By the Pricking of My Thumbs: Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence Mystery of a Painted House
The house Tuppence Beresford notices from the train is hiding something; it caught her attention from the very first moment. A painting of that same house only confirms her suspicions: the gossip and rumours of years gone by held some truth. (In Spanish the novel is published as El cuadro, "The Painting".)
Author: Agatha Christie (1890–1976)
Title: By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)
Format: English Kindle edition, 227 pages
Scope: Tommy and Tuppence novel
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B0046A9MUO (ASIN B0046A9MUO)
Old Fears
The deaths of several children at one time spread fear among the locals, and a series of major robberies in the area added to the fear of unknown criminals, dangerous men who had occupied some of the most sinister houses, among them the one that caught Tuppence’s eye. Secrets and cover-ups are tangled in a web of unsolved crimes.
Tuppence Won’t Let Go
It is Tuppence who meddles in this long-ago case and risks her life to catch the culprits. She meets the local people and asks questions, until an attack nearly kills her. After that, her husband Tommy tries to persuade her to stay away from danger at any cost, warning her again and again how serious the matter is; but curiosity and the determination to find the truth end up obsessing Mrs Beresford.
Aunt Ada’s Nursing Home
The story begins with a visit. Tommy and Tuppence go to see Tommy’s sharp-tongued Aunt Ada at Sunny Ridge, a home for elderly ladies, and there Tuppence meets a sweet, vague old woman, Mrs Lancaster, who asks her a chilling question about a child behind the fireplace. Shortly afterwards Aunt Ada dies, leaving a painting of a pink house beside a canal, and Mrs Lancaster has disappeared. Tuppence is convinced the house in the painting holds the key.
Something Wicked
The title comes from Macbeth, where one of the witches says: "By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes." It is perfectly chosen. The novel has the atmosphere of a dark fairy tale: a quiet village, a house that seems to be watching, old women with secrets and a sense of evil hidden beneath ordinary English life. It is one of the most unsettling books Christie wrote in her later years.
A Couple Who Grew Old
Unlike Poirot and Miss Marple, who barely age, Tommy and Tuppence grow older in real time. They first appeared as bright young adventurers in The Secret Adversary (1922), returned in Partners in Crime and in the wartime spy story N or M?, and by this book they are in their sixties, with grown-up children. Their final case, Postern of Fate, followed in 1973. Their affectionate, teasing marriage is one of the pleasures of the series.
Adaptations
In 2005 the French director Pascal Thomas filmed the novel as Mon petit doigt m’a dit, with Catherine Frot and André Dussollier, and a British television version the following year added Miss Marple to the story.
Before You Read
No prior knowledge of the series is needed to enjoy it, but readers who know the couple from their earlier adventures will appreciate the poignancy of seeing them in later life.
Albert, their loyal former butler and assistant, is on hand as usual, and the couple’s banter remains as lively as ever, even as both worry about growing old.
It is a fine autumn read.
Why Read It
The explanation for everything that has happened is quite extraordinary, and the suspense and mystery dissolve into an ending that leaves no one indifferent. It is one of Christie’s most atmospheric late novels, with an older, still irrepressible Tommy and Tuppence.
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