by M C Beaton
"I would have done," said Bill, "if you hadn't made me feel like a traitor."
Maddie's voice softened. "You know I wouldn't ask you to do anything bad, Bill. Did you enjoy last night?"
Bill's voice, husky with tenderness, "You know I did."
"Let's go or we'll miss the start of the movie. But you will find out what you can?"
"I'll take a run over there tonight."
There was a scraping-back of chairs, then Agatha heard their retreating footsteps.
She felt desperately alone now. Bill's friendship had always been rock-solid. He had been her first friend in a hitherto friendless life. Now she felt she had no one to trust, certainly not James, who seemed to be handling the current situation by treating her as impersonally as he would another man.
And yet Bill Wong was obviously very much in love. What could he see in such a hard-faced bitch?
James looked at Agatha's gloomy face on her return and demanded to know what had upset her.
Wearily, Agatha told him of the overheard conversation.
James listened, his blue eyes intent. Then he said, "You cannct blame Bill for falling in love with an ambitious woman detective. I don't think it'll last long. You can't choose his girl-friends for him."
"When he calls this evening," said Agatha huffily, "I'm not speaking to him."
"And what good will that do? He's our only contact with the police. Instead of going into a huff, Agatha, you should simply tell him what you overheard. Maddie said some nasty things about you, but Bill said none."
"I don't want to speak to him again!"
"Agatha, be sensible'. 'I'm sick and tired of being sensible," shouted Agatha and burst into tears.
He gave her a clean handkerchief, he fetched her a stiff brandy, he suggested she lie down.
And Agatha, who had suddenly and desperately wanted a shoulder to cry on, a shoulder to lean on, pulled herself together and said on a sob that, yes, she would see Bill.
She would have been comforted could she have known that James felt as if he could cheerfully strangle both Bill Wong and Maddie, but James showed none of this as he returned to his word processor. Agatha went up to bed for a nap, James tried to work, but his doorbell sounded shrilly. He thought it must be some persistent member of the press. Normally he would not have answered the door, but he had a desire to relieve his feelings on somebody, even if that somebody was Bill Wong.
So he opened the door and found Roy Silver on the step.
James took the hapless Roy by the throat and shook him hard. "Get the hell away from here, you little worm," he roared. James gave him a final shake and then a push and Roy staggered backwards and fell into the hedge.
"I only came to help," said Roy shrilly. "Honest. I've got information about Jimmy Raisin. I've found out things which might explain why someone murdered him! I did it to help Aggie."
James, who had been about to slam the door, hesitated. "What are you talking about?"
Roy extricated himself from the hedge and tittuped forward cautiously. "I hired a detective to find out about Jimmy Raisin. I've got her report." He held up the brief-case he had managed to hang on to during James's assault on him.
"Oh, very well," said James. "Come in and I'll see if Agatha's prepared to listen to you."
When Agatha came down the stairs, Roy backed nervously behind a chair. He had blonded his hair, which somehow made his face look weaker and whiter.
But Agatha had had time to think. If Roy had any information worthwhile, then she and James might solve the case and that would leave Bill and his precious Maddie with egg all over their faces.
"Sit down, Roy," she said. "If you've got anything of importance, I'd like to hear it, but don't think I'm ever going to forgive you for what you did to me."
"He stopped you from committing bigamy," said James.
Agatha glared at both of them.
"Let's hear what he has to say," said James mildly.
Agatha nodded. Roy edged round the chair and sat down nervously, his brief-case on his lap. "I assume," said Agatha, "that you initially hired this detective out of spite to find out if I was still married, and hired the detective again because you couldn't live with yourself, you creep!"
Roy cleared his throat. "Always looking for the worst motives, aren't we, Aggie? I thought your husband was dead and I thought you would thank me if I gave you conclusive proof of that death as a wedding present. And you can huff and puff but that's the truth, or may God strike me dead!" Agatha looked at the beamed ceiling. "I'm waiting for the thunderbolt to fall on you, Roy."
"This is getting us nowhere," said James sharply. "Let's hear your report."
Roy opened the brief-case and took out a sheaf of papers. "I wondered how it was that Jimmy had managed to live so long," he said. "But it seems that at one time a philanthropist, a Mrs. Serena Gore-Appleton, had taken Jimmy up as a worthwhile cause and borne him off to an expensive health farm. Although the place was hardly the Betty Ford Clinic and more a place where rich boozers went to dry out to recover and drink another day, it seemed to have worked for Jimmy, who became clean and sober and subsequently worked as a counsellor for Mrs. Gore-Appleton's charity, Help Our Homeless. Now here's the interesting bit.
"Jimmy always seemed to have a lot of money to flash around. How my detective, a Ms. Iris Harris, found that out was because Jimmy liked to queen it in front of his old down-and-out cronies. Then, after a year of sobriety, he suddenly went downhill amazingly quickly and soon reappeared among the beggars, junkies, and general down-and-outs of the London streets.
"One down-and-out who has recently sobered up offered the information that Jimmy delighted in finding out things about people, and even in his lowest stage was not above blackmailing someone for a bottle of meths with some threat such as reporting them to the social security if he found out they had work and were still drawing the dole, that kind of thing."
Roy beamed about him triumphantly. "So you see, sweeties, this agile brain of mine came to the conclusion that if Jimmy could blackmail the poor, why not the rich while working with this Gore-Appleton female? Maybe he saw one of his pigeons in Mircester and the pigeon saw a likely opportunity of killing Jimmy and took it."
"It all seems too much of a coincidence," said James slowly. "Agatha here decides to get married in Mircester. Had it not been for that, Jimmy would never have come down to the Cotswolds. Why on earth should one of his victims suddenly appear as well?"
Roy looked downcast. Then his face brightened. "Ah, but do you know where the health farm he went to is situated? At Ashton-le-Walls, ten miles outside Mircester."
"Yes, but people who go to health farms don't usually come from the immediate neighbourhood, do they?" asked Agatha. "I mean, they come from all over the country."
"Oh, you are such a pair of downers?" said Roy petulantly. "And coincidences do happen in real life. Do you remember that Australian friend of mine, Aggie? The tourist from hell?"
"Yes, I thought he was rather nice. Steve, that was his name."
"Anyway, him. I thought he was back in Australia, never to return. The other week I was in a pub and I got talking about Steve to this friend, about his dreary camcorder and his dreary guidebooks, and I was just saying I hoped I would never see him again when I felt these eyes drilling into the back of my head and I turned round and there was Steve! He flounced off but I can tell you, it gave me a turn, and it was in a pub in Fulham I've never been to before."
James turned to Agatha. "He's at least given us something to go on. We should start off tomorrow by going up to London to try to find this Mrs. Gore-Appleton."
Agatha brightened visibly at the thought of taking some action.
The doorbell rang. "That'll be Bill Wong," said James, getting to his feet.
Agatha grabbed his sleeve. "Let's not tell him anything about this, James. Let's keep it to ourselves for a bit."
He looked about to protest and then slowly nodded. "All right, but no getting yourself in
to danger again, Agatha. You've been involved in some scary murders in the past."
Bill Wong came in and stopped short, surprised to see Roy.
"I thought they would have killed you."
"Aggie and I are old friends," said Roy defensively. "I only wanted to give her Jimmy's death certificate as a wedding present."
Bill gave a him a slanting cynical look. "If you say so."
Roy picked up the papers, which James had left on the table, and thrust them into his brief-case.
"What's that?" asked Bill.
"PR stuff," said Roy. "I came down here to get Agatha's help."
Bill looked around at the three faces. There was a wary, almost hostile atmosphere in the room. He decided ruefully that James and Agatha must be under a great strain. He should have called before this.
"I wish I had some good news for you," he said, "but we still cannot find out any reason why your late husband was murdered, Agatha. If it had been among the down-and-outs in London, then it might have been decided he had been killed for no greater reason that the bottle in his pocket. But here, in the Cotswolds?"
"Haven't the police in London been questioning his old cronies?" asked James.
"Of course. But that lot have only to see a police uniform to clam up, and they can smell a detective at a hundred paces. I wish I could go there myself and see what I could dig up. How's the village taking it?" said Bill, who lived in Mircester.
"I gather Agatha and I are being regarded as first and second murderer," said James. "Tell us about the forensic evidence, Bill."
"Pretty much still what I told Agatha. He had been strangled with a man's silk tie. Now that sounds like a good clue, but it is a Harvey Nicholl's tie and can be bought at just about any good outfitter's in the country. It's also quite old and frayed at the edges."
"That was Jimmy's own tie," said Agatha suddenly. "He wasn't wearing it when I last saw him but he had it on at the wedding. Wait a bit. Maybe he had it in his pocket. He wouldn't surely stand there and let someone fish in his pockets for a murder weapon?"
"What did the tie look like?" asked Bill. "I can't remember."
But Agatha did. She thought every horrible fact and item of that day would be burned into her brain forever. "It was one of those ones which looks like an old school tie but isn't - discreet stripes. Dark blue, gold and green."
Bill whipped out a notebook and scribbled busily. Then he said, "We've found out he got cleaned up in a Salvation Army hostel before he came down here and they gave him clothes. Of course, they probably gave him the tie as well."
"Was he hit with anything first?" asked Agatha.
"Only the back of your hand."
"He can't just have stood there and let it happen."
"I think I know," said Roy triumphantly. "He's lying there in the ditch after Aggie here swiped him. Now, if you're a drunk and someone swipes you and you fall in the ditch, the first thing you'd do would be to take that bottle out of your pocket to make sure it hadn't got broken. Then you'd take a good swig out of it. Maybe when he pulled the bottle out of his pocket, the tie came out as well. Enter murderer. Jimmy in ditch, Jimmy with bottle to his mouth, tie sticking out of pocket, seizes tie, strangle, choke, one dead body."
"Thank you, Mr. Jingle," said James. "Mind you, it's possible. What do you think, Bill?"
"I think you all know something you aren't telling me," said Bill, looking at them.
"How's dear Maddie?" asked Agatha sweetly.
His round face flushed. "Detective Constable Hurd is well, thank you."
"Do, please, please, give her my regards."
Bill wondered in that moment whether Agatha had guessed that Maddie had sent him to find out what he could and then decided that love was making him paranoiac.
"I'd best be going." Bill got to his feet.
"See you around," said Agatha. James showed him out.
Bill stood outside the cottage for a moment, irresolute. He had not received his usual welcome. It was unlike both Agatha and James not to offer him a drink or a cup of coffee. He wondered for a moment whether he should go back and tell Agatha the truth, that he had not come near her before this because Maddie had urged him to do so. He took half a step back towards the door and then gave his round head an angry little shake and went towards his car instead.
So the three amateur detectives inside were free to start their investigations, unhampered by any help from the police.
THREE
AGATHA was silent on the drive to London the following morning. James, used to Agatha's holding forth on every subject under the sun, found this unnatural silence was making him uneasy. Furthermore, Agatha was wearing trousers and a sweater and no make-up and sensible walking shoes. No perfume either. He was obscurely piqued that for the first time Agatha should appear to make no effort whatsoever on his behalf.
The last known address for Help Our Homeless was in a basement in Ebury Street in Victoria. They had found it in James's set of London directories dated 1984. James wished they had tried to phone first, for it turned out to be now a minicab firm.
They found the boss of the minicab firm, a large West Indian, lounging back with his feet on the desk.
"We're looking for Help Our Homeless."
"You an' everyone else, guv," said the West Indian. "Tell you what I told them. Don't know. Don't care."
"Why is everyone else looking for them?" asked James.
"Same reason as what you are, guv. Money owing."
"So you have no idea where Mrs. Gore-Appleton is now?" asked Agatha.
"Search me." He heaved his shoulders in a massive shrug, picked up a coffee-cup, took a gulp of the contents and appeared to forget their very existence.
"Did you buy this place from her?" pursued James.
The man's dark eyes focused impatiently on them again. "I bought it from Quickie Photo-Copying and Printing. Before that it was the Peter Pan Temp Agency, before that, Gawd knows. Nobody stays here long. Business rates are diabolical, trust me, guv. That Help Our Homeless died about four years ago."
They gave up and left. James stood on the pavement head down, scowling furiously. "If this Help Our Homeless was a charity, then surely this Gore-Appleton must have been in the press, opening something, talking about something. Do you know a helpful reporter?"
"I used to know lots of journalists, but they were usually fashion editors or show-biz."
"But they would have access to the records. Can we ask?"
Agatha searched her brain for a journalist she knew who might not hate her too much. When she had been a public relations officer, the press had regarded her as a pain in the neck and usually featured her clients just to get rid of her.
"I know the show-biz editor of The Bugle," she said reluctantly. "Mary Parrington."
"Let's go and see her."
They drove slowly down to the East End. Fleet Street was no more. The big papers had all relocated to cheaper, larger sites.
At last they stood in the sterile steel-and-glass hall of The Bugle, waiting to see whether Mary Parrington would grant them an audience.
Fortunately for Agatha, the news editor had been passing Mary's desk just as she was telling her secretary, "Tell that awful old bat, Agatha Raisin, I'm dead or gone, or anything."
"Wait a bit," said the news editor. "That's the female involved in the Cotswold murder. Get her up here and introduce me. No reporter's been able to get near her."
The idea of throwing Agatha to the lions of the news desk greatly appealed to Mary, and so Agatha and James were shown up.
As he was introduced to the beaming news editor, a Mike Tarry, James reflected that he had accused Agatha of being naive over the house sale, and yet he himself had walked straight into a newspaper office without pausing to think that he and Agatha were news themselves.
"Well, Agatha," said Mike, after having practically strong-armed them into his office - "I may call you Agatha?"
"No," said Agatha sourly.
"Ha h
a. Mary told me you were a tough character. How can we be of help? You must be anxious to clear your name." The offices had windows overlooking the reporters' desks. Mike waved an arm. The door of his office opened and a photographer came in, followed by a reporter.
"What is this?" demanded Agatha.
"You help us and we'll help you," said Mike.
"I'm off," said Agatha, heading for the door.
"Wait a minute," called James. Agatha turned back reluctantly.
"We do need help, Agatha," said James, "and we should have realized they would want a story. They've been pestering us since the murder. We've got nothing to hide. We want to find this Gore-Appleton woman. Why don't we just tell them what we know?"
"And then the police will wonder why we didn't tell them what we've found out," pointed out Agatha.
"We would have told them sooner or later. May as well get it over with, Agatha. You're in the lion's den now, and even if you walk out, that photographer is going to bash off a picture of you before you get out of the office."
"Let him," said Agatha truculently.
"Agatha, you haven't any make-up on."
And that clinched it.
The interviews and photographs had to wait until Agatha was ferried off to the shops by a 'minder' to buy make-up and a smart dress and high heels.
Then they both told what they knew, and Agatha and James posed for photographs, Agatha having extracted a promise that the art department would use the airbrush generously on her picture.
But when the reporter searched the files for details about Mrs. Gore-Appleton, he found practically nothing, only one mention of her making a speech on the homeless at a charity event. No photograph. Agatha felt cheated until James pointed out that the publicity would be the one thing to flush out Mrs. Gore-Appleton.
There seemed nothing left to do but allow themselves to be entertained to lunch, return to Carsely, and find out what the article in the following morning's paper would bring.
Agatha struggled awake the next morning out of a heavy sleep. Someone was banging on her bedroom door. She put on her dressing-gown and then stood, irresolute. The someone would be James, of course. The article must be in the paper. She debated whether to ask him to wait until she changed, but then shrugged. The days of dressing up for James had gone.