The Quiche of Death

by M C Beaton

  "But it says here," said Steve, fishing out a guidebook, "that it is one of the finest medieval castles in England."

  "Well, I suppose that's true but—"

  "I would very much like to go."

  "All right! But be prepared for an early start. See if we can get in there before the crowds."

  Warwick Castle is a tourist's dream. It has everything from battlements and towers to a torture chamber and dungeon. It has rooms peopled by Madame Tussaud's waxworks depicting a Victorian house party. It has signs in the drive saying: DRIVE SLOWLY, PEACOCKS CROSSING. It has a rose garden and a peacock garden. It takes a considerable amount of time to see everything and Steve wanted to see everything. With unflagging energy and interest, he climbed up the towers and along the battlements and down to the dungeons. Oblivious to the tourists crowding behind, he lingered in the staterooms, writing busily in his notebook. "Are you going to write about all this?" asked Agatha impatiently.

  Steve said only in letters. He wrote a long letter home each week to his mother in Sydney. Agatha hoped they could finally escape, but the tyranny of the notebook was replaced by the tyranny of the video camera. Steve insisted they all climb back up to the top of one of the towers and he filmed Agatha and Roy standing at the edge leaning against the crenellated parapet.

  Agatha's feet were aching by the time she climbed back in her car. They had lunch at a pub in Warwick and Agatha, numb with fatigue, found herself agreeing to take them round the Cotswold villages they had not seen, the ones whose names intrigued Steve, like Upper and Lower Slaughter, Aston Magna, Chipping Campden, and so on. Steve found shops open in Chipping Campden and bought groceries, saying he would cook them dinner that evening.

  She was so tired when dinner was over that all Agatha wanted to do was go to bed, but it turned out that Steve's camera was the type you could plug in to the TV and show the film taken.

  Agatha leaned back and half-closed her eyes. She hated seeing herself on film anyway. Then she heard Roy exclaim, "Wait a minute. At Warwick Castle. On top of the tower. That woman. Look, Aggie. Run it again, Steve."

  The film flickered back and then began to roll again. There she was with Roy on top of the tower. Roy was giggling and clowning. The camera then slowly panned over the surrounding countryside, inch, it seemed, by inch, Steve obviously trying to avoid the amateur's failing of camera swing. And then suddenly it focused on a woman, standing a little way from Agatha and Roy. She was a spinsterish creature in a tweed jacket, drooping tweed skirt and sensible shoes. But she was glaring at Agatha with naked venom in her eyes and her fingers were curled like claws. The film moved back to Agatha and Roy.

  "Enter First Murderer," said Roy. "Anyone you know, Aggie?"

  Agatha shook her head. "I've never seen her before, not in the village anyway. Run it again."

  Again those hate-filled eyes loomed up. "Perhaps it wasn't me she was glaring at," said Agatha. "Perhaps her husband had just come up the stairs." Steve shook his head. "There was no one else there. I remember seeing just that woman when I was filming. Then, just as I'd finished, a whole lot of tourists appeared."

  "How odd." Roy stared blankly at the television screen. "How could she know you enough to hate you? What were we saying?"

  "Roy was clowning," said Agatha slowly. "It's a pity you haven't any sound on that film, Steve."

  "I forgot. There is. Usually I don't bother about it and tape some music to go with the English travelogue and then send it home to my mother." "Turn the sound up," said Roy eagerly.

  Into the room came the sound of the wind on the top of the battlements. Then Roy's voice. "Do you want Aggie to throw herself off the battlements like Tosca?" And Agatha saying, "Oh, do give over, Roy. Gosh, it's cold here."

  And then, in sepulchral tones, Roy said, "As cold as the grave into which you drove Mr. CummingsBrowne with your quiche, Agatha."

  Agatha's voice was replying testily, "He's not in a grave. He's scattered to the four winds on Salisbury Plain. Are you finished yet, Steve?"

  Then Steve's voice saying, "Just a bit longer," and then the shot of the glaring woman.

  "And you said nobody hated you!" mocked Roy. "That one looked as if she wanted to kill you. Wonder who she is?"

  "I'll photograph her from the screen," said Steve, "and send you a print. Might be an idea to find out. She must have known about the death of CummingsBrowne."

  Agatha sat silent for a few moments. She thought she would never forget that spinsterish face and those glaring eyes.

  "Beddy-byes," said Roy. "Which train should we catch tomorrow?"

  Agatha roused herself. "Trains might not be very good on a holiday Monday. I'll run you to Oxford and take you both for lunch and you can get the train from there."

  She had thought she would be glad to see the last of the pair of them, but when she finally stood with them on Oxford Station to say goodbye, she suddenly wished they weren't going.

  "Come again," she said. "Any time."

  Roy planted a wet kiss on her cheek. "We'll be back, Aggie. Super weekend."

  The guard blew his whistle, Roy jumped aboard to join Steve, and the train moved out of the station.

  Agatha stood forlornly for several minutes, watching the train disappearing round the curve, before trailing out to the car-park. She felt slightly frightened and wished she had been able to go to London with them. Why had she ever left her job?

  But home was waiting for her in Carsely, down in a fold of the Cotswold Hills, Carsely where she had disgraced herself, where she did not belong and never would.

  FIVE

  Agatha loaded up the car with the toby jugs, pewter mugs, fake horse brasses and bits of farm machinery the next day and drove the short distance to the vicarage.

  Mrs. Simpson was busy cleaning the cottage. Agatha planned to talk to her over lunch. Perhaps it was because of the poisoning, but Mrs. Simpson called Agatha Mrs. Raisin and Agatha felt compelled to call her Mrs. Simpson, not Doris. The cleaner was efficient and correct but exuded a certain atmosphere of wariness. At least she had not brought her own lunch.

  Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, answered the door herself. Frightened of a rebuff, Agatha gabbled out that she had brought some items she hoped the church might be able to sell to benefit some charity.

  "How very good of you," said Mrs. Bloxby. "Alf," she called over her shoulder, "Mrs. Raisin has brought us some items for charity. Come and lend a hand." Agatha was startled. Vicars should not be called plain Alf but something like Peregrine, Hilary, or Aloysius. The vicar appeared wearing an old gardening shirt and corduroy trousers.

  All three carried the boxes into the vicarage living-room. Agatha took out a few of the items. "My dear Mrs. Raisin," exclaimed Mrs. Bloxby, "are you sure? You could sell this stuff yourself for quite a bit of money. I don't mean the horse brasses, but the jugs are good and the farm-machinery pieces are genuine. This"—she held up a shiny instrument of torture—"is a genuine mole trap. You don't see many of those around today."

  "No, I'll be happy if you get some money. But try to choose some charity which won't spend it all on cocktail parties or politics."

  "Yes, of course. We're very keen on supporting Cancer Research and Save the Children," said the vicar. "Perhaps you would like a cup of coffee, Mrs. Raisin?"

  "That would be nice."

  "I'll leave my wife to look after you. I have Sunday's sermons to prepare."

  "Sermons?"

  "I preach in three churches."

  "Why not use the same sermon for all?"

  "Tempting, but it would hardly show a sign of caring for the parishioners."

  The vicar retreated to the nether regions and his wife went off to the kitchen to make coffee. Agatha looked about her. The vicarage must be very old indeed, she thought. The window-frames sloped and the floor sloped. Here was no fitted carpet such as she had in her own cottage but oldfloor-boards polished like black glass and covered in the centre by a brightly coloured Persian rug. Logs smouldered in the
cavernous fireplace. There was a bowl of potpourri on one small table. A vase offlowers stood on another, and there was a bowl of hyacinths at the low window. The chairs were worn, with—Agatha shifted her bottom experimentally—feather cushions. In front of her was a new coffee-table of the kind you buy in Do-It-Yourself stores and put together, and yet, covered as it was with newspapers and magazines, and the beginnings of a tapestry cushion-cover, it blended in with the rest of the room. Above her head were low beams black with age and centuries of smoke. There was a faint smell of lavender and wood-smoke mixed with the smells of hyacinths and potpourri.

  Also, there was an air of comfort and goodness about the place. Agatha decided that the Reverend Bloxby was a rare bird in the much-maligned aviary of the Church of England—a man who believed what he preached. For the first time since she had arrived in Carsely, she felt unthreatened and, as the door opened, and the vicar's wife appeared, filled with a desire to please.

  "I've toasted some teacakes as well," said Mrs. Bloxby. "It's still so cold. I do get tired of keeping the fires burning. But of course you have central heating, so you don't have that problem."

  "You have a beautiful home," said Agatha.

  "Thank you. Milk and sugar?" Mrs. Bloxby had a small, delicate, lined face and brown hair threaded with grey. She was slim and fragile with long, delicate hands, the sort of hands that portrait painters used to love to give their subjects.

  "And how are you settling in, Mrs. Raisin?"

  "Not very well," said Agatha. "I may have to settle out?"

  "Oh, because of your quiche," said Mrs. Bloxby tranquilly. "Do try a teacake. I make them myself and it is one of the few things I do well. Yes, a horrible affair. Poor Mr. Cummings-Browne."

  "People must think I am a dreadful person," said Agatha.

  "Well, it was unfortunate that wretched quiche should have cowbane in it. But a lot of cheating goes on in these village affairs. You're not the first."

  Agatha sat with a teacake dripping butter and stared at the vicar's wife. "I'm not?"

  "No, no. Let me see, there was Miss Tenby five years ago. An incomer. Set her heart on winning the flower-arranging competition. She ordered a basket of flowers from the florist over at St. Anne's. Quite blatant about it. It was a very pretty display but the neighbours had seen the florist's van arriving and so she was found out. Then there was old Mrs. Carter. She bought her strawberry jam and put her own label on it and won. No one would ever have known if she had not got drunk in the Red Lion and bragged about it. Yes, your deception would have occasioned quite a lot of comment in the village, Mrs. Raisin, had it not all happened before, or, for that matter, if the judging had been fair."

  "Do you mean Mr. Cummings-Browne cheated?"

  Mrs. Bloxby smiled. "Let us say he was apt to give prizes to favourites."

  "But if this was generally known, why do the villagers bother to enter anything at all?"

  "Because they are proud of what they make and like to show it off to their friends. Besides, Mr. Cummings-Browne judged competitions in neighbouring villages and it is estimated he had only one favourite in each. Also, there is no disgrace in losing. Alf often wanted to change the judge, but the Cummings-Brownes did give quite a lot to charity and the one year Alf was successful and got someone else to judge, the judge gave the prize to his sister, who did not even live in the village."

  Agatha let out a long slow breath. "You make me feel less of a villain."

  "It was all very sad. You must have had a frightful time."

  To Agatha's horror, her eyes filled with tears and she dabbed at them fiercely while the vicar's wife looked tactfully away.

  "But be assured"—the vicar's wife addressed the coffeepot—"that your deception did not occasion all that much comment. Besides, Mr. CummingsBrowne was not popular."

  "Why?"

  The vicar's wife looked evasive. "Some people are not, you know."

  Agatha leaned forward. "Do you think it was an accident?"

  "Oh, yes, for if it were not, then one would naturally suspect the wife, but Vera Cummings-Browne was a most devoted wife, in her way. She has a great deal of money and he had very little. They have no children. She could have walked off and left him any time at all. I had to help comfort her on the day of her husband's death. I have never seen a woman more grief-stricken. It is best to put the whole matter behind you, Mrs. Raisin. The Carsely Ladies' Society meets tonight here at the vicarage at eight o'clock. Do come along."

  "Thank you," said Agatha humbly.

  "Have you got rid of that dreadful woman?" asked the vicar ten minutes later when his wife walked into his study.

  "Yes. I don't think she's really so bad and she is genunely suffering about the quiche business. I've invited her to the women's get-together tonight."

  "Then thank goodness I won't be here," said the vicar and bent over his sermon.

  Agatha felt cleansed of sin as she drove back to her cottage. She would go to church on Sunday and she would try to be a good person. She put a Linda McCartney's frozen Ploughman's Pie in the microwave for Mrs. Simpson's lunch, hoping the ex-Beatle's wife knew about cooking but wondering whether she had just sold her name to be used on the product.

  Mrs. Simpson picked at the hot mess tentatively with her fork and all Agatha's saintliness evaporated. "It's not poisoned," she snapped.

  "It's just I don't much care for frozen stuff," said Mrs. Simpson.

  "Well, I'll get you something better next time. Was Mrs. Cummings-Browne very upset about the death of her husband?"

  "Oh, dreadful it was," said Doris Simpson. "Real shook, her were. Numb with shock at first and then crying and crying. Had to fetch the vicar's wife to help."

  Guilt once more settled on Agatha's soul. She felt she had to get out. She walked to the Red Lion and ordered a glass of red wine and sausage and chips.

  Then she remembered her intention of calling on Mrs. Cartwright. It all seemed a bit pointless now but it was something to do.

  Judd's Cottage where the Cartwrights lived was a broken-down sort of place. The garden gate was hanging on its hinges and in the weedy front garden was parked a rusting car. Agatha looked this way and that, wondering how the car had got in but could see no way it could have been achieved short of lifting it bodily over the fence.

  The glass pane on the front door was cracked and stuck in place with brown paper tape. She rang the bell and nothing happened. She rapped at the side of the door. Mrs. Cartwright's blurred figure loomed up on the other side of the glass.

  "Oh, it's you," she said when she opened the door. "Come in."

  Agatha followed her into a sour-smelling cluttered living-room. The furniture was soiled and shiny with wear. There was a two-bar electric fire in the grate with imitation plastic coals on the top. A bunch of plastic daffodils hung over a chipped vase on the window. There was a cocktail cabinet in one corner ornamented with pink glass and strips of pink fluorescent lighting.

  "Drink?" asked Mrs. Cartwright. Her coarse hair was wound up in pink foam rollers and she was wearing a pink wrap-over dress which gaped when she moved to reveal a dirty petticoat.

  "Thank you," said Agatha, wishing she had not come.

  Mrs. Cartwright poured two large glasses of gin and then tinged them pink with Angostura. Agatha looked nervously at her own glass, which was smeared with lipstick at the rim.

  Mrs. Cartwright sat down and crossed her legs. Her feet were encased in dirty pink slippers. All this pink, thought Agatha nervously. She looks like some sort of debauched Barbara Cartland.

  "Did you know Mr. Cummings-Browne well?" asked Agatha.

  Mrs. Cartwright lit a cigarette and studied Agatha through the smoke. "A bit," she said.

  "Did you like him?"

  "Some. Can't think straight at the moment."

  "Because of the death?"

  "Because of the bingo over at Evesham. John, that's my husband, he's cut off my money on account he doesn't want me to go there. Men are right bastards. I broug
ht up four kids and now they've left home and I want a bit o' fun, all he does is grumble. Yes, give me a bit o' money for the bingo and I can 'member most things."

  Agatha fished in her handbag. "Would twenty pounds help?"

  "Would it ever!"

  Agatha passed the money over. Then there came the sound of the front door being opened. Mrs. Cartwright thrust the note down into her bosom, grabbed Agatha's glass and ran with that and her own to the kitchen.

  "Ella?" called a man's voice.

  The door opened and a strongly built apelike man walked in just as his wife came back from the kitchen. "Who's she?" he demanded, jerking a thumb at Agatha. "I told you not to let them Jehovahs in."

  "This is Mrs. Raisin from down Lilac Lane, called social-like."

  "What do you want?" he snarled.

  Agatha stood up. Mrs. Cartwright's large dark eyes flashed a warning. "I am collecting for charity," said Agatha.

  "Then you can bugger off. Haven't got a penny to spare. She's seen to that."

  "Sit down, John, and shut up. I'll see Mrs. Raisin out."

  Agatha nervously edged past John Cartwright. Mrs. Cartwright opened the front door. "Come tomorrow," she whispered. "Three in the afternoon."

  Was there some sinister mystery or had she just been conned out of twenty pounds? Agatha walked thoughtfully down the road.

  When she got back to her cottage, Mrs. Simpson was hard at work in the bedrooms. Agatha washed a load of clothes and carried them out to the back garden where there was one of those whirligig devices for hanging clothes. Feeling more relaxed than she had for some time and quite domesticated, Agatha pinned out the clothes. As she moved around to the other side of the whirligig, she saw Mrs. Barr. She was leaning on her garden fence, staring straight at Agatha with a look of cold dislike on her face. Agatha finished pinning the clothes, raised two fingers at Mrs. Barr and went indoors.

  "Post came," shouted Mrs. Simpson from upstairs. "I put it on the kitchen table."

  Agatha noticed a flat brown envelope for the first time. She tore it open. There was a large print of the woman on the tower at Warwick Castle. Agatha shuddered. Those staring eyes, that hatred reminded her of Mrs. Barr. Pinned to the enlargement was a note: "Thank you for a splendid weekend, Steve."