by M C Beaton
“Mrs. Raisin is a neighbour and a friend of mine,” said Paul. “It was entirely my idea to investigate the haunting of Mrs. Witherspoon. Mr. Harry Witherspoon and his sister, Carol, asked us after the funeral to help to find the murderer.”
Runcorn’s face darkened. “I hope you didn’t agree.”
“We said we would do what we could. Nothing we do can possibly interfere with your investigations. If we do find out anything of significance, we will tell you immediately.” Paul glanced nervously towards the bookshelves where the diary was in plain view, placed among glossy new books on computer science.
“Take my advice and don’t do anything at all.”
They sat in silence until Agatha returned with Evans. “Nothing,” said the sergeant.
Runcorn rose to his feet. “That will be all…for now.”
“Phew!” said Agatha when they had left. “That was hairy.”
“Something’s puzzling me,” said Paul.
“What?”
“It was so dusty in the cellar, as if nothing had been moved for years. I think Runcorn’s in trouble. I think the police just looked around the cellar and didn’t do a proper search.”
“Probably. But you would think the murderer would have left some trace.”
“You know,” said Paul, “I think we should try to have a word with Harry and Carol tomorrow. I cannot believe that two people brought up in that house, however bullied, didn’t explore the cellar.”
“But would two children find that false bottom in the trapdoor?”
“Maybe not. And I’ve just remembered something. That trapdoor leading up to the garden, it was fairly new. It looks as if someone had stumbled across the way in and decided it was a useful way of having secret access to the house.”
“We’re forgetting about Peter Frampton,” said Agatha. “He’s a local historian. He might have found out about it and he might have known where to look. Remember, he wanted to buy the house. I think we should try to find out a bit more about him.”
“Right. But we’ll have that dinner first and then tackle Harry and Carol.”
Robin Barley sat in front of the mirror in her dressing-room that evening after a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, in which she had played Lady Macbeth, feeling her ego had been thoroughly bruised. It had been an exciting day playing detective, making multiple phone calls to ascertain whether Harry could have slipped out. And he could have! Should she tell that Raisin trout creature? No, she would persevere and then go to the police, first making sure that the Mircester Chronicle got a full story first of her detective abilities. Then she remembered the horror of the dress rehearsal and her face darkened. That new producer was a drunken beast. Why on earth had their usual producer, Guy Wilson, taken it upon himself to go off with shingles? And why did they have to end up with a failed Stratford producer who had decided to set the whole of Macbeth in Bosnia, with the clansmen wearing gas masks? He had told her in front of the whole cast that she had made Lady Macbeth sound like some lady of the manor opening a church fête.
The door of her dressing-room opened and a face covered with a gas mask peered round it. Robin turned round and scowled. She did not associate much with the foot soldiers of the cast.
But he eased in, carrying a splendid bunch of red roses. “To match your beauty,” he said, his voice muffled behind the mask.
Robin suddenly beamed. “You are a love. What beautiful flowers!”
“I see you’ve a vase over there. I’ll just pop them in for you.”
“You haven’t told me your name,” said Robin.
“I prefer to remain a secret admirer.” He filled the vase with water from a sink in the corner and arranged the roses in it.
“Goodbye, my sweet.” He made an elaborate bow and turned and left.
Her spirits miraculously restored, Robin stood up and went to the flowers to inhale their scent. She reeled back gasping, feeling her arms and legs heavy. She tried to cry out, but the sense of suffocation increased. Robin collapsed on the floor and vomited. She began to crawl towards the door and then a great blackness descended on her.
Eight
AGATHA whistled happily the following morning as she prepared a breakfast of toast and marmalade and black coffee. The sun streamed in through the open kitchen door and all was right with her world. She and Paul had enjoyed a pleasant dinner. Once more they were at ease in each other’s company. They had even begun to joke about their amateur mistakes. She had told him about her visit to Robin Barley and had even done an imitation of her that had made Paul laugh.
He was to call for her that afternoon and then they were going to go to Towdey to see if they could find out more about Peter Frampton.
Once more her head was beginning to fill with rosy dreams. She had not yet had time to visit the hairdressers, so after breakfast she went up to the bathroom and used a brunette rinse on her hair to soften the effect of red roots.
Wrapping a towel round her hair, she went downstairs again and sat in the garden to enjoy the sun.
A frantic ringing on the doorbell, followed by a hammering on the front door, made her spring to her feet.
She ran through the house and opened the door. Paul stood there. “Agatha, Agatha, did you say you had been to see someone called Robin Barley?”
“Yes, come in. What’s up?”
“I just heard it on the radio. I was driving back from Moreton when I heard she’d been found dead in her dressing-room.”
They walked through to the kitchen as Agatha said, “Maybe she had a heart attack.”
“The news report said the police are treating the death as suspicious.”
Agatha sank down on a kitchen chair and looked at him bleakly.
“Sooner or later the police are going to question the neighbours around her studio and they’ll give a description of me. But if she was killed in her dressing-room, that points again to Harry. Oh, dear. It’s all my fault. She was so keen to play detective.”
“Did you encourage her to play detective?”
“Not really. In fact, she was so bitchy I was just glad to get out of there.”
“So it’s not your fault. No point in trying to see Harry or Carol today, and it would be better to leave Peter Frampton until we find out more. It must have something to do with Harry.”
“If it isn’t Harry,” said Agatha, “and if he has an alibi, then her murder may not have anything to do with the Witherspoon one.”
“Perhaps we should try to see Bill Wong.”
“I should think every detective they’ve got will be out on this one and they’ll be under pressure from the media. This one’s more exotic than an old lady being murdered.”
“I feel there’s something we should be doing.”
The doorbell rang again. They looked at each other in dismay. “Must be the police,” said Agatha dismally.
But when she answered the door it was to find a distressed Mrs. Bloxby. “Come in,” said Agatha. “We’ve just heard.”
“I cannot believe it,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I’ve known Mrs. Barley quite a long time. Did you see her?”
“Yes, I told her we were trying to find out if Harry could have had a chance to slip away and get over to Hebberdon. I know she was a friend of yours, but she was…difficult.”
“Poor Robin could be rather grandiose,” said the vicar’s wife, “but a heart of gold underneath it all. She did a lot of good work for the church. I phoned the rector of Saint Ethelburgh’s in Wormstone, the village where she lived. He had an arrangement to meet her in her dressing-room after the dress rehearsal. She was going to produce a play for the village church. It was he who found her.
“He said she was lying near the door. Her face was an awful colour and she had vomited. He called the ambulance and the police and the fire brigade, all three he was in such a state. The police arrived first. He was told to wait outside. Then he was driven to police headquarters and told to wait there. When two detectives finally arrived to interview him, he said
it was a terrible ordeal. They kept asking him over and over again if he had brought her flowers. And he had to repeat over and over again that he had not brought her any flowers. He had an arrangement to meet her and when he knocked on the dressing-room door and did not get a reply, he had opened the door and found her. It came out at the end of the interview that poor Mrs. Barley had died of cyanide poisoning and the police think that hydrogen cyanide pellets were dropped into a vase of roses. The resultant cyanide gas released by the pellets killed her.”
“How on earth in this day and age in the quiet Cotswolds would someone get hold of cyanide?” asked Agatha.
“Farmers used to use hydrogen cyanide,” said Paul. “But it’s now banned, along with DDT. I suppose there must be some of the stuff still lying around.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Agatha.
“I think we wait,” said Paul.
“I wish we had the resources of the police,” mourned Agatha. “We can’t check phone bills and see who she’d been phoning.”
“There are detective agencies who can get you a three-month record of anyone’s phone bill,” said Mrs. Bloxby, surprising them. “It cost about four hundred pounds plus VAT.”
“Wow, how do you know this?” asked Agatha.
Mrs. Bloxby coloured slightly. “I’m afraid it’s confidential. A parishioner was very obsessed with some woman and he wanted to check on her phone calls to see if she had been phoning an old lover, although she swore she hadn’t.”
“And had she?” asked Agatha, fascinated.
“Oh, yes.”
“And that cured his obsession?”
“No, it got worse. He finally moved to Australia. Such a waste of money.”
Agatha racked her brains to think of any parishioner who had moved to Australia. Mrs. Bloxby smiled slightly. “Before your time, Mrs. Raisin.”
“You know,” said Agatha, “I think I should phone Bill and tell him about my visit to Robin. I’ve a feeling they’re going to find out anyway.”
“You’ll get an awful grilling from Runcorn,” Paul pointed out. “I’ll get less of a grilling if I volunteer the information,” said Agatha.
She went into the other room to phone.
Agatha came back after a few minutes. “I got Bill. He’s on the case at last. I’ve to go in right away to headquarters.”
Paul drove Agatha to police headquarters. They were told to wait and then Agatha was taken away to an interviewing room. She sat for almost a quarter of an hour looking down at the scarred table, at the institution-green walls, and at the small frosted glass window until the door opened and Bill walked in, followed by Evans.
He went through the ritual of switching on the tape before sitting down with Evans and facing Agatha.
“Now, Mrs. Raisin,” he said formally, “you phoned me to say that you had seen the deceased, Mrs. Robin Barley, yesterday.”
“That is correct.”
“At what time?”
“I think it was just before lunch-time. I can’t be sure. Say about twelve o’clock.”
“Had you known Mrs. Barley before?”
“No.”
“How did you happen to be visiting her?”
“I wondered if it might have been possible for Harry Witherspoon to leave the performance and go to Hebberdon on the night of his mother’s murder. Mrs. Bloxby-” “That is the wife of the vicar of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Carsely?”
“You know that, Bill.”
“For the tape,” snapped Evans.
“Yes. Anyway, I wanted to get in touch with a member of the cast of The Mikado. Mrs. Bloxby said she had a friend, Mrs. Robin Barley, who might be able to help me. She phoned her and gave me her address. So I went to her studio.”
“And did she have any information?”
“No, I found her a rather silly woman. She said she would phone around other members of the cast to find out if Harry could have slipped away. I was fed up with her because she had been rude to me. I was only there a very short time. I gave her my card and told her to phone me if she found out anything, and then I left.”
“And after that?” asked Evans.
“I treated myself to lunch at Pam’s Kitchen in the main street. Then I walked around the shops. I got back home and was interviewed by you detectives. After you had left, Paul-Mr. Chatterton-and I went out for dinner.”
“Where?”
“The Churchill over at Paxford.”
“And how long did that take?”
“Let me think. We booked the table for eight o’clock. We didn’t leave until ten-thirty. We went to my cottage and had a nightcap and then Mr. Chatterton went to his cottage at around midnight.”
Evans spoke. “You have got to stop interfering, Mrs. Raisin. You will not leave the country. You will be prepared for further questioning.”
“Okay.”
Bill stood up. “That will be all for the moment.”
“Bill…?” Agatha started.
He shook his head briefly and Evans escorted Agatha out.
“So how did it go?” asked Paul as they walked away from police headquarters.
“Not as awful as I expected, because Bill himself interviewed me. But, oh Paul, he looked so hard-faced and disapproving.”
“Having a friend like you must be a serious embarrassment for a police detective at times.”
“I hope he hasn’t gone off me,” fretted Agatha. “He was my first friend-since I moved down here,” she added hurriedly, not wanting Paul to know that the prickly Agatha Raisin hadn’t had any friends before that.
“He’d come around if we could do anything to solve this case,” said Paul.
“Fat chance of that.” Agatha’s mobile phone began to ring. She pulled it out of her handbag.
She listened intently and then said excitedly, “Keep him there. We’ll be as fast as we can.”
Agatha rang off and said to Paul, “That was Mrs. Bloxby. She’s got that rector with her, the one that found the body.”
Together, they sprinted to the car.
Mrs. Bloxby ushered them through the vicarage and into the garden, where a thin white-haired man was drinking tea.
“Mrs. Raisin, may I introduce Mr. Potter, rector of Saint Ethelburgh’s? Mr. Potter, Mrs. Raisin and Mr. Chatterton.”
They all sat down. Agatha studied the rector. He had a thin, gentle face and mild eyes. His shoulders were stooped and his fingers deformed with arthritis.
“I agreed to see you,” he said in a beautiful voice, the old Oxford English rarely heard these days. “I would normally shrink from the idea of any amateur detection, but that man Runcorn annoyed me. He is brutal and stupid. Mrs. Bloxby speaks highly of your powers of detection.”
“Tell us what happened,” urged Agatha.
“I should not speak ill of the dead, but I did find Mrs. Barley a rather exhausting and overpowering woman. But, as Mrs. Bloxby will agree, she was a first-class fund-raiser for the church. She was going to put on a play in the church hall in Wormstone.” He gave a little smile. “She was, of course, going to play the lead.”
“What was the play going to be?” asked Agatha with a sudden feeling of foreboding.
“The Importance of Being Earnest.”
“In Edwardian costume?”
“Yes, indeed.” Agatha shot a miserable glance at Paul. So they had muddied the waters of the investigation even further. The police would assume that Robin had been the woman in the tea-gown.
“In any case,” the vicar went on, “I had agreed to see her in her dressing-room. There was absolutely no reason why we could not have met the following morning, but Mrs. Barley liked receiving visitors in her dressing-room. As I told Mrs. Bloxby, I knocked at the dressing-room door, and getting no reply, I walked in.” He went on to describe what he had told Mrs. Bloxby earlier.
“The police say it was cyanide poisoning. Someone took her a bouquet of flowers, put them in a vase of water and slipped the pellets of hydrogen cyanide into the wate
r.”
“I wonder whether her death has anything to do with Mrs. Witherspoon’s murder,” said Agatha.
“Why not?” asked Paul.
“Just suppose it isn’t Harry who’s guilty,” said Agatha. “Then what possible reason could anyone have for murdering Robin? Did she have any enemies, Mr. Potter?”
“Not that I know of. But amateur theatrical companies can be amateur in everything but temperament. There are as many feuds and jealousies as there are in the real theatre. You see, poor Mrs. Barley could not act.”
“Good heavens,” said Agatha. “Then why did she have a major part in Macbeth?”
“She was a very rich woman. Most of the funding for the Mircester Players came from her. In return, she demanded lead roles. I remember once there was a dreadful scene when they were rehearsing a Christmas production of Oklahoma. As usual, Mrs. Barley insisted on playing the lead.”
“You mean the young girl in the surrey with the fringe on top?”
“The same. The female members of the cast confronted her. Mrs. Barley had a dreadful singing voice. They told her she was too old for the part and could not sing. She would not back down until one of them played a recording of her singing. Even Mrs. Barley had to admit it was awful.”
“Who led the protest?” asked Agatha.
“A Miss Emery. Miss Maisie Emery. She got the part and was very good in it, too.”
“But Robin told me Robin was playing Katisha in The Mikado!”
“Mrs. Barley got away with that because Katisha is meant to be ugly and her voice threatening.”
“Dear me. Do you know where we could find Miss Emery?”
“I don’t think she could have had anything to do with it,” said Mr. Potter.
“But she might know someone or something,” Paul pointed out.
“I do not know her address, but I know she works at the Midlands and Cotswolds Bank in Mircester.”