'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 just comes down for weekends?'

'Nobody lives there now,' said Mrs. Perry. 'Have another scone, dear.'

'Thank you,' said Tuppence.

'At least nobody's come down here in the last two years. I don't know even who it belongs to now.'

'But when you first came here?'

'There was a young lady used to come down here-an actress they said she was. At least that's what we heard. But we never saw her really. Just caught a glimpse sometimes. She used to come down late on a Saturday night after the show, I suppose. She used to go away on the Sunday evenings.'

'Quite a mystery woman,' said Tuppence, encouragingly.

'You know that's just the way I used to think of her. I used to make up stories about her in my head. Sometimes I'd think she was like Greta Garbo. You know, the way she went about always in dark glasses and pulled-down hats. Goodness now, I've got my peak hat on.'

She removed the witch's headgear from her head and laughed.

'It's for a play we're having at the parish rooms in Sutton Chancellor,' she said. 'You know-a sort of fairy story play for the children mostly. I'm playing the witch,' she added.

'Oh,' said Tuppence, slightly taken aback, then added quickly, 'What fun.'

'Yes, it is fun, isn't it?' said Mrs. Perry. 'Just right for the witch, aren't I?' She laughed and tapped her chin. 'You know I've got the face for it. Hope it won't put ideas into people's heads. They'll think I've got the evil eye.'

'I don't think they'd think that of you,' said Tuppence. 'I'm sure you'd be a beneficent witch.'

'Well, I'm glad you think so,' said Mrs. Perry. 'As I was saying, this actress-I can't remember her name now-Miss Marchment I think it was, but it might have been something else-you wouldn't believe the things I used to make up about her. Really, I suppose, I hardly ever saw or spoke to her. Sometimes I think she was just terribly shy and neurotic.'

'Reporters'd come down after her and things like that, but she never would see them. At other times I used to think-well, you'll say I'm foolish-I used to think quite sinister things about her. You know, that she was afraid of being recognized. Perhaps she wasn't an actress at all. Perhaps the police were looking for her. Perhaps she was a criminal of some kind. It's exciting sometimes, making things up in your head. Especially when you don't-well-see many people.'

'Did nobody ever come down here with her?'

'Well, I'm not so sure about that. Of course these partition walls, you know, that they put in when they turned the house into two, well, they're pretty thin and sometimes you'd hear voices and things like that. I think she did bring down someone for weekends occasionally.' She nodded her head. 'A man of some kind. That may have been why they wanted somewhere quiet like this.'

'A married man,' said Tuppence, entering into the spirit of make-believe.

'Yes, it would be a married man, wouldn't it?' said Mrs. Perry.

'Perhaps it was her husband who came down With her. He'd taken this place in the country because he wanted to murder her and perhaps he buried her in the garden.'

'My!' said Mrs. Perry. 'You do have an imagination, don't you? I never thought of that one.'

'I suppose someone must have known all about her,' said Tuppence. 'I mean house agents. People like that.'

'Oh, I suppose so,' said Mrs. Perry. 'But I rather liked not knowing, if you understand what I mean.'

'Oh yes,' said Tuppence, 'I do understand.'

'It's got an atmosphere, you know, this house. I mean there's a feeling in it, a feeling that anything might have happened.'

'Didn't she have any people come in to clean for her or anything like that?'

'Difficult to get anyone here. There's nobody near at hand.'

The outside door opened. The big man who had been digging in the garden came in. He went to the scullery tap and turned it, obviously washing his hands. Then he came through into the sitting room.

'This is my husband,' said Mrs. Perry. 'Amos. We've got a visitor, Amos. This is Mrs. Beresford.'

'How do you do?' said Tuppence.

Amos Perry was a tall, shambling-looking man. He was bigger and more powerful than Tuppence had realized.

Although he had a shambling gait and walked slowly, he was a big man of muscular build. He said, 'Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Beresford.'

His voice was pleasant and he smiled, but Tuppence wondered for a brief moment whether he was really what she would have called 'all there'. There was a kind of wondering simplicity about the look in his eyes and she wondered, too, whether Mrs. Perry had wanted a quiet place to live in because of some mental disability on the part of her husband.

'Ever so fond of the garden, he is,' said Mrs. Perry.

At his entrance the conversation dimmed down. Mrs. Perry did most of the talking but her personality seemed to have changed. She talked with rather more nervousness and with particular attention to her husband. Encouraging him, Tuppence thought, rather in a way that a mother might prompt a shy boy to talk, to display the best of himself before a visitor, and to be a little nervous that he might be inadequate. When she'd finished her tea, Tuppence got up. She said, 'I must be going. Thank you, Mrs. Perry, very much for your hospitality.'

'You'll see the garden before you go.' Mr. Perry rose. 'Come on, I'll show you.'

She went with him outdoors and he took her down to the corner beyond where he had been digging.

'Nice, them flowers, aren't they?' he said. 'Got some old-fashioned roses here. See this one, striped red and white.'

'"Commandant Beaurepaire",' said Tuppence.

'Us calls it "York and Lancaster" here,' said Perry. 'Wars of the Roses. Smells sweet, don't it?'

'Smells lovely.'

'Better than them new-fashioned Hybrid Teas.'

In a way the garden was rather pathetic. The weeds were imperfectly controlled, but the flowers themselves were carefully tied up in an amateurish fashion.

'Bright colours,' said Mr. Perry. 'I like bright colours. We often get folk to see our garden,' he said. 'Glad you came.'

'Thank you very much,' said Tuppence. 'I think your garden and your house are very nice indeed.'

'You ought to see t'other side of it.'

'Is it to let or to be sold? Your wife says there's nobody living there now.'

'We don't know. We've not seen anyone and there's no board up and nobody's ever come to see over it.'

'It would be a nice house, I think, to live in.'

'You wanting a house?'

'Yes,' said Tuppence, making up her mind quickly. 'Yes, as a matter of fact, we are looking round for some small place in the country, for when my husband retires. That'll be next year probably, but we like to look about in plenty of time.'

'It's quiet here if you like quiet.'

'I suppose,' said Tuppence, 'I could ask the local house agents. Is that how you got your house?'

'Saw an advertisement first we did in the paper. Then we went to the house agents, yes.'

'Where was that, in Sutton Chancellor? That's your village, isn't it?'

'Sutton Chancellor? No. Agents' place is in Market Basing. Russell amp; Thompson, that's the name. You could go to them and ask.'

'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'so I could. How far is Market Basing from here?'