Free By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie Page A

know. I mean, late Georgian or something like that, they say, only it's been added on to. Of course, we've only got half the house, you know.'
    'Oh I see,' said Tuppence. 'It's divided in two, is that it?'
    'This is really the back of it,' said the woman. 'The front's the other side, the side you saw from the bridge. It was a funny way to partition it, I should have thought. I'd have thought it would have been easier to do it the other way. You know, right and left, so to speak. Not back and front. This is all really the back.'
    'Have you lived here long?' asked Tuppence.
    'Three years. After my husband retired we wanted a little place somewhere in the country where we'd be quiet. Somewhere cheap. This was going cheap because of course it's very lonely. You're not near a village or anything.'
    'I saw a church steeple in the distance.'
    'Ah, that's Sutton Chancellor. Two and a half miles from here. We're in the parish, of course, but there aren't any houses until you get to the village. It's a very small village, too. You'll have a cup of tea?' said the friendly witch. 'I just put the kettle on not two minutes ago when I looked out and saw you.' She raised both hands to her mouth and shouted. 'Amos,' she shouted, 'Amos.'
    The big man in the distance turned his head.
    'Tea in ten minutes,' she called.
    He acknowledged the signal by raising his hand. She turned, opened the door and motioned Tuppence to go in.
    'Perry, my name is,' she said in a friendly voice. 'Alice Perry.'
    'Mine's Beresford,' said Tuppence. 'Mrs Beresford.'
    'Come in, Mrs Beresford, and have a look round.'
    Tuppence paused for a second. She thought 'Just for a moment I feel like Hansel and Gretel. The witch asks you into her house. Perhaps it's a gingerbread house... It ought to be.'
    Then she looked at Alice Perry again and thought that it wasn't the gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel's witch.
    This was just a perfectly ordinary woman. No, not quite ordinary. She had a rather strange wild friendliness about her.
    'She might be able to do spells,' thought Tuppence, 'but I'm sure they'd be good spells.' She stooped her head a little and stepped over the threshold into the witch's house.
    It was rather dark inside. The passages were small. Mrs Perry led her through a kitchen and into a sitting room beyond it which was evidently the family living room. There was nothing exciting about the house. It was, Tuppence thought, probably a late Victorian addition to the main part. Horizontally it was narrow. It seemed to consist of a horizontal passage, rather dark, which served a string of rooms. She thought to herself that it certainly was rather an odd way of dividing a house.
    'Sit down and I'll bring the tea in,' said Mrs Perry.
    'Let me help you.'
    'Oh, don't worry, I shan't be a minute. It's all ready on the tray.'
    A whistle rose from the kitchen. The kettle had evidently reached the end of its span of tranquillity. Mrs Perry went out and returned in a minute or two with the tea tray, a plate of scones, a jar of jam and three cups and saucers.
    'I expect you're disappointed, now you've got inside,' said Mrs Perry.
    It was a shrewd remark and very near to the truth.
    'Oh no,' said Tuppence.
    'Well, I should be if I was you. Because they don't match a bit, do they? I mean the front and the back side of the house don't match. But it is a comfortable house to live in. Not many rooms, not too much light but it makes a great difference in price.'
    'Who divided the house and why?'
    'Oh, a good many years ago, I believe. I suppose whoever had it thought it was too big or too inconvenient. Only wanted a weekend place or something of that kind. So they kept the good rooms, the dining room and the drawing room and made a kitchen out of a small study there was, and a couple of bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, and then walled it up and let the part that was kitchens and old-fashioned sculleries and things, and did it up a bit.'
    'Who lives in the other part? Someone who