By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie [27]
‘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