The Red House
“Well,” said Tommy, looking out of the window of the Crown and Anchor, “here we are at Toad in the Hole—or whatever this blasted village is called.”
“Let us review the case,” said Tuppence.
“By all means,” said Tommy. “To begin with, getting my say in first, I suspect the invalid mother!”
“Why?”
“My dear Tuppence, grant that this poltergeist business is all a put up job, got up in order to persuade the girl to sell the house, someone must have thrown the things about. Now the girl said everyone was at dinner—but if the mother is a thoroughgoing invalid, she’d be upstairs in her room.”
“If she was an invalid she could hardly throw furniture about.”
“Ah! but she wouldn’t be a real invalid. She’d be shamming.”
“Why?”
“There you have me,” confessed her husband. “I was really going on the well known principle of suspecting the most unlikely person.”
“You always make fun of everything,” said Tuppence severely. “There must be something that makes these people so anxious to get hold of the house. And if you don’t care about getting to the bottom of this matter, I do. I like that girl. She’s a dear.”