“Would you like to come in and look round the garden?” said the friendly witch.
“Well—well—thank you but I don’t want to bother you.”
“Oh, it’s no bother. I’ve nothing to do. Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” said Tuppence.
“I thought perhaps you’d lost your way,” said the friendly witch. “People do sometimes.”
“I just thought,” said Tuppence, “that this was a very attractive-looking house when I came down the hill on the other side of the bridge.”
“That’s the prettiest side,” said the woman. “Artists come and sketch it sometimes—or they used to—once.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “I expect they would. I believe I—I saw a picture—at some exhibition,” she added hurriedly. “Some house very like this. Perhaps it was this.”
“Oh, it may have been. Funny, you know, artists come and do a picture. And then other artists seem to come too. It’s just the same when they have the local picture show every year. Artists all seem to choose the same spot. I don’t know why. You know, it’s either a bit of meadow and brook, or a particular oak tree, or a clump of willows, or it’s the same view of the Norman church. Five or six different pictures of the same thing, most of them pretty bad, I should think. But then I don’t know anything about art. Come in, do.”
“You’re very kind,” said Tuppence. “You’ve got a very nice garden,” she added.
“Oh, it’s not too bad. We’ve got a few flowers and vegetables and things. But my husband can’t do much work nowadays and I’ve got no time with one thing and another.”
“I saw this house once from the train,” said Tuppence. “The train slowed up and I saw this house and I wondered whether I’d ever see it again. Quite some time ago.”
“And now suddenly you come down the hill in your car and there it is,” said the woman. “Funny, things happen like that, don’t they?”
“Thank goodness,” Tuppence thought, “this woman is extraordinarily easy to talk to. One hardly has to imagine anything to explain oneself. One can almost say just what comes into one’s head.”
“Like to come inside the house?” said the friendly witch. “I can see you’re interested. It’s quite an old house, you know. I mean, late Georgian or something like that, they say, only it’s been added on to. Of course, we’ve only got half the house, you know.”
“Oh I see,” said Tuppence. “It’s divided in two, is that it?”
“This is really the back of it,” said the woman. “The front’s the other side, the side you saw from the bridge. It was a funny way to partition it, I should have thought. I’d have thought it would have been easier to do it the other way. You know, right and left, so to speak. Not back and front. This is all really the back.”
“Have you lived here long?” asked Tuppence.
“Three years. After my husband retired we wanted a little place somewhere in the country where we’d be quiet. Somewhere cheap. This was going cheap because of course it’s very lonely. You’re not near a village or anything.”
“I saw a church steeple in the distance.”
“Ah, that’s Sutton Chancellor. Two and a half miles from here. We’re in the parish, of course, but there aren’t any houses until you get to the village. It’s a very small village too. You’ll have a cup of tea?” said the friendly witch. “I just put the kettle on not two minutes ago when I looked out and saw you.” She raised both hands to her mouth and shouted. “Amos,” she shouted, “Amos.”
The big man in the distance turned his head.
“Tea in ten minutes,” she called.
He acknowledged the signal by raising his hand. She turned, opened the door and motioned Tuppence to go in.
“Perry, my name is,” she said in a friendly voice. “Alice Perry.”
“Mine’s Beresford,” said Tuppence. “Mrs. Beresford.”
“Come in, Mrs. Beresford, and have a look round.”
Tuppence paused for a second. She thought “Just for a moment I feel like Hansel and Gretel. The witch asks you into her house. Perhaps it’s a gingerbread house . . . It ought to be.”
Then she looked at Alice Perry again and thought that it wasn’t the gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel’s witch. This was just a perfectly ordinary woman. No, not quite ordinary. She had a rather strange wild friendliness about her. “She might be able to do spells,” thought Tuppence, “but I’m sure they’d be good spells.” She stooped her head a little and stepped over the threshold into the witch’s house.
It was rather dark inside. The passages were small. Mrs. Perry led her through a kitchen and into a sitting room beyond it which was evidently the family living room. There was nothing exciting about the house. It was, Tuppence thought, probably a late Victorian addition to the main part. Horizontally it was narrow. It seemed to consist of a horizontal passage, rather dark, which served a string of rooms. She thought to herself that it certainly was rather an odd way of dividing a house.
“Sit down and I’ll bring the tea in,” said Mrs. Perry.
“Let me help you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I shan’t be a minute. It’s all ready on the tray.”
A whistle rose from the kitchen. The kettle had evidently reached the end of its span of tranquillity. Mrs. Perry went out and returned in a minute or two with the tea tray, a plate of scones, a jar of jam and three cups and saucers.
“I expect you’re disappointed, now you’ve got inside,” said Mrs. Perry.
It was a shrewd remark and very near to the truth.
“Oh no,” said Tuppence.
“Well, I should be if I was you. Because they don’t match a bit, do they? I mean the front and the back side of the house don’t match. But it is a comfortable house to live in. Not many rooms, not too much light but it makes a great difference in price.”
“Who divided the house and why?”
“Oh, a good many years ago, I believe. I suppose whoever had it thought it was too big or too inconvenient. Only wanted a weekend place or something of that kind. So they kept the good rooms, the dining room and the drawing room and made a kitchen out of a small study there was, and a couple of bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, and then walled it up and let the part that was kitchens and old-fashioned sculleries and things, and did it up a bit.”
“Who lives in the other part? Someone who just comes down for weekends?”
“Nobody lives there now,” said Mrs. Perry. “Have another scone, dear.”
“Thank you,” said Tuppence.
“At least nobody’s come down here in the last two years. I don’t know even who it belongs to now.”
“But when you first came here?”
“There was a young lady used to come down here—an actress they said she was. At least that’s what we heard. But we never saw her really. Just caught a glimpse sometimes. She used to come down late on a Saturday night after the show, I suppose. She used to go away on the Sunday evenings.”
“Quite a mystery woman,” said Tuppence, encouragingly.
“You know that’s just the way I used to think of her. I used to make up stories about her in my head. Sometimes I’d think she was like Greta Garbo. You know, the way she went about always in dark glasses and pulled-down hats. Goodness now, I’ve got my peak hat on.”
She removed the witch’s headgear from her head and laughed.
“It’s for a play we’re having at the parish rooms in Sutton Chancellor,” she said. “You know—a sort of fairy story play for the children mostly. I’m playing the witch,” she added.
“Oh,” said Tuppence, slightly taken aback, then added quickly, “What fun.”
“Yes, it is fun, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Perry. “Just right for the witch, aren’t I?” She laughed and tapped her chin. “You know. I’ve got the face for it. Hope it won’t put ideas into people’s heads. They’ll think I’ve got the evil eye.”
“I don’t think they’d think that of you,” s
aid Tuppence. “I’m sure you’d be a beneficent witch.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” said Mrs. Perry. “As I was saying, this actress—I can’t remember her name now—Miss Marchment I think it was, but it might have been something else—you wouldn’t believe the things I used to make up about her. Really, I suppose, I hardly ever saw or spoke to her. Sometimes I think she was just terribly shy and neurotic. Reporters’d come down after her and things like that, but she never would see them. At other times I used to think—well, you’ll say I’m foolish—I used to think quite sinister things about her. You know, that she was afraid of being recognized. Perhaps she wasn’t an actress at all. Perhaps the police were looking for her. Perhaps she was a criminal of some kind. It’s exciting sometimes, making things up in your head. Especially when you don’t—well—see many people.”
“Did nobody ever come down here with her?”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that. Of course these partition walls, you know, that they put in when they turned the house into two, well, they’re pretty thin and sometimes you’d hear voices and things like that. I think she did bring down someone for weekends occasionally.” She nodded her head. “A man of some kind. That may have been why they wanted somewhere quiet like this.”
“A married man,” said Tuppence, entering into the spirit of make believe.
“Yes, it would be a married man, wouldn’t it?” said Mrs. Perry.
“Perhaps it was her husband who came down with her. He’d taken this place in the country because he wanted to murder her and perhaps he buried her in the garden.”
“My!” said Mrs. Perry. “You do have an imagination, don’t you? I never thought of that one.”
“I suppose someone must have known all about her,” said Tuppence. “I mean house agents. People like that.”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Perry. “But I rather liked not knowing, if you understand what I mean.”
“Oh yes,” said Tuppence, “I do understand.”
“It’s got an atmosphere, you know, this house. I mean there’s a feeling in it, a feeling that anything might have happened.”
“Didn’t she have any people come in to clean for her or anything like that?”
“Difficult to get anyone here. There’s nobody near at hand.”
The outside door opened. The big man who had been digging in the garden came in. He went to the scullery tap and turned it, obviously washing his hands. Then he came through into the sitting room.
“This is my husband,” said Mrs. Perry. “Amos. We’ve got a visitor, Amos. This is Mrs. Beresford.”
“How do you do?” said Tuppence.
Amos Perry was a tall, shambling-looking man. He was bigger and more powerful than Tuppence had realized. Although he had a shambling gait and walked slowly, he was a big man of muscular build. He said,
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Beresford.”
His voice was pleasant and he smiled, but Tuppence wondered for a brief moment whether he was really what she would have called “all there.” There was a kind of wondering simplicity about the look in his eyes and she wondered, too, whether Mrs. Perry had wanted a quiet place to live in because of some mental disability on the part of her husband.
“Ever so fond of the garden, he is,” said Mrs. Perry.
At his entrance the conversation dimmed down. Mrs. Perry did most of the talking but her personality seemed to have changed. She talked with rather more nervousness and with particular attention to her husband. Encouraging him, Tuppence thought, rather in a way that a mother might prompt a shy boy to talk, to display the best of himself before a visitor, and to be a little nervous that he might be inadequate. When she’d finished her tea, Tuppence got up. She said,
“I must be going. Thank you, Mrs. Perry, very much for your hospitality.”
“You’ll see the garden before you go.” Mr. Perry rose. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
She went with him outdoors and he took her down to the corner beyond where he had been digging.
“Nice, them flowers, aren’t they?” he said. “Got some old-fashioned roses here—See this one, striped red and white.”
“‘Commandant Beaurepaire,’ ” said Tuppence.
“Us calls it ‘York and Lancaster’ here,” said Perry. “Wars of the Roses. Smells sweet, don’t it?”
“Smells lovely.”
“Better than them new-fashioned Hybrid Teas.”
In a way the garden was rather pathetic. The weeds were imperfectly controlled, but the flowers themselves were carefully tied up in an amateurish fashion.
“Bright colours,” said Mr. Perry. “I like bright colours. We often get folk to see our garden,” he said. “Glad you came.”
“Thank you very much,” said Tuppence. “I think your garden and your house are very nice indeed.”
“You ought to see t’other side of it.”
“Is it to let or to be sold? Your wife says there’s nobody living there now.”
“We don’t know. We’ve not seen anyone and there’s no board up and nobody’s ever come to see over it.”
“It would be a nice house, I think, to live in.”
“You wanting a house?”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, making up her mind quickly. “Yes, as a matter of fact, we are looking round for some small place in the country, for when my husband retires. That’ll be next year probably, but we like to look about in plenty of time.”
“It’s quiet here if you like quiet.”
“I suppose,” said Tuppence, “I could ask the local house agents. Is that how you got your house?”
“Saw an advertisement first we did in the paper. Then we went to the house agents, yes.”
“Where was that—in Sutton Chancellor? That’s your village, isn’t it?”
“Sutton Chancellor? No. Agents’ place is in Market Basing. Russell & Thompson, that’s the name. You could go to them and ask.”
“Yes,” said Tuppence, “so I could. How far is Market Basing from here?”
“It’s two miles to Sutton Chancellor and it’s seven miles to Market Basing from there. There’s a proper road from Sutton Chancellor, but it’s all lanes hereabouts.”
“I see,” said Tuppence. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Perry, and thank you very much for showing me your garden.”
“Wait a bit.” He stooped, cut off an enormous paeony and taking Tuppence by the lapel of her coat, he inserted this through the buttonhole in it. “There,” he said, “there you are. Looks pretty, it does.”
For a moment Tuppence felt a sudden feeling of panic. This large, shambling, good-natured man suddenly frightened her. He was looking down at her, smiling. Smiling rather wildly, almost leering. “Pretty it looks on you,” he said again. “Pretty.”
Tuppence thought “I’m glad I’m not a young girl . . . I don’t think I’d like him putting a flower on me then.” She said goodbye again and hurried away.
The house door was open and Tuppence went in to say goodbye to Mrs. Perry. Mrs. Perry was in the kitchen, washing up the tea things and Tuppence almost automatically pulled a teacloth off the rack and started drying.
“Thank you so much,” she said, “both you and your husband. You’ve been so kind and hospitable to me—What’s that?”
From the wall of the kitchen, or rather behind the wall where an old-fashioned range had once stood, there came a loud screaming and squawking and a scratching noise too.
“That’ll be a jackdaw,” said Mrs. Perry, “dropped down the chimney in the other house. They do this time of the year. One came down our chimney last week. They make nests in the chimneys, you know.”
“What—in the other house?”
“Yes, there it is again.”
Again the squawking and crying of a distressed bird came to their ears. Mrs. Perry said, “There’s no one to bother, you see, in the empty house. The chimneys ought to be swept and all that.”
The squawking scratching noises went on.
“Poor bird,” said Tuppence.
“I know. It won’t be able to get up again.”
“You mean it’ll just die there?”
“Oh yes. One came down our chimney as I say. Two of them, actually. One was a young bird. It was all right, we put it out and it flew away. The other one was dead.”
The frenzied scuffling and squeaking went on.
“Oh,” said Tuppence, “I wish we could get at it.”
Mr. Perry came in through the door. “Anything the matter?” he said, looking from one to the other.
“There’s a bird, Amos. It must be in the drawing-room chimney next door. Hear it?”
“Eh, it’s come down from the jackdaws’ nest.”
“I wish we could get in there,” said Mrs. Perry.
“Ah, you can’t do anything. They’ll die from the fright, if nothing else.”
“Then it’ll smell,” said Mrs. Perry.
“You won’t smell anything in here. You’re softhearted,” he went on, looking from one to the other, “like all females. We’ll get it if you like.”
“Why, is one of the windows open?”
“We can get in through the door.”
“What door?”
“Outside here in the yard. The key’s hanging up among those.”
He went outside and along to the end, opening a small door there. It was a kind of potting shed really, but a door from it led into the other house and near the door of the potting shed were six or seven rusty keys hanging on a nail.
“This one fits,” said Mr. Perry.
He took down the key and put it in the door, and after exerting a good deal of cajolery and force, the key turned rustily in the lock.
“I went in once before,” he said, “when I heard water running. Somebody’d forgotten to turn the water off properly.”
He went in and the two women followed him. The door led into a small room which still contained various flower vases on a shelf and a sink with a tap.
“A flower room, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “Where people used to do the flowers. See? A lot of the vases left here.”
There was a door out of the flower room. This was not even locked. He opened it and they went through. It was like, Tuppence thought, going through into another world. The passageway outside was covered with a pile carpet. A little way along there was a door half open and from there the sounds of a bird in distress were coming. Perry pushed the door open and his wife and Tuppence went in.