By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie [24]
She took the left-hand one.
It meandered on, winding to left and to right. Finally it shot round a bend, widened out and climbed a hill, coming out of woods into open downlike country. Having surmounted the crest it took a steep downward course. Not very far away a plaintive cry sounded–
‘Sounds like a train,’ said Tuppence, with sudden hope.
It was a train–Then below her was the railway line and on it a goods train uttering cries of distress as it puffed along. And beyond it was the canal and on the other side of the canal was a house that Tuppence recognized and, leading across the canal was a small hump-backed, pink-bricked bridge. The road dipped under the railway, came up, and made for the bridge. Tuppence drove very gently over the narrow bridge. Beyond it the road went on with the house on the right-hand side of it. Tuppence drove on looking for the way in. There didn’t seem to be one. A fairly high wall shielded it from the road.
The house was on her right now. She stopped the car and walked back on to the bridge and looked at what she could see of the house from there.
Most of the tall windows were shuttered with green shutters. The house had a very quiet and empty look. It looked peaceful and kindly in the setting sun. There was nothing to suggest that anyone lived in it. She went back to the car and drove a little farther. The wall, a moderately high one, ran along to her right. The left-hand side of the road was merely a hedge giving on green fields.
Presently she came to a wrought-iron gate in the wall. She parked the car by the side of the road, got out and went over to look through the ironwork of the gate. By standing on tiptoe she could look over it. What she looked into was a garden. The place was certainly not a farm now, though it might have been once. Presumably it gave on fields beyond it. The garden was tended and cultivated. It was not particularly tidy but it looked as though someone was trying rather unsuccessfully to keep it tidy.
From the iron gate a circular path curved through the garden and round to the house. This must be presumably the front door, though it didn’t look like a front door. It was inconspicuous though sturdy–a back door. The house looked quite different from this side. To begin with, it was not empty. People lived there. Windows were open, curtains fluttered at them, a garbage pail stood by the door. At the far end of the garden Tuppence could see a large man digging, a big elderly man who dug slowly and with persistence. Certainly looked at from here the house held no enchantment, no artist would have wanted particularly to paint it. It was just a house and somebody lived in it. Tuppence wondered. She hesitated. Should she go on and forget the house altogether? No, she could hardly do that, not after all the trouble she had taken. What time was it? She looked at her watch but her watch had stopped. The sound of a door opening came from inside. She peered through the gate again.
The door of the house had opened and a woman came out. She put down a milk bottle and then, straightening up, glanced towards the gate. She saw Tuppence and hesitated for a moment, and then seeming to make up her mind, she came down the path towards the gate. ‘Why,’ said Tuppence to herself, ‘why, it’s a friendly witch!’
It was a woman of about fifty. She had long straggly hair which when caught by the wind, flew out behind her. It reminded Tuppence vaguely of a picture (by Nevinson?) of a young witch on a broomstick. That is perhaps why the term witch had come into her mind. But there was nothing young or beautiful about this woman. She was middle-aged, with a lined face, dressed in a rather slipshod way. She had a kind of steeple hat perched on her head and her nose and her chin came up towards each other. As a description she could have been sinister but she did not look sinister. She seemed to have a beaming and boundless good will. ‘Yes,’ thought Tuppence, ‘you’re exactly like a witch, but you’re a friendly witch. I expect you’re what they used