The Complete Tommy & Tuppence Collection (93 page)

“That, I think, is my duty,” said Tuppence firmly. “No, the only other reason is—”

“Come on. Cough it up.”

“I'd rather like to see that—that other old pussy again.”

“What, the one who thought there was a dead child behind the fireplace?”

“Yes,” said Tuppence. “I'd like to talk to her again. I'd like to know what was in her mind when she said all those things. Was it something she remembered or was it something that she'd just imagined? The more I think about it the more extraordinary it seems. Is it a sort of story that she wrote to herself in her mind or is there—was there once something real that happened about a fireplace or about a dead child. What made her think that the dead child might have been
my
dead child? Do I look as though I had a dead child?”

“I don't know how you expect anyone to look who has a dead child,” said Tommy. “I shouldn't have thought so. Anyway, Tuppence, it is our duty to go and you can enjoy yourself in your
macabre
way on the side. So that's settled. We'll write to Miss Packard and fix a day.”

Four

P
ICTURE
OF
A
H
OUSE

T
uppence drew a deep breath.

“It's just the same,” she said.

She and Tommy were standing on the front doorstep of Sunny Ridge.

“Why shouldn't it be?” asked Tommy.

“I don't know. It's just a feeling I have—something to do with time. Time goes at a different pace in different places. Some places you come back to, and you feel that time has been bustling along at a terrific rate and that all sorts of things will have happened—and changed. But here—Tommy—do you remember Ostend?”

“Ostend? We went there on our honeymoon. Of course I remember.”

“And do you remember the sign written up? T
RAMSTILLSTAND
—It made us laugh. It seemed so ridiculous.”

“I think it was Knock—not Ostend.”

“Never mind—you remember it. Well, this is like that word—
Tramstillstand
—a portmanteau word. Timestillstand—nothing's happened here. Time has just stood still. Everything's going on here just the same. It's like ghosts, only the other way round.”

“I don't know what you are talking about. Are you going to stand here all day talking about time and not even ring the bell?—Aunt Ada isn't here, for one thing. That's different.” He pressed the bell.

“That's the only thing that will be different. My old lady will be drinking milk and talking about fireplaces, and Mrs. Somebody-or-other will have swallowed a thimble or a teaspoon and a funny little woman will come squeaking out of a room demanding her cocoa, and Miss Packard will come down the stairs, and—”

The door opened. A young woman in a nylon overall said: “Mr. and Mrs. Beresford? Miss Packard's expecting you.”

The young woman was just about to show them into the same sitting room as before when Miss Packard came down the stairs and greeted them. Her manner was suitably not quite as brisk as usual. It was grave, and had a kind of semimourning about it—not too much—that might have been embarrassing. She was an expert in the exact amount of condolence which would be acceptable.

Three score years and ten was the Biblical accepted span of life, and the deaths in her establishment seldom occurred below that figure. They were to be expected and they happened.

“So good of you to come. I've got everything laid out tidily for you to look through. I'm glad you could come so soon because as a matter of fact I have already three or four people waiting for a vacancy to come here. You will understand, I'm sure, and not think that I was trying to hurry you in any way.”

“Oh no, of course, we quite understand,” said Tommy.

“It's all still in the room Miss Fanshawe occupied,” Miss Packard explained.

Miss Packard opened the door of the room in which they had last seen Aunt Ada. It had that deserted look a room has when the bed is covered with a dust sheet, with the shapes showing beneath it of folded-up blankets and neatly arranged pillows.

The wardrobe doors stood open and the clothes it had held had been laid on the top of the bed neatly folded.

“What do you usually do—I mean, what do people do mostly with clothes and things like that?” said Tuppence.

Miss Packard, as invariably, was competent and helpful.

“I can give you the name of two or three societies who are only too pleased to have things of that kind. She had quite a good fur stole and a good quality coat but I don't suppose you would have any personal use for them? But perhaps you have charities of your own where you would like to dispose of things.”

Tuppence shook her head.

“She had some jewellery,” said Miss Packard. “I removed that for safekeeping. You will find it in the right-hand drawer of the dressing table. I put it there just before you were due to arrive.”

“Thank you very much,” said Tommy, “for the trouble you have taken.”

Tuppence was staring at a picture over the mantelpiece. It was a small oil painting representing a pale pink house standing adjacent to a canal spanned by a small humpbacked bridge. There was an empty boat drawn up under the bridge against the bank of the canal. In the distance were two poplar trees. It was a very pleasant little scene but nevertheless Tommy wondered why Tuppence was staring at it with such earnestness.

“How funny,” murmured Tuppence.

Tommy looked at her inquiringly. The things that Tuppence thought funny were, he knew by long experience, not really to be described by such an adjective at all.

“What do you mean, Tuppence?”

“It is funny. I never noticed that picture when I was here before. But the odd thing is that I have seen that house somewhere. Or perhaps it's a house just like that that I have seen. I remember it quite well . . . Funny that I can't remember when and where.”

“I expect you noticed it without really noticing you were noticing,” said Tommy, feeling his choice of words was rather clumsy and nearly as painfully repetitive as Tuppence's reiteration of the word “funny.”

“Did
you
notice it, Tommy, when we were here last time?”

“No, but then I didn't look particularly.”

“Oh, that picture,” said Miss Packard. “No, I don't think you would have seen it when you were here the last time because I'm almost sure it wasn't hanging over the mantelpiece then. Actually it was a picture belonging to one of our other guests, and she gave it to your aunt. Miss Fanshawe expressed admiration of it once or twice and this other old lady made her a present of it and insisted she should have it.”

“Oh I see,” said Tuppence, “so of course I couldn't have seen it here before. But I still feel I know the house quite well. Don't you, Tommy?”

“No,” said Tommy.

“Well, I'll leave you now,” said Miss Packard briskly. “I shall be available at any time that you want me.”

She nodded with a smile, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

“I don't think I really like that woman's teeth,” said Tuppence.

“What's wrong with them?”

“Too many of them. Or too big—
‘The better to eat you with, my child'
—Like Red Riding Hood's grandmother.”

“You seem in a very odd sort of mood today, Tuppence.”

“I am rather. I've always thought of Miss Packard as very nice—but today, somehow, she seems to me rather sinister. Have you ever felt that?”

“No, I haven't. Come on, let's get on with what we came here to do—look over poor old Aunt Ada's ‘effects,' as the lawyers call them. That's the desk I told you about—Uncle William's desk. Do you like it?”

“It's lovely. Regency, I should think. It's nice for the old people who come here to be able to bring some of their own things with them. I don't care for the horsehair chairs, but I'd like that little worktable. It's just what we need for that corner by the window where we've got that perfectly hideous whatnot.”

“All right,” said Tommy. “I'll make a note of those two.”

“And we'll have the picture over the mantelpiece. It's an awfully attractive picture and I'm quite sure that I've seen that house somewhere. Now, let's look at the jewellery.”

They opened the dressing-table drawer. There was a set of cameos and a Florentine bracelet and earrings and a ring with different-coloured stones in it.

“I've seen one of these before,” said Tuppence. “They spell a name usually. Dearest sometimes. Diamond, emerald, amethyst, no, it's not dearest. I don't think it would be really. I can't imagine anyone giving your Aunt Ada a ring that spelt dearest. Ruby, emerald—the difficulty is one never knows where to begin. I'll try again. Ruby, emerald, another ruby, no, I think it's a garnet and an amethyst and another pinky stone, it must be a ruby this time and a small diamond in the middle. Oh, of course, it's
regard.
Rather nice really. So old-fashioned and sentimental.”

She slipped it on to her finger.

“I think Deborah might like to have this,” she said, “and the Florentine set. She's frightfully keen on Victorian things. A lot of people are nowadays. Now, I suppose we'd better do the clothes. That's always rather
macabre,
I think. Oh, this is the fur stole. Quite valuable, I should think. I wouldn't want it myself. I wonder if there's anyone here—anyone who was especially nice to Aunt Ada—or perhaps some special friend among the other inmates—visitors, I mean. They call them visitors or guests, I notice. It would be nice to offer her the stole if so. It's real sable. We'll ask Miss Packard. The rest of the things can go to the charities. So that's all settled, isn't it? We'll go and find Miss Packard now. Goodbye, Aunt Ada,” she remarked aloud, her eyes turning to the bed. “I'm glad we came to see you that last time. I'm sorry you didn't like me, but if it was fun to you
not
to like me and say those rude things, I don't begrudge it to you. You had to have
some
fun. And we won't forget you. We'll think of you when we look at Uncle William's desk.”

They went in search of Miss Packard. Tommy explained that they would arrange for the desk and the small worktable to be called for and despatched to their own address and that he would arrange with the local auctioneers to dispose of the rest of the furniture. He would leave the choice of any societies willing to receive clothing to Miss Packard if she wouldn't mind the trouble.

“I don't know if there's anyone here who would like her sable stole,” said Tuppence. “It's a very nice one. One of her special friends, perhaps? Or perhaps one of the nurses who had done some special waiting on Aunt Ada?”

“That is a very kind thought of yours, Mrs. Beresford. I'm afraid Miss Fanshawe hadn't any special friends among our visitors, but Miss O'Keefe, one of the nurses, did do a lot for her and was especially good and tactful, and I think she'd be pleased and honoured to have it.”

“And there's the picture over the mantelpiece,” said Tuppence. “I'd like to have that—but perhaps the person whom it belonged to, and who gave it to her, would want to have it back. I think we ought to ask her—?”

Miss Packard interrupted. “Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Beresford, I'm afraid we can't do that. It was a Mrs. Lancaster who gave it to Miss Fanshawe and she isn't with us any longer.”

“Isn't with you?” said Tuppence, surprised. “A Mrs. Lancaster? The one I saw last time I was here—with white hair brushed back from her face. She was drinking milk in the sitting room downstairs. She's gone away, you say?”

“Yes. It was all rather sudden. One of her relations, a Mrs. Johnson, took her away about a week ago. Mrs. Johnson had returned from Africa where she's been living for the last four or five years—quite unexpectedly. She is now able to take care of Mrs. Lancaster in her own home, since she and her husband are taking a house in England. I don't think,” said Miss Packard, “that Mrs. Lancaster really wanted to leave us. She had become so—set in her ways here, and she got on very well with everyone and was happy. She was very disturbed, quite tearful about it—but what can one do? She hadn't really very much say in the matter, because of course the Johnsons were paying for her stay here. I did suggest that as she had been here so long and settled down so well, it might be advisable to let her remain—”

“How long had Mrs. Lancaster been with you? asked Tuppence.

“Oh, nearly six years, I think. Yes, that's about it. That's why, of course, she'd really come to feel that this was her home.”

“Yes,” said Tuppence. “Yes, I can understand that.” She frowned and gave a nervous glance at Tommy and then stuck a resolute chin into the air.

“I'm sorry she's left. I had a feeling when I was talking to her that I'd met her before—her face seemed familiar to me. And then afterwards it came back to me that I'd met her with an old friend of mine, a Mrs. Blenkensop. I thought when I came back here again to visit Aunt Ada, that I'd find out from her if that was so. But of course if she's gone back to her own people, that's different.”

“I quite understand, Mrs. Beresford. If any of our visitors can get in touch with some of their old friends or someone who knew their relations at one time, it makes a great difference to them. I can't remember a Mrs. Blenkensop ever having been mentioned by her, but then I don't suppose that would be likely to happen in any case.”

“Can you tell me a little more about her, who her relations were, and how she came to come here?”

“There's really very little to tell. As I said, it was about six years ago that we had letters from Mrs. Johnson inquiring about the Home, and then Mrs. Johnson herself came here and inspected it. She said she'd had mentions of Sunny Ridge from a friend and she inquired the terms and all that and—then she went away. And about a week or a fortnight later we had a letter from a firm of solicitors in London making further inquiries, and finally they wrote saying that they would like us to accept Mrs. Lancaster and that Mrs. Johnson would bring her here in about a week's time if we had a vacancy. As it happened, we had, and Mrs. Johnson brought Mrs. Lancaster here and Mrs. Lancaster seemed to like the place and liked the room that we proposed to allot her. Mrs. Johnson said that Mrs. Lancaster would like to bring some of her own things. I quite agreed, because people usually do that and find they're much happier. So it was all arranged very satisfactorily. Mrs. Johnson explained that Mrs. Lancaster was a relation of her husband's, not a very near one, but that they felt worried about her because they themselves were going out to Africa—to Nigeria I think it was, her husband was taking up an appointment there and it was likely they'd be there for some years before they returned to England, so as they had no home to offer Mrs. Lancaster, they wanted to make sure that she was accepted in a place where she would be really happy. They were quite sure from what they'd heard about this place that that was so. So it was all arranged very happily indeed and Mrs. Lancaster settled down here very well.”