In Book 2 Tommy is away for a few days, so Tuppence starts looking for the mystery house on her own. The painting was supposedly given to Aunt Ada by Mrs Lancaster. The picture strongly reminds Tuppence of a house she once saw and immediately liked. One of the items Aunt Ada had left is a painting of a house by a river. Tuppence suspects there’s more to it and tries to find the relative but the trail turns cold. The matron tells them that a relative called Mrs Johnson took her away. When they return to the home after the funeral to make arrangements for Ada’s possessions, they find that Mrs Lancaster has suddenly departed. While Tommy talks with his aunt, Tuppence has a conversation with another resident, Mrs Lancaster, who unexpectedly says 'Was it your poor child? There behind the fireplace.'Ī few weeks later Aunt Ada dies of natural causes. In Book 1 Tommy and Tuppence Beresford visit Tommy’s aunt Ada in a retirement home called Sunny Ridge.

The title of the book comes from Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, when the second witch says: Tommy and Tuppence are elderly in this work (they aged from novel to novel).

It features her detectives Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. The UK edition retailed at twenty-one shillings (21/-) and the US edition at $4.95. By the Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1968 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.

By the pricking of my thumbs christie