careful,’ said Tommy, rather inadequately.
Tuppence did not deign to reply.
On Monday morning, Albert, the domestic mainstay of the Beresfords’ life for many long years, ever since he had been roped into anti-criminal activities by them as a carroty-haired lift-boy, deposited the tray of early morning tea on the table between the two beds, pulled back the curtains, announced that it was a fine day, and removed his now portly form from the room.
Tuppence yawned, sat up, rubbed her eyes, poured out a cup of tea, dropped a slice of lemon in it, and remarked that it seemed a nice day, but you never knew.
Tommy turned over and groaned.
‘Wake up,’ said Tuppence. ‘Remember you’re going places today.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Tommy. ‘So I am.’
He, too, sat up and helped himself to tea. He looked with appreciation at the picture over the mantelpiece.
‘I must say, Tuppence, your picture looks very nice.’
‘It’s the way the sun comes in from the window sideways and lights it up.’
‘Peaceful,’ said Tommy.
‘If only I could remember where it was I’d seen it before.’
‘I can’t see that it matters. You’ll remember sometime or other.’
‘That’s no good. I want to remember now.’
‘But why?’
‘Don’t you see? It’s the only clue I’ve got. It was Mrs Lancaster’s picture—’
‘But the two things don’t tie up together anyway,’ said Tommy. ‘I mean, it’s true that the picture once belonged to Mrs Lancaster. But it may have been just a picture she bought at an exhibition or that somebody in her family did. It may have been a picture that somebody gave her as a present. She took it to Sunny Ridge with her because she thought it looked nice. There’s no reason it should have anything to do with her personally. If it had, she wouldn’t have given it to Aunt Ada.’
‘It’s the only clue I’ve got,’ said Tuppence.
‘It’s a nice peaceful house,’ said Tommy.
‘All the same, I think it’s an empty house.’
‘What do you mean, empty?’
‘I don’t think,’ said Tuppence, ‘there’s anybody living in it. I don’t think anybody’s ever going to come out of that house. Nobody’s going to walk across that bridge, nobody’s going to untie that boat and row away in it.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Tuppence.’ Tommy stared at her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘I thought so the first time I saw it,’ said Tuppence. ‘I thought “What a nice house that would be to live in.” And then I thought “But nobody does live here, I’m sure they don’t.” That shows you that I have seen it before. Wait a minute. Wait a minute… it’s coming. It’s coming.’
Tommy stared at her.
‘Out of a window,’ said Tuppence breathlessly. ‘Out of a car window? No, no, that would be the wrong angle. Running alongside the canal… and a little hump-backed bridge and the pink walls of the house, the two poplar trees, more than two. There were lots more poplar trees. Oh dear, oh dear, if I could—’
‘Oh, come off it, Tuppence.’
‘It will come back to me.’
‘Good Lord,’ Tommy looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to hurry. You and your déjà vu picture.’
He jumped out of bed and hastened to the bathroom. Tuppence lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, trying to force a recollection that just remained elusively out of reach.
Tommy was pouring out a second cup of coffee in the dining-room when Tuppence appeared flushed with triumph.
‘I’ve got it—I know where I saw that house. It was out of the window of a railway train.’
‘Where? When?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think. I remember saying to myself: “Someday I’ll go and look at that house”—and I tried to see what the name of the next station was. But you know what railways are nowadays. They’ve pulled down half the stations—and the next one we went through was all torn down, and grass growing over the platforms, and no name board or anything.’
‘Where the hell’s my brief-case? Albert!’
A frenzied search took place.
Tommy came back to say a breathless goodbye. Tuppence was sitting looking meditatively at a fried egg.
‘Goodbye,’ said Tommy. ‘And for God’s sake, Tuppence, don’t go poking into something that’s none of your business.’
‘I think,’ said Tuppence, meditatively, ‘that what I shall really do, is to take a few railway journeys.’
Tommy looked slightly relieved.
‘Yes,’ he said encouragingly, ‘you try that. Buy yourself a season ticket. There’s some scheme where you can travel a thousand miles all over the British Isles for a very reasonable fixed sum. That ought to suit you down to the ground, Tuppence. You travel by all the trains you can think of in all the likely parts. That ought to keep you happy until I come home again.’
‘Give my love to Josh.’
‘I will.’ He added, looking at his wife in a worried manner, ‘I wish you were coming with me. Don’t—don’t do anything stupid, will you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Tuppence.
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Tuppence, ‘oh dear.’ She looked round her with gloomy eyes. Never, she said to herself, had she felt more miserable. Naturally she had known she would miss Tommy, but she had no idea how much she was going to miss him.
During the long course of their married life they had hardly ever been separated for any length of time. Starting before their marriage, they had called themselves a pair of ‘young adventurers’. They had been through various difficulties and dangers together, they had married, they had had two children and just as the world was seeming rather dull and middle-aged to them, the second war had come about and in what seemed an almost miraculous way they had been tangled up yet again on the outskirts of the British Intelligence. A somewhat unorthodox pair, they had been recruited by a quiet nondescript man who called himself ‘Mr Carter’, but to whose word everybody seemed to bow. They
