Hot to Trot

by M C Beaton

  It wasn’t even as if Charles hadn’t previously had a lavish ceremony at Barfield House. Agatha had scuppered that one by turning up with the Spanish waiter who was the rightful father of the pregnant bride’s unborn child. This time, however, there seemed no way of stopping Charles from plunging himself into a life of misery. This was a marriage of convenience, a financial transaction that he saw as a way of propping up his ailing estate. Yet the bride’s family’s money could never buy them that which they craved—the social status denied them by their lowly pedigree. The marriage was a sham, and Agatha worried that Charles risked losing control of the house and estate that had been in his family for generations. Yet she had made little effort to extricate him from this latest predicament, and now there was no time. The wedding was on Saturday—only forty-eight hours away.

  Her staff filed into her office carrying cups of coffee and dragging chairs close to her desk. Mrs. Freedman provided Agatha with a coffee, then returned to the outer office.

  Toni sat closest to Agatha. She glanced at the newspaper lying on the desk and reached out to turn it towards her in order to read the smaller print. Agatha placed the blue document wallet on top of it and Toni looked up to see her boss staring impassively at her. She glanced away and sipped her coffee. Clearly the wedding was not a topic for open discussion.

  “Right,” said Agatha. “Let’s start with the Chadwick divorce case. You’ve been keeping tabs on Mrs. Sheraton Chadwick, Simon. What sort of woman are we dealing with?”

  “She has the look of someone who likes a bit of rumpy-pumpy, if you know what I mean,” said Simon, grinning and cocking an eyebrow.

  “I’m not sure that I do know what you mean,” said Agatha innocently. “Have you any ideas, Toni?”

  “Rumpy-pumpy? I can’t be certain,” said Toni, taking her cue from Agatha and adopting a naïvely perplexed expression, “but it sounds like one of those phrases they used in old British black-and-white movies.”

  “Ah, yes,” Agatha agreed. “Like ‘slap and tickle’ or ‘hanky-panky.’ Simon, do you mean that she seemed to you like the sort of woman who might enjoy an enthusiastic illicit sex life?”

  “Yes,” said Simon, squirming slightly. Patrick Mulligan raised a hand to his mouth to cover one of his rare smiles. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  Agatha placed the palms of her hands on her desk and leaned forward slightly, fixing Simon with her dark bear-like eyes. “Let’s keep the language we use at meetings a bit more formal, shall we? If we get sloppy when discussing cases, there’s every chance one of us might slip up when talking to a client and say something out of turn. We can’t have people thinking that we treat our work like some kind of joke. That would definitely be bad for business.”

  “Sorry,” Simon apologised, sitting up straight, a slight flush colouring his cheeks. “I will watch how I … um … phrase things in the future.”

  “Good,” said Agatha. “How has the surveillance been going?”

  “I haven’t had much luck yet. Mrs. Chadwick has been visited by a bloke at a rented house in Oxford.”

  “And do you have photographs of this … bloke?”

  “I’ve seen him, but I could never get a shot of his face that could be used to identify him,” Simon admitted. “I did get the number of the car that dropped him off and picked him up, but he’s out of the vehicle and into the house like a flash.”

  “Okay, let’s move on,” said Agatha. “Patrick, where are we with the Philpott Electronics case?”

  “The company chairman, Sidney Philpott, has concerns about his new managing director, Harold Cheeseman,” said Patrick, sliding a manila folder across the desk. “He has asked us to carry out a discreet background check. So far Cheeseman’s CV and references all appear to be genuine. He left his last job to take up a post in Australia, but told Mr. Philpott that he came back because Australia was not to his wife’s liking. He’s definitely lying about that.”

  “What makes you say that?” Agatha asked, flicking through the report.

  “His wife is dead,” Patrick explained. “She died long before he left for Australia. That was one of his reasons for going—to make a fresh start.”

  “It’s a weird thing to lie about,” said Agatha.

  “He may have his reasons,” Patrick conceded, “but I’m not at all sure about him. From the way the staff say he has been acting at work, there’s something odd going on. I’ve sent a couple of emails to Australia to find out what he got up to there, and I’m tracking down some of his old friends here.”

  “Okay,” said Agatha. “Stay on it.”

  There was a handful of other ongoing cases to discuss, mainly divorces and missing pets, before Agatha turned to Toni.

  “So, Toni,” she said. “Any potential new cases that I haven’t yet heard about?”

  “We have been contacted by a Mr. Gutteridge, who runs a biscuit and cake factory near Evesham,” said Toni. “He wants us to install listening devices in the workers’ canteen because he thinks the staff are saying nasty things about him and his secretary.”

  “Are they having an affair? What sort of things does he think they’re saying?”

  “He denies any affair. She comes from Geneva, and graffiti in the ladies’ loo calls her his ‘Swiss roll.’”

  “I don’t want to get involved in that,” said Agatha, shaking her head. “I don’t mind us sweeping a place to remove bugs, but I won’t plant them in order to eavesdrop on ordinary people simply to deal with office gossip. Anything else?”

  “We have a Mrs. Jessop, who believes that a poltergeist is rearranging her kitchen cupboards and digging up her garden.”

  “A poltergeist?” said Agatha. “A ghost? Creepy, but interesting.”

  “And,” said Toni, “Mrs. Fletcher, who lives just outside Carsely, wants us to investigate someone dumping at the bottom of her garden.”

  “Dumping?” said Patrick. “You mean fly-tipping? Leaving piles of rubbish? That’s a matter for the local council, isn’t it?”

  “No, not fly-tipping,” said Toni. “Someone has been having a dump. Leaving piles of excrement. Quite a lot of it, she says.”

  “That’s disgusting,” said Agatha, wrinkling her nose. “Who would do a thing like that?”

  “She has no idea,” Toni explained, “but the piles are being added to on a regular basis in the middle of the night.”

  “Right,” said Agatha, drawing the meeting to a close. “Let’s keep everything moving forward. Patrick, can you use your contacts to try to trace the car that dropped off Mrs. Chadwick’s visitor? Toni and I will take over the Chadwick case to see if we can make some progress there. We will also find out if Mrs. Jessop’s poltergeist is worth investigating. Simon, you can take on the case of the phantom pooper.”

  “But that’s…” Simon’s objection wilted under the weight of Agatha’s withering stare.

  “Yes, I know—it’s a shit job,” she said, “but somebody has to do it, and the quicker you clear it up, the sooner you can move on to something else.”

  Simon and Patrick dragged their chairs away, heading for the door, but Agatha motioned Toni to stay.

  “I need you to get up to speed on the Chadwick case,” she said. “Give me a call later and we can meet up to stake out that house tonight. I will be out of the office this afternoon.”

  “Are you going to see Charles?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You really have to try to talk to him…”

  “I don’t have to do anything of the sort!” Agatha scowled, a note of anger in her voice.

  “You need to do something,” said Toni. “This has been plaguing you for months. You had a thoroughly miserable Christmas and you’ve been on edge ever since. You need to come to terms with what’s happening.”

  “I am perfectly capable of deciding what I will or will not do, and I certainly do not need personal advice from someone as young as you—someone who was still in nappies when I was being wined an
d dined by some of London’s most eligible bachelors!”

  “And how did that work out?” said Toni, struggling to subdue her own rising temper. “You ended up abandoning London to live in the Cotswolds. Look, we’ve been through a lot together and I care about—”

  “I don’t need you to care about anything except your work!” barked Agatha. “I shouldn’t have to explain—”

  “Well I’m so sorry!” Toni snapped. “It must be very difficult explaining anything to someone as young as me!”

  “Not at all,” said Agatha, “but I left the crayons and colouring books at home today.”

  Toni stormed out and Agatha snatched the newspaper from the desk, hurling it into the waste-paper basket. She knew that Toni was trying to help, motivated by the best of intentions, but the situation with Charles had been festering for so long that the slightest mention of it plunged her into a cauldron of fury. With a sigh, she reluctantly admitted to herself that Toni was right. She needed to clear the air with Charles, for her own peace of mind. Still, that would have to wait. She reached for the blue plastic folder.

  * * *

  That afternoon Agatha drove out of Mircester along the road toward Carsely. The sun shone bright and clear in the pale-blue spring sky and newborn lambs tussled shakily with each other in the fields. The hedgerows were sprouting green, and here and there wild flowers decorated the roadside—a blush of red clover, dainty white primroses and glimpses beyond the hedges of bluebells beginning to carpet the woodland. She turned down a narrow, winding side road that led to the gates of Barfield House. The ornamental wrought-iron gates stood open, as ever, leaning drunkenly away from their hinges on the tall stone gateposts, the bottom edges buried in tall grass.

  The trees that lined the long driveway eventually opened onto the landscaped lawns surrounding the house, allowing the building space to breathe. On the manicured grass stood the biggest marquee that Agatha had ever seen. Tented pavilions of various shapes and sizes were not a rare sight on Barfield’s grounds. The house hosted local fairs, agricultural shows and a plethora of community events. Charles had always said that while he owned the house and the estate, they really belonged to the local people. He regarded himself as something of a caretaker—an enormously privileged caretaker, Agatha mused, but a caretaker nonetheless. Marquees, therefore, regularly graced Barfield’s lawns.

  There was, however, a distinct lack of grace about the monstrosity that now stood there. A team of workmen hauled on ropes and hammered at wooden stakes to secure the acres of canvas. Flags, pennants and bunting fluttered from every upright, and the great round roof was a hideous segmented pink-and-white candy-striped eyesore. It looks, Agatha thought, bringing her car to a halt in order to gawp at the thing, just like a … It is! It’s a circus tent! They’re holding the wedding in a big top! How appropriate—Mary has opted to turn her charade of a wedding into a circus! Send in the clowns!

  Agatha rolled the car onwards. Even Barfield House, the huge Victorian edifice built in what the architect must have imagined to be a romanticised representation of a grand medieval mansion, did not deserve to have the garish circus tent inflicted upon it. Charles had always agreed with her that the house was not particularly pleasing on the eye, despite its multitude of mullioned windows twinkling in the sunshine, but Agatha was aghast at the bizarre tent sprawling on the lawn below. It simply looks awful, she thought. It’s as though the old house has hitched up her lawn to flash her knickers. It’s … vulgar.

  She parked near the stone steps leading to the heavy black-studded oak door that was Barfield’s main entrance. Charles seldom used this door, and had shown Agatha many other ways into the house, but, having arrived unannounced and uninvited, she decided that this was her only option. Rather than risk her pristine nail polish with the large cast-iron knocker, she pressed the electric bell push set into the door frame. Almost immediately, she heard the familiar click of Gustav’s heels crossing the polished floor of the vast hall. A combination of butler, household manager and handyman, Gustav had served Charles’s father and had become almost part of the fabric of the building. Agatha knew that Charles saw him as indispensable, yet she and Gustav had always been, at best, sworn adversaries.

  “Oh,” said Gustav, opening the door. “It’s you.”

  “What a pleasure it is to see you again too, Gustav,” Agatha smiled. “Have you missed me?”

  “Sir Charles is not at home.”

  “Is that not at home to me, or not at home at all?”

  “He is in London, staying at his club. He and some old friends are having a stag party.”

  “Shame,” Agatha sighed. “I was hoping to have a word with him.”

  “I think…” Gustav hesitated, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “I think you had better come in. We should talk.” He reached out, grabbed her by the arm and yanked her inside, marching her briskly across the enormous expanse of the hall.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re—”

  “Shh!” Gustav hissed, raising a finger to his lips. “In here, quickly.”

  He opened a door near the back of the hall, close to where Agatha recalled a large, bright, modern kitchen. The door led into a long, narrow room that was little more than a corridor. Wooden panelling, cupboards and worktops flanked a central gangway that opened out to a wider room where two Belfast sinks, with tall brass taps, stood below a frosted-glass window. There was a small kitchen table and two chairs. Gustav thrust her towards one.

  “What the hell are you playing at?” Agatha demanded. “You can’t just drag me in here and—”

  “Keep your voice down!” Gustav breathed. “The walls have ears in this house nowadays. This is the only place where it is even remotely safe for us to talk. If they knew you were here, the buggers would boot me out without a second thought.”

  “What is this place?” Agatha asked, looking around her. “And who would boot you out? The Brown-Fields?”

  “It’s the old butler’s pantry,” Gustav explained, lowering himself into the wooden chair opposite Agatha. She watched him settle and cross his legs. He moved, as he always had done, with the elegance of a dancer. He had the strength of an athlete, too. Agatha massaged the top of her arm where he had held her in a vice-like grip.

  “Yes,” he said grimly, “the Brown-Fields would love to have an excuse to send me packing, so we must keep this brief. I will not offer you tea.”

  “Gustav, what’s going on?” Agatha asked. “We have never exactly been the best of friends, but I don’t like to see you behaving like this. You’re not acting normal.”

  “There is nothing normal about what’s going on in this house! We may never have been friends. We may never be friends, but I know there is one thing we both genuinely care about.”

  “Charles.”

  “Sir Charles. He is in London, as I said. So is that obnoxious little cow he is about to marry. She is partying with her friends and having a final dress fitting. ‘Miss Mary’ is what she has decreed I should call her. After the wedding, it is to be ‘Your Ladyship.’ Can you imagine? Who does the little bitch think she is?”

  “I take it her parents are here? I know they’ve moved in.”

  “They are using a suite of rooms in the east wing as their apartment. I have been instructed to refer to them as Mr. Darell and Mz Linda. Mz? I mean, what sort of a bloody title is that? Sounds like a bee farting. These people are scum—mongrels—no breeding whatsoever.”

  “That’s rich coming from a humble servant with a Hungarian father and an English mother,” Agatha scoffed.

  “You mean me?” Gustav frowned. He was notoriously secretive about his past. “Who told you my father was Hungarian?”

  “Bill Wong.”

  “The policeman? Well, he doesn’t know everything, does he? Anyway, this isn’t about me. This is about Sir Charles.”

  “Oh bollocks!” Agatha groaned, then caught Gustav’s furious look. “Not you, Gustav—them. Darell and Linda. It’s Mary’s middle na
me, isn’t it? Half her father’s and half her mother’s—Darlinda.”

  “Have you only just realised? Not much of a detective really, are you?” Gustav frowned, then returned swiftly to his subject. “They are destroying Sir Charles, Mrs. Raisin. That little bitch is constantly on his back. If she’s not nagging him about this outrageous wedding, she’s telling him how he should run the estate—and her father is always on hand to back her up. They never give him a moment’s peace. I don’t believe Sir Charles is actually in London celebrating his forthcoming marriage. I think he has gone there simply to get away from these dreadful people.”

  “Maybe he won’t come back.”

  “He will be back. He dare not do anything to jeopardise this farce of a wedding. They have a terrible hold over him.”

  “So I believe,” Agatha agreed, “but he wouldn’t discuss it with me.”

  “Nor me,” Gustav admitted, “and I pride myself on always having been his closest confidant.”

  “Your advice hasn’t always been entirely welcome. You tried to poison my relationship with Charles more than once because you didn’t see me as a suitable lady of the manor. I hated you for that.”

  “I neither expected nor required you ever to like me, Mrs. Raisin. My duty is to protect the best interests of Sir Charles Fraith.”

  “Well that’s not been going too well over the past few months, has it? You’ve let the Brown-Fields start to rule the roost here at Barfield. How is his aunt taking it all?”

  “Mrs. Tassy scarcely appears downstairs nowadays. She even takes her meals in her room. I fear this may be the end of her.”

  Agatha was shocked. Charles’s aunt was a tall, willowy woman whose pale face and silver hair gave her the look of someone who had never been anything less than what was referred to in polite society as “a certain age.” Yet Agatha knew the old lady was as strong as a horse. She hated to think of the Brown-Fields clipping her wings when she was as much a part of Barfield House as the grand staircase or the portraits in the library.