By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie [92]
‘No,’ said Tuppence.
‘Oh, you seem to know so much. I thought perhaps you’d know that too. There was a doctor. I went to him. I was only seventeen then and I was frightened. He said it would be all right to have the child taken away so that nobody would ever know. But it wasn’t all right, you see. I began to have dreams. I had dreams that the child was always there, asking me why it had never had life. The child told me it wanted companions. It was a girl, you know. Yes, I’m sure it was a girl. She came and she wanted other children. Then I got the command. I couldn’t have any children. I’d married and I thought I’d have children, then my husband wanted children passionately but the children never came, because I was cursed, you see. You understand that, don’t you? But there was a way, a way to atone. To atone for what I’d done. What I’d done was murder, wasn’t it, and you could only atone for murder with other murders, because the other murders wouldn’t be really murders, they would be sacrifices. They would be offered up. You do see the difference, don’t you? The children went to keep my child company. Children of different ages but young. The command would come and then–’ she leaned forward and touched Tuppence ‘–it was such a happy thing to do. You understand that, don’t you? It was so happy to release them so that they’d never know sin like I knew sin. I couldn’t tell anyone, of course, nobody was ever to know. That was the thing I had to be sure about. But there were people sometimes who got to know or to suspect. Then of course–well, I mean it had to be death for them too, so that I should be safe. So I’ve always been quite safe. You understand, don’t you?’
‘Not–not quite.’
‘But you do know. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? You knew. You knew the day I asked you at Sunny Ridge. I saw by your face. I said “Was it your poor child?” I thought you’d come, perhaps because you were a mother. One of those whose children I’d killed. I hoped you’d come back another time and then we’d have a glass of milk together. It was usually milk. Sometimes cocoa. Anyone who knew about me.’
She moved slowly across the room and opened a cupboard in a corner of the room.
‘Mrs Moody–’ said Tuppence, ‘was she one?’
‘Oh, you know about her–she wasn’t a mother–she’d been a dresser at the theatre. She recognized me so she had to go.’ Turning suddenly she came towards Tuppence holding a glass of milk and smiling persuasively.
‘Drink it up,’ she said. ‘Just drink it up.’
Tuppence sat silent for a moment, then she leapt to her feet and rushed to the window. Catching up a chair, she crashed the glass. She leaned her head out and screamed:
‘Help! Help!’
Mrs Lancaster laughed. She put the glass of milk down on a table and leant back in her chair and laughed.
‘How stupid you are. Who do you think will come? Who do you think can come? They’d have to break down doors, they’d have to get through that wall and by that time–there are other things, you know. It needn’t be milk. Milk is the easy way. Milk and cocoa and even tea. For little Mrs Moody I put it in cocoa–she loved cocoa.’
‘The morphia? How did you get it?’
‘Oh, that was easy. A man I lived with years ago–he had cancer–the doctor gave me supplies for him–to keep in my charge–other drugs too–I said later that they’d all been thrown away–but I kept them, and other drugs and sedatives too–I thought they might come in useful some day–and they did–I’ve still got a supply–I never take anything of the kind myself–I don’t believe in it.’ She pushed the glass of milk towards Tuppence–‘Drink it up, it’s much the easiest way. The other way–the trouble is, I can’t be sure just where I put it.’
She got up from her chair and began walking round the room.
‘Where did I put it? Where did I? I forget everything now I’m getting old.’
Tuppence yelled again. ‘Help!’ but the canal bank was empty still. Mrs Lancaster was still wandering round the room.
‘I thought–I certainly thought–oh, of course, in my knitting bag.’
Tuppence turned from the window. Mrs