by M C Beaton
"I didn't like the look of her," muttered Agatha. "Indeed? I thought she looked very pleasant." Agatha looked at the wide-open kitchen door, which gave a perfect view of whoever was standing at the front door, and blushed.
"Now you really must excuse me," he said, and before Agatha could protest, he had made his escape.
The cat made a faint pleading sound. "What am I going to do with you?" demanded Agatha, exasperated. "What is Bill Wong thinking of?" She poured the cat some milk in a saucer and watched it lapping it up.
Well, she would need to feed it until she decided how to get rid of it.
She went back into the heat. Her neighbour was working in his front garden. He saw her coming, smiled vaguely, and retreated into his cottage.
Damn, thought Agatha angrily. No wonder all these women were crawling on to his doorstep with gifts. She went to Harvey's, where the woman behind the till gave her a hurt look, and bought cat food, extra milk, and cat litter for the tray.
She returned home and fed the kitten and then took a cup of coffee into the garden. Her handsome neighbour had knocked all thoughts of murder out of her head. If only she had been properly dressed. If only he hadn't heard her being so rude to that woman who wanted to see the house.
The kitten was rolling over in the sun. She watched it moodily. She, too, could have taken along a cake. In fact, she still could. She scooped up the kitten and carried it inside and then went back to Harvey's to find that it was early-closing day.
She could go down to Moreton and buy a cake, but one should really take home-baking along. Then she remembered the freezer in the school hall.
That was where the ladies of Carsely stored their home-baking for fetes to come. There would be no harm in just borrowing something. Then she could go home and put on something really pretty and take along the cake.
The school hall was fortunately empty. She went through into the kitchen and gingerly lifted the lid of the freezer. There were all sorts of goodies: tarts, angel cakes, chocolates cakes, sponges and she shuddered even quiches.
She took out a large chocolate cake, feeling every bit the thief she was, looking about her, expecting any moment to be surprised. She gently lowered the lid and slipped the frozen cake into a plastic bag she had brought with her for the purpose. Back home again.
She took a shower and washed her hair, dried it and brushed it until it shone. She put on a red linen dress with a white collar and tan high-heeled sandals. Then she gave the kitten some more milk and defrosted the cake in the microwave after taking it out of its cellophane wrapper. She arranged it on a plate and marched along to James Lacey's cottage.
"Oh, Mrs. Raisin," he said when he opened the door and reluctantly accepted the cake. "How good of you. Perhaps you would like to come in, or," he added hopefully, ' you are too busy."
"No, not at all," said Agatha cheerfully.
He led the way into his living-room and Agatha's curious eyes darted from side to side. There were books everywhere, some already on banks of shelves, some in open boxes on the floor, waiting to be stored away.
"It's like a library," said Agatha. "I thought you were an army man."
"Ex. I am settling down in my retirement to write military history."
He waved a hand to a desk in the corner which held a computer. "If you'll excuse me a moment, I'll make some coffee to go with that delicious cake. You ladies are certainly champion bakers."
Agatha settled herself carefully in a battered old leather armchair, hitching her skirt up slightly to show her legs to advantage.
It had been years since Agatha Raisin had been interested in any man.
In fact, up until she had set eyes on James Lacey, she would have sworn that all her hormones had lain down and died. She felt excited, like a schoolgirl on her first date.
She hoped the cake was a good one. How fortunate she had remembered that kitchen in the school hall.
And then she froze and clutched tightly at the leather arms of the chair. The kitchen. Did it have a cooker? It had a microwave oven, for that was where they defrosted the goodies when they were setting up the tea-room for one of their endless charity drives.
She had to go back. She shot out of her chair and out of the door of the cottage just as James Lacey entered his living-room, carrying a tray with a coffee-pot and two mugs.
He carefully set down the tray and walked to his front door and looked out.
Agatha Raisin, with her skirts hitched up, was running down Lilac Lane as if all the fiends of hell were after her.
Might be inbreeding, he thought. He sat down and cut a slice of cake.
Agatha ran into the school-hall kitchen and looked feverishly about.
There it was, what she had been hoping to see a large gas cooker. She opened the low cupboards next to the sink. They were full of cups and saucers, mixing bowls, pie dishes, pots and pans.
She sat down suddenly. That's how it could have been done. That's how it must have been done.
She racked her memory. Mrs. Mason had been in the kitchen on the day of the auction, for example, beating up a fresh batch of cakes. The kitchen was also used for cooking. But wouldn't people remember if Vera Cummings-Browne had been in there on the day of the quiche competition, cooking a quiche?
But she didn't have to be, thought Agatha. All she had to do was cook it any time before and put it in the freezer and keep an eye on it to make sure it was not used until she needed it. The remains of her, Agatha's, quiche would have been dumped with all the other rubbish left over from the tea-room. All Vera had to do was take out her poisoned quiche, carry it home, pop it in the microwave, cut a slice out of it to match the missing slice that had been taken out at the competition, wrap it up and take it with her when she went out and dump it somewhere. Agatha was willing to bet the forensic men hadn't gone through the widow's clothes looking for poisoned crumbs.
How to prove it?
Confront her with it, thought Agatha, and get myself wired for sound.
Trap her into a confession.
Chapter Twelve.
Mr. James Lacey looked uneasily out of his window. There was that Agatha Raisin woman, hurrying back. Her lips were moving soundlessly.
He shrank back behind the curtains, but to his relief she went on, and shortly afterwards he heard her front door slam.
He thought she would be back at his door, but the day wore on and there was no sign of her. Early in the evening, when he was weeding the front garden, he heard her car starting up and soon he saw her drive past. She did not look at him or wave.
He continued to work steadily, straightening up as he heard someone hurrying down the road. He looked over the hedge. And there came Agatha, on foot this time. He ducked below the hedge. On she went and again he heard her door slam.
An hour later, just as he was about to go inside for the night, a police car raced past and stopped outside Agatha's door and three men got out, one of whom he recognized as Bill Wong. They hammered at the door but for some reason the mysterious Mrs. Raisin did not answer it.
He heard Bill Wong say, "Her car's gone. Maybe she's gone to London."
All very odd. He wondered if Agatha was wanted for some crime or had simply been discovered missing from a lunatic asylum.
Inside her cottage, Agatha crouched down until the police car had gone.
She had deliberately hidden her car off one of the side roads at the top of the hill out of Carsely in case Bill Wong came calling. She had no intention of seeing him until she presented him with full proof that Vera Cummings-Browne was a murderess. She was slightly thrown when she looked out of her bedroom window to see the three of them, but assumed that it was because John Cartwright had been found. All that could wait. Agatha Raisin, detective, was going to solve The Great Quiche Mystery all by herself.
The next morning James Lacey found he was persuading himself that his front garden needed more attention, although he had already pulled up every single weed. He did find, however, that the small patch
of grass needed edging and got out the necessary tools, all the while keeping a curious eye on the cottage next door.
Soon he was rewarded. Out came Agatha and walked along the road. This time he leaned over the garden gate.
"Good morning, Mrs. Raisin," he called.
Agatha focused on him, gave him a brief "Good morning," and walked on.
Love could wait, thought Agatha.
She located her car and drove to Oxford through Moreton-in-Marsh, Chipping Norton, and Woodstock while the brassy sun glared down. She parked the car in St. Giles and walked along Cornmarket and down to the West gate Shopping Centre until she found the shop she wanted. She bought a small but expensive tape recorder which she could wear strapped to her body and which could be activated by switches concealed in her pockets. She then bought a loose man's blouson with inside pockets.
"Now for it," she muttered as she drove back to Carsely. "I hope the bitch hasn't gone back to Tuscany."
As she topped a rise on the road after leaving Chipping Norton, she saw that black clouds were piling up on the horizon. She decided to drive straight home and run the risk of being visited by the police.
When she let herself into her cottage, the kitten scampered about in welcome, and Agatha found she was delaying her preparations by giving the little creature milk and food and then letting it out into the garden to play in the sun. She strapped on the tape recorder and arranged the switches in her pockets and then tested the machine to make sure it worked properly, which it did.
Now for Vera Cummings-Browne!
It came as a let-down to find there was no answer to her knock at the door of Vera's cottage. She asked at Harvey's if anyone had seen her and one woman volunteered that Mrs. Cummings-Browne had said she was going out of the village to do some shopping. Agatha groaned. All she could do was wait.
At Mircester Police Headquarters, Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes stopped at Bill Wong's desk. "Have you phoned your friend Mrs. Raisin to tell her we caught John Cartwright?" "I forgot about it," said Bill. "I was more interested in this." He held up a black-and-white photograph of Vera Cummings-Browne receiving first prize for her flower arrangement.
"What's that?"
"That is what Mrs. Raisin was after yesterday. I heard she had called on a Mr. Jones and thought I would call on him too to find out if she had stirred anything up. She had taken a photograph from him but he gave me the negative. I've just had it printed. And that' Bill stabbed a stubby finger in the middle of the flower arrangement ' exactly like cow bane the plant Mrs. Cummings-Browne professed to know nothing about. Mrs. Raisin's hit on something. Maybe I'd better get over there."
How many times, wondered Agatha, had she trekked through the stifling heat up to Vera's cottage, only to find it locked and silent? She was sweating under her blouson.
And then, at last, she saw Vera's Range Rover parked on the cobbles outside the door.
With a quickening feeling of excitement, Agatha knocked at the cottage door.
There was a long silence punctuated by a rumble of thunder from overhead. Agatha knocked again. A curtain at a side window twitched and then the door was opened.
"Oh, Mrs. Raisin," said Mrs. Cummings-Browne blandly. "I was just going out."
"I want to talk to you," said Agatha pugnaciously.
"Well, wait a moment while I put the car away. I think it's going to rain at last."
A stab of doubt assailed Agatha. Vera looked completely calm. But then Vera could not possibly know why she had called.
To be on the safe side, she followed her out and watched her put the car away in a garage at the end of the row of cottages.
Vera came back with a brisk step. "I've just got time for a cup of tea, Mrs. Raisin, and then I really must go. I am setting up a flower-arranging competition at Ancombe and someone needs to show these silly village women what to do."
She bustled into the kitchen to make tea. Take a seat in the drawing-room, Mrs. Raisin. Won't be long."
Agatha sat down in the small living-room and looked about. Here was where it had all happened. A bright flash of lightning lit up the dark room and then there was a tremendous crash of thunder.
"How dark it is in here!" exclaimed Vera, coming in with a tray of tea-things. She set them down on a low table. "Milk and sugar, Mrs. Raisin?" "Neither," said Agatha gruffly. "Just tea." Now it had come to it, she felt almost too embarrassed to begin. There was something so normal about Vera as she poured tea -from her well-coif fed hair to her Liberty dress.
"Now, Mrs. Raisin," said Vera brightly. "What brings you? Starting another auction? Do you know, it's actually getting cold. The fire's made up. I'll just put a match to it. In fact, the fire's been made up for weeks. Hasn't this weather been fierce? But it's broken now, thank goodness. Just listen to that storm."
Agatha nervously sipped her tea and wished Vera would settle down so that she could get the whole distasteful business over and done with.
Trickles of sweat were running down inside her clothes. How on earth could Vera find the room cold? The fire crackled into life.
Vera sat down, crossed her legs and looked with bright curiosity at Agatha.
"Mrs. Cummings-Browne," said Agatha, "I know you murdered your husband."
"Oh, really?" Vera looked amused. "And how am I supposed to have done that?"
"You must have had it planned for some time," said Agatha heavily. "You had already baked a poisoned quiche and put it in the freezer in the school hall along with the other goodies that the ladies use when the tea-room is in operation. You were waiting for a good chance to use it. Then I gave you that chance. You naturally did not want your husband to die after appearing to eat one of your own quiches. When I said I was leaving mine, you saw your chance and took it. You got rid of mine with the rest of the rubbish left over after the competition.
You took your own quiche home, defrosted it, and left two slices for your husband's supper. I don't know whether you checked to see whether he had died when you came home.
Then you heard I had actually bought that quiche in London. You're a greedy woman, I know that, from the way I was conned into paying for that expensive meal in a lousy restaurant in which you own part of the business. You saw an opportunity of getting money out of poor Mr. Economides, and so you went straight to London to tell him you were suing him. Who knows? You probably hoped he would settle out of court. But he confessed that the quiche had come from his cousin's shop in Devon. His cousin grew his own vegetables and there is no cow bane in Devon. So you told the police you had decided to forgive him and not press charges. You said you did not know what cow bane looked like. But you borrowed a book on poisonous plants from the library, and furthermore, I found out from a photo Mr. Jones had given me that you had used cow bane already in one of your floral arrangements. So that's how it was done!"
Agatha triumphantly drained her teacup and stared defiantly at Vera.
To her surprise, Vera's only reaction was to get up and put coal on the blazing wood on the fire.
Vera sat down again. She looked at Agatha.
"As a matter of fact, you are quite right, Mrs. Raisin." She raised her voice above the noise of the thunder. "You just had to go and cheat in that competition, didn't you, you silly bitch? So I thought I'd get some financial mileage out of it and yes, I did hope that Greek would volunteer to settle out of court. Then he let fall the bit about Devon. But at least I had him so frightened, he didn't even examine the quiche closely. I had a bad moment thinking he would and that he would say it wasn't his. So everything looked safe. I was tired of Reg's bloody philandering, but I turned a blind eye to it until that Maria Borrow came on the scene. She turned up here one day and told me Reg was going to marry her. Her! Pathetic mad old spinster. It was the ultimate shame. I knew he didn't mean to divorce me but sooner or later this Borrow fright was going to tell everyone he did and I wasn't standing for that. Do you know I thought it hadn't worked? I came home and saw the lights burning and the television
on but no sign of Reg. I was a bit relieved. He'd gone out before and left everything on. So I just went to bed. When they told me in the morning he was dead, I couldn't believe I had caused it. I used to dream of getting rid of him and I almost thought that the baking of that poisoned quiche and the substitution for yours had all been in my mind and that they would tell me he'd died of a stroke. What's the matter, Mrs. Raisin?
Feeling drowsy?"
Agatha felt her head swimming. The tea," she croaked.
"Yes, the tea, Mrs. Raisin. Think you're so bloody clever, don't you?
Well, only a crass fool would drop in to accuse a poisoner and drink tea."
"Cowbane!" gasped Agatha.
"Oh, no, dear. Just sleeping pills. I found out from Jones what you had been asking, and from that woman in the library. I followed you to Oxford. I had seen your car the night before parked up in one of the lanes. I was waiting for you when you drove off. So I went to Oxford, too, to a quack I'd heard of, a private doctor who gives all sorts of pills to anyone. I said I was Mrs. Agatha Raisin and couldn't sleep.
Here are the pills." Vera dug in a pocket of her dress and held up a pharmacist's bottle. And with your name on them."
She stood up. "And so I just spread a few of these leaflets advertising the flower-arranging competition about the floor, and I help a live coal to roll out of the fire on top of them. I will tell everyone that I told you to make yourself comfortable and wait until I returned. Such a sad accident. Everything is under-dry with the heat.
You'll have quite a funeral pyre. I'll just drop what's left of these sleeping pills into your handbag and put it in the kitchen by the window and hope it survives the blaze."
It was like a dream of hell, thought Agatha. She could not move. But she could see ... just. Vera spread the leaflets about, frowned down at them, and then went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of cooking oil. She sprinkled some of that about and then took the bottle back to the kitchen. "Such a good thing this cottage is heavily insured," she remarked.
She picked up a glowing coal from the fire with the brass tongs and dropped it on the leaflets and then stood patiently while it smouldered on the floor. With a click of annoyance, Vera struck a match and dropped it on the leaflets, which leaped into flame. She edged towards the door. There was a stack of magazines in a rack by the fire. It burst into flames. Then she locked the living-room windows. With a little smile, Vera said, "Bye, Mrs. Raisin," and let herself out of the cottage. She walked to her garage, glancing over her shoulder. She had taken the precaution of closing the curtains. She would have to get away quickly all the same.