by M C Beaton
She put the photograph away in the kitchen drawer, feeling even after she had closed the drawer that those eyes were still staring at her.
Overcome by the need for some escapist literature, she drove down to Moreton-in-Marsh, swearing under her breath as she remembered it was market day. By driving round and round the car-park, she was able to secure a place when some shopper drove off.
Walking through the Old Market Place, as the new mini shopping arcade was called, she crossed the road and walked between the crowded stalls to the row of shops on the far side where she knew there was a second-hand bookshop. In the back room were rows and rows of paperbacks. She bought three detective stories—one Ruth Rendell, one Colin Dexter, and one Colin Watson—and then returned to her car. She flipped open the Colin Watson one and was caught by the first page. Oh, the joys of detective fiction. Time rolled past as Agatha sat in the car-park and read steadily. Finally it dawned on her that it was ridiculous to sit reading in a car-park when she had the comfort of her own home and so drove back to Carsely just in time to meet Bill Wong, who was standing on her doorstep.
"Now what?" demanded Agatha uneasily.
Bill smiled. "Just called to see how you were."
At first Agatha felt gratified as she unlocked the door and let herself in, picking up the other key from the kitchen floor where it had fallen when Mrs. Simpson had popped it through the letter-box. Then she felt a twinge of unease. Could Bill Wong be checking up on her for any reason?
"Coffee?" she asked.
"Tea will do." In the sitting-room, Bill looked slowly around. "Where did all the bits and pieces go?"
"I didn't think they were me," said Agatha, "so I gave them to the church to sell for charity."
"What is you if toby jugs and farm machinery are not?"
"Don't know," mumbled Agatha. "Something a bit more homey."
"The lighting's wrong," said Bill, looking at the spotlights on the beams. "Spots are out."
"You sound like someone talking about acne," snapped Agatha. "And why is everyone suddenly so arty-farty about interior decoration these days?"
"Ah, your friends who came at the weekend, the prancing one and the one with the cowboy boots?"
"You've been spying on me!"
"Not I. I was off duty and took a girl-friend to Bourton-on-the-Water. A great mistake. I'd forgotten about the holiday crowds."
"I can't imagine you having a girl-friend."
"Oh! Why?"
"I don't know. I always imagine you as never being off duty."
"In any case," said Bill, "I hope you haven't decided to become the Miss Marple of Carsely and are still trying to prove accident as murder."
Agatha opened her mouth to tell him about Mrs. Cartwright and then decided against it. He would criticize her for interfering and he would point out, probably correctly, that Mrs. Cartwright had nothing to tell and was simply out for money.
Instead she said, "An odd thing happened at Warwick Castle. Steve, the young man with the cowboy boots, took a video film of me and Roy, that's the other young man, on the top of one of the towers. He showed the video on television in the evening and there on the tower was this woman glaring at me with hatred."
"Interesting. But you could have jostled her on the stairs or trod on her foot."
"He took a photograph from the television set and it's quite clear, and we were talking about the death when he filmed. Would you like to see it?"
"Yes, might be someone I know."
Agatha brought in the print and handed it to him. He studied it carefully. "No one I've seen before," he said, "but if you took that nasty look off her face, she would look like hundreds of other women in the Cotswold villages: thin, spinsterish, wispy hair, indeterminate features, false teeth .. ."
"How do you know about the false teeth, Sherlock?"
"You can always tell by the drooping corners of the mouth and by the way the jaw sags. Mind if I keep this?"
"Why?" demanded Agatha.
"Because I might find out who it is and do you a favour by revealing to you that Miss Prim here was merely offended by your friends or perhaps you reminded her of someone she hated in her past and then you can be easy."
"That is kind of you," said Agatha gruffly. "I'm beginning to get edgy what with her next door glaring at me over the garden fence because I took her char away."
"I wouldn't worry about her. Taking someone's cleaning woman away is like mugging them. The trouble with business women like yourself, Mrs. Raisin, is that your normally very active brain has nothing left to feed on but trivia. After a few months, believe me, you will settle down and get involved in good works."
"Heaven forbid," said Agatha with a shudder.
"Why? Had I suggested bad works, would you have been pleased?"
"I'm going to a meeting of the Carsely Ladies' Society at the vicarage tonight," said Agatha.
"That should be fun," said Bill with his eyes twinkling. "And now I'd better go. I'm on late duty."
After a meal at the Red Lion—giant sausage and chips liberally doused with ketchup—Agatha walked to the vicarage and rang the bell. From inside came the hum of voices. She felt suddenly nervous and yes, a little timid.
Mrs. Bloxby answered the door. "Come in, Mrs. Raisin. Most people have arrived." She led Agatha into the sitting-room, where about fifteen women were seated about. They stopped talking and looked curiously at Agatha. "I'll introduce you," said Mrs. Bloxby. Agatha tried to remember the names but they kept sliding out of her mind as soon as each was announced. Mrs. Bloxby offered Agatha tea, cakes and sandwiches. Agatha helped herself to a cucumber sandwich.
"Now, if we are all ready," said Mrs. Bloxby, "our chairwoman, Mrs. Mason, will begin. The floor is yours, Mrs. Mason."
Mrs. Mason, a large woman in a purple nylon dress and large white shoes like canoes, surveyed the room. "As you know, ladies, our old people in the village do not get out much. I am appealing to any of you with cars to step in and volunteer to take some of them on an outing when you can manage it. I will read out the names of the old people and volunteer if you can manage some free time."
There seemed to be no shortage of volunteers as Mrs. Mason went through a list in her hand. Agatha looked around at the other women. There was something strangely old-fashioned about them with their earnest desire to help. All were middle-aged apart from a thin, pale-looking girl in her twenties who was seated next to Agatha. "Ain't got no car," she whispered to Agatha. "Can hardly take them on me bike."
"And now," said Mrs. Mason, "last but not least, we have old Mr. and Mrs. Boggle at CuUoden."
There was a long silence. The fire behind Mrs. Mason's ample figure crackled cheerfully, spoons clinked against teacups, jaws munched. No volunteers.
"Come now, ladies. Mr. and Mrs. Boggle would love a trip somewhere. Needn't be too far. Even just into Evesham and around the shops."
Agatha thought she felt the vicar's wife's eyes resting on her. Her voice sounded odd in her own ears as she heard herself saying, "I'll take them. Would Thursday be all right?"
Did she sense a feeling of relief in the room? "Why, thank you, Mrs. Raisin. How very good of you. Perhaps you do not know the village very well, but CuUoden is number 28, Moreton Road, on the council estate. Shall we say nine o'clock on Thursday, and I shall take it on myself to tell Mr. and Mrs. Boggle?"
Agatha nodded.
"Good. They will be so pleased. Now, as you know, next week we are to be hosted by the Mircester Ladies' Society and they have promised us an exciting time. I will pass around a book and sign your names in it if you wish to go. Retford Bus Company is giving us a bus for the day."
The book was passed round. After some hesitation, Agatha signed her name. It would be something to do.
"Right," said Mrs. Mason. "The coach will leave from outside here at eleven in the morning. I am sure we will all be awake by that time." Dutiful laughter. "And so I will get our secretary, Miss Simms, to read out the minutes of your last meeting in
case any of you missed it.
To Agatha's surprise, the young girl next to her rose and went to face the company. In a droning nasal voice she read out the minutes. Agatha stifled a yawn. Then the treasurer gave a lengthy report of money raised at the last fete in aid of Cancer Research.
Agatha was nearly asleep when she heard her own name. The treasurer had been replaced by Mrs. Bloxby. "Yes," said the vicar's wife, "when our new member, Mrs. Raisin, came with boxes and boxes of stuff and gave them all away to be sold for charity, I thought I would show you some of the items. I think they warrant a special sale."
Agatha felt gratified as oohs and ahs greeted the toby jugs and bits of burnished farm machinery. "Reckon I'd buy some o' that meself," said one of the women.
"I am glad you share my enthusiasm," said Mrs. Bloxby. '1 suggest we should take the school hall for the tenth of June, that's a Saturday, and put these items on display. The week before the sale, we will have a special pricing meeting. That will also give us time to find some extra items. Mrs. Mason, can I ask you to run the tea-room as usual?"
Mrs. Mason nodded.
"Mrs. Raisin, perhaps you might like to take command of the main stall?"
"Tell you what," said Agatha. "I'll auction them. I'll be auctioneer. People always pay more when they are bidding against each other."
"What a good idea. All in favour?" Hands were raised.
"Excellent. The money will go to Save the Children. Perhaps, if we are lucky, some of the local papers might put in an item."
"I'll see to that," said Agatha, feeling better by the minute. This was like old times.
Her happiness was dimmed when the business was over; and the women were gathering up their coats and handbags when Miss Simms nudged her and said, "Better you than me."
"You mean the auction?"
"Naw, them Boggles. Grouchiest old miseries this side o' Gloucester."
But somehow Mrs. Bloxby was there and had heard the remark. She smiled into Agatha's eyes and said, "What a good deed to give the Boggles an outing. Old Mrs. Boggle has bad arthritis. It will mean so very much to them."
Agatha felt weak and childlike before the simple, uncomplicated goodness in Mrs. Bloxby's eyes and filled again with that desire to please.
And the women as they were leaving spoke to her of this and that and not one mentioned quiche.
With a feeling of belonging, Agatha walked home. Lilac Lane was beginning to live up to its name. Lilac trees, heavy with blossom, scented the evening air. Wisteria hung in purple profusion over cottage doors.
Must do something about my own garden, thought Agatha.
She unlocked and opened her front door and switched on the light. One sheet of paper lay on the doormat, the message scrawled on it staring up at her: "Stop nosey-parking, you innerfering old bich."
Picking it up with the tips of her fingers, Agatha stared at it in dismay. For the first time she realized how very quiet the village was in the evening. She was surrounded by silence, a silence that seemed ominous, full of threat.
She dropped the note into the rubbish bin and went up to bed, taking the brass poker with her, propping it up by the bedside where she could reach it easily.
Old houses creak and sigh as they settle down for the night. For a long time Agatha lay awake, starting at every sound, until she suddenly fell asleep, one hand resting on the knob of the poker.
SIX
The next morning, the rough winds were shaking the darling buds of May. Sunlight streamed in Agatha's windows. It was a day of movement and bright, sharp, glittering colour. She took the threatening note out of the rubbish. Why not show this to Bill Wong? What did it mean? She had not been doing any investigating to speak of. But he would ask a lot of questions and she might slip up and tell him of her visit to Mrs. Cartwright and that Mrs. Cartwright had told her to call again.
She smoothed out the note and tucked it in with the cookery books. Perhaps she should keep it just in case.
After breakfast, there was a knock at her door. She had a little scared feeling it might be Mrs. Barr. Damn the woman! She was nothing but a warped middle-aged frump, and such should not cause a stalwart such as Agatha Raisin any trouble at all.
But it was Mrs. Bloxby who stood there, and behind her, to Agatha's dismay, Vera CummingsBrowne.
"May we come in?" asked Mrs. Bloxby.
Agatha led the way into the kitchen, bracing herself for tears and recriminations. Mrs. Bloxby refused Agatha's offer of coffee and said, "Mrs. CummingsBrowne has something to say to you."
Vera Cummings-Browne addressed the table-top rather than Agatha. "I have been most distressed, most upset about the death of my husband, Mrs. Raisin. But I am now in a calmer frame of mind. I do not blame you for anything. It was an accident, a strange and unfortunate accident." She raised her eyes. "You see, I have always believed that when one dies, it is meant. It could have been a car driven by a drunken driver which mounted the pavement. It could have been a piece of fallen masonry. The police pathologist felt that Reg could have survived the accidental poisoning had he been stronger. But he had high blood pressure and his heart was bad. So be it."
"I am so very sorry," said Agatha weakly. "How very generous of you to call on me."
"It was my Christian duty," said Mrs. CummingsBrowne.
Behind the mask of her face, which Agatha hoped was registering sorrow, sympathy, and concern, her mind was rattling away at a great rate. "So be i t . . . Christian duty?" How very stagy. But then Mrs. Cummings-Browne buried her face in her hands and wept, gasping through her sobs, "Oh, Reg, I do miss you so. Oh, Reg!"
Mrs. Bloxby led the weeping Mrs. CummingsBrowne out. No, thought Agatha, the woman was genuinely broken up. Mrs. Cummings-Browne had forgiven her. All Agatha had to do was to get on with life and forget about the whole thing.
She set about phoning up the editors of local newspapers to raise publicity for the auction. Local editors were used to timid, pleading approaches from ladies of the parish. Never before had they experienced anything like Agatha Raisin on the other end of the phone. Alternately bullying and wheedling, she left them with a feeling that something only a little short of the crown jewels was going to be auctioned. All promised to send reporters, knowing they would have to keep their word, for Agatha threatened each that she would phone on the morning of the auction to see if they had indeed dispatched someone.
That passed the morning happily. But by the afternoon and after a snack of Farmer Giles' Steak and Kidney Pie ("Suitable for Microwaves"), Agatha found her steps leading her in the direction of the Cartwrights'.
Mrs. Cartwright answered the door herself, her hair back in pink rollers, her body in a pink dressing-gown.
"Come in," she said. "Drink?"
Agatha nodded. Pink gin again. Where had Mrs. Cartwright learned to drink pink gins? she wondered suddenly. Surely Babycham and brandy, lager and lime, rum and Coke would have been more to her taste.
"How was bingo?" asked Agatha.
"Not a penny," said Mrs. Cartwright bitterly. "But tonight's my lucky night. I saw two magpies in the garden this morning."
Agatha reflected that as magpies were a protected species, one saw the wretched black-and-white things everywhere. Surely it would have been more of a surprise if Mrs. Cartwright had not seen any magpies at all.
"I wanted to know about Mr. Cummings-Browne," said Agatha.
"What, for example?" Mrs. Cartwright narrowed her eyes against the rising smoke from the cigarette she held in one brown hand.
From the living-room where they sat, Agatha could see through to the cluttered messy kitchen—hardly the kitchen of a dedicated baker.
"Well, as you won the prize year after year, I thought you might have known him pretty well," she said.
"As much as I know anyone in the village." Mrs. Cartwright took a slug of her gin.
"Do you bake a lot?"
"Naw. Used to. Occasionally do some baking for Mrs. Bloxby. Terrible woman she is. Can't say no to her. C
ome in the kitchen and I'll show you."
Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. A tattered calendar showing a picture of a blonde in nothing but a wisp of gauze and sandals leered down from the wall. But on a cleared corner of the kitchen table beside the half-empty milk bottle, the pat of butter smeared with marmalade, lay a tray of delicate fairy cakes. They looked exquisite. There was no doubt Mrs. Cartwright could bake.
"So I'd make a quiche and get a tenner for it," said Mrs. Cartwright. "Silly waste of time if you ask me. My husband doesn't like quiche. Used to make them for the Harveys and they'd sell them down at the shop for me. Went well, too. But I can't seem to find the time these days." She tottered back to the living-room in her pink high-heeled mules.
Agatha decided to get down to some hard business. "I paid you twenty pounds for information yesterday," she said bluntly, "information which I have not yet received."
"I spent it."
"Yes, but how you spent it or what you spent it on is not my affair," snapped Agatha.
Mrs. Cartwright put a finger to her brow. "Now what was it? Dammit, my bloody memory's gone wandering again."
Her eyes gleamed darkly as Agatha fished in her capacious handbag. Agatha held up a twenty. "No, you don't," she said as Mrs. Cartwright reached for it. "Information first. Is your husband liable to come in?"
"No, he's up at Martin's farm. He works there."
"So what have you got to tell me?"
"I was surprised," said Mrs. Cartwright, "when Mr. Cummings-Browne died."
"Oh, weren't we all," commented Agatha sarcastically.
"I mean, I thought he would've murdered her."
"What, why?"
"He spoke to me a bit. People are always telling me their troubles. It's because I'm the maternal type." Mrs. Cartwright yawned, reached inside her dressing-gown and scratched one of her generous bosoms. A smell of sour sweat came to Agatha's nostrils and she thought inconsequently how rare it was to meet a really dirty woman in these hygienic days. "Couldn't stand Vera, Reg couldn't. She held the purse-strings and he said she made him jump through hoops or sit up and beg just to get some drinking money. The only money he had of his own was his pension and that didn't go very far. He used to say to me, 'Ella,' he'd say, 'one day I'm going to wring that woman's neck and be rid of her for once and for all.' "