Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

by M C Beaton

  “No, but I think that will come.”

  “And is he in love with you?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “It can be very suffocating and guilt-making to be married to someone who is deeply in love with you and then find yourself faced daily with a love you cannot return.”

  “I’m not a young thing anymore,” said Agatha crossly. “Love is for the young.”

  Again that little silence and then Mrs. Bloxby’s voice came down the line. “I am only saying this because I care for you. James will be upset, yes, but then it will pass and you will be married to a man you don’t love. Never try to get even, Agatha. It doesn’t ever work.”

  “Jimmy is a good man and I am very fond of him and I will be delighted to spend the rest of my life with him,” said Agatha. “I haven’t thought about James once since I met him.”

  “Will it be in the papers?”

  “The Times tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think James is the sort of man to read the social column.”

  But someone else in the village will, thought Agatha. And someone else will tell him.

  She asked after her cats and about what was going on in the village and then rang off, feeling flat. “I did not get engaged to Jimmy just to get revenge on James Lacey,” she told the cat fiercely. Scrabble gave her a long, studying look from its green eyes.

  Agatha went down to dinner that evening to find that although it was freezing and snowing outside, the atmosphere inside had thawed towards her. Daisy had told them the news of her engagement and they all crowded around her table to admire the ring and congratulate her.

  After dinner, the colonel suggested the usual game of Scrabble and they all gathered in the lounge just as all the lights went out.

  “Power cut,” said the colonel. “They’ll be in with candles in a minute.”

  They sat in front of the fire. Agatha thought the light from the flames flickering on their faces made them look sinister.

  Two elderly waiters came in carrying not candles but oil-lamps. Soon the room was bathed in a warm golden glow.

  “Very flattering light. You like quite radiant tonight, Agatha,” said the colonel. Daisy glared, little red points of light from the fire dancing in her eyes. “In fact,” went on the colonel, “I have always found that one wedding leads to another. Who’s next? You, Harry?”

  “Who knows?” said Harry. “I may be lucky.”

  Daisy smiled at the colonel coquettishly. He quickly averted his eyes from hers and said, “Let’s get started.”

  The newspapers were delivered in Carsely the following morning as usual, for the blizzard which was blanketing England on the south coast had not yet reached the Midlands.

  James read his Times as usual but without reading the social column and then turned to the crossword. For some reason, Monday’s crossword was usually easier than the rest of the week and to his disappointment he finished it in twenty minutes. Nothing left to do but get on with writing his military history. Then, like all writers, as he sat down at the word processor, his mind began to tell him he ought to do something else first. He was nearly out of coffee. Of course he had enough to last the day but with the blizzard coming, it wouldn’t do any harm to get in supplies.

  He drove to Tesco’s at Stow-on-the Wold and found the car-park almost full. A wartime mentality had hit everyone because of the approaching storm. People were trundling laden trolleys past him to their cars.

  Infected by the shopping mania, he bought not only coffee, but a lot of other stuff he had persuaded himself he needed. He was just pushing his shopping cart out to the parking area when he was stopped by Doris Simpson, Agatha’s cleaner.

  “Well, our Agatha’s full of surprises,” said Doris.

  James smiled down at her tolerantly. “What’s she got herself into now?”

  “John Fletcher phoned me from the Red Lion just before I went out. It’s in the Times.”

  “What is?”

  “Why, our Agatha’s engagement. Someone called Jessop she’s going to marry. Mrs. Bloxby says he’s a police inspector. Did you ever?”

  “I knew that was in the cards,” lied James.

  “There you are. I hope she gets married in Carsely. I like a wedding. Not that she can wear white. Miss Perry over at Chipping Campden got married the other week. Now she’s about our Agatha’s age. She wore rose-pink silk. Very pretty. And the bridesmaids were all in gold.”

  “I must go,” said James. “Snow’s arrived.”

  “So it has,” said Doris as a flake swirled down past her nose. “Must get on.”

  She can’t do this, thought James. She’s only doing it to get at me. I’ll go down there and reason with her.

  But by the time he got home, the flakes were falling thick and fast. He phoned the Automobile Association and found all the roads to the south were blocked.

  Sir Charles Fraith was having a late breakfast with his elderly aunt. She put down the newspaper and said, “Don’t you know someone called Raisin? Didn’t she come here?”

  “Agatha Raisin?”

  “Yes, that’s her. It’s in the paper.”

  “What is?” asked Charles patiently. “She’s engaged to be married to some fellow called Jessop,” said his aunt.

  “Fast worker, Aggie. I’ll phone Bill Wong and see if he knows about it.”

  Charles got through to Detective Sergeant Bill Wong at Mircester police. “She’s getting married!” exclaimed Bill. “Who to?”

  “Fellow called Jessop.”

  “That’ll be Inspector Jessop of the Wyckhadden police.”

  “I thought Aggie was eating her heart out for James Lacey.”

  “She must have got over it.”

  “She’s probably doing it to annoy him. I know Aggie. I’ll go down there and put a stop to it.”

  “You shouldn’t, and anyway, you can’t,” said Bill. “The roads are blocked.”

  “I should stop the silly woman. I bet she doesn’t give a rap for this inspector.”

  “She’s over twenty-one.”

  “She’s twice over twenty-one,” said Charles nastily.

  “Why don’t you phone her? It said in the papers when they were writing about the murder that she was staying in the Garden Hotel.”

  “Right. I’ll do that.”

  But the lines in Wyckhadden were down.

  * * *

  Agatha was never to forget the suffocating claustrophobic days that followed, inurned up in the hotel. No electricity. No phones. No television.

  On the Wednesday morning, Agatha found Harry sitting alone in the lounge. “Not even a newspaper,” he mourned. “I’ve never known it as bad as this. And no central heating. You would think a hotel as expensive as this would have a generator. I’m bored.”

  Agatha walked to the window. “It’s stopped snowing,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Sky’s still dark and more has been forecast,” said Harry, rising and joining her.

  “We could build a snowman,” joked Agatha.

  “Splendid idea.” To Agatha’s surprise, Harry was all enthusiasm. “Let’s put on our coats and build one right outside the dining-room window where they can see it at lunch-time.”

  Soon, well wrapped up, they both ventured out. The snow lay in great drifts. “I’ll go first,” said Harry. “Clear a path.”

  He headed to a spot in front of he dining-room window. Agatha, like Wenceslas’s page, followed in his footsteps.

  “I used to be good at this,” said Harry. “I’ll shape the base if you roll a snowball for a torso.”

  “Where are the others?” asked Agatha.

  “In their rooms, I think.” Harry worked busily.

  “You never talk about the murders,” said Agatha.

  “No, I don’t. Nothing to do with me. Why should I?”

  “You knew Francie. Had a seance with her.”

  “Oh, that. Maybe that’s one reason I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why?”
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  “Because she tricked me. I missed my wife dreadfully and I must have been crazy to go to her. Mind you, her potions and ointments seemed to work.”

  “So what happened?” asked Agatha.

  “I really thought it was my wife. That was until the voice that was supposed to be my wife told me that the bit about the eye of the needle in the Bible was true. Said I should give my money to Francie.”

  “But if a rich man can’t enter the kingdom of heaven, how can a rich woman?” I asked.

  “Ah, the voice said Francie would send it on to a good cause. That’s when I got suspicious. My wife was very thrifty. ‘Must save for our old age,’ that’s what she always said. I reported Francie to the police. But I’d gone along with it for a little, been conned, and felt like a fool. Don’t want to talk about the woman. She’s dead anyway.”

  Agatha rolled a large snowball, and with surprising strength in one so old, Harry lifted it onto the base he had formed while he was talking. “Another one for the head,” he ordered.

  He began to shape the torso into a woman’s bust. Agatha watched, amazed, as a snow-woman began to take shape. “Could you go to the games cupboard,” asked Harry, “and get me two marbles for eyes? And some make-up for the face?”

  “Right. What about hair?”

  “Could you find something? Black hair? And do you have an old dress or coat or something?”

  Perfectionist, thought Agatha. What happened to the old-fashioned snowman made of three balls of snow and with a carrot for a nose?

  She went up to her room and found an Indian blouse which she had decided she did not much like. What to use for hair? He would need to make do with one of her scarves. She picked out a black one and then found a lipstick and blusher. She then went to the games cupboard in the lounge and took two blood-red marbles out of a jar.

  Afterwards, as she surveyed Harry’s handiwork, she wished she had taken out two blue or grey marbles, for the red effect was sinister. Harry had created a woman with staring red eyes in a snow face like a death mask. With the black scarf draped round her head and the Indian blouse fluttering in the wind, the snow-woman looked remarkably lifelike and ghoulish.

  A gong sounded from the hotel. “Lunch!” said Harry. “Let’s get to the dining- room before the rest of them. I want to see their reactions.”

  They left their coats in the lounge and hurried into the dining-room.

  Daisy, Mary, Jennifer and the colonel came in together.

  The colonel stopped dead. “By George,” he said. “Would you look at that!”

  Outside the window the red marble eyes glared in at them from the white face and the black scarf moved in the wind and the blouse fluttered. In that moment, Agatha realized the snow-sculpted features bore a remarkable resemblance to the dead Francie.

  “Is it something out of a carnival?” asked Daisy.

  But Mary uttered a moan, put a shaking hand to her lips and fainted dead away.

  EIGHT

  “THE phones are still down,” said the colonel after lunch. Mary was lying down in her room being ministered to by Jennifer.

  “I know,” said Agatha. “I tried to phone Jimmy.”

  Agatha was beginning to wonder why Harry had gone out of his way to make his snow figure so much like Francie. And why had he such ability?

  “Thought that snow thing of Harry’s was in remarkably bad taste,” said the colonel. He and Daisy and Agatha were sitting in front of the fire in the lounge.

  “I’m amazed, however, at his expertise,” said Agatha. “I thought he was going to make a traditional snowman.”

  “I suppose once a sculptor, always a sculptor.”

  “What! Harry?” Agatha had fondly imagined that sculptors, however old, would look, well, more bohemian.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of Henry Berry before?” asked the colonel. “He was quite famous in his day. Doesn’t do it anymore. Says he hasn’t the strength.”

  “He seems remarkably strong to me.” Agatha remembered the ease with which he had lifted and shaped the heavy snow.

  “Anyway, he gave poor Mary a dreadful fright,” said Daisy. She winked meaningfully at Agatha and then jerked her head slightly towards the door. Agatha correctly interpreted that to mean that Daisy wanted her to leave her alone with the colonel. But it had started to snow again and the rooms were cold because the central heating wasn’t working. Scrabble was all right. She had placed a hot-water bottle on the bed wrapped in a towel and last seen, Scrabble had been comfortably coiled around it.

  The manager came in with a portable radio. “I thought you might like to hear the news,” he said, putting it down and switching it on. “There is a thaw forecast for this evening. They hope to have electricity restored by this evening as well. Dear me, so much food wasted. We’ve had to throw a lot of stuff out of the freezers.”

  The colonel cocked his head. “Listen.”

  The voice of the news announcer began a catalogue of disasters, of blocked roads and thousands of homes without power. Daisy shifted in her chair and looked at Agatha angrily. You can glare all you want, thought Agatha, but I am not leaving this warm fire. She longed to be able to phone Jimmy and find out if there was anything sinister in Harry’s background.

  The colonel at last switched off the radio. “Thank you, Mr. Martin. It certainly seems as if there is a thaw coming.”

  The manager took the radio away. “I think I’ll go to my room and get a book.” The colonel rose to his feet. Daisy watched him with hungry eyes as he left the lounge. She’s getting worse, thought Agatha.

  When the colonel had gone, Agatha said, “I know you want me to leave you alone with him, Daisy, but I do not want to go upstairs and sit in a cold bedroom, and it’s not as if I can go out for a walk.”

  “I only wanted a few moments,” said Daisy sulkily.

  Agatha leaned forward. “If I can give you a bit of advice, Daisy, it’s no good being so keen, so needy. It drives the gentlemen away. You’ll frighten him off.”

  “Are you speaking from personal experience?” asked Daisy nastily.

  “Yes,” said Agatha, thinking of James Lacey. She had even pursued him to Cyprus and a fat lot of good that had done.

  “You went out with the colonel,” accused Daisy. “I saw you.”

  “It was you. At the theatre.”

  “Yes, and he took you out for a drink afterwards, which is more than he did for me.”

  Agatha sighed. “Look here, Daisy, the reason he felt comfortable with me was because he knows I’m not interested in him. What if he had seen you watching us? You know these potions of Francie’s. I’ve got a bit of love potion left.”

  “Did you get it to put in the colonel’s drink?”

  “No, I got it as a bit of a joke, but I’ll let you have some.”

  “Will it work?”

  “Haven’t you tried it before?” asked Agatha.

  “I thought about it but I wanted him to love me for myself. But if you wouldn’t mind…”

  Agatha got to her feet. “I’ll get it before he comes back.”

  She went up to her room and found the bottle. She must only use a few drops. She wanted to keep some for analysis, along with the hair tonic.

  She went back to the lounge. “Could you put it in for me?” whispered Daisy. “I’m terrified I’ll get caught.”

  “Don’t rush me,” admonished Agatha. “I’ll need to wait for the right moment.”

  * * *

  The right moment occurred that very afternoon when they were all gathered round the fire. “Nothing to do but get drunk,” mourned the colonel. “Care to join me in a bottle of claret, Harry?”

  “Good idea.”

  “When it arrives, create a distraction,” Agatha whispered to Daisy.

  Agatha and the rest ordered coffee. Agatha slipped the bottle out of her handbag and into her hand.

  The waiter came in carrying a bottle of claret and two glasses. Another elderly waiter creaked in under the weight of cof
fee-pot, milk and sugar on a heavy silver tray. Everything was placed on the coffee-table in front of the fire. A waiter opened the bottle of wine. “We’ll let it breathe for a moment. You lot go ahead with your coffee,” said the colonel.

  Jennifer poured. Mary sat silently, twisting a handkerchief in her fingers. “Are you feeling better, Mary?” asked Agatha.

  “Oh, much better,” she said in a weak voice. “But I had such a shock. I thought it was the ghost of Francie.”

  “I didn’t set out to make it like anyone,” protested Harry. “Just made a woman. Let’s have that wine.”

  The colonel poured two glasses.

  “Look!” Daisy jumped to her feet. She ran to the window. “Oh, do come and look at this.”

  With the exception of Agatha, the others rose and went to the window and crowded behind her, saying, “Where? What?”

  Agatha tipped a few drops from the bottle into the colonel’s glass. Then she stoppered the bottle and put it in her handbag. She looked quickly at the window. Harry was looking at her. Agatha said, “Anything there? What is it?”

  “A sea-gull,” said Jennifer in disgust. “Daisy thinks a seagull is a harbinger of sunshine.”

  “It’s only because I haven’t seen any until now,” said Daisy. “I mean, they haven’t been flying in the snow.”

  “Sensible bird,” said the colonel tolerantly as he returned to his chair. “Let’s get to that wine, Harry.”

  “Let me try it first,” said Harry. “I’m fussier than you.” He raised his glass and took a sip. He wrinkled his nose. “Don’t have it, Colonel. It’s corked.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, and there’s nothing worse for the liver than bad wine.” Harry pressed the bell on the wall for the waiter. “Take this away and bring us a decent one,” he said when the waiter had arrived. “It’s corked.”

  The waiter bowed and removed the bottle and glasses. Agatha looked at Harry and he stared blandly back at her. Had he seen anything?

  “While he’s bringing us another one,” said Harry, getting to his feet again, “let me see if there’s anything in that games cupboard to amuse us. He rummaged in the cupboard and then shouted over his shoulder, “There’s Monopoly here. Fancy a game?”