by M C Beaton
"Heaven forbid," said Agatha with a shudder.
"Why? Had I suggested bad works, would you have been pleased?"
T'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. 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, ' chairwoman, Mrs. Mason, will begin. The floor is yours, Mrs. Mason."
Mrs. Mason, a large woman in a purple nylon dress and big 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, ' but not least, we have old Mr. and Mrs. Boggle at Culloden."
There was a long silence. The fire behind Mrs. Mason's ample figure crackled cheerfully, spoons clinked against tea cups, 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 Culloden 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 our 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, ' 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 me self said one of the women.
"I am glad you share my enthusiasm," said Mrs. Bloxby. "I 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; 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.
Chapter Six.
The next morning, 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 she 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 Cummings-Browne.
"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. Cummings-Browne 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. Cummings-Browne.
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 it ... 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. Cummings-Browne 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. Cart-wright learned to drink pink gins? she wondered suddenly. Surely Bacardi Breezers, 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. Come 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, ' 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, ' 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 inconse-quently 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."
Agatha looked bewildered. "But he died, not her!"
"Maybe she got there first. She hated him."
"But I had dinner with the pair of them and they seemed a devoted couple; in fact, quite alike."
"Naw, you could have a laugh with Reg, but Mrs. Snobby was always turning her nose up at me. That was no accident. That was murder."
"But how could she do it? I mean, it was my quiche."
"Dunno, but I feel it here." Mrs. Cartwright struck her bosom and another waft of sweat floated across to Agatha's nostrils.
"Mrs. Cummings-Browne called on me this morning," said Agatha firmly, 'and forgave me. But she was broken up about her husband's death, quite genuinely so."
"She acts in the Carsely Dramatic Society," said Mrs. Cartwright cynically, ' bloody good she is, too. Right little actress." "No," said Agatha stubbornly. "I know when people are being straight with me, and you are not one of those people, Mrs. Cartwright."
"Told you what I know." Mrs. Cartwright stared at the twenty-pound note, which Agatha still held in her hand.
The broken gate outside creaked and Agatha started nervously. She did not want another confrontation with John Cartwright. She thrust the note at Mrs. Cartwright. "Look," she said urgently, ' know where to find me. If there's anything at all you can tell me, let me know."
"I certainly will," said Mrs. Cartwright, looking happy now that she had the money in her possession.
Agatha was just leaving by stepping round the broken garden gate when she saw John Cartwright lumbering down the road. She hurried on, but he had seen her. He caught up with her and roughly seized her arm and swung her round. "You've been snooping around about Cummings-Browne!" he snarled. "Ella told me. I'm telling you for the last time, you go near her again and I'll break your neck. That fart Cummings-Browne got what was coming to him and so will you."
Agatha wrenched her arm free and hurried on, her face flaming. She went straight home and put the threatening note in an envelope along with a letter and addressed it to Detective Constable Wong at Mircester Police Station. She felt sure now that John Cartwright had written that note.
As she returned from posting it, she saw a couple arriving at New Delhi, Mrs. Barr's house. They turned and stared at he
r. They looked vaguely familiar. With a wrench of memory, Agatha realized they had been among the other diners in the Red Huntsman that evening when she had been discussing the '' with Roy and Steve.
She went into her own cottage and stood in her sitting-room, looking about her. She had never furnished anything in her life before, living as she had in a succession of furnished rooms until she made her first real money, and then renting a furnished flat and finally buying one, but that too had been furnished, for she had bought the contents as well.
She screwed up her eyes and tried to visualize what she would like but no ideas came except that the three-piece suite annoyed her. She wanted something more in the lines of the vicarage living-room. Well, antiques could be bought, and that was as good a reason as any to get out of Carsely for the remainder of the day.
She drove to Cheltenham Spa and after cruising about that town's irritating and baffling one-way system until she got her bearings, she stopped a passer-by and asked where she could buy antique furniture.
She was directed to a network of streets behind Montpelier Terrace. She drove there and managed to find a parking space in a private parking lot outside someone's house. Her first good find was in an old cinema now used as a furniture warehouse. She bought an old high-backed wing armchair in soft green leather and a chesterfield sofa with basketwork and soft dull-green cushions. Then, to the increasing delight of the salesman, who had feared it was going to be a slow day, she also bought a wide Victorian fruit wood chair, running her fingers appreciatively over the carving. She paid for the lot without a blink and said she would pick them up after the tenth of June. Agatha now planned to amaze the village by adding her living-room furniture to the sale. Two elegant lamps caught her eye as she was leaving and she purchased them as well. Agatha remembered when she was at school, she had vowed that when she had her first pay cheque, she would walk into a sweetshop and buy all the chocolate she wanted. But by the time that happened, her desires had focused on a pair of purple high-heeled shoes with bows. She enjoyed having enough money to enable her to buy what she wanted.