By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie [86]
‘What about Mr Eccles?’
Ivor smiled. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that retribution might be overtaking Mr Eccles shortly. Still, I wouldn’t bank on it. He’s a man who covers his tracks with incredible ingenuity. So much so, that one imagines that there aren’t really any tracks at all.’ He added thoughtfully under his breath, ‘A great administrator. A great planner.’
‘Last night–’ began Tuppence, and hesitated–‘Can I ask questions?’
‘You can ask them,’ Tommy told her. ‘But don’t bank on getting any satisfactory answers from old Ivor here.’
‘Sir Philip Starke,’ said Tuppence–‘Where does he come in? He doesn’t seem to fit as a likely criminal–unless he was the kind that–’
She stopped, hastily biting off a reference to Mrs Copleigh’s wilder suppositions as to child murderers–
‘Sir Philip Starke comes in as a very valuable source of information,’ said Ivor Smith. ‘He’s the biggest landowner in these parts–and in other parts of England as well.’
‘In Cumberland?’
Ivor Smith looked at Tuppence sharply. ‘Cumberland? Why do you mention Cumberland? What do you know about Cumberland, Mrs Tommy?’
‘Nothing,’ said Tuppence. ‘For some reason or other it just came into my head.’ She frowned and looked perplexed. ‘And a red and white striped rose on the side of a house–one of those old-fashioned roses.’
She shook her head.
‘Does Sir Philip Starke own the Canal House?’
‘He owns the land–He owns most of the land hereabouts.’
‘Yes, he said so last night.’
‘Through him, we’ve learned a good deal about leases and tenancies that have been cleverly obscured through legal complexities–’
‘Those house agents I went to see in the Market Square–Is there something phony about them, or did I imagine it?’
‘You didn’t imagine it. We’re going to pay them a visit this morning. We are going to ask some rather awkward questions.’
‘Good,’ said Tuppence.
‘We’re doing quite nicely. We’ve cleared up the big post office robbery of 1965, and the Albury Cross robberies, and the Irish Mail train business. We’ve found some of the loot. Clever places they manufactured in these houses. A new bath installed in one, a service flat made in another–a couple of its rooms a little smaller than they ought to have been thereby providing for an interesting recess. Oh yes, we’ve found out a great deal.’
‘But what about the people?’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean the people who thought of it, or ran it–apart from Mr Eccles, I mean. There must have been others who knew something.’
‘Oh yes. There were a couple of men–one who ran a night club, conveniently just off the M1. Happy Hamish they used to call him. Slippery as an eel. And a woman they called Killer Kate–but that was a long time ago–one of our more interesting criminals. A beautiful girl, but her mental balance was doubtful. They eased her out–she might have become a danger to them. They were a strictly business concern–in it for loot–not for murder.’
‘And was the Canal House one of their hideaway places?’
‘At one time, Ladymead, they called it then. It’s had a lot of different names in its time.’
‘Just to make things more difficult, I suppose,’ said Tuppence. ‘Ladymead. I wonder if that ties up with some particular thing.’
‘What should it tie up with?’
‘Well, it doesn’t really,’ said Tuppence. ‘It just started off another hare in my mind, if you know what I mean. The trouble is,’ she added, ‘I don’t really know what I mean myself now. The picture, too. Boscowan painted the picture and then somebody else painted a boat into it, with a name on the boat–’
‘Tiger Lily.’
‘No, Waterlily. And his wife says that he didn’t paint the boat.’
‘Would she know?’
‘I expect she would. If you were married to a painter, and especially if you were an artist yourself, I think you’d know if it was a different style of painting. She’s rather frightening, I think,’ said Tuppence.
‘Who–Mrs Boscowan?’
‘Yes. If you know what I mean, powerful. Rather overwhelming.’
‘Possibly. Yes.’
‘She knows things,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I’m not sure that she knows them because she knows them, if you know what I mean.’
‘I don’t,’ said