By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Aunt Ada smirked. There was no other word for it. ‘You have something there,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I received you rather roughly, but I don’t care for being imposed upon. You never know in this place. They let in anyone to see you. Anyone at all. If I accepted everyone for what they said they were, they might be intending to rob and murder me in my bed.’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s very likely,’ said Tommy.

‘You never know,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘The things you read in the paper. And the things people come and tell you. Not that I believe everything I’m told. But I keep a sharp look-out. Would you believe it, they brought a strange man in the other day—never seen him before. Called himself Dr Williams. Said Dr Murray was away on his holiday and this was his new partner. New partner! How was I to know he was his new partner? He just said he was, that’s all.’

‘Was he his new partner?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ said Aunt Ada, slightly annoyed at losing ground, ‘he actually was. But nobody could have known it for sure. There he was, drove up in a car, had that little kind of black box with him, which doctors carry to do blood pressure—and all that sort of thing. It’s like the magic box they all used to talk about so much. Who was it, Joanna Southcott’s?’

‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘I think that was rather different. A prophecy of some kind.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, my point is anyone could come into a place like this and say he was a doctor, and immediately all the nurses would smirk and giggle and say yes, Doctor, of course, Doctor, and more or less stand to attention, silly girls! And if the patient swore she didn’t know the man, they’d only say she was forgetful and forgot people. I never forget a face,’ said Aunt Ada firmly. ‘I never have. How is your Aunt Caroline? I haven’t heard from her for some time. Have you seen anything of her?’

Tommy said, rather apologetically, that his Aunt Caroline had been dead for fifteen years. Aunt Ada did not take this demise with any signs of sorrow. Aunt Caroline had after all not been her sister, but merely her first cousin.

‘Everyone seems to be dying,’ she said, with a certain relish. ‘No stamina. That’s what’s the matter with them. Weak heart, coronary thrombosis, high blood pressure, chronic bronchitis, rheumatoid arthritis—all the rest of it. Feeble folk, all of them. That’s how the doctors make their living. Giving them boxes and boxes and bottles and bottles of tablets. Yellow tablets, pink tablets, green tablets, even black tablets, I shouldn’t be surprised. Ugh! Brimstone and treacle they used to use in my grandmother’s day. I bet that was as good as anything. With the choice of getting well or having brimstone and treacle to drink, you chose getting well every time.’ She nodded her head in a satisfied manner. ‘Can’t really trust doctors, can you? Not when it’s a professional matter—some new fad—I’m told there’s a lot of poisoning going on here. To get hearts for the surgeons, so I’m told. Don’t think it’s true, myself. Miss Packard’s not the sort of woman who would stand for that.’

Downstairs Miss Packard, her manner slightly apologetic, indicated a room leading off the hall.

‘I’m so sorry about this, Mrs Beresford, but I expect you know how it is with elderly people. They take fancies or dislikes and persist in them.’

‘It must be very difficult running a place of this kind,’ said Tuppence.

‘Oh, not really,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I quite enjoy it, you know. And really, I’m quite fond of them all. One gets fond of people one has to look after, you know. I mean, they have their little ways and their fidgets, but they’re quite easy to manage, if you know how.’

Tuppence thought to herself that Miss Packard was one of those people who would know how.

‘They’re like children, really,’ said Miss Packard indulgently. ‘Only children are far more logical which makes it difficult sometimes with them. But these people are illogical, they want to be reassured by your telling them what they want to believe. Then they’re quite happy again for a bit. I’ve got a very nice staff here. People with patience, you know, and good temper, and not too brainy, because if you have people who are brainy they are bound to be very impatient. Yes, Miss Donovan, what is it?’ She turned her head as a young woman with pince-nez came running down the stairs.

‘It’s Mrs Lockett again, Miss Packard. She says she’s dying and she wants the doctor called at once.’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Packard, unimpressed, ‘what’s she dying from this time?’

‘She says there was mushroom in the stew yesterday and that there must have been fungi in it and that she’s poisoned.’

‘That’s a new one,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I’d better come up and talk to her. So sorry to leave you, Mrs Beresford. You’ll find magazines and papers in that room.’

‘Oh, I’ll be quite all right,’ said Tuppence.

She went into the room that had been indicated to her. It was a pleasant room overlooking the garden with french windows that opened on it. There were easy chairs, bowls of flowers on the tables. One wall had a bookshelf containing a mixture of modern novels and travel books, and also what might be described as old favourites, which possibly many of the inmates might be glad to meet again. There were magazines on a table.

At the moment there was only one occupant in the room. An old lady with white hair combed back off her face who was sitting in a chair, holding a glass of milk in her hand, and looking at it. She had a pretty pink and white face, and she smiled at Tuppence in a friendly manner.

‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Are you coming to live here or are you visiting?’

‘I’m visiting,’ said Tuppence. ‘I have an aunt here. My husband’s with her now. We thought perhaps two people at once was rather too much.’

‘That was very thoughtful of you,’ said the old lady. She took a sip of milk appreciatively. ‘I wonder—no, I think it’s quite all right. Wouldn’t you like something? Some tea or some coffee perhaps? Let me ring the bell. They’re very obliging here.’

‘No thank you,’ said Tuppence, ‘really.’

‘Or a glass of milk perhaps. It’s not poisoned today.’

‘No, no, not even that. We shan’t be stopping very much longer.’

‘Well, if you’re quite sure—but it wouldn’t be any trouble, you know. Nobody ever thinks anything is any trouble here. Unless, I mean, you ask for something quite impossible.’

‘I daresay the aunt we’re visiting sometimes asks for quite impossible things,’ said Tuppence. ‘She’s a Miss Fanshawe,’ she added.

‘Oh, Miss Fanshawe,’ said the old lady. ‘Oh yes.’

Something seemed to be restraining her but Tuppence said cheerfully,

‘She’s rather a tartar, I should imagine. She always has been.’

‘Oh, yes indeed she is. I used to have an aunt myself, you know, who was very like that, especially as she grew older. But we’re all quite fond of Miss Fanshawe. She can be very, very amusing if she likes. About people, you know.’

‘Yes, I daresay she could be,’ said Tuppence. She reflected a moment or two, considering Aunt Ada in this new light.

‘Very acid,’ said the old lady. ‘My name is Lancaster, by the way, Mrs Lancaster.’

‘My name’s Beresford,’ said Tuppence.

‘I’m afraid, you know, one does enjoy a bit of malice now and then. Her descriptions of some of the other guests here, and the things she says about them. Well, you know, one oughtn’t, of course, to find it funny but one does.’

‘Have you been living here long?’

‘A good while now. Yes, let me see, seven years—eight years. Yes, yes it must be more than eight years.’ She sighed. ‘One loses touch with things. And people too. Any relations I have left live abroad.’

‘That must be rather sad.’

‘No, not really. I didn’t care for them very much. Indeed, I didn’t even know them well. I had a bad illness—a very bad illness—and I was alone in the world, so they thought it was better for me to live in a place like this. I think I’m very lucky to have come here. They are so kind and thoughtful. And the gardens are really beautiful. I know myself that I shouldn’t like to be living on my own because I do get very confused sometimes, you know. Very confused.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘I get confused here. I mix things up. I don’t always remember properly the things that have happened.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tuppence. ‘I suppose one always has to have something, doesn’t one?’

‘Some illnesses are very painful. We have two poor women living here with very bad rheumatoid arthritis. They suffer terribly. So I think perhaps it doesn’t matter so much if one gets, well, just a little confused about what happened and where, and who it was, and all that sort of thing, you know. At any rate it’s not painful physically.’

‘No. I think perhaps you’re quite right,’ said Tuppence.

The door opened and a girl in a white overall came in with a little tray with a coffee pot on it and a plate with two biscuits, which she set down at Tuppence’s side.

‘Miss Packard thought you might care for a cup of coffee,’ she said.

‘Oh. Thank you,’ said Tuppence.

The girl went out again and Mrs Lancaster said,

‘There, you see. Very thoughtful, aren’t they?’