Beating About the Bush

by M C Beaton

  * * *

  Agatha had just finished dressing when she heard a knock at the door. She had chosen a black crêpe Valentino dress with embroidered macramé blossom inlaid on the sleeves. That seemed the right sort of thing to wear given that she was visiting a place where one of the employees had been killed—murdered—the previous day. Then she relented. Black was fine for mourning, but not for morning. She picked out a red Preen dress instead, showing her respect for the deceased Mrs. Dinwiddy by pairing it with a black handbag and black suede boots. The soles of the boots were a bit too slippery and the heels a little too high for her to rush downstairs to answer the door, so she picked her way down sideways. There was a second drum of knocks.

  “Hold on, I’m coming!” she yelled to whoever was outside. Toni? No, she was at the dentist. Bill Wong? Probably. He’d said he would talk to her today. “I’m just taking it easy on the stairs.” Reaching the floor, she took two confident strides forward to open the door. “But I’m much better on … Charles!”

  Sir Charles Fraith stood on the doorstep, immaculate as always. The only thing about him that looked even slightly askew was his marginally crooked, unusually awkward smile.

  “Morning, Aggie,” he said. “I heard you had a spot of bother and—”

  “Where the hell have you been, then?” said Agatha. “I thought you might have come round yesterday evening.”

  “I would have,” said Charles, “but there was something else I had to attend to. I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about—”

  “Well, it will have to wait,” Agatha replied, grabbing a raincoat and waving him away from the door. “But now you are here, you can drive me to Morrison’s. I have to make a few phone calls and I can fill you in on the way. You said you were interested in this case, so now’s the time to start showing it. Let’s go.”

  When they arrived at Morrison’s, the factory gates were closed and Farley Dunster emerged from the gatehouse. He stooped to look into the car as Charles wound down the window. Dunster had a hard, lean face with thin lips.

  “Mrs. Raisin,” he said. “I didn’t recognise the car.” He looked towards Charles. “And you are, sir?”

  “He is one of my associates,” Agatha explained. “I need his help to finish going through the personnel files and talking to the staff.”

  “No one here today, Mrs. Raisin,” said Dunster. “They’ve all been given the day off on account of what happened yesterday.”

  “Not you, though, Mr. Dunster? And I thought you worked nights.”

  “Normally do, but Angus is inside on the reception desk, fielding calls and suchlike. If you want to sort through those files, I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

  Dunster returned to the gatehouse and picked up the phone, speaking for only a few moments before pressing a button on his desk to open the gates. By the time Agatha and Charles pulled up outside the entrance to the factory, Angus Bream was there waiting for them.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here today, Mrs. Raisin,” said Bream. “The place is deserted.”

  “No rest for the wicked.” Agatha smiled at him. “We have a contract with Morrison’s and I need to get back to work.”

  “All your files are still in the conference room,” said Bream. “I’ll show you upstairs.”

  “That’s all right. I know the way,” Agatha told him, stepping forward.

  “Nevertheless,” Bream insisted, moving in front of her, “I will show you up there.”

  Upstairs, he opened the conference room door, then left Agatha and Charles alone.

  “I get the impression,” said Charles, “that we were just escorted onto the premises.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Agatha nodded. “They don’t want us wandering about on our own. Whatever is going on here, they want to stop us finding out about it.”

  Charles held a finger to his lips and waved his free hand around the room.

  “Bugs?” snorted Agatha. “They wouldn’t dare. They know Toni swept this room and they wouldn’t risk us doing it again and finding whatever they’d planted.”

  She rifled through the files that were stacked on the table, selected a couple and shoved the rest towards Charles.

  “There are a few files that I’ve not had a good look at,” she said, placing her handbag on the table and retrieving her cigarettes and lighter. “Why don’t you take a squint at these and see if anything jumps out at you. I doubt it will. There’s nothing much in them.”

  “Are you allowed to smoke in here?” asked Charles, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes, I am,” said Agatha, emphasising the word with a nod of her head. “There’s never been any sort of problem with me smoking in here. They’ve even provided a couple of weird ashtray things.”

  “Yes, I noticed those,” said Charles, picking one up to take a closer look. “You know what these are, don’t you?”

  “Ashtrays,” said Agatha, “with … funny little lids.”

  “They are, of course, a pair of ashtrays, sweetie,” said Charles, “but they have been made from the hooves of a horse.”

  “From what? Yeeoow!” Agatha wrinkled her nose, then quickly unwrinkled it for fear that the wrinkles might stay. “You mean they cut off a horse’s feet just to…?”

  “Souvenirs, Aggie,” Charles explained. “Mementoes. The Duke of Wellington’s war horse, Copenhagen, had at least one hoof removed when he died. It was made into an ink stand. And then there was Wellington’s arch enemy, Napoleon. When his horse, Marengo, died, one of his hooves was also made into an ink stand and another into a snuff box. The snuff box is in the Household Cavalry Museum at Horse Guards in Whitehall.”

  “I suppose,” said Agatha, lighting a cigarette, “your history degree does come in handy sometimes.”

  “It’s not only the history thing,” said Charles, who seldom admitted to having a degree, despite the fact that it was a first from Oxford. He weighed the ashtray in his hand. “I’ve seen plenty of these things around. These ones appear to have a weight added, probably lead in the base, to give them more substance. And the heavy silver decoration is quite nice.” He turned the hoof over. “There’s an inscription on the bottom. Apparently this hoof once won at Ascot while it was part of Lucky Lad.”

  “Not so lucky that he managed to avoid having his hooves lopped off,” snorted Agatha.

  “He would have been dead,” said Charles, “so I doubt he would have cared much. There’s a nice patina of age on this one, although the silver is tarnished,” he added, setting the ashtray down on the table. “That one, on the other hand—or other hoof—has had all the character scrubbed out of it. It has been brutally cleaned.” He reached across to examine the second ashtray.

  “DON’T TOUCH IT!” cried Agatha. Charles whipped his hand away.

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because that, my dear Charles, is evidence. That thing was used to kill Mrs Dinwiddy. It’s not just a hoof or an ashtray—that is a murder weapon!”

  “A murder weapon?” mused Charles. “Are you sure?”

  “I am positive!” Agatha asserted, swelling with confidence, convinced that she had found the first and most important element of proof that Dinwiddy’s death was indeed murder. “That hoof was not so squeaky clean when we were last in here. Whoever murdered her wanted to make it look like Wizz-Wazz did it, so they whacked her with that—a hoof—and then plastered the donkey’s hooves with blood and dabbed some drops of blood on her hind legs for good measure. That’s why one ashtray has been newly scrubbed. They have cleaned it to try to remove any trace of blood or anything else that would identify it as the murder weapon.”

  “A horse hoof,” said Charles, considering her theory, “is a different shape to a donkey hoof.”

  “The killer must have wrapped it in a sock or something,” said Agatha. “As long as it was roughly the right shape, it would do. There would be no point in whacking her with a shovel or a cosh or a brick. That would have looked totally wrong. No, this is what the murderer
used.”

  She snatched her mobile phone out of her handbag and put in a call to Bill Wong.

  “Good morning, Agatha,” said Bill. “I was just about to phone you. You have no more bodies or bits of bodies for me today, I hope?”

  “Actually,” Agatha countered, “in a way, I do…”

  She explained about the ultra-clean hoof in the conference room, and although Bill bravely attempted to argue that Mrs Dinwiddy’s death was an accident, he was no match for Agatha Raisin in full flow. She soon wore him down, leaving him, a bit like Lucky Lad, with barely a leg to stand on. He promised that he would be back at Morrison’s himself later that morning to pick up the hoof for a forensic examination.

  Agatha pushed a button to end the call and grinned in triumph at Charles.

  “We mustn’t touch it,” she said. “Bill is coming to take it away. He’s going to give it to their forensic people.”

  “Do you think they’ll find anything on it?” Charles wondered. “It looks like it’s been cleaned very thoroughly.”

  “They might,” said Agatha, “but even if they don’t, the simple fact that it has been cleaned so meticulously is suspicious in itself. I think this murder is starting to unravel, Charles. Now, let’s see if we can have a little look around this place without an escort.”

  She crossed the room to the door and quietly eased it open. The corridor outside was silent and, as she’d expected, there was absolutely no one in sight.

  “Where are we going?” whispered Charles, falling in behind as they sneaked along the corridor, hugging the wall.

  “Wherever,” Agatha replied in a hushed voice. “Dispatch, the old R&D, let’s just take a look.”

  After a few yards, the corridor turned sharp left.

  “Keep an eye out back there.” Agatha jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, indicating behind them. “I’ll see if the coast’s clear this way.”

  Slowly she inched forward, craning her neck so that she could peer round the corner with just one eye. Then she stood statue still. Coming along the corridor ahead was Angus Bream. She turned and moved sharply back the way she had come. Unfortunately, Charles turned at precisely the same moment, and her right breast slammed into his elbow. She bounced off him, suffocating a squeal with “Mmmmmmmm!” and thinking: Bloody hell, that hurt! She staggered back, her arms flailing as though she were trying to swim through the air to regain her balance. Just as she thought she had it under control, her last rearward stumble snapped the shiny high heel of her left suede boot and she fell over, landing on her bottom with a resounding THUD! She skidded across the lino and came to a halt lying on her back in the wrong part of the corridor, massaging her throbbing boob.

  “Need a hand with that, Mrs. Raisin?”

  She opened her eyes to see the dusty black work boots and blue trouser legs of Angus Bream. He was sniggering. Sniggering! She left her sore breast alone. The pain from her battered bottom had almost cancelled it out anyway. Her first thought was to tell Bream to button his lip and help her up. Then again, if he thought this was a bit of a laugh and she was just an idiotic woman, why not use that?

  “That would be very helpful,” she squeaked, reaching out to him.

  Charles was also at her side. He and Bream took a hand each and hoisted her to her feet.

  “Are you all right, sweetie?” asked Charles.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” said Agatha, breathing heavily. “Just bruised my ar … dignity. Thank you, Mr. Bream.”

  “What were you doing here, Mrs. Raisin?” asked Bream.

  “We were … going down to the stables,” Agatha replied. “I left my best coat with that silly donkey and I wanted to get it back.”

  “I see,” said Bream. “I’ll take you down there, then. We wouldn’t want you getting lost or falling over again, would we?”

  Charles picked up the snapped heel and handed it to Agatha. She gave him such a sweet smile that he knew something was up. Agatha would never ruin a prize pair of boots and simply act like nothing had happened. A smile of any kind would not grace her features for many days. Crying over spilled milk was as nothing compared to a wailing Agatha grieving over trashed footwear. She was up to something. He took the hint and meekly played along.

  Flanked by the two men, Agatha walked along the corridor. On her right step she bobbed above their shoulders. On her left step she sank towards their elbows. Her right heel clicked; her left sole flopped. Click-flop, click-flop—it set an annoying rhythm as they walked.

  “You know your way around here pretty well, then?” she asked Bream.

  “That’s my job, Mrs. Raisin.”

  “Is it much different to the place in Seky … Selky … Have you ever been there?”

  “Sekiliv—and yes, I’ve been there a few times to check out security. It is very different. There are a handful of the staff from here based out there now. We even have our own courier service that runs once a week.”

  “A courier service?” asked Agatha. “What do you courier?”

  “Sounds quite grand, doesn’t it?” Bream laughed. “It’s just a couple of blokes in a van, really. They bring different types of batteries, small orders, even the odd passenger coming home on holiday. On the way back, they take company papers, plans, and blueprints that the boss doesn’t trust to go by email, and the odd jar of Branston Pickle or marmalade for the Brits working out there. I’ve done the van trip. It’s a long slog and it can get hot and sweaty, but it’s a real giggle.”

  “Sounds lovely,” said Agatha, and with a few more click-flops they reached a staircase that took them down to the door she and Toni had used when they’d previously left the factory to visit the stables. As they stepped out of the main building, they heard a bleeping sound. Bream pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket. He waved them towards the stables while he responded to the call, and Agatha recognised the voice of Farley Dunster through the radio’s crackle of static.

  They walked on past the R&D building and saw the grubby form of Peter Trotter in the stable yard, hosing down the cobbles and scrubbing them with a stiff broom.

  “You!” Trotter spat when he saw Agatha hobbling towards him. “What are you doin’ here?”

  Agatha sniffed. There was a strong smell of bleach. Trotter was clearly using it to get rid of the bloodstains. She sidestepped a rivulet of water running off the cobbles. Her boots might be salvageable, but not if the pristine black suede was disfigured by bleach.

  “I have come to retrieve my coat, which I left around Wizz-Wazz’s neck,” she said.

  “Ha! You’ll be lucky,” scoffed Trotter. “The murdering bitch won’t let me have it. She nearly took my hand off with those teeth of hers. Won’t let me anywhere near her.”

  “Like pretty much every other female, I should think,” said Agatha.

  “Now listen here, you snooty cow…” Trotter pointed the broom handle at Agatha and advanced towards her. Charles took a step to cut him off, but Trotter paused, looking beyond Charles to where, out of the corner of her eye, Agatha could see Bream watching and shaking his head. “One day,” Trotter sneered, “you’ll get what’s comin’ to you.”

  “Do try to take a bath before then,” said Agatha. “You smell worse than the donkey.”

  Trotter scuttled across the yard, opened the door of his old Land Rover, grabbed his copy of the Racing Post and headed up a set of wrought-iron stairs to his flat. Agatha selected a pristine carrot from the bucket and approached Wizz-Wazz’s loose box. Feeding her a carrot hadn’t worked out too well before, but she wanted something to tempt the donkey into giving up her jacket. It will need to be dry-cleaned, possibly fumigated, she thought, but I love that coat. What was I thinking of, giving it to that ridiculous animal?

  She leaned over the loose box door to see Wizz-Wazz staring up at her with big watery eyes. You knew I was here, didn’t you? Agatha thought. You heard my voice and you know I want my coat back, so now you’re giving me the sad eyes and the long face. Or do you always have the long face? I s
uppose you can’t exactly shorten it, can you?

  “Don’t look at me like that, my girl,” she said aloud. “You know what I want. I’m offering a fair trade—carrot for coat.”

  Wizz-Wazz reached up and accepted the carrot. She began munching noisily and Agatha stretched in to take the jacket. Wizz-Wazz swayed effortlessly to one side, dodging just inches out of her reach. Agatha floundered at the door.

  “Charles!” she called. “I could use a little help here.”

  Charles had a longer reach, but Wizz-Wazz was surprisingly nimble.

  “Agatha,” said Charles, making another fruitless attempt to retrieve the coat, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about—”

  “Concentrate, Charles!” Agatha chided. “Oh, it’s no good. You’ll have to go in there with the beast.”

  “Hello,” came a familiar voice. They both turned to see Toni standing there. Bream was walking away, obviously having escorted her to the stables. Toni stared at Charles, who had a sudden cold feeling of foreboding. He hasn’t told her, she thought. All Charles could think was: Toni knows!

  “Toni,” said Agatha. “About time. Come over here and help me get my coat back. What were you about to say, Charles?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Charles. “Not really the time or place … but you see, er … there’s someone you should meet. Yes, that’s it. You said you wanted to find out more about this electric car business, and I know just the chap you should talk to. He’s an engineer or mechanic or whatever. Rents some barn space from me on the estate, down by the ford. Chris … Chris something-or-other. I’ll let him know you’re coming. Must dash.” And with that, he rushed off.

  “What’s got into him?” said Agatha, removing herself from the loose box door and brushing stray bits of straw off her raincoat.