By the Pricking of My Thumbs. Agatha Christie

live here, I’m sure they don’t.” That shows you that I have seen it before. Wait a minute. Wait a minute… it’s coming. It’s coming.’

      Tommy stared at her.

      ‘Out of a window,’ said Tuppence breathlessly. ‘Out of a car window? No, no, that would be the wrong angle. Running alongside the canal… and a little hump-backed bridge and the pink walls of the house, the two poplar trees, more than two. There were lots more poplar trees. Oh dear, oh dear, if I could—’

      ‘Oh, come off it, Tuppence.’

      ‘It will come back to me.’

      ‘Good Lord,’ Tommy looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to hurry. You and your déjà vu picture.’

      He jumped out of bed and hastened to the bathroom. Tuppence lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, trying to force a recollection that just remained elusively out of reach.

      Tommy was pouring out a second cup of coffee in the dining-room when Tuppence appeared flushed with triumph.

      ‘I’ve got it—I know where I saw that house. It was out of the window of a railway train.’

      ‘Where? When?’

      ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think. I remember saying to myself: “Someday I’ll go and look at that house”—and I tried to see what the name of the next station was. But you know what railways are nowadays. They’ve pulled down half the stations—and the next one we went through was all torn down, and grass growing over the platforms, and no name board or anything.’

      ‘Where the hell’s my brief-case? Albert!’

      A frenzied search took place.

      Tommy came back to say a breathless goodbye. Tuppence was sitting looking meditatively at a fried egg.

      ‘Goodbye,’ said Tommy. ‘And for God’s sake, Tuppence, don’t go poking into something that’s none of your business.’

      ‘I think,’ said Tuppence, meditatively, ‘that what I shall really do, is to take a few railway journeys.’

      Tommy looked slightly relieved.

      ‘Yes,’ he said encouragingly, ‘you try that. Buy yourself a season ticket. There’s some scheme where you can travel a thousand miles all over the British Isles for a very reasonable fixed sum. That ought to suit you down to the ground, Tuppence. You travel by all the trains you can think of in all the likely parts. That ought to keep you happy until I come home again.’

      ‘Give my love to Josh.’

      ‘I will.’ He added, looking at his wife in a worried manner, ‘I wish you were coming with me. Don’t—don’t do anything stupid, will you?’

      ‘Of course not,’ said Tuppence.