'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 morphine? 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-'

She got up from her chair and began walking round the room.

'Where did I put? Where did I? I forget everything now that 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. Lancaster was coming towards her.

'What a silly woman you are,' said Mrs. Lancaster, 'to want it this way.'

Her left arm shot out and she caught Tuppence's shoulder.

Her right hand came from behind her back. In it was a long thin stiletto blade. Tuppence struggled. She thought, 'I can stop her easily. Easily. She's an old woman. Feeble. She can't-'

Suddenly in a cold tide of fear she thought, 'But I'm an old woman too. I'm not as strong as I think myself. I'm not as strong as she is. Her hands, her grasp, her fingers. I suppose because she's mad and mad people, I've always heard, are strong.'

The gleaming blade was approaching near her. Tuppence screamed. Down below she heard shouts and blows. Blows now on the doors as though someone were trying to force the doors or windows. 'But they'll never get through,' thought Tuppence. 'They'll never get through this trick doorway here. Not unless they know the mechanism.'

She struggled fiercely. She was still managing to hold Mrs. Lancaster away from her. But the other was the bigger woman.

A big strong woman. Her face was still smiling but it no longer had the benignant look. It had the look now of someone enjoying herself.

'Killer Kate,' said Tuppence.

'You know my nickname? Yes, but I've sublimated that. I've become a killer of the Lord. It's the Lord's will that I should kill you. So that makes it all right. You do see that, don't you? You see, it makes it all right.'

Tuppence was pressed now against the side of a big chair. With one arm Mrs. Lancaster held her against the chair, and the pressure increased-no further recoil was possible. In Mrs. Lancaster's right hand the sharp steel of the stiletto approached.

Tuppence thought, 'I mustn't panic-I mustn't panic-' But following that came with sharp insistence, 'But what can I do?' To struggle was unavailing. Fear came then-the same sharp fear of which she had the first indication in Sunny Ridge 'Is it your poor child?'

That had been the first warning-but she had misunderstood it-she had not known it was a warning.

Her eyes watched the approaching steel but strangely enough it was not the gleaming metal and its menace that frightened her into a state of paralysis; it was the face above it-it was the smiling benignant face of Mrs. Lancaster-smiling happily, contentedly-a woman pursuing her appointed task, with gentle reasonableness.

'She doesn't look mad,' thought Tuppence-'That's what's so awful. Of course she doesn't because in her own mind she's sane. She's a perfectly normal, reasonable human being-that's what she thinks. Oh Tommy, Tommy, what have I got myself into this time?'

Dizziness and limpness submerged her. Her muscles relaxed-somewhere there was a great crash of broken glass. It swept her away, into darkness and unconsciousness.

'That's better-you're coming round-drink this, Mrs. Beresford.'

A glass pressed against her lips-she resisted fiercely.

Poisoned milk-who had said that once-something about 'poisoned milk'? She wouldn't drink poisoned milk… No, not milk-quite a different smell. She relaxed, her lips opened-she sipped 'Brandy,' said Tuppence with recognition.

'Quite right. Go on drink some more.'

Tuppence sipped again. She leaned back against cushions, surveyed her surroundings. The top of a ladder showed through the window. In front of the window there was a mass of broken glass on the floor.

'I heard the glass break.'

She pushed away the brandy glass and her eyes followed up the hand and arm to the face of the man who had been holding it.

'El Greco,' said Tuppence.

'I beg your pardon.'

'It doesn't matter.'

She looked round the room.

'Where is she-Mrs. Lancaster, I mean?'

'She's-resting-in the next room.'

'I see.' But she wasn't sure that she did see. She would see better presently. Just now only one idea would come at a time 'Sir Philip Starke.' She said it slowly and doubtfully. 'That's right?'

'Yes. Why did you say El Greco?'

'Suffering.'

'I beg your pardon.'

'The picture. In Toledo. Or in the Prado-I thought so a long time ago-no, not very long ago-' She thought about it made a discovery-'Last night. A party. At the vicarage-'

'You're doing fine,' he said encouragingly.

It seemed very natural, somehow, to the sitting here, in this room with broken glass on the floor, talking to this man-with the dark agonized face 'I made a mistake-at Sunny Ridge. I was all wrong about her. I was afraid, then-wave of fear. But I got it wrong-I wasn't afraid of her-I was afraid for her. I thought something was going to happen to her. I wanted to protect her, to save her. I-' She looked doubtfully at him. 'Do you understand? Or does it sound silly?'

'Nobody understands better than I do-nobody in this world.'

Tuppence stared at him-frowning,

'Who-who was she? I mean Mrs. Lancaster-Mrs. Yorke-that's not real, that's just taken from a rose tree, who was she herself?'

Philip Starke said harshly: 'Who was she? Herself? The real one, the true one. Who was she-with God's Sign upon her [Unreadable]?'

'Did you ever read Peer Gym, Mrs. Beresford?'

He went to the window. He stood there a moment, looking out, then he turned abruptly. 'She was my wife, Gold help me.'

'Your wife. But she died, the tablet in the church-'

'She died abroad-that was the story I circulated. And I put up a tablet to her memory in the church. People don't like to ask too many questions of a bereaved widower. I didn't go on living here.'

'Some people said she had left you.'

'That made an acceptable story, too.'

'You took her away when you found out-about the children-'

'So you know about the children?'

'She told me. It seemed-unbelievable.'

'Most of the time she was quite normal-no one would have guessed. But the police were beginning to suspect. I had to act. I had to save her-to protect her. You understand-can you understand-in the very least?'

'Yes,' said Tuppence, 'I can understand quite well.'

'She was-so lovely once.' His voice broke a little. 'You see her-there,' he pointed to the painting on the wall. 'Waterlily. She was a wild girl-always. Her mother was the last of the Warrenders-an old family-inbred. Helen Warrender ran away from home. She took up with a bad lot-a gaolbird. Her daughter went on the stage-she trained as a dancer, Waterlily was her most popular role-then she took up with a criminal gang-for excitement-purely to get a kick out of it. She was always being disappointed. When she married me, she had finished with all that-she wanted to settle down-to live quietly. A family life, with children. I was rich-I could give her all the things she wanted.'

'But we had no children. It was a sorrow to both of us. She began to have obsessions of guilt. Perhaps she had always been slightly unbalanced-I don't know. What do causes matter? She was-'

He made a despairing gesture.

'I loved her-I always loved her-no matter what she was, what she did. I wanted her safe-to keep her safe-not shut up-a prisoner for life, eating her heart out. And we did keep her safe-for many many years.'

'We?'

'Nellie-my dear faithful Nellie Bligh. My dear Nellie Bligh. She was wonderful-planned and arranged it all. The Homes for the Elderly-every comfort and luxury. And no temptations-no children. Keep children out of her way. It seemed to work. These homes were in faraway places-Cumberland, North Wales-no one was likely to recognize her. Or so we thought. It was on Mr. Eccles's advice-a very shrewd lawyer-his charges were high-but I relied on him.'

'Blackmail?' suggested Tuppence.

'I never thought of it like that. He was a friend, and an adviser.'

'Who painted the boat in the picture-the boat called Waterlily?'

'I did. It pleased her. She remembered her triumph on the stage. It was one of Boscowan's pictures. She liked his pictures. Then, one day, she wrote a name in black pigment on the bridge-the name of a dead child. So I painted a boat to hide it and labelled the boat Waterlily.'

The door in the wall swung open. The friendly witch came through it.

She looked at Tuppence and from Tuppence to Philip Starke.

'All right again?' she said in a matter-of-fact way.

'Yes,' said Tuppence. The nice thing about the friendly witch, she saw, was that there wasn't going to be any fuss.