by M C Beaton
“I suppose,” mumbled Agatha, her mouth full of teacake.
“So tell me what else you have found out?”
Agatha described how Harry and Carol had asked them to investigate but had seemed reluctant to let them search the house and how Harry was going to share his inheritance with Carol.
“Why the change of heart?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.
“Harry said that he and Carol had got together and found out how their mother had set one against the other. Seems believable.”
“Or it could be the action of a man guilty of murder and desperate to put a good face on things.”
“If Paul hadn’t gone off me, I was going to suggest going over to Mircester this evening to see if that amateur theatrical company are rehearsing anything and ask a few questions. There might have been an opportunity for Harry to disappear for a bit of the evening.”
“But in that case, wouldn’t Harry himself be at the rehearsals?”
“You’re right.”
“Wait a minute. I think I can find something out for you. I have a friend over in Mircester. I am sure she is part of the company.”
Mrs. Bloxby went indoors. Agatha drank more tea and waited.
The vicar’s wife came back and handed Agatha a slip of paper. “Her name is Mrs. Barley. That’s her address. She’s at home. If you go over now, you can have a chat with her.”
“Thanks a lot. Should I tell Paul?”
“No, leave him for a bit. He’ll come round.”
Agatha went back to her cottage. Paul was working in his front garden. She hesitated as she passed, but although he was well aware of her, he didn’t look up from his weeding. She shrugged and walked on.
Mrs. Davenport avidly watched from the end of the lane. So it was over! She felt disappointed. She had still been trying to find out Juanita’s address and had been looking forward to witnessing Agatha Raisin getting her come-uppance.
Agatha felt a burden had been lifted from her as she drove towards Mircester. She was on her own again and it felt good. Sex had impaired her usually brilliant detective abilities, she told herself.
She stopped in a lay-by outside Mircester and pulled a map of the town out of the glove compartment and worked out where Mrs. Barley lived.
Barley was a nice name, reflected Agatha as she drove on into town. She would be a round, comfortable sort of countrywoman with apple cheeks and a generous bosom under a flowered apron.
The reality came as a shock. Mrs. Barley-“Do call me Robin”-was a thin woman in her sixties with expensively tinted golden hair wearing a Versace trouser suit and jangling with gold bangles.
“Come into my little sanctum,” she cooed. “Do excuse the smell of paint.”
Agatha found herself in an artist’s studio. A small white poodle with evil eyes ran barking at her ankles and Agatha resisted an urge to kick the beast away. There were canvases stacked against the walls and a half-finished painting on an easel. It showed a woman with a green-and-yellow face.
“A self-portrait,” murmured Robin Barley, spreading her long fingers in a deprecating gesture. “A poor thing but mine own.”
“Looks great to me,” lied Agatha. Agatha was always puzzled by people who sneered at the phrase: “I don’t know much about painting but I know what I like.” What on earth was up with that? Surely if one was buying a painting, one should choose what one liked. She had been told it was necessary to study art to appreciate it. Why? She wasn’t an art student. James used to laugh at her and say she was comfortable in her philistinism, but she still couldn’t see what it was all about. He had taken her to a Matisse exhibition and she had remarked loudly that she thought the painter’s choice of colours ghastly and James had actually blushed and rushed her out of the gallery.
“The sun’s over the yard-arm so we may as well have a drinkie,” said Robin. “What’s your poison?”
“Gin and tonic, please.”
“Absolutely. I’ll have the same.” Robin went over to a small kitchen off the studio and fixed two drinks and carried them back. “Bottoms up,” she said.
Agatha wondered whether Robin was capable of saying anything that wasn’t hackneyed and clichéd.
“So you’re the great detective,” said Robin. “Sit down, please. I actually don’t live here. This is my studio. I have a little pied-à-terre in Wormstone village. I am actually very busy at the moment but I never could refuse dear Margaret anything.”
“Margaret?”
“Mrs. Bloxby, of course. So I thought, why not grant you some of my precious time. It never rains but it pours,” she added obscurely.
“And every cloud has a silver lining,” said Agatha.
“And every road leads to the sea,” said Robin.
I wonder if she’s mad, thought Agatha. Aloud she said, “It’s about Harry Witherspoon and The Mikado.”
Robin swept back her golden hair with one beringed hand. “Ah, yes. I played Katisha.”
“The Daughter-in-Law Elect,” said Agatha, who knew her Gilbert and Sullivan.
“Exactly.”
“‘There’s a fascination frantic
In a ruin that’s romantic;
Do you think you are sufficiently decayed?’” quoted Agatha.
Robin gave a deprecating laugh. “Actually, I brought glamour to the role. I always think it’s a mistake to portray Katisha as ugly. But to your little problem. Harry was only a member of the chorus. I don’t see how he could have found time to absent himself.”
“Would you notice?”
“There’s a thing. Such an insignificant little man. No, I wouldn’t. But the show ran from eight o’clock to nine-thirty. Then we all went to our dressing-rooms to take off make-up and get ready for the party. The party was on stage at the theatre. It went on until a little after midnight. Harry could easily have slipped out.”
“The police seem pretty sure he didn’t, or rather, that’s the impression I got.”
“You poor thing. It must be awful for you, just dithering about the way you do without the resources of the police.”
“Yes, it can be infuriating trying to get information out of people like you.”
“Now, now,” chided Robin. “Claws in. Little birds in their nests agree.”
Agatha picked up her handbag. “Thanks for the drink. Better get going.”
“Please sit down. I could be of help to you.”
“How?” said Agatha, heading for the door.
“I can ask discreetly around. Harry was in the chorus and the chorus lot stick together. They all share the one dressing-room, the men, that is. One of them might have noticed if he’d gone AWOL.”
Agatha fished in her handbag and took out a card.
“Phone me if you discover anything,” she said.
“And if you do,” muttered Agatha as she got in her car, “it’ll be a bloody miracle.”
She treated herself to lunch in Mircester and then went round the shops before driving home.
Her heart sank as she turned into Lilac Lane and recognized Bill Wong’s car. She parked and got out, only slightly relieved to see that Bill was on his own.
“We need to talk,” he said. “And get your friend along here.”
Agatha did not want to say Paul wasn’t speaking to her. “Come inside,” she said. “I’ll phone him.”
She led the way into the kitchen. “Switch on the percolator, Bill. I’ll only be a moment.”
“Can’t you use the extension in the kitchen?”
“Oh, yes,” said Agatha, flustered. “Of course.” She picked up the receiver and then put it down again. “I know why I was going to phone from the other room. My address book’s in there. I’ve forgotten his phone number.”
“I’ve got it,” said Bill. He gave it to her and with a heavy heart Agatha picked up the phone. She hoped Paul would be out. What if he cracked and confessed to their breaking into Ivy Cottage? She was sure Bill now knew all about the anonymous note and suspected them.
But Paul answe
red on the first ring. “It’s Agatha,” she said brightly. “Bill Wong is here and wants to talk to both of us.”
“What about?” demanded Paul sharply.
“Don’t know. Hurry up.”
“But-”
Agatha replaced the receiver with a bang.
“I thought it was only people in movies who hung up without saying goodbye,” commented Bill.
“Didn’t I say goodbye?” said Agatha and followed it with a stage laugh worthy of Robin Barley. “So what’s this all about?”
The doorbell rang. Agatha stood with her eyes fixed on Bill.
“That’ll be Paul,” said Bill.
Agatha went to the door to let Paul in. To her dismay, Bill followed her. She had been hoping for a few hurried words of caution in private.
They all sat round the kitchen table, Agatha and Paul at one end and Bill facing them from the other. They had automatically taken up the same positions as they would have done during a police interrogation.
“There’s something very puzzling has just emerged,” began Bill.
“Wouldn’t anyone like coffee?” asked Agatha brightly.
“Later,” said Bill. Paul had his hands clasped and was studying the surface of the kitchen table.
“The thing is,” Bill went on, “that the police received an anonymous note. It had been pushed through the door of Moreton police station. It said there was a secret passage leading from a chest in Ivy Cottage.”
“Goodness! So there is a secret passage!” exclaimed Agatha.
“Just like you suggested,” said Bill.
“Well, that must have been the way the murderer got in,” said Agatha. “Ready for that coffee?”
“You don’t seem curious as to why I am here,” remarked Bill.
“Obviously because it was our idea about the secret passage,” said Agatha, wishing Paul would raise his head and say something, anything-except the truth.
“I must ask you pair if you had anything to do with this.”
“What are you talking about, Bill? Are you accusing us of having built a secret passage?”
“I think you know very well why I’m here. Harry Witherspoon has already been interviewed. He claims that as children they were never allowed down in the cellar. He says that you pair had asked his permission to search the house, but that he had refused. You didn’t break in, by any chance?”
“No,” said Agatha firmly. “Was the house broken into?”
“Whoever did it had a key. No sign of a break-in.”
“Well, there you are,” said Agatha. “It must have been Carol or Harry.”
“Furthermore,” pursued Bill, “a woman in the flats next to Budgens supermarket heard screaming during the night. She looked out of her window and saw a woman struggling with a man. The woman kicked the man, who appeared to be drunk, and ran off. Our witness, when asked to describe the woman, said something most odd. She said that the woman struggling with the man was wearing what looked like an old-fashioned tea-gown. She says she has a photograph of her grandmother wearing one just like it. She could not tell us the colour of the woman’s hair because those sodium lights change the colour of everything. Still, it sounds as if perhaps someone like you, Agatha, had got hold of some sort of theatrical costume as a disguise and gone to post that note.”
“Bill, really! If we’d found a secret passage, we would have told you.”
“Not if you had found it by entering the house without permission.”
Paul raised his head and spoke for the first time. “Is this an official inquiry?”
“No, it’s a friendly call. If by any chance you did find that passage and destroyed any evidence, then you would be in deep trouble.”
Paul said quietly, “Then it’s just as well we didn’t. No coffee for me, Agatha.” He suddenly smiled at her. “Tea, please.”
Agatha felt herself go limp with relief. She rose to her feet and went to make tea and coffee.
“So tell us about the passage,” said Paul. “Is it long? Is it very old? Where does it come out?”
“I’m not officially on this investigation,” said Bill. “But I heard that it does lead from the bottom of a big old chest in the cellar, down some steps which had been repaired, and then along under the house and the garden and comes up through a trapdoor into the middle of shrubbery. The witness who saw the struggle near the police station phoned the police immediately. The local man turned out and found the note. A team of forensic experts have been working for hours. The passage and everything in the cellar had been dusted clean. A vacuum had been used. They have searched Carol’s and Harry’s homes and taken away their vacuums.”
Paul thought of the car vacuum he had used and which was now in a cupboard in his cottage. He hadn’t even emptied it. Agatha thought of the tea-gown and wig upstairs.
Agatha placed a mug of coffee in front of Bill, glad to see her hand was steady. She then handed Paul a cup of tea.
“I suppose that dreadful Runcorn will be the next to call.”
“It’s possible. As I say, I am not on the case. So whoever was frightening Mrs. Witherspoon and then murdered her must have got into the house by way of the secret passage,” said Bill.
“If they’re both one and the same person,” said Agatha.
Bill eyed her narrowly. He knew that in the past, just when Agatha seemed to be bumbling about in an infuriating way, she had been capable, nonetheless, of sudden flashes of intuition.
“I don’t know,” said Agatha slowly. She took a mug of coffee for herself, lit a cigarette and sat down again. “I think the murder was quite clever. If Mrs. Witherspoon hadn’t been so hale and hearty, it might well have been assumed it was an accident. When someone’s very old, people don’t inquire too closely into the reason for the death. If the doctor had signed the death certificate, the murderer would have been safe. Somehow, the haunting strikes me as a bit, well…childish. By the way, surely the police went over the house very carefully. Why didn’t they look for a secret passage?”
“Because it didn’t cross their minds. Runcorn is still sure Harry did it, so he hasn’t even been looking in any other direction.”
Bill finished his coffee and got to his feet. “Be careful, you two. I do hope you had nothing to do with this.”
“As if we would,” said Agatha and saw him out
She hurried back to the kitchen. “That tea-gown and wig. I’d better get them back to Mrs. Bloxby.”
“And the vacuum. I’ll throw it away. We’d better wash all the clothes we had on last night. Look, Agatha, I’m sorry I was so rude to you, but I couldn’t believe we had been so stupid.”
“You can take me for dinner later. Let’s get rid of the evidence…now.”
By early evening, Agatha was just comforting herself with the thought that the wig and tea-gown were back in the vicarage and that the clothes she had worn while they were cleaning the cellar and passage were all clean and dry and the shoes she had worn had been thoroughly washed and cleaned when the phone rang. It was Paul. “Runcorn’s here,” he said in a low voice. “He wants you to step along.”
Agatha, with feet like lead, made her way along to Paul’s cottage. Detective Inspector Runcorn and Sergeant Evans were waiting for her in Paul’s living-room. Paul was sitting quietly at his desk.
“Right, Mrs. Raisin. Sit down,” ordered Runcorn. Agatha seized a hard chair and placed it next to Paul and sat down.
“Where were both of you last night between the hours of two A.M. and three A.M.?”
“In bed,” said Agatha and Paul at the same time.
“Any witnesses?”
“No,” said Agatha coldly.
“I am particularly interested in your movements, Mrs. Raisin.” Runcorn fixed her with a hard stare. “Someone put a note through the door of the Moreton police station. The note stated that there was a secret passage in Ivy Cottage.”
“And is there?” asked Paul. Again Agatha felt relief.
“Yes, there is, an
d everything has been wiped clean. A vacuum was used as well. We can get a search warrant but I would like the vacuums from both your houses.”
“Okay,” said Agatha quickly, not wanting them to come back with a warrant and search her whole cottage in case they found something incriminating, like a strand of wig hair.
“Mr. Chatterton?”
Paul shrugged. “All right with me.”
He rose and went to a cupboard under the stairs and pulled out an upright vacuum cleaner. Sergeant Evans wrote out a receipt.
“I’ll go and get mine,” said Agatha.
“If you have a vacuum for the car, bring that as well,” ordered Runcorn.
“I don’t have one of those,” said Agatha over her shoulder.
She was back in a very short time, still uneasy about leaving Paul alone with them. She sensed Runcorn was disappointed by their apparent eagerness to help.
But curiosity prompted her to ask, “What makes you think we could have anything to do with it? Why on earth would we want to murder Mrs. Witherspoon?”
“There’s a legend that a fortune was hidden in that old house. With Mrs. Witherspoon dead and the house empty, some crazy people might have decided to go on a treasure hunt.”
“Whereas the intelligent interpretation would be that the killer went back to make sure he had left no traces,” said Paul.
“And left a note at the police station?”
“Could be someone else. Could be someone who knows the murderer.”
“Ah, that reminds me. A witness said that the woman who left the note, or rather, some woman who was having a fight with a drunk, was wearing an old-fashioned tea-gown. Do you possess such an item, Mrs. Raisin?”
“I’m not old enough.”
“But you would not mind if Sergeant Evans here took a look in your wardrobe?”
“He can look now if he likes.”
When Agatha had left, Runcorn leaned forward and said in a man-to-man voice, “Now, Mr. Chatterton, sir, that is a woman who has interfered in police investigations before. It would go badly for you if you were found to be involved. Wouldn’t mind an excuse to put her away for a bit and keep her out of mischief. So you can tell me. What’s she been up to?”