by M C Beaton
The vicar answered the door to them, and, to Agatha’s amazement, gave her a warm welcome.
‘Come in, Mrs Raisin,’ he said with a beaming smile. ‘It’s always a pleasure to see you.’
Agatha was not to know that the vicar was plagued with memories of that voice calling him arrogant. He had even preached a sermon on Sunday warning against the dangers of false pride. He could not quite believe his wife’s explanation that someone was probably hiding behind a tombstone. The voice had seemed to come up from the grave.
Mrs Bloxby met them in the sitting room and suggested they should sit in the garden while her husband went off to his study.
‘We were wondering whether you had heard anything,’ said Agatha. ‘I mean, perhaps one of the Freemantles’ neighbours saw Simon under that tree.’
‘I haven’t heard anything,’ said Mrs Bloxby, ‘except that Fred Glossop has left again.’
‘I wonder why he came back,’ said Agatha. ‘They are separated, aren’t they?’
‘I believe Mrs Glossop was frightened by the murders and sent for him.’
‘Where does he work?’
‘He’s a computer engineer, working for some Oxford-shire firm.’
‘Why did they never get a divorce?’
‘According to the village gossip, it was an amicable separation.’
‘I don’t believe in amicable separations,’ said Charles cynically.
‘Perhaps I’ll go and see her,’ said Agatha. ‘She might feel like talking a bit more without Fred around.’
There was a notable change in Harriet Glossop’s appearance. Her face was pale and she had lost weight. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘And who is this man?’
‘This is Sir Charles Fraith,’ said Agatha, hoping to impress with Charles’s title.
‘I suppose you’d better come in. We’ll sit in the garden.’
‘Your flowers could do with watering,’ commented Charles. Withered petals lay on the brown lawn.
‘I’ve lost interest,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s too hot. George was cheap compared to the prices gardeners around here are charging.’
‘We wondered if you could help us with something,’ said Agatha. ‘My colleague Simon Black was sitting outside Jessica Fordyce’s cottage under a tree when he was attacked. Did you see or hear anything? A car driving along the road? Anything like that?’
‘No. Look, I don’t know anything and what’s more I don’t want to know anything. I heard on the radio that those awful Frasers have been arrested, so why are you still poking around?’
‘Because I can’t quite believe they did it,’ said Agatha.
‘And you know better than the whole police force?’
‘I have this intuition . . .’
‘Spare me,’ snapped Harriet. ‘There’s a woman in Mircester who reads tarot cards. Why don’t you try her? You should both be on the same wavelength.’
‘If you’re determined not to help—’ began Agatha.
‘Look, I don’t know a thing and I wish you’d just leave . . . now!’
They had walked to Sarah’s cottage. As they strolled along the road, Joyce Hemingway came towards them.
‘If it isn’t the great detective,’ she sneered. ‘Trumped by the police.’
‘It was me who suggested there was something fishy about the rockery in their garden,’ said Agatha.
‘Anyway, the police have closed the murder cases,’ said Joyce.
‘I don’t believe they did it,’ said Agatha. ‘And I’ve just found out something that might blow the whole case open again.’
‘What!’ demanded Joyce shrilly.
Agatha smiled. ‘Now, wouldn’t you just like to know. You were overheard threatening George, for starters. Come along, Charles.’
‘What on earth made you say that?’ said Charles when they were out of earshot.
‘I just felt like stirring the pond and seeing what rises out of the muck. I haven’t the resources of the police, so I usually just blunder about until something breaks.’
‘Let’s hope it isn’t you,’ said Charles.
James Lacey had just returned from his travels the next morning and was unpacking his suitcase when his doorbell rang.
He wondered whether to answer it. Newcomers to the village quickly found out he was an eligible man and since a good few of the newcomers were either divorcées or widows, some of them kept calling around with offers of cakes and jam when they knew he was at home.
Then he thought it might be Agatha. He had followed the murders in the newspapers and was anxious to hear what she thought about the arrest of the Frasers.
He left his bedroom, went downstairs and opened the door. A tall, thin woman stood there. She held out her hand. ‘I am Petronella Harvey-Booth.’
‘I don’t know you,’ said James impatiently.
‘Of course you don’t. I am shortly to become engaged to Charles Fraith.’
‘You’d better come in,’ said James, suddenly curious.
She perched herself on the edge of James’s well-worn sofa. Not much of a looker, thought James. James thought she looked like a face in a medieval canvas, with her long nose and long straight hair and small mouth. Knowing Charles’s liking for money, she must be very rich.
‘So what’s your engagement got to do with me?’ asked James.
‘I want to know why he spends so much time with your ex-wife. You see, Daddy told me to always be careful because we have a lot of money. So he hired a private detective.’
James grinned. ‘There’s a turn-up for the book. Agatha being stalked by a private detective.’
‘It seems Charles often spends the night at her cottage and he sometimes just lets himself in. I don’t want to marry a man who has a mistress.’
‘I can assure you, they are just friends. Let’s go next door and see if they are there. It will reassure you once you’ve met Agatha.’
Agatha had just returned with Charles. She answered the door. ‘Oh, James, you’re back,’ she said. ‘Who is this? Oh, I know. Charles showed me a photograph of you. Please come in. Charles is in the garden.’
Charles rose to his feet and stared in surprise at Petronella. ‘Why, Pet! What are you doing here? Do sit down.’
‘I came to find out what you were doing here,’ said Pet, sitting on the edge of a garden chair and clutching a capacious handbag on her lap.
‘Agatha’s an old friend.’
‘I can see the old bit,’ said Pet waspishly. ‘It’s the friendship I’m talking about.’
‘Bitch, bitch, bitch,’ muttered Agatha.
‘You stay overnight with her,’ said Pet. ‘When you told her you were going to marry me, you described me as rich and then went on to ask if she would miss you.’
There was a shocked silence. Charles found his voice first.
‘That was a private conversation I had with Agatha just a short time ago.’
Agatha suddenly snatched Pet’s handbag, opened it and dumped the contents on the garden table, shoving Pet away as Pet tried to stop her.
Inside, she recognized a listening device like the one Simon had.
‘You’ve been spying on me,’ howled Agatha. ‘This listening device is illegal and I am going to call the police.’
She took her mobile phone out of her pocket.
‘Don’t,’ said Charles. ‘I want an explanation.’
Pet burst into tears.
James said, ‘I may as well tell you. Evidently Pet’s papa has employed a private detective. He no doubt supplied Pet with the listening device. Anyway, that’s what she told me before I brought her here.’
‘Daddy said I had to be careful,’ said Pet. ‘He said you might just be after me for my money. Please don’t call the police.’
‘What agency?’ demanded Agatha.
‘Timmons.’
Timmons was a new agency and Agatha had recently lost a couple of clients to them.
‘I could do without the scandal,’ said Charles quietly.
‘I c-can’t.’
‘If you don’t, I shall phone the police and then the newspapers,’ said Agatha.
‘Charles!’ wailed Pet.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I suggest you do just what Agatha says. Then you can go home and tell that father of yours that I am definitely not going to marry you.’
‘You’re all horrid!’ shouted Pet.
‘Not as horrid as you,’ said Agatha.
As Agatha made her way to the Timmons detective agency in Mircester the following morning, she worried about Charles. He usually didn’t betray any emotion at all, but he had been unnaturally quiet, saying only after Pet had signed the statement and left that he wanted to go home.
James had left as well to do his unpacking, after Agatha had asked him if he would like to come to Timmons with her in the morning. James had replied that he found the whole situation disgusting and that he had work to do.
A cool blonde receptionist told Agatha to wait and Mr Timmons would see her shortly. Agatha looked sourly around the reception area of her rival as she sank down into a black leather sofa. Glossy magazines decorated the coffee table in front of her. Abstract paintings hung on the cream walls.
Her own agency consisted of one large room with a secretary, Mrs Freedman, at a desk by the window. Clients just walked in. Simon, Toni, Phil and Patrick as well as herself all had separate desks. No pictures decorated the walls, only press cuttings of the agency’s successes. I never, ever thought of remodelling it, thought Agatha. It’s like my kitchen. No fashionable granite surfaces or copper pans, just the same white-painted cupboards that had been there when she bought the cottage. One square wooden table with four upright chairs surrounding it dominated the middle of the kitchen.
The door to the inner office opened and a large, florid man breezed through. ‘If it isn’t the famous Mrs Raisin,’ he cried.
He had a large pear-shaped face and a double-breasted suit draped around his body. He wore rimless glasses behind which a pair of shrewd brown eyes, surveying her warily, belied the smile on his mouth.
‘What can we do for you?’
Agatha opened a carrier bag and took out the listening device and put it on the table. ‘This is yours. It was used to illegally listen in on my conversations.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘I have a sworn statement from Miss Harvey-Booth that her father hired you to spy on me. She was using this device herself.’
‘Silly cow!’ Mr Timmons took out a handkerchief and mopped his face.
‘Before I go to the police, have you anything to say?’
‘My dear lady, I am sure we can come to an arrangement.’
‘Bribery as well?’
‘No, no. The detective will be fired immediately. I knew nothing of this.’
‘When it comes to court,’ said Agatha, ‘I am sure he will say otherwise.’
Mr Timmons barked at the receptionist. ‘Get Baker in here!’
He turned to Agatha. ‘I am going to fire him in front of you.’
A middle-aged man walked in. He was tall, dressed in a plain dark suit. Agatha thought he had ex-copper written all over him.
‘This is Mrs Agatha Raisin,’ said Timmons. ‘You have been using an illegal listening device and you’re fired.’
‘It’s this office’s property,’ said Baker in a calm, deep voice. ‘I was using it on your instructions.’
Baker gave his employer a long, hard look. Then he fished a powerful little tape recorder out of his pocket and switched it on. He plugged in an earpiece and listened, and then said, ‘Here it is.’ He unplugged the earpiece and amplified the sound.
Mr Timmons’s recorded voice suddenly sounded in the room. ‘Look, Baker, we’ve got an easy one here. This posh geezer, Colonel Harvey-Booth, has a daughter, Petronella, who wants to marry Sir Charles Fraith and wants the lowdown on him. Get the listening device and get what you can.’
‘There’s more,’ said Baker, searching the tape recorder again. Then his own voice saying, ‘Our client’s daughter, Petronella, wants to have a go with the listening device herself. I told her that this Sir Charles Fraith had been spending time at Agatha Raisin’s cottage and might be getting his leg over, and she wants to play detective herself.’ This was followed by Timmons’s recorded voice: ‘Then let her have it. Raisin is a formidable rival and if we can upset her, all to the good. Petronella’s dad is paying over the odds and if she wants to do the work herself, let her.’
Baker switched off the recorder. ‘You may go,’ said Timmons.
Then he turned to Agatha, and said bleakly, ‘Is there any way I can stop you from going to the police?’
‘Only one way. You close down here and move to another town.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘Either that or I go to the police. You’ve got two weeks to shut down your operation here. I will come back at the end of two weeks. If you are still here, then I am really going to go to the police.’
He got to his feet and Agatha stood up as well. He loomed over her. ‘I’ll get even with you one day, see if I don’t.’
Agatha’s handbag was open. She took out a small tape recorder, just like the one Baker had used.
‘I have now taped that threat of yours. Dear me, you’re not much of a detective, are you?’
Agatha popped the tape recorder back into her handbag and zipped it up.
‘Bye,’ she said cheerfully.
Timmons stood rigid, his hands clenched into fists as he watched her go.
* * *
Agatha went to the office. She was suddenly weary of trying to find out who had murdered George. There was other work to be done.
Mrs Freedman said everyone was out on other jobs and handed Agatha a list.
‘Fine,’ said Agatha, scanning it, ‘except for Simon. Is he still in hospital?’
‘No, he’s out. He phoned in. He said he was going back to Carsely to see if he could find out who put that snake down his back.’
‘Snakes and bastards!’ howled Agatha. ‘He’ll get himself killed. Wasn’t one attempt on his life enough for him?’
‘It can’t really be described as an attempt on his life,’ said Mrs Freedman pedantically. ‘I mean, anyone bitten knows to go straight to hospital.’
‘I’m going over to Carsely to get him out of there,’ said Agatha.
‘Don’t you think you might be at risk yourself?’
‘It’s different. I can’t avoid the place. I live there.’
‘Come to think of it,’ said Mrs Freedman, ‘he should be all right. I mean, the case is closed, isn’t it?’
The slamming of the office door was her only answer.
Simon had hoped to find Jessica at home. He had dreamt of her since that first meeting. Although he had never previously watched any of the soaps, he had bought a boxed set of Emergency Tonight, the series in which Jessica starred. But Jessica was not at home.
He stood outside her house, irresolute, wondering what to do. He knew she only visited the cottage at weekends, but he had hoped against hope that she might have made a flying visit.
Simon knew he was supposed to be out around Mircester looking for a missing cat, Agatha having again given him the bread-and-butter jobs of the agency. Before he had gone to Carsely, he had checked at the Mircester Animal Rescue Centre, hoping to find the cat easily. It was a Siamese. But no Siamese cats at all had been handed in.
The day was still and warm. There was a hosepipe ban and flowers in the cottage gardens drooped in the heat.
He knew Agatha was disappointed in him. Even before the snake attack, he had been outclassed by Toni.
He now w
ondered what he had ever seen in her. Her blonde beauty faded before Jessica’s vibrant loveliness. Such was his obsession that he found himself reluctant to leave Carsely.
He decided to go to the pub for a cold beer and was just heading in that direction when he looked up the hill and recognized Agatha’s car speeding down towards the village.
Simon drove off out of the village by the alternative route and went back to Mircester. He parked in the main square, took out a photo of the missing cat and gloomily surveyed it. Then he had a bright idea. Surely one Siamese cat looked just like another. Simon came from a wealthy family and was never short of funds. He let in the clutch and drove to the nearest pet shop. Yes, they had a fine Siamese. ‘The one in your photo is a lilac point,’ said the salesman, ‘and I have one just like it.’
‘How much?’ asked Simon.
‘It’s one of the rarer breeds. The cost is four hundred pounds.’
Simon hesitated only a moment. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said. He had a cat box in the car, which he kept for recovering lost cats. He went out of the shop and got it, paid with his credit card, and set off for the residence of a Mrs Finney, who had asked them to find the missing animal.
Agatha arrived back in her office, hot and cross. Toni was typing up a report at her computer. ‘Drop what you’re doing,’ said Agatha, ‘and get down to Animal Rescue and see if anyone’s handed in a Siamese cat.’
‘Isn’t Simon on that one?’
‘For some reason he went back to Carsely but I couldn’t find him. Mrs Finney keeps phoning.’ Agatha searched through the filing cabinet. ‘She gave us a lot of photos. Here’s one. And ask if Simon even visited the rescue centre.’
At the rescue centre, Toni was told she was in luck. A lilac point Siamese cat had just been handed in. Toni put the cat in a cat carrier and headed off for Mrs Finney’s home.
The first sound that met Toni’s ears as Mrs Finney opened the door was the unmistakable wail of a Siamese.
‘We’ve found your cat,’ said Toni.
‘But your colleague has just been here to give me back my cat,’ exclaimed Mrs Finney.
‘So this is not your cat?’
Mrs Finney peered into the cat box. ‘How odd. She looks just like Bung Ho.’