Christie, herself ageing of course, does this rather well. Between this and the nursing home theme, there’s quite a bit of musing on ageing in the book, both on the physical limitations it brings and on the mental decline that faces some elderly people. Tommy and Tuppence are the only detectives of Christie who age in real time, so in this book they are now in their sixties. But it seems that someone doesn’t want Mrs Lancaster to be found, and Tuppence soon finds herself in danger. So while Tommy is off at a hush-hush conference with his old colleagues from his days in the Secret Service, Tuppence digs out train timetables and old diaries, and sets out to repeat any journeys she has made over the last few years in the hope of spotting the house again. People are very willing to talk, but memories are vague and Tuppence finds it impossible to pin down hard facts or dates.Īll she has to go on is a painting that Mrs Lancaster had given to Aunt Ada, of a house by a canal that Tuppence feels sure she has seen once before, perhaps from a car or a train.

From Mrs Lancaster’s spine-shivering question, Tuppence finds herself entering a maze of old rumours and gossip, much of them about murdered or missing children. But although it all gets a bit rambly in the middle, it has a wonderfully spooky atmosphere. This is a late Christie, published in 1968, and as with many of the later books the plotting isn’t as tight as when she was at her peak. She meets with a brick wall, however, of lawyers and bankers none of whom seem to know exactly where Mrs Lancaster might be… Tuppence, with nothing but her instincts to go on, finds this puzzling and worrying, and decides to track Mrs Lancaster down. But they discover Mrs Lancaster has gone – collected by her relatives. A few weeks later Aunt Ada dies and when they return to the home to collect her belongings, Tuppence determines to speak to Mrs Lancaster again.

As Tuppence, in a thoughtful moment, gazes at the fireplace, she is startled when Mrs Lancaster asks, “Was it your poor child?” The way she asks sends a shiver down Tuppence’s spine (and mine). When Tommy and Tuppence visit Tommy’s elderly Aunt Ada in the Sunny Ridge nursing home, Tuppence falls into conversation with a sweet but rather confused old lady called Mrs Lancaster.

Marple by the pricking of my thumbs