by M C Beaton
"You can't call him Peregrine Pickle," said Charles, momentarily diverted.
"Why not?"
"It's the title of a book by Tobias Smollett. A classic, Aggie."
"I can change the name." Agatha turned red. She hated the gaps in her education being pointed out. "But what on earth are we doing discussing literary points? They've got no right to look at anything of mine without my permission."
"She is right, you know," said Charles.
There was a ring at the doorbell. "That'll be for us," said Hand. He went to the door and came back waving a piece of paper. "Now, this is a search warrant, Mrs. Raisin. Before I get my men in, I would like to ask you some questions."
Agatha sat down on the sofa next to Charles, defeated. Her outrage at the detectives looking at her manuscript was not because she was furious at the intrusion, but because she was ashamed of her work.
She and Charles answered the preliminary questions: who they were, where they came from, what they were doing in Fryfam.
"So we get to what you were both doing at the manor yesterday," said Hand. "Mr. Trumpington-James said something about the pair of you being amateur detectives."
Before Charles could stop her, Agatha, nervous, had launched into a full brag of all the cases she had solved. Charles saw the cynical glances the detectives exchanged and knew they were putting Agatha down as a slightly unbalanced eccentric.
"I think at the moment," said Hand sarcastically, when Agatha's voice had finally trailed off under his stony stare, "that we'll just settle for good old-fashioned police work. But should we find ourselves baffled, we will appeal to you for help. Can we go on? Right. Why did you visit Mr. Trumpington-James? Had either of you known him before you came here? You first, Mrs. Raisin."
Agatha described how she had first been invited for tea. Then she hesitated a moment, wondering whether to tell Hand about Lucy's suspicions of her husband's infidelity. Then she thought angrily, why should I? Let him find out for himself if he's so damned clever.
"You hesitated there," said Hand. "Is there something you're holding back?"
"No," said Agatha. "Why should I hold anything back?"
Hand turned to Charles. "You say you did not know Mr. Trumpington-James before and yet you called on him with Mrs. Raisin. Why? You only arrived yesterday."
"Aggie told me about the theft of the Stubbs."
"Aggie being Mrs. Raisin."
"It's Agatha, actually," said Agatha crossly.
"So, Sir Charles, you called. Why?"
Charles felt ashamed of saying they thought they might be able to find out who had stolen the Stubbs after all Agatha's bragging, but he shrugged and said, "We thought we might get an idea of who had taken it."
"How?" demanded Hand sharply. He should cut his fingernails, thought Agatha. They're like claws, all chalky and ridged.
"How, what?"
"How on earth did you think, Sir Charles, that you could find out something the police could not? You do not have forensic equipment or even a knowledge of the area."
"I know you didn't believe Agatha when she was going on about the mysteries she solved," said Charles patiently, "but you can always check with the Mircester police. You see, people talk to us the way they wouldn't talk to a policeman, and I'll tell you why. Take you, for instance. By sneering at Aggie, you put her back up, so if by any chance she does hear a useful piece of gossip, she won't go running to you."
"If I find either of you have been withholding useful evidence, then I shall charge you."
"Just listen to yourself," said Charles, unflustered. "Now you've put my back up."
"We will start our search now," said Hand grimly. "And we will be keeping this manuscript for the moment. You will get a receipt for it."
After two hours, the police left. "I'm starving," said Charles. "We haven't had breakfast. Got eggs?"
"Yes."
"I'll make us an omelette and then we'll go and see that copper, the local bod; what's his name?"
"Framp."
"That's the one."
"But why him, Charles?"
"Because he's only a copper and I'll bet he got the wrong side of Hand's mouth. We'll go and be oh, so sympathetic."
"Won't he be up at the manor?"
"Not him. He'll have been sent back to his beat with a flea between both ears. I'll make that omelette."
Agatha sat hunched over a mug of coffee in the kitchen, watching Charles as he whisked eggs in a bowl. Why do I always land up with men who never tell me what they really think of me? she wondered. Charles had made love to her in the past but he had never said anything particularly affectionate. He came and went in her life, leaving very little trace of his real thoughts or personality.
After they had eaten, they headed out to see PC Framp. Agatha said testily-cross because Charles had insisted they walk and she was wearing high heels-that it was a useless effort. PC Framp would at least have been roped in to comb the bushes around the manor for clues.
There was a high wind which sent the tops of the pine trees tossing and making a sound like the sea, but on the ground it was strangely calm, apart from sudden whispering puffs of wind. Little snakes of sandy soil blew from the roots of the trees and writhed across the road at their feet. Not only were Agatha's shoes high-heeled but they had thin straps at the front of each and gritty bits of sand were working their way inside her tights and along the soles of her feet.
"There's his car!" said Charles triumphantly as they approached the police station.
They rang the bell and waited. No reply. "Let's try round the back," said Charles.
They walked along the side of the building and through a low wooden gate that led into the back garden. Framp could be seen standing over a smoking oil drum burning leaves he had raked up from the grass.
"Off duty," he called when they saw him.
Undeterred, Charles went up to him. "You know Mrs. Raisin here. I'm Charles Fraith."
"I heard of you. You were at the manor yesterday," said Framp. An erratic gust of wind sent smoke swirling into his eyes and he rubbed them with the back of one grimy hand.
"I'm surprised a bright copper like you isn't on the job," pursued Charles, "what with all this murder and robbery."
"Told to go about my regular duties," said Framp sulkily. "You would think it was my fault he was murdered. I was on duty all night outside that house and I never heard a sound. No one came or went."
"So who do you think did it?"
"Let's have a cup of tea." Framp gave the smoldering leaves a vicious poke with a rusty metal rod. Little tongues of flame licked round the leaves and more aromatic smoke filled the air.
They followed him into his messy kitchen. A kettle was already simmering on an old iron stove. He put five tea-bags into a small teapot, stirred it up, and poured each of them mugs of black tea.
He sat down wearily at the table. "You ask who did it? It's the wife, for sure."
"But I gather she was in London," said Agatha.
"So she says, and anyway, her alibi hasn't been checked out yet and even if it is, her friends could lie for her."
"Why her?" asked Charles.
"She hated it here. Wanted to go to London. So she pinches the painting first, bumps him off, knowing she'll inherit everything along with the insurance money. She can't sell the painting, everyone will be on the look-out for it. Anyway, it was insured for a mint, so it's worth more to her lost."
"I didn't like Hand," said Agatha. "Unpleasant sort of man."
"Nobody likes him," said Framp gloomily. He stifled a yawn. "I'd better get some sleep."
"Where's Lucy Trumpington-James at the moment?" asked Agatha.
"Arriving by police car from London any moment."
"Mrs. Jackson knows how to operate the burglar alarm, doesn't she?"
"Yes, but come on. She's a villager and lived here all her life."
"Is there a Mr. Jackson?" asked Charles.
"Yes, but he's doing time in the Scru
bs."
"Wormwood Scrubs? Prison?"
"That's the one."
"What for?" asked Agatha.
"Robbery with violence. Beat a guard at a warehouse nearly to death. Got fifteen years. Not for so much beating the guard. This is Britain, after all. For stealing eighteen thousand pounds."
"When was this?" asked Agatha.
"Two years ago."
"So that lets him out. Did they find the money?"
"Yes; he wasn't living with his wife at the time. They found the lot in a flat in Clapham in London."
"And was this his first crime?"
"First major one. Before that, lots of petty stuff, car hijacking, that sort of thing."
"Where does Mrs. Jackson live?"
"Why?" demanded Framp sharply.
"I need a cleaner," said Agatha patiently, "and she'll have spare time at the moment, with the police being all over the manor. By the way, does the manor house have a name?"
"Reckon folks have always just called it the manor."
Charles took another sip of bitter black tea and repressed a shudder. "We'd better get on our way, Aggie."
"That what they call you?" asked Framp with a momentary flash of humour. "You don't look like an Aggie to me."
"It's Agatha, actually." She threw a baleful look at Charles and then turned back to Framp. "So where does Mrs. Jackson live?"
"You know Short's garage?"
"We saw it yesterday."
"Well, her cottage is tucked in the back of that."
"Let's get the car," pleaded Agatha once they were out on the road again.
"Why not just go home and put on a pair of flat walking shoes? People might stop and talk to us on our way there. You can't pick up gossip if you're flashing past in a car."
"Oh, okay," said Agatha, although she felt that wearing flats made her look dumpy.
When they set out again, Agatha began to wonder what villagers they were supposed to meet. The village green was deserted.
They walked across it and down the street past the estate agent's, where Amy could be seen crouched over a computer. Then Agatha saw Carrie Smiley and Polly Dart approaching and greeted them with "Isn't it terrible about Tolly?"
"Terrible," echoed Came. "Have the police been to see you?"
"Yes," said Agatha. "They have, as a matter of fact. Did you expect them to?"
"Oh, yes," said Carrie. "It's all round the village that you were probably the last person to see him alive."
"Then it's just as well his throat was cut in the middle of the night," said Agatha. "I say, it was the middle of the night?"
"Nobody knows," barked Polly. "But the police didn't leave until late last night, leaving only Framp on duty. The press have arrived. Such excitement!"
"Where are they?"
"In the pub. Rosie opened up especially early the minute she heard about the murder. She says the press always drink a lot. Where are you off to?"
"To see Mrs. Jackson. I need someone to clean. I don't suppose she'll be resuming her duties up at the manor for a few days yet."
"I don't think she'll be resuming them at all," said Carrie. "Lucy hated her."
"She didn't give me that impression," said Agatha.
"Well, she did. She once told Harriet that Mrs. Jackson was always poking her nose into things and reading letters. Are you sure you want Mrs. Jackson?"
"I'll see. Is there anyone else?" asked Agatha, but more as a matter of form because she didn't want anyone else. Mrs. Jackson would surely be the best source of gossip.
"No one who's free. Mrs. Crite does for the vicar and she always says that's enough for her. The summer people usually fend for themselves," said Polly. "Now I do all my own housework. I don't hold a woman paying someone to do what they ought to be doing themselves."
"Good for you," commented Agatha sweetly. "But it's so important not to inflict one's prejudices on anyone else, don't you think? I must be going. Charles, let's ... Charles?"
She swung round. Charles had moved a little away and was whispering to Carrie, who was blushing and giggling.
"What were you up to?" asked Agatha angrily as she and Charles walked on.
"Just chatting. Jealous, Aggie?"
"Of course not. Don't be silly."
Carrie had been wearing tight jeans and high-heeled boots. She had good legs. And so have I, thought Agatha, when I'm not wearing these clumpy flat shoes. They turned into the other lane and so to the garage. A man in overalls was peering at the engine of a car.
"Mrs. Jackson live near here?" asked Charles.
The man straightened up. "Take that little path at the side there. You can see the chimbleys behind the trees."
They followed his directions and arrived at a seedy-looking cottage thatched in Norfolk reed. It needed rethatching, the thatch being dusty and broken. The front garden was a mess of weeds with various discarded children's toys scattered around.
Agatha rang the bell. "I didn't hear it ring," said Charles. "Probably broken." He knocked at the door. The door was opened by Barry Jones, the gardener.
"What are you doing here?" asked Agatha.
"Came home to Mum's for a bite to eat."
"Mum? But you're a Jones."
"Mum's first husband was a Jones."
"Can we talk to her?" asked Charles.
"Okay, but she's a bit tired. Police here all morning."
They walked into a stone-flagged kitchen, which outmessed Framp's. Dishes were piled in the sink, the old fuelburning stove was thick with grease and piled with dirty pots.
Betty Jackson was sitting at the kitchen table, mopping up egg with a slice of bread. It seems to be all-day breakfast around here, thought Agatha, thinking of Framp.
"What is it?" she asked dully.
"I'm looking for a cleaner," said Agatha brightly. "What a picturesque cottage you have. I do love these old cottages."
"All right for folks like you," said Mrs. Jackson sourly. "I would like one of them new council ones they'd got over at Purlett End Village. But would they give me one? Naw!"
Charles slid into the chair next to her. "Police been giving you a bad time?"
"Yerse. Them and their tomfool questions. I told them, I left at five and that's that."
"Who would do such a thing?" Charles took one of Mrs. Jackson's red and swollen hands and gave it a squeeze.
"I don't know," said the cleaner, but in a much softer voice. Agatha, seeing that no one was going to ask her to sit down, jerked out a chair.
"Weren't relations between Tolly and Lucy a bit strained?" Charles's voice was soft and coaxing.
"Oh, no." She shook her head. "Devoted couple, they was."
"You see, Lucy Trumpington-James did tell Mrs. Raisin here that she thought her husband was being unfaithful to her."
Mrs. Jackson's heavy face registered shock and she gave her dentures an angry click. "That's rubbish. I tell you what it was; Lucy got fits of jealousy, she was that mad about him, but they always made up. Fact is, she was laughing about it with him before she left for London. She says to him, she says, `I told that old trout who thinks she's a detective that you was having it off with Rosie.' And they both had a laugh about that."
Agatha coloured angrily. Then she heard Charles say, "About the cleaning?"
"It's seven pounds an hour."
Agatha was about to yell that she was not going to pay London rates to a bad-tempered slut when Charles surprised her by leaping to his feet and putting his arms round her. "Shut up," he whispered. Then he turned to Mrs. Jackson. "Why not start tomorrow? At ten, say. Nothing like work to keep your mind off things."
"Right you are, sir."
Charles smiled and propelled the raging Agatha out of the cottage. Agatha held her temper until they were out of earshot and then she confronted him with "How could you? I don't want that old bitch around my cottage."
"Calm down. Be nice to her and you might get the truth out of her. You only came here to employ her to get gossip." He took her
shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Just think, woman! Did Lucy give you the impression of a wildly jealous wife?"
"Well, no," said Agatha. "Not in the slightest. She looks like some bimbo who married for money and despises her husband."
"So, isn't that interesting? And why would the horrible Mrs. Jackson lie about it? She doesn't strike me as the staunch and loyal servant type."
Agatha's anger ebbed away as she considered this. "No," she said slowly. "So why would she say such a thing? Of course she could simply have been out to humiliate me out of sheer nastiness."
"Could be. Let's go and get a car and drive somewhere for a drink. Rosie's pub will be full of reporters."
As they approached the village green, the pub door opened and several pressmen came out dragging one of their fellows. Their faces were boozy and flushed. Their intention appeared to be to dump a weedy colleague in the duck pond. Rosie appeared in the pub doorway and called to them to stop. They all crowded back into the pub except the weedy one, who set off away from the pub at a jogtrot, occasionally looking back over his shoulder like some weak animal rejected by the herd.
"I thought they would all have been out at the manor," said Charles.
"No," replied Agatha, wise in the ways of the press. "They'll have been out there already. Hand will have told them that he will say nothing until a press conference at, say, about four o'clock."
"But you would think they'd all be knocking on doors in the village for background."
"They'll get around to it. As long as there's a pub, they'll move in a bunch. They feel they're safe just so long as they all keep together. That way they can drink as much as they want and not run the fear of being scooped."
"So what about the one that's run off?"
"They obviously don't rate him highly. It's not always like this. But if one of them's a bully, he becomes the leader of the pack and they all stick together, swearing to share any morsels of information, and yet each one is privately determined to scoop the others at the first opportunity."
"Excuse me."
A voice behind them made them jump. They swung round. The weedy reporter had come back. "I'm Gerry Philpot of The Radical Voice," he said. The paper he represented claimed to have unbiased views, the sort of paper which reported on the "warring factions" in Bosnia to avoid pointing out the obvious truth, that the Serbs were murdering everyone. It was a sittingon-the-fence and pontificating sort of newspaper which paid the lowest wages, hence Gerry Philpot, a youngish man with weak eyes, receding hair, a pea-green jacket, checked shirt, shabby corduroys and red tie. "Have you heard about the murder?"