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By Root 462 0

and felt that once thoroughly rested herself, she would be able to lead the conversation to the most fruitful subjects possible. She would hear, she was sure, all about the house by the bridge, who had lived there, who had been of evil or good repute in the neighbourhood, what scandals there were and other such likely topics. She was more convinced of this than ever when she had been introduced to Mr Copleigh, a man who barely opened his mouth. His conversation was mostly made up of amiable grunts, usually signifying an affirmative. Sometimes, in more muted tones, a disagreement.

He was content so far as Tuppence could see, to let his wife talk. He himself more or less abstracted his attention, part of the time busy with his plans for the next day which appeared to be market day.

As far as Tuppence was concerned nothing could have turned out better. It could have been distinguished by a slogan–‘You want information, we have it’. Mrs Copleigh was as good as a wireless set or a television. You had only to turn the button and words poured out accompanied by gestures and lots of facial expression. Not only was her figure like a child’s rubber ball, her face might also have been made of indiarubber. The various people she was talking about almost came alive in caricature before Tuppence’s eyes.

Tuppence ate bacon and eggs and had slices of thick bread and butter and praised the blackberry jelly, home-made, her favourite kind, she truthfully announced, and did her best to absorb the flood of information so that she could write notes down in her notebook later. A whole panorama of the past in this country district seemed to be spread out before her.

There was no chronological sequence which occasionally made things difficult. Mrs Copleigh jumped from fifteen years ago to two years ago to last month, and then back to somewhere in the twenties. All this would want a lot of sorting out. And Tuppence wondered whether in the end she would get anything.

The first button she had pressed had not given her any result. That was a mention of Mrs Lancaster.

‘I think she came from hereabouts,’ said Tuppence, allowing a good deal of vagueness to appear in her voice. ‘She had a picture–a very nice picture done by an artist who I believe was known down here.’

‘Who did you say now?’

‘A Mrs Lancaster.’

‘No, I don’t remember any Lancasters in these parts. Lancaster. Lancaster. A gentleman had a car accident, I remember. No, it’s the car I’m thinking of. A Lancaster that was. No Mrs Lancaster. It wouldn’t be Miss Bolton, would it? She’d be about seventy now I think. She might have married a Mr Lancaster. She went away and travelled abroad and I do hear she married someone.’

‘The picture she gave my aunt was by a Mr Boscobel–I think the name was,’ said Tuppence. ‘What a lovely jelly.’

‘I don’t put no apple in it either, like most people do. Makes it jell better, they say, but it takes all the flavour out.’

‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘I quite agree with you. It does.’

‘Who did you say now? It began with a B but I didn’t quite catch it.’

‘Boscobel, I think.’

‘Oh, I remember Mr Boscowan well. Let’s see now. That must have been–fifteen years ago it was at least that he came down here. He came several years running, he did. He liked the place. Actually rented a cottage. One of Farmer Hart’s cottages it was, that he kept for his labourer. But they built a new one, they did, the Council. Four new cottages specially for labourers.

‘Regular artist, Mr B was,’ said Mrs Copleigh. ‘Funny kind of coat he used to wear. Sort of velvet or corduroy. It used to have holes in the elbows and he wore green and yellow shirts, he did. Oh, very colourful, he was. I liked his pictures, I did. He had a showing of them one year. Round about Christmas time it was, I think. No, of course not, it must have been in the summer. He wasn’t here in the winter. Yes, very nice. Nothing exciting, if you know what I mean. Just a house with a couple of trees or two cows looking over a fence. But all nice and quiet and pretty colours. Not like some of these young chaps nowadays.