by M C Beaton
Agatha drew him into the house, babbling about the ruined turkey.
“What a mess!” said Charles, looking around. “Did you plan to serve that sliced turkey the cats are eating?”
Agatha loved her cats, but right at that moment she felt she could have slaughtered both of them. She chased them out into the garden and sat down and buried her head in her hands.
“Leave it to me,” said Charles. “Just come through with your credit card when I call you. Have you got anything to start them off?”
Agatha opened the fridge and pointed. “That looks all right,” said Charles. “Go and wipe the soot off your face.”
Agatha repaired her make-up and came down the stairs just as the first guests started to arrive.
She poured them all drinks and stood chatting, wondering what Charles was up to.
She went into the kitchen once, but he was on the phone and broke off to say, “Serve them their starters. I’ll be in in a moment.”
Agatha led them all through to the dining-room. What a terrible expense all this had turned out to be. She had even bought extra chairs for the dining-room. They all exclaimed over the decorations. The table was looking fine. It was decorated with holly wrapped round the base of three tall candles and with her best crystal glasses at each place.
When she went back to the kitchen, Charles had all the starters laid out on three trays.
“Start carrying,” he ordered.
Agatha could hardly enjoy the first course, wondering what Charles had arranged to replace the missing turkey. Suddenly, the Christmas carols which had been playing softly in the background started to blast out as the volume increased.
“Excuse me.” Agatha got to her feet and hurried out to the kitchen. Men in white coats were carrying large containers into the kitchen.
“Get your credit card,” said Charles. “You’ve got to pay for this.”
Agatha meekly paid up without even looking at the bill.
A large golden-brown turkey emerged from its thermal container and was placed on a serving plate. Then came bowls of sprouts, cranberry sauce, mushrooms, peas, roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, warm rolls and a jug of gravy.
“Take the turkey through,” ordered Charles, “and I’ll bring the rest.”
“Did you turn up the volume on the stereo?”
“It was to cover the arrival of this lot at the back door. Ell turn it down when they’ve left.”
Agatha carried the turkey in to the oohs and aahs of her guests. Then she helped Charles carry in the other dishes and turned down the stereo after the last white-coated figure has disappeared.
Roy Silver was wearing a green velvet suit and had a wreath of plastic holly on his head. “Do you forgive me, Roy?” whispered Agatha.
“A meal like this and I’ll forgive you anything. Don’t do it again.”
Agatha began to relax but was aware of Charles’s cynical eyes on her each time one of her guests praised her cooking.
The turkey was delicious. Agatha wondered where Charles had got it from. She had been too upset to read the name on the bill.
“Have you got Christmas pudding?” asked Charles.
“Yes. Don’t worry. I bought it. I didn’t make it.”
“Good, nothing can go wrong then.”
Agatha smiled at him fondly. Dear Charles. Roy would be staying over, so Charles could sleep with her that night. She forgot about her vow to forgo casual sex. It was not the sex she wanted but someone to hold her.
Charles and Roy helped her to clear the plates away. “Now, off you go back to the table and I’ll bring in the pudding,” said Agatha. She took two dishes of brandy butter and a large jug of double cream out of the fridge. “If you’ll just take these with you.”
“Our Mrs. Raisin’s come along no end,” said Doris Simpson.
“I never would have guessed she could cook like that. Did you know there was some sort of fire up at the village hall?”
“Hasn’t burnt down, I hope?” said Roy.
“No, but it seemed someone was using the big oven and burnt something by turning the gas too high. I’ve told them and told them they ought to paint numbers on the knobs on that old cooker.”
Roy’s eyes gleamed with sudden malice. “You don’t know who was responsible, do you?”
“Not yet. But everyone in the village will know by the morning.”
In the kitchen, Agatha took the pudding out of the microwave and tipped it out of its plastic bowl onto a soup plate.
Now to pour brandy over it and light it. No, she would light it at the table. First she carried through the pudding bowls. Would there be enough pudding to go round? Maybe if she did not have any herself.
Then Agatha found to her dismay that she was out of brandy. She searched among the liquor bottles. There was an over-proof bottle of vodka she had brought back from Poland after one of her holidays. That would surely do. All that was needed was a festive blaze.
She poured nearly the whole bottle over it and placed it on a tray with a box of kitchen matches and then carried the tray into the dining-room and set it on the sideboard.
Agatha lifted the pudding off and put it at her place at the head of the table. She fetched the kitchen matches and stood poised.
“Merry Christmas, everyone!” she cried. She struck a match.
She leaped back as with a whoosh a great sheet of flame shot up from the pudding. Patrick ran to the kitchen and came back with a fire extinguisher and covered both the pudding and Agatha with foam.
Suddenly everyone began to laugh. Roy started with a high cackle, then Bill Wong, and then the whole table was in an uproar.
Agatha’s Christmas party was voted the biggest success ever.
Charles did not stay and Agatha was relieved. It would have been pleasant to go to bed with him, but she knew she would suffer from self-recrimination the day after.
Roy found the bill on the kitchen table as he was helping her to clear up. “You faker,” he crowed. “Eight hundred pounds! That bird should have been gilt-edged.”
“I never knew it was that much,” gasped Agatha. “And now I’ve got to get the village hall redecorated.”
“Never mind. I’ll never forget that Christmas pudding. What kind of brandy did you put on it?”
“It wasn’t brandy. I’d run out. I poured practically a whole bottle of vodka I brought back from Poland a couple of years ago.”
“That stuff! You might as well have used petrol.”
“I know. I know. Gosh, I’m exhausted.”
Tinkling sounds of breaking glass came from the dining-room. “Oh, Lord,” said Agatha. “I forgot to shut the dining-room door and the cats are wrecking the tree. I’ll let them get on with it. I’m too tired to move.”
“Off to bed with you,” said Roy. “We’ll clear up in the morning.”
“Doris is coming to help me. It’ll be all round the village in the morning about that burnt turkey. I didn’t tell you about that, did I?”
“I guessed the minute I heard. Off to bed.”
Agatha rose and winced as she felt that pain in her hip. It couldn’t be anything serious. She was too young. Early fifties these days was young.
“The villagers will be even more hostile towards me,” said Agatha as she made for the stairs. “I didn’t notice until recently and Mrs. Bloxby told me it was because they blamed me for bringing all this murder and mayhem to the village. I might have to move.”
“Nonsense. You belong here.”
Agatha phoned a firm of decorators and accepted their horrendous charge, saying she would pay their bill if they started immediately.She went down to the general stores to buy the Sunday papers and was greeted on all sides by friendly smiles and greetings such as “Morning, Mrs. Raisin. Bit nippy this morning.”
She bought the papers and returned to her cottage to find Mrs. Bloxby waiting for her. “Come in,” said Agatha. “The kitchen’s a mess. Roy’s here but he hasn’t woken up yet and Doris should be along sh
ortly to help. The villagers seem to have thawed towards me.”
“They’re all laughing about your burnt turkey. Every housewife who’s ever messed up a meal is in sympathy with you, and then everyone likes a good laugh.”
“I may stay after all.”
“You weren’t thinking of leaving, were you?”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Nonsense. Believe me, you will never be involved in such a horrendous set of murders or attempted murders again.”
But Mrs. Bloxby was wrong.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
M. C. Beaton’s next Agatha Raisin mystery
THE PERFECT PARAGON
Now available in hardcover from St. Martins Minotaur
EVERYONE in the village of Carsely in the English Cotswolds was agreed on one thing—no one had ever seen such a spring before.
Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar’s wife, stepped out into her garden and took a deep breath of fresh-scented air. Never had there been so much blossom. The lilac trees were bent down under the weight of purple and white blooms. White hawthorn hedges formed bridal alleys out of the country lanes. Clematis spilled over walls like flowery waterfalls, and wisteria decorated the golden stone of the cottages with showers of delicate purple blooms. All the trees were covered in bright, fresh green. It was as if the countryside were clothed like an animal in a deep, rich pelt of leaves and flowers.
The few misery-guts in the village shook their heads and said it heralded a harsh winter to come. Nature moved in a mysterious way to protect itself.
The vicarage doorbell rang and Mrs. Bloxby went to answer it. Agatha Raisin stood there, stocky and truculent, a line of worry between her eyes.
“Come in,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Why aren’t you at the office? No cases to solve?”
Agatha ran her own detective agency in Mircester. She was well dressed, as she usually was these days, in a linen trouser suit, and her glossy brown hair was cut in a fashionable crop. But her small brown eyes looked worried.
Mrs. Bloxby led the way into the garden. “Coffee?”
“No,” said Agatha. “I’ve been drinking gallons of the stuff. Just wanted a chat.”
“Chat away.”
Agatha felt a sense of comfort stealing over her. Mrs. Bloxby with her mild eyes and grey hair always had a tranquillizing effect on her.
“I could do with a really big case. Everything seems to be itty-bitty things like lost cats and dogs. I don’t want to run into the red. Miss Simms, who was acting as secretary, has gone off with my full-time detective, Patrick Mulligan. He’s retired and doesn’t want to be bothered any more with work. Sammy Allen did the photo work, and Douglas Ballantyne the technical stuff. But I had to let them go. There just wasn’t enough work. Then Sally Fleming, who replaced Patrick, got lured away by a London detective agency, and my treasure of a secretary, Mrs. Edie Frint, got married again.
“Maybe the trouble was that I gave up taking divorce cases. The lawyers used to put a good bit of business my way.”
Mrs. Bloxby was well aware that Agatha was divorced from the love of her life, James Lacey, and thought that was probably why Agatha did not want to handle divorce cases.
She said, “Maybe you should take on a few divorce cases just to get the money rolling again. You surely don’t want any murders.”
“I’d rather have a murder than a divorce,” muttered Agatha.
“Perhaps you have been working too hard. Maybe you should take a few days off I mean, it is a glorious spring.”
“Is it?” Agatha gazed around the glory of the garden with city eyes which had never become used to the countryside. She had sold up a successful public relations company in London and had taken early retirement. Living in the Cotswolds had been a dream since childhood, but Agatha still carried the city, with all its bustle and hectic pace, inside herself.
“Who have you got to replace Patrick and Miss Simms? Are you sure you wouldn’t like anything? I have some home-made scones.”
Agatha was tempted, but the waistband of her trousers was already tight. She shook her head. “Let me see… staff. Well, there’s a Mrs. Helen Freedman from Evesham as secretary. Middle-aged, competent, quite a treasure. I do all the detecting myself.”
“And for the technical and photographic stuff?”
“Em looking for someone. Experts charge so much.”
“There’s Mr. Witherspoon in the village. He’s an expert cameraman and so good with computers and things.”
“I know Mr. Witherspoon. He must be about a hundred.”
“Come now. He’s only seventy-six and that’s quite young these days.”
“It’s not young. Come on. Seventy-six is creaking.”
“Why not go and see him? He lives in Rose Cottage by the school.”
“No.”
Mrs. Bloxby’s normally mild eyes hardened a fraction. Agatha said hurriedly, “On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt me to go along for a chat.” Agatha Raisin, who could face up to most of the world, crumpled before the slightest suggestion of the vicar’s wife’ s displeasure.
Rose Cottage, despite its name, did not boast any roses. The front garden had been covered in tarmac to allow Mr. Witherspoon to park his old Ford off the road. His cottage was one of the few modern ones in Carsely, an ugly redbrick two-storeyed affair. Agatha, who knew Mr. Witherspoon only by sight, was prepared to dislike someone who appeared to have so little taste.
She raised her hand to ring the doorbell but it was opened and Mr. Witherspoon stood there. “Come to offer me a job?” he said cheerfully.
Much as she loved Mrs. Bloxby, in that moment Agatha felt she could have strangled her. She hated being manipulated and Mrs. Bloxby appeared to have done just that.
“I don’t know,” said Agatha gruffly. “Can I come in?”
“By all means. I’ve just made coffee.”
She telephoned him as soon as I left. That’s it, thought Agatha. She followed him into a room made into an office.
It was impeccably clean and ordered. A computer desk stood at the window flanked on either side with shelves of files. A small round table and two chairs dominated the centre of the room. On the wall opposite the window were ranks of shelves containing a collection of cameras and lenses.
“Sit down, please,” said Mr. Witherspoon. “I’ll bring coffee.”
He was an average-sized man with thick grey hair. His face was not so much lined as crumpled, as if one only had to take a hot iron to it to restore it to its former youth. He was slim.
No paunch, thought Agatha. At least he can’t be a boozer.
He came back in a short time carrying a tray with the coffee things and a plate of scones.
“Black, please,” said Agatha. “May I smoke?”
“Go ahead.”
Well, one good mark so far, thought Agatha. “I’ll get you an ashtray,” he said. “Have a scone.”
When he was out of the room, Agatha stared at the plate of scones in sudden suspicion. She picked up one and bit into it. Mrs. Bloxby’s scones. She would swear to it. Once again, she felt manipulated and then experienced a surge of malicious glee at the thought of turning him down.
He came back and placed a large glass ashtray next to Agatha.
He sat down opposite her and said, “What can I do for you?”
“Just a social call,” said Agatha.
A flicker of disappointment crossed his faded green eyes.
“How nice. How’s the detective business?”
“Not much work at the moment.”
“That’s odd. There’s so much infidelity in the Cotswolds, I would have thought you would have enough to keep you busy.”
“I don’t do divorce cases any more.”
“Pity. That’s where the money is. Now, take Robert Smedley over in Ancombe. He’s very rich. Electronics company. Madly jealous. Thinks his wife is cheating on him. Pay anything to find out.”
They studied each other for a long moment. I really need the
money, thought Agatha.
“But he hasn’t approached me,” she said at last.
“I could get him to.”
Agatha had a sizeable bank balance and stocks and shares. But she did not want to become one of those sad people whose lifetime savings were eaten up by trying to run an unsuccessful business.
She said tentatively. “I need someone to do bugging and camera work.”
“I could do that.”
“It sometimes means long hours.”
“I’m fit.”
“Let me see, this is Sunday. If you could have a word with this Mr. Smedley and bring him along to the office tomorrow, I’ll get my Mrs. Freedman to draw you up a contract. Shall we say a month’s trial?”
“Very well, you won’t be disappointed.”
Agatha rose to her feet and as a parting shot said, “Don’t forget to thank Mrs. Bloxby for the scones.”
Outside, realizing she had forgotten to smoke, she lit up a cigarette. That was the trouble with all these anti-smoking people around these days. It was almost as if their disapproval polluted the very air and forced one to light up when one didn’t want to.
Because of the traditions of the Carsely Ladies’ Society, women in the village called each other by their second names. SoMrs. Freedman was Mrs. Freedman even in the office, but Mr. Witherspoon volunteered his name was Phil.
Agatha was irritated when Phil turned up alone, but he said that Robert Smedley would be along later. After he didn’t protest at the modest wages Agatha was offering him, she felt guilty and promised him more if his work should prove satisfactory.
The office consisted of one low-beamed room above a shop in the old part of Mircester near the abbey. Agatha and Mrs. Freedman both had desks at the window: Phil was given Patrick’s old desk against the wall. There was a chintz-covered sofa and a low coffee table flanked by two armchairs for visitors. Filing cabinets and a kettle on a tray with a packet of tea and a jar of instant coffee, milk and sugar cubes made up the rest of the furnishings.
Mr. Robert Smedley arrived at last and Agatha’s heart sank. He looked the sort of man she heartily despised. First of all, he was crammed into a tight suit. It had originally been an expensive one and Mr. Smedley was obviously of the type who would not admit to putting on weight or to spending money to have the suit altered. He had small black eyes in a doughy face shadowed by bushy black eyebrows. His flat head of hair was jet-black. Hair dyes are getting better these days, thought Agatha. Almost looks real. He had a small pursed mouth, “like an arsehole,” as Agatha said later to Mrs. Bloxby, and then had to apologize for her bad language.