by M C Beaton
Autumn leaves swirling about her, crouched over the handlebars, she set off down the hill to Broadway. Two women watched her go past. “Doesn’t she look sinister,” said one. “Just like a witch. You can just picture her on a broomstick.”
Rose located the retirement home and drove up the short drive. She could only hope Sarah had retained all her wits.
* * *
Sarah Drinkwater was very fat. She had a great round face on top of several chins and seemed to be wedged into the armchair by the window in her room.
“I could hardly believe it when I heard that nurse introduce you,” said Sarah. “I thought you’d be dead by now.”
“Alive and kicking,” said Rosie. “I need your help.”
Sarah listened enthralled as Rosie described seeing Gladys Tripp. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed when Rosie had finished her tale.
“But I don’t see how you can do anything,” said Rosie. “It must be ages now since you’d got a practise.”
“Was struck off years ago,” said Sarah.
“Why?”
“I had a bad turn, a bit of a breakdown. I began to hate those damned cats and dogs and their owners slobbering over them. So I began to put a lot of them down. End of story.”
Rosie looked round the comfortable room. “You’ve done well for yourself. These places cost a mint.”
“My daughter married a very rich man. Clothing manufacturer. Left her a pile. He died suddenly.” She gave a cackle of laughter.
“Heart attack?”
“How did you guess? But I kept some stuff. Bring me over that brown wooden box.”
Rosie got painfully to her feet. She carried the box to Sarah and placed it on her ample lap. Sarah fished in her bosom and drew out a small key on a chain and unlocked the box.
She held up a bottle. “This is Oblivon. Kills instantly. Remember that vet over in Carsely got done for murder because he used this to bump someone off? That Agatha Raisin solved the case.”
“That woman really is a pest,” said Rosie.
“You can have this. No one knows I’ve got it. They don’t search our belongings here.”
Rosie returned to her cottage, took out the press cutting she had kept and phoned the organisers of the fair at Ancombe and offered her services, which they were delighted to accept, particularly when she said she would donate any money she made to Help the Aged.
Of course, if Agatha did not turn up, she’d need to find another way to get at her. One had to stand behind old friends.
* * *
Agatha was one of those people who ended up buying Christmas presents at the last minute. And after her history of several disastrous Christmases, she had no intention of going to the fair.
But on the Saturday morning, Roy Silver arrived on her doorstep, bearing a large bouquet of roses. “I’m ever so sorry, Agatha,” he said.
“Oh, come in,” said Agatha, taking the flowers from him, and reflecting that it was a sad day when she was glad to see Roy. But James had gone off on his travels again and Charles had disappeared in his catlike way, although unlike the Cheshire one, not even leaving a smile behind.
While Agatha put the flowers in water, Roy chattered away about his life in the public relations business. Then he said, “On my way down here, I saw a poster advertising a Christmas fair in Ancombe.”
“Christmas!” howled Agatha. “The whole thing starts earlier every year. I remember that Bible story about Jesus driving the traders away from the temple. What would He do now?”
“Don’t know and don’t care,” said Roy huffily. “I’d like to go. There’s probably lots of country things. More original than anything I could get in London.”
“I suppose I’d better do something to keep you amused,” said Agatha. “I’ll phone Mrs. Bloxby. Maybe she’d like a lift.” But Mrs. Bloxby said she had too much parish work.
* * *
Charles Fraith suddenly decided to go and see Agatha. He had gone to a dinner party the evening before and had found himself bored. Agatha could be infuriating, but no one could ever say she was boring. Finding her cottage deserted, he headed off to the vicarage, where Mrs. Bloxby told him Agatha had gone to the fair at Ancombe.
* * *
Agatha’s feet hurt. Roy was an eager shopper. He bought wooden salad bowls and baskets of homemade jam, six Country Cookery Books, two sweaters, and four scarves. He was heading off to the car park with his latest purchases when Agatha noticed the fortune-teller’s tent.
When Roy came back, Agatha said, “I think I’ll get my fortune told.”
“You don’t believe that stuff,” said Roy.
“It’ll amuse me.”
“You’ll find me in the beer tent,” said Roy.
Agatha had to wait in line because the fortune-teller seemed to be doing good business. Outside a sign said: MADAM ZORESTY. FORTUNES TOLD. At last it was her turn. She entered the small, dark tent.
Agatha saw an old woman sitting at a table. On the table was a pack of tarot cards and a crystal ball. The tent was dark. The fortune-teller was dressed in black velvet and with a black veil covering her head. Rosie studied her latest client and her heart began to beat with excitement. Agatha Raisin at last!
“Sit down and give me your hand,” said Rosie. As Rosie held her hand, Agatha experienced an odd frisson of fear. It seemed as if the air around her was malignant.
“Yes,” crooned Rosie. “You’ve been married twice before. I see a lot of death in your life.”
Agatha said, “I came to find out about my future. I know my past.”
The grip on her hand tightened. “You will not live very long.”
Agatha jerked her hand away. “What?”
“Perhaps I am not seeing clearly,” said Rosie. “Wait there and I will get the tarot cards.”
She shuffled off into the darkness of the tent. “Bollocks,” muttered Agatha and walked outside, glad to get away.
* * *
Rosie returned with the small phial of Oblivon and the syringe concealed in one of her pockets to find that Agatha had left. The tent flap opened and another woman came in, eager to have her fortune told.
“Finished for the day, dear,” said Rosie. “Too tired to do any more readings.”
When the woman had left, Rosie quickly put her paraphernalia into a travel bag. The fair organisers had supplied the tent. Into the bag went the crystal ball, made of plastic, the tarot cards and her black veil. She also took the takings. Help the Aged to Rosie meant helping herself. She opened a back flap of the tent, put the bag in the front of her mobility scooter and set off out of the fairground, bumping over the tussocky grass.
* * *
Charles found Agatha and Roy in the beer tent. “Oh, Charles,” cried Agatha when she saw him. “You’ll never guess what happened.”
She told him about her weird encounter with the fortune-teller.
“Maybe she’s a friend of Mrs. Tripp,” said Charles. “Maybe it’s her idea of giving you a scare.”
“I’m going back there,” said Agatha.
But when they got to the tent, several women outside told them that the fortune-teller had left. Agatha got the name of the woman who was organising the fair, a Mrs. Dolores Vine.
“She phoned us with her offer,” said Dolores, a capable-looking woman. “She was offering her services free and said she would give any money to us to pass on to Help the Aged.”
“What name did she give?”
“Wait a minute. I have a note of it somewhere.” Dolores opened a capacious handbag and took out a notebook. “Let me see, it will be under ‘volunteers.’ Ah, here it is. Madam Zoresty, Ninety-five Greenway Road, Blockley.”
“But Madam Zoresty can’t be her real name,” said Agatha.
“I’m afraid we didn’t check up on her. She was offering to do it for free.”
* * *
Agatha left her car at her cottage and then she and Roy got into Charles’s car and they all set off for Blockley.
Blockley is a pretty village set deep in the folds of the Cotswold Hills. Greenway Road had council houses, a doctor’s surgery and a few private houses but number ninety-five did not exist.
“I wonder if this mysterious visitor called on Mrs. Tripp in prison.” Agatha phoned Patrick Mulligan and asked about prison visits.
“She hasn’t been convicted yet,” said Patrick. “She’s on remand so someone who wants to see her just needs to phone the prison and arrange a visit. But whoever it is needs to show some form of identification. You’ll need to see the governor at Mircester Women’s Prison.”
* * *
They drove to the prison. “With my luck the governor won’t be there on Saturday,” said Agatha. But the governor, a Mrs. Worthing, was there and agreed to see them.
She was a sturdy woman with close-cropped grey hair. “I was interested to meet you, Mrs. Raisin,” she said. She glanced with disfavour at Roy in his black leather outfit and with his hair gelled into spikes. “Are you helping disadvantaged youth?”
“No,” said Agatha, wishing for the hundredth time that Roy would wear something more conservative. “This is a former colleague of mine who is staying for the week-end. And may I introduce Sir Charles Fraith.”
“Sit down, then, and tell me more about the reason for your visit.”
Agatha once more that day described her experience in the fortune-teller’s tent. She then asked if Gladys Tripp had received any visitors.
“Let me look.” She switched on a computer on her desk. “When would this visit have taken place?”
“I don’t know exactly,” said Agatha. “Pretty recently, possibly.”
“Ah, here we are. Apart from the prison chaplain, Mrs. Tripp had one visitor, Rose Blacksmith.”
“What address did she give?”
“I am afraid I cannot release that information.”
The door crashed open and a wardress stood there. “Prisoner in cell twelve has hanged herself.”
Mrs. Worthing gave an exclamation of dismay. She rushed to the door, shouting over her shoulder, “See yourselves out.”
“She’s left the computer on,” said Charles, nipping round to the other side of the desk. “Quick! Take a note of this. Ivy Cottage, Church Road, Snowshill.”
* * *
Roy had never quite got over the fright caused by the attempt on his life. He suddenly did not want to go on any more possibly dangerous adventures, despite the lure of publicity. “I’m feeling tired,” he said when they were outside the prison. “I’m handling a big account. I should really get back to London.”
“All right,” said Agatha. “You came in your car, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we’ll drop you off.”
* * *
Agatha was silent as Charles drove them towards Broadway. But when he reached the top of Fish Hill, she said, “I hope the old woman can’t see the future.”
“Cheer up,” said Charles. “No fortune-teller is going to tell a client that they’re soon going to die.”
As they drove down Fish Hill in the gathering darkness, coloured autumn leaves swirled across the road.
“I hate this time of year,” said Agatha. “I hate to see the trees dying.”
“I thought you were a townie at heart,” said Charles. “Townies never really pay much attention to the changing seasons.”
“Maybe I’ve got countrified,” said Agatha gloomily. “My heart is made of tweed.”
“Harris or Irish?”
“Something dark and knobbly,” said Agatha.
* * *
They swung off the High Street in Broadway and into Church Road. Charles drove slowly, looking to right and left. There was no sign of Ivy Cottage.
“It must be around here somewhere,” said Agatha. “She must have had to produce genuine identification.”
“And maybe this Rose is innocent,” said Charles. “Want to call it a day?”
“No,” said Agatha. “Stop the car, I’m going to knock at a few doors and see if anyone’s heard of Ivy Cottage.”
Charles watched Agatha with affection as she went from door to door. He admired her tenacity. He felt he ought to help her and was lazily thinking of doing just that when Agatha returned. “Got it!” she said triumphantly. “There’s an old farm track a few yards up on the left.”
Charles located the track and drove up. “That must be it,” he said, pointing to the dark shape of an isolated cottage on the top of a hill.
He parked outside and they both climbed out of the car. “Here goes,” said Agatha. She marched up to the door and rang the bell.
A dirty lace curtain twitched at one of the windows. Then there was silence. Agatha rang the bell again and kicked the door. “Open up!” she yelled.
She heard the sound of shuffling footsteps and the door creaked open.
“Remember me?” said Agatha.
“What do you want?”
“You’re a friend of Mrs. Tripp. You visited her and then told me I was shortly going to die.”
Rosie peered past Agatha. “Who’s that?”
“Sir Charles Fraith.”
Rosie quailed. Surely she couldn’t kill both of them. How could she get rid of the bodies? Agatha had probably told people where she was going. If she and her friend went missing, she, Rosie, would be a prime suspect. Her eyes filled with tears. Although she had not seen Gladys Tripp in years, the bonds of the old coven were strong. She would have to try to murder them.
“Come in,” she said, turning and shuffling off.
They followed her into a small dark room crammed with furniture. It smelled of joss. “Sit down,” said Rosie. “I’ll just get myself a glass of water.”
When she had shuffled out of the room, Agatha kicked off her shoes and silently went off to see what she was up to. In the kitchen, she saw Rosie take a syringe and a small phial out of a cupboard.
“If you’re thinking of stabbing me with that, think again,” said Agatha loudly.
Rosie let out a shriek of fear. She clutched the ampoule, which broke in her hand. She stared down at her hand.
“I’m calling the police,” said Agatha. She went back to Charles and told him rapidly what she had found.
“You shouldn’t have left her alone,” said Charles. “Let’s get back in there and tie her up or something.”
They hurried back to the kitchen. Rosie lay slumped on the floor.
“Feel her pulse,” said Charles.
“You feel it,” said Agatha. “She might be faking.”
With a sense of distaste, Charles felt for a pulse and found none.
“Dead as a doornail,” he said, straightening up. “Whatever she meant to stab you with was lethal and fast-acting. Call the police now.”
* * *
Inspector Wilkes was furious when he arrived at the cottage and got Agatha’s preliminary statement. He felt that Agatha was making the police force in general and himself in particular look like a bunch of amateurs.
While a forensic team and a pathologist got to work inside the cottage, Agatha and Charles were told to go to police headquarters and wait to be questioned. In the car, Agatha said urgently, “We must get our stories straight. We must not say we got her address off the governor’s computer.”
“We’ll say we followed her from the fair,” said Charles.
“Won’t do. They might hear about Roy and question him. It’s no use priming Roy. He’ll get it wrong.”
“I know,” said Charles. “We decided to go to Broadway for dinner and had parked the car and were walking when we saw her going past in her mobility scooter and turn up Church Road. By the time we got back to the car and drove to Church Road, she had disappeared. That’s when you started knocking on doors to get her address.”
“That’ll do,” said Agatha.
* * *
Grilled by Wilkes, flanked by Bill Wong, Agatha was taken over and over her story again.
At last, she lost her temper. “Instea
d of thanking me for finding you another murderer, who was no doubt put up to it by Mrs. Tripp, you are treating me like a suspect.”
“Calm down,” snapped Wilkes. “If you had told us what you had guessed, we would have got onto it right away.”
“Oh, really? And then what would have happened? Rose Blacksmith would have denied the whole thing.”
“You may go now,” said Wilkes coldly, “but be available for further questioning.”
* * *
It was after midnight when Charles and Agatha met up in the reception of headquarters. “I’m starving,” complained Charles.
“I’ll fix us something at home.”
“God forbid!” exclaimed Charles, who knew that Agatha’s idea of cooking was microwavable frozen curry. “There’s an all-night place out on the ring road.”
Soon they were wolfing down large plates of sausage, bacon, eggs and chips.
“What I can’t understand,” said Agatha, wiping her mouth and pushing her nearly empty plate away, “is why Rose Blacksmith should go so far as to try to murder me, even if Ma Tripp put her up to it.”
“Did you ever look for her name on the Internet?” asked Charles.
“Hadn’t time. Let’s go home and try.”
* * *
In her cottage, Agatha typed the name Rose Blacksmith into her computer. “Nothing here,” she said, disappointed. “Should I type in nasty, old, murdering witches and see what comes up?”
“Can’t think,” said Charles.
“Let’s see, for the fun of it, if there are any covens around. Here we are. History of one on Quarry Hill. Ah, here we are. Report all those years ago in the Daily Express. People dancing around a bonfire naked. Funny article about droopy figures and how some people should never be seen naked. Here we are. Nothing on our Rose but a quote from outraged witch Sarah Drinkwater. Newspaper points out she was the vet who was struck off and put in prison for two years for killing her customers’ pets. I wonder if she’s still alive.”
Charles seized the phone book. “There’s one here in Broadway, but it isn’t Sarah, it’s a M. Chist-Drinkwater.” He gave Agatha the number. A woman answered, complaining they had woken her up, but told them, as she had told Rosie, that she was the granddaughter and that Sarah Drinkwater was in the nursing home in Broadway.