middle-aged woman in a tweed coat and skirt was arranging flowers in brass vases round the pulpit—she had already finished the altar. She looked round at Tuppence with a sharply inquiring glance. Tuppence wandered up an aisle looking at memorial tablets on the walls. A family called Warrender seemed to be most fully represented in early years. All of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor. Captain Warrender, Major Warrender, Sarah Elisabeth Warrender, dearly beloved wife of George Warrender. A newer tablet recorded the death of Julia Starke (another beloved wife) of Philip Starke, also of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor—so it would seem the Warrenders had died out. None of them were particularly suggestive or interesting. Tuppence passed out of the church again and walked round it on the outside. The outside, Tuppence thought, was much more attractive than the inside. “Early Perp. and Dec.,” said Tuppence to herself, having been brought up on familiar terms with ecclesiastical architecture. She was not particularly fond of early Perp. herself.
It was a fair-sized church and she thought that the village of Sutton Chancellor must once have been a rather more important centre of rural life than it was now. She left the car where it was and walked on to the village. It had a village shop and a post office and about a dozen small houses or cottages. One or two of them were thatched but the others were rather plain and unattractive. There were six council houses at the end of the village street looking slightly self-conscious. A brass plate on a door announced “Arthur Thomas, Chimney Sweep.”
Tuppence wondered if any responsible house agents were likely to engage his services for the house by the canal which certainly needed them. How silly she had been, she thought, not to have asked the name of the house.
She walked back slowly towards the church, and her car, pausing to examine the churchyard more closely. She liked the churchyard. There were very few new burials in it. Most of the stones commemorated Victorian burials, and earlier ones—half-defaced by lichen and time. The old stones were attractive. Some of them were upright slabs with cherubs on the tops, with wreaths round them. She wandered about, looking at the inscriptions. Warrenders again. Mary Warrender, aged 47, Alice Warrender, aged 33, Colonel John Warrender killed in Afghanistan. Various infant Warrenders—deeply regretted—and eloquent verses of pious hopes. She wondered if any Warrenders lived here still. They’d left off being buried here apparently. She couldn’t find any tombstones later than 1843. Rounding the big yew tree she came upon an elderly clergyman who was stooping over a row of old tombstones near a wall behind the church. He straightened up and turned round as Tuppence approached.
“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly.
“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 find 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, went 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. The information came to him by pure chance. Curious story, the whole thing.”
“What made him think that the child had been buried here?”
“I gather somebody who had come across his wife in wartime had told him that his wife had said she was living at Sutton Chancellor. It happens, you know. You meet someone, a friend or acquaintance you haven’t seen for years, and they sometimes can give you news from the past that you wouldn’t get in any other way. But she’s certainly not living here now. Nobody of that name has lived here—not since I’ve been here. Or in the neighbourhood as far as I know. Of course, the mother might have been going by another name. However, I gather the father is employing solicitors and inquiry agents and all that sort of thing, and they will probably be able to get results in the end. It will take time—”
“Was it your poor child?” murmured Tuppence.
“I beg your pardon, my dear?”
“Nothing,” said Tuppence. “Something somebody said to me the other day. ‘Was it your poor child?’ It’s rather a startling thing to hear suddenly. But I don’t really think the old lady who said it knew what she was talking about.”
“I know. I know. I’m often the same. I say things and I don’t really know what I mean by them. Most vexing.”
“I expect you know everything about the people who live here now?” said Tuppence.
“Well, there certainly aren’t very many to know. Yes. Why? Is there someone you wanted to know about?”
“I wondered if there had ever been a Mrs. Lancaster living here.”
“Lancaster? No, I don’t think I recollect that name.”
“And there’s a house—I was driving today rather aimlessly—not minding particularly where I went, just following lanes—”
“I know. Very nice, the lanes round here. And you can find quite rare specimens. Botanical, I mean. In the hedges here. Nobody ever picks flowers in these hedges. We never get any tourists round here or that sort of thing. Yes, I’ve found some very rare specimens sometimes. Dusty Cranesbell, for instance—”
“There was a house by a canal,” said Tuppence, refusing to be sidetracked into botany. “Near a little humpbacked bridge. It was about two miles from here. I wondered what its name was.”
“Let me see. Canal—humpbacked bridge. Well . . . there are several houses like that. There’s Merricot Farm.”
“It wasn’t a farm.”
“Ah, now, I expect it was the Perrys’ house—Amos and Alice Perry.”
“That’s right,” said Tuppence. “A Mr. and Mrs. Perry.”
“She’s a striking-looking woman, isn’t she? Interesting, I always think. Very interesting. Medieval face, didn’t you think so? She’s going to play the witch in our play we’re getting up. The school children, you know. She looks rather like a witch, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “A friendly witch.”
“As you say, my dear, absolutely rightly. Yes, a friendly witch.”
“But he—”
“Yes, poor fellow,” said the vicar. “Not completely compos mentis—but no harm in him.”
“They were very nice. They asked me in for a cup of tea,” said Tuppence. “But what I wanted to know was the name of the house. I forgot to ask them. They’re only living in half of it, aren’t they?”
“Yes, yes. In what used to be the old kitchen quarters. They call it ‘Waterside,’ I think, though I believe the ancient name for it was ‘Watermead.’ A pleasanter name, I think.”
“Who does the other part of the house belong to?”
“Well, the whole house used to belong originally to the Bradleys. That was a good many years ago. Yes, thirty or forty at least, I should think. And then it was sold, and then sold again and then it remained empty for a long time. When I came here it was just being used as a kind of weekend place. By some actress—Miss Margrave, I believe. She was not here very much. Just used to come down from time to time. I never knew her. She never came to church. I saw her in the distance sometimes. A beautiful creature. A very beautiful creature.”
“Who does it actually belong to now?” Tuppence persisted.
“I’ve no idea. Possibly it still belongs to her. The part the Perrys live in is only rented to them.”
“I recognized it, you know,” said Tuppence, “as soon as I saw it, because I’ve got a picture of it.”
“Oh really? That must have been one of Boscombe’s, or was his name Boscobel—I can’t remember now. Some name like that. He was a Cornishman, fairly well-known artist, I believe. I rather imagine he’s dead now. Yes, he used to come down here fairly often. He used to sketch all round this part of the world. He did some oils here, too. Very attractive landscapes, some of them.”
“This particular picture,” said Tuppence, “was given to an old aunt of mine who died about a month ago. It was given to her by a Mrs. Lancaster. That’s why I asked if you knew the name.”
But the vicar shook his head once more.
“Lancaster? Lancaster. No, I don’t seem to remember the name. Ah! but here’s the person you must ask. Our dear Miss Bligh. Very active, Miss Bligh is. She knows all about the parish. She runs everything. The Women’s Institute, the Boy Scouts and the Guides—everything. You ask her. She’s very active, very active indeed.”
The vicar sighed. The activity of Miss Bligh seemed to worry him. “Nellie Bligh, they call her in the village. The boys sing it after her sometimes. Nellie Bligh, Nellie Bligh. It’s not her proper name. That’s something more like Gertrude or Geraldine.”
Miss Bligh, who was the tweed-clad woman Tuppence had seen in the church, was approaching them at a rapid trot, still holding a small watering can. She eyed Tuppence with deep curiosity as she approached, increasing her pace and starting a conversation before she reached them.
“Finished my job,” she exclaimed merrily. “Had a bit of a rush today. Oh yes, had a bit of a rush. Of course, as you know, Vicar, I usually do the church in the morning. But today we had the emergency meeting in the parish rooms and really you wouldn’t believe the time it took! So much argument, you know. I really think sometimes people object to things just for the fun of doing so. Mrs. Partington was particularly irritating. Wanting everything fully discussed, you know, and wondering whether we’d got enough different prices from different firms. I mean, the whole thing is such a small cost anyway, that really a few shillings here or there can’t make much difference. And Burkenheads have always been most reliable. I don’t think really, Vicar, you know, that you ought to sit on that tombstone.”
“Irreverent, perhaps?” suggested the vicar.
“Oh no, no, of course I didn’t mean that at all, Vicar. I meant the stone, you know, the damp does come through and with your rheumatism—” Her eyes slid sideways to Tuppence questioningly.
“Let me introduce you to Miss Bligh,” said the vicar. “This is—this is—” he hesitated.
“Mrs. Beresford,” said Tuppence.
“Ah yes,” said Miss Bligh. “I saw you in the church, didn’t I, just now, looking round it. I would have come and spoken to you, called your attention to one or two interesting points, but I was in such a hurry to finish my job.”
“I ought to have come and helped you,” said Tuppence, in her sweetest voice. “But it wouldn’t have been much use, would it, because I could see you knew so exactly where every flower ought to go.”
“Well now, it’s very nice of you to say so, but it’s quite true. I’ve done the flowers in the church for—oh, I don’t know how many years it is. We let the school children arrange their own particular pots of wild flowers for festivals, though of course they haven’t the least idea, poor little things. I do think a little instruction, but Mrs. Peake will never have any instruction. She’s so particular. She says it spoils their initiative. Are you staying down here?” she asked Tuppence.
“I was going on to Market Basing,” said Tuppence. “Perhaps you can tell me a nice quiet hotel to stay there?”
“Well, I expect you’ll find 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 find 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 definitely 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 find.”
“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 suppose, 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 breakfast 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 find 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. Copleigh for talking, she could hardly talk more than Miss Bligh 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. Copleigh 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. Copleigh, 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.
At that point Miss Bligh tore herself away with some regret because she had not so far been able to extract all the information she wanted from Tuppence, as to where she came from, what her husband did, how old she was, if she had any children and other matters of interest. But it appeared that she had a meeting at her house over which she was going to preside and was terrified at the risk that someone else might seize that coveted post.
“You’ll be quite all right with Mrs. Copleigh,” she assured Tuppence, “she’ll look after you, I’m sure. Now what about your car?”
“Oh, I’ll fetch it presently,” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Copleigh will tell me where I had better put it. I can leave it outside here really because it isn’t a very narrow street, is it?”
“Oh, my husband can do better than that for you,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “He’ll put it in the field for you. Just round the side lane here, and it’ll be quite all right, there. There’s a shed he can drive it into.”
Things were arranged amicably on that basis and Miss Bligh hurried away to her appointment. The question of an evening meal was next raised. Tuppence asked if there was a pub in the village.
“Oh, we have nothing as a lady could go to,” said Mrs. Copleigh, “but if you’d be satisfied with a couple of eggs and a slice of ham and maybe some bread and homemade jam—”
Tuppence said that would be splendid. Her room was small but cheerful and pleasant with a rosebud wallpaper and a comfortable-looking bed and a general air of spotless cleanliness.
“Yes, it’s a nice wallpaper, miss,” said Mrs. Copleigh, who seemed determined to accord Tuppence single status. “Chose it we did so that any newly married couple should come here on honeymoon. Romantic, if you know what I mean.”
Tuppence agreed that romance was a very desirable thing.
“They haven’t got so much to spend nowadays, newly marrieds. Not what they used to. Most of them you see are saving for a house or are making down payments already. Or they’ve got to buy some furniture on the hire purchase and it doesn’t leave anything over for having a posh honeymoon or anything of that kind. They’re careful, you know, most of the young folk. They don’t go bashing all their money.”
She clattered downstairs again talking briskly as she went. Tuppence lay down on the bed to have half an hour’s sleep after a somewhat tiring day. She had, however, great hopes of Mrs. Copleigh, and felt that once thoroughly rested herself, she would be able to lead the conversation to the most fruitful subjects possible. She would hear, she was sure, all about the house by the bridge, who had lived there, who had been of evil or good repute in the neighbourhood, what scandals there were and other such likely topics. She was more convinced of this than ever when she had been introduced to Mr. Copleigh, a man who barely opened his mouth. His conversation was mostly made up of amiable grunts, usually signifying an affirmative. Sometimes, in more muted tones, a disagreement.
He was content so far as Tuppence could see, to let his wife talk. He himself more or less abstracted his attention, part of the time busy with his plans for the next day which appeared to be market day.
As far as Tuppence was concerned nothing could have turned out better. It could have been distinguished by a slogan—“You want information, we have it.” Mrs. Copleigh was as good as a wireless set or a television. You had only to turn the button and words poured out accompanied by gestures and lots of facial expression. Not only was her figure like a child’s rubber ball, her face might also have been made of india rubber. The various people she was talking about almost came alive in caricature before Tuppence’s eyes.
Tuppence ate bacon and eggs and had slices of thick bread and butter and praised the blackberry jelly, homemade, her favourite kind, she truthfully announced, and did her best to absorb the flood of information so that she could write notes down in her notebook later. A whole panorama of the past in this country district seemed to be spread out before her.
There was no chronological sequence which occasionally made things difficult. Mrs. Copleigh jumped from fifteen years ago to two years ago to last month, and then back to somewhere in the twenties. All this would want a lot of sorting out. And Tuppence wondered whether in the end she would get anything.
The first button she had pressed had not given her any result. That was a mention of Mrs. Lancaster.
“I think she came from hereabouts,” said Tuppence, allowing a good deal of vagueness to appear in her voice. “She had a picture—a very nice picture done by an artist who I believe was known down here.”
“Who did you say now?”
“A Mrs. Lancaster.”
“No, I don’t remember any Lancasters in these parts. Lancaster. Lancaster. A gentleman had a car accident, I remember. No, it’s the car I’m thinking of. A Lancaster that was. No Mrs. Lancaster. It wouldn’t be Miss Bolton, would it? She’d be about seventy now I think. She might have married a Mr. Lancaster. She went away and travelled abroad and I do hear she married someone.”
“The picture she gave my aunt was by a Mr. Boscobel—I think the name was,” said Tuppence. “What a lovely jelly.”
“I don’t put no apple in it either, like most people do. Makes it jell better, they say, but it takes all the flavour out.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence. “I quite agree with you. It does.”
“Who did you say now? It began with a B but I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Boscobel, I think.”
“Oh, I remember Mr. Boscowan well. Let’s see now. That must have been—fifteen years ago it was at least that he came down here. He came several years running, he did. He liked the place. Actually rented a cottage. One of Farmer Hart’s cottages it was, that he kept for his labourer. But they built a new one, they did, the Council. Four new cottages specially for labourers.
“Regular artist, Mr. B was,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “Funny kind of coat he used to wear. Sort of velvet or corduroy. It used to have holes in the elbows and he wore green and yellow shirts, he did. Oh, very colourful, he was. I liked his pictures, I did. He had a showing of them one year. Round about Christmas time it was, I think. No, of course not, it must have been in the summer. He wasn’t here in the winter. Yes, very nice. Nothing exciting, if you know what I mean. Just a house with a couple of trees or two cows looking over a fence. But all nice and quiet and pretty colours. Not like some of these young chaps nowadays.”
“Do you have a lot of artists down here?”
“Not really. Oh no, not to speak of. One or two ladies comes down in the summer and does sketching sometimes, but I don’t think much of them. We had a young fellow a year ago, called himself an artist. Didn’t shave properly. I can’t say I liked any of his pictures much. Funny colours all swirled round anyhow. Nothing you could recognize a bit. Sold a lot of his pictures, he did at that. And they weren’t cheap, mind you.”
“Ought to have been five pounds,” said Mr. Copleigh entering the conversation for the first time so suddenly that Tuppence jumped.
“What my husband thinks is,” said Mrs. Copleigh, resuming her place as interpreter to him. “He thinks no picture ought to cost more than five pounds. Paints wouldn’t cost as much as that. That’s what he says, don’t you, George?”
“Ah,” said George.
“Mr. Boscowan painted a picture of that house by the bridge and the canal—Waterside or Watermead, isn’t it called? I came that way today.”
“Oh, you came along that road, did you? It’s not much of a road, is it? Very narrow. Lonely that house is, I always think. I wouldn’t like to live in that house. Too lonely. Don’t you agree, George?”
George made the noise that expressed faint disagreement and possibly contempt at the cowardice of women.
“That’s where Alice Perry lives, that is,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
Tuppence abandoned her researches on Mr. Boscowan to go along with an opinion on the Perrys. It was, she perceived, always better to go along with Mrs. Copleigh who was a jumper from subject to subject.
“Queer couple they are,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
George made his agreeing sound.
“Keep themselves to themselves, they do. Don’t mingle much, as you’d say. And she goes about looking like nothing on earth, Alice Perry does.”
“Mad,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“Well, I don’t know as I’d say that. She looks mad all right. All that scatty hair flying about. And she wears men’s coats and great rubber boots most of the time. And she says odd things and doesn’t sometimes answer you right when you ask her a question. But I wouldn’t say she was mad. Peculiar, that’s all.”
“Do people like her?”
“Nobody knows her hardly, although they’ve been there several years. There’s all sorts of tales about her but then, there’s always tales.”
“What sort of tales?”
Direct questions were never resented by Mrs. Copleigh, who welcomed them as one who was only too eager to answer.
“Calls up spirits, they say, at night. Sitting round a table. And there’s stories of lights moving about the house at night. And she reads a lot of clever books, they say. With things drawn in them—circles and stars. If you ask me, it’s Amos Perry as is the one that’s not quite all right.”
“He’s just simple,” said Mr. Copleigh indulgently.
“Well, you may be right about that. But there were tales said of him once. Fond of his garden, but doesn’t know much.”
“It’s only half a house though, isn’t it?” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Perry asked me in very kindly.”
“Did she now? Did she really? I don’t know as I’d have liked to go into that house,” said Mrs. Copleigh.
“Their part of it’s all right,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“Isn’t the other part all right?” said Tuppence. “The front part that gives on the canal.”
“Well, there used to be a lot of stories about it. Of course, nobody’s lived in it for years. They say there’s something queer about it. Lot of stories told. But when you come down to it, it’s not stories in anybody’s memory here. It’s all long ago. It was built over a hundred years ago, you know. They say as there was a pretty lady kept there first, built for her, it was, by one of the gentlemen at Court.”
“Queen Victoria’s Court?” asked Tuppence with interest.
“I don’t think it would be her. She was particular, the old Queen was. No, I’d say it was before that. Time of one of them Georges. This gentlemen, he used to come down and see her and the story goes that they had a quarrel and he cut her throat one night.”
“How terrible!” said Tuppence. “Did they hang him for it?”
“No. Oh no, there was nothing of that sort. The story is, you see, that he had to get rid of the body and he walled her up in the fireplace.”
“Walled her up in the fireplace!”
“Some ways they tell it, they say she was a nun, and she had run away from a convent and that’s why she had to be walled up. That’s what they do at convents.”
“But it wasn’t nuns who walled her up.”
“No, no. He did it. Her lover, what had done her in. And he bricked up all the fireplace, they say, and nailed a big sheet of iron over it. Anyway, she was never seen again, poor soul, walking about in her fine dresses. Some said, of course, she’d gone away with him. Gone away to live in town or back to some other place. People used to hear noises and see lights in the house, and a lot of people don’t go near it after dark.”
“But what happened later?” said Tuppence, feeling that to go back beyond the reign of Queen Victoria seemed a little too far into the past for what she was looking for.
“Well, I don’t rightly know as there was very much. A farmer called Blodgick took it over when it came up for sale, I believe. He weren’t there long either. What they called a gentleman farmer. That’s why he liked the house, I suppose, but the farming land wasn’t much use to him, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. So he sold it again. Changed hands ever so many times it has—Always builders coming along and making alterations—new bathrooms—that sort of thing—A couple had it who were doing chicken farming, I believe, at one time. But it got a name, you know, for being unlucky. But all that’s a bit before my time. I believe Mr. Boscowan himself thought of buying it at one time. That was when he painted the picture of it.”
“What sort of age was Mr. Boscowan when he was down here?”
“Forty, I would say, or maybe a bit more than that. He was a good-looking man in his way. Run into fat a bit, though. Great one for the girls, he was.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Copleigh. It was a warning grunt this time.
“Ah well, we all know what artists are like,” said Mrs. Copleigh, including Tuppence in this knowledge. “Go over to France a lot, you know, and get French ways, they do.”
“He wasn’t married?”
“Not then he wasn’t. Not when he was first down here. Bit keen he was on Mrs. Charrington’s daughter, but nothing came of it. She was a lovely girl, though, but too young for him. She wasn’t more than twenty-five.”
“Who was Mrs. Charrington?” Tuppence felt bewildered at this introduction of new characters.
“What the hell am I doing here, anyway?” she thought suddenly as waves of fatigue swept over her—“I’m just listening to a lot of gossip about people, and imagining things like murder which aren’t true at all. I can see now—It started when a nice but addleheaded old pussy got a bit mixed up in her head and began reminiscing about stories this Mr. Boscowan, or someone like him who may have given the picture to her, told about the house and the legends about it, of someone being walled up alive in a fireplace and she thought it was a child for some reason. And here I am going round investigating mares’ nests. Tommy told me I was a fool, and he was quite right—I am a fool.”
She waited for a break to occur in Mrs. Copleigh’s even flow of conversation, so that she could rise, say good night politely and go upstairs to bed.
Mrs. Copleigh was still in full and happy spate.
“Mrs. Charrington? Oh, she lived in Watermead for a bit,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “Mrs. Charrington, and her daughter. She was a nice lady, she was, Mrs. Charrington. Widow of an army officer, I believe. Badly off, but the house was being rented cheap. Did a lot of gardening. She was very fond of gardening. Not much good at keeping the house clean, she wasn’t. I went and obliged for her, once or twice, but I couldn’t keep it up. I had to go on my bicycle, you see, and it’s over two miles. Weren’t any buses along that road.”
“Did she live there long?”
“Not more than two or three years, I think. Got scared, I expect, after the troubles came. And then she had her own troubles about her daughter, too. Lilian, I think her name was.”
Tuppence took a draught of the strong tea with which the meal was fortified, and resolved to get finished with Mrs. Charrington before seeking repose.
“What was the trouble about the daughter? Mr. Boscowan?”
“No, it wasn’t Mr. Boscowan as got her into trouble. I’ll never believe that. It was the other one.”
“Who was the other one?” asked Tuppence. “Someone else who lived down here?”
“I don’t think he lived down in these parts. Someone she’d met up in London. She went up there to study ballet dancing, would it be? Or art? Mr. Boscowan arranged for her to join some school there. Slate I think its name was.”
“Slade?” suggested Tuppence.
“May have been. That sort of name. Anyway, she used to go up there and that’s how she got to know this fellow, whoever he was. Her mother didn’t like it. She forbade her to meet him. Fat lot of good that was likely to do. She was a silly woman in some ways. Like a lot of those army officers’ wives were, you know. She thought girls would do as they were told. Behind the times, she was. Been out in India and those parts, but when it’s a question of a good-looking young fellow and you take your eye off a girl, you won’t find she’s doing what you told her. Not her. He used to come down here now and then and they used to meet outside.”
“And then she got into trouble, did she?” Tuppence said, using the well-known euphemism, hoping that under that form it would not offend Mr. Copleigh’s sense of propriety.
“Must have been him, I suppose. Anyway, there it was plain as plain. I saw how it was long before her own mother did. Beautiful creature, she was. Big and tall and handsome. But I don’t think, you know, that she was one that could stand up to things. She’d break up, you know. She used to walk about rather wildlike, muttering to herself. If you ask me he treated her bad, that fellow did. Went away and left her when he found out what was happening. Of course, a mother as was a mother would have gone and talked to him and made him see where his duty lay, but Mrs. Charrington, she wouldn’t have had the spirit to do that. Anyway, her mother got wise, and she took the girl away. Shut up the house, she did and afterwards it was put up for sale. They came back to pack up, I believe, but they never came to the village or said anything to anyone. They never come back here, neither of them. There was some story got around. I never knew if there was any truth in it.”
“Some folk’ll make up anything,” said Mr. Copleigh unexpectedly.
“Well, you’re right there, George. Still they may have been true. Such things happen. And as you say, that girl didn’t look quite right in the head to me.”
“What was the story?” demanded Tuppence.
“Well, really, I don’t like to say. It’s a long time since and I wouldn’t like to say anything as I wasn’t sure of it. It was Mrs. Badcock’s Louise who put it about. Awful liar that girl was. The things she’d say. Anything to make up a good story.”
“But what was it?” said Tuppence.
“Said this Charrington girl had killed the baby and after that killed herself. Said her mother went half mad with grief and her relations had to put her in a nursing home.”
Again Tuppence felt confusion mounting in her head. She felt almost as though she was swaying in her chair. Could Mrs. Charrington be Mrs. Lancaster? Changed her name, gone slightly batty, obsessed about her daughter’s fate. Mrs. Copleigh’s voice was going on remorselessly.
“I never believed a word of that myself. That Badcock girl would say anything. We weren’t listening much to hearsay and stories just then—we’d had other things to worry about. Scared stiff we’d been, all over the countryside on account of the things that had been going on—real things—”
“Why? What had been happening?” asked Tuppence, marvelling at the things that seemed to happen, and to centre round the peaceful-looking village of Sutton Chancellor.
“I daresay as you’ll have read about it all in the papers at the time. Let’s see, near as possible it would have been twenty years ago. You’ll have read about it for sure. Child murders. Little girl of nine years old first. Didn’t come home from school one day. Whole neighbourhood was out searching for her. Dingley Copse she was found in. Strangled, she’d been. It makes me shiver still to think of it. Well, that was the first, then about three weeks later another. The other side of Market Basing, that was. But within the district, as you might say. A man with a car could have done it easy enough.
“And then there were others. Not for a month or two sometimes. And then there’d be another one. Not more than a couple of miles from here, one was; almost in the village, though.”
“Didn’t the police—didn’t anyone know who’d done it?”
“They tried hard enough,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “Detained a man quite soon, they did. Someone from t’other side of Market Basing. Said he was helping them in their inquiries. You know what that always means. They think they’ve got him. They pulled in first one and then another but always after twenty-four hours or so they had to let him go again. Found out he couldn’t have done it or wasn’t in these parts or somebody gave him an alibi.”
“You don’t know, Liz,” said Mr. Copleigh. “They may have known quite well who done it. I’d say they did. That’s often the way of it, or so I’ve heard. The police know who it is but they can’t get the evidence.”
“That’s wives, that is,” said Mrs. Copleigh, “wives or mothers or fathers even. Even the police can’t do much no matter what they may think. A mother says ‘my boy was here that night at dinner’ or his young lady says she went to the pictures with him that night, and he was with her the whole time, or a father says that he and his son were out in the far field together doing something—well, you can’t do anything against it. They may think the father or the mother or his sweetheart’s lying, but unless someone else come along and say they saw the boy or the man or whatever it is in some other place, there’s not much they can do. It was a terrible time. Right het up we all were round here. When we heard another child was missing we’d make parties up.”
“Aye, that’s right,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“When they’d got together they’d go out and they’d search. Sometimes they found her at once and sometimes they wouldn’t find her for weeks. Sometimes she was quite near her home in a place you’d have thought we must have looked at already. Maniac, I suppose it must have been. It’s awful,” said Mrs. Copleigh in a righteous tone, “it’s awful, that there should be men like that. They ought to be shot. They ought to be strangled themselves. And I’d do it to them for one, if anyone would let me. Any man who kills children and assaults them. What’s the good putting them in loony bins and treating them with all the home comforts and living soft. And then sooner or later they let ’em out again, say they’re cured and send them home. That happened somewhere in Norfolk. My sister lives there and she told me about it. He went back home and two days later he’d done in someone else. Crazy they are, these doctors, some of them, saying these men are cured when they are not.”
“And you’ve no idea down here who it might have been?” said Tuppence. “Do you think really it was a stranger?”
“Might have been a stranger to us. But it must have been someone living within—oh! I’d say a range of twenty miles around. It mightn’t have been here in this village.”
“You always thought it was, Liz.”
“You get het up,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “You think it’s sure to be here in your own neighbourhood because you’re afraid, I suppose. I used to look at people. So did you, George. You’d say to yourself I wonder if it could be that chap, he’s seemed a bit queer lately. That sort of thing.”
“I don’t suppose really he looked queer at all,” said Tuppence. “He probably looked just like everyone else.”
“Yes, it could be you’ve got something there. I’ve heard it said that you wouldn’t know, and whoever it was had never seemed mad at all, but other people say there’s always a terrible glare in their eyes.”
“Jeffreys, he was the sergeant of police here then,” said Mr. Copleigh, “he always used to say he had a good idea but there was nothing doing.”
“They never caught the man?”
“No. Over six months it was, nearly a year. Then the whole thing stopped. And there’s never been anything of that kind round here since. No, I think he must have gone away. Gone away altogether. That’s what makes people think they might know who it was.”
“You mean because of people who did leave the district?”
“Well, of course it made people talk, you know. They’d say it might be so-and-so.”
Tuppence hesitated to ask the next question, but she felt that with Mrs. Copleigh’s passion for talking it wouldn’t matter if she did.
“Who did you think it was?” she asked.
“Well, it’s that long ago I’d hardly like to say. But there was names mentioned. Talked of, you know, and looked at. Some as thought it might be Mr. Boscowan.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, being an artist and all, artists are queer. They say that. But I didn’t think it was him!”
“There was more as said it was Amos Perry,” said Mr. Copleigh.
“Mrs. Perry’s husband?”
“Yes. He’s a bit queer, you know, simpleminded. He’s the sort of chap that might have done it.”
“Were the Perrys living here then?”
“Yes. Not at Watermead. They had a cottage about four or five miles away. Police had an eye on him, I’m sure of that.”
“Couldn’t get anything on him, though,” said Mrs. Copleigh. “His wife spoke for him always. Stayed at home with her in the evenings, he did. Always, she said. Just went along sometimes to the pub on a Saturday night, but none of these murders took place on a Saturday night, so there wasn’t anything in that. Besides, Alice Perry was the kind you’d believe when she gave evidence. She’d never let up or back down. You couldn’t frighten her out of it. Anyway, he’s not the one. I never thought so. I know I’ve nothing to go on but I’ve a sort of feeling if I’d had to put my finger on anyone I’d have put it on Sir Philip.”
“Sir Philip?” Again Tuppence’s head reeled. Yet another character was being introduced. Sir Philip. “Who’s Sir Philip?” she asked.
“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 kind. 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 fêtes, 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 did 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 things 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 fine,” said Tuppence. “But don’t bother if it’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.
She went to sleep and dreamt. There was a kind of Lady of Shalott looking out of the window of the house. There was a scratching noise coming from the chimney. Blows were coming from behind a great iron plate nailed up there. The clanging sounds of the hammer. Clang, clang, clang. Tuppence woke up. It was Mrs. Copleigh knocking on the door. She came in brightly, put the tea down by Tuppence’s bed, pulled the curtains, hoped Tuppence had slept well. No one had ever, Tuppence thought, looked more cheerful than Mrs. Copleigh did. She had had no bad dreams!
Eight. Sutton chancellor