Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden ar-9

by M C Beaton

  "Yes, I was very much in love with him. I was so relieved when Hugh died, but I thought God would punish me. I went to Francie to get in touch with Hugh, to find out if he was all right. Somehow Francie must have known something about my feelings for the colonel, seen the way I looked at him. It sounded like Hugh's voice. He said I had never loved him and I must pay. I think my brain was turned with guilt and fright. I gave Francie five thousand pounds."

  "What for?"

  "She said she would pass it on to the spirit world. Then Harry told me she was a fake. I asked for my money back and she wouldn't give it to me."

  "Why didn't you report it to the police?"

  "And look like a crazy old fool? I didn't think there was anything I could do. Then Harry let fall that maybe we could report Francie to the tax collector. He said when he had paid her, he had peeked into the other room and had seen her put the money in a cash box. I had sent people to Francie for potions. I found out a lot about her and her habits, and I found out she had a nap late in the afternoon. I decided to try to get at least some money back.

  "I went along. The door was unlocked. She never locked it until the evening. I went quietly in. It was all so easy. I found the cash box. It wasn't even locked. I took out all the money. There was only about twelve hundred pounds in it. I stuffed it in my handbag.

  "Then I decided to go upstairs and tell her what I had done. I knew as she probably hadn't declared any of the money to the taxman that she couldn't do anything about it. I thought she might try to attack me. I went into the kitchen looking for a weapon and saw a marble rolling pin. So useful, marble rolling pins." She giggled again, and then put her hand up to her mouth and threw Agatha a coy, almost flirtatious look, like some schoolgirl confessing a misdemeanor to a headmistress.

  "I crept up the stairs. She was lying sleeping. She suddenly opened her eyes and saw me. 'Oh, it's you, you silly old bitch,' she said, and she reached down to the floor for her slippers. She shouldn't have called me old. One minute I was standing there with the rolling pin, and the next I had whacked her as hard as I could on the head.

  "I didn't know if she was dead or not and I didn't care. I went out carrying the cash box and the rolling pin in a carrier bag. I threw the cashbox in the sea. It was amazing. There was no one about. You see, I didn't care then if I was caught or not. But once I got rid of the cash box, I took the rolling pin back to the hotel. I had left by the fire escape. I buried the rolling pin in the hotel garden."

  Got you, thought Agatha.

  "And what about Janine?"

  "When it appeared that the murderer was going to be exposed, I kicked Mary as hard as I could. That broke up the seance. But I began to fret and worry. What if Janine knew? I thought the colonel was warming to me. I felt it would only be a matter of time before he proposed." Daisy leaned forward and tapped Agatha on the knee. "I had to get rid of her. You do see that?"

  And Agatha remembered Charles saying that they were all probably mad. She is mad, thought Agatha again. Why didn't I see that before?

  "So I went down the fire escape and I phoned her from that call box at the entrance to the pier. I wore gloves this time. I told her I owed her mother money and I would like her to have it but she wasn't to tell anyone.

  "We walked along the pier. I said I had owed Francie thousands. Janine became quite excited. She was very like her mother, greedy. When we had gone along the pier a little way, I suddenly screamed and said, 'There's a body floating in the water!' She said, 'Where?' 'Down there,' I shouted. She leaned right over. I don't know where I got the strength but I seized her ankles and tipped her into the sea. She couldn't swim. Francie told me that once. She told me that neither she nor her daughter could swim. I heard her calling out, so I ran away."

  "Don't you feel any remorse?" asked Agatha curiously.

  "Why?" Daisy's eyes glittered. "They were bad women."

  "Couldn't you just have taken Francie's money and left it at that?"

  "No! She cursed me, and Janine cursed me along with the rest of you. They were evil women."

  "Daisy, I am honour bound to go to the police and tell them what I've heard."

  "They won't believe you. You've no proof."

  And I'm not going to remind you that you told me about the rolling pin in the garden, Agatha was just thinking when Mr. Martin walked in.

  "I came up to talk to you, Mrs. Raisin, but I heard what was being said and I stayed to hear all of it. Mrs. Daisy Jones, I am going to take you to your room and lock you in until the police arrive. Come along."

  To Agatha's amazement, Daisy stood up and smoothed down her skirt and walked out past the hotel manager. Why had she gone so quietly?

  Charles walked in and Agatha flew to him, her nerves suddenly shot, babbling all about Daisy and the murders.

  "Here, calm down, Aggie," he said, "let's have it all--slowly."

  Agatha shakily summarized briefly what Daisy had told her, ending with, "I cannot believe she went like that, so quietly."

  "Let's hope she doesn't remember telling you about that rolling pin."

  "Why?"

  "Well, if she can find a way out of her room and down into the hotel garden, she'll do it."

  "The window!" gasped Agatha. "The window in her room." She hurtled out of the door and down the stairs and round to the side of the building. No Daisy in the garden.

  "Up there!" cried Charles, suddenly appearing behind her.

  Daisy was balancing on the ledge outside her window. Although her room was only one floor up, the downstairs ceilings were so high that she was a good distance from the ground.

  She glared down at them. In the distance came the wail of police sirens.

  "It's too late now," shouted Agatha. "Go back in your room. You'll only hurt yourself."

  But Daisy leaped from the window-ledge. She plummeted straight down onto a rockery. Her head struck one of the rocks with a vicious thud and she lay still.

  Charles went up to her and bent down and stooped over her. "I daren't move her," he said over his shoulder to Agatha.

  Agatha ran to the front of the hotel just as Jimmy Jessop was getting out of the first police car.

  "It's Daisy," said Agatha. "She's in the garden. She's badly hurt."

  "Phone for an ambulance," said Jimmy to a policeman. "Lead the way, Mrs. Raisin."

  The police followed Agatha into the hotel garden. Jimmy motioned Charles aside and knelt down beside Daisy. He felt for her pulse.

  He looked up at them. "I think it's too late. Go back into the hotel, Mrs. Raisin, and you, too, sir. You will need to answer questions."

  Agatha felt sick and shaky. Supported by Charles, she went back into the hotel, to be met by Mary, Jennifer and Harry.

  "Mr. Martin's saying it was Daisy who committed these murders," said Harry.

  "It can't be true," wailed Mary, and despite her dizziness and sickness, Agatha registered somewhere in her mind that neither Jennifer nor Harry seemed to be surprised.

  Agatha said to Mr. Martin, "Tell the police I'll be in my room if they want me."

  She and Charles went upstairs. In their room, they both sat down on the bed. There was a plaintive mew from the bathroom. Agatha rose and let the cat out. Then she rejoined Charles.

  "I don't know why you're so miserable, Aggie," said Charles, taking her hand. "If it hadn't been for your intuition and Scrabble's behavior, she would have got away with it. And can I tell you something? You were probably next in line for the chop. I think Daisy's obsession with the colonel, which had been going on for years and years, had turned her mind. Sooner or later she would feel that he might have lived, might have married her if you hadn't lured him away."

  Agatha shivered. "All I do is blunder about in other people's lives. When I get back to Carsely, I'm going to settle down and do good works."

  "That'll be the day," said Charles with a laugh.

  "I mean it. I'm going to be like Mrs. Bloxby."

  Agatha rose. "I'd better feed Scrabble. Any
minute now they're going to come for us."

  "I'll do it." Charles opened a can of cat food and then filled Scrabble's water bowl. "Never mind, Aggie, we'll be out of here in the morning."

  There was a knock at the door. Charles answered it. A policeman stood there. "If you would both accompany me to the police station..."

  They collected their coats and followed him downstairs. "Only one more night, please God," said Agatha, looking out at the sea. "Just one more night and then I will never come here again."

  At the police station, Agatha was interviewed by Jimmy and Detective Sergeant Peter Carroll.

  She wearily began at the beginning and told them how Daisy had come to her room, the reaction of the cat, and how she'd suddenly known that Daisy had committed the murders.

  "How did you know?" asked Carroll.

  "I don't know," said Agatha wretchedly. "It was something Charles said about them all being mad. He was joking. But in that moment, I realized that Daisy was unbalanced."

  "In your statement about Mrs. Frances Juddle's death," said Carroll, "you said her cat flew at you. So why should you think that Daisy was the murderess?"

  "Just intuition," said Agatha miserably. "Will she live?"

  "She's dead," said Jimmy.

  Agatha put her hands up to her face. "I forgot about the rolling-pin. That's why she was desperate to get down to the garden. She buried the rolling-pin there."

  "Wait a minute." They both left the room.

  Agatha's knees were trembling. She put her hands on her knees.

  After some time they came back. "She didn't say exactly where she had buried the rolling-pin?" asked Carroll.

  "Only that it was in the hotel garden," said Agatha.

  "We'll find it. Now let's go over it again. By the way, whatever cat you have in your room, it does not belong to the late Mrs. Juddle."

  "What! Are you sure?"

  "Cliff has the cat. We went to see him yesterday morning for another interview. He had the cat with him. So let's have it all from the beginning again."

  At last Agatha was free to go. "I'll be leaving in the morning," she said.

  "I must ask you to be here for the coroner's inquest next week," said Jimmy. "You will be told of the time and place."

  "I'll never get out of here," said Agatha bitterly.

  "Leave us a minute," said Jimmy to Carroll.

  When they were alone, Jimmy said quietly, "Sit down, Agatha."

  Agatha sat down, her eyes filling with tears.

  "If it hadn't been for you, we might not have got her," said Jimmy. "The reason I want to speak to you is I have enough affection left for you to warn you."

  Agatha took a Kleenex out and dried her eyes. "About what?"

  "About Sir Charles."

  "What about him?" asked Agatha, turning pink.

  "I assume that the fact he is a baronet and younger than you might have gone to your head, Agatha, but if you have any thoughts of becoming Lady Fraith, I would forget it."

  "I never thought for a moment--"

  "Sir Charles said you were nothing more than casual friends who had an occasional fling. He said it meant nothing. I do not belong in your world, Agatha. I do not believe in casual sex."

  "Neither do I, Jimmy."

  "Then you are a sad case. It was definitely casual to him and he made no bones about it."

  Agatha stood up. "I would like to leave."

  He nodded and she went out.

  Charles was sitting waiting for her. "I want a word with you," said Agatha grimly. "Let's walk."

  When they were outside the police station, Charles said with attempted cheerfulness, "No press yet. But they'll be all over the place soon."

  "Charles, was it necessary for you to make me feel even more like a tart by telling them I meant nothing to you?"

  "I didn't exactly say that. Your inspector looked so low and I thought I had messed up your life. He's a really decent chap and you could do much worse. I was only trying to help."

  "Listen, you moron, such as Jimmy Jessop would never even look at a woman who went in for casual sex."

  "Doesn't he know it's the nineties?"

  "Oh, Charles. You are a pig."

  He tucked her arm in his. "Don't let's quarrel. How late is it? I suppose the dining-room at the hotel's closed. Oh, look, there's a fish-and-chip shop."

  They ate fish and chips on the road back to the hotel.

  Then they went into the hotel.

  "No, proper names are not allowed" came Harry's voice from the lounge. "You know that, Jennifer."

  "They're still playing Scrabble," marvelled Agatha. "People get murdered, people fall out of windows, and they still play Scrabble. Oh, by the way, would you believe it, I've got the wrong cat."

  "What?"

  "Scrabble isn't Francie's cat."

  "Then maybe Daisy came to your room to do you wrong. Animals sense danger."

  Mr. Martin approached them. "This is terrible, terrible," he said. "We're ruined."

  "Oh, let the press in," said Agatha wearily. "They'll drink a lot and spend a lot. And when the Season starts, you'll have a full house, People are very ghoulish. Your hotel will be famous."

  "But our residents won't like the press here."

  "There's only the three of them left," said Charles. "Why shouldn't you make some money out of all this tragedy? The press are big spenders. They'll drink your bar dry."

  Mr. Martin brightened. "I suppose they won't be here that long."

  "Exactly," said Agatha.

  She and Charles went upstairs.

  "No funny business tonight," said Agatha severely.

  "You do have a way with words, Aggie," said Charles.

  But Agatha Raisin felt rather peeved when he finally got into bed and started to read one of her paperbacks and was still reading when she went to sleep.

  By morning, before they left the hotel, there was a telephone call from the police telling them that the inquest would be on Wednesday at the coroner's court at ten in the morning.

  "Cheer up, Aggie," said Charles as they drove out of Wyckhadden, "you'll only need to see the wretched place one more time."

  Agatha tried very hard on the road home to banish thoughts of James Lacey from her mind. But she imagined over and over again the pair of them sitting in some Cotswold restaurant while she told her story.

  Finally Charles parked outside her cottage and helped her in with her suitcase and cat box.

  "I won't stay, Aggie. I'll call round next Wednesday about six-thirty in the morning and pick you up for the inquest. Or, if you like, we could go down the night before."

  Agatha repressed a shudder. "No, I don't mind an early start."

  When Charles had left, she let the cat out of its box. To her relief her other two cats, Boswell and Hodge, seemed to accept the newcomer. She fed them and turned them out into the garden.

  Then she picked up the phone and called James Lacey. There was no reply, nor had his car been outside his house.

  She walked along to the vicarage. "Oh, good, you're back," said Mrs. Bloxby. She called to her husband, "Agatha's back."

  The vicar rose and bolted out of the door. "Going to the church," he called.

  "Come in," said Mrs. Bloxby, "and sit down. It's all over the newspapers."

  "Do they say it was me who found out the murderess?" asked Agatha.

  "No, they say something about the hotel manager having overheard Daisy Jones telling one of the residents she had done it. Was it you? How clever. Tell me about it."

  So Agatha told her story and as she talked in the quiet calm of the vicarage living-room, it all began to seem very strange and far away.

  "And what about your inspector? You haven't mentioned him."

  "It's all off. He found me in bed with Charles."

  "How awful. But you are not heart-broken."

  "Just very ashamed. Jimmy's a good man. I regret losing him. I could have made it work."

  "But you don't love him, and if y
ou married him, you would have to live in Wyckhadden."

  "God forbid. I've never known a place with such changes in weather. There'll probably be a tornado on the day of the inquest."

  "We had bad weather here. Terrible floods. The rescue boats were out in the streets of Evesham and even Moreton-on-Marsh was flooded."

  "So where's James?" asked Agatha abruptly.

  "He left his key with Fred Griggs." Fred Griggs was the village policeman. "He told Fred he was going to stay with some people in Sussex."

  "So he'll be back soon?"

  "It seems like that."

  So Agatha watched and waited, hoping always to see James Lacey's car drive up to his cottage.

  James arrived home late on the evening before the inquest. He did his laundry and then packed his suitcase again. He had made arrangements to go to Greece. He thought briefly of calling on Agatha in the morning to say goodbye. But he didn't want to hear her burbling on about her inspector.

  The sound of a car stopping outside Agatha's cottage early in the morning awoke him. He struggled out of bed and went to the side window on the half-landing and looked down at the entrance to Agatha's cottage. She emerged with Charles. They got in Charles's car. They looked very happy.

  He went back to bed.

  He was part of Agatha Raisin's past now, so he would make damn sure she stayed part of his.

  The inquest was less harrowing than Agatha had imagined. She and Charles told their stories.

  The press were waiting outside. But Agatha had been too subdued by the sight of Jimmy in the court to grab her moment of glory. She got in Charles's car, deaf to the questions and ignoring the flashes going off in her face.

  "Goodbye forever," she said as Charles drove out of the town.

  TEN

  THREE months later, Agatha Raisin stood behind the tombola stand at a fund-raising venture for Save the Children. It was a worthy cause and she had worked hard on the organizing committee to make the fair a success. She felt her eyes should now look out on the world with the same quiet glow of serenity in them that she saw in Mrs. Bloxby's eyes. She took out her compact and looked in the little mirror. A pair of bearlike eyes stared bleakly back at her.