Free By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

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 to call a “white witch”.'
    The woman came down in a hesitating manner to the gate and spoke. Her voice was pleasant with a faint country burr in it of some kind.
    'Were you looking for anything?' she said.
    'I'm sorry,' said Tuppence, 'you must think it very rude of me looking into your garden in this way, but - but I wondered about this house.'
    'Would you like to come in and look round the garden?' said the friendly witch.
    'Well - well - thank you but I don't want to bother you.'
    'Oh, it's no bother. I've nothing to do. Lovely afternoon, isn't it?'
    'Yes, it is,' said Tuppence.
    'I thought perhaps you'd lost your way,' said the friendly witch. 'People do sometimes.'
    'I just thought,' said Tuppence, 'that this was a very attractive-looking house when I came down the hill on the other side of the bridge.'
    'That's the prettiest side,' said the woman. 'Artists come and sketch it sometimes - or they used to - once.'
    'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'I expect they would. I believe I - I saw a picture - at some exhibition,' she added hurriedly. 'Some house very like this. Perhaps it was this.'
    'Oh, it may have been. Funny, you know, artists come and do a picture. And then other artists seem to come too. It's just the same when they have the local picture show every year. Artists all seem to choose the same spot. I don't know why. You know, it's either a bit of meadow and brook, or a particular oak tree, or a dump of willows, or it's the same view of the Norman church. Five or six different pictures of the same thing, most of them pretty bad, I should think. But then I don't know anything about art. Come in, do.'
    'You're very kind,' said Tuppence. 'You've got a very nice garden,' she added.
    'Oh, it's not too bad. We've got a few flowers and vegetables and things. But my husband can't do much work nowadays and I've got no time with one thing and another.'
    'I saw this house once from the train,' said Tuppence. 'The train slowed up and I saw this house and I wondered whether I'd ever see it again. Quite some time ago.'
    'And now suddenly you come down the hill in your car and there it is,' said the woman. 'Funny, things happen like that, don't they?'
    'Thank goodness,' Tuppence thought, 'this woman is extraordinarily easy to talk to. One hardly has to imagine anything to explain oneself. One can almost say just what comes into one's head.'
    'Like to come inside the house?' said the friendly witch. 'I can see you're interested. It's quite an old house, you